a dream. Apparently it had left Unity deeply marked.
She had been a complex woman. After all, as it transpired he did need to know more of her. If Ramsay were the father, why had she entered into such a relationship with him? What in his dry, pedantic character could possibly have attracted her?
Or was it not personal but rather his position which tempted her? Was exposing his frailty a kind of revenge for her, for all the years of bigotry she had suffered at the hands of men like him? Pitt tried for a moment to imagine himself in her place, an outstanding intellect, a hunger to work, an ambition; all thwarted and denied by prejudice, confronted in every direction by polite, blind condescension. He had tasted a little of it himself, because of his birth and his father’s misfortune. He knew injustice, bitter and fatal in his father’s case. He had lain alone in his small room under the eaves and burned with rage and misery for him after his deportation for a theft he did not commit. Pitt and his mother might well have starved had it not been for Sir Arthur Desmond’s kindness. It was the tutor that he shared with Desmond’s son who had taught him to speak well, and that had marked the difference in his career.
But he understood discrimination, even if he had been taught most of the arts which enabled him to overcome the greater part of it. Unity Bellwood never could, because she would always be a woman. If there was a deep, ineradicable anger in her, he could understand it.
He could probably arrest Ramsay Parmenter on the evidence he had, including the previous night’s extraordinary attack. But any lawyer worthy of his calling would have the case dismissed when it reached court, if it ever did. And once the case had been tried, even if he could thereafter prove Ramsay’s guilt, he could not bring the charge a second time. It must be proved now or not at all.
He needed to know more about both Dominic and Unity Bellwood. Their pasts might teach him something to explain it all or to alter his perception entirely. It was something he dared not overlook. Events, as he knew them, were incomplete. They made no sense. He must at the very least know who was the father of Unity’s child. He winced within himself as he thought how it would hurt Charlotte if it were Dominic. There was a shabby, mean-spirited part of himself which would be pleased if it were. He was ashamed of that.
He arrived at Brunswick Gardens, paid the cabby and ignored the paperboy crying out the latest news, which was a heated discussion which had been raging as to whether there was land, ice or sea at the North Pole. A device had been created by two Frenchmen, a Monsieur Besançon and a Monsieur Her-mite, to settle the matter once and for all. It was a hot air balloon of sufficient size to carry five men, with excellent accommodation and provisions, a number of dogs to draw a sledge, and even a small boat. The death of Unity Bellwood paled in comparison. Pitt went up to the front door with a ghost of a smile. The door was opened by Emsley, looking extremely unhappy.
“Good morning, sir,” he said without surprise. His expression suggested that Pitt was the realization of his worst fears.
“Good morning, Emsley,” Pitt replied, stepping inside to the vestibule, then the extraordinary hallway where Unity had met her death. “May I speak with Mrs. Parmenter, please?”
Emsley must already have decided what he would do in the event of Pitt’s arriving.
“I shall inform Mrs. Parmenter you are here, sir,” he announced gravely. “Of course, I cannot say whether she is able to see you.”
Pitt waited in the morning room with its strongly Middle Eastern flavor, but he was only peripherally aware of it. It was no more than ten minutes before Vita opened the door and came in, closing it behind her. She looked fragile and ill with worry. There was an enormous bruise purpling around her right eye and a scar still shining red with spots of blood on her cheek. No art of powder or rouge could have hidden it, even had she been a woman who used such things.
He tried not to stare at it, but it was such a startling blemish on an otherwise lovely face, that it was almost impossible not to.