source. This has been a waste of time, but it seems that neither you nor I have the power to avoid that. Good day.”
Jack started to say something, then changed his mind. He was pale, but his cheeks were flushed. He opened the door for Pitt, who went out and into the long corridor without looking back.
Jack watched Pitt until he was out of sight, then returned to Tregarron’s office, knocking lightly. He was answered immediately.
Tregarron looked up from his desk, the question on his face.
Jack closed the door behind him. He found this embarrassing. Pitt was his brother-in-law, and he both liked and respected him. But he knew something of the circumstances of Pitt’s promotion to Narraway’s position, and how close the whole affair had come to disaster. He knew that Pitt must be nervous now, perhaps leaning too far toward caution, afraid of missing a clue, and consequently overreaching himself, and his authority. If he became officious, he would make enemies.
“I think he was just being careful, sir,” he said to Tregarron.
Tregarron smiled, but it was tight-lipped. “Don’t let him be a nuisance over this, Radley. If people realize he’s jumpy, they may start to imagine that there’s something real behind it. We can’t have Europe thinking we don’t know what we’re doing. Keep a tight rein on him, will you?”
Jack stood very straight. “Yes, sir.” He considered adding something more, then thought better of it. He was new to his position too. Tregarron was one of the most dynamic figures in the Foreign Office. He had clearly taken a liking to Jack, much to Emily’s delight.
He sincerely hoped Emily had had no hand in his promotion. It was extremely important to him to succeed on his own merit.
Early in their marriage, he had been content to live very comfortably on the wealth Emily had inherited from George Ashworth, but as time had gone by he had become less happy with it. Possibly that was due in part to the sense of purpose he saw in Pitt, and Charlotte’s confidence in him because of it. He wanted Emily to look at him with the same regard: a regard born of belief, not duty.
Tregarron cleared his throat impatiently.
Jack smiled. “Yes, sir, I’ll see that he doesn’t embarrass himself, or us.”
“Thank you,” Tregarron said. “You’d better look over those papers from the German ambassador.”
After dinner that evening, Pitt sat in the parlor in the big chair opposite Charlotte. The gaslight was bright, and the heavy velvet curtains were closed. The fire burned well, and the sound of the wind in the trees outside, mixed with the faint spatter of rain on the glass, was oddly comfortable. They were discussing moving house, but seemed to be deciding against it, at least for the time being.
“Are you sure you don’t want to?” he asked, looking at her. She was mending one of Jemima’s dresses. The faint click of the needle against her thimble was the only sound from inside the room, except for the whisper of the flames. “We could afford it,” he added.
“I know.” She smiled. “The job is enough change for the moment.”
“You mean, it might not last?” he interpreted, recalling Jack’s stiff figure standing by the door, relaying Tregarron’s dismissal. Should he tell Charlotte about it? Not being able to discuss his concerns was the highest price of his promotion. It left him alone, in a way he had not been used to in fourteen years of marriage. He tried to put the warmth back into his eyes, to take the sting-and perhaps the fear-out of his words. She was just as sharply aware as he was that if he failed he would not be able to go back into the ranks again, that there was nowhere else for him. He had no private means, unlike Narraway or Radley.
“No,” Charlotte said firmly, looking up and meeting his eyes. “I mean that I like this house and I’m not ready to leave it yet-if I ever will be. We’ve had a lot of good times here, and bad-or they’ve looked bad for a while. Victor Narraway, Aunt Vespasia, Gracie, and you and I have sat up all night in the kitchen, and fought some desperate battles.” She shook her head a little, ignoring her sewing. “A new house would be empty in comparison. And I’m not ready to let the old ones go. Are you?”
“No, perhaps I’m not.” He smiled, feeling the warmth blossom inside him. “Every time I go down the corridor to the kitchen I see Gracie standing on tiptoe, still a couple of inches too short to reach the plates on the top of the dresser. I’m not used to seeing Minnie Maude, five inches taller. But she’s a good girl. You’re happy with her, aren’t you?”
“I’ll always miss Gracie, but yes, I am,” she said with certainty. “And Daniel and Jemima like her, which is almost as important.” Then she frowned, aware that something was wrong. She was uncertain whether he was not telling her because it was confidential, or because he did not want to spoil the evening. She could read the tension in him as easily as if he had spoken. For more than fourteen years they had been friends, as well as husband and wife. He kept all manner of secrets from the government, the police, and the general population, but he kept only the most specific, confidential details from her.
She saw in his eyes that he had made a sudden decision.
“I saw Jack today,” he said, after a moment.
Charlotte waited, watching his face, reading the conflicting emotions.
“I had to see Tregarron about something, or at least try to,” he went on. “But he sent Jack for me to report to, and relay his replies back.”
“Jack’s new promotion,” she said with a little tightening of her lips. “I think Emily’s prouder of it than he is.”
“Did she push him into it?” he asked.
“Possibly.” A shadow crossed her face. “Was he arrogant?”
Pitt relaxed at last, allowing his shoulders to ease and his body to sink into the familiar shape of the chair. “Not really. I was annoyed because I was damn sure Tregarron wouldn’t have dismissed Narraway like that, but I think I went to them with too little information. Tregarron didn’t believe there was any cause for concern, and it may well be that he is right. I need to know a lot more. I should have waited. Narraway would have.”
“And you expect to walk in and be as good in your first year as he was after twenty?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.
“I need to be,” he said quietly. “Or at least as near as makes no visible difference.”
“He failed sometimes as well, Thomas. He wasn’t always right.”
“I know.” He did know, but that did not ease his anxiety, or change the fact that he knew what failure would cost not just him, but the entire Branch.
Charlotte left home at nine o’clock the following morning, stepping out onto the pavement feeling a trifle self-conscious in her new riding habit. She looked extremely smart in it, which she was happily aware of, but it had been a long time since she had worn such a flattering and rather rakish outfit. It had not been possible until lately. Money had been reserved for essentials, which this most certainly was not, especially when one had children who seemed to grow out of every piece of clothing within months.
A week ago she had agreed to meet Emily in Rotten Row in Hyde Park, to spend an hour or two on horseback. Accordingly she now walked briskly toward Russell Square, where she was certain she could find a hansom cab. The wind had dropped, and there was a very slight frost in the air. It was a perfect winter morning for a ride.
However, when she alighted in Hyde Park she felt far less enthusiastic than she had expected to when the arrangement had been made. She could not put from her mind Pitt’s conversation about his meeting with Jack in Lord Tregarron’s office.
The trees of the park were bare, a fretwork of black lace against the sky. The earth of the long bridle path was already churned up by hooves, and the grass beyond was the strange, almost turquoise color that the frost crystals lent it. In the distance there were at least twenty riders already out: women sidesaddle, graceful in perfectly cut habits; men riding astride, some of them in military uniform.
The sound of laughter drifted on the slight breeze; she also heard the jingle of harnesses and the thud of hooves as a horse broke into a canter.
Charlotte walked across the hard, frosty earth toward the group of horses still held by their grooms, and she wondered how much of the previous day’s encounter Jack had relayed to Emily. Did he consider his work also to be
