because it would be uncomfortable, raise fears and questions they preferred to avoid?
And if Castelbranco then thought them barbarous, would he be wrong?
“What about his mother?” Pitt said aloud, casting around for any other avenue at all. “Do you think …?”
She shook her head. “Eleanor Forsbrook died a few years ago, I’m told. There was a terrible carriage accident in Bryanston Mews, just off the square where they live. People speak very well of her. She was generous and beautiful. Perhaps if she were still alive this would not have happened.”
“Probably not,” he conceded. “But the loss of a mother does not excuse this. Most of us lose people we love at some time or other.” He thought of his own father, taken from him when he was a child, unjustly accused of theft and deported to Australia. It was a long time ago now. Nobody was deported anymore. His father had been one of the last. Pitt had no idea if he had even survived the voyage, or what had happened to him if he had. He might still be alive, but he would be old, close to eighty. Pitt wasn’t sure if he even wanted to know his father still lived. He had never returned, or made any contact. It was an old loss better left alone.
“Most of us have wounds of some sort,” he said quietly.
“Of course,” Isaura agreed. “But you see, there is nothing you can do. I am grateful for your kindness in coming to me in person rather than sending a letter.”
He did not want to accept her dismissal.
“I would still like to speak to your maid, Senhora,” he said grimly. “I will be discreet, I give you my word, but I want to know for myself all that I can. Special Branch has a long memory.”
Her eyes flickered for a moment. With hope?
“Of course,” she agreed. “I shall ask her to come.” She turned and left, going out of the door with her head high, her shoulders awkwardly stiff.
Pitt wondered how rash his promise was, and when Isaura Castelbranco would tell her husband the truth. Probably when she was sure he would not take his own revenge. She had faced more than enough grief already.
CHAPTER
8
NARRAWAY WENT TO LISSON Grove reluctantly. It had been his office, his domain, for so many years that going back as a visitor heightened his sense of being superfluous. He did not belong anymore. He looked much the same as he always had, not even noticeably any grayer, certainly not heavier or stiffer. His mind felt just as sharp—in fact, in some ways more so. It was emotionally that he felt different. Surely gentleness, an awareness of others, a greater humanity, was part of wisdom?
He had time in which to do anything he wanted, to travel anywhere, if he wished. It wasn’t possible that he had forgotten how to enjoy himself. He could go to the beautiful cities of Europe he had only visited in haste before. He could admire the architecture, steep himself in the history of the cultures, the music, the great art created through the centuries. He could stop and talk to people purely for the pleasure of it. He could ignore or forget anything that bored him. There were no boundaries, no responsibilities.
Was that what troubled him? He needed boundaries? What for—an excuse? Responsibilities, or he felt unimportant? Did that mean there was little to him except the job? He had started in the army at eighteen, straight from Eton, where he had excelled academically. The military had been his father’s idea, much against his own intention.
He had arrived in India almost coincidentally with the beginning of the Mutiny, and seen firsthand the horrors of war. It had been brutal and desperate—innocent men, women, and children slaughtered as well as soldiers. It was there that he had first become aware of the unnecessary human errors—“stupidity” would not be too strong a word in some cases—that caused such tragedy. It had sparked his appreciation for military intelligence and, even above that, the understanding of people and events, of political will, the perception of social movement that had eventually matched him with his true gifts, Special Branch. He had given the rest of his life to it.
Was it the loss of purpose that hurt now, or the loss of power? Who was he without those things? It was the question he had avoided asking himself, but now that it was in his mind in so many words,