“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
