“It would not have comforted Serafina to have you sitting up with her day and night on the assumption that at any moment she might die,” Vespasia said drily.
Nerissa managed a small smile. “Would you care to go up to her room and say a last good-bye?”
Vespasia did not believe it was “good-bye,” only a last
“Thank you.” She rose to her feet and Nerissa stood too. Vespasia followed her out of the housekeeper’s room back into the main hall, then up the stairs to the room where only a few days earlier she had visited Serafina.
Vespasia went in and stood alone. She looked at the body of the woman with whom she had never truly been friends, yet with whom she had had so much in common. The passion of their beliefs had separated them from others they knew day by day, even from their own families-perhaps especially from them.
Now all the fear was ironed out of Serafina’s features. The worst she could imagine had either happened, or the danger of it had passed, and she had moved beyond all earthly success or failure. Vespasia looked at her, and saw nothing but the shell. The spirit was gone.
What had she imagined she could learn? Whatever Serafina had been afraid of must be discovered in some other way. She turned and went back outside to thank Nerissa, and to offer her condolences once again. Then with increasing urgency, she gathered her cape and went outside. She was determined to visit Thomas Pitt.
She was kept waiting at his office at Lisson Grove no more than twenty minutes. The young man named Stoker knew who she was and insisted that Pitt would wish to see her right away.
“Aunt Vespasia?” Pitt said with some alarm, when Stoker led her into the office. He rose from his chair and came over to her as she closed the door behind her. She did little more than glance at the pictures on the wall and the books, but she noticed the difference from when Victor Narraway had occupied the room.
“Good afternoon, Thomas. Thank you for seeing me immediately. I have just called at the home of Serafina Montserrat, and found that she died unexpectedly, some time last night.”
“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I know that you knew her.”
“Thank you. She was a remarkable woman. But it is not the loss of a friend that concerns me. We were not especially close. Last time I visited her, a few days ago, she was profoundly afraid-indeed, I would say terrified-that her mind was affected to the point where she was lost in memory, and might have forgotten where and when she was, and to whom she was speaking. That in itself is not a unique circumstance in old age.” She gave a small, sad smile. “But in her case it was dangerous, or so she believed. She knew many secrets from her time as something of a revolutionary in the Austrian Empire many years ago. She was afraid there were people to whom she was still a danger.”
She saw the sudden, sharp attention in his face.
“I thought that at best she was romanticizing,” she continued. “But I took the precaution of asking Victor Narraway if perhaps it might be the truth. He inquired into it. At first it seemed that she was deluding herself, but he did not give up easily, and it transpired that she might have been understating her importance, if anything.”
“How far in the past?” he interrupted.
“A generation ago, at least. But she felt that some of her knowledge concerned people still alive, or those whom they might have loved and wished to protect. I can give you no names because I don’t know any. But she was very, very frightened, Thomas.”
He looked puzzled. “Of betraying someone accidentally, even now? Who? Did she tell you?”
“No. To me, she was very discreet. I suppose part of what made me think she was romanticizing was the fact that she gave no names. But Victor said that she was even more involved in events at the time than she claimed. And Thomas, I am not absolutely certain that she was mistaken in her fear. One moment she was as lucid as you or I, when we were alone, then when someone else came in she seemed to lurch into near insanity, as if she had no idea where she was.”
She took a deep, rather shaky breath, and let it out with a sigh. “I’m afraid that someone may have frightened her to the point where she took her own life, rather than continue with the risk of betraying a friend, an ally in the cause.” Pity overwhelmed her, and a sense of guilt because she had done nothing to prevent this. She had known about it, and Serafina had begged for her help. Now she was safe in Pitt’s office talking about it, too late, and Serafina was dead. “I feel like I should’ve done something more to help her.”
“What could you have done?” Pitt’s voice, gentle and urgent, intruded on her thoughts.
She looked at him. “I don’t know. Which is not a good enough excuse, is it?”
“Unless you were willing and able to move in and sleep in the room beside her, or perhaps be certain that she saw no visitors without your being present, there is nothing you could’ve done.”
“I tried to have Nerissa Freemarsh do that. I even asked her to engage a nurse,” Vespasia said bleakly. “I did not try hard enough.”
Thomas waited a beat. “What else is bothering you?” he prompted.
She stared at him, for long, level seconds. “As I said, there is the possibility that she was not afraid unnecessarily. And if there was someone she could still have betrayed, knowingly or not …” She saw the tension increase in Pitt, from the rigidity of his body. He knew what she was going to say. “They could have killed her,” she finished in a whisper.
Pitt nodded slowly. “Her address?”
“Fifteen Dorchester Terrace,” she replied. “Just off Blandford Square. It is only a few streets away. You may need to hurry, in case things are moved … or hidden …”
Pitt rose to his feet. “I know.”
Pitt took Stoker with him, explaining as they went. It was, as Vespasia had said, no more than a quarter of a mile away, and they walked at a rapid pace. He barely had sufficient time to acquaint Stoker with a little of Serafina’s history, and the reasons her fears were realistic enough that Special Branch must make certain they had not come to pass. Stoker did not question his reasoning; the mention of Austria was sufficient.
The door was opened by a parlormaid who was grim-faced and clearly in mourning. She was drawing in breath to deny them entrance when Nerissa came across the hall behind her.
“Good afternoon, Miss Freemarsh,” Pitt said to Nerissa. “I am Thomas Pitt, Commander of Special Branch. This is Sergeant Stoker. We are here regarding the very recent death of Mrs. Montserrat. May we come in, please?” He said it in a manner that did not allow her to refuse, and he took the first step across the threshold before she replied.
Beneath the red blotches from weeping, her face was ashen white.
“Why? What … what has happened?” She was shaking so badly that Pitt was worried she might faint.
“Please let us come in, Miss Freemarsh, where you can sit down. Perhaps your maid might bring us tea, or some other restorative. It is possible that this is unnecessary, but your aunt was a woman of great importance to her country, and there are aspects of her death that we need to assure ourselves are in order.”
“What do you mean?” Nerissa gulped. “She was old and ill. Her mind was wandering, and she imagined things.” She put her hands to her mouth. “This is Lady Vespasia’s doing, isn’t it!” she said accusingly. “She’s … meddling …”
“Miss Freemarsh, is there something about your aunt’s death that you wish to conceal from us?”
“No! Of course not! I want only decency and respect for her, not-not policemen tramping through the house and … and making a spectacle out of our family tragedy.”
“It is not a tragedy that the old should die, Miss Freemarsh,” he said more gently, “unless there is something about their death that is not as it should be. And I am not a policeman, I am the head of Special Branch. Unless you tell them so, no one needs to think me anything other than a government official come to pay my respects to a much-admired and — valued woman.”
Stoker stepped in behind Pitt and closed the front door.
Nerissa backed a little farther into the center of the beautiful hallway with its sweeping staircase and newel lamp.
“There is nothing for you to do!” she protested. “Aunt Serafina died in her sleep some time last night. The doctor says it was probably early, because … because when I touched her this morning, she was cold.” She
