Read Online A Christmas Visitor by Anne Perry - Free Book Online

Judah go out there in the snow at night, except to meet somebody?” she asked.
    There was no answer, and they were approaching the drive gates.
    The next hour was taken up in the emotion of arrival and welcome, exchanges of concern, of grief, and of a depth of understanding between the two women, who had both experienced widowhood while still so young. Although they had known each other only briefly, and that several years ago, there was an ease in their communication as if friendship were natural.
    They resumed the conversation in the late afternoon over tea by the fire with scones, hinberry jam, and slices of ginger cake, baked with spices and rich molasses from the West Indies.
    This time Antonia joined in. “The more I think of it, the more certain I am that he intended to meet someone,” she said gravely. “I hadn’t remembered before, but he took out his pocket watch several times in order to check the time. I thought then that it was to see how long the recital had been, but he would not do that more than once.”
    “The difficulty will be to prove that it was Gower,” Benjamin pointed out. “It is not the easiest place for them to meet, and frankly, a ridiculous time.”
    “But Judah was there!” Antonia argued. “However absurd it is, it is the truth.”
    “There is still something we do not know,” Henry insisted. “Either something important, or that we have misunderstood, and it is not what it seems.”
    Ephraim’s face set hard. “Well, two things I am sure of: Judah would not have done anything unjust or dishonest; and the other is that Ashton Gower is a convicted forger, driven by hate and the passion for revenge on the family who legitimately bought his estate. Judah is dead, and Gower is alive and slandering his name.”
    “None of that is at issue,” Benjamin agreed. “The problem is to prove it.” He turned to Antonia. “What was Judah wearing that night?”
    She looked puzzled. “It was an evening recital. We were all dressed quite formally.”
    “He didn’t change before he went out afterwards?”
    “No.” She bit her lip. “I assumed he simply wantedto walk a little after sitting in the hall all evening, and in the carriage on the way back. Why? How can that help?”
    “I don’t know,” Benjamin admitted. “But there is no point in trying to find anything on the ground where it happened. All marks or prints will have disappeared long ago. His clothes will have been kept safely. I thought there might be something, a tear, even a note of a meeting, anything at all …” He tailed off, losing belief in the hope as he spoke.
    “There could be a note,” Henry said, rising to his feet. “Sometimes things remain dry inside a pocket. If anything at all is legible, it might help. Let us at least look.”
    “Of course,” Antonia agreed, standing also. “I didn’t know what else to do with them. I couldn’t bring myself even to clean them …” She gave a brief, tight little smile. “Maybe it is for the best?”
    They followed her up the stairs and across the landing to Judah’s dressing room. Henry found it disturbing to go into a dead man’s private space, see his hairbrushes and collar studs set out on the tallboy,cuff links in boxes, shoes and boots on their racks. His razor was set beside an empty bowl and ewer in front of the looking glass in which he must have seen his face so many times.
    He glanced quickly at Benjamin, and saw reflected in his expression exactly the emotions he felt himself, the grief, the slight embarrassment as if they had intruded when Judah was no longer capable of stopping them. It was uncomfortable for reasons he had not expected.
    In Antonia he saw only the pain of her loneliness. She must have been in here many times before.
    Ephraim, several years younger than Judah, carried his loss inside him, concealed as much as he was able. His face was tight, muscles pulling his mouth into a thinner line, eyes avoiding others.
    Naomi put her arm