“There’s not all that difference,” said Roberta bluntly.
Alleyn looked steadily at her. Under cover of the table Roberta clasped her hands together. What next?
Alleyn said: “Did you join the reconnaissance party, Miss Grey?”
“The — I don’t understand.”
“Perhaps reconnaissance is not quite the word. Did you listen with the others to the conversation next door?”
It hadn’t seemed such an awful thing to do at the time, Roberta told herself wildly. The Lampreys had assured her that Lord Charles wouldn’t mind. In a way it had been rather fun. Why, oh why, should it show so shabbily, now that this man asked her about it? Lying on the floor with her ears to the door! Spying! Her cheeks were burning coals. She would not unclasp her hands. She would sit there, burning before him, not lowering her gaze.
“Yes,” said Roberta clearly, “I did.”
“Will you tell me what you heard?”
“No. I’d rather not do that.”
“We’ll have to see if any of the servants were about,” said Alleyn thoughtfully. A hot blast of fury and shame prevented Roberta from understanding that he was not deliberately insulting her, deliberately suggesting that she had behaved like an untrustworthy housemaid. And she could say nothing to justify herself. She heard her own voice stammering out words that meant nothing. In a nightmare of shame she looked at her own indignity. “It wasn’t like that — we were together — we weren’t doing it like that — it was because we were anxious to know…” The unfamiliar voice whined shamefully on until out of the fog of her own discomfiture she saw Alleyn looking at her with astonishment, and she was able to be silent.