in check only with extreme difficulty.
Aloysia noticed nothing.
“How do you do, Mrs. Radley, Mrs. Pitt,” she said with a smile. “Tallulah my dear, are your guests remaining for dinner? I think now would be an appropriate time to inform Cook.”
“No.” Tallulah forced out the word between clenched teeth. “They have previous matters to attend to which would make that impossible.”
“What a shame,” Aloysia said with a slight shrug.
“It would have been pleasant to have an interesting conversation over the dinner table. Men tend to talk about politics so much of the time, don’t you think?”
“Yes indeed,” Emily agreed. “My husband is in the House. I hear a great deal too much of it.”
“And your husband, Mrs. Pitt?” Aloysia enquired.
“We already know Mrs. Pitt’s husband,” Tallulah said viciously. “He is a policeman!” She turned to Charlotte. “I imagine you hear about all manner of things over the dinner table? Thieves, arsonists, prostitutes …”
“And murderers … and politicians,” Charlotte finished with a bright, brittle smile. “Usually they are separate, but not invariably.”
Aloysia was totally bemused, but she did not falter. She had kept up a calm, agreeable conversation in worse circumstances than this.
“I feel very sorry for these women that have been killed,” she said, regarding Emily and then Charlotte. “Perhaps if we could make prostitution illegal, then such things wouldn’t happen?”
Tallulah stared at her.
“I don’t think it would help, Mrs. FitzJames,” Charlotte said quite gently. “There isn’t much point in making a law you can’t enforce.”
Aloysia’s eyes widened. “Surely the law must be a matter of ideals, Mrs. Pitt? We cannot call ourselves a civilized or a Christian people if we make laws only on those issues where we feel we have control. All crime must be against the law, or the law is worthless. My husband has said that many times.”
“If you pass a law against something, that defines it as a crime,” Charlotte argued, but still with perfectly conceded patience. “There are a multitude of things which are sins, such as lying, adultery, malice, envy, ill temper, but it would be completely impractical to make them against the law, because we cannot police them, or prove them, or punish people for them.”
“But prostitution is quite different, my dear Mrs. Pitt,” Aloysia said with conviction. “It is utterly immoral. It is the ruination of good men, the betrayal of women, of families. It is unbelievably sordid! I cannot believe you really know what you are talking about….” She took a deep breath. “Neither do I, of course.”
“I hold no advocacy for it, Mrs. FitzJames,” Charlotte replied, suffocating an intense desire to giggle. Tallulah was so furious she could scarcely contain herself. “I simply believe it is impossible to prevent. If we really wished to do so, we would have to address the issues which cause prostitution, both the women who practice it and the men who use them.”
Aloysia stared at her.
“I have no idea what you mean.”
Charlotte gave up. “Perhaps I am not very good at explaining myself. I apologize.”
Aloysia smiled charmingly. “I’m sure it doesn’t matter. Perhaps you will come again one day? It was charming to have met you, Mrs. Radley, Mrs. Pitt.” And with that she made some comment about the weather and excused herself.
Tallulah glared at Emily, pointedly ignoring Charlotte.
“How could you?” she said furiously. “I suppose you contrived my acquaintance right from the beginning. You must have found my confidences very entertaining, if not particularly instructive.”
She swung around on Charlotte. “It still hasn’t cleared your husband of the blame for hanging the wrong man, has it? Are you here now trying to help him hang the person you believe to be the right one this time?”
Emily opened her mouth to explain, but Charlotte cut in before her. “If what you say is true-and I believe you-then it is certainly not your brother. Is it not as much in your interest as mine that he should be cleared, and that beyond question? Proving he was somewhere else the first time would be an excellent start, but proving that someone else is definitely guilty would be even better. That would remove the slightest speculation.” She took a deep breath. “I would have thought you would also be very keen to know who it is that is so determined to incriminate him. I would, if he were my brother … or indeed anyone I cared about.”
Tallulah regarded her with intense dislike, which only gradually softened as she realized the truth of what Charlotte had said.
“We all have the same interests, even if it is for slightly different reasons,” Emily pointed out practically. “And I assume we all believe that Finlay is innocent?”
“Yes,” Charlotte answered.
“I know he is,” Tallulah agreed.
Emily smiled charmingly. “Then shall we pretend that we are still friends, at least for the time being?”
Tallulah accepted with surprising grace, considering her rage only a few moments earlier.
When Finlay arrived home he came almost immediately to the boudoir and was startled to see two other women there. He did not know Charlotte, and he did not remember Emily. Tallulah introduced them, omitting Charlotte’s surname but being surprisingly gracious about her, speaking of her desire to help as if she had been aware of it from the beginning.
Finlay looked doubtful, although there was a flicker of humor in his eyes.
Charlotte returned his gaze, trying not to peer at him with the curiosity she felt. He must already be sensitive to the speculative thoughts of others, intrusive, on occasion prurient, considering the crime of which he was suspected.
He was a handsome man, but he had not the kind of looks she found appealing. She could not see in him the strength she admired, or the width of imagination which excited her. She thought she saw something vulnerable in him, something which should be guarded from injury, because it would not recover, would not heal.
He turned away from Charlotte. The name meant nothing to him, and she herself did not spark his interest.
“Thank you for your confidence,” he said dryly, touching Tallulah lightly on the shoulder. It was a familiar gesture, but one of affection, and perhaps gratitude. “Are you really prepared to face what Papa will say if you tell him you were there? It may not be very easy to find anyone else willing to admit it. I can’t remember anything. Except I know perfectly well I wasn’t anywhere near Pentecost Alley. The first thing I can remember clearly was having a cracking headache the next morning. It could be that most other people will feel the same way.” His face looked bleak. “I couldn’t swear before a jury as to who was there.”
“Some of the others might have been soberer than you, Fin,” Tallulah pointed out.
He gave a halfhearted laugh, glancing at Emily with a smile. “Well, I can give you a list of the sort of people who were likely to have been there. I can ask them if they were and if they remember seeing me. I daresay one of them might own up to it.”
“It’s me they need to have seen,” Tallulah pointed but. “Then people will believe me when I say I saw you. It won’t have to be public. At least …” She looked at Charlotte. “Will it? I mean, it is not as if the whole of society will have to know?”
“Or the Foreign Office?” Finlay added. “Although I’m not sure how much difference that will make now.” He pushed his hands into his pockets and paced across the floor and back again. “None at all, if they charge me with killing Nora Gough. Or even if they suspect me of it and no one else is charged.” He looked hopeless. There was a kind of blank fear in his eyes, as if he knew disaster was inevitable but he still did not understand where it had come from, or how it had happened to him.
“Someone is very determined to incriminate you, Mr. FitzJames,” Charlotte said gravely. “They took your belongings and put them at the scenes of two murders. It must be someone who hates you with almost insane passion-”
“Or hates my father,” Finlay interrupted. “I can’t imagine anyone hating me so much. A few people dislike me, naturally. And quite a few might be envious of the family wealth, or opportunity. I daresay there are several who don’t think I deserve my position, let alone an ambassadorship in the future.” He looked at Charlotte, then at Emily. “But I haven’t ravished anybody’s wife, welched on any debts, stolen anything, or … well, anything.” He stood
