PITT CAME HOME A little later than usual, although because of the time of year it was still broad daylight.

Daniel and Jemima had already eaten and gone to separate parties given by their friends. Pitt and Charlotte took a light supper to the sitting room and sat before the open French doors.

Charlotte could see that Pitt had been outside quite a long time; the sun had caught his face and there was a warm glow to his skin. But it did not hide the anxiety, even deeper than before. She understood something of the issues far more deeply than she had only a few days ago. If Halberd had been involved with the possible war in South Africa, then his death could be infinitely more than a miserable, but very ordinary, scandal.

That brought it back to Special Branch again and explained why Pitt was involved so deeply. And she could not put out of her mind what she had heard said about Narraway.

Was Pitt just as afraid as she was that Victor Narraway had used methods that even he was ashamed of? He would not have wanted them to know, but Pitt had to. Knowledge was the material of his profession. Understanding people was essential in his work, not merely interesting, curious, uncomfortable. It was so much easier to allow yourself to believe what you wanted to and leave your own dreams undamaged.

Pitt could not afford that. Perhaps Narraway could not have either.

Was Pitt going to lose the part of himself that she loved most dearly, the gentleness, the understanding and even pity for those who had betrayed themselves and lost sight of everything but the darkness within? She remembered past cases, in which people had done terrible things and yet he had felt deep, twisting sorrow for them rather than rage. He took no joy in their punishment.

Was he going to lose that? Knowing frailty in people you love is part of growing up. Seeing weakness in everyone is cynicism, and it is poisonous.

“Thomas…” she said.

He looked up, and she saw the tiredness in his eyes. If he had spent the day using his knowledge in a way he dreaded, she should allow him to do it without having to show her. He still needed her to believe in him, and to discover this part of his duty only when he was ready. Maybe even spend all her life looking slightly away, as if she did not see it.

He was waiting.

Now she had to think of something to say, but it must not sound contrived.

“There was another letter from Aunt Vespasia. They are going south, by train, all the way to Sicily,” she told him.

He smiled slightly. “Sicily is an island; they’ll have to go the last bit by sea. Did she sound well? Happy?”

In a letter one can sound however one wishes, but Charlotte did not say that. “Yes. Italy is marvelously beautiful, if one picks the places to look at. And the weather is perfect.”

The question of Narraway hung between them, unspoken. She wished now that she had been able to think of some other subject to mention, but it was too late. Neither of them said so, but they were both wondering about Narraway. Perhaps he had changed. People could, but then, too few actually did.

Would Pitt change too? Charlotte had cared about Narraway very much, but Pitt was woven into every thread of her life, and that was totally different. It could not be unpicked.

If she had changed, begun to lose what was best in her, would he intrude, regardless, and try to save her? She knew the answer—of course he would.

But then, she would never be doing anything as important as he was. Nobody else’s life would depend on what she said. Was that a good thought, or a bad one? Women didn’t affect much, except their own children. And perhaps their husbands, or perhaps not.

She thought about the ladies’ club that Emily had taken her to. Pity she might not be welcome there again. Was there really a battle to be fought in which women could gain the vote? It could change a lot of things. If as many women voted as men—which of course was not at all likely, she knew—if members of Parliament actually needed women’s votes in order to be elected, then the possibilities were considerable! She allowed her mind to explore the thought for a while. It was far more comfortable than wondering what Pitt was thinking, feeling shut out and helpless.

—

IN THE MORNING CHARLOTTE telephoned Emily and was pleased to hear her voice. Emily, of course, also cared for Vespasia, so she would have been turning over in her mind the little she knew of Narraway’s involvement in Sir John Halberd’s life and death.

They knew each other well enough not to need prevarications, and clearly Emily had been thinking about the subject, and perhaps about their standing in the ladies’ club.

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte began. “I shouldn’t have been so outspoken. Have I damaged your reputation with them? You could always promise never to bring me again.” It was an apology she had to make, but the thought was painful, an exclusion she did not want.

“On the contrary,” Emily said, full of energy, “I will probably be allowed in only if I do bring you. You have no idea how boring some people’s lives are.”

It was a flattering thought, if slightly absurd, but she found herself laughing at it. “Really?”

“Charlotte!” Emily said impatiently. “We must do something. Maybe we cannot help Thomas’s case, but we must find out about Victor Narraway.”

“Do you really think he was involved with Delia?” Charlotte asked. “They seemed to be implying that she had some kind of affair with him. Even that he was the father of her child…”

“I know that’s what they said,” Emily agreed, “but I think that’s just vicious tongues. In purely practical terms, Delia and Narraway are both very dark indeed. Before he was gray, Narraway’s hair was as black as ink. Apparently Delia’s daughter is fair…like the Prince of Wales!”

Charlotte winced, but this was no time for squeamishness. She must face the truth, even about friends.

“Then you mean that he used the situation, that he is far more manipulative and without conscience than we thought? And to what end?”

“Is that what you think we will find?” Emily’s voice wavered a little.

Charlotte thought of everything she knew about Narraway, about their trip to Ireland. She had learned a lot about him then, both his emotions and his regrets. But he had still said little about his family, home, or early life before Special Branch. He had mentioned the army, but never in detail.

“No,” she said to Emily, not entirely honestly. “I just don’t know…”

“Then we must make a plan,” Emily said. “We must find out what really happened with Delia.”

“How on earth are we going to do that? I don’t know anyone who knows Delia Kendrick and is likely to even speak to either of us, let alone tell us anything.”

“Don’t be so feeble!” Emily snapped. “Pull yourself together and get ready. I shall pick you up in an hour.”

“Ready for what?” Charlotte was stung because she felt a stab of truth in Emily’s accusation.

“I don’t know. Just look…ordinary.” And with that the telephone clicked.

Charlotte put it back in its cradle.

—

AN HOUR LATER CHARLOTTE and Emily sat in Emily’s boudoir drinking tea and eating chocolate cake, which was highly unsuitable at eleven o’clock in the morning.

“When you don’t want to have a certain discussion, but you must, it is a good idea to indulge in something you really like.” Emily excused it, and Charlotte entirely agreed. In fact she reached forward and took a second piece.

“We need to find someone who knows as much as possible,” she observed.

“Of course, that’s obvious.” Emily took a second piece as well.

“And who is willing to tell us,” Charlotte added. “That makes it much more complicated. I think Lady Felicia Whyte has known Delia for years…”

“And hates her,” Emily agreed. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean she would be willing to talk about her. She would need to have a reason, so she could feel she was doing it justifiably…Maybe even to help, which doesn’t seem likely.”

Charlotte had a sudden idea, or at least part of one.

“Perhaps we could merely ask her to reminisce? If we can get her to recall that time, Delia is bound to come into it.”

“Excellent,” Emily said enthusiastically. “But of course, if she knows any secrets about Delia she would have told them already. And I really don’t want to be known as a gossip…” she bit her lip, “…if it’s avoidable. And people who gossip about people they don’t like very seldom tell the unvarnished truth. Which is what we need. If we can find anyone who even knows it.”

“Servants,” Charlotte replied without hesitation. “And if they ever want to work again, they don’t repeat it.”

Emily sighed and stared through the windows at the sunlight outside. “You’re right. Especially lady’s maids. They know more about you than you know about yourself. If my lady’s maid was to gossip, I’d be ruined!”

“Then we need a servant who has retired,” Charlotte reasoned.

“And is not dependent on a pension from her past employer,” Emily added. “A word about gossip and that would disappear like snow in a rainstorm.”

“Don’t you mean sunshine?” Charlotte asked.

“No. Sun doesn’t necessarily melt snow, but rain always sweeps it away. You must come out to the country more often. Where do we start?”

“With snow? Hardly at this time of year.”

“With finding someone who will talk to us about Delia! Pay attention.”

“I loathe doing this.”

“I know,” Emily said more gently. “The only thing worse would be not doing it. Nasty things don’t go away just because you don’t look at them. Are you so afraid that we’ll find something dreadful?”

“I’m afraid of what being in Special Branch, in charge of it all, can do to people.”

Emily put down her cup and looked at Charlotte very gravely. “That’s part of what women are supposed to do: be strong enough to make a place where sanity and kindness always matter.” She looked at Charlotte’s expression. “Not deny everything,” she said quickly, “just keep proportion. Believe the good is better and can win in the end, even if that’s not always true.”

Charlotte straightened up. “What is it we want to know, exactly? Eventually, who killed Halberd and why, but before that, what Narraway did for Delia that she was so grateful for, and that Felicia thinks was somehow dishonest. And whether they are connected or two quite separate things? Delia’s daughter was born about twenty years ago. We should find out when she got married, where, to whom, what was odd about it, and what Narraway had to do with it. Also, maybe how Felicia Whyte knows anything about it.”

“Yes,” Emily agreed. “It’s not easy to be subtle, is it!” Then she smiled widely. “Not that, as far as I know, you have ever tried.”

“Then it’s going to be up to you, isn’t it?” Charlotte had the perfect riposte, and she saw it in Emily’s face immediately.

Emily shrugged. “Oh, sometimes I am so subtle I don’t even know what I’m doing myself,” she said with a short laugh. “We will begin immediately with the most difficult part. I happen to know where Lady Felicia will be taking luncheon.”

“Oh, no! Emily…”

But Emily had risen to her feet and was already halfway to the door, beckoning Charlotte to follow her.

The lightness and a few words of teasing were only to disguise the real fear underneath, and Charlotte knew that. They were both uncertain how to proceed without doing real damage, not sure what they would find that might hurt more deeply than they could take. And the disillusion would be not only for them but also for those they loved. Still, once the seed of doubt is sown, it has to be plucked, however sharp the thorns.

—

THEY SPOTTED LADY FELICIA quite easily. Her bright, fair hair and her distinctive clothes marked her in any crowd. Charlotte felt a stab of pity. To take the trouble to stand out in such a way was brave, and possibly a mark of desperation.

Believing that Felicia might wish the scene at the ladies’ club had never happened, Emily behaved as if it had not.

“Marvelous hat,” she said quietly, sitting down beside Felicia at the small table as if she had been invited, leaving Charlotte to find her own place. “Of course, you need to be tall to look so graceful,” she went on, although there were only a couple of inches’ difference between them.

“Thank you,” Felicia murmured. One had to acknowledge such compliments, otherwise it might discourage any more.

People were moving around them. At any moment they could be interrupted. Emily quite shamelessly introduced the conversation she wished.

“I so admire your grace,” she said quietly, her face absolutely serious. “I enjoy hearing you reminisce about your days at the court. I know you were presented to the Queen at your coming out.” She regarded Felicia a trifle wistfully, and Charlotte wondered for a moment what it would be like to have belonged to the class of young lady who “came out” around the age of eighteen. One was officially welcomed into the adult world, and was open to being wooed by appropriate young gentlemen. There were balls, parties, dinners, trips to the theater, where one was seen by all society that mattered. As the daughter of a marquess, Felicia had enjoyed all these privileges and duties. She had probably had little choice in the matter.

Charlotte would have hated it. But Emily might not at all. She had married Lord George Ashworth anyway. And Charlotte had married a policeman, which at the time was the social equivalent of a rat-catcher or a bailiff, at least in some people’s eyes. The status of the police was higher now, twenty years later, and Pitt was no longer junior, but a far more powerful figure. Respect, at least outwardly, was more easily given. What people actually thought was a different matter. And she knew that Pitt was perfectly aware of it.

Felicia was delighted to recall what had been her happiest years. Her face lit and there was a softness in it as she spoke.

“Oh, yes,” she replied easily. “At the time it seemed ages, days and nights going by like a dream, but of course one’s first season is actually so short, and if you have not had an offer, you feel such a failure.”

Charlotte knew that the pressure was unbearable. She imagined buying horses, each animal paraded up and down to be chosen—or not! The horses had no say in it at all. She wondered how much say the young women had.

Emily and Felicia were still talking. Charlotte managed to look as if she were listening with admiration. Actually, the pleasure in her face was relief that it had not happened to her. She had been married in what was to others a social disaster, but to her at the time had been an impossible romance and, in her middle years, brought far more happiness than most women ever knew.

She interrupted them, knowing they could be cut off by any of the other people passing by, nodding and smiling.

“Did you get to dance with the Prince of Wales?” she asked eagerly. “He must have been younger then, of course, and so charming.” She tried to sound ingenuous and was not sure if she succeeded.

Emily gave her a quick glance, and then looked away. There was a faint flush on Felicia’s cheeks. “Once or twice,” she said. “It was far later than that, when I was in my twenties, that I knew him better.”

There was a moment’s complete silence. It was Emily who broke it.

“Oh!” She stared at Felicia with wonder. “Do you mean…?”

Felicia glowed. She lowered her eyes. “I suppose it’s not really a secret anymore, and you are friends. Yes, I knew him…very well.” Something in the angular lines of her face softened. “You are right. When he is allowed to be himself, not stared at by everyone, not expected to be a diplomat or a prince, he’s funny and generous and…and a man one cannot help liking.” She used the word quite clearly as a euphemism for a feeling far deeper.

Charlotte wondered if it had been love, or if that was merely how Felicia liked to remember it. The prince had had many mistresses, as far as she knew always married women. Like many men of high rank, he conducted his romances with discretion, although in his case everyone knew about them, but it was said that he never took a girl’s virginity or risked getting her with child. Whether he did that out of morality or self-preservation did not matter.

“Is that why Delia Kendrick is so envious of you?” Charlotte asked. “Clearly she is!”

Felicia gave a secret little smile, sweet as if she were sucking on honeycomb.

“How quick of you to see that. Yes, I’m afraid it is. She was his…favorite…before I was. She did not take gracefully to being superseded. Very foolish. It could never have been more than…fun, and affection. I think she imagined something…” She left the word unsaid, for the imagination to fill in. “It was like expecting the same butterfly to be there next summer. Of course they are still as pretty and as brief, but they are different, for all that.”

Charlotte looked at her with a surge of pity for a woman who saw so clearly and yet missed the laughter and the joy that mattered, the moments of beauty. No wonder the years had marked her unkindly. She wanted to say something gentle.

“Most of us are never butterflies at all,” she pointed out. “I believe tortoises live for a hundred years—but who wants to be a tortoise?”

Felicia gave the first totally genuine laugh Charlotte had heard from her. There was no time to follow it up: a moment later they were interrupted.

—

“IT’S A PLACE TO begin,” Emily said hours later when they were back in her home. “But where does it connect with Narraway?”

“We can find out,” Charlotte replied, making herself more comfortable in the boudoir chair. The windows were open and the scents of the garden blew in. There was a bowl of yellow roses on the small table between them. “It will take work but it will be possible. We can find out which year Felicia was having her affair with the Prince of Wales, and when she replaced Delia. That could be when it started, whatever it is. Where was Victor Narraway twenty years ago? That was long before he was head of Special Branch.”

“You don’t know?” Emily looked slightly surprised.

“No, I don’t!” Charlotte held her temper back. It should not have mattered to her so much to realize how little she knew of Narraway before he had been Pitt’s superior. “But what we really need is someone who knew Delia Kendrick then. I wonder when her daughter was born.”

“Yes, of course. It could be the same time,” Emily said quickly. “If she stepped out of society for a while, giving Felicia the chance to take her place, that could be why. What about her husband then? Perhaps he matters.”

“It’s all in the feelings,” Charlotte said, as much to herself as to Emily. “We need to find someone who observed the private moments, as a lady’s maid does, and yet is not involved themself. How are we to find who was Delia’s maid then? With luck, it will not be the same one as now, and we can get her to talk. I wonder how difficult Delia was to work for. She doesn’t seem to be particularly gentle or agreeable.”

Emily considered that for several seconds. Then they each suggested possibilities, discarding them one by one.

“I could ask my maid to make some inquiries,” Emily said at last. “But the moment she mentioned my name it would be as bad as if I was asking myself. In fact worse, because it would look so underhanded.”

“But a lady’s maid would be a good idea,” Charlotte replied. “One maid to another. She could say that her aunt or cousin had known Delia’s maid twenty years ago, and she was trying to contact her, for family reasons.”

“But it would be bound to come out that she is my maid,” Emily argued.

“Yes, I know. I wasn’t thinking of your maid. I don’t have one. Minnie Maude would be game enough to do it, but she couldn’t pass herself off as a lady’s maid. She’s far too”—she searched for a kinder word than “blunt”—“individual. And apart from that, she would tell Thomas. She would be bound to, sooner or later. I was thinking of asking Gwen, Aunt Vespasia’s maid. If one of us told her most of the real reason, she would do it. She does anything if she thinks it is for Vespasia’s sake…”

That was the worst part of all this. Thomas’s disillusionment she could try to heal, but Vespasia’s would be terrible—and unreachable. She forced it out of her thoughts.

“Isn’t it for Vespasia’s sake because of Narraway?” Emily’s eyebrows went up.

“And Thomas’s, yes.” She nodded. “But she doesn’t need to know at all…not yet.”

“You are far more devious than I thought you were,” Emily said with distinct appreciation. “I always believed you were a bit too straightforward.”

“That’s because I’m better at it than you are,” Charlotte responded a little tartly. “The art of being devious is in not looking it.”

“Then go ahead and be devious with Gwen. You probably know her better than I do.”

—

TWO LONG, DIFFICULT DAYS passed before the plan worked, but it did so very well. Gwen proved to be inventive and quite a clever actress, a skill that pleased her immensely. She was devoted to Vespasia and willing to take any sort of risks to help, although she did ask that they not tell Vespasia herself of her role, except for such details as were absolutely necessary.

She returned to Charlotte and told her that Elsie Dimmock had been Delia Kendrick’s lady’s maid a great deal of her working life, and had been a housemaid before that in the home of Delia’s parents. She was now living in a cottage outside Maidstone, in Kent, which she had inherited from her own parents and was able to keep up with a pension afforded her by Mrs. Kendrick. She seemed, in Gwen’s opinion, a very obliging sort of person.

Charlotte thanked her warmly, refunded her the train and cab fares she had spent, and told her that if she preferred it, Lady Vespasia did not need to know of the matter at all.

Gwen accepted the money reluctantly, and thanked her.

It was early in the day still, and Charlotte knew there was no time to waste. She telephoned Emily to give her the news. She dressed in her most ordinary clothes—a simple white blouse with a dusky blue skirt and a straw hat—and set out to meet Emily under the clock at the railway station, where they would catch a train to Maidstone. They discussed their plans over the journey both in the train and in a hansom from Maidstone station to the street where Elsie Dimmock lived.

“I hope to heaven she is in,” Emily said dubiously.

“Well, if she isn’t we will have to wait.” Charlotte refused to entertain the idea that they could fail, at least without trying a great deal harder. “We will ask the neighbors where she is, if necessary.”

Emily kept in step with her, and when they went up the front path to the rose-surrounded door it was Emily who tugged on the bell rope.

A plump woman of at least sixty-five answered the door after a few moments. She had a homely face but the most beautiful silver-gray hair, which caught the light like a halo. She wiped her hands on her apron and looked at them with puzzlement.

“I am Emily Radley, and this is my sister, Charlotte,” Emily said with a sweet smile. “Are you Mrs. Elsie Dimmock?” It was a courtesy on occasion to give an older woman the title of Mrs. even though she might never have married.

“I’m Elsie Dimmock, ma’am. How can I help you?” She did not move from the doorway, not expecting them to come in.

Charlotte swallowed. This was the most difficult part, the one over which she and Emily had had the most disagreement. She spoke softly.

“We are friends of Mrs. Delia Kendrick.” She saw the swift recognition in Elsie Dimmock’s eyes, and then instant concern.

“May we come in?” Charlotte asked. “There has been a little unpleasantness…rumors, you know? And as her friends we wish, vigorously, to stop them before they can spread any more widely. She won’t do it herself; I suppose it is natural. We all have a little pride, and—”

“Oh, Miss Delia has that all right,” Elsie agreed with something that was close to a laugh, but too tight in her throat to come out that way. “Her own worst enemy at times. But then, aren’t we all?” She opened the door wider. “I don’t know how I can help, but I’ll do my best.”

Charlotte and Emily glanced at each other, then followed Elsie inside the neat, lavender-smelling house. It was a cottage, one entered straight from the doorstep into the front sitting room, with its fireplace and comfortable furniture. There was a bowl of mixed flowers on the table, the first bright petals beginning to drop.

So Elsie was not surprised. Maybe there had been gossip before, from which Delia had not defended herself. Pride again, or perhaps because it had been true?

Emily sat with unself-conscious elegance on the settee, and Charlotte took one of the armchairs.

“Can I make you a cup of tea?” Elsie offered.

“No, thank you,” Emily replied. “We don’t wish to put you to any trouble.”

“That would be so kind of you,” Charlotte accepted. Emily might not know, but doing something familiar and useful, like making tea, would set Elsie more at ease. She would feel she had offered hospitality and was in some way in control of events.

Elsie disappeared about the task.

With obvious difficulty Emily refrained from saying anything. This was not the time for a disagreement.

As soon as Elsie had returned with the tea and poured it, she asked what the gossip had been about this time. While the kettle was coming to the boil she had cut slices of cake and she offered them now.

“Unfortunately there has been a death,” Charlotte said as soon as she had swallowed the first mouthful. “At first it was seen as an accident, but now a question has been raised as to it being an attack.”

“Oh dear.” Elsie looked alarmed.

“The thing is,” Charlotte continued, “he was a man who knew a great deal about other people, not always to their credit. The speculation is as to which particular piece of information got him…attacked. I’m sorry to say…killed. I’m sure you can imagine how many people are seizing the chance to make awful suggestions in order to take vengeance for one thing or another, real or not. And Mrs. Kendrick is a woman of whom many others are jealous. It’s ugly, and so unfair.”

“As if she hadn’t had enough.” Elsie looked truly distressed.

“Has it happened before?” Emily asked with sympathy, and before Charlotte could say anything.

“Some people just seem to attract tragedy.” Elsie was staring wide-eyed into her own memory. Charlotte guessed that perhaps she spent a lot of time alone, since her retirement. She must miss the constant company of living in a big house, the other servants always coming and going, the banter and teasing, mostly good-natured: everyone’s interest in the lives of the family they served. This cottage was comfortable, very much better than what most servants could retire to, but it might be too quiet at times, and all the freedom could also be lonely.

Charlotte accepted another piece of cake and bit into it with very clear pleasure, but she was subtle enough not to offer a compliment overtly, at least not yet.

“I believe she lost her first husband,” Emily said sadly. “I understand how hard that can be, the shock. The wondering what you are going to do, how you are going to manage.”

“That happened to you too, miss?”

“Yes. I know just how it feels. So…lost!”

“Poor Miss Delia, for all that Mr. Darnley was a bad one, he was handsome as you like, and could charm the birds out of the trees. I can see him as clear as if he was standing here. Played the piano a treat, and could sing too, all sorts of old songs, romantic ones. He used to tell a lot of tales, including that one of his ancestors was married to Mary, Queen of Scots, and was murdered for love.”

Charlotte remembered that the tragic Mary, Queen of Scots, had indeed been married to a man named Darnley, and it was suspected that she herself had ordered him to be killed. But this was not the occasion to say so.

“How very sad,” she commented. “And he was Delia’s daughter’s father, wasn’t he? Not her present husband.”

“Oh, yes, Miss Alice. What a sweetheart she was, such a lovely little girl. Reminded me of Miss Delia when she were that age. So happy. Bright as you like. Into everything. ‘Please, Elsie, what’s this? What’s that? What’s it for? Can I use it? Show me! Let me try!’ ” Her eyes filled with tears. “That time goes so quick, doesn’t it? Just a few years, and then they are all away. Seems like they were only babies the year before. Miss Delia married that Darnley when she were only twenty. It took him five years to spend all her money and then start looking around for someone else’s. He was a— I shouldn’t say what he was in front of ladies.” She sniffed hard.

Charlotte was glad she had never had sufficient money to be worth marrying for. It was a blessing she had not considered quite so great in the days when she and Pitt had struggled for rent and economized on food. But that passed. The sense of being loved did not.

Emily took a piece of the cake and sipped her tea. “It must have been very difficult for her during those years.”

“Oh, she had fun.” Elsie’s face brightened. “Always had courage, did Miss Delia. She could make people laugh, and gentlemen like a woman who enjoys life. She had courage, youth, charm.”

“And she was beautiful,” Charlotte added, being more generous than accurate.

Elsie gave a little shrug. “I thought she was, but then she was the closest I’ll ever come to having a daughter myself. She wasn’t ever beautiful like the Lady Felicia. That girl was a real beauty, like a porcelain figure. Afraid to take it off the shelf and dust it, in case you dropped it and broke off a piece. But it all changed. The happiness went. And the friends.”

“That’s what happens when your husband dies,” Emily said, biting her lip. “People change. Everything you relied on is gone. Even friends are different, like nobody knows what to say, so they avoid you.”

“Yes, it was as if her life had stopped too.”

“I remember,” Emily said quietly. “How did Mr. Darnley die? Was it sudden? My husband died violently, and that was the worst part of it. People said some terrible things.”

Charlotte recalled it with a sense of chill as bitter as if it had been very recent. She could feel the fear again aching inside, hear the voices who said that Emily had killed him. Some of them believed it. They wanted to, because Emily was prettier than they were, luckier, richer, all the things they wanted to be. And then she was suddenly, in one day, vulnerable as she had never been before. Title and money did not help at all; if anything, they made it worse.

Looking across at her, now talking quietly to this elderly lady’s maid, the break was there in her voice, the fear back, the grief in the bend of her head. However deeply she had loved George, or not, the violence of the loss broke her life apart. In her new happiness with Jack she had not put it out of her mind, only into a far corner where it could escape her attention now and then.

“About you, too?” Elsie was full of sympathy.

“Yes. And even after all the truth was found, and things settled down, the invitations did not come anymore,” Emily went on. “There is something about being a young widow that makes even friends nervous around you. With a man it is quite different. All the women want to look after him, make sure he is not left out, and friends invite him even more. My friends seemed to think I wanted their husbands’ attention.” Emily gave a tight little smile. “I could hardly tell them they had no need to worry, I would not have any of their husbands even with a diamond tiara attached. There is no price for boredom. But I felt terribly lonely.”

“I watched Miss Delia just like that,” Elsie agreed. “She wasn’t beautiful like you, but she had a way with her. She was clever, and she could make people laugh. At least that is how it used to be.”

“Before she was widowed?” Emily asked.

“No, not exactly. Mr. Darnley crushed something in her. He went after other women, and he wasn’t always discreet about it, like a better man would have been. But when she took up with the Prince of Wales, it all became different. I thought as he was really fond of her. A nice gentleman, he was, for all that he is going to be king, and always was. Thoughtful, in his own way. And kind. Always very civil, he was. Here’s me born in the East End slums, learned my manners after Miss Delia’s mother took me in and taught me how to be a lady’s maid. How to act, how to look smart, how to speak. And I’m standing there saying what a nice evening it is, just like it was nothing to me to be talking to the next king of England.”

“And she cared for him?” Emily asked.

“Oh, yes. She was flattered, of course, but beyond that, she was real fond of him. Nearly broke her heart when she found she was with child, and had such a hard time of it she went off into the country. No wonder, poor girl: It was twins, and the little boy lived only a few weeks. It’s a wicked cruel thing to lose a child like that. Don’t see as she can ever really get over it. And loved that little girl like she was the whole world.”

This time neither Charlotte nor Emily spoke.

“And then she came back to London with little Alice. She’d been gone a year, and the Prince of Wales had taken up with that Lady Felicia. I begged Miss Delia to tell him why she’d gone away, but she wouldn’t do it. I thought it was pride, but I think now that it was fear that she would lose little Alice as well. Not that she wasn’t a beautiful baby, and healthy as can be.”

“And Mr. Darnley?” Emily prompted.

“Oh, it was about a year after that he was killed. Horse-riding accident, I think it was. Something like that. I don’t recall the details anymore. I just see in my mind the man that came to tell her, all the way from somewhere in Buckinghamshire, he said, and terribly sorry he was. And there was Miss Delia with her son dead and now her husband dead, and all her friends gossiping about her when she was too down to fight back.”

She looked at Charlotte. “And she didn’t have a sister like you, miss, to be with her and fight the people who started all the whispers.”

Charlotte tried to smile but she knew there was no heart in it. She could see the pain too clearly.

“Did Delia know Mr. Narraway then?” She had to ask.

“I don’t know, but she certainly knew him later, when it came time to find a good husband for Miss Alice. I thought she was too young, but Miss Delia said it was the right time. She was married to Mr. Kendrick by then, and I was just about to retire. About three years ago, this would be.”

“Mr. Narraway was helping her to find a husband for Alice?” Emily said as if confused. “Not Mr. Kendrick?”

Elsie’s face lightened and she sat up a little straighter.

“That’s a different matter, miss. And I don’t think I should be talking about it, if you excuse my saying so.”

“No, of course not,” Charlotte agreed quickly. “I apologize. I only asked because of something Lady Felicia said. I can see now that it’s just…envy. But after what you have confided in us, and what I saw my own sister suffer at the hands of other people’s gossip, I want to stop it all.” She rose to her feet. “Delia is fortunate to have such a loyal friend in you. We will not mention who told us. I think discretion is better, don’t you?”

“Yes, miss, thank you. But you will try to stop them, won’t you?” Elsie climbed to her feet as well. “She don’t deserve any more grief.”

When they were outside, walking in the sun toward the nearest main road where they might find a hansom to take them to the railway station, neither of them spoke for several minutes.

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said eventually. “I’d forgotten how bad that time was for you. I suppose I wanted to help. I just felt so helpless…”

Emily gave her a quick smile. “You helped me more than anyone else. You always believed I could not have killed George, in spite of what everyone else thought. But being a widow is always lonely because people are afraid of you. Apart from the fact that you remind them that death happens to all of us at some point, it can come suddenly, out of nowhere, and take away everything you thought you were sure of. They don’t know what to say or how to help, and they do everything except behave normally. You’re supposed to wear black for ages and sit alone in your house. It’s like the worst punishment you can think of. Do you remember when we were naughty, Miss Hampton used to make us all go and sit separately in our rooms, no books, just sit there?”

“Enough to make you be good,” Charlotte said grimly.

“Enough to make you and Sarah good,” Emily retorted. “It just made me determined not to get caught.”

It was the first time either of them had mentioned Sarah casually like that. They spoke of her, of course, but with thought, and memories. She had been murdered many years ago now. And it still hurt. She had been two years older than Charlotte.

“Why do you suppose Narraway helped get Alice married to someone in Scotland?” Emily asked. “Do you suppose she was the Prince of Wales’s child, and not Darnley’s at all? And if she’d stayed in London and been out in society, someone would have eventually realized it?”

“It is the obvious answer, isn’t it?” Charlotte agreed. “The search for Alice’s future husband was about three years ago, Elsie told us, and Narraway would have been head of Special Branch then. Who knows what the pressures were? I don’t think Thomas knew about it.”

“Are you going to tell him? Don’t you have to?”

“Yes…I suppose so. He isn’t going to be pleased.”

“Why not? It’s a lot better than some other things it could have been.”

“That rather depends on what happened to Alice,” Charlotte said quietly. “Poor Delia!”

Emily said nothing.

“And then, of course, there’s the other thing,” Charlotte went on. “How did Darnley die?”