Belgrave Square (46 page)

“Most—interesting—to have met you, Mrs. Langtry.” And she swept away before victory could in any way be turned into defeat, leaving Charlotte to bring up the rear as she chose.

She caught up with Vespasia, opening her mouth to comment, then changing her mind and assuming an air of total innocence as though she had observed none of the exchange. Charlotte swapped a little polite conversation, suppressing her laughter and seeing the bravado in Vespasia’s eye.

Then balancing a glass of champagne and wishing she knew how to manage a cake elegantly at the same time, and knowing she did not, she made her way to where Emily was talking animatedly with Fitzherbert and Lord Anstiss. Odelia Morden stood desultorily a little to one side, her blush-pink gown and parasol delicate as apple blossoms, white ribbons on her hat and white gloves immaculate. She looked more feminine even than Emily. Charlotte felt a little twist of sorrow for her. She seemed isolated, uncertain what to say or to do.

Charlotte joined the group. Fitz made way for her quickly as though she had rescued him from a sudden silence.

“How nice to see you, Mrs. Pitt. I am sure you are acquainted with Lord Anstiss?”

“Indeed.” Charlotte dropped the slightest of curtseys. “Good afternoon, Lord Anstiss.”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Pitt.” He smiled back at her. He was a more dynamic man than she had remembered. She was aware not merely of an acute intelligence in his glance, but of an energy within him, a restlessness of interest seeking new knowledge, hungry for experience, curious and powerful, and a needle-sharp humor. He was not a man she would have challenged. The thought of him as a friend was exciting, as an enemy something which raised a prickle of fear.

Apparently she had interrupted a conversation. It was resumed without niceties, and she was absorbed into it easily, which was in itself a kind of compliment.

“We made up a party to see it,” Fitz was saying with a
smile. “I must admit I was most keen. Madame Bernhardt has such a reputation …”

“I believe she is to do Joan of Arc next year,” Anstiss said, his eyes bright. “In French.” He glanced at Odelia.

“I should enjoy that,” she said quickly. “I think my French is well enough.”

“I am sure.” He inclined his head very slightly. “After all, we are familiar with the story, and there is something extremely satisfying about watching a drama well played out towards a predestined end of which we are acutely aware. It has a piquancy.”

She seemed aware that he had a meaning deeper than that on the surface, but not what it might be.

“I did see Henry Irving last week,” Fitz offered cheerfully. “He was quite excellent, I thought. Captured the audience completely.”

“Indeed.” Anstiss seemed unconvinced. “Mrs. Pitt? Have you seen anything of interest lately?”

“Not at the theater, my lord.” She suppressed a smile, but saw the quick leap of humor in his eyes. Then as quickly it was gone, and he turned to Fitz again.

“I imagine you will be marrying soon?” He looked in Odelia’s direction. “Are you planning the Grand Tour as a honeymoon? You could leave in a month or two and still be returned long before a general election.” He shrugged. “Unfortunately one must think of such things. I apologize for raising the subject. It seems indelicate, but however graceful and amateur we may wish to appear, politics is a very professional affair, if we wish to succeed.” His words were pleasant, his voice quite light, but there was steel beneath it, and Fitz was not the only one to realize it. An answer was required, if he wished Anstiss to consider him for selection.

Beside Charlotte, Emily drew in her breath sharply.

Fitz raised his eyes slowly, his face losing the casual interest and the ease disappearing. Odelia waited motionless, except that her fingers curled tightly on the handle of her parasol.

“Of course,” he said slowly. “The art is to make the work look like a hobby, an interest undertaken for its own sake,
and the skill like an art, something a gentleman might do to fill his time.”

“Oh quite,” Anstiss agreed with a smile that touched only his lips; his eyes did not flicker. “But we have enough dilettante politicians already. We need men who are committed.”

The last trace of lightness disappeared from Fitz’s eyes. He knew he could no longer evade making an irretrievable statement, a date he would have to abide by, regardless of either his own emotions or Odelia’s.

Anstiss was waiting.

Emily opened her mouth to prompt Fitz, then changed her mind, realizing she would intrude in something too serious for such comment to be anything but misplaced.

“I—” Fitz began, then stopped, his face pale. He turned himself to meet Odelia’s gaze. It was a long, painful look, his face puckered in a mixture of apology and shame.

No one else moved, but Anstiss’s brows darkened and the skin across his cheekbones became tighter.

Fitz drew in his breath slowly. The ghost of a smile returned to his lips, but it was bravado. There was no joy in it.

“I value my career, such as it is, and I wish to serve politics wholeheartedly, if I am given the opportunity, but I do not intend to allow it to dictate my personal arrangements, or those of my family. I shall marry when it best suits all those who are concerned.” He met Anstiss’s eyes squarely, although there was still regret and courtesy in his voice. “I hope that does not sound less than civil. It is not meant to.”

There was no answering warmth in Anstiss. His brows drew together, his lips narrowed.

Emily looked at Fitz, then at Odelia. A slow wave of emotion spread up her face, compassion, anxiety, and suddenly Charlotte knew it was not unmixed with guilt. So much hung in the balance, the inflections of Fitz’s words, whether he had the courage or the depth of feeling to cast away all that he was so close to winning, Anstiss’s reaction, Odelia’s—and on all of it depended Jack’s future as well.

Emily avoided Charlotte’s eyes and stepped forward, taking Odelia’s arm.

“Come, let us leave them to talk politics. Tell me of your own thoughts—would you care to do the Grand Tour? I did,
you know, and there is much that is fascinating, and I would not have missed, but my goodness it can be uncomfortable at times. I found I am not cut out for physical adventure. Do you know, in Africa I saw—” And the grisly account of what she saw was lost as the two of them drifted away, leaving Fitz alone with Anstiss and Charlotte.

“Very tactful,” Anstiss said dryly without glancing at Emily’s back, although his meaning was quite apparent. “A woman of considerable poise—most necessary for a man who has any hope of surviving in politics.” There was no compromise in his eyes, hard, bleak light gray. “I take it from your reluctance that you have reservations about marrying Miss Morden? Surely you are not still thinking of that wretched Hilliard girl? Very pretty, but not remotely possible as a wife.”

A flash of anger sparked in Fitz’s face.

Anstiss ignored it. He had no need to tread warily. He held the patronage and he knew it.

“Whatever her morality, Fitzherbert—and it is open to question, even at the most charitable interpretation—her reputation is ruined.”

“I beg to differ,” Fitz said with freezing civility. “There has been a little whispering, largely by the idle and ill informed.”

“By society,” Anstiss snapped. “And whatever your opinion of them, or of their intelligence, you would do well to remember it is they who will put you in Parliament—or keep you out!”

A pink flush spread up Fitz’s cheeks, but he was stubborn in his convictions.

“I do not wish to owe my success to those who would grant it to me at the same time as they tear down the reputation of a young woman about whom they know nothing.”

“My dear Fitzherbert, they know she was publicly accused of being Carswell’s mistress, and she made not the slightest effort to deny it. On the contrary, she said nothing at all, and fled the scene—which is a confession of guilt. Not even a fool would deny that.”

Fitz’s face was unyielding, but he had no argument. Whatever his belief, the facts were as Anstiss had said. He was
painfully unhappy, but he refused to give ground. He stood upright, head high, lips tight.

“Can you give me a date when you will marry Miss Morden?” Anstiss said levelly, his voice courteous and cold. “Keep Miss Hilliard as a mistress if you wish, only for God’s sake be discreet about it. And wait a couple of years—she’ll still be in the business.”

“That is not my standard of morality, sir,” Fitz said stiffly. His face was hot as he was hideously aware of how pompous he sounded, and how offensive, but unable to retreat. “I am surprised that you should suggest such a thing.”

Anstiss smiled sourly. “It is not mine either, Fitzherbert. But then I have no amorous interest in Miss Hilliard. You have made it apparent that you do. I am telling you that is the only arrangement with such a woman that society will accept.”

Fitz stood ramrod straight.

“We shall see.” He bowed. “Good day, sir.”

“Good-bye,” Anstiss replied with the faintest inclination of his head. The dismissal was unmistakable and absolute.

Fitz turned away. With a glance at Anstiss by way of excusing herself, Charlotte followed Fitz through the crowd, as he trod on skirts, brushed past people balancing glasses and plates, till he stood next to a glorious rosebush trailing flowers over an ornamental arch.

There he stopped and faced her.

“I hope you haven’t come to argue me out of it? No—of course you haven’t. You are Mrs. Radley’s sister.”

“I am also Fanny’s friend,” Charlotte said with chill.

He blushed. “I’m sorry. That was appallingly rude, and quite unjustified. I have no one to blame but myself, for any of it. And I’ve treated Odelia abominably. I hope her father will break off our engagement officially, and say that I have consorted with an unsuitable woman and proved myself unworthy of his daughter. Otherwise her reputation…” He left the rest unsaid. They both knew the ugly speculations that followed when a man jilted a young woman. There was the inevitable whisper that he had discovered she was not above suspicion.

“That will damage your own reputation,” Charlotte pointed out. “And untruly.”

“Not untruly. I have consorted with totally unsuitable women.”

“Have you?”

“Fanny …”

“You haven’t consorted with her—you have met her only socially in a way we all have.”

“I will have consorted with her by then—if you will be good enough to tell me where I may find her? You said across the river.”

“I don’t know where, but I can find out, if you are sure. She did not deny her relationship with Mr. Carswell, you know.”

He was very pale.

“I know.”

A few yards to the left a large gentleman in a hussar’s uniform gave a roar of laughter and slapped the shoulders of a slender young man with a large mustache. Behind them two ladies laughed vacuously.

“What Lord Anstiss says is true,” Charlotte went on carefully. But there was a growing hope in her, quite unreasonable and against all her common sense. What happiness could there be for Fitz and Fanny Hilliard? Even if he was rash enough to marry her, and she accepted him, that would not lift her to his social status. His friends would never look upon her as one of them. Whatever they supposed the truth to be, they would remember the charges, and that she had not denied them. She was a loose woman, and he a fool for marrying her. And Anstiss had made it plain that selection for Parliament was ended. Fanny would have to realize what it would cost him. And knowing Fanny better than Fitz did, Charlotte thought she would not marry him at that price.

The hussar hailed someone he knew and went striding over, crying out loudly.

“And consider it from Fanny’s view,” Charlotte went on. “If she loves you, she will not accept you at such a price to you. What happiness would that give her?”

He stared at her, not with the derision she had expected, but with suddenly candid eyes and a dawning brilliance in them.

“You think she loves me? You do. And far more to the point, Mrs. Pitt, you think her a woman of selflessness and
such honor that she would prize my welfare and my reputation above her own, and her security as my wife.” Impulsively he put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her cheek. “Bless you, Mrs. Pitt, for a devious and unconventional woman. Now you will find out for me where I may call upon Fanny, because having gone this far you cannot now abandon me. And you will do your brother-in-law a favor, because he is an excellent fellow, and will make a fine member of Parliament, thoroughly acceptable to his lordship, having a wife above criticism, intelligent, tactful, charming and I suspect extremely clever. And her reputation is spotless.”

“I will find out,” she agreed with a rueful smile. “But I will ask Fanny if she wishes to receive you.”

“No—don’t do that. She will refuse. Allow me to press my own suit. I give you my word I will not harass her. And she has a brother to protect her—just tell me where I may call. For heaven’s sake, Mrs. Pitt, I am gentleman enough not to pay my attentions where they are unwanted.”

Charlotte bit her lip to suppress her amusement.

“Have they ever been unwanted, Mr. Fitzherbert?”

A little of the natural color returned to his face. He was being teased, and he could see it.

“Not often,” he admitted with a spark of the old humor. “But I think I’ll know it if I see it. Promise me.”

“I promise,” she conceded. “Now I must return to Emily and see what progresses. I shall send the address to her, and you may fetch it there.”

And with that he was content. He thanked her again and she excused herself and threaded her way back to where Emily was talking about climate to a retired colonel with a bristling mustache and stentorian opinions about India.

While Charlotte was attending the garden party, Pitt returned to the job he hated of further investigating Samuel Urban. It was something he could not avoid, whatever his personal liking for the man or his desire to believe him guilty of no more than misjudgment, and seeking a second and forbidden income in a manner which would have been perfectly legal had he not been in the police. It was far preferable in his mind to Latimer’s gambling and condoning of bare-knuckle fistfighting. But bitter experience had taught him that
people otherwise law abiding and in many ways likable could, when frightened enough, caught without time to think, commit murder. And often men he despised for cruelty, indifference to others’ pain or humiliation, were nevertheless capable of coolness of thought which avoided the need for violence. Not that they abhorred it but because they understood the terrible consequences for themselves.