Midnight at Marble Arch

chapter



7



PITT FOUND IT EXTREMELY difficult to forget the tragedy of Angeles Castelbranco’s death. Every time he heard the clink of glass or the sound of someone’s laughter, it took him back to that terrible party. In his mind he saw the ambassador’s face as he stood by the window, all expression wiped from it as if he were dead.

Worse was the raging grief of the ambassador’s wife. She reminded him of Charlotte somehow, although she looked nothing at all like her. Yet both were fiercely devoted mothers, and that gave them a similarity greater than all differences of appearance could be.

He sat in his office in Lisson Grove, which used to be Narraway’s. He was trying to concentrate on the papers in front of him to the exclusion of every other thought, but not very successfully. He was relieved when there was a knock on the door. The moment after, Stoker looked in.

“Yes?” Pitt said hopefully.

There was no pleasure in Stoker’s bony face. “The Portuguese ambassador is here and would like to see you, sir. I told him you were busy, but he said he’d wait, however long it took. Sorry, sir.”

Pitt pushed his papers into a rough pile, turning the top one facedown. “Putting it off won’t make it any better. Ask him to come in,” he requested.

“Do you want me to interrupt in fifteen or twenty minutes?” Stoker asked.

Pitt gave him a bleak smile. “Not unless it’s genuine.”

Stoker nodded and withdrew. Two minutes later the door opened again and Rafael Castelbranco came in. He looked ill, and ten years older than he had a few days ago. His cheeks were sunken; there was no color in his skin. His clothes were neat, even elegant, but now they seemed a mockery of other, happier times.

Pitt rose to his feet and came around the desk to offer his hand.

Castelbranco gripped it as if that in itself were some promise of help.

At Pitt’s invitation they sat in the two armchairs between the fireplace and the window. With a small gesture of his hand, Castelbranco declined any refreshment. He had fine hands, brown-skinned and slender.

“What can I do for you, sir?” Pitt asked. There was no point in inquiring after his health, or that of his wife. The man was shattered by grief, and she could only be the same.

Castelbranco cleared his throat. “I know you have children,” he began. “Mrs. Pitt has been most kind to my wife, both before my daughter’s death, and since. You may perhaps imagine how we feel, but no one could know … could even think of …” He stopped himself, took several deep breaths, and continued in a more controlled tone. “I wish you to help me find out as much as I can about what happened to my daughter, and why.” He saw Pitt’s expression. “I am not looking for justice, Mr. Pitt. I realize that may be beyond anyone’s reach.” He closed his eyes a moment; whether to regain control of his voice or to hide his thoughts it was impossible to tell.

Instead of interjecting, Pitt waited for Castelbranco to continue.

The ambassador opened his eyes again. “I wish to silence the rumors, not only for my own sake, and my daughter’s, but for my wife’s. Until we know what happened we cannot refute even the ugliest whispers. We are helpless. It is a …” Again he stopped. Clearly none of his diplomatic skills or experience came to his aid in trying to describe what he was feeling.

This matter was not specifically within the area of Special Branch’s duties. But Castelbranco was the ambassador of a foreign country with whom Britain had a long and valued relationship, and the death had taken place in Britain.

Apart from that, simply as a human being with a daughter of a similar age, Pitt felt a sharp, very personal understanding of Castelbranco’s grief.

“I’ll do what I can,” he promised, wondering as he said the words if he was being rash and would regret it. “But I must be discreet, or I may risk making the rumors worse, rather than better.” Did that sound like an excuse? It was not. Pitt simply knew from experience that inquiring into a rumor, or even denying it too vehemently, could result in it spreading much further.

“I understand the risks,” Castelbranco said grimly, “but this is intolerable. What have I left to lose?” His voice trembled in spite of himself. “Angeles was betrothed to marry Tiago de Freitas, a young man of excellent family, with a bright future ahead of him and an unspotted reputation. It was in all ways an excellent match.” His hands tightened, even though they were resting in his lap. “She told me that their decision to end the engagement was mutual. But now people are suggesting that he discovered something about Angeles that was so shameful he could not live with it, and that is why the engagement was broken.”

Pitt felt a wave of fury flow through him, then one of terrible pity. The ambassador’s body was visibly so tense, Pitt knew every muscle in him must ache, and yet how could the man possibly rest? Did he sleep at all? Or perhaps in nightmares he saw his daughter crash through the glass into the night, again and again as he watched, helpless to save her?

Or was it even worse than that? Did he see her laughing, young, and excited at all that lay ahead of her? Did he feel her hand in his, small and soft, and then waken and remember that she was dead, broken on the outside by glass and stone, inside by terror and humiliation?

“Exactly what has this young man said?” Pitt asked.

“That it was Angeles who really ended the betrothal,” Castelbranco replied. “But he has not denied the rumor. He smiles sadly, and says nothing.” His voice shook with anger and the color washed up his face. “Sometimes a silence can speak more than words.”

Pitt searched for something to say that would draw away the poison of what was being whispered, and failed. In Castelbranco’s place, Pitt would want to strike out at de Freitas—verbally, physically, anything to let loose some of the agony inside himself.

“I’ll speak to him,” he promised. “See if he’s willing to tell me anything, and if he does I’ll follow up. If not, I’ll warn him of the dangers of careless speculation at the expense of someone else’s reputation. I don’t know what result that will have, but I’ll try. Is his business in Britain?”

For a moment Castelbranco’s eyes softened. “At least some of it. Your words may have an effect on him. Thank you. There is no one else to defend my daughter. It makes me wonder if de Freitas was as good a choice to marry Angeles as we thought. How do you know the measure of a person, when often the event that betrays them comes too late?”

“Half my job would be unnecessary if I knew the answer to that,” Pitt replied.

Castelbranco rose to his feet. “Perhaps it was a foolish question. I thought I knew Tiago. I concentrate on the lesser pain of disillusion, to take my mind off the greater one of loss, imagining it will ease my grief.”

“I would do the same,” Pitt acknowledged, rising also and holding out his hand. “I will inform you as soon as I have anything to say.”


TIAGO DE FREITAS RECEIVED Pitt reluctantly. Pitt was sure he did it only because he could not refuse, considering Pitt’s station and the power it gave him. They met in a side office in de Freitas’s father’s highly prosperous wine import and export offices, just off Regent Street. The rooms were somber, but luxurious in their own way. There was a lot of exquisite wood, much of it carved. The furniture was embossed leather, and beneath the feet rich carpets silenced all movement.

De Freitas was a handsome enough young man, with fine dark eyes and a magnificent head of black hair. He would have been more striking still had he been a few inches taller. He regarded Pitt somewhat cautiously.

“What can I do for you, sir?”

He did not invite Pitt to be seated, which pleased Pitt. There was a certain informality to sitting, and he wanted the interview to be courteous, but not easy.

“First of all, Mr. de Freitas, I regret having to disturb you during what must surely be a difficult time. I will try to be as brief as I can,” he replied.

De Freitas stiffened almost imperceptibly, with just a movement of the muscles in his neck.

“Thank you,” he acknowledged. “But I am sure you did not come here just to express your condolences about my fiancée. Your card says that you are commander of Special Branch, which I am aware is a part of the Intelligence Service of this country. I will do all I can to assist you as a guest here, but I am Portuguese and I’m sure you understand the interests of my own country must come first.”

Pitt was about to deny that his business was anything to do with national interest, then he realized that would rob him of the power he needed.

“I would not ask it of you, sir,” he replied smoothly. “You just now referred to Miss Castelbranco as if she were still betrothed to you. I was informed that the engagement had been broken. Was that incorrect?”

De Freitas’s black eyebrows rose. His voice was not openly defensive, but it was guarded. “How can that concern you, Mr. Pitt?”

Pitt answered with a slight smile. “It has to do with another matter, one I cannot discuss. If you won’t tell me, I am obliged to suppose that the rumors I’ve heard regarding the entire situation may be correct. I am hoping they are not, and that for the sake of the pleasant relations that have existed between Britain and Portugal for half a millennium, I can lay them to rest.” He let the invitation hang in the air for de Freitas to pick up.

The younger man hesitated, caught in uncertainty. A very slight flush of annoyance colored his cheeks.

“I had preferred not to speak of it for the sake of her family, but you force my hand.” He gave a very slight shrug, not perhaps as discreetly as he had intended. “The engagement was ended.”

“How long before her death did that happen, Mr. de Freitas?”

Tiago looked startled. “I really don’t see how this can be of concern to the British Secret Service.” There was a touch of anger in his voice now. “It is a very personal matter.”

“The announcement of a betrothal to marry is a very public event,” Pitt pointed out. “It is not possible to end it entirely privately, however personal the cause may be.”

De Freitas seemed to hover between irritation and capitulation. Seconds passed as he fought with a decision.

“I am trying to quell rumors that can only hurt the Portuguese ambassador to Britain, Mr. de Freitas,” Pitt pressed. “It is a small courtesy we can accord him at the time of a very dreadful loss. Miss Castelbranco was his only child, as I am sure you are aware.”

De Freitas nodded. “Yes, yes, of course.” He let out a very slight sigh. “We broke our engagement less than a week before she died. I’m sorry about it, of course I am.”

Pitt noticed how gracefully de Freitas had evaded the issue of who made the initial move to end the relationship. The way he said it, the decision sounded like an inevitable mutual agreement.

“Was Miss Castelbranco extremely upset?” Pitt asked, determined to force the young man into an answer.

De Freitas looked up sharply, his face reflecting a sudden anger. “If you are suggesting that her death was … was a result of my breaking off an engagement, then you are completely mistaken.” He lifted his chin a little. “It was she who ended it.”

“Indeed? What reason did she give? One does not do such a thing lightly. Her parents would have been most distressed. As I imagine yours were also.”

De Freitas did not answer for several moments, then he gave a brief, tight smile. “You have me at something of a disadvantage, Mr. Pitt. I had hoped to give you a vague answer, and that you would be gentleman enough to accept it. I’m afraid I cannot say anything further without dishonoring a young woman I had thought to make my wife. Of course I understand you wish to protect her reputation, and give her family whatever comfort is possible, and I respect you for it. Indeed, I admire it. However, to assist you in that I must decline to say anything more. I’m sorry.”

“So it wasn’t she, but you who broke the engagement,” Pitt concluded.

De Freitas shrugged. “I’ve told you, sir. I can say nothing more. Let her rest in peace … for everyone’s sake.”

Pitt knew he would get no more from Tiago de Freitas. He thanked him for his time and walked back through the hushed, wood-lined corridors.


“YOU MEAN HE IMPLIED that it was he who broke it off, and that he was lying to protect her?” Charlotte said incredulously that evening when Pitt was home and dinner was finished and cleared away. They were in the parlor, with the windows ajar. The slight breeze carried in the rustle of leaves and the smell of earth and cut grass. The door to the passageway was closed. Daniel and Jemima were in their respective bedrooms reading.

“More or less,” Pitt conceded. He was not sitting. He felt too restless to settle down; perhaps because Charlotte was so angry she also could not sit.

She looked stricken. “So whatever it is they are saying, he either believes it or he doesn’t care because he wanted to be rid of her anyway,” she accused.

“The engagement was broken off before she died,” Pitt pointed out, shaking his head.

“Exactly!” she retorted. “He listened to some rumor and abandoned her!” Her face was flushed and her eyes brilliant. She was so quick to defend the vulnerable. He loved her for it and he would not change her, even in situations when it would be far wiser to weigh the matter first. She had been wrong before, dangerously so, but that did not stop her.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she accused him. “Of course I might be wrong. Would you be weighing it this carefully if it had happened to someone we were close to?”

“But it isn’t,” he said reasonably.

“It isn’t this time! What about when it is?” she demanded.

He took a deep breath and turned to face her. “If something like this were to happen to someone we love, God forbid, I would be just as furious as you are, just as hurt, and just as impetuous,” he admitted. “And it would also probably do no good at all. Loving someone makes you care passionately. It makes you a decent person, warm, vulnerable, generous, and brave. But it doesn’t make you right, and it certainly doesn’t make you effective in finding the truth.”

“I think the truth is she was raped,” she said quietly, tears suddenly bright in her eyes.

“And I still can’t believe that anyone would truly blame her for that,” he responded.

“Oh, Thomas! Don’t be so … blind!” she said desperately. “Of course they can blame her. They have to! If they don’t, they have to accept that it can happen to anyone, to them or their daughters.”

She shook her head. “Or else you’re the kind of person who has to stand and stare at it, probe to see where it hurts the most, and make yourself important by knowing something other people don’t.” Her voice was brittle with contempt. “Then you can be the center of attention while you tell everyone else, making up any details you might not happen to know.”

He took a step toward her, touching her lightly. Her arms were rigid under his fingers. The wind outside rattled harder in the trees and blew in through the door with the first patter of rain and the sweet, rich smell of damp earth.

“Aren’t you being a little hard on everyone, generally?” he asked.

Her eyes widened. “You mean I’m being a bit hysterical, perhaps? Because I’m afraid that one day it could be our daughter?”

“No,” he said firmly. “Rape is very rare, thank God, and Jemima will not be allowed to keep the company of any young man we don’t know, or whose family we don’t know.”

“For the love of heaven, Thomas!” Charlotte said between her teeth. “How on earth would you know how many rapes there are? Who is going to talk about it? Who’s going to report it to the police? And do you really think that it’s never young men we know who could do such things?”

Pitt felt a sudden icy twinge of fear, and then helplessness. His imagination raced.

She saw it in his eyes, and bent her head forward to rest her brow against his neck. The wind ruffled her skirt and then pushed the door wider, so it banged against the wall.

“It’s a hidden crime. All we can do is bite the heads off anyone who speaks lightly or viciously about Angeles Castelbranco. And don’t tell me I shouldn’t do that. I don’t care if it’s appropriate or suitable. I care about protecting her mother.”

He slid his arms around her and held her very tightly.


PITT COULD NOT DEVOTE his own time to making discreet inquiries into the character and reputation of Angeles Castelbranco, and to send anyone else might raise more speculation than it would answer. Why would any man unrelated to the girl be asking such questions unless there was cause to suspect something; for example, her virtue?

He was still weighing the various possibilities open to him, and discarding them one by one, when two days later Castelbranco came to his office again, his face even more haggard than before. He seemed barely able to stand and he gripped his hands together when he sat in the chair Pitt offered him, as though to keep them from trembling. Twice he began to speak and then stopped.

“I visited de Freitas,” Pitt told him quietly. “He equivocated. First he said it was Angeles who broke off the engagement, then he admitted it was he. I have been considering how to prove it either way without raising even further malicious speculation.”

“It is too late,” Castelbranco said, shaking his head. “I don’t know what happened or who is behind it. I cannot think who would say such things, or why they would. I fear it is some enemy I have made who is taking the cruelest possible revenge on me.”

“If that is so, there may be something Special Branch can do,” Pitt began, then realized he might be offering a false hope. “What makes you think this?”

“Someone has said that her death was not a terrible accident but a deliberate act of suicide.” Castelbranco had difficulty keeping his voice from choking. “And suicide is a mortal sin,” he whispered. “The Church will not bury her with Christian rites—my … my child is …” The tears slid down his cheeks and he lowered his head.

Pitt leaned forward and put his hand on Castelbranco’s wrist, gripping him hard. “Don’t give up,” he said firmly. “That decision is hasty and may be born of serious misinformation.” He tried to keep the contempt for men who would make such a cruel decision—childless men without pity or understanding—out of his voice and knew he failed. He didn’t want to add that grief to Castelbranco’s all but unbearable burden. Now, above all else, the man needed his faith.

“Perhaps this should be the subject of a proper inquiry after all,” he said. “If such a thing is being alleged, then the discretion I have tried to exercise may be pointless.”

“It is,” Castelbranco said hoarsely. The tears were now running down his cheeks. He was too harrowed to be self-conscious. “It has been suggested that she was with child, and the disgrace of it drove her to take both their lives. That is a double crime, self-murder and murder of her innocent babe. I don’t know how my wife can live with it. She is already dying inside. I fear that would …”

His eyes searched Pitt’s face as if to find some hope he could not even imagine there. He was teetering on the edge of an abyss of despair. “I need the truth,” he whispered. “Whatever it is, it cannot be worse than this. I loved my daughter, Mr. Pitt. She was my only child. I would have done anything to make her safe and happy … and I could not even keep her alive. Now I cannot save her reputation from the mouths of the filthy, and I cannot save her soul to heaven. She was a child! I remember …” He lost command of his voice and faltered to a stop.

Pitt tightened his grip. “I know. My own daughter is willful, erratic, hot-tempered one moment, tender the next.” He could see Jemima in his mind. He remembered holding her as a baby, her tiny, perfect hands clinging to his thumb. He remembered her discovering the world, its wonders and its pain, her innocence, her trust that he could make everything better, and her laughter.

“She can seem so wise I marvel at her,” he went on. “Then the instant after she’s a child again, with no knowledge of the world. She’s a baby and a woman at the same time. She looks so like my wife, and yet when I look into her eyes, it is my own I see looking back at me. I can imagine what you are suffering well enough to know that I know nothing of it at all.”

Castelbranco bent his head and covered his face with his hands.

Pitt let go of his wrist and sat back in his chair, silent for several seconds.

“I have a certain degree of discretion as to what I can investigate,” he said at last. “As you are the ambassador of a country with whom we have a powerful and long-standing treaty, it could be in the national interest that we do not allow you to be victimized in this way while you and your family are in London. That I can do, as a courtesy to you as the representative of your country.”

Castelbranco rose to his feet awkwardly, swaying a little until he regained his balance.

“Thank you, sir. You could not have offered more. I appreciate your understanding.” He bowed and turned round slowly before walking upright to the door. Once outside he closed it softly behind him.

Pitt shifted only slightly, to look out his window, to bring order to his thoughts. He had meant what he said: he could not grasp the enormity of the man’s pain, his helplessness that his child had been destroyed both on earth and, in his belief, in heaven as well; and he had been unable to do anything to prevent it.

Pitt was not sure what he believed of heaven. He had never given it much consideration. Now he was certain he did not worship a God who would condemn a child—and Angeles was little more than that—for any sin, let alone an unproven one, and for which she had already paid such a hideous price.

Castelbranco must be wrong about God’s nature. Such judgment was a law of men, who flexed their muscles to dominate, to keep the disobedient under control, to frighten the willful into submission. God must be better than that, or what exactly is His mercy for?

But that was an argument for another time. Nothing would bring Angeles back. The truth might restore at least her good name, and perhaps help to find some way around the bitter damnation of the Church, the judgment of men who, by their very calling, had no children of their own, no understanding of the endless tenderness a parent feels, no matter how tired, frustrated or temporarily angry.

Did any parent ever put his or her child beyond forgiveness, truly? He could not imagine Charlotte doing so, for all her impetuosity, her high hopes and at times instant judgments, hot tempers, impatience, ungoverned tongue; no, she would defend those she loved to her last breath.

He smiled as he thought of her. She was exasperating, sometimes even a professional liability with her crusading ideas, and, in the past, her incessant meddling in his cases. But she was never, ever a coward. She might have been a lot less trouble if she had been, and a lot safer. And, he admitted, a lot less help. But without question, he would never have loved her as he did.

Heaven help him, was Jemima going to be the same? At three years younger, Daniel was already more levelheaded; Jemima, however, would instinctively, without thought or planning, leap to his defense, right or wrong.

One day she would be a mother like Charlotte: protect first, and chastise afterward. Punish, but forgive. And having forgiven, she would never mention the offense again. Charlotte had once sent Daniel to his room without supper for carrying a grudge after a matter had been resolved.

Pitt knew now at least where he would begin. He rose to his feet and called for Stoker. When he arrived, Pitt gave him his task. Then he went alone to see Isaura Castelbranco.

He caught a hansom with ease, and all too rapidly made his way through the busy, jostling streets to the ambassador’s residence. Perhaps Castelbranco had prepared her, because Isaura received Pitt without any excuses or prevarication. He was asked to wait in the private study, where mirrors were turned to the wall, pictures draped with black and the curtains on the windows pulled all but closed.

Isaura came in quietly. The only sound he heard was the click of the latch as the door closed. She stood straight, but she seemed smaller than he remembered, and her face was bleached of all color except the faint olive of her complexion.

“It is kind of you to come, Mr. Pitt,” she said with a slight huskiness, as if she had not used her voice for quite some time, after so much weeping.

“The ambassador asked me to look into the events leading up to Miss Castelbranco’s death and find out whatever facts I can,” he explained. In the face of her dignity it would be faintly insulting to be anything but direct. “I expect you can tell me at least some things that I do not know.”

A slight movement touched her mouth, almost a smile.

“My husband is deeply grieved. He loved his daughter very much, as did I. But I think perhaps I am a little more realistic as to what may be done.” She looked down for a moment, then up again, meeting his eyes. “Of course part of me wishes for revenge. It is natural. But it is also futile. Anger is a quite understandable reaction to loss. And he has lost his only child. You did not know her, Mr. Pitt, but she was lovely, full of life and dreams, warmhearted …” She stopped, unable for a moment to keep up her brave demeanor. She turned half away from him, concealing her face.

“As you may know, I have a daughter myself, Senhora Castelbranco,” he said. “She is fourteen and already half a woman. I suppose that is why the case matters so much to me. I could easily be in your place.”

“Please God, you will not be.” She turned back to him slowly. Something in his words had allowed her to reclaim at least a semblance of self-mastery. “If you were, you might feel the fury my husband does, the desperate desire to clear our daughter’s name from the slander that is being spread. But your wife would tell you, as I tell the ambassador; we are helpless to bring any charges. It will only prolong the speculation and the gossip. It will cure nothing.”

Pitt was taken aback. She was as much ravaged by grief as her husband, and yet she seemed quite calm in her refusal to take the issue further. It was not defeat. Meeting her eyes he knew she was not emotionally frozen by shock. She spoke from determination, not emptiness.

“Don’t you want to know what happened?” he asked. “If only for your peace of mind … for the future, perhaps?”

Her lips tightened a moment, not a smile so much as a grimace. “I do know, Mr. Pitt. Perhaps I should have told my husband, but I did not. I knew it would …” she drew in a deep breath, “… it would hurt him, with no purpose. There is nothing we can do.”

Pitt was surprised and confused. He knew what Charlotte and Vespasia suspected had happened, where and when, and almost certainly by whom. But would Isaura respond this way if their suspicions were indeed correct?

“I can’t act without your permission, Senhora, but for the sake of the valued relationship between England and Portugal, I must discover what happened,” he said gently.

She blinked her dark eyes. “What happened? A young man who has a twisted soul raped my daughter, and then made light of it. He sought out opportunities to mock her in public with pretended courtesies, and when she retreated from him, he taunted her all the more, until in hysteria she backed away as far as she could, and beyond, crashing through a window to her death. I saw it, and was helpless to do anything to save her. That is what happened.” She stared at him, almost challengingly.

“Forsbrook?” He breathed the name rather than speaking it. He had known from Vespasia and Charlotte, who had witnessed Angeles’s final moments, and yet there was still a monstrousness about it.

“Yes,” Isaura said simply.

“Neville Forsbrook?” he repeated, to be certain. “You knew? When did it happen, and where?”

“Yes, Neville Forsbrook, the son of your famous banker who is responsible for so much investment for your countrymen,” she answered. “I knew because my daughter told me. It happened at a party she attended. Forsbrook was there, among many other young people. He found Angeles alone in one of the apartments looking at the art there. He raped her and left her terrified and bleeding. Here at home one of our maids found her weeping in her room and sent for me.”

“She said she had been raped, and who it was?” He hated pressing her. It seemed pointlessly cruel, and yet if he did not he would only have to come back later to ask.

“She was bleeding,” Isaura replied. “Her clothes were torn and she was bruised. I am a married woman, Mr. Pitt. I am perfectly aware of what happens between a man and a woman. If it is anything like love, or even a heat-of-the-moment weakness, a hunger, it does not leave bruises such as Angeles had.” She lifted her chin. “Do I know it was Neville Forsbrook? Yes, but I cannot prove it. Even if I could, what good would it do?”

She gave a tiny, hopeless shrug. “Angeles is dead. He would only say she was willing, a whore at heart. And his father would turn the goodwill of the people he knows against us. They would close ranks, and we would find ourselves outcast for making a fuss and exposing to the public what should have remained a private sin.”

Pitt did not argue. His mind raced to find a rebuttal, but there was none. Politically, socially, and diplomatically it would be a disaster. The most that would happen to Neville Forsbrook would be that he might marry less fortunately than otherwise. Even that was not certain. He might continue to make people believe that it was all the imagination of a hysterical young foreign girl who had stepped willingly into disgrace, like Eve, possibly even gotten pregnant, then blamed him for it. And there would be no way to prove him a liar.

Even the testimony of the maid who had found Angeles crying and bleeding would hardly be viewed as impartial. The girl’s humiliation would be painted in detail for everyone, and branded in their memories even more deeply than it was now. Isaura was right: they were helpless.

Forsbrook would never allow his son to be blamed, and he had the power to protect him. He would use it. Perhaps it was Pitt’s job to see that it did not come to such a thing.

What would he tell Castelbranco? That England was powerless to protect his daughter’s reputation, or bring to any kind of justice the young man who had raped her and driven her to her death? Not only that, but they felt it better not to try to seek any kind of justice, because it would be uncomfortable, raise fears and questions they preferred to avoid?

And if Castelbranco then thought them barbarous, would he be wrong?

“What about his mother?” Pitt said aloud, casting around for any other avenue at all. “Do you think …?”

She shook her head. “Eleanor Forsbrook died a few years ago, I’m told. There was a terrible carriage accident in Bryanston Mews, just off the square where they live. People speak very well of her. She was generous and beautiful. Perhaps if she were still alive this would not have happened.”

“Probably not,” he conceded. “But the loss of a mother does not excuse this. Most of us lose people we love at some time or other.” He thought of his own father, taken from him when he was a child, unjustly accused of theft and deported to Australia. It was a long time ago now. Nobody was deported anymore. His father had been one of the last. Pitt had no idea if he had even survived the voyage, or what had happened to him if he had. He might still be alive, but he would be old, close to eighty. Pitt wasn’t sure if he even wanted to know his father still lived. He had never returned, or made any contact. It was an old loss better left alone.

“Most of us have wounds of some sort,” he said quietly.

“Of course,” Isaura agreed. “But you see, there is nothing you can do. I am grateful for your kindness in coming to me in person rather than sending a letter.”

He did not want to accept her dismissal.

“I would still like to speak to your maid, Senhora,” he said grimly. “I will be discreet, I give you my word, but I want to know for myself all that I can. Special Branch has a long memory.”

Her eyes flickered for a moment. With hope?

“Of course,” she agreed. “I shall ask her to come.” She turned and left, going out of the door with her head high, her shoulders awkwardly stiff.

Pitt wondered how rash his promise was, and when Isaura Castelbranco would tell her husband the truth. Probably when she was sure he would not take his own revenge. She had faced more than enough grief already.