“Well, there’s gold there, and Brazil is Portuguese,” a fourth woman told them, smoothing the silk of her skirt. “So it could well be so. And Angola in the southwest of Africa is Portuguese, and so is Mozambique in southeast Africa, and they say there’s gold there too.”
“Then how did we come to let the Portuguese have it?” the woman in green asked irritably. “Somebody wasn’t paying attention!”
“Perhaps they’ve quarreled?” one of them suggested.
“Who? The Portuguese?” the woman in green demanded. “Or do you mean the Africans?”
“I meant Angeles Castelbranco and Tiago de Freitas,” came the impatient reply. “That would account for her being a bit hysterical.”
“It doesn’t excuse bad manners,” the woman in green said sharply, lifting her rather pronounced chin, and thereby making more of the diamonds at her throat. “If one is indisposed, one should say so and remain at home.”
She found Pitt speaking with a group of people she didn’t know. In case it might be important, she did not interrupt. When there was a break in the discussion, he excused himself temporarily and came over to her.
“Did you find the ambassador’s wife?” he asked, his brow slightly furrowed with concern.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “Thomas, I’m afraid she’s still very upset. It was a miserable thing to do to a young girl from a foreign country. At the very least, he made public fun of her. She’s only sixteen, just two years older than Jemima.” In the moment of saying her own daughter’s name she felt a tug of fear, conscious of how terribly vulnerable Jemima was. She was partway between child and woman, her body seeming to change every week, to leave behind the comfort of girlhood but not yet gain the grace and confidence of an adult.
Pitt looked startled. Clearly he had not even imagined Jemima in a ball gown with her hair coiled up on her head and young men seeing so much more than the child she was.
Charlotte smiled at him. “You should look more carefully, Thomas. Jemima’s still a little self-conscious, but she has curves, and more than one young man has looked at her a second and third time-including her dance teacher and the rector’s son.”
Pitt stiffened.
She put her hand on his arm, gently. “There’s no need to be alarmed. I’m watching. She’s still two years younger than Angeles Castelbranco, and at this age two years is a lot. But she’s full of moods. One minute she’s so happy she can’t stop singing, an hour later she’s in tears or has lost her temper. She quarrels with poor Daniel, who doesn’t know what’s the matter with her, and then she’s so reticent she doesn’t want to come out of her bedroom.”
“I had noticed,” Pitt said drily. “Are you sure it’s normal?”
“Consider yourself lucky,” she replied with a slight grimace. “My father had three daughters. As soon as Sarah was all right, I started, and then when I was more or less sane again, it was Emily’s turn.”
“I suppose I should be grateful Daniel’s a boy,” he said ruefully.
She gave a little laugh. “He’ll have his own set of problems,” she replied. “It’s just that you’ll understand them better-and I won’t.”
He looked at her with sudden, intense gentleness. “She’ll be all right, won’t she?”
“Jemima? Of course.” She refused to think otherwise.
He put his hand over hers and held it. “And Angeles Castelbranco?”
“I expect so, although she looked terribly fragile to me just now. But I expect it’s all the same thing. Sixteen is so very young. I shudder when I remember myself at that age. I thought I knew so much, which shows how desperately little I really did know.”
“I wouldn’t tell Jemima that, if I were you,” he advised.
She gave him a wry look. “I hadn’t planned on it, Thomas.”
Two hours later the idea had crossed Pitt’s mind a few times that he and Charlotte could finally excuse themselves and go home, satisfied that duty had been fulfilled. He caught sight of her at the far side of the room, talking to Vespasia. Watching them, he could not help smiling. Charlotte’s dark, chestnut-colored hair was almost untouched by gray; Vespasia’s was totally silver. To him, Charlotte was increasingly lovely, and he never tired of looking at her. He knew she did not have the staggering beauty that was still there in Vespasia’s face-the grace of her bones, the delicacy-but he could see so much of each in Charlotte’s poise and vitality. Standing together now, they spoke as if they were oblivious to the rest of the room.
He became aware of someone near him, and turned to see Victor Narraway a few feet over, looking in the same direction. His face was unreadable, his eyes so dark they seemed black, his thick hair heavily streaked with silver. Less than a year ago he had been Pitt’s superior in Special Branch, a man with access to a host of secrets and the iron will to use them as need and conscience dictated. He also had a steadiness of nerve Pitt thought he himself might never achieve.
Betrayal from within the department had cost Narraway his position and Pitt had been set in his place, his enemies sure he would not have the steel in his soul to succeed. They had been wrong, at least so far. But Victor Narraway had remained out of office, removed to the House of Lords, where his abilities were wasted. There were always committees, and political intrigues of one sort or another, but nothing that offered the immense power he had once wielded. That in itself might not matter to him, but to be unable to use his extraordinary talents was a loss he surely found hard to bear.
“Looking for the cue to go home?” Narraway asked with a slight smile, reading Pitt as easily as he always had.
“It’s not far off midnight. I don’t think we really need to stay much longer,” Pitt agreed, returning the slightly rueful smile. “It’ll probably take half an hour to make all the appropriate goodbyes.”
“And Charlotte, another half hour after that,” Narraway added, glancing across the room toward Charlotte and Vespasia.
Pitt shrugged, not needing to answer. The remark was made with affection-or probably more than that, as he well knew.
Before his train of thought could go any further, they were joined by a slender man well into his forties. His dark hair was threaded with gray at the temples but there was a youthful energy in his unusual face. He was not exactly handsome-his nose was not straight and his mouth was a little generous-but the vitality in him commanded not only attention but an instinctive liking.
“Good evening, m’lord,” he said to Narraway. Then without hesitation, he turned to Pitt, holding out his hand. “Rawdon Quixwood,” he introduced himself.
“Thomas Pitt,” Pitt responded.
“Yes, I know.” Quixwood’s smile widened. “Perhaps I am not supposed to, but seeing you standing here talking so comfortably with Lord Narraway, the conclusion is obvious.”
“Either that, or he has no idea who I am,” Narraway said drily. “Or who I was.” There was no bitterness in his voice, or even in his eyes, but Pitt knew how the dismissal had hurt and guessed how heavily Narraway’s new idleness weighed on him. A joke passed off lightly, a touch of self-mockery, did not hide the wound. But perhaps if Pitt had been so easily deceived he would not belong in the leadership of Special Branch now. All his adult life in the police had made understanding people as second nature to him as dressing a certain way, or exercising courtesy or discretion. Seeing through the masks of privacy worn by friends was a different matter. He would have preferred not to.
“If he did not know who you were, my lord, he would be a total outsider,” Quixwood responded pleasantly. “And I saw him speaking with Lady Vespasia half an hour ago, which excludes that as a possibility.”
“She speaks to outsiders,” Narraway pointed out. “In fact, I have come to the conclusion that at times she prefers them.”
“With excellent judgment,” Quixwood agreed. “But they do not speak to her. She is somewhat intimidating.”
Narraway laughed, and there was genuine enjoyment in the sound.
