Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [146]
“And expose our own weakness?”
“Oh. Yes, I see. Not very good, when we are busy negotiating treaties. It makes us look incompetent, doesn’t it?”
“Very. And actually all the information he gave was inaccurate anyway.”
“On purpose? Or was he incompetent too?” She sat down opposite him, temporarily leaving the kittens to explore, which they did with enthusiasm.
“Oh, no, definitely on purpose,” he replied. “So if he defended himself by saying that, then we ruin the good he has done, as well as making ourselves look stupid. No, on the whole, I think it is best he goes to Portugal. Only he left his cats behind, and asked me if I would look after them so their servants don’t dispose of them. Their names are Archie and Angus. That is Archie, presently trying to get into the flour bin.”
Her face softened into pure pleasure again as she looked down at the little animal, then at the other one, whose soft, black face was wide-eyed and filled with interest. He moved a step closer, then jumped back, then took another step forward, tail high.
It was hard to spoil the moment.
“I shall probably go and see Matthew this evening….” he began.
She froze, her fingers motionless above the kitten, then she looked up at him, waiting for him to tell her.
“Soames was the traitor in the Treasury,” he said. “Matthew knew it.”
Her face filled with pain. “Oh, Thomas! That’s dreadful! Poor Harriet. How is she taking it? Did you have to arrest him? Can Matthew be with her? Wouldn’t it be better if … if you didn’t go?” She leaned across the table, putting her hand over his. “I’m sorry, my dear, but he is not going to find it easy to understand that you had to arrest Soames. In time, I expect he will realize …” She stopped, seeing from his face that there was something she had not understood. “What? What is it?”
“It was Matthew who told me,” he said softly. “Harriet Soames confided to him, in ignorance, a telephone call she had overheard her father make, not understanding its meaning, and he felt honor-bound to repeat it to me. I am afraid she will not forgive him for it. In her eyes he has betrayed both herself and her father.”
“That’s not fair!” she said instantly, then closed her eyes and shook her head from side to side in a sharp little movement of denial. “I know it is natural to feel that way, but it is still not fair. What else could he do? She cannot expect him to deny his own life’s work and belief and be party to Mr. Soames’s treason! It’s not Matthew!”
“I know that,” he said softly. “And perhaps there is part of her which knows it too, but that doesn’t help. Her father is disgraced, ruined. The Colonial Office won’t prosecute, or the Treasury either, because of the scandal, but it will become known.”
She looked up. “What will happen to him?” Her face filled with a cold, bleak sadness. “Suicide?” she whispered.
“It’s not impossible, but I hope not.”
“Poor Harriet! Yesterday she had everything and the future looked endlessly bright. Today there is nothing at all, no marriage, no father, no money, no standing in Society, only the few friends who have the courage to remain by her, and no hope for anything to come. Thomas, it’s sad, and very frightening. Yes, of course, she cannot forgive Matthew, and that will be a wound he will never be healed of either. What a terrible, terrible mess. Yes, go to Matthew; he will need you more than ever before.”
Pitt had stopped by at Matthew’s office and found him white to the lips, hollow-eyed and barely able to function in his duty. He had known the danger of such rejection when he had first gone to Pitt, but part of him had clung to the hope that it would not be so, that somehow Harriet would, in her despair and shame, turn to him, in spite of what he had done, what he had felt compelled to do. Given his own sense of honor he had had no choice.
He had begun to tell Pitt some of this, but Pitt had understood it without the necessity of words. After a few moments Matthew had ceased trying to explain, and simply let the subject fall. They sat together for some time, occasionally speaking of things