Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [24]
She looked at him for only an instant before being perfectly certain he had no sense of loss whatever, and was still enjoying the conversation. It would be an overstatement to say he was flirting, but he was quite at ease with women, and obviously found their company pleasing.
“Perhaps there isn’t any appreciable difference between secondhand and thirdhand,” she responded as they made their way past a group of men in earnest conversation. “And it will be only a matter of description to me, because I shall never know if you are right or not. So please tell me, and make it very vivid, even if you have to invent it. And full of facts, of course,” she plunged on. “Tell me about Zambezia, and gold and diamonds, and Doctor Livingstone and Mr. Stanley, and the Germans.”
“Good heavens,” he said in much alarm. “All of them?”
“As many as you can,” she returned.
A footman offered them a silver tray with glasses of champagne.
“Well to begin with, the diamonds we know about are all in South Africa,” Aylmer answered, taking a glass and giving it to her, then one for himself. “But there is a possibility of enormous amounts of gold in Zambezia. There are massive ruins of a civilization, a city called Zimbabwe, and we are only beginning to estimate the fortune that could be there. Which, quite naturally, is also what the Germans are interested in. And possibly everyone else as well.” He was watching her face with wide brown eyes, and she had no idea how serious he was, or whether it was at least partially invention, to amuse her.
“Does Britain own it now?” she asked, taking a sip from her glass.
“No,” Aylmer replied, moving a step away from the footman. “Not yet.”
“But we will?”
“Ah—that is a very important question, to which I do not have the answer.” He led the way on up the steps.
“And if you did, no doubt it would be highly secret,” she added.
“But of course.” He smiled and went on to tell her about Cecil Rhodes and his adventures and exploits in South Africa, the Rand and Johannesburg, and the discovery of the Kimberley diamond mine, until they were interrupted by a young man with a long nose and a hearty manner who swept Aylmer away with apologies, and obviously to his annoyance. Charlotte was left momentarily alone.
She looked around her to see whom she might recognize from photographs in the London Illustrated News. She saw a most imposing man with lush side-whiskers and curling beard, the light of the chandeliers gleaming on the bald dome of his head, his sad, bloodhound eyes gazing around the room. She thought he might be Lord Salisbury, the Foreign Secretary, but she was not certain. A photograph with only shades of gray was not like a living person.
Linus Chancellor was talking to a man superficially not unlike himself, but without the ambition in his face, or the mercurial temperament. They were deep in conversation, almost as if oblivious of the whirl of silks and glitter of lights, or the buzz of chatter all around them. Beside the second man, but facing the other way, apparently waiting for him, was a most unusual woman. She was of arresting appearance because of her supreme confidence and the intelligence which seemed to radiate from her. But she was also quite unusually plain. Her nose was so high at the bridge, in profile it was almost a continuation of the line of her forehead. Her chin was a little too short, and her eyes were wide set, tilted down at the corners, and too large. It was an extraordinary face, compelling and even a trifle frightening. She was dressed extremely well, but one was so startled by her countenance it was of no importance whatever.
Charlotte exchanged a few polite and meaningless words with a couple who made it their duty to speak to everyone. A man with light auburn hair addressed her with effusive admiration, then once again she found herself alone. She did not mind in the least. She knew Pitt was here to pursue a specific case.
A delicately pale woman of about her own age was standing a few yards away, her fair hair elaborately coiffed, her pastel gown stitched with