Midnight at Marble Arch (14 page)

“Of … of Neville Forsbrook,” Charlotte replied.

“Or of something she believed about Neville Forsbrook,” Vespasia went on. “That may or may not have been true.”

Charlotte felt helpless. If they voiced their own fears about what had happened to Angeles, speculation would run wild. Neville Forsbrook was alive to defend himself, and so were his friends. He could say that Angeles was hysterical, that she had misunderstood a remark; perhaps her English was not so fluent as to grasp a joke or a colloquialism. Or even that she had had rather too much champagne. Any of those explanations could even be true, though Charlotte did not believe any of them.

“So there is nothing we can do?” she asked aloud.

Vespasia’s eyes were full of pain. “Nothing that I know of,” she replied. “If it were your child, what would you want strangers to do, apart from grieve with you, and make no speculation or gossip?”

“Nothing,” Charlotte agreed.

She rode home silently with Pitt. When they alighted and went inside, Charlotte went directly up the stairs. As gently as she could, she opened Jemima’s bedroom door and stared at her daughter, sleeping in the faint light that came through the imperfectly drawn curtains. Her face was completely untroubled. Her hair, so like Charlotte’s own, was spread across the pillow, unraveled out of its braids. She could have been a child still, not on the verge of womanhood at all.

Charlotte found herself smiling, even as tears ran down her cheeks.

6

V
ESPASIA WAS DEEPLY TROUBLED
by the terrible death of Angeles Castelbranco. She went over and over it in her mind, waking in the night and turning up the light in her elegant bedroom. She felt the urge to see her familiar belongings, to become rooted again in her own life with the beauty and the pleasures she was accustomed to. But with that came also the deep, almost suppressed loneliness that underlay it all.

At least she was physically safe from everything except illness and age. As the events at Dorchester Terrace a short while ago had reminded her so painfully, no one was free from those. Death need not be gentle, even in one’s own home. The only thing one could do was have courage, and keep faith in an ultimate goodness beyond the limited sight of the flesh.

Of course faith was of little use now to Isaura Castelbranco; and Angeles, poor child, was beyond the reach of any of them.

But whoever had brought about her death, even indirectly—and Vespasia was certain that someone had—he need not be beyond the reach of justice, and maybe even more important, of being prevented from ever doing such a thing again.

Vespasia had heard of the death of Catherine Quixwood, and the speculation as to the nature of her attack. She knew that Victor Narraway had involved himself in the case and wondered if he really had any perception of the horror behind such a terrible act. In thinking this, she realized she had been avoiding approaching him about the matter because it would hurt her if he could not—or would not—grasp the true breadth of suffering such pain.

That made the decision for her. If she feared talking to Victor, then she must face that fear. She sent him a note in the morning arranging to meet him for luncheon in one of her favorite restaurants.

She found him already waiting for her when she arrived. There were some tables in the open air, placed well apart under the dappled shade of trees. They were set with white linen, and the ever-moving light caught the edges of cut-crystal glasses. The air smelled of earth and flowers, and the murmur of the river nearby made private conversation easy.

He greeted her with evident pleasure. For the first few minutes they laughed and considered the menu and made choices, as if nothing ugly or sordid ever thrust itself into the beauty of their world.

When they were served and the waiter had excused himself, Vespasia finally approached the subject that had caused her to arrange the meeting.

“How is the case going regarding the death of Catherine Quixwood?” She tried to make it sound as if her interest were casual concern.

He did not answer immediately but studied her face, searching for the depth behind her words.

She felt foolish. She should have known that even with her years of experience in Society at saying one thing and meaning another, she could not delude him. He was not so very much younger than she, and he had been in Special Branch much of his life.

“I have a reason for asking,” she said, then realized she was offering an explanation that had not been asked for. She smiled. “Am I transparent?”

His answering smile was quick. “Yes, my dear, today you are. But have we ever spoken idly to each other, looking for something to say?”

She felt a faint warmth creep up her cheeks, but it was from pleasure, not discomfort. “Perhaps I had better be frank and start at the beginning. It just seemed a little clumsy to bring it up at the luncheon table.”

With his back to the light, his eyes were so dark as to be black. Now they widened slightly in surprise. “Disturbing, perhaps, forthright always, but never clumsy. Is it my involvement you fear may be inappropriate? Or is it something to do with Catherine Quixwood herself? Did you know her?”

“No. So far as I am aware, I never met her,” she said with a strange touch of regret. “And it had not occurred to me that you would behave other than as always. It is the subject of …” She found herself reluctant to use the word, and yet to circle around it was somehow an insult to the victims. “The subject of rape,” she said distinctly. They were not close enough to anyone else to be overheard. “I am afraid that there may have been another incident, ending equally tragically, and I am uncertain what to do for the best.”

The concern in his face became profound. “Tell me,” he said simply.

Quietly and without elaboration she recounted what had happened at the party during which Angeles Castelbranco had met her death. She was startled and even a little embarrassed that her throat ached with the effort to keep her tears in check. She had not intended him to be aware of the depth of her feelings.

“There was nothing you could have done,” he said gently when she had finished.

The pity in his eyes, almost tenderness, caught her with a raw edge, awakening other, more complex emotions.

“But I didn’t try to do anything,” she said sharply.

“What could you have done?” he asked. “From what you say it was all over in a few terrible moments.”

She took a deep breath and stared down at the tablecloth, the silver and crystal still winking in the light as a breath of wind stirred the leaves above them. “I knew there was something wrong over a week ago,” she answered. “I should have done something then.”

“You knew, or you suspected?” he said.

“That’s splitting hairs, Victor. It doesn’t help.”

“What is it you want me to say?” he asked reasonably.

She felt a completely uncharacteristic flare of temper. She wanted to lash out at him for being patronizing and completely missing the point, but she knew that was unfair. She sipped her wine for a moment before answering.

“I suspect Angeles might have been assaulted, possibly raped, and that is why she reacted to young Forsbrook so violently. She was terrified, of that I am quite certain. What I do not know is what to do about it now.”

“Is Pitt aware of this?” he inquired.

“I imagine so; most certainly Charlotte is. But it is not a police matter, let alone one for Special Branch. I very much doubt the Castelbrancos will report it to anyone. They are foreigners here, in many senses alone in a strange country.”

“Vespasia—” he began.

“I know,” she said quickly. “It is not my right to interfere, and if I do so I will assuredly make it worse. But regardless of what the law may think, it is a monstrous wrong. I didn’t think so at first, but I realize now that if there is something I can do, then I must do it. I am not involved with the police, or law, or government. There are avenues I can explore that they cannot. And I have no other demands on my time.”

“It could be dangerous,” he began urgently, his face creased with anxiety. “Pelham Forsbrook is a very powerful man, and you have no proof that Angeles’s death was anything other than a simple tragedy. You—”

She fixed him with a withering look.

He stopped speaking and smiled, but did not lower his gaze.

She realized with surprise that the look that froze almost anyone
else was having no effect upon him, but she did not avert her gaze either.

“What is it you wish of me?” he asked. “Other than my discretion, which you have.”

“I want to know what the law does about rape, when they are tragically certain of it. For example, what the police are doing to find out who raped Catherine Quixwood,” she replied. It was a guess—she had only suspected as much from the bits of gossip she had heard—but the shadow that fell over his face immediately confirmed it.

“How did you …” he began, his face troubled.

“I thought it was a possibility, given the circumstances,” she said gently.

Narraway sighed. “It seems that whoever attacked her was someone she knew—she let him in without fear,” he said simply. “The rape was violent and brutal, but in itself it didn’t kill her. It seems, according to the doctor, that she managed to drag herself to the cabinet and pour herself a glass of Madeira, which she heavily laced with the laudanum. I thought the hall cabinet was an odd place to have laudanum, but apparently that’s where it was. Perhaps she liked it with the wine because the wine masked the taste. I don’t know.”

Vespasia was stunned. The ugliness of the act and its aftermath crowded in on her and she felt crushed by its inevitability. So Catherine herself would be blamed for her circumstances; drinking the laudanum would be interpreted as an act of shame, an admission of some kind of guilt, and the fact that she had opened the door to her attacker would be read as an invitation to intimacy, not her innocent trust in the man.

Narraway was watching her. She saw the pain and confusion in his eyes and wondered how much he understood of what people would say, and what the additional burden would be for Quixwood: all the searing confusion and anger, his own life violated also.

“I see,” she said in little more than a whisper.

“I don’t,” he answered. “Not really. I can’t shake it from my mind. To realize that another human being has experienced such horror stays with me, as if a part of myself has been touched unforgettably.”

She looked at him with surprise and then felt unexpected warmth for this sensitivity in him she had never perceived before. She wanted to reach out and touch his hand, but it was too intimate a gesture and she did not do it.

“Tell me about her,” she asked instead. “Have you learned anything that might be of use in discovering who her assailant was?”

The waiter came and removed their dishes, replacing them with the next course.

At the table closest to them a couple was talking, heads bent close together. He laughed and moved his hand across the white cloth to touch hers. It was a possessive gesture. She pulled away from him, her face coloring.

Vespasia looked away. She could remember being so young, so uncertain. But it felt very long ago.

Narraway began slowly, feeling his way. “Knox seems to be a competent man and I think he understands the crime better than many. He moves very carefully. To begin with I wished he had been quicker. Now I’m starting to appreciate how very complicated the situation is.”

“And Quixwood?” she said gently. “He must be torn apart.”

“Yes. And I fear that if we find who did it, it will be even harder for him when it comes to trial. It will be as if it is all happening again, but this time in public. Strangers will be discussing the intimacy and the dreadfulness of it, pulling apart the details and speculating as to what happened. Even if it is done with compassion, it hardly makes things any easier.”

“No, it won’t,” she agreed. “Perhaps that is why the people who do such things are not afraid. They know most of us will do nothing about it. We would rather suffer in silence and even lie to protect them, before living the horror all over again in front of everyone else. Except Catherine is dead, and can do nothing for herself now.” She saw him flinch.

“You are right.” He shook his head fractionally. “I have looked at least to a deeper side of her life. She seems to have been intelligent, sensitive, full of imagination and interested in every kind of beauty, discovery or invention that one can explore. And lonely. She had
nothing to do that mattered—” He stopped abruptly, a shadow of self-knowledge in his face. Then he went on quickly. “There’s a young man called Alban Hythe whom Mrs. Quixwood seems to have met much more frequently than would be accidental.”

“An affair?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It seems a strong possibility.”

“How very sad.” For several moments Vespasia said nothing, picturing in her mind the arrival of a lover, the expected excitement, the emotion, the vulnerability, and then the sudden shock of violence. Had there even been a quarrel? What could possibly have happened that made emotions change from love to uncontrollable fury in such a way?