laugh.”
Narraway believed it. Briefly, for a swift, perfect moment, he thought of Charlotte, and knew why he found her in his own thoughts far too often. She had courage and passion too, and she made him laugh, but he also loved her so much because of her fierce loyalty, and the fact that she would never betray Pitt, would never even wish to.
Then he thought of Vespasia and what made her so appealing. Curiously enough, it was not her beauty. Even in her youth it had not been her beauty, dazzling though she was. It was the fire in her, the intelligence and the spirit; and, more recently, a vulnerability he would never have perceived in her, even a year ago.
“Thank you, Miss Tucker. You have been extraordinarily helpful,” he said. “I promise you I will do everything I can to see that the truth of Mrs. Montserrat’s death is discovered, and that whoever is responsible is dealt with justly.” He did not say “according to the law.” In this case, he was not certain that the two were one and the same.
When Narraway finally saw Nerissa, he had already been at Dorchester Terrace for three hours. He had eaten a luncheon of cold game pie and pickles, with a dessert of suet pudding and hot treacle sauce, the same as had been eaten in the servants’ dining room.
Nerissa came in and closed the door behind her. She was wearing black, with a brooch of jet. Her face was bleached of even the faintest color, and she looked tired. The skin around her eyes was shadowed. Narraway felt a moment of pity for her. He tried to imagine what her daily life had been like, and the picture he conjured up was monotonous, without light or laughter, without thoughts to provoke the mind or a sense of purpose. Had she been desperate to escape that prison? Wouldn’t anyone, but especially a woman in love?
“Please sit down, Miss Freemarsh. I am sorry to have to disturb you, but there is no alternative.”
She obeyed, but remained stiff-backed in the chair, her hands folded in her lap.
“I assume you would not do so if you did not have to, my lord,” she said with a sigh. “I find it very difficult to believe that any of the staff here would have contributed to my aunt’s death, even negligently. And I … I cannot think of anyone else who might have done so. But since you seem convinced that it was neither an accident, nor suicide, then there must be some other explanation. It is … distressing.”
“I have to ask you about visitors, Miss Freemarsh,” he began. “Since the laudanum was given directly to your aunt and had an almost immediate effect, it must have been given by someone who came to the house that evening.” He looked down and saw that Nerissa’s hands were gripping each other so tightly that the knuckles were white. “Who could that have been, Miss Freemarsh?”
Nerissa opened her mouth, gulped air, and said nothing. He could see that her mind was frantically racing as she searched for the right words; if she denied that anyone came, then the only conclusion to be drawn was that it was someone already in the house: either herself, or one of the servants. He knew from the servants themselves that after dinner had been eaten and cleared away, they had taken their own meal and retired for the day. Unless at least two of them were in collusion with each other, their time was accounted for.
Nerissa had been alone. He imagined the long, solitary evenings, one after the other, every week, every month, stretching ahead into every year, waiting for a lover who could come only rarely. If he had called, then Nerissa herself would have let him in, possibly at a prearranged time. It might well have been their intent that the servants would be gone, so as not to know of it.
“Mrs. Blantyre came,” Nerissa said softly. “Aunt Serafina was fond of her, and she enjoyed her visits. But I can’t …” She left the rest unsaid.
“And she was alone with Mrs. Montserrat?”
“Yes. I had some domestic business to deal with … a slight problem with the menu for the following day. I’m … so sorry.”
Narraway could scarcely believe it. If Tucker was not mistaken, and either Blantyre or Tregarron was Nerissa’s lover, was it even conceivable that Adriana Blantyre knew this?
How could any man prefer Nerissa Freemarsh-plain, humorless, desperate Nerissa-over the beautiful, elegant Adriana? Perhaps Blantyre was weary of Adriana’s delicate health, which might deny him the marital privileges he wished, and felt that that was a good enough reason to stray. But why on earth with a plain, respectable woman like Nerissa? Perhaps because she loved him, and love was what he craved? And perhaps because no one would imagine it? What could be safer?
How had Adriana learned of it? Had it been through some careless word from Serafina? Could Adriana really be jealous to the degree that she would murder an old woman in her bed? Why? So Blantyre would have no more excuse to come to Dorchester Terrace? That was absurd.
But Adriana was Croatian; and Serafina had lived and worked in Vienna, northern Italy, and the Balkans, including Croatia. He must look more closely into their pasts before he leaped to any conclusions.
“Thank you, Miss Freemarsh,” he said quietly. “I am grateful for your candor. I don’t suppose you could offer any reason Mrs. Blantyre should wish your aunt any harm?”
Nerissa lowered her eyes. “I know very little, except what Aunt Serafina said, and she was rambling a lot of the time. I am really not sure what was real and what was just her confused imagination. She was very … muddled.”
“What did she say, Miss Freemarsh? If you can remember any of it, it may help explain what has happened, especially if she also mentioned it in someone else’s hearing.”
Nerissa’s eyes opened wide. “Mrs. Blantyre’s, you mean? Do you think so?”
“Well, we don’t know who else she may have spoken to.” He was trying to suggest a further person, someone Nerissa could blame more easily. He did not know what he was looking for, but he could not assume it was Adriana, whatever the reason, until he had exhausted all other possibilities, and learned who Serafina herself had feared.
Nerissa sat silent for so long that Narraway was beginning to think she was not going to speak. When she finally did, it was steadily and reluctantly.
“She mentioned many names, especially from thirty or forty years ago. Most of them were Austrian, I think, or Croatian. Some Italian. I’m afraid I don’t recall them all. It is difficult when they are not in your own language. She said Tregarron, but it made no sense, because Lord Tregarron could not have been more than a child at the time she seemed to believe it was. It was all very muddled.”
“I understand. Who else?” he prompted.
Again she considered for several moments, digging into memories that were clearly painful.
Narraway felt guilty, but he had to see if there were any connections, however oblique, to the proposed assassination of Alois. And even if Adriana had left Croatia as a young woman, family ties might still exist that could be relevant.
“Miss Freemarsh?”
She looked up at him. “She … she spoke of Mrs. Blantyre’s family, the name Dragovic. I don’t know what she said; it was difficult to catch it all. But Mrs. Blantyre was … distressed to hear it. Perhaps it awoke old tragedies for her. I can’t say. Naturally I did not speak of it to her. I asked Aunt Serafina later, but she appeared to have forgotten it. I’m sorry, but that’s all I can tell you about it.”
“I see. Thank you very much.” He rose to his feet and allowed her to lead the way back to the hall. He left her standing on the exquisite floor of the house that was now hers, looking dwarfed, crushed by the beauty of it.
“See what you think of that, Radley,” Lord Tregarron said, handing Jack a sheaf of papers. They were in Tregarron’s office and had been working on a delicate matter concerning a British business initiative in Germany.
“Yes, sir.” Jack accepted the papers with a sense of acute satisfaction. He knew that Tregarron meant him to read them immediately. Such documents were never allowed to be taken from the building. He left the room and went to his own, smaller office. Sitting in the armchair in front of the fire, he began to read.
It was interesting. He was continually learning more about Europe in general, and the delicate balance between one nation and another, most particularly the old, ramshackle, and crumbling power of the Austrian Empire and the new, rising Germany with its extraordinary energy. Germany’s culture was as old as the land itself; it had produced some of the world’s great thinkers, and brilliant composers of music to enrich the human spirit. But as a
