Southampton Row - Anne Perry [42]
He gulped. “You are quite right,” he said, licking his dry lips. “A day at a time.” He looked down at his plate. “It’s nothing. I should not have disturbed your dinner. Of course it’s nothing. I am seeing”—he took a deep, shuddering breath—“much too far ahead. Trust the divine . . . divine . . .” He pushed himself back from the table and stood up. “I have had sufficient. Please excuse me.”
She half rose herself. “Reginald . . .”
“Don’t disturb yourself!” he snapped, walking away.
“But . . .”
He glared at her. “Don’t make an issue of it! I am going to do some work, reading. I need to study. I need to know . . . more.” And he closed the door with a bang, leaving her alone in the dining room confused and just as angry as he was, but with a growing feeling of unease.
The cottage on the edge of Dartmoor was beautiful, exactly what Charlotte had hoped for, but without Pitt it lacked its heart, and for her its purpose. She had found the Whitechapel affair very hard to bear. More than Pitt himself, she had burned at the injustice of it. She accepted that it was pointless to fight, but it did not ease the anger inside her. It had seemed in Buckingham Palace as if, at a terrible price for Great-aunt Vespasia, it was all going to be all right for Pitt. Voisey was robbed of his chance ever to be president of a Republic of Britain, and Pitt was back in charge at Bow Street.
Now, inexplicably, it was all gone again. The Inner Circle had not collapsed, as they had hoped. In spite of the Queen, it had had the power to remove Pitt again and send him back to Special Branch, where he was junior, unskilled in whatever arts they required, and responsible to Victor Narraway, who had no loyalty to him and, it seemed, no sense of honor to keep his promises regarding a holiday which had been more than earned.
But again, they were not in a position to fight, or even to complain. Pitt needed the job in Special Branch. It was almost as well paid as Bow Street had been, and they had no resources other than his salary. For the first time in her life, she was aware not just of having to be very careful with money, but of the real danger that they might cease to have any to be careful with.
So she held her peace, and pretended to the children and to Gracie that being here in this wild, sun- and wind-drenched countryside was what she wanted, and the fact that they were alone was only temporary. It was for the excitement and the adventure of it, not because Pitt felt they were safer out of London where Voisey did not know how to find them.
“I never seen so much air in all me life!” Gracie said in amazement as they walked up a long, steep incline to the top of the track and stared out across the vast panorama of the moors, stretching into the distance in hazy greens and sorrels, splashed with gold here and there, cloud-shadowed to people in the distance. “Are we the only ones wot’s ’ere?” she said in awe. “Just now nobody else lives ’ere?”
“There are farmers,” Charlotte answered, gazing around to the dark rise of the moor itself to the north, and the softer, more vivid slopes of the hills and valleys to the south. “And the villages are mostly on the lee sides of the slopes. Look . . . you can see smoke over there!” She pointed to a slim column of gray smoke so faint one had to peer to make it out.
“’Ere!” Gracie shouted suddenly. “You look out, Your Lordship!”
Edward grinned at her, then hared over the grass with Daniel after him. They tumbled together in the green bracken and went rolling over and over in a tangle of arms and legs, the sound of laughter quick and happy.
“Boys!” Jemima said in disgust. Then suddenly she changed her mind and went running and jumping easily after them.
In spite of herself, Charlotte smiled. Even without Pitt it could be good here. The cottage was only half a mile from the center