Read Online Fallen Women by Sandra Dallas - Free Book Online

“I can’t say as I mind it so much. It must be done, and we tell ourselves we have to go on. Dear Lillie…” His voice trailed off, and Beret took his arm and let him escort her into the house.
    *   *   *
    They did not talk about the murder of Lillie Osmundsen at dinner. “The servants,” Varina Stanton muttered when her husband broached the subject. She gave Beret a knowing look. Beret thought the warning unnecessary, because little escaped servants. Still, the three waited until they had retired to the library, which served as the judge’s study, before discussing the tragedy.
    “Will you join your aunt in a sherry?” the judge asked, taking a crystal decanter from a cabinet built into the wall.
    “No, but I will join you in a brandy,” Beret said.
    Her uncle smiled. “I had forgot you like the stronger stuff.”
    “I like sherry well enough, but I remember that you have very good brandy.”
    The judge nodded his approval, and Beret observed that he looked much older than the last time she had seen him, two years before. She wondered if the changes were recent and had been caused by Lillie’s death. After all, the Stantons had been responsible in a way for Lillie, just as Beret had been. Her uncle’s hair had turned gray, almost silver. There was a sadness about his mouth, and he stooped a little, although he was still an imposing man, a man who looked like a senator. He would be a good one, Beret thought, with affection.
    She rose to accept the glass from her uncle, but instead of sitting down again, she went to the fireplace and stared into the fire, at the logs that had burned down, for the fire had been lit in the early evening. Lillie would have stared at the library fire, Beret thought. Lillie had always lit up a room like a bright flame, attracting moths, and now one of them had killed her, extinguishing that light. How could anyone have hated—or loved—her enough to do that?
    The wood would have to be replenished if the fire was to continue much longer. Beret was looking at the ashes, as dirty gray as the snow on a New York street, when her uncle said, “I understand you have taken it upon yourself to join the investigation of the murder of your sister.”
    Beret turned and glanced at her aunt, who shrugged. “I’ve told him nothing, Beret.”
    “No, it was Detective Sergeant McCauley. He visited me in my chambers early this evening, saying he had left you only moments before. That explains why I was so late in arriving home. Detective McCauley said you were intruding and asked me to call you off. It seems he believed you had my support.” John chuckled.
    Beret turned to face her uncle. “And what did you tell him?”
    “What did you tell him?”
    Beret sipped the brandy, which was indeed very good. “I told him that you approved of my joining the investigation, were much in favor of it, in fact. I led him to believe my involvement might even have been your idea.”
    Varina set down her sherry glass. “Beret, how could you? Your sister’s murder is a horrid, ugly thing. Your uncle and I don’t want you mixed up in it. That’s why we advised you to stay in New York, so you wouldn’t have to know about the last months of her life. Dear Lillie’s death is a tragedy, but it’s best if the whole tawdry business is put behind us. You can’t bring her back.”
    “I want to know why Lillie left here to become … a prostitute.” Beret could not bring herself to look at her aunt.
    “I can’t talk about it, Beret.” Varina paused a moment. “Think of your uncle’s future.”
    John shook his head as if to wave away the objection. “That’s of no consequence here.”
    “You have worked so hard for it,” his wife said.
    Beret was appalled that her aunt was more concerned about the judge’s ambition than Lillie’s murder and that she would not discuss what had caused Lillie to turn out, as the papers put it. She watched Varina wring her hands and thought that Lillie’s death