he might have taken. His behavior was disgusting. There can be no argument on that. I imagine he will regret his cruelty for the rest of his life.”
His eyes searched her face. “But I know that he did not assault her, seriously or even trivially, at Mrs. Westerley’s party. I was there myself, when young Angeles appeared looking a trifle disheveled, and her face tearstained. I assumed at the time that she had had some youthful quarrel, perhaps even an unexpected rejection. I’m afraid I thought no more of it than that, and possibly I was horribly wrong.” Now his face was filled with distress. “Since I … since …” He faltered to a stop.
Vespasia was overwhelmed with pity for him. He must feel doubly guilty, for not being able to protect his wife, and now for having failed to see Angeles’s terrible distress, masked by her own need to hide it, and his assumption that youthful tears came and went easily.
She leaned forward a fraction. “Mr. Quixwood,” she said very gently, “no sane person would have assumed otherwise in the circumstances. Of course girls her age both laugh and cry over things they barely remember the day after. There was nothing you could, or should, have done.” She hesitated, and then continued, “It is natural when there has been a tragedy that we relive the time before, wondering how we could have averted it. In most cases there was nothing at all to be done, but we torture ourselves anyway. We want to have helped. Above all we want to do over the past with greater wisdom, more kindness; but as the pain settles, we know we cannot. Only the future can be changed.” She wanted to comfort him regarding Catherine as well, but there was no comfort to give.
His smile was now rueful. “I am beginning to realize that, Lady Vespasia, but slowly, and I am some distance from acceptance. What I came to say, which matters, and why I took the liberty of disturbing you, was that whatever happened to Angeles Castelbranco, I know it was not Neville Forsbrook who caused it. I was with him when she left the company and went to look at the paintings in the gallery. It was not Neville she went with, although I admit I don’t know who it was.”
Vespasia drew in her breath to ask him if he was certain, then realized it would be pointless and a trifle insulting. Of course he was certain. He had come out of his grief and his cocoon of protection to say so.
“Thank you, Mr. Quixwood,” she said gravely. “It would be monstrous to blame the wrong person, even for a day. Whispers are not easily silenced. You have told me this before I had the chance to speak to anyone, and perhaps have saved me from a profound error. I am grateful to you.”
He rose to his feet, moving with stiffness, as if he hurt inwardly.
“Thank you for seeing me, Lady Vespasia. Thank you for your wisdom. In time it will be of comfort.” He bowed, just a gesture of the head, and went to the door.
She sat for several minutes afterward without moving, thinking, in the silent, sunlit room, how desperately fragile the illusion of safety could be.
CHAPTER
7
PITT FOUND IT EXTREMELY difficult to forget the tragedy of Angeles Castelbranco’s death. Every time he heard the clink of glass or the sound of someone’s laughter, it took him back to that terrible party. In his mind he saw the ambassador’s face as he stood by the window, all expression wiped from it as if he were dead.
Worse was the raging grief of the ambassador’s wife. She reminded him of Charlotte somehow, although she looked nothing at all like her. Yet both were fiercely devoted mothers, and that gave them a similarity greater than all differences of appearance could be.
He sat in his office in Lisson Grove, which used to be Narraway’s. He was trying to concentrate on the papers in front of him to the exclusion of every other thought, but not very successfully. He was relieved when there was a knock on the door. The moment after, Stoker looked in.
“Yes?” Pitt said hopefully.
There was no pleasure in Stoker’s bony face. “The Portuguese ambassador is here and would like to see you, sir. I told him you were busy, but he said he’d wait, however long it took. Sorry, sir.”
Pitt pushed his papers into a rough pile, turning the top one