concern you, Mr. Pitt?”
Pitt answered with a slight smile. “It has to do with another matter, one I cannot discuss. If you won’t tell me, I am obliged to suppose that the rumors I’ve heard regarding the entire situation may be correct. I am hoping they are not, and that for the sake of the pleasant relations that have existed between Britain and Portugal for half a millennium, I can lay them to rest.” He let the invitation hang in the air for de Freitas to pick up.
The younger man hesitated, caught in uncertainty. A very slight flush of annoyance colored his cheeks.
“I had preferred not to speak of it for the sake of her family, but you force my hand.” He gave a very slight shrug, not perhaps as discreetly as he had intended. “The engagement was ended.”
“How long before her death did that happen, Mr. de Freitas?”
Tiago looked startled. “I really don’t see how this can be of concern to the British Secret Service.” There was a touch of anger in his voice now. “It is a very personal matter.”
“The announcement of a betrothal to marry is a very public event,” Pitt pointed out. “It is not possible to end it entirely privately, however personal the cause may be.”
De Freitas seemed to hover between irritation and capitulation. Seconds passed as he fought with a decision.
“I am trying to quell rumors that can only hurt the Portuguese ambassador to Britain, Mr. de Freitas,” Pitt pressed. “It is a small courtesy we can accord him at the time of a very dreadful loss. Miss Castelbranco was his only child, as I am sure you are aware.”
De Freitas nodded. “Yes, yes, of course.” He let out a very slight sigh. “We broke our engagement less than a week before she died. I’m sorry about it, of course I am.”
Pitt noticed how gracefully de Freitas had evaded the issue of who made the initial move to end the relationship. The way he said it, the decision sounded like an inevitable mutual agreement.
“Was Miss Castelbranco extremely upset?” Pitt asked, determined to force the young man into an answer.
De Freitas looked up sharply, his face reflecting a sudden anger. “If you are suggesting that her death was … was a result of my breaking off an engagement, then you are completely mistaken.” He lifted his chin a little. “It was she who ended it.”
“Indeed? What reason did she give? One does not do such a thing lightly. Her parents would have been most distressed. As I imagine yours were also.”
De Freitas did not answer for several moments, then he gave a brief, tight smile. “You have me at something of a disadvantage, Mr. Pitt. I had hoped to give you a vague answer, and that you would be gentleman enough to accept it. I’m afraid I cannot say anything further without dishonoring a young woman I had thought to make my wife. Of course I understand you wish to protect her reputation, and give her family whatever comfort is possible, and I respect you for it. Indeed, I admire it. However, to assist you in that I must decline to say anything more. I’m sorry.”
“So it wasn’t she, but you who broke the engagement,” Pitt concluded.
De Freitas shrugged. “I’ve told you, sir. I can say nothing more. Let her rest in peace … for everyone’s sake.”
Pitt knew he would get no more from Tiago de Freitas. He thanked him for his time and walked back through the hushed, wood-lined corridors.
“You mean he implied that it was he who broke it off, and that he was lying to protect her?” Charlotte said incredulously that evening when Pitt was home and dinner was finished and cleared away. They were in the parlor, with the windows ajar. The slight breeze carried in the rustle of leaves and the smell of earth and cut grass. The door to the passageway was closed. Daniel and Jemima were in their respective bedrooms reading.
“More or less,” Pitt conceded. He was not sitting. He felt too restless to settle down; perhaps because Charlotte was so angry she also could not sit.
She looked stricken. “So whatever it is they are saying, he either believes it or he doesn’t care because he wanted to be rid of her anyway,” she accused.
“The engagement was broken off before she died,” Pitt pointed out, shaking his head.
“Exactly!” she retorted. “He listened to some rumor and abandoned her!” Her face was flushed and her eyes brilliant. She was so quick to defend the vulnerable. He loved her for it and he would not change her, even in situations when it would be far wiser to weigh the matter first. She had been wrong before, dangerously so, but that did not stop her.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she accused him. “Of course I might be wrong. Would you be weighing it this carefully if it had happened to someone we were close to?”
“But it isn’t,” he said reasonably.
“It isn’t this time! What about when it is?” she demanded.
He took a deep breath and turned to face her. “If something like this were to happen to someone we love, God forbid, I would be just as furious as you are, just as hurt, and just as impetuous,” he admitted. “And it would also probably do no good at all. Loving someone makes you care passionately. It makes you a decent person, warm, vulnerable, generous, and brave. But it doesn’t make you right, and it certainly doesn’t make you effective in finding the truth.”
“I think the truth is she was raped,” she said quietly, tears suddenly bright in her eyes.
“And I still can’t believe that anyone would truly blame her for that,” he responded.
“Oh, Thomas! Don’t be so … blind!” she said desperately. “Of course they can blame her. They have to! If they don’t, they have to accept that it can happen to anyone, to them or their daughters.”
She shook her head. “Or else you’re the kind of person who has to stand and stare at it, probe to see where it hurts the most, and make yourself important by knowing something other people don’t.” Her voice was brittle with contempt. “Then you can be the center of attention while you tell everyone else, making up any details you might not happen to know.”
He took a step toward her, touching her lightly. Her arms were rigid under his fingers. The wind outside rattled harder in the trees and blew in through the door with the first patter of rain and the sweet, rich smell of damp earth.
“Aren’t you being a little hard on everyone, generally?” he asked.
Her eyes widened. “You mean I’m being a bit hysterical, perhaps? Because I’m afraid that one day it could be our daughter?”
“No,” he said firmly. “Rape is very rare, thank God, and Jemima will not be allowed to keep the company of any young man we don’t know, or whose family we don’t know.”
“For the love of heaven, Thomas!” Charlotte said between her teeth. “How on earth would you know how many rapes there are? Who is going to talk about it? Who’s going to report it to the police? And do you really think that it’s never young men we
Pitt felt a sudden icy twinge of fear, and then helplessness. His imagination raced.
She saw it in his eyes, and bent her head forward to rest her brow against his neck. The wind ruffled her skirt and then pushed the door wider, so it banged against the wall.
“It’s a hidden crime. All we can do is bite the heads off anyone who speaks lightly or viciously about Angeles Castelbranco. And don’t tell me I shouldn’t do that. I don’t care if it’s appropriate or suitable. I care about protecting her mother.”
He slid his arms around her and held her very tightly.
Pitt could not devote his own time to making discreet inquiries into the character and reputation of Angeles Castelbranco, and to send anyone else might raise more speculation than it would answer. Why would any man unrelated to the girl be asking such questions unless there was cause to suspect something; for example, her virtue?
He was still weighing the various possibilities open to him, and discarding them one by one, when two days later Castelbranco came to his office again, his face even more haggard than before. He seemed barely able to stand and he gripped his hands together when he sat in the chair Pitt offered him, as though to keep them from trembling. Twice he began to speak and then stopped.
