Seven Dials Page 0,79

but it was not yet bleeding.

She felt a touch on her arm and looked up. Vespasia was holding out a large silk handkerchief and a tiny pair of nail scissors.

"If you cut the stocking off, and tie the silk around your foot," she said, "it will enable you to get home with a minimum of additional damage."

Charlotte thought of the appearance of the colored silk above her boot if her skirt swung wide.

"Smile," Vespasia advised. "Better to be noted for eccentric footwear than a sour expression. Besides, who are you going to encounter here that you will ever see again, and whose opinion you would care about in the slightest?"

"No one," Charlotte agreed, smiling far more broadly than the invitation had suggested. "Thank you."

"You are very delicate in your questions, my dear." Vespasia looked at the far trees, only the odd leaf here and there touched by the warm colors of autumn. "But you are quite right. Saville Ryerson is a man of deep emotions, impulsive, and... and physical." She bit her lip very slightly. "He lost his wife in a miserable mischance of fortune in '71, but it was more than that; there was a betrayal involved, although I do not know what, and I certainly do not know by whom." She dropped her voice even lower. "He was furiously angry, even before her death. Not only did he grieve for her, and that he had not been able to save her, but he felt a guilt that he then could never take back the things he had said, even though he believed they were true."

Charlotte finished rebuttoning her boot. "That must have been very hard. But Lovat could have had nothing to do with it, surely? It happened over twenty years ago."

"Nothing whatsoever," Vespasia agreed. "I tell you only so you may know more closely what kind of man he is. He remained alone from that time onward. He served his party and his constituents. They were hard taskmasters, capricious, demanding much and giving little-at times not even loyalty. But the best of them loved him, and he knew it. But it wearied him to the soul, and he did it alone." She made a slight, deprecatory gesture with her pale, gloved hand. "I do not mean he abstained from satisfying his desires, of course, simply that he was discreet, and he had little if any involvement of the emotions."

"Until Ayesha Zakhari..."

"Exactly. And a passionate man who neither gives nor receives anything for himself for over two decades, when he does fall in love, is going to do so with great violence, greater than he understands or can master. He becomes uniquely vulnerable." She said it softly, as if she had seen the reality of it herself.

"Yes..." Charlotte said thoughtfully, trying to picture it in her mind, imagine the waiting, the loneliness over years, and then the power of feeling when finally it came.

"What I do not understand," Vespasia countered, her voice suddenly sharp and very practical again, "is why the woman shot Lovat. Given that he was not a particularly pleasant man and that he may have been annoying her, why on earth did she not simply ignore him? If he really was a nuisance, why didn't she send for the police?"

A far uglier thought came to Charlotte's mind. "Perhaps he was blackmailing her, possibly over something that happened in Alexandria and which he threatened to tell Ryerson? Which would account for why she could not trust him with the truth."

Vespasia looked down at the grass at her feet. "Yes," she admitted reluctantly. "Yes, that would not be impossible to believe. I hope profoundly that it is not true. One would have thought she would have more sense than to do it on a night when she expected Ryerson to come. But perhaps circumstances did not allow her that choice."

"That would also explain why she still does not confide in anyone," Charlotte added, hating her thoughts, but certain it was better to say it all aloud now than let it run in her mind unanswered, but just as insistent. "Although I cannot imagine what it would be, other than some plan to compromise Ryerson... to do with his position in the government."

"A spy?" Vespasia said. "Or I suppose an agent provocateur would be more correct. Poor Saville-set up to be betrayed again." She drew in a very long, slow breath and let it out in a sigh. "How fragile we are." She started to rise to her