eyes. He waited, frowning a little. Even as she said it she was uncertain. “She wasn’t just angry, Thomas, she was terrified. We saw her over a week ago, Vespasia and I. She was frightened then too.”
He frowned. “Are you certain? Frightened of what?”
“Yes, I am sure. Vespasia thinks-we both thought-that Angeles had been assaulted.”
“Assaulted? Do you mean raped?” He was trying to keep the incredulity out of his voice but it was there in his eyes.
“Yes, I do.” She pictured in her mind Angeles’s face in the marquee when the young man had spoken to her. It was not distaste that had made her back away in such an extreme manner, it had been fear, a reaction to something else. “Yes, I do,” she repeated.
“I’m sorry,” he said very quietly. “I wish it were not so. But does it matter now? Would it not be better for everyone, especially her parents, if we did not raise that question?”
“If somebody did that to her, it’s appalling!” she protested. “It’s one of the worst crimes you can commit against a woman. It’s the reason she was so terrified.”
“Do you know that for certain?”
“No, of course I don’t! But what does anyone know about a crime for certain, before you investigate?” Even as she said it she knew her words were hollow. It was a nightmare dancing at the edge of her mind. She did not know the shape or even the reality of it. “I …” she started, and then stopped again.
“I know.” He touched her cheek. “You feel as if there ought to have been something you could’ve done. We all feel that after a tragedy.”
“Can we at least do anything to help now?” Charlotte asked.
“I doubt it, but I’ll try. Perhaps you should find Aunt Vespasia. I won’t be any longer than I have to. No doubt the police will come quickly.”
“I suppose so. Should I say anything, if they ask me?”
“Tell them exactly what you saw. And be careful-only what you saw,
“I know!” She calmed herself deliberately. “I know.”
All around her people were huddled together, many in silence. The police had arrived and were speaking to them, making notes of what everyone said. Footmen moved among them almost silently, offering whatever refreshment might help, including quite a few stiff shots of brandy.
As Charlotte had expected, the police spoke with her. She was very deliberate in her answers, adding nothing to the facts.
“Is that all you saw?” a gaunt-faced older policeman asked her doubtfully. “You seem much more …” he searched for the word, “… composed than the other ladies I’ve spoken to. Do you know something more about what happened?”
She met his eyes. “No.” Was that a lie? “My husband is head of Special Branch,” she explained. “Perhaps I am just a little more careful of what I say. I want to tell you what I saw, not what I felt or might have imagined.”
“Special Branch?” His eyes opened wider. “Is this-?”
“We came socially,” she answered him. “The entire incident happened without any warning. One moment it was nothing, and then within seconds it became ugly.”
He frowned. “Ugly? What do you mean, Mrs. Pitt? Were there threats? An assault of some kind? Or something that Miss Castelbranco might have interpreted as an assault?” He looked puzzled now.
“No, just hectoring, though it seemed mean-spirited. Miss Castelbranco was clearly upset, and Mr. Forsbrook didn’t let it go. Everyone else could see that it was no longer funny, but he seemed to …” She stopped, aware that finishing her train of thought was more than she wished to say.
“Yes?” he prompted her.
“I don’t know. He just wouldn’t leave her alone.”
“Were you acquainted with Miss Castelbranco, Mrs. Pitt?”
“Only slightly. If you are asking if she confided anything to me, she did not. I can tell you only what I saw.”
She met Vespasia later, just before they were permitted to leave. Vespasia was as immaculate as always, but she looked tired and pale, and she was clearly distressed.
“What are you going to say?” Charlotte asked her when they had a few moments alone in a small anteroom off the main hallway.
“I have been turning over all possibilities in my mind,” Vespasia answered slowly. “But we do not know the reason for what happened; we can only guess. I think the bare truth, without interpretation, is all either of us can afford to say.”
Charlotte stared at her. “That is what Pitt said. But we know she was terrified. If we say nothing then aren’t we lying, by omission?”
“Terrified of what, or of whom?” Vespasia said very quietly.
“Of … of Neville Forsbrook,” Charlotte replied.
“Or of something she believed about Neville Forsbrook,” Vespasia went on. “That may or may not have been true.”
Charlotte felt helpless. If they voiced their own fears about what had happened to Angeles, speculation would run wild. Neville Forsbrook was alive to defend himself, and so were his friends. He could say that Angeles was hysterical, that she had misunderstood a remark; perhaps her English was not so fluent as to grasp a joke or a colloquialism. Or even that she had had rather too much champagne. Any of those explanations could even be true, though Charlotte did not believe any of them.
“So there is nothing we can do?” she asked aloud.
Vespasia’s eyes were full of pain. “Nothing that I know of,” she replied. “If it were your child, what would you want strangers to do, apart from grieve with you, and make no speculation or gossip?”
“Nothing,” Charlotte agreed.
She rode home silently with Pitt. When they alighted and went inside, Charlotte went directly up the stairs. As gently as she could, she opened Jemima’s bedroom door and stared at her daughter, sleeping in the faint light that came through the imperfectly drawn curtains. Her face was completely untroubled. Her hair, so like Charlotte’s own, was spread across the pillow, unraveled out of its braids. She could have been a child still, not on the verge of womanhood at all.
Charlotte found herself smiling, even as tears ran down her cheeks.
CHAPTER 6
Vespasia was deeply troubled by the terrible death of Angeles Castelbranco. She went over and over it in her mind, waking in the night and turning up the light in her elegant bedroom. She felt the urge to see her familiar belongings, to become rooted again in her own life with the beauty and the pleasures she was accustomed to. But with that came also the deep, almost suppressed loneliness that underlay it all.
At least she was physically safe from everything except illness and age. As the events at Dorchester Terrace a short while ago had reminded her so painfully, no one was free from those. Death need not be gentle, even in one’s own home. The only thing one could do was have courage, and keep faith in an ultimate goodness beyond the limited sight of the flesh.
Of course faith was of little use now to Isaura Castelbranco; and Angeles, poor child, was beyond the reach of any of them.
But whoever had brought about her death, even indirectly-and Vespasia was certain that someone had-he need not be beyond the reach of justice, and maybe even more important, of being prevented from ever doing such a thing again.
Vespasia had heard of the death of Catherine Quixwood, and the speculation as to the nature of her attack. She knew that Victor Narraway had involved himself in the case and wondered if he really had any perception of
