did, you know, and there is much that is fascinating, and I would not have missed, but my goodness it can be uncomfortable at times. I found I am not cut out for physical adventure. Do you know, in Africa I saw-” And the grisly account of what she saw was lost as the two of them drifted away, leaving Fitz alone with Anstiss and Charlotte.
“Very tactful,” Anstiss said dryly without glancing at Emily’s back, although his meaning was quite apparent. “A woman of considerable poise-most necessary for a man who has any hope of surviving in politics.” There was no compromise in his eyes, hard, bleak light gray. “I take it from your reluctance that you have reservations about marrying Miss Morden? Surely you are not still thinking of that wretched Hilliard girl? Very pretty, but not remotely possible as a wife.”
A flash of anger sparked in Fitz’s face.
Anstiss ignored it. He had no need to tread warily. He held the patronage and he knew it.
“Whatever her morality, Fitzherbert-and it is open to question, even at the most charitable interpretation-her reputation is ruined.”
“I beg to differ,” Fitz said with freezing civility. “There has been a little whispering, largely by the idle and ill informed.”
“By society,” Anstiss snapped. “And whatever your opinion of them, or of their intelligence, you would do well to remember it is they who will put you in Parliament-or keep you out!”
A pink flush spread up Fitz’s cheeks, but he was stubborn in his convictions.
“I do not wish to owe my success to those who would grant it to me at the same time as they tear down the reputation of a young woman about whom they know nothing.”
“My dear Fitzherbert, they know she was publicly accused of being Carswell’s mistress, and she made not the slightest effort to deny it. On the contrary, she said nothing at all, and fled the scene-which is a confession of guilt. Not even a fool would deny that.”
Fitz’s face was unyielding, but he had no argument. Whatever his belief, the facts were as Anstiss had said. He was painfully unhappy, but he refused to give ground. He stood upright, head high, lips tight.
“Can you give me a date when you will marry Miss Morden?” Anstiss said levelly, his voice courteous and cold. “Keep Miss Hilliard as a mistress if you wish, only for God’s sake be discreet about it. And wait a couple of years- she’ll still be in the business.”
“That is not my standard of morality, sir,” Fitz said stiffly. His face was hot as he was hideously aware of how pompous he sounded, and how offensive, but unable to retreat. “I am surprised that you should suggest such a thing.”
Anstiss smiled sourly. “It is not mine either, Fitzherbert. But then I have no amorous interest in Miss Hilliard. You have made it apparent that you do. I am telling you that is the only arrangement with such a woman that society will accept.”
Fitz stood ramrod straight.
“We shall see.” He bowed. “Good day, sir.”
“Good-bye,” Anstiss replied with the faintest inclination of his head. The dismissal was unmistakable and absolute.
Fitz turned away. With a glance at Anstiss by way of excusing herself, Charlotte followed Fitz through the crowd, as he trod on skirts, brushed past people balancing glasses and plates, till he stood next to a glorious rosebush trailing flowers over an ornamental arch.
There he stopped and faced her.
“I hope you haven’t come to argue me out of it? No-of course you haven’t. You are Mrs. Radley’s sister.”
“I am also Fanny’s friend,” Charlotte said with chill.
He blushed. “I’m sorry. That was appallingly rude, and quite unjustified. I have no one to blame but myself, for any of it. And I’ve treated Odelia abominably. I hope her father will break off our engagement officially, and say that I have consorted with an unsuitable woman and proved myself unworthy of his daughter. Otherwise her reputation…” He left the rest unsaid. They both knew the ugly speculations that followed when a man jilted a young woman. There was the inevitable whisper that he had discovered she was not above suspicion.
“That will damage your own reputation,” Charlotte pointed out. “And untruly.”
“Not untruly. I have consorted with totally unsuitable women.”
“Have you?”
“Fanny…”
“You haven’t consorted with her-you have met her only socially in a way we all have.”
“I will have consorted with her by then-if you will be good enough to tell me where I may find her? You said across the river.”
“I don’t know where, but I can find out, if you are sure. She did not deny her relationship with Mr. Carswell, you know.”
He was very pale.
“I know.”
A few yards to the left a large gentleman in a hussar’s uniform gave a roar of laughter and slapped the shoulders of a slender young man with a large mustache. Behind them two ladies laughed vacuously.
“What Lord Anstiss says is true,” Charlotte went on carefully. But there was a growing hope in her, quite unreasonable and against all her common sense. What happiness could there be for Fitz and Fanny Hilliard? Even if he was rash enough to marry her, and she accepted him, that would not lift her to his social status. His friends would never look upon her as one of them. Whatever they supposed the truth to be, they would remember the charges, and that she had not denied them. She was a loose woman, and he a fool for marrying her. And Anstiss had made it plain that selection for Parliament was ended. Fanny would have to realize what it would cost him. And knowing Fanny better than Fitz did, Charlotte thought she would not marry him at that price.
The hussar hailed someone he knew and went striding over, crying out loudly.
“And consider it from Fanny’s view,” Charlotte went on. “If she loves you, she will not accept you at such a price to you. What happiness would that give her?”
He stared at her, not with the derision she had expected, but with suddenly candid eyes and a dawning brilliance in them.
“You think she loves me? You do. And far more to the point, Mrs. Pitt, you think her a woman of selflessness and such honor that she would prize my welfare and my reputation above her own, and her security as my wife.” Impulsively he put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her cheek. “Bless you, Mrs. Pitt, for a devious and unconventional woman. Now you will find out for me where I may call upon Fanny, because having gone this far you cannot now abandon me. And you will do your brother-in-law a favor, because he is an excellent fellow, and will make a fine member of Parliament, thoroughly acceptable to his lordship, having a wife above criticism, intelligent, tactful, charming and I suspect extremely clever. And her reputation is spotless.”
“I will find out,” she agreed with a rueful smile. “But I will ask Fanny if she wishes to receive you.”
“No-don’t do that. She will refuse. Allow me to press my own suit. I give you my word I will not harass her. And she has a brother to protect her-just tell me where I may call. For heaven’s sake, Mrs. Pitt, I am gentleman enough not to pay my attentions where they are unwanted.”
Charlotte bit her lip to suppress her amusement.
“Have they ever been unwanted, Mr. Fitzherbert?”
A little of the natural color returned to his face. He was being teased, and he could see it.
“Not often,” he admitted with a spark of the old humor. “But I think I’ll know it if I see it. Promise me.”
“I promise,” she conceded. “Now I must return to Emily and see what progresses. I shall send the address to her, and you may fetch it there.”
And with that he was content. He thanked her again and she excused herself and threaded her way back to where Emily was talking about climate to a retired colonel with a bristling mustache and stentorian opinions about India.
While Charlotte was attending the garden party, Pitt returned to the job he hated of further investigating Samuel Urban. It was something he could not avoid, whatever his personal liking for the man or his desire to believe him guilty of no more than misjudgment, and seeking a second and forbidden income in a manner which would have been perfectly legal had he not been in the police. It was far preferable in his mind to Latimer’s gambling and condoning of bare-knuckle fistfighting. But bitter experience had taught him that people otherwise law abiding and
