Dorchester Terrace (42 page)

“That is not the point,” Pitt said quietly, facing Blantyre across the two untouched glasses of whisky. “I have no intention of pursuing Serafina’s death right now. What concerns me is the validity of the information you have given Special Branch regarding Duke Alois, and the apparent threat of his assassination.”

Blantyre raised his eyebrows. “Why should you doubt it? Surely you can see that I, of all people, do not want an Austrian duke assassinated. Why the hell do you think I turned Dragovic over to the Austrians? He was planning the assassination of a particularly brutal local governor. He was a pig of a man, but the vengeance for his death would have been terrible.” He leaned forward, his face twisted with passion. “Think, damn it! Use whatever brain you have. Of course I don’t want Alois assassinated.”

Pitt smiled. “Unless, of course, he is another dissident. Then it
would be very convenient if he was killed while he was here in London. Not the Austrians’ fault—it’s all down to the incompetent British, with their Special Branch led by a new man, who’ll swallow any story at all.”

Blantyre sighed wearily. “Is this all about your promotion, and the fact that you don’t think you are fit for the job?”

Pitt clenched his jaw to keep his temper. “It’s about the fact that most of the information we have on the assassination planned here came from you, and that you are a murderer and a liar, whose principal loyalty is to the Habsburg crown, and not the British,” he replied, carefully keeping his voice level. “If Duke Alois was your enemy rather than your friend, you would be perfectly capable of having him murdered wherever it was most convenient to you.”

Blantyre winced, but he did not speak.

“Or alternatively, there is no plot at all,” Pitt continued. “You wanted to keep Special Branch busy, and the police away from investigating the murder of Serafina Montserrat, and then, most regrettably, of your wife. You had to kill Serafina, once you knew she was losing her grip on her mind, and might betray you to Adriana. And you need to survive now, or else how can you be of service in helping Austria keep control of its rapidly crumbling empire, after the suicide of its crown prince, and his replacement by Franz Ferdinand, who the old emperor despises?”

Blantyre’s jaw was tight, his eyes hard.

“A fair estimate,” he said between his teeth. “But you will not know if I am telling the truth or not, will you? You have checked all the information I gave you, or you should have. If you haven’t, then you are a greater fool than I took you to be. Dare you trust it?” He smiled thinly. “You damned well don’t dare ignore it!”

Pitt felt as if the ground were sinking beneath him. Yet the fire still burned gently in the hearth, the flames warming the whisky glasses, which shone a luminous amber.

“Be careful, Pitt,” Blantyre warned. “Consider deeply what you do, after Alois has been here and gone. Assuming you manage to keep him alive, don’t entertain any ideas of arresting me, or bringing me to any kind of trial.” He smiled very slightly. “I visited Serafina quite
often, and I listened to her. A good deal of that time she had no idea who I was. But then you know that already. You will have heard it from Lady Vespasia, if nothing else.”

“Of course I know that,” Pitt said tartly. “If you were not afraid of her talking candidly again, to others, you would not have taken the risk of killing her.”

“Quite. I regretted doing it.” Blantyre gave a slight shrug. “She was a magnificent woman, in her time. She knew more secrets about both personal and political indiscretions than anyone else.”

Pitt was aware of a change in the atmosphere: a warmth in Blantyre, a chill in himself.

Blantyre nodded his head fractionally. “She rambled on about all manner of things and people. Some I had already guessed, but much of it was new to me. I had no idea that her circle was so wide: Austrian, Hungarian, Croatian, and Italian were all what I might have imagined. But the others: the French, for example; the German; and of course the British. There were some considerable surprises.” He looked very steadily at Pitt, as if to make certain that Pitt grasped the weight of what he was saying.

Pitt thought of Tregarron, also using Nerissa Freemarsh to disguise his visits to Serafina. What did he fear that could be so much worse than being thought to have an affair with a plain, single woman of no significance, and almost on his own doorstep? It was a despicable use of a vulnerable person whose reputation it would permanently ruin.

“The British Special Branch, and various other diplomatic and intelligence sources, have a record of some very dubious actions,” Blantyre continued. His voice dropped a little. “Some have made them vulnerable to blackmail, with all its shabby consequences. And of course there are also the idealists who set certain values above the narrow love of country. Serafina was another little Englander like you. She kept silent.” He left the suggestion hanging in the air. It was not necessary to spell it out.

Pitt stared at him. He had no doubt whatsoever that Blantyre meant everything he was saying. There was a confidence in him, an arrogance that filled the room.

Blantyre was smiling broadly. “Victor Narraway would have killed me,” he said with almost a kind of relish. “You won’t. You don’t have the courage. You may think of it, but the guilt would cripple you.

“I like you, Pitt,” he said with intense sincerity, his voice thick with emotion. “You are an intelligent, imaginative, and compassionate man. You have quite a nice sense of humor. But in the end, you haven’t the steel in your soul to act outside what is predictable, and comfortable. You are essentially bourgeois, just like my father.”

He took a deep breath. “Now you had better go and make sure you save Duke Alois. You can’t afford to have him shot in England.”

Pitt rose to his feet and left without speaking. There was no answer that had any meaning.

Outside he walked along the windy street. He was chilled and shivering in spite of the sun, which sat low in the sky, giving off a clean-edged, late winter light. Was Blantyre right? Would Narraway have shot Blantyre? Would he find himself unable to do the same, standing with a pistol in his hand, unable to kill in cold blood a man he knew, and had liked?

He did not know the answer. He was not even certain what he wanted the truth to be. If he could do such a thing, what would he gain? And what would he lose? His children might never know anything about it, but it would still be a barrier between them and him.

And what ruthlessness would Charlotte see in him, which she had not seen before, and had not wanted to? Or Vespasia? Or anyone? Above all these, what would he learn about himself? How would it change him from who he was now? Was Blantyre right that his inner comfort was what he cared about most, in the end?

He was walking rapidly, not certain where he was going. He was less than half a mile from the part of the Foreign Office where Jack worked. There were no secrets left about Blantyre. Pitt knew the worst. But the resolution as to what to do was lost in the turmoil of his own mind.

V
ESPASIA KNEW FROM THE
moment Victor Narraway came into her sitting room that he had serious news. His face was pinched with
anxiety, and he looked cold, even though it was a comparatively mild evening.

Without realizing she was doing so, she rose to greet him.

“What is it, Victor? What has happened?”

His hands were chill when he took hers, briefly, but she did not pull away.

“I have learned something further about Serafina, which I am afraid may be more serious than I had supposed. Tregarron visited Dorchester Terrace several times. I thought at first it was primarily to see Nerissa …”

“Nerissa?” For an instant she wanted to laugh at the idea, then the impulse died. “Really? It seems an eccentric idea. Are you sure?”

“No, I’m not sure. Men do sometimes have the oddest tastes in affairs. But now I believe that Nerissa was the excuse and Serafina the reason.”

“She was at least a generation older than he, and there is no proof, in fact, not even a suggestion, that they knew each other,” she pointed out.

“But his father knew Serafina,” Narraway said grimly, watching her face. “Very well.”

“Oh. Oh, dear. Yes, I see. And you are assuming that perhaps Serafina was indiscreet about that too. Or perhaps others were able to deduce that the present Lord Tregarron was visiting for fear of her saying something unfortunate. Who is he protecting, though? His father’s reputation? Is his mother still alive?”

“Yes. She is very old, but apparently quite clear in her mind.” His expression was sad and gentle. “What a devil of a burden it is to know so many secrets. How much safer it would be to understand nothing, to see all manner of things before you, and never add it up so you perceive the meaning.”

It was not necessary for either of them to say more. Each carried his or her own burden of knowledge, differently gained but perhaps equally heavy.

They sat by the fire for a few more moments, then he rose and wished her good night.

But when he left, going out into the mild, blustery wind, Vespasia
remained sitting beside the last of the fire, thinking about what he had said. Of course Tregarron would rather his mother never heard of her husband’s affair with Serafina, on the assumption that she did not already know. But it did not seem a sufficient motive for Tregarron to make quite so many visits to see Serafina; surely there was something else, possibly something about that affair uglier and more dangerous than just unfaithfulness?

She must make her own inquiries. The day after tomorrow Duke Alois Habsburg would land in Dover. There was no time to spare for subtlety. It was not a thought she wished to face, but she knew who she must ask for this possibly dangerous piece of knowledge. She had reached the point where the price of evasion would be greater than that of asking.

V
ESPASIA ALIGHTED IN CAVENDISH
Square the next morning at a quarter to ten. It had been a long time—over two decades—since she had last seen Bishop Magnus Collier. He was a little older than she, and had retired several years earlier.

The footman who answered the door had no idea who she was. She offered her card, telling him that she was an old acquaintance and the matter was of extreme urgency.

He looked doubtful.

“His lordship would not be amused should you leave me standing on the step in the street,” she said coldly.

He invited her in and, in a manner no more than civil, showed her to a morning room where the fire was not yet lit. It was fifteen very cool minutes before he returned, pink-faced, and conducted her into the bishop’s study. There, the fire was burning well, and the warmth in the air wrapped around her comfortingly.

She accepted the offer of tea, and occupied herself looking at the rows of bookshelves. Many of the titles she was familiar with from long ago, though they were works she had never read herself. She found the writings of most of the very early Church fathers more than a trifle pompous.

She heard the door open and close and turned to find Bishop Collier
standing just inside, a curious smile on his lean face. He was very thin, and far grayer than when they had last met, but the warmth in his eyes had not changed.

“All my life it has been a pleasure to see you,” he said quietly. “But I am concerned that you say it is a matter of such urgency. It must be, to bring you here, after our last parting. What can I do to help?”

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, and she meant it. The impossible feelings they had once had for each other were no longer there, but it had still been wise for them to decide not to meet again. They had to consider the perceptions of the outside world.

He gestured toward the chairs near the fire and they both sat. She arranged her skirts with a practiced hand, in a single, graceful movement.

“Perhaps you read that Serafina Montserrat died recently?” she began.

“Time is catching up with us rather more rapidly than I expected,” he said ruefully. “But perhaps that is its nature, and ours is to be taken by surprise by what was utterly predictable. But I’m sure you did not come to discuss the nature of time and its peculiar elastic qualities. I hope her passing was easy. She was a remarkable woman. She would have faced death with courage. I would be surprised if it had the temerity to inconvenience her overmuch.”

Vespasia smiled in spite of herself. She was reminded sharply of what it was in him that she had liked so much, and why they had decided to stay apart.

“I think it was simply a matter of going to sleep and not waking again,” she replied. “The part of it that brings me here is that the sleep was the result of having been given a massive overdose of laudanum.”

All the light vanished from his face. He leaned forward a little. “Are you saying that it was given to her without her knowledge, or that she took it herself, intending to die? I find the latter very difficult to believe.”

“No, that isn’t what I am saying. She rambled in her mind, sometimes forgot what year it was, or to whom she was speaking, which caused her profound anxiety. She was worried she would accidentally
let slip a confidence that could do much damage.” She recalled the terror on Serafina’s face with acute pain. “She did make such slips, and she was murdered because of it.”

He shook his head. “Are you certain beyond doubt?”

“Yes. But that is not why I have come. My concern is with one of the secrets she let slip, and the damage it could cause now.”

“What can I do to help?” He looked puzzled.

“The secret concerns an affair she had very many years ago, with the late Lord Tregarron.” She stopped, seeing the change in his face, the sudden darkness. It would be impossible now for him to deny that he was bitterly aware of what it was she was going to ask.

“I cannot repeat to you things that were told to me in confidence,” he said. “Surely you know better than to ask?”

“There is a very slight deviousness in you, Magnus,” she said with a curve of her lips that was almost a smile. “Anything Tregarron might have told you may be confidential, although the man has been dead for years. What Serafina told you, though, I doubt was in the nature of confession. Is keeping confidence about an old affair really so very important that we can allow it to cost a man his life now? And, if the worst comes to pass, it may be more than one life at stake.”