“The oldest defense has always been to blame the victim. They would tell him his daughter was a whore in the making, and although they pitied him, if he made any more trouble he would find himself without a job. He, and you, would no longer be welcome in Society. And Jemima would feel even guiltier because she was inadvertently the cause of your ruin.”
“That’s monstrous.” Charlotte’s voice trembled.
“Of course it is.” Vespasia put her hand on Charlotte’s arm. Her touch was warm and very gentle. “It is one of the very worst of the private tragedies we have to bear in silence and with as much dignity and grace as we can. Kindness is perhaps the only gift we can offer. And perhaps we will then have a little more gratitude for the griefs we do not personally have to bear.”
Charlotte nodded, too full of emotion at that moment to answer.
BUT THAT NIGHT, WHEN Pitt was sitting downstairs in the parlor, absorbed in reading papers he had brought with him from his office, she went upstairs alone and soundlessly opened Jemima’s bedroom door.
Jemima was asleep, lying on her back, arms spread wide, smiling a little. She looked very young and desperately vulnerable. She thankfully could not even imagine the kind of pain that Charlotte and Vespasia had been talking about, the kind that had already begun for Angeles Castelbranco—if, of course, their assumptions were correct.
Perhaps two years ago Isaura had stood in Angeles’s bedroom doorway and watched her sleep. Had she been full of dreams for her daughter’s future happiness, or had fear touched her as it did Charlotte now?
She stayed there only a few moments longer. She did not want Jemima to waken and see her.
Quietly she closed the door and walked along the passage a few steps to Daniel’s room. The man who had raped Angeles was somebody’s son. Did his parents have any idea what he had become?
She opened that door also, very softly, and looked in on Daniel. He was curled over, facing the window where the curtains were wide open and the last of the summer evening light still glowed. His dark eyelashes shadowed across his smooth, unblemished cheek. It was an impossible thought, but in another seven years he would be a man.
Suddenly she felt frightened, aware of how precious everything was, of the happiness, the safety, the hope she took for granted; even the little things like the daily certainty of kindness, someone to touch, to love, to talk to; of being surrounded by people who mattered to her.
Charlotte felt tears slip down her cheeks and a tightness in her chest. The enormity of life, the joy and the pain, the caring so deeply—it was almost too much.
She closed the door in case she disturbed Daniel, and walked very slowly along the passage. She hesitated at the top of the stairs. She did not want to go down yet. Pitt would wonder what on earth was the matter with her, and she was not ready to try to explain.
CHAPTER
4
NARRAWAY HAD DREADED THIS encounter with Quixwood, yet he felt compelled to come here to the club where he had, very understandably, taken up residence. The servants would have cleared away all possible evidence, but it had been only a couple of days since Catherine’s death. The sight of her sprawled across the floor would remain printed on Quixwood’s memory, perhaps for the rest of his life. The very pattern of the furniture, the way the light fell across the wooden parquet—everything would remind him of it.
Perhaps in time he would have the hall changed entirely, move all the furniture, hang the pictures in another room. Or would it make no difference?
The club steward conducted Narraway through the outer lounge with its comfortable, leather-covered chairs and walls decorated with portraits of famous past members. They approached the silent library where Quixwood was sitting. There was a leather-bound volume open in his lap, but his eyes were unfocused and he seemed to be looking far beyond its pages.
“Lord Narraway to see you, sir,” the steward said gently.
Quixwood looked up, a sudden light of pleasure in his face.
“Ah, good of you to come.” He rose to his feet, closing the book and holding out his hand. “Everyone else is avoiding me. I suppose they think I want to be alone, which is not true. Or—more likely—they have no idea what to say to me.” He smiled bleakly. “For which I can hardly blame them.” He gestured