Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [103]
Sheridan moved slightly in his seat, the faintest gesture of discomfort.
Cordelia stiffened, but she did not look at him. Vespasia guessed that Cordelia had already asked him to speak in the House of Lords, use the extraordinary affection he had earned over the years by his honesty and his charm. If he changed his liberal views now, in the wake of his bereavement, he could carry scores with him, perhaps even most of the House.
She also knew that Sheridan would not do it. She did not need to see his face turned half away, the slight shiver of distaste, or her anger so thinly held in check. She despised him for cowardice. He followed his beliefs, indifferent to her. Neither loss nor outrage at injustice made him turn against what he held to be true.
Vespasia would like to have given words to her own feelings, but it would be a luxury she could pay dearly for, too dearly now. She must play the game as it was dealt her.
“Indeed he would,” she replied, as if she had seen nothing of the emotion between them, nor Denoon’s rising temper, or Enid’s fury, which she did not begin to understand. That was the emotion that puzzled her the most. She kept her eyes on Cordelia’s. “I have been invited to dine with them on Tuesday. I appreciate that in mourning you could not possibly go.” That was a sop to Cordelia’s vanity she would not have stooped to a month ago. Cordelia would never have been invited, and they both knew it. “Would you consider it helpful if I were to accept? I am sure that Lady Albemarle would permit me to change my mind. It came some time ago, of course, and I declined. I can give any of a number of excuses quite easily. We have been friends for years. She will probably not believe any of them, but neither will she care.”
“Won’t she?” Denoon said coldly. “You assume a great deal. I should be insulted if you declined an invitation to a dinner and then when it suited you, at the last moment, asked to be accepted instead. We cannot afford to offend her.”
Enid blushed painfully red, her eyes reflecting mortification.
Vespasia looked at Denoon, her brows raised very slightly. “Really? Then perhaps it is a good thing that we are not friends, you and I—or you and Lady Albemarle.”
Enid turned her back and sneezed—at least it sounded like a sneeze.
Denoon was furious. “I don’t think you appreciate the gravity of the situation, Lady Vespasia! This is not some society parlor game. People’s lives are at stake. More than six people were killed in the Scarborough Street explosions.”
“Eight, actually,” she told him. “I am glad you raised the subject, Mr. Denoon. Of course there are more than that who are now homeless. I believe the latest figure is sixty-seven, which does not include the twenty-three from Myrdle Street. I have begun a fund, much of which has already been dispensed, to provide them with shelter and food until they are able to make their own arrangements. I am sure you would wish to contribute to that, both personally and through the medium of your newspaper.” She made it a statement, not a question.
Denoon drew in his breath.
“Of course we would,” Enid said before he could speak. “I wish I had thought of it myself. I shall send my footman with my donation tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you,” Vespasia said sincerely. She could have liked Enid, had circumstances long ago been different. She had thought Enid disapproved of her, not catching even a glimpse of Vespasia’s loneliness. She realized now how foolish that was, how self-absorbed to imagine she was alone in her sense of dreams frustrated, boundaries closing her in both physically and emotionally. Enid must have felt the same, perhaps worse. And she was still there, accustomed to the tethers perhaps, but hurting no less.
She found herself smiling at the other woman, as if for a moment there were only the two of them encompassing a hundred words.
Denoon cut across it abruptly, resenting his exclusion, although he was barely aware from what he was denied. “What do you propose