Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [22]
There was no softening of his expression as he looked at her. “Of course,” he answered. “There is nothing to choose, nothing to decide.” His voice held no intonation. Perhaps this total control was all he could bear. To have allowed any emotion through might have broken the dam and brought it all. Dignity was a kind of refuge. Magnus had been their only child. Vespasia thought the distance between them was perhaps a safeguard also. Each might have touched the one unbearable wound in the other.
She was aware of an electricity in the air like that before a storm, and it made her conscious of her intrusion. She turned to Cordelia. “Thank you for receiving me,” she said with a slight inclination of her head. “It was extraordinarily gracious of you.”
Cordelia made no move to accompany Vespasia to the door. “Your help is invaluable,” she said. “Now, of all times, we must fight for what we believe.” She took a deep breath, the extreme pallor of her skin accentuated by her dark eyes. “You are a true friend.”
Vespasia could not agree. Cordelia was as aware as she was that they were anything but friends. “I could not do less,” she murmured, hearing the irony in her words.
Sheridan turned to Vespasia. “May I call your carriage?” He reached for the bell cord a few feet away.
“Thank you,” she accepted. The atmosphere in the room prickled with tension. Enid looked from her brother to her sister-in-law, but Vespasia was not sure if it was anger or apprehension in her face. Her shoulders were stiff, her head high, as if expecting some old pain to return that all her courage would not offset.
“Piers will be most distressed,” Denoon said abruptly.
Vespasia remembered that Enid had a son. He must be almost thirty now, roughly the same age as his cousin Magnus.
Cordelia acknowledged the remark.
“Perhaps we should leave also,” Enid observed, more to Denoon than to Cordelia. “Discussions of law reform can surely wait a day or two. They will take months to enact anyway, if not years.”
“We don’t have years!” Denoon said angrily, his face flushed. “Do you imagine the forces of anarchy are going to sit around and wait for us to thwart them?”
“I imagine they will be quite happy to watch us thwart ourselves,” she replied.
“Don’t be absurd!” Denoon said, almost under his breath, as if she embarrassed him and he were uncertain how to deal with it in front of Vespasia and Landsborough.
Landsborough stiffened, moving closer to his sister, and away from his wife. He drew in his breath between his teeth.
Vespasia was acutely uncomfortable. She felt compelled to intervene, before the situation became worse.
“If we react too swiftly, or too drastically, we may well do harm,” she said, glancing at Enid, and then away again. “We do not wish to provoke criticism that we are as repressive as they say, or to turn sympathy from us by heavy-handedness. At the moment all hearts and minds will be in our favor. Let us not lose that.”
There were several seconds of tense silence, then Landsborough spoke. “Yes, of course. You are quite right.” He moved out into the hall. Vespasia followed him. A footman was sent to inform her coachman that she was ready to depart, and the Denoons’ coachman similarly. Cordelia made a remark about the weather. Vespasia replied.
The green baize door opened from the servants’ quarters and a footman in livery came through. He was young and moved with the grace of a man used to physical action and confident in himself. He looked only at Enid, ignoring everyone else, including Denoon himself.
“The coach is ready, ma’am,” he said respectfully, standing a few feet from her. He met her eyes for a moment, then deliberately looked away.
Enid thanked the man, then took her leave of Landsborough with a quick placing of her hand on his arm. She nodded to Cordelia, smiled at Vespasia, and walked calmly to the door, leaving Denoon to follow.
The moment after, Vespasia’s carriage arrived also. Landsborough offered her his arm in a discreet indication that he would like a moment of conversation with her, if not alone,