Anne Perry - Traitors Gate

“Then I don’t need to explain the noise and the crowds pushing and shoving each other,” Matthew continued. “Well, Father was fairly well towards the front and just as he heard the train coming, he felt a violent weight in the middle of his back and was propelled forward almost over the edge of the platform onto the lines, where of course he would have been killed.” Matthew’s voice hardened and there was a harsh edge to it. “He was grasped and hauled back just as the train appeared and came hurtling in. He said he turned to thank whomever it was, but there was no longer any person there he could distinguish as his helper-or his assailant. Everyone seemed to be about the business of boarding the train, and no one took the least notice of him.”

“But he was sure he was pushed?”

“Quite sure.” Matthew waited for Pitt to express some skepticism.

Pitt nodded barely perceptibly. With someone else, someone he knew less closely, he might have doubted; but unless he had changed beyond recognition, Arthur Desmond was the last man on earth to believe he was being persecuted. He viewed all men as basically good until he was forced to do otherwise, and then it came to him as a shock and a sadness, and he was still ready to find himself mistaken, and delighted to be so.

“And the second?” Pitt asked.

“That was something to do with a horse,” Matthew replied. “He never told me the details.” He sat forward again, his brow creasing. “I only knew about it at all because the groom told me when I was home. It seems Father was riding down in the village when some unexpected idiot came down the road at a full gallop, completely out of control of his animal. He was careering all over the place, one side of the road to the other, arms flying, whip in his hand, and he just about drove Father into the stone wall alongside the vicarage. Caught his horse a terrible blow about the head with his whip. Terrified the poor beast, and of course Father was thrown.” He let out his breath slowly, without moving his eyes from Pitt’s face. “It could conceivably have been an accident; the man was either drunken out of his senses or a complete imbecile, but Father didn’t think so, and I certainly don’t.”

“No,” Pitt said grimly. “Neither do I. He was a damn good horseman, and not the sort of man to imagine things of anyone.”

Suddenly Matthew smiled, a wide, generous smile that made him look years younger. “That’s the best thing I have heard anyone say in weeks. Dear God, I wish his friends could hear you. Everyone is so afraid to praise him, even to acknowledge his sanity, never mind that he might have been right.” There was sudden hurt in his voice. “Thomas, he was sane, wasn’t he? The sanest and most honorable and innately decent man ever to walk the land.”

“Yes he was,” Pitt agreed quietly and with total honesty. “But apart from that, it doesn’t rest on his sanity. I know the Inner Circle punishes those who betray it. I’ve seen it before. Sometimes it is social or financial ruin-not often death, but it is not unknown. If they couldn’t frighten him, and they obviously couldn’t, then there was nothing else for them to do. They couldn’t ruin him financially because he didn’t gamble or speculate. They couldn’t socially because he didn’t curry favor with anyone, or seek any office or alliances, and he couldn’t have cared less about being accepted at court, or in the social circles of London. Where he lived his standing was unassailable, even by the Inner Circle. So there was only death left to them, to silence him permanently.”

“And then to nullify all he said by dishonoring his memory.” Matthew’s voice was filled with anger, and pain flooded back into his face. “I can’t bear that, Thomas. I won’t!”

There was a knock on the parlor door. Pitt suddenly became aware again of where he was, and that it was nearly dark outside. He had not eaten, and Charlotte must be wondering who his visitor was and why he had gone into the parlor and closed the door without introducing her, or inviting the visitor to dine.

Matthew looked at him expectantly, and Pitt was surprised to see there was a flicker of nervousness across his face, as if he were uncertain how he should behave.

“Come in.” Pitt rose to his feet and reached to open the door. Charlotte was standing outside looking curious and a little anxious. She had finished reading to the children and from the faint flush in her cheeks and the stray hair poked into a misplaced pin, he knew she had been in the kitchen. He had even forgotten he was hungry. “Charlotte, this is Matthew Desmond.” It was ridiculous that they had never met before. Matthew had been closer to him than anyone else except his mother, at times closer than even she. And Charlotte was closer to him now than he had imagined anyone could be. And he had never taken her back to Brackley, never introduced her to his home, or to those who had been more than family to him before she was. His mother had died when he was eighteen, but that should not have cut the ties.

“How do you do, Mr. Desmond,” Charlotte said with a calm and confidence Pitt knew was the product of her birth, not of any inner emotion. He saw the uncertainty in her eyes and knew why she moved a step closer to him.

“How do you do, Mrs. Pitt,” Matthew replied, and his voice lifted very slightly with surprise because she answered his look squarely. In that brief second, with no more than a sentence and a meeting of glances, they had taken a certain measure of each other, understood the precise niche in society which they filled. “I am sorry to intrude, Mrs. Pitt,” Matthew went on. “I am afraid it was most selfish of me. I came to tell Thomas of my father’s death, and I regret that all consideration for anyone else went straight out of my head. I apologize.”

Charlotte looked across at Pitt this time, her face full of shock and sympathy, then back to Matthew. “I am sorry, Mr. Desmond. You must be feeling quite terrible. Is there anything we can do to be of practical assistance? Would you like Thomas to go back to Brackley with you?”

Matthew smiled. “Actually, Mrs. Pitt, I wanted Thomas to find out precisely what happened, and that he has already promised to do.”

Charlotte took breath to say something else, then realized perhaps it was inappropriate, and changed her mind.

“Would you like some supper, Mr. Desmond? I imagine you do not feel like eating, but you may feel worse if you leave it too long.”

“You are quite right,” he agreed. “On all counts.”

She looked at him closely, at the distress and the weariness in his face. She hesitated on the edge of decision for a moment, then made her judgment.

“Would you like to stay here overnight, Mr. Desmond? It will be no inconvenience whatever. In fact you would be our first guest since moving here, and we should like that very much. If there is anything you need, and have not with you, Thomas could lend it to you.”

He did not need to consider it. “Thank you,” he said immediately. “I would far rather that than return to my rooms.”

“Thomas will show you upstairs and have Gracie prepare the bedroom for you. Supper will be served in ten minutes.” And she turned, with only a glance at Pitt, and retreated towards the kitchen.

Matthew stood for a moment in the hallway looking at Pitt. All sorts of half thoughts were plain in his face: surprise, understanding, memories of the past, of long talks and even longer dreams when they were boys, and some of all the distance between then and now. No explanations were necessary.

Supper was a light meal anyway: cold roast chicken and vegetables, and a fruit sorbet afterwards. It was hardly a time when it mattered, but Pitt was glad Matthew had come after his promotion, and it had not been during the time when mutton stew and potatoes, or whiting and bread and butter, were all they could have offered.