usual?”
“I think so. And he is not averse to advocating action in their cause.”
“Oh.” She felt it as a breath of chill, no more. She should not have been surprised. She looked across at the man more closely. It was a strong face, sharp, intelligent, moved by powerful emotion. She would have judged him a man who yielded no ground to anyone, and whose overt good nature might very easily mask a temper that could be ugly if roused. But first impressions could be mistaken.
“Do you wish to meet him?” Carlisle asked curiously.
“Perhaps,” she replied. “But I am quite sure I do not wish him to know that I do.”
Carlisle grinned. “I shall make sure he does not,” he promised. “It would be grossly presumptuous. I shall certainly not allow him to affect airs above his station. If it is contrived at all, he will believe it was his idea and he is profoundly grateful that I have accomplished it for him.”
“Somerset, you verge on the impertinent,” she answered, aware that she was very fond of him. He was brave, absurd, passionate about his beliefs, and beneath the flippant exterior, pleasingly unique. She had always loved eccentrics.
* * *
It was after midnight and Vespasia was beginning to wonder if she wished to stay much longer, when she heard a voice which dissolved time, hurling her back about half a century to an unforgettable summer in Rome: 1848, the year of revolutions throughout Europe. For a wild, euphoric time—all too brief—dreams of freedom had spread like fire across France, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. Then one by one they had been destroyed. The barricades had been stormed, the people broken, and the popes and kings had taken back their power. The reform had been overturned and trampled under the feet of soldiers. In Rome it had been the French soldiers of Napoleon III.
She almost did not turn to look. Whoever it was, it could only be an echo. It was memory playing a trick, an intonation that sounded the same, some Italian diplomat, perhaps from the same region, even the same town. She thought she had forgotten him, forgotten the whole tumultuous year with its passion, its hope and all the courage and pain, and in the end the loss.
She had been back to Italy since then, but never to Rome. She had always found a way to avoid that, without explaining why. It was a separate part of her life, an existence quite different from the realities of her marriage, her children, of London, even of her recent adventures with the extraordinary policeman Thomas Pitt. Who could have imagined that Vespasia Cumming-Gould, the ultimate aristocrat who could trace her blood to half the royal houses of Europe, could join forces with a gamekeeper’s son who had become a policeman? But then worrying what others thought crippled half the people she knew, and denied them all manner of passion and joy, and pain. Then she did turn. It was not really a thought so much as a reaction she could not help.
A dozen feet away stood a man almost her own age. He had been in his twenties when she met him, slender, dark, lithe as a dancer, and with that voice that filled her dreams.
Now his hair was gray, he was a little heavier, but the bones were still the same, the sweep of his brows, the smile.
As if he had felt her stare, he turned towards her, for a moment ignoring the man he was speaking with.
His recognition of her was instant, with no moment of doubt, no hesitation.
Then she was afraid. Could reality ever be equal to memory? Had she allowed herself to believe more than had really happened? Was the woman of her youth even remotely like the woman she was today? Or would she find time and experience had made her too wise to be able to see the dream anymore? Did she need to see him in the passion of youth, with the Roman sun on his face, a gun in his hand as he stood at the barricades, prepared to die for the republic?
He was coming towards her.
Panic drenched her like a wave, but habit, the self-discipline of a lifetime, and absurd hope prevented her from leaving. He stopped in front of her.
Her heart was beating in her throat. She had loved many times in her life, sometimes with fire, sometimes with laughter, usually with tenderness, but never anyone else as she had loved Mario Corena.
“Lady Vespasia.” He said the words quite formally, as if they were merely acquaintances, but his voice was soft, caressing the syllables. It was, after all, a Roman name, as he had told her, teasingly, so long ago. The Emperor Vespasian was no hero.
It was her correct title. Should she reply equally correctly? After all they had shared, the hope, the passion, and the tragedy, it seemed like a denial. There was no one else listening.
“Mario …” It was strange to say his name again. Last time she had whispered it in the darkness, tears choking her throat, her cheeks wet. The French troops were marching into Rome. Mazzini had surrendered to save the people. Garibaldi had gone north towards Venice, his pregnant wife fighting beside him, dressed as a man, carrying a gun like everyone else. The Pope had returned and undone all the reforms, wiped out the debt, the liberty, and the soul in one act.
But that was all in the past. Italy was united now; that much at least had come true.
He was searching her eyes, her face. She hoped he would not say she was still beautiful. He was the one man to whom it had never mattered.
Should she say something to forestall him? A trite word now would be unbearable. But if she spoke, then she would never know. There was no time left for games.
“I have often imagined meeting you again,” he said at last. “I never thought it would happen … until today.” He gave the tiniest shrug. “I arrived in London a week ago. I could not be here without thinking of you. I quarreled with myself whether I should even enquire for you, or if dreams are best left undisturbed. Then someone mentioned your name, and all the past returned to me as if it were yesterday, and I had no power to deny myself. I thought you would be here.” He glanced around the magnificent room with its smooth pillars, its dazzling chandeliers, the swirl of music and laughter and wine.
She knew exactly what he meant. This was her world of money, privilege, all of it passed down by blood. Perhaps in some distant past it had been earned, but not by these men and women here now.
