Emily knew she was intruding, but there was no time for delicacy. “Why did you need her, Rose? What could she possibly give you that matters so much right now?”
“She was my contact with the other side, of course!” Rose said impatiently. “Now I have to find someone else and start all over again! There isn’t time. .” She bit back the words, knowing she had already said too much.
“Time before what?” Emily pressed. “The election? Is it something to do with the election?” Questions as to why Thomas was still here in London crowded into her mind.
Rose’s expression was closed. “Before Aubrey wins his seat and takes up a place in Parliament,” she answered. “And I have much less privacy.”
She was still lying, or at least telling a half-truth, but Emily could not prove it. Why? Was it a political secret or a personal one? How could she find out? “The man who was here from the police, what did you tell him?” she urged.
“About the other two clients who were there that evening, of course.” Rose stood up and walked over to the bowl of peonies and delphiniums on the wrought-iron table. She poked absentmindedly at the stems, rearranging them to no advantage. “The man from Bow Street seemed to think one of them had done it.” She gave a shiver and tried to disguise it with a shrug. “He was not as I would expect a policeman to be,” she continued. “He was very quiet and polite, but he made me uncomfortable. I would like to think he wouldn’t come again, but I expect he will. Unless, of course, they find very quickly who it was. It must be the man who didn’t believe, I should think. It wouldn’t be the soldier who wished to speak to his son. He cares just as much as I do.”
Emily was confused. She had no idea what Rose was talking about, but this was not the time to admit it. “And if he found something he didn’t like?” she said softly. “What then?”
Rose stopped with a delphinium in her hand, still lifted in the air, her face pinched, eyes miserable. “Then he would be crushed,” she answered, her voice husky. “He would go away in despair. . and. . and try to heal himself, I suppose. I don’t know how. What does one do when. . when you hear the unbearable?”
“Some people would retaliate,” Emily answered, watching Rose’s stiff back, the silk twisted as she stood half turned. “If nothing else, at least to make sure no one else heard the unendurable thing.” Her imagination raced, in spite of the pity she felt for Rose’s very obvious distress. Who were the men? What reason could they have had for killing the medium? What secret had Rose stumbled into?
“That’s what the policeman suggested,” Rose said after a second.
Emily knew that Tellman had been promoted now that Pitt was gone from Bow Street.
“Tellman?” she asked.
“No. . Pitt, his name was.”
Emily breathed out slowly. Now a great deal of it made ugly and frightening sense. There was no doubt anymore that the murder of the spiritualist was a political matter, or Pitt would not have been called. Special Branch could surely not have foreseen it? Could they? Charlotte had told her little of what his new duties were, but Emily knew enough of current affairs to be well aware that Special Branch dealt only with violence, anarchy, threats to the government and the throne, and the ensuing danger to the peace of the nation.
Rose still had her back to Emily. She had seen nothing. Now Emily was torn between one loyalty and another. She had asked Jack to support Aubrey Serracold, and he had been reluctant, even though he would not admit it. Now she understood that he was right. She had taken it for granted that Jack would win his seat again, with all the opportunities and the benefits that it afforded. Maybe she had been hasty in that. There were forces she had not appreciated, or Pitt would not be bothering with one unfortunate crime of passion or fraud in Southampton Row.
One obvious thought crossed her mind. If Rose had unwittingly told this woman of some incident in her past, some indiscretion, a stupid act that would now look ugly, then the possibilities for political blackmail were only too clear. And such a woman could incite motive for murder so easily.
She stared at Rose now, at the wry, eccentric elegance of her, the passion in her face so easy to read behind the thin veneer of sophistication. She pretended she had everything, but there was some wound there, raw and easy to see, even if its nature was not.
“Why did you go to Maude Lamont?” Emily said bluntly. “You’re going to have to tell Pitt one day. He’ll go on looking until he finds out, and in the process uncover all sorts of other things you might very much rather were kept discreet.”
Rose’s eyebrows arched. “Really? You sound as if you know him. He hasn’t been investigating you, has he?” It was said mockingly, a joke to divert the attention, and with an edge of challenge in it sharp enough to make Emily respond-at least that was what was intended.
“It would be a waste of his time, and hardly necessary,” Emily said with a smile. “He’s my brother-in-law. He already knows everything about me that he wishes to.” It was momentary amusement to watch the shock in Rose’s face, the hesitation as she struggled to decide whether Emily was making fun of her or not, and then a surge of anger when she realized it was true.
“That dashed policeman is some kind of a relative of yours?” she said with disgust. “I think in the circumstances you might have mentioned it!” She made a quick little gesture of dismissal. “Although I suppose if I were related to a policeman, I wouldn’t tell anyone, either! Not that I would be!” It was said as an insult, and meant as such.
Emily felt the anger rise up inside her, hot and harsh. She rose to her feet with a retort already formed just as the door opened and Aubrey Serracold came in. His long, fair face had its usual air of wry good humor and the slight twist to his mouth as if he would smile were he certain quite when and to whom it was appropriate. His pale hair fell a little forward, lopsidedly, over his brow. As always, he was immaculately dressed, today in a black jacket and faintly striped trousers, his cravat perfectly tied. His valet probably regarded it as an art form. The chill was glaringly apparent in the positions and the stiffness of both women, the distance between them and the way they were half turned. But good manners directed that he affect not to have noticed.
“Emily, how nice to see you,” he said with such natural pleasure it was possible to believe for a moment that he was oblivious of the atmosphere. He came towards her, touching Rose on the arm in a gesture of affection as he passed her. “You are standing,” he observed to Emily. “I hope that means you have just arrived, not that you are just leaving? I am feeling a trifle bruised around the edges, like an overripe dessert peach that too many people have picked up and then decided against.” He smiled ruefully. “I had no idea how terribly tedious it would be arguing with people who are really not listening to a word you say, and have long since decided what you mean, and that it is nonsense. Have you had tea?”
He looked around for signs of a tray or any other evidence of recent refreshment. “Perhaps it’s too late. I think I’ll have a whiskey.” He reached for the bell cord to fetch the butler. A flash in his eye betrayed that he knew he was talking too much to cover the silence, but he went on anyway. “Jack did warn me that most people have already made up their minds what they believe, which will be either the same as their fathers before them-and grandfathers, too-or in a few instances the direct opposite, and that argument of any sort is so much wind in the trees. I admit I thought he was being cynical.” He shrugged. “Give him my apologies, Emily. He is a man of infinite sagacity.”
Emily forced herself to smile back at him. She disagreed with Aubrey over a score of things, mostly political, but she could not help herself from liking him, and none of this was his fault. His company was sharp, immediate and very seldom unkind. “Just experience,” she answered him. “He says people vote with their hearts, not their heads.”
“Actually, he meant their bellies.” Laughter lit Aubrey’s eyes and then vanished. “How can we ever improve the world if we think no further than tomorrow’s dinner?” He glanced at Rose, but she remained grimly silent, still half turned away from Emily as if refusing to acknowledge her presence anymore.
“Well, if we don’t have tomorrow’s dinner we won’t survive into this wonderful future,” Emily pointed out. “Nor our children,” she added more soberly.
“Indeed,” Aubrey said quietly. Suddenly all levity vanished. They were talking about things for which they all cared intensely. Only Rose stood still rigid, her inner fear not swept away.
“More justice would bring more food, Emily,” Aubrey said with passionate gravity. “But men hunger for vision as well as bread. People need to believe in themselves, that what they do is better than simply toil in return for enough to survive, and barely that for many.”
In her heart Emily wanted to agree with him, but her brain told her he was dreaming too far ahead. It was
