Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [58]
“That is why it is restricted to the servants’ quarters,” Cordelia pointed out. “He never goes in there.”
“Where is he anyway?” Denoon asked. “Is he expected home this afternoon? We could greatly use his assistance in the cause. He could speak more powerfully than anyone else. His weight behind the campaign would be superb. If he changes his mind from the liberal position he used to take, that would move more people than anything else I can think of.”
“Of course he’s going to be here,” Cordelia replied. “He’s late!” There was both anger and contempt in her face.
“I think we should continue our plans without him,” Denoon said. “Inform him when he comes.”
Vespasia turned slightly and caught a look of intense hatred on Enid’s face as she stared at her husband. It was so virulent that it stunned her. Then an instant later it was ironed away, and Vespasia wondered if it had been her imagination or a trick of the shifting summer light through the window.
There were footsteps in the hall, voices. The door to the withdrawing room opened and Sheridan Landsborough came in. He glanced around the group and acknowledged them all—Vespasia with surprise and pleasure—but he did not apologize for being late. It was as if he were unaware that he had been expected. His face was pale, shadowed with grief, and there was no vitality in his eyes.
Enid looked at him with profound gentleness, as if she were aching with almost physical pain to reach out to him, but there was no comfort to give. His loss was untouchable, and she understood that.
There was no similar warmth in Cordelia. As happened so often, bereavement seemed to have driven them apart rather than brought them closer. Each nursed their pain in different ways: she was angry; he withdrew, holding himself even farther apart than before.
Denoon behaved as if he were not emotionally involved. “We are discussing our best action to promote this bill of Tanqueray’s,” he said to Landsborough. “Lady Vespasia seems to think Charles Voisey is going to prove an adversary worthy of being taken seriously.”
Landsborough regarded him with little interest. “Really?”
“For goodness sake, Sheridan!” Cordelia said fiercely. “We must give all the assistance we can now, while the atrocity is at the forefront of everyone’s minds. It will not wait upon our bereavement.”
“Quite,” Denoon agreed, still looking at Landsborough. “You must know Voisey. What are his weaknesses? Where is he vulnerable? Lady Vespasia seems to think he is likely to be a nuisance. Can’t see why, myself.”
“He is likely to argue against the bill,” Landsborough answered mildly. He remained standing, almost as if he wished to be able to leave at any moment. “From what I have heard, he believes reform will come about more effectively if done in a moderate manner, but that it is necessary in time, if we are to maintain a peaceful society.”
“He’s an opportunist,” Denoon replied coldly. “You think too well of people, Sheridan. You are unrealistic.”
Vespasia was furious. “You see that as an idealized view of Sir Charles’s behavior?” she asked with chill.
“I think his protestations of drafting peaceful reform are self-serving,” Denoon replied, his tone of voice suggesting that it should have been obvious, even to her.
“Of course it is self-serving,” she retorted. “That is not the question. All that matters to us is what he will argue, not what he believes.”
Denoon flushed a dull red.
“I had forgotten how frank you are, Vespasia,” Cordelia observed with something close to pleasure.
“Or how wise,” Landsborough added, provoking a smile from Vespasia.
“By all means, let me have the benefit of your opinion,” Denoon said grudgingly.
Cordelia glared at him. “I am hoping that Vespasia will give us more than her opinion. Since she agrees with us about the urgency and the seriousness of addressing the violence in our midst, and doing something to make it possible for the police to curtail it, before we are all overtaken by a tide of destruction, she may be of practical help.”
For an instant the effort to control