Page 7 of Lies in Little Sutherland
Yes, we would do.And hopefully Crispin’s Hispano-Suiza wouldn’t be the missing one, nose-down in a ditch halfway between here and the village.That had been known to happen, too.
“What was St George upset about?”I inquired.If Christopher was worried about him nose-down in a ditch, it had to be something serious.
He shot me a look.“Do you have to ask?”
I supposed I didn’t, not when he looked at me like that.“Never mind.”I should have gone with my original instinct and left it alone.
“Much better that way,” Christopher agreed and plunged his fork back into the kippers.
“But he’s all right?”
“As all right as a man can be, when he’s getting married in a month to a woman he doesn’t love.”
He lifted another forkful to his mouth.
“The fool,” I said.“I know I bear some responsibility here—” If I hadn’t told him, in a fit of pique, to propose to Laetitia because they deserved one another, he might not have done it, “—but at the same time, he really did get himself in this pickle all on his own.I’m not responsible for Crispin’s actions.”
Christopher shook his head.“You’re not,” he told me when he had swallowed.“You could have been nicer to him?—”
I opened my mouth to defend myself, and he added, “—although I know that he wasn’t nice to you first.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“And you’re right, you are not responsible for Crispin.You’re especially not responsible for him choosing to go through with it now that he knows—or at least suspects—that it was a mistake.”
I folded my hands on the table.“Does he think that he made a mistake, though?Every time I’ve spoken to him, he behaves as if everything is fine and he’s right where he wants to be.”
“Well, he would do,” Christopher said, “wouldn’t he?”
I made a face, and he added, “He was distraught last night.Not that he said as much.But the look on his face when you told him, ‘I do’…”
I sniggered, and he added, severely, “It wasn’t funny, Pippa.”
“It was a little bit funny, surely.Laetitia looked as if she’d bitten into a lemon.”
“And Crispin looked as if you’d stabbed him to the heart,” Christopher said.“Do not make it harder for him, Pippa.I love you, but I love him too, and I don’t want you to be cruel.It’s one thing for you not to reciprocate his feelings.It’s another entirely to twist the knife.Do you want him to be miserable?”
“Don’t you think it’s possible that if we make him miserable enough, he’ll stop pretending he wants this and will throw her over?”
And then he could stop being miserable and start being happy.Or at least reasonably content.
Except… he hadn’t been reasonably content even before the engagement, had he?He had been drinking and using dope and bedding women indiscriminately, and that certainly didn’t look like happiness, or even contentment.He would only be truly happy if he got what he wanted, I assumed, and when what he wanted was me?—
“No,” Christopher said.“If throwing her over means a breach of promise suit and Uncle Harold’s displeasure, I don’t think he would do.”
“Not even if I throw myself at him and declare my never-ending devotion?”
“No,” Christopher said.“He knows better than to believe that.Besides, you wouldn’t do.”
“I might, if I thought it would work.”
“And then tell him later you were joking?”He shook his head.“No, thank you, Pippa.That would break him entirely, and I won’t let you do it.Unless you’re suddenly telling me you have feelings you’ve always said you don’t have?”
I wrinkled my nose.“I’m not.I don’t.I just feel bad for being the cause of someone’s unhappiness, even if it is St George.”
“Well, you can’t help how you feel,” Christopher said and tilted his head alertly.“Someone’s coming.”
Someone was.I could hear footsteps on the stairs, and then crossing the marble floors of the foyer.A moment later Crispin appeared in the doorway to the breakfast room.
