Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [43]
There was a tap on the door, and the maid announced that supper was ready. They ate in the small breakfast room. Slender-legged Georgian mahogany furniture glowed dark amid golden yellow walls, as if they were dining in the sunset, although the curtains were closed and the only light came from the gas brackets on the walls.
Charlotte and Vespasia did not resume the more serious conversation until they had returned to the sitting room and were assured of being uninterrupted.
‘Do not forget for a moment that you are in Ireland,’ Vespasia warned. ‘Or imagine it is the same as England. It is not. They wear their past more closely wound around themselves than we do. Enjoy it while you are there, but don’t let your guard down for a second. They say you need a long spoon to sup with the devil. Well, you need a strong head to dine with the Irish. They’ll charm the wits out of you, if you let them.’
‘I won’t forget why I’m there,’ Charlotte promised.
‘Or that Victor knows Ireland very well, and the Irish also know him?’ Vespasia added. ‘Do not underestimate his intelligence, Charlotte, or his vulnerability. By the way, you have not mentioned how you intend to carry this off without causing a scandal that might damage Narraway’s good name further, but would certainly ruin yours. I assume your sense of fear and injustice did not blind you to that?’ There was no criticism in her voice, only concern.
Charlotte felt the blood hot in her face. ‘Of course I have. I can’t take a maid – I don’t have one, or the money to pay her fare if I did. I am going to say I am Mr Narraway’s sister – half-sister. That will make it decent enough.’
A tiny smile touched the corners of Vespasia’s lips. ‘Then you had better stop calling him “Mr Narraway” and learn to use his given name, or you will certainly raise eyebrows.’ She hesitated. ‘Or perhaps you already do.’
Charlotte looked into Vespasia’s steady silver-grey eyes, and chose not to elaborate.
Narraway came early the following morning in a hansom cab. When Charlotte answered the door he hesitated only momentarily. He did not ask her if she were certain of the decision. Perhaps he did not want to give her the chance to waver. He called the cab driver to put her case on the luggage rack.
‘Do you wish to go and say goodbye?’ he asked her. His face looked bleak, with shadows under his eyes as if he had not slept in many nights. ‘There is time.’
‘No thank you,’ she answered. ‘I have already done so. And I hate long goodbyes. I am quite ready to go.’
He nodded and walked behind her across the footpath. Then he handed her up onto the seat, going round to the other side to sit next to her. The cabby apparently knew the destination.
She had already decided not to tell him that she had visited Vespasia. He might prefer to think Vespasia did not know of his dismissal. She also chose not to let him know of Mrs Waterman’s suspicions. It could prove embarrassing, even as if she herself had considered the journey as something beyond business. The very thought of that made the heat rise up her face.
‘Perhaps you would tell me something about Dublin,’ she requested. ‘I have never been there, and I realise that beyond the fact that it is the capital of Ireland, I know very little.’
The idea seemed to amuse him. ‘We have a long train journey ahead of us, even on the fast train, and then a crossing of the Irish Sea. I hear that the weather will be pleasant. I hope so, because if it is rough, then it can be very violent indeed. There will be time for me to tell you all I know, from 7,500 BC until the present day.’
She was amazed at the age of the city, but she would not allow him to see that he had impressed her so easily. It might look as if she were being deliberately gentle with the grief she knew he must be feeling.
‘Really? Is that because our journey is enormously long after all, or because you know less than I had supposed?’
‘Actually there is something