Midnight at Marble Arch

chapter



3



PITT WAS DISTRACTED AT the breakfast table. He ate absentmindedly, his attention absorbed by whatever he was reading in the newspaper. He looked up briefly to bid goodbye to Jemima and Daniel, then returned to his article. He even allowed his tea to go cold in the cup.

Charlotte stood up and took the teapot to the stove, pushed the kettle over onto the hob, and waited a few moments until it reached a boil again. With the teapot refreshed, and carrying a clean cup, she returned to the table and sat down.

“More tea?” she asked.

Pitt looked up, then glanced at his cup beside him, puzzled.

“It’s cold,” she said helpfully.

“Oh.” He gave a brief smile, half-apologetic. “I’m sorry.”

“From your expression, it’s not good news,” she observed.

“Speculation on the Jameson trial,” he replied, folding the paper and putting it down. “Most people seem to be missing the point.”

She had read enough about it to know what he was referring to. Leander Starr Jameson had returned to Britain from Africa, accused of having led an extraordinarily ill-conceived invasion from British-held Bechuanaland across the border into the independent Transvaal in an attempt to incite rebellion there and overthrow the Boer government, essentially of Dutch origin.

“He’s guilty, isn’t he?” she asked, uncertain now if perhaps she had misunderstood what she had read. “Won’t we have to find him so?”

“Yes,” Pitt agreed, sipping his new hot tea. “It’ll be a question of what sentence is passed and how much the public lionizes him. Apparently he’s a remarkably attractive man; not in the ordinary sense of being handsome or charming, but possessing a certain magnetism that captivates people. They see him as the ideal hero.”

She looked at Pitt’s face, the somber expression in his eyes that belied the ease of his voice.

“There’s more than that,” she said gravely. “It matters, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” he answered softly. “Mr. Kipling believes him a hero for our time: brave, loyal, resourceful, seizing opportunity by the throat, a born leader, in fact.”

Charlotte swallowed. “But he isn’t?”

“Mr. Churchill says he is a dangerous fool who will, in the near future, cause war between Britain and the Boers in South Africa,” he replied.

She was horrified. “War! Could it?” She put her cup down with a slightly trembling hand. “Really? Isn’t Mr. Churchill being … I mean, just drawing attention to himself? Emily says he does that a bit.”

Pitt did not answer immediately.

“Thomas?” she demanded.

“I don’t know. I have a fear that Churchill could be right.” His gaze did not waver from hers. “Not just because of the Jameson Raid—there are other things as well. The gold found there is going to attract a lot of adventurers and profiteers.”

“Will it affect us?” she asked him. “Special Branch? You?”

He smiled. “I can’t absolutely ignore it.”

She nodded, started to say something else, then decided it would be wiser not to go on asking him questions no one could yet answer. She stood up.

“Charlotte,” he said gently.

She turned, waiting.

“One thing at a time.” He smiled.

She put out a hand and touched his. It was not necessary to say anything.


SHE HAD BEEN LOOKING forward to the garden party that afternoon, largely because she was going with Vespasia, who would call to pick her up. It was only lately, since Pitt’s promotion, that Charlotte had been able to afford new gowns suitable for such occasions, rather than borrowing something from either Vespasia, which would fit her very well but be a little different from her own taste, or her sister Emily, who was slimmer and a couple of inches shorter. Not to mention the fact that Charlotte’s coloring was more vivid than Vespasia’s exquisite silver or Emily’s delicately fair hair and alabaster skin.

Charlotte always enjoyed Vespasia’s company. The older woman never spoke trivially, and she was informed about all manner of things, from the most important to the merely amusing. Charlotte was filling the time reading a book in the parlor when Vespasia arrived and was shown in by Minnie Maude, their maid. Although Minnie Maude had been with Charlotte over a year now, she was still overawed when announcing, “Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, ma’am.”

Charlotte rose to her feet immediately.

“You are early. How very nice,” she said warmly. “Would you like a cup of tea before we leave?”

“Thank you,” Vespasia accepted. She sat gracefully in the other large chair and arranged her sweeping skirts, immediately at home in the modest room with its comfortable, well-used furniture, bookshelves, and family photographs.

Charlotte nodded to Minnie Maude. “The Earl Grey, please, and cucumber sandwiches,” she requested. She knew without having to ask what it was that Vespasia would like.

As soon as the door was closed Charlotte regarded Vespasia more closely and noticed a certain tension in her.

“What is it?” she asked quietly. “Has something happened?”

“I believe so,” Vespasia replied. “At least, beyond question, something has happened, but I believe it is more serious than it is pretending to be.” She smiled very briefly, as if in apology for the darkness she was about to introduce. “I heard from a friend of mine that Angeles Castelbranco has broken off her engagement to Tiago de Freitas.”

Charlotte was puzzled. “Is that so serious? She is very young. Perhaps that is why she was so highly strung the other evening? She is not yet ready to think of marriage? She’s only two years older than Jemima. She’s still a child!”

“My dear, there is a lot of difference between fourteen and sixteen,” Vespasia responded.

“Two years!” Charlotte could not possibly imagine Jemima thinking of marriage in two years. Any thought of her leaving home was years away.

Now Vespasia’s smile was gentle but bright with amusement. “You will be surprised what a change those two years will bring. The first time she will fall in love with a real man, not a dream, is not nearly as far away as you think.”

“Well, perhaps Angeles is in love, but not yet ready to think of marrying,” Charlotte suggested. “It is fun to be in love without the thought of settling down in a new home, with new responsibilities—and before you know it, children of your own. She has barely begun to taste life. It would be very natural to wish for another year or two at least before that.”

“Indeed. But one may remain engaged for several years,” Vespasia pointed out.

Charlotte frowned. “Then what is it you think may have happened? A quarrel? Or she imagines herself in love with someone else?” A more painful thought occurred to her. “Or she has heard something distressing about her fiancé?”

“I doubt that,” Vespasia answered.

Minnie Maude knocked on the door and came in with a tray of tea and very thin cucumber sandwiches, which Charlotte had recently taught her to cut.

The maid glanced at Charlotte to see if she approved.

“Thank you,” Charlotte accepted with a little nod of her head. Minnie Maude had replaced Gracie, the maid the Pitts had had since their marriage. Gracie herself had at last married Sergeant Tellman and set up her own house, of which she was immensely proud. Her place would be impossible to fill, but Minnie Maude was gradually making the role her own. Now a wide smile split her face for a moment before she recalled her decorum again, dropped a curtsy, and withdrew, closing the door behind her.

Charlotte looked at Vespasia.

Vespasia regarded the sandwiches. “Excellent,” she murmured. “Minnie Maude is coming on very well.” She took one and put it on her plate while Charlotte poured the tea.

“What do you fear has happened to Angeles Castelbranco?” Charlotte asked a few moments later.

“The marriage was an arranged one, naturally,” Vespasia replied. “The de Freitas family is wealthy and highly respected. For Angeles it is a good match. Tiago is six or seven years older than her and, as far as I hear, nothing ill is known of him.”

“How much is that worth?” Charlotte asked skeptically, surprised how protective she felt of a girl she had seen only once. Did that mean she was bound to become overprotective of Jemima as well? She could remember her mother being so, and she had hated it.

Vespasia was watching her with wry amusement and perhaps also with recollections of her own daughters. “A good deal,” she replied. “Plus Isaura Castelbranco was young once, and I am sure has not forgotten the romance she dreamed of for herself; I doubt she would arrange for her daughter to marry someone unworthy.”

“Then why are you worried?” Charlotte asked, suddenly grave again. “What is it you fear?”

Vespasia was silent for several moments. She sipped her tea and ate another of Minnie Maude’s cucumber sandwiches.

Charlotte waited, recalling the party at the Spanish Embassy and the look in Angeles’s face. Had it truly been as fearful as she pictured it now, or was she putting her own feelings onto it?

“What is it you think has happened?” she asked more urgently.

“I don’t know,” Vespasia admitted. “It is a big thing indeed to break an engagement in a family like that. If she does not give a powerful reason, then other reasons will be suggested, largely unflattering in nature. It has been said, so far, that it is she who broke it off, but sometimes a young man will allow that, as a gallantry, when in fact it is he who has done so.”

Charlotte was startled. “What are you saying? That she has … has lost her virginity? She’s sixteen, not a thirty-year-old courtesan. How could you suggest such a thing?”

“I didn’t,” Vespasia pointed out gently. “You did. Which perfectly makes my point. People will look for reasons, and if they are not given them they will create their own. Breaking a betrothal is not something one does lightly.”

Charlotte looked down at the carpet. “She’s so young. And she looked so vulnerable at that party. The room was crowded with people, and yet she was alone.”

Vespasia finished her tea and set the cup down. “I hope I am mistaken.” She rose to her feet. “Shall we leave?”


FOR SOME TIME AT the party Charlotte accompanied Vespasia as they met friends or acquaintances and exchanged the usual polite remarks. She had wanted to come, to be in the swirl of conversation, feeling the exhilaration of meeting new people, but after half an hour or so she realized how little she truly knew, could know, of the men and women around her; their clothes, their manners, and their speech covered up far more of the truth than they revealed.

Looking at a woman in a bright dress, she wondered if it was exuberance that prompted her to wear it or bravado hiding some uncertainty, fear, or grief. And the woman in the plain-cut, subdued shade of blue—was that modesty, a supreme confidence that needed no display, or simply the only gown she had not already worn in this same company? So much could be interpreted half a dozen different ways.

It was about ten minutes later that Charlotte encountered Isaura Castelbranco and with pleasure found an opportunity to engage her in conversation. It seemed very easy to ask what region of Portugal she grew up in and to hear a description of the beautiful valley that had been her home until her marriage.

“Port wine?” Charlotte said with an interest she did not have to feign. “I often wondered how they make it because it is quite different from anything else, even sherry.”

“It is wine from the grapes in the Douro Valley,” Isaura replied, enthusiasm lighting her eyes. “But that is not really what makes it special. It is fortified with a brandy spirit, and aged in barrels of a particular wood. It takes a great deal of skill, and some of the process is kept secret.”

She smiled and there was pride in it. “We have made it for centuries, and the arts are passed down the generations within a family. Not that mine is one of them,” she added hastily. “We just lived in the region. My husband’s family is, however. His father and brothers were disappointed when he studied politics and chose the diplomatic service, but I think he has never regretted it. Although, of course, we still feel that tug of nostalgia when we go back to the vineyards, the sun on the vines, the labor of picking, the excitement of the first taste of the vintage.

“As a girl I used to daydream about the gentlemen whose tables it would be passed around. I pictured who they would be, what great events of state might be discussed with a glass of port in one hand.” She laughed a little self-consciously. “I would think of daring adventures planned, explorations, discoveries recounted, theories put forward on a hundred new ideas, reforms to change the laws of nations. Silly, maybe, but …”

“Not silly at all!” Charlotte said quietly. “Much better than half the daydreams I had, I promise you. It is something to be proud of.”

Isaura laughed. “Some of my in-laws’ port was in the glasses of great Portuguese navigators, traders in exotic silks and spices, but much of it was also on English dining tables after the ladies had withdrawn. In my mind every great Englishman drank port, while he planned to settle America or Australia, find the Northwest Passage to the Pacific, discover how the circulation of blood works, or write about the origin of species.” She flushed slightly at her own audacity.

“I think you have a marvelous imagination,” Charlotte said warmly. “I shall never look at a good bottle of port again without my own being inspired. Thank you for enriching me so happily.”

Before Isaura could respond, they were joined by three ladies in highly fashionable gowns and hats that drew the attention, and certainly the envy, of every woman who caught even a glimpse of them. With regret, Charlotte reverted to the conversation of gossip and trivia.

“Marvelous,” one woman enthused. “You can’t imagine how it looked, my dear. I’ll never forget it …”

“Do you suppose she’ll marry him?” another asked with intense curiosity. “What a match that would be!”

“I shudder to think.” A third gave the slightest indication with a twitch of one elegant shoulder. “Anyway, I’m quite sure she has her eye on Sir Pelham Forsbrook.”

Charlotte’s attention was caught by that last name. He was the father of Neville Forsbrook, who had so cruelly taunted Angeles. She glanced sideways at Isaura and saw the distress in her face before she could conceal it with a feigned smile of interest.

“Is Sir Pelham thinking of marrying again?” Charlotte asked, with no idea of the circumstances, except that, with a son he owned to, he had to have been married once.

“She is thinking of it, my dear,” the first woman said with a smile very slightly condescending. “Pelham is worth a fortune. All kinds of investments in Africa, I believe. Probably gold, I should think. Didn’t they find masses of it in Johannesburg last year? And he’s a very charming man, sort of dark and interesting, a powerful face.”

One of the others giggled slightly. “I do believe you are attracted to him yourself, Marguerite.”

“Nonsense!” Marguerite said a trifle too quickly. “Eleanor was a friend of mine. I wouldn’t dream of it. Such a tragedy. I haven’t got it out of my mind yet.”

Charlotte made a mental note to ask Vespasia what had happened to Eleanor, who was presumably Forsbrook’s late wife. For the moment, she turned to Isaura and said how delighted she had been to meet her again, and excused herself from the conversation.

She was still wondering about the Forsbrook family when she noticed a group of young women, perhaps seventeen or eighteen years old, laughing and talking together. They were all pretty, with the unlined features and the blemishless complexions of the young, but one of the girls in particular caught Charlotte’s attention.

Her hair and eyes were both startlingly dark and quite beautiful against the peach tones of her high-necked gown. Also, she had an air of intensity that instantly made her stand out; she seemed far more serious than the others, with a look of being occupied in some private concern. Charlotte watched her for several moments as one of the other girls spoke to her and she had to ask for the words to be repeated before she replied. Even then her answer was vague, drawing a taunt, and then giggles from two of the others.

There was something familiar in her unease, and then Charlotte realized that she was Angeles Castelbranco. Her dress was utterly different from the ball gown she had worn at the embassy, but the resemblance to her mother should have been sufficient for Charlotte to recognize her again, even at a slight distance and from an angle.

There was more laughter. A young man passed close to them and smiled. Discreetly he regarded all of them but clearly it was Angeles who took his eye. Beside her the others looked pallid, even ordinary, though today her dress was extremely modest and she made no attempt to hold his glance.

The young man smiled at her.

She gave a very slight smile back at him, then immediately lowered her eyes.

He hesitated, uncertain whether he dared speak to her when she had given him no encouragement.

One of the other girls smiled at him. He inclined his head in a small bow, then walked on. Two of the girls giggled.

Angeles looked unhappy, even uncomfortable. She excused herself and moved away toward where Isaura was still involved in conversation.

Charlotte found Vespasia again. Together they strolled over toward a magnificent bed of mixed flowers, bright with pink and blue spires of lupin and dozens of gaudy oriental poppies in a profusion of scarlets, crimsons, and peaches.

Charlotte described to Vespasia how she had seen Angeles act, the other girls and the young man.

“And it troubles you?” Vespasia asked quietly.

“I’m not sure why,” Charlotte admitted. “She looked so ill at ease, as if she had a deep unhappiness she was trying to overcome, but could not. I suppose I have forgotten what it was like to be sixteen. It is an alarmingly long time ago. But I think I was awkward, rather than unhappy.”

“You were not engaged to be married,” Vespasia pointed out.

“No, but I would’ve liked to have been!” Charlotte said ruefully. “I thought about it nearly all the time. I looked at every young man, wondering if he could be the one, and how it would happen, and whether I could learn to love him or not.” She recalled with embarrassment some of the wilder thoughts that had passed through her mind then.

“Of course,” Vespasia agreed. “We all did. The grand romances of the imagination were …” she smiled at her own memories, “… like reflections in the water—bright, a little distorted and gone with the next ripple of wind.” Then her amusement vanished. “Did you sense something more seriously wrong with her?”

“Perhaps not. It was an arranged marriage, you said earlier? Sixteen is very young to feel that your fate is already decided, and by someone other than yourself.”

“It is a common practice,” Vespasia pointed out. “And I daresay our parents’ choice for us was no more reckless than our own would have been. I remember falling in love at least half a dozen times with men it would have been disastrous for me to have married.”

Charlotte drew in her breath to ask if the choice Vespasia had made in the end had been so much better. Then she realized how appallingly intrusive that would be. From the little she knew of Vespasia’s life, her marriage had been tolerable, but not a great deal more than that. The great love she had known had been elsewhere, brief and ending in all but memory when she returned from Italy to England. What Vespasia had felt Charlotte did not know and did not wish to. There are many things that should remain private.

Charlotte watched a bumblebee meander lazily through the blossoms.

“I thought I would die when Dominic Corde married my elder sister, Sarah,” she said candidly, turning the conversation back to her own feelings. “I cherished an impossible infatuation with him for years. I don’t think he ever knew, thank heaven.”

“Perhaps Angeles Castelbranco likes someone rather better than she liked her fiancé, and finds it difficult to reconcile herself to keeping her promise,” Vespasia said, smiling a little in the sun and watching the same bee as it settled in the heart of a scarlet poppy. “Life can tend to lurch from one wild emotion to another at that age. Of course, with a lot of laughter, excitement, and soaring hopes in between. I don’t think I could bear all that anguish again.”

Charlotte looked at her quickly. Vespasia was still beautiful, but—in spite of her poise, her wit, and all her accomplishments—perhaps she was also still vulnerable. Certainly she was very much alone. Charlotte had never thought of it before, but it struck her now with the force of a blow. Had Vespasia ever known the safety of heart that Charlotte took so much for granted?

She changed the subject quickly, before her face betrayed her thoughts.

“Perhaps we are being too fanciful about Angeles,” she remarked. “I expect there is no grand passion for someone else and no betrayal by her fiancé with another woman. I am more bored with Society than I had remembered, and I can see that the devil has made more work for idle minds than he ever does for idle hands. Sometimes I wish Thomas were back in the regular police instead of in Special Branch, where all his cases are secret. I can’t help anymore because he can’t even tell me what they are about.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Vespasia warned gently. “It may not be so pleasant if you are granted it.”

Charlotte glanced at her and, seeing the gravity in her eyes, changed her mind about responding. Instead she said, “By the way, I was listening to a piece of gossip just now, and they mentioned Pelham Forsbrook possibly marrying again. They hinted at some tragedy regarding his first wife. I had no idea what they were referring to.”

Vespasia’s face filled with a sudden sadness. “Eleanor,” she said quickly. “I knew her only slightly, but she was charming and funny and very kind. I’m afraid she was killed in a traffic accident. Something startled the horse and it bolted. One of the wheels was caught and the whole carriage was overturned. Poor Eleanor was crushed. I think she died instantly, but it was an appalling thing to happen.”

Charlotte was taken aback. “I’m sorry. Was it long ago?”

“About four years. I don’t think Pelham has ever considered marrying again but, of course, I could be mistaken. I never knew him well.” She smiled, dismissing the subject. “I should like you to meet Lady Buell. She is ninety if she’s a day, and has been everywhere and met everyone. You will find her most entertaining.”


AN HOUR LATER CHARLOTTE was looking for somewhere to set down her empty cup. She went into the big marquee, which had been erected for the unlikely event of rain, or for those who wished more adequate shelter from the sun than even the most excellent parasol could offer.

She placed her cup down and was moving toward the entrance again when she saw Angeles Castelbranco four or five yards away, on the other side of a table set with samovars for tea, which partially concealed her from view.

Angeles was holding her cup and saucer and was also facing the door when a young man came in. He was tall and fair-haired, and when he smiled at Angeles he was good-looking enough to be considered handsome.

“Good afternoon,” he said warmly. “Geoffrey Andersley. May I pour more tea for you, Miss …?” He hesitated, waiting for Angeles to introduce herself.

She took a step backward, holding on to her cup and saucer.

He reached for it and his fingers brushed her hand.

She dropped the cup instantly and it fell to the grass.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, as if it had been his fault. He bent to pick it up, moving closer to her to reach it.

Angeles jerked backward as though he had in some way threatened her.

He looked embarrassed as he rose to his feet again and straightened up.

“I say, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

She shook her head, her face flushed with color, her breathing heavy, as if she had been running. She began to speak and then stopped.

“Are you all right?” he asked anxiously. “Would you like to sit down?” He held out a hand as if to steady her.

She flinched and backed farther away, knocking against a table set with glasses and clean cups and saucers. They clattered against one another and half a dozen tall champagne flutes fell over.

Angeles swung around, distressed by her own clumsiness. Now her face was scarlet.

“I’m perfectly all right, Mr…. Mr. Andersley. If you will allow me to pass, I would like to go outside and get a little air.”

“Of course,” he agreed, but he did not move.

“Let me pass!” she repeated, her voice rising, wobbling a little, out of control.

He took a small step closer to her, his face creased with concern. “Are you sure you are all right?”

Charlotte decided to intervene, even though it was possibly tactless and certainly none of her concern.

“Excuse me.” She came out from behind the samovars and moved toward Angeles.

Angeles saw her and her face filled with relief.

“Perhaps you don’t remember me, Miss Castelbranco,” Charlotte said smoothly. “We met the other evening. I am Mrs. Pitt. I should so like you to meet my great-aunt, Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould. Would you care to come with me?”

“Oh, yes!” Angeles said immediately. “Yes. I would be delighted.” She stepped closer to Charlotte.

Charlotte looked at Andersley and smiled. “Thank you for your courtesy. I hope you have a pleasant afternoon.”

“Mrs. Pitt.” He bowed and stepped back to allow them both to pass, giving them room for their wide skirts. Even so, Angeles was obliged to pass within a yard of him. Her face was pale as she did so, and she moved hastily and without looking at him.

Outside in the sun Charlotte kept up the pretense while they walked side by side the hundred yards or so to where Vespasia had just left another conversation. She was standing in the sun, her face lifted a little to its light, looking more like the Italians with whom she had stood at the barracks in ’48 than the English aristocrat she was now. Charlotte wondered what memories were in her mind or her heart.

Charlotte and Angeles approached Vespasia. They went through with the charade, the polite smiles, the affected interest, the trivial exchange of words, until convention was satisfied. Then Angeles excused herself and Vespasia looked at Charlotte.

“I think perhaps you had better explain,” she invited.

Charlotte told her briefly what she had observed, adding no comment, watching Vespasia’s face for her reaction.

“Oh dear.” Vespasia’s eyes were sad, her face in an expression of profound gravity.

Charlotte waited, fear beginning to grow inside her. She had been clinging to a hope that she was being unnecessarily alarmed, and now it was melting away.

“What is it you think?” she said at last.

Still Vespasia hesitated. “I think that Angeles Castelbranco has had a terrible experience,” she said at last.

It was exactly what Charlotte had thought also, though she had hoped she was being melodramatic. “How terrible?” she asked. “More than just … a forced kiss, perhaps a torn gown?”

Vespasia’s mouth pulled tight in deep unhappiness. “She appears a healthy young woman. I’m sure she could slap someone hard enough to make her refusal known very plainly. And from what you say, she was not acquainted with this young man Andersley.”

“No. He introduced himself. It seemed they had not met until that point.”

“But she was so frightened that she backed away from him even though he did not actually touch her?”

“Yes. She didn’t look just unwilling, or even as if it were merely distasteful. She looked terrified.” Charlotte pictured Angeles’s face again. Her expression had been unmistakable. “You believe she was far more seriously assaulted, don’t you?”

“I think that is probably so,” Vespasia agreed, her voice low and strained with pity.

“What are we going to do?” Charlotte’s mind raced over the possibilities, beginning with talking to Pitt.

“Nothing,” Vespasia replied.

“Nothing! But if she was actually raped that’s one of the worst possible crimes.” Charlotte was outraged. It was totally out of character for Vespasia, of all people, to be so callous. “She must be helped,” she said hotly. “And above all, whoever did it must be punished, put in prison.” The thought of the man getting away with such a thing was intolerable.

Vespasia put her hand very gently on Charlotte’s arm. “And if Angeles names a young man and says that he raped her, what do you suppose will happen?”

Charlotte tried to imagine it. The anguish would be profound. Isaura Castelbranco would be distraught for her daughter. Charlotte felt cold throughout her body at the thought of such a thing happening to Jemima. It was almost impossible to hold in the mind, it was so appalling. But if it ever happened, she would injure somebody in the most terrible revenge she could imagine. She would destroy him!

And it would change nothing. All the pain she could inflict would do nothing to help Jemima.

“Exactly,” Vespasia agreed gently, as if she had followed Charlotte’s train of thought. “It is an injury no punishment is ever going to heal. To blame anyone else, even if you could prove her total innocence—”

“Of course she’s innocent!” Charlotte interrupted. “She’s sixteen! She’s a child!”

“For goodness’ sake, my dear, were you innocent at sixteen?”

“Of course I was! I was innocent until—”

“I’m not questioning your chastity,” Vespasia said a little more tartly. “I took that for granted. I am speaking of innocence in the sense of offering no temptation to a man with more appetite than decency, and no belief that he needs to exercise self-control.”

Charlotte remembered her passion for Dominic Corde, and how far she might have gone, quite willingly, had he given her the chance. She felt blood surge to her face. She did not know whether to be furious or humiliated.

“It is not so simple, is it?” Vespasia observed. “And if this wretched young man should accuse her of being just as willing as he was, how does she convince people that she was not? I saw no cuts or bruises to prove her reluctance, did you?”

Charlotte was amazed. She stared at Vespasia with complete disbelief. For once she was at a loss for words.

“People can be very cruel,” Vespasia continued, her voice very quiet. “Which, if you think about it, my dear, you know as well as I do. Perhaps I have a few years’ advantage on you, but it makes little difference. Think what she will face: the whispers, the disapproval, the sniggers from young men, the alarm from other young women, the prurient interest. There will be questions from those who imagine it might secretly have been rather fun, because they have no idea that it has nothing to do with romance or passion, but rather the desire to humiliate and conquer.”

Charlotte looked at Vespasia’s face and saw that the pain on it was even greater than the anger.

“You knew someone it happened to, didn’t you?” The words were spoken before she gave them thought. Immediately she regretted them.

Vespasia’s mouth pulled tight in remembered grief and she blinked several times.

“I did, long ago. More than one. Some things are bearable only if no one else knows of them. Then at least you do not imagine that every remark you don’t quite hear is about you, every joke you don’t understand is an oblique reference to your shame.” She winced. “You do not believe that every party to which you are not invited is because you are no longer considered eligible. Above all, you do not suppose that you are soiled forever and that no man will want to touch you, except for his own amusement; that you will never marry and never have children.”

“But that’s—” Charlotte stopped as the full impact of what Vespasia had said overwhelmed her. “But it’s not her fault,” she said quietly, her own voice choking now. “Do we really have to just … just pretend it didn’t happen, and let him walk away, untouched? For heaven’s sake, won’t he do it again?” She was so angry, so horrified she could hardly get her breath. The act itself almost paled compared with the misery that must follow, the lifelong guilt and loneliness.

“Almost certainly,” Vespasia agreed. “But it is not our decision to make. If you were her mother, would you want any stranger, or even a friend, to make the choice and use your daughter in order to prosecute this man, on the chance that you might win—if proving to the whole world that your daughter had been raped would be regarded as winning? Would you do that to Jemima?”

Vespasia knew the answer as she asked. Charlotte saw it in her eyes.

“No. I … I would find some way of taking revenge myself,” she admitted.

The ghost of a smile touched Vespasia’s mouth. “And would you tell Thomas?”

“Of course.”

“Are you sure? What do you think he would do?”

“I don’t know, but he’d certainly do something!”

“Of course he would, in fury and pain, without thinking of his own safety or comfort,” Vespasia said.

“Naturally! He’d be thinking of Jemima!” Charlotte protested.

Vespasia shook her head very gently. “Charlotte, my dear, you would have to protect Thomas just as much as you would Jemima. If he accused some young man from a good family—” she lifted her head slightly and indicated an elegant, wealthy young man moving easily from one group to another, laughing, flirting very slightly “—what do you imagine would happen to him?”

Charlotte stared at the young man, and then at Vespasia. She felt suffocated, even though they were standing in the open air and there was a very slight breeze tugging at parasols and ruffling the flower heads. She tried to remember her own days before her marriage, when she had moved in Society, the rules she had known implicitly, the fun, the laughter … and the cruelty.

Vespasia supplied the answer for her. “The oldest defense has always been to blame the victim. They would tell him his daughter was a whore in the making, and although they pitied him, if he made any more trouble he would find himself without a job. He, and you, would no longer be welcome in Society. And Jemima would feel even guiltier because she was inadvertently the cause of your ruin.”

“That’s monstrous.” Charlotte’s voice trembled.

“Of course it is.” Vespasia put her hand on Charlotte’s arm. Her touch was warm and very gentle. “It is one of the very worst of the private tragedies we have to bear in silence and with as much dignity and grace as we can. Kindness is perhaps the only gift we can offer. And perhaps we will then have a little more gratitude for the griefs we do not personally have to bear.”

Charlotte nodded, too full of emotion at that moment to answer.


BUT THAT NIGHT, WHEN Pitt was sitting downstairs in the parlor, absorbed in reading papers he had brought with him from his office, she went upstairs alone and soundlessly opened Jemima’s bedroom door.

Jemima was asleep, lying on her back, arms spread wide, smiling a little. She looked very young and desperately vulnerable. She thankfully could not even imagine the kind of pain that Charlotte and Vespasia had been talking about, the kind that had already begun for Angeles Castelbranco—if, of course, their assumptions were correct.

Perhaps two years ago Isaura had stood in Angeles’s bedroom doorway and watched her sleep. Had she been full of dreams for her daughter’s future happiness, or had fear touched her as it did Charlotte now?

She stayed there only a few moments longer. She did not want Jemima to waken and see her.

Quietly she closed the door and walked along the passage a few steps to Daniel’s room. The man who had raped Angeles was somebody’s son. Did his parents have any idea what he had become?

She opened that door also, very softly, and looked in on Daniel. He was curled over, facing the window where the curtains were wide open and the last of the summer evening light still glowed. His dark eyelashes shadowed across his smooth, unblemished cheek. It was an impossible thought, but in another seven years he would be a man.

Suddenly she felt frightened, aware of how precious everything was, of the happiness, the safety, the hope she took for granted; even the little things like the daily certainty of kindness, someone to touch, to love, to talk to; of being surrounded by people who mattered to her.

Charlotte felt tears slip down her cheeks and a tightness in her chest. The enormity of life, the joy and the pain, the caring so deeply—it was almost too much.

She closed the door in case she disturbed Daniel, and walked very slowly along the passage. She hesitated at the top of the stairs. She did not want to go down yet. Pitt would wonder what on earth was the matter with her, and she was not ready to try to explain.