Long Spoon Lane (31 page)

He stared at her in astonishment.

“Do not imagine I would not use it. I have no vindictiveness towards Mrs. Cavendish. Actually, I think it more than probable she did not intentionally poison Reverend Rae, but she would find that hard to prove at trial, perhaps impossible. Then, of course, she would hang.” She used the word deliberately, and saw the blood drain from his face.

“But I love my family, just as you love yours, Sir Charles. There are several copies of that proof, and I would use it without hesitation if you harm my husband, or any other member of my family.” She met his stare levelly and unflinchingly.

The silence stretched out between them, cold and dangerous. She did not look away.

“I think not, Mrs. Pitt,” he said at last.

“Oh, you’re wrong!” she let all her passion and certainty spill into her voice. “I will!”

His smile was very slight, like sunrise on a glacier. “If I should hurt Pitt, and you destroy my sister, then what will you have left to protect yourself, and your children? And you will protect yourself, because without you they cannot survive.”

Everything inside her froze, paralyzed.

“You may speak rashly, Mrs. Pitt,” he said very softly. “But you are not a stupid woman. You will do what you have to, to protect your children. I don’t for a moment doubt your courage, or your will. But neither do I doubt your perception of reality. You will not destroy my sister as long as you have anyone left to defend.” He inclined his head very slightly. “May I show you to the door? Perhaps my footman can fetch you a hansom?”

She felt dizzy. He was right and they both knew it. It would be idiotic to argue. She must answer him, make herself speak, and move.

“No thank you. I can find my own, when I wish it.” Should she add that there were degrees of damage? Whispers, rumors that could wound without killing? Or would that only make him think also of what he could do that would injure Pitt, or Daniel and Jemima. Or even Tellman?

He was waiting.

No. Better say nothing. She turned and walked out the door with him two steps behind her. It would be farcical to wish each other a good day.

She reached the door, went out into the sunlit street without looking back, and walked briskly away.

She found a hansom within ten minutes, and gave the driver Aunt Vespasia’s address, then sat back. She was trembling in the aftermath of having faced Voisey, which she had no intention whatever of ever allowing Pitt to know. There were a few things, a very few, that it was both wiser and kinder not to share. Learning that was part of growing up.

She alighted at Vespasia’s house, paid the driver, and went to ring the front doorbell. She intended to see Vespasia, or wait for her return, should she be out.

She was fortunate. Vespasia was not only in, but delighted to see her. Then when they were in the sitting room facing the garden, and the maid had left, Vespasia looked at her with concern.

“My dear, you are very pale. Has something happened?”

Charlotte would not tell her about the encounter with Voisey. She was frightened. A shield in which she had trust had melted away in her hand. She felt not only vulnerable but foolish. She had not yet absorbed the shock, nor formed any plan to deal with it. It would be sufficient to tell Vespasia about Pitt’s adventure on the
Josephine,
which she did in as much detail as she knew.

“And is Thomas all right this morning?” Vespasia asked with concern.

“He may develop a cold,” Charlotte replied. “And I am certain he will have nightmares about it for some time to come, but he is essentially unharmed. And Voisey also, which is fortunate, because we still need him.” She hoped her voice did not shake as she said his name. “I understand there is to be another reading of the bill in the House this afternoon. It will have great support, after the Scarborough Street bomb.”

“I am afraid you are right,” Vespasia said grimly. “The best we can think is that Mr. Wetron is extraordinarily favored by events.”

“The best?” Charlotte asked. “It seems bad to me!”

Vespasia looked at her steadily. “My dear, the worst is that he caused those events. That makes him very much to be feared. A man who would bomb an entire street full of people appears to know no moral boundaries at all. He will kill without thought—not only his enemies, but ordinary men and women who have no more connection with his ambition than that their extinction serves his purpose. Please heaven, Thomas is able to prove some connection between the boat and its dynamite, and ultimately Wetron himself.” There was heartfelt emotion in her voice. She sat very straight, as always, but there was a painful tension in her.

“I have not spoken with Thomas in the last day or two,” she went on gravely. “Is he closer to discovering who killed Magnus Landsborough?” She asked as if it were of peripheral concern, but her hands were clenched on the delicate fabric of her skirt.

Charlotte realized with a surge of pity, even guilt, that Vespasia cared about this intensely. She had almost forgotten that Magnus had been the only son of one of Vespasia’s friends, one who had been very close to her in her youth, and perhaps in later, less happy years.

“No,” she said gently. “Except that he believes from the evidence that it must have been someone he knew very well. I suppose that means one of the other anarchists. It seems a bitter thing to do to someone fighting essentially the same cause.”

Vespasia was silent.

Charlotte looked at her exquisite, high-boned face, and saw the fear in it. Would it be intrusive to ask, or callous not to? She would rather commit a sin of misjudgment than of cowardice.

“Are you concerned that it could have been one of his family?” she asked.

Vespasia turned to her, her skin bleached even paler. “Is that what Thomas thinks?”

This was a time for honesty, not false comfort. “He hasn’t said. But it must have been someone who knew they used the house in Long Spoon Lane, because he must have been waiting there. And whoever it was shot only Magnus, when they could easily have killed all three of them. And whoever escaped.”

Vespasia looked away. “That’s what I am afraid of: that it was personal, not political, and not a struggle for power within the anarchists.”

There was one glaringly obvious answer, and Charlotte could not honestly avoid it. “Could it have been his father who killed him?” she said in a little more than a whisper. They both understood the reasons why a man could do such a thing, the dishonor that would stain the whole family, the knowledge that the violence would only be worse the next time, and the time after that.

“I don’t know,” Vespasia admitted. “It is…a terrible thought. And yet if I were a man, and a son of mine contemplated blowing up houses with dynamite, and the people in them, I would consider it my responsibility to stop him. I don’t know what I should do. It is a long journey from knowledge to such fearful action. I don’t know what lies along its path.” A shadow crossed her face. “My children have certainly opposed me frequently, and I have disagreed with them, and disapproved of what they believed and again what they did, but I have never once feared they would embark upon a campaign of murder. If such a thing happened, and I knew it beyond doubt.”

“Who else could it be?” Charlotte knew that retreating from the subject now would not help. It must be faced.

Vespasia frowned. “I have seen a deeply troubled emotion in Enid, Sheridan’s sister, as if she were aware of something more tragic than Magnus’s death.”

“Enid?” Charlotte said with puzzlement. “But how would she be able to get to Long Spoon Lane, and actually have shot Magnus? Surely it isn’t possible?”

“I have no idea,” Vespasia admitted. “Cordelia is the one of whom I would have the least difficulty in believing would have the mind and the heart to do it, but I can think of no way in which she would have the ability, even if she were aware of Magnus’s proposed actions. And he surely would not tell her.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said gently. She made no excuses that Pitt would have to follow the truth wherever it led him, or whatever other tragedies it exposed. They both knew that too well for it to be anything but patronizing to observe it.

“Cordelia has invited me to call upon her again, within the next day or two,” Vespasia said after a moment. “I think I shall go this afternoon, immediately after luncheon.”

Charlotte was surprised. “Did she? Do you think perhaps she is fond of you after all?”

Vespasia’s eyes filled with wry amusement. “No, my dear, I do not. Lady Albemarle is giving a dinner on Tuesday evening. I have been invited, although she will not expect me to accept. I imagine Cordelia has not, and wishes me to go, in order to exercise such influence as I have in favor of the bill. She will have to swallow a very large and awkward slice of pride in order to ask me. It will offer some wild entertainment to watch her.” She said it lightly, but there was no pleasure in her face. Her words were of Cordelia, but Charlotte knew her thoughts were with Sheridan. “Would you care to stay for luncheon?” she invited.

“Yes, very much, thank you,” Charlotte accepted without hesitation.

Vespasia dressed in the softest, very dark lilac gray. It was the sort of color that in silk resembles the edges of the evening sky. It became her extraordinarily well, of which she was naturally aware. It was not vanity. She was equally aware that there were colors that did not become her at all, such as all oranges, golds, and browns. The more difficult the task ahead, the more important it was to look one’s best.

She arrived at the Landsboroughs’ house unannounced, but the footman invited her to enter immediately. He must have had instructions to that effect. It was now early afternoon; a little soon for the usual caller, but it was a perfectly acceptable time for a close friend to come.

The family had just risen from their meal and were in the withdrawing room. Vespasia was not surprised to find Enid and Denoon also present. In the circumstances she had half-expected it. Sheridan Landsborough stood to greet her; the others murmured polite acknowledgments.

“Vespasia,” he said warmly, but with a pucker of anxiety in his features. He still looked very drawn, and a glance at him was sufficient to know that he slept little. “How are you?” It was clear from his expression that he did not know Cordelia had asked her to come.

“I am quite well, thank you,” she replied, allowing her eyes to express her concern for him. To have returned the inquiry would make her seem blind to his obvious pain.

Denoon rose to his feet, but only as much as courtesy demanded.

Cordelia came forward, her chin high. “How good of you to come,” she said, trying to invest her tone with warmth, and failing. She was immaculately dressed in black silk with jet beads, so discreet one had to glance a second time to see them. Her hair was perfectly coiffed and dramatically streaked with white at the temples, but her skin was like dirty paper, smudged and too thin, stretched in all the wrong places. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

Vespasia smiled. She knew this last remark was directed at Denoon, because his look of distaste to see Vespasia again so soon appeared to be an extraordinary breach of tact, even of decency, in the circumstances.

Denoon’s eyes widened.

“It could be my pleasure,” Vespasia said smoothly. She inclined her head towards Enid who gave her a half-smile in return, then she sat down in the large chair Cordelia indicated, and arranged her skirts with unconscious grace. “What may I do to help?”

“We need all the assistance we are able to raise,” Cordelia said frankly. “Lord Albemarle would be listened to with great respect.”

Sheridan moved slightly in his seat, the faintest gesture of discomfort.

Cordelia stiffened, but she did not look at him. Vespasia guessed that Cordelia had already asked him to speak in the House of Lords, use the extraordinary affection he had earned over the years by his honesty and his charm. If he changed his liberal views now, in the wake of his bereavement, he could carry scores with him, perhaps even most of the House.

She also knew that Sheridan would not do it. She did not need to see his face turned half away, the slight shiver of distaste, or her anger so thinly held in check. She despised him for cowardice. He followed his beliefs, indifferent to her. Neither loss nor outrage at injustice made him turn against what he held to be true.

Vespasia would like to have given words to her own feelings, but it would be a luxury she could pay dearly for, too dearly now. She must play the game as it was dealt her.

“Indeed he would,” she replied, as if she had seen nothing of the emotion between them, nor Denoon’s rising temper, or Enid’s fury, which she did not begin to understand. That was the emotion that puzzled her the most. She kept her eyes on Cordelia’s. “I have been invited to dine with them on Tuesday. I appreciate that in mourning you could not possibly go.” That was a sop to Cordelia’s vanity she would not have stooped to a month ago. Cordelia would never have been invited, and they both knew it. “Would you consider it helpful if I were to accept? I am sure that Lady Albemarle would permit me to change my mind. It came some time ago, of course, and I declined. I can give any of a number of excuses quite easily. We have been friends for years. She will probably not believe any of them, but neither will she care.”

“Won’t she?” Denoon said coldly. “You assume a great deal. I should be insulted if you declined an invitation to a dinner and then when it suited you, at the last moment, asked to be accepted instead. We cannot afford to offend her.”

Enid blushed painfully red, her eyes reflecting mortification.

Vespasia looked at Denoon, her brows raised very slightly. “Really? Then perhaps it is a good thing that we are not friends, you and I—or you and Lady Albemarle.”

Enid turned her back and sneezed—at least it sounded like a sneeze.

Denoon was furious. “I don’t think you appreciate the gravity of the situation, Lady Vespasia! This is not some society parlor game. People’s lives are at stake. More than six people were killed in the Scarborough Street explosions.”