Southampton Row - Anne Perry [68]
The footman removed the plates and brought the next course.
“Will you hate it if I lose?” Jack said suddenly.
She stopped with her fork in the air. She swallowed hard, as if there were an obstruction in her throat. “Do you think you might? Is that what Davenport says will happen if you won’t abandon Aubrey?”
“I don’t know,” he said frankly. “I’m not sure if I’m prepared to pay the price in friendship that power costs. I resent being placed where I have to choose. I resent the hypocrisy of it, the cutting and trimming until you’ve paid so much you hang on to your prize because you’ve given up everything else in order to get it. Where is the point at which you say ‘I won’t do it—I’ll let it all go rather than pay this one thing more?’ ” He looked at her as if he expected an answer.
“When you have to say something you don’t believe,” she offered.
He gave a sharp laugh, bitter-edged. “And am I going to be honest enough with myself to know when that is? Am I going to look at what I don’t want to see?”
She said nothing.
“What about silence?” he went on, his voice rising, his plate forgotten. “What about compromised abstention? Judicious blindness? Passing by on the other side? Or perhaps Pilate washing his hands would be the right image?”
“Aubrey Serracold is not Christ,” Emily pointed out.
“My own honor is the point,” he said sharply. “What do I have to become to win office? And then what to keep it? If it weren’t Aubrey, would it be someone else, or something?” He looked at her challengingly, as if he wanted an answer from her.
“And what if Rose did kill this woman?” she asked. “And if Thomas finds out?”
He said nothing. He looked so wretched for an instant she wished she had not spoken, but the question beat at her mind, echoing all the other things it brought with it. How much should she tell Thomas, and when? Should she make more effort to find out herself? Above all, how could she protect Jack? What was the greatest danger, loyalty to a damaged cause and the risk to his own seat? Or disloyalty and an office perhaps bought at the cost of part of himself? Did he owe it to anyone to go down with him?
Suddenly she was overwhelmingly angry that Charlotte was in some country cottage in Dartmoor with nothing to do but domestic chores, simple, physical things, no decisions to make, and where Emily could not ask her opinion and share all this with her.
But had Aubrey any idea of what was really going on? She saw his face sharp and clear in her mind with its quizzical innocence, the feeling she had that he was so open to pain.
It was not her job to protect him! It was Rose’s, and why was she not doing it instead of going on some wild pursuit of voices from the dead? What could she possibly need to know that mattered a damn now?
“Warn him!” she said aloud.
Jack was startled. “About Rose? Doesn’t he know?”
“I don’t know! No . . . how can I tell? Who ever knows what really happens between two people? I meant warn him about the political realities. Tell him you can’t support him if he goes too far with his socialism.”
His face tightened. “I tried to. I don’t think he believed me. He hears what he wants to—“ He was interrupted by the butler coming in discreetly. “What is it, Morton?” Jack asked with a frown.
Morton was standing very straight, his face grave. “Mr. Gladstone would like to see you, sir. He is at the gentlemen’s club in Pall Mall. I have taken the liberty of sending Albert for the carriage. I hope I did the right thing.” That was not really a question. Morton was an ardent admirer of the Grand Old Man, and the thought of not obeying such a summons instantly was inconceivable to him.
Emily saw Jack stiffen, the muscles in his neck pull taut and the silent intake of breath. Was this the warning about Aubrey from the Liberal