Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [51]
‘Of course I will,’ she said instantly, as much to commit herself before she could let her caution prevent her as to assure Narraway. ‘Tell me something about Mr McDaid, and about Mr and Mrs Tyrone. Any advantage I can have, so much the better. And what do they know of you? Will they be startled that you suddenly produce a half-sister?’ She smiled slightly. ‘And how well do you and I know each other? Do I know you work with Special Branch? We had better have grown up quite separately, because we know too little of each other. Even one mistake would arouse suspicion.’
He leaned against the doorjamb, hands in his pockets. He looked completely casual, nothing like the man she knew professionally. She had a momentary vision of how he must have been twenty years ago: intelligent, elusive, emotionally unattainable – but to some women that in itself was an irresistible temptation. Before her marriage, and occasionally since, she had known women for whom that was an excitement far greater than the thought of a suitable marriage, even than a title or money.
She stood still, waiting for his reply, conscious of her travelling costume and extremely untidy hair.
‘My father married your mother, after my mother died,’ he began.
She was about to express sympathy, then realised she had no idea whether his mother was dead, or if he were making it up for the story they must tell. Perhaps better she was not confused with the truth, whatever that was.
‘By the time you were born,’ he continued, ‘I was already at university – Cambridge – you should know that. That is why we know each other so little. My father is from Buckinghamshire, but he could perfectly well have moved to London, so you may have grown up wherever you did. Always better to stay with the truth where you can. I know London. I would have visited.’
‘What did he do – our father?’ she asked. This all had an air of unreality about it, even ridiculousness, but she knew it mattered, perhaps vitally.
‘He had land in Buckinghamshire,’ he replied. ‘He served in the Indian Army.You don’t need to have known him well. I didn’t.’
She heard the sharpness of regret in his voice, anger at loss, then it was gone. ‘He died some time ago. Keep the mother you have. You and I have become close only recently. This trip is in part for that purpose.’ An unreadable expression flickered through his eyes and vanished again.
‘Why Ireland?’ she asked. ‘Someone is bound to ask me.’
‘My grandmother was Irish,’ he replied.
‘Really?’ she was surprised, but perhaps she should have known it.
‘No.’ This time he smiled fully, with both sweetness and humour. ‘But she’s dead too. She won’t mind.’
‘I see,’ she said quietly. ‘And this relative that I am looking for? How is it that I remain here without finding them? In fact, why do I think to find them anyway?’
‘Perhaps it is best if you don’t,’ he answered. ‘You merely want to see Dublin. I have told you stories about it and we have seized the excuse to visit. That will flatter our hosts and be easy enough to believe. It’s a beautiful city and has a character that is unique.’
She did not argue, but she felt that nothing very much would happen if she did not ask questions. Polite interest could be very easily brushed aside and met with polite and uninformative answers.
Charlotte collected her cape and they left Molesworth Street, and in the pleasant spring evening walked in companionable silence the half a mile to the house of Fiachra McDaid.
Narraway knocked on the carved mahogany door and after a few moments it was opened by an elegant man wearing a casual, velvet jacket of dark green. He was quite tall, but even under the drape of the fabric, Charlotte could see that he was a little plump around the middle. In the lamplight by the front door his features were melancholy, but as soon as he recognised Narraway, his expression lit with a vitality that made him startlingly