Seven Dials Page 0,88

she sought from him. "It would be remiss not at least to make enquiries."

"To find what?" She raised her eyebrows slightly. "That they had a love affair? One takes that for granted. Ryerson loves her, and I imagine he does not wish to know of her past admirers, but he is not naive enough to imagine there were none."

She stopped speaking as a small, thin woman in peach-colored silk moved past them, clinging to the arm of a gentleman with receding hair.

Narraway smiled to himself, his composure perfect.

Vespasia wished she knew him better. She was aware, with amusement at herself, that were she younger she would have found him attractive. His inaccessibility was in itself a challenge. There was emotion behind the cool intelligence, of what nature she did not know. Was there moral or spiritual courage? The answer mattered, because of his power over Pitt.

"If you are considering the possibility that there was some scandal over which Lovat could have blackmailed her," she went on when they were alone again, "then you could have written a letter to the British authorities in Alexandria and asked them. They would be in a position to find out for you and advise accordingly. They will speak the language, know the city and its inhabitants, and have contacts with the kind of people who inform of such things."

He drew his breath in as if to argue with her, then looked more clearly into her eyes, and changed his mind. "Perhaps," he conceded. "But they will answer only what I ask them, whereas Pitt may find other things, answers to questions I have not thought of."

"Ah..." She believed him, at least as far as he had spoken. There was far more that he was not saying, but had she been able to draw from him anything he did not wish to tell her, then that would have meant that he was inadequate to his job, which thought would wake in her a real fear, deep and abiding.

He smiled very slowly. It had a charm that surprised her. For the first time she wondered if he had ever loved anyone sufficiently profound to disturb that thick layer of self-protection around him, and if so, what kind of woman she had been.

"And of course you are looking into Ryerson, and Lovat's other associates here yourself, or have someone else doing so," she stated. "One wonders whether that other person is more able to enquire into London than Thomas would be... or less able in Alexandria." She did not make it a question because she knew he would not answer.

His smile stayed perfectly steady, but the tension in him increased yet again, perhaps only in the totality of his stillness. "It is a delicate matter," he said so quietly that she barely heard him. "And I agree with you entirely, judging by what we know now, that it makes no sense. Lovat was nobody. Ayesha Zakhari may be vulnerable to blackmail, but I doubt profoundly that anything a man like Lovat could tell Ryerson would affect his feelings for her. It would be infinitely more likely to end in Lovat's being charged, or more simply dismissed from his position in the diplomatic service, and unable to find a new posting anywhere at all. He would probably be blackballed from his clubs as well. He had already contrived to make himself more than sufficient enemies. Also, Miss Zakhari's patriotism is easily understandable, but imagining that she could affect British policy in Egypt shows a naivete which an intelligent woman could hardly have sustained for long, once she was here in London."

"Exactly," she agreed, watching every shadow in his face.

"Therefore..." he said somberly and in little more than a whisper, more like the sighing of a breath, "I am obliged to consider what profound thing it is, worth committing murder and going to the gallows for, that we have not yet considered."

Vespasia did not answer. She had been trying to avoid the thought, but now it was dark and inevitable on the horizon of her mind as it was of Victor Narraway's.

CHAPTER EIGHT

PITT WAS GAINING an increasingly clearer picture of Ayesha Zakhari and the people and political issues which had driven her. But as he stood at the window of his hotel room gazing at the wide, balmy night, the smell of spices and salt thick in the air, it was with a start of amazement that he realized he had never seen a picture of her. She