He felt a rush of excitement boil up inside him, sending the blood into his face. That was ridiculous-she had come to see the letters. It was not personal. She would have come just as quickly, whoever had possessed them.
“Yes.” He swallowed and tried to meet the parlormaid’s eyes quite casually. “By all means. She has come to see some historical documents, so show her into the library, and then bring tea.”
“Yes, sir.” If the parlormaid found it strange, there was nothing in her face to betray it.
He stood up and pulled his jacket a little straighter. Without thinking, he raised his hands to his cravat. It seemed tight. He loosened it a fraction, and made sure in front of the glass that it was properly tied.
Charlotte was in the library. She turned and smiled as the general came in. He did not even notice the warm reds of her street gown, or that her boots were soaked. All he saw was the light in her face.
“Good afternoon, General,” she said quickly. “It is most kind of you to allow me to read the letters. I do hope I have not called inconveniently?”
“No-not at all.” He wished she would use his name, but it would be grossly familiar to ask her to. He must behave with dignity or he would embarrass her. He kept his face cool. “I have no other engagements for the meantime.” He was going to have late tea with Robert Carlton, but that was unimportant; they were old friends and the arrangement was quite informal.
“That is very generous of you.” She was still smiling.
“Please sit down,” he said, indicating the big chair near the fire. “I have asked the maid to bring tea. I hope that is acceptable?”
“Oh, yes, thank you.” She sat down and put her feet on the fender. For the first time, he noticed how wet her boots were, and that they were quite worn. He looked away, and went for the letters out of the bookcase.
They studied them together for half an hour. The maid brought tea, Charlotte poured it, and they returned to the utterly foreign world of Spain at the beginning of the century. The soldier wrote with such intense honesty that they knew his thoughts, felt his emotions, sensed the closeness of other men and the impact of battle, endured with him endless marches over dry hills, his hunger, and the long hours of waiting followed by sudden fear.
At last Charlotte sat back, her eyes wide, seeing far away. “You know, with his writing that soldier has given me a portion of his life. I feel very rich. Most people are restricted to one time and place, and I have been privileged to see another so vividly it is as if I had been there but come away without the injury or the cost.”
He looked at her face, alive with pleasure, and felt ridiculously rewarded. The sense of being alone vanished like night when the whole earth whirls suddenly upward toward the sun.
He found himself smiling back at her. Instinctively he put out his hand and touched her for a moment. The warmth of her spread right through him till his whole body felt it. Then, reluctantly, he withdrew his hand. It was a moment he dared not linger over. The intensity with which he wished to was warning enough.
What could he say that was honest? He would shatter the moment if he were to descend to platitudes, ordinary and born of someone else’s mind. “I’m glad,” he said simply. “It mattered to me, too. I felt as if I knew that soldier better than I know most of the people I see and talk to, and whose lives I thought I understood.”
Her eyes moved away from his and she took a deep breath. He observed the smooth curve of her body, her throat, the fine line of her cheek.
“Merely living close to people does not mean you know them,” she said thoughtfully. “All you know is what they look like.”
Christina came to his mind.
“One tends to believe that other people care about the same things,” she went on. “It comes as a shock to discover sometimes that they don’t. I cannot get the murders in the Devil’s Acre out of my thoughts, and yet most of the people I know prefer not to hear anything about them. The circumstances remind us of poverty and injustices that hurt.” She swung around to look at him, her eyes level. She felt a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry-do you find it unbecoming that I should mention it?”
“I find it offensive and frightening that anyone should be prepared to ignore it,” he said honestly. Would she think him as pompous as Christina did? She could not be more than a few years older than Christina. That was a realization that shot through him with sudden and startling pain. His face flushed and he felt self-conscious. The past hour’s comfort fled. He was being ridiculous.
“General Balantyne?” She spoke very gravely, her hand touching his sleeve. “Are you being kind to me? Are you sure I have not offended you by raising such a subject?”
He cleared his throat. “Of course I’m sure!” He leaned back hard against the upright of his chair, where he could not feel the warmth of her, or smell the faint aroma of lavender and clean hair, a sweet musk of the skin. Wild sensations stirred inside him, and he strained after intelligent thought to drown them. He heard his voice as if it came from far away. “I have tried to discuss the matter. Brandy is most concerned, and Alan Ross as well. But it distresses the women.” Already he was becoming pompous!
But she did not seem to notice. “It is natural Christina should be upset,” she said quietly, looking down at her hands in her lap. “After all, she knew Sir Bertram Astley, and she knows Miss Woolmer, whom he was engaged to marry. It must be much more painful to her than to you or me. And it is only natural that the police will wonder if Mr. Beau Astley could have envied his brother enough to wish him harm, since he stood to inherit both the title and the estates. And of course Miss Woolmer is very fond of him also-I gather he is most charming. As his friend, Christina is bound to feel for him. His situation must be painful because of his bereavement, and most unpleasant in the suspicions that the uncharitable are bound to exercise.”
He considered it, but Christina had expressed no sympathy. In fact, she had given him the impression that she was impatient of the whole affair. But then Charlotte was crediting Christina with the emotions she would have felt herself.
“And, of course, that wretched creature Max Burton used to be footman here,” she continued. “Although you can hardly care about his fate, it is unpleasant to think that any human being you have known should meet such an end.”
“How did you know it was the same man?” he asked in surprise. He did not recall any mention of Callander Square in the newspapers, or of Max’s previous career. And Burton was not an uncommon name.
The color rose in her cheeks and she looked away.
He was sorry for embarrassing her, and yet honesty between them, the ability to say what was truly in the mind, was of overpowering importance to him. “Charlotte?”
“I am afraid I have been listening to gossip,” she said a little defensively. “Emily and I have been engaged in a great effort to bring the conditions of certain people, especially the young involved in prostitution, to the attention of those who have influence. Apparently one cannot legislate against it, but one can move public opinion until those who practice these abuses find their positions intolerable!” Now she looked up and met his eyes, challenging him to disapprove. Nothing he could say would alter her beliefs in the slightest. He felt a surge of joy well up inside him as he realized it.
“My dear,” he said candidly. “I should not wish to be able to.”
A flicker of confusion showed in her eyes. “I beg your pardon?”
“Are you not defying me to try to change your mind, to disapprove of you?”
Her face relaxed into a smile, and he realized with horror how much he wanted to touch her. A unity of minds was not enough; there were things at once too strong and too delicate to be transmitted by such limited means as speech. Things long dormant inside him broke open their barrier with great currents of movement, destroying the balance. He wanted to stretch out this afternoon into an indefinite future with no nightfall, to prevent Augusta from returning and bringing back normality-and loneliness.
Charlotte was looking at him. Had she seen that thought in his face? The light died out of her eyes and she turned away.
“Only on that subject,” she said quietly. “Because I know I am right. There are plenty of other things in which I might well be obliged to agree with you if you were to find me at fault. I find myself at fault!”
He did not know what she was referring to, and it would be an intrusion to ask. But he did not think she was saying it for effect, a false modesty. There was some sense of guilt that disturbed her.
“Everyone has faults, my dear,” he said gently. “In those we love, the virtues outweigh them, and are what matter. The qualities less than good we do not choose to observe. We know them, but they do not offend us. If people were without weakness or need, what could we offer them of ourselves that they could value?”
She stood up quickly, and for a moment he thought there were tears in her eyes. Did she know what he was
