Seven Dials - Anne Perry [83]
“Until Ayesha Zakhari . . .”
“Exactly. And a passionate man who neither gives nor receives anything for himself for over two decades, when he does fall in love, is going to do so with great violence, greater than he understands or can master. He becomes uniquely vulnerable.” She said it softly, as if she had seen the reality of it herself.
“Yes . . .” Charlotte said thoughtfully, trying to picture it in her mind, imagine the waiting, the loneliness over years, and then the power of feeling when finally it came.
“What I do not understand,” Vespasia countered, her voice suddenly sharp and very practical again, “is why the woman shot Lovat. Given that he was not a particularly pleasant man and that he may have been annoying her, why on earth did she not simply ignore him? If he really was a nuisance, why didn’t she send for the police?”
A far uglier thought came to Charlotte’s mind. “Perhaps he was blackmailing her, possibly over something that happened in Alexandria and which he threatened to tell Ryerson? Which would account for why she could not trust him with the truth.”
Vespasia looked down at the grass at her feet. “Yes,” she admitted reluctantly. “Yes, that would not be impossible to believe. I hope profoundly that it is not true. One would have thought she would have more sense than to do it on a night when she expected Ryerson to come. But perhaps circumstances did not allow her that choice.”
“That would also explain why she still does not confide in anyone,” Charlotte added, hating her thoughts, but certain it was better to say it all aloud now than let it run in her mind unanswered, but just as insistent. “Although I cannot imagine what it would be, other than some plan to compromise Ryerson . . . to do with his position in the government.”
“A spy?” Vespasia said. “Or I suppose an agent provocateur would be more correct. Poor Saville—set up to be betrayed again.” She drew in a very long, slow breath and let it out in a sigh. “How fragile we are.” She started to rise to her feet. “How infinitely easy to hurt.”
Charlotte stood up quickly and offered her arm.
“Thank you,” Vespasia said dryly. “I weep inside for the pain of a man I have liked, but I am perfectly capable of standing up on my own—and I have no blisters. Perhaps you would care for my arm . . . to assist you as far as my carriage? I should be happy to take you back to Keppel Street . . . if that is where you are going?”
Charlotte bit back her smile, at least half back. “That is very good of you,” she accepted, taking Vespasia’s arm but leaning no weight upon it. “Yes, I am going home. Perhaps you would care for a cup of tea when we get there?”
“Thank you, I should,” Vespasia accepted with barely a flicker of amusement in her gray eyes. “No doubt the excellent Gracie would make it for us, and at the same time tell me more about this missing valet?”
VESPASIA ENJOYED her tea. She insisted upon taking it in the kitchen, a room she never visited in her own house. When her cook had recovered from her astonishment, she would have been affronted. They met daily in Vespasia’s morning room, where the cook came to receive her instructions, and counter with her own suggestions, and in due course a compromise was reached. The cook did not come into the withdrawing room. Vespasia did not invade the kitchen. It was a mutually agreed arrangement.
But Charlotte’s kitchen was the heart of the family, where food was not only prepared but also eaten. Gas lamps reflected on the polished copper of pans, the smell of clean linen drifted from the airing rack winched up to the ceiling, and the wooden table and floor were pale from being scrubbed every day.
At first Gracie was quiet, in spite of all her good intentions to the contrary, overawed by the presence of real aristocracy in her kitchen, sitting at her table, as if she were just anyone. And of course even now,