Anne Perry - Dorchester Terrace

“Their lordships’ deliberations are mostly a lot of pontificating,” he replied a trifle sourly. “Very often for the sound of their own voices. No one else is listening.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Have you just discovered that?”

“No, of course not. But now that no one is obliged to listen to me, I miss the pretense of respect, but far more, I miss the knowledge of my own purpose.”

She caught the pain in his voice, even though he had tried to mask it with lightness. He knew she had heard it and he was not sure if he wished he had been cleverer at concealing it, or that she knew him less well. But perhaps the comfort of friendship was of greater value than the privacy that came from not being understood.

“You will find a cause worth risking something for,” she assured him. “Or if none presents itself, you will create one. There is enough stupidity and injustice in the world to last us both the rest of our lives.”

“Is that supposed to comfort me?” he said with a smile.

She raised her silver eyebrows. “Certainly! To be without purpose is the same as being dead, only less peaceful.” She laughed very delicately. It was a mere whisper of amusement, but he knew she meant it passionately. He remembered her speaking once, only briefly, of her participation in the revolutions against oppression that had fired Europe almost half a century ago. They had rocked the entire continent. For a few short months, hope of a new democracy, freedom to speak and write as one chose, had flared wild and bright. People met together and talked all night, planning new laws, an equality that had never existed before, only to see their hope snuffed out. In France, Germany, Austria, and Italy, all the old tyrannies were restored with barely any change. The barricades were swept away and the emperors and kings sat back on their thrones.

“I have grown used to being given my causes without the effort of looking for them,” he admitted. “I accept the rebuke.”

“It was not meant as a rebuke, my dear,” she answered. “I would welcome your assistance in finding something worthy of doing myself.”

“Nonsense,” he said very softly, looking across the room to where Pitt and Charlotte were speaking with Evan Blantyre. Looking at Charlotte caused a sudden catch in his breath, a twist of his heart. The memories of their time in Ireland were still far from healing. He had always known that it was his dream alone; she had been there only to help him, and in so doing, to help Pitt. It was Pitt whom she loved. It always would be. “Right now I am sure you are very much occupied in worrying about whether Pitt is going to be eaten by the lions,” he said, looking back at her.

“Oh, dear! Am I so transparent?” Vespasia looked momentarily crestfallen.

“Only because I am worrying about the same thing,” he told her, pleased that she had not denied it. It said something for their friendship that she had owned the concern. Now she met his eyes, her anxiety undisguised.

“Are you afraid he will retain his respect for the upper classes, and defer to them even if he suspects them of treason?” he asked her.

“Certainly not!” she responded without hesitation. “He has been a policeman far too long to do anything so idiotic! He is painfully aware of our weaknesses. Have you already forgotten that miserable affair at the palace? I assure you, the Prince of Wales has not! Were it not for the queen’s own personal gratitude to Pitt, he would not have the position he does now, nor, very likely, any position at all!”

Narraway pulled his mouth into a bitter line at the memory. He knew His Royal Highness was still carrying a deep grudge about the whole fiasco. It was not forgiveness that stayed his hand, it was his mother’s iron will and strong personal loyalty to those who had served her with grace, and at the risk of their own lives.

But Victoria was old, and the shadows around her were growing ever longer.

“Does the prince’s anger concern you?” he asked Vespasia.

She gave a shrug so slight it hardly moved the deep lavender silk of her gown. “Not immediately. By the time the throne is his, he might have more pressing issues to occupy him.”

He did not interrupt her brief silence. They stood side by side, watching the swirl and shift of the glittering party in front of them.

“I am afraid that mercy will override the necessity for action,” Vespasia said at last. “Thomas has never balked from looking at the truth, however harsh, or tragic, or compromised by blame in many places. But he has not previously had to do more than present the evidence. Now he may have to be judge, jury, and even executioner himself. Decisions are not always black-and-white, and yet they must still be made. To whom does he turn for advice, for someone who will reconsider, balance what might be a mistake, find a fact he had not seen, which may well change everything?”

“No one,” Narraway said simply. “Do you think I don’t know that? Do you imagine that I have not lain awake all night staring at the ceiling and wondering if I had done the right thing myself, or perhaps sent a man wholly or partially innocent to his death because I could not afford to hesitate?”

Vespasia studied him carefully: his eyes, his mouth, the deep-etched lines of his face, the gray in his thick shock of black hair.

“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “You wear your worries with sufficient grace that I had not seen the burden they’ve created clearly enough.”

He found himself blushing. It was a compliment he had not expected from Vespasia. He was a little alarmed at how much it pleased him. It also made him vulnerable-something he was not used to, except with Charlotte Pitt-and he knew that he must force it to the back of his mind again.

“You must have thought me inhuman,” he replied, then wished he had not been so open.

“Not inhuman,” Vespasia said ruefully. “Just far more certain of yourself than I have ever been. I admired that in you, even if it left me in awe, and kept me at some distance.”

Now he was really surprised. He had not imagined Vespasia in awe of anyone. She had been flattered by emperors, admired by the tsar of all the Russias, and courted by half of Europe.

“Don’t be so silly!” she said sharply, as if reading his thoughts. “Privilege of birth is a duty, not an achievement! I admire those who have mastered themselves in order to be where they are, rather than having been handed it by circumstance.”

“Like Pitt?” he asked.

“I was thinking of you,” she said drily. “But yes, like Thomas.”

“And did you fear for me, when judgment lay in my hands?”

“No, my dear, because you have the steel in your soul. You will survive your mistakes.”

“And Pitt?”

“I hope so. But I fear it will be far harder for him. He is more of an idealist than you ever were, and perhaps more than I. He still has a certain innocence, courage to believe in the best.”

“Was I wrong to recommend him?” Narraway asked.

She would have liked to answer him easily, reassure him, but if she lied now she would leave them isolated from each other when perhaps they might most need to be allied. And she had long ago given up telling lies beyond the trivial ones of courtesy, when the truth served no purpose.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “We shall see.”

Two days after the reception, Vespasia received the news that a woman she had known and admired some time in the past, Serafina Montserrat, was ill and confined to her bed.

It is seldom easy to visit those who are not well, but it is far harder when both you and they know that recovery is not possible. What does one say that has any kind of honesty, and yet does not carry with it the breath of despair?