Elena woke early the next morning. The sun shone brightly through the partly open curtains and across the floor of her bedroom. It was already warm. It seemed like she had been dreaming for most of the night. She had been trapped somewhere in a room, shouting at people who could not hear her. It was a nightmare that did not need explaining.
She decided to get ready and go downstairs to see if breakfast was served. She knew David Wyndham often rose early. A slice of toast and a cup of tea would be enough to begin with. Perhaps two slices of toast, and some of Cook’s especially tart Seville orange marmalade.
She dressed in a pair of comfortable navy trousers with wide legs that swung a little as she moved and a plain white silk shirt. The chambermaid had ironed it for her, and it looked reasonably flattering.
She went downstairs without seeing anyone else, then crossed the hall into the dining room, content to wait until a parlor maid should come. However, that was not necessary because she saw David Wyndham finishing his own breakfast. He smiled at her in greeting and began to rise to his feet.
“Please!” She waved him off immediately. “Don’t let me disturb you. That’s the last thing I wanted. I’d really just like a cup of tea.”
He sat back in his chair again, looking at her with some concern. “Didn’t you sleep well?” It was a genuine question.
Should she give him a polite lie? This was his house, after all. She did not want to imply that anything was wrong or that she was ungrateful for his hospitality. But the more she looked at his face, the more she saw not only the gentleness in it, but also a certain quiet strength. He would know if she was not telling the truth. “Silly dreams,” she replied flippantly. “No reason why, just…all jumbled up.” It sounded like an apology.
He reached for the small silver bell near the center of the table and gave it a sharp ring. A moment later, a parlor maid appeared.
“Yes, sir?”
Wyndham turned to Elena. “Would you like a couple of fried eggs with crisp bacon, and perhaps some tea and toast? It’s early enough not to spoil lunch.”
Suddenly, she was hungry. “Yes, please,” she accepted eagerly and took a seat behind him.
He smiled with satisfaction. “Gertrude, please bring breakfast for Miss Standish, and fresh tea, if you would?”
“Yes, sir.” She flashed Elena a quick smile, then disappeared obediently.
Wyndham asked her about the photographs she had taken at the party attended by the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Simpson.
“I had them developed at the chemist’s in the village. They did them straightaway,” she told him with a soft smile. “I think it was because I am staying here.” She gave a slight shrug. “I didn’t mean to use your name, it happened accidentally because they looked at the address, which was the only one I could reasonably give.”
He smiled with genuine amusement. “And when they recognized the prince, were they duly impressed?”
She smiled. “Actually, they were. He photographed extremely well.”
“May I see?”
“Of course. I’ll show you whenever you like.”
“After breakfast?”
“Certainly.”
“Tea?” he offered, gesturing toward the pot.
“Yes, please.”
He poured it for her, and she sipped it until her bacon and eggs came, along with fresh toast.
As she ate, they talked about all sorts of pleasant, amusing, and interesting things. Then they went upstairs together to see the photographs.
Wyndham followed her into her room, leaving the door wide open.
Elena opened her case and slipped the photographs out of the folder. She felt the shiver of anticipation again. She had sorted out the best, and now she spread them out on the bed, one by one, for him to see.
The first was a formal picture of Wallis Simpson, looking very composed and mildly amused.
“Nice.” Wyndham nodded in approval. “She will be pleased with this.”
She laid out the second. This was quite a different look for Mrs. Simpson. It was a three-quarter view, not quite full face. The light was different, whiter, much harder. It caught the angles of her bones and the fine lines around her mouth. Her eyes dominated her face, sharp and cold. It was a moment of relaxation, or perhaps unguardedness might be a more appropriate word. It was not an image the woman would have chosen to have had caught at all. One word described her look: calculating. There was nothing spontaneous about it.
Wyndham turned to Elena and met her eyes questioningly. “Are you pleased with this one?”
She knew what he meant, and his question did not surprise her because she had caught this image intentionally. Was it this woman’s moment of self-betrayal? She looked back at him and smiled. It was an admission. She had caught a moment of truth, and she suspected that he did not need an answer in words. The impact was undeniable.
“I presume she has not seen this one?”
“No.” She shook her head. “She has not yet seen any of these. I have not been invited to show her any of them.”
She turned away and produced a picture of the prince. It was also a three-quarter angle, more profile than full face. The light was hazy, but it was the last rays of sun through a distant gauze curtain, very soft, almost ethereal, and his expression was that of a man lost, as if he were a vision rather than substance. But no lines were blurred. There was clearly no artificial creation of the effect. It was the face of a dreamer, someone who only half-wanted to be here, and above all, someone who was intensely vulnerable.
She followed this quickly with a more formal picture of him, one in a sharper light. He was half smiling, as if she had said something amusing.
Wyndham took her wrist and moved the second picture aside. He looked at her. “There are two excellent portraits of them looking exactly as I believe they would wish to be perceived. The other two are brilliant, but I advise you not to exhibit or reveal them. Keep them as a private collection. It’s as if they were taken of someone naked when they did not know they were being observed.” He watched her steadily to make sure she understood his deeper meaning.
“I wanted to show these to someone who knows them,” she explained quickly. “To see if it was reality rather than illusion.”
“I think you know the answer to that without my telling you,” he replied. “But be careful with your camera. People believe that photographs don’t lie. They remember the impact of a picture and assume it has to be the truth. The truth can be dangerous, but the knowledge that you have seen it is more dangerous still.”
“I haven’t shown them to anyone else,” she assured him. That was true, but only if she did not consider James Allenby to be someone else. She could not afford to tell him that. The deeper she and Allenby went into this whole matter, the more convinced she became that, for all their charm and comfort and wealth, the Wyndham family, which encompassed everyone in this house—except herself, Allenby, and Margot—knew a great deal more about Repton than they revealed.
She returned the photographs to the folder and the folder to her case, which she then slipped under the bed. She glanced at Wyndham briefly, understanding what he had meant with his warning, and followed him to the door.
“I would lock it,” he suggested, offering no explanation.
She did not argue and simply obeyed him.
They went downstairs together and into the dining room, where they found everyone seated at the table. They appeared to be in some kind of emotional turmoil.
Griselda stared in accusation at her husband, then at Elena, silently demanding an explanation.
Geoffrey was sitting at his usual place, his food uneaten in front of him, and he was frowning.
Margot, beside him, looked stunned.
It was Griselda who spoke.
“Where on earth have you been?” she demanded of Wyndham.
He stiffened. “I beg your pardon?”
She softened her tone considerably. “Have you seen the newspapers this morning?”
“No.” He pulled out Elena’s chair so she could take her place again.
She glanced at him to express her silent thanks.
Wyndham sat. “No, I haven’t,” he repeated. “I take it there is news?”
Everyone at the table stared at him.
Griselda was the one to answer. “Robert Hastings has been charged with sexual misconduct with a young man, his twenty-two-year-old assistant. He hasn’t made a statement yet, but he must do so immediately.” Her voice was choked with emotion, but it was impossible to tell whether it was anger, disgust, or bewilderment. Or, perhaps, well-masked optimism.
“I imagine you are quite sure?” Wyndham asked.
“Of course I am!” she snapped. “They wouldn’t have printed it if he hadn’t been arrested.”
Wyndham drew in a breath of surprise and let it out without speaking. His face looked drained of all color.
Elena glanced across the table at Allenby, whose face was equally grim, as if Hastings had been a personal friend. She wondered if indeed he had been. Was this perhaps why the whole case, including the murder of Repton, was so important to him? Was this the crisis Repton had foreseen? Perhaps even the first of many? If so, the plan was at last in the open.
There was a moment’s silence, then Geoffrey spoke. “Well, he can’t possibly keep his seat in Parliament with this hanging over him.”
“Even if he’s innocent?” Margot asked, her face crumpling with concern.
Geoffrey took her hand patiently. “Darling, he’s been accused of a pretty awful crime. It’s a good stretch in prison for him if he’s found guilty. He’s a leading light of the ‘prepare for war’ wing of the Conservative Party. He will have to resign or risk damaging his party. For their sakes, if nothing else, he’s got to go. I disagree with just about everything he says, as do a lot of people, but I’m sorry for him in this. That is, if he’s innocent. Still, he’s got to resign. A man can pretty well keep his life private, but this is a crime.”
“But if he is innocent?” Margot repeated with urgency. “His career will be ruined by a lie!” There was genuine anger in her face and in her voice.
Elena felt her sister’s reaction deeply. “We don’t execute people before we try them,” she said. “Or have we really changed that much? Did you say the young man was twenty-two?”
“The police aren’t fools,” Geoffrey retorted with a touch of anger in his voice, as if she had accused him of believing gossip. “They must have damn good evidence or they’d be risking their own jobs.”
“And the newspapers got hold of it?” Allenby cut in. “Are we sure they got the right side of the story?”
“They saw evidence of it,” Griselda claimed.
“What evidence?” It was Margot again who asked. “Letters? Photographs? Witnesses? They would hardly do anything in public.”
“I believe the young man himself complained,” Griselda told her matter-of-factly.
“And they believed him? Just like that?” Allenby was incredulous. “Anybody could say that of almost anyone, and someone would believe it!”
“It could be blackmail.” Elena threw in her suggestion. “There has to be more to this one charge!” She remembered Lucas speaking of Hastings. He knew him quite well. He was also a friend and admirer of Churchill.
“It’s an easy enough charge to make, a different matter to prove,” David Wyndham said. “The charge itself is enough to ruin a man.”
“Even if he can prove malice?” Elena asked, although she knew the answer. The suspicion would remain like a stench in the air long after the contamination itself was removed. “I’ve heard that he is a man of deep conviction,” she said quietly. “He hates war. He lost a son and many friends in the last one. But he is a realist, and no coward.”
“Wouldn’t someone ask what evidence was seen?” Allenby wondered. “Were they caught together in bed? Letters discovered? This is the opportunity to debate what is seen or what is guessed at. Or,” he added, his voice softer, “to ask if evidence was manufactured precisely for Hastings’s downfall.”
Griselda looked back at him. “I suppose you voted for him!” It was not a question so much as an accusation.
“I don’t live in this constituency,” Allenby replied in a low, level voice.
“Then your opinion is not of any importance,” she retorted, dismissing him and turning to Geoffrey again. “We’ve got to get ahead of this if he resigns, or is forced to. In either case, we must be certain of who takes his place. This will force a by-election. It will be a Conservative, of course. This constituency has always been Conservative, but it is an important seat. Hastings was in line to become leader of the party, possibly prime minister in a few years. It might make the difference between peace and another war. For God’s sake, haven’t we got beyond that? How many times do we have to soak the world in blood?” She looked between Geoffrey and Wyndham, then to Prudence.
Allenby stared steadily at Griselda. “I thought Hastings was elected as an heir to Churchill’s views and courage? The last speech I heard him give was for rebuilding the navy so we commanded at least the seaways, which would assure our trade routes and therefore our survival.”
There was a moment’s silence, as if no one dared to speak.
Griselda drew a deep breath. “At least to a point, yes. But Robert Hastings does draw the line at interfering in German affairs. He is more moderate than you think. You admit that you don’t know him.”
Geoffrey gave a twisted smile. “It seems that none of us does. I had no idea he was capable of abusing an employee.”
“We don’t know that he did,” Wyndham reminded him sharply. “We know only that somebody suggested it.”
“They more than suggested it, David,” Griselda said with thinly disguised anger. “The police don’t come and search your house on a suggestion. There must have been something a great deal more powerful than that!”
“Grubby pictures? Perhaps a dubious letter?” Wyndham suggested miserably. “It’s easy enough to create some things and try a spot of blackmail. They must think they have more than that, to arrest a man as prominent as Hastings. I fear there is a lot of planning behind this.”
“He could be totally innocent,” Allenby said. “But it won’t make any difference to his political future. The accusation will always be raised. He could sue for slander, but even if he won, it wouldn’t get his career back.”
“I wish you were overstating it, but I fear you aren’t,” Wyndham said reasonably.
“Isn’t that the purpose of whoever made that charge?” Elena asked. “Ruin his career and therefore silence him and make everything he says tainted?” Silently, she wondered again if this was the disaster Lucas had been waiting for, even if he had not known the nature of it.
Prudence interrupted for the first time. “Who are you accusing, Miss Standish?”
“I don’t know,” Elena answered instantly. “Does anyone know who made the accusation? Or if the young man was coached into saying something that could be interpreted that way? Once he’s said it, it can’t be taken back. At his age, it could be that he has little idea what he’s saying. Or perhaps he’s saying this to please someone he is afraid of, or thinks he’s in love with, and now he can’t take it back. It’s just that—”
“Oh, really!” Margot interrupted in exasperation.
Wyndham, sitting next to Elena, put his hand very gently on her wrist. “There’s no use in our speculating what happened. I expect Robert Hastings has as good a lawyer as can be got, but it will not alter what the newspapers say or the fact that he will have to step down.”
“That is what we were saying!” Griselda said tartly. “We must think about who can stand in his place, and we need to do that very quickly.”
Geoffrey stared at her. He seemed oblivious to everyone else at the table. “Who do you suggest?” He cocked his head in question.
“Only one name comes to mind.”
No one at the table moved.
“Algernon Miller,” Griselda said with certainty. “He has all the right qualifications, and I think with a little persuasion he would consent and be ready straightaway. He is well known and well liked in the constituency. He’s been an excellent chief constable: in charge, but not bullying or forcing his authority on anyone. People like him, and he’s sound. Nothing hidden in his life.”
“He is unmarried,” Prudence pointed out.
“I’m sure he can amend that,” Griselda dismissed the point. “A little romance would appeal to people.”
Elena wondered how long Griselda had been thinking of this. Planning it. She did not dare to look at Allenby, but she thought he would be no more surprised than she was. What had been only the vaguest idea was taking shape in front of them. Even if Hastings was not guilty, and in time could prove it, it would be too late. His reputation was destroyed. There would always be people—journalists, political enemies—who would bring it up again and again.
And what would happen to the young man? What had he actually said? Did they believe that he was speaking the truth? But it had been taken out of his hands, and now it was almost impossible for him to take it back. Hastings would be tried and found guilty of a sexual offense; his political enemies would see to that. It would stain his life from now on. He would serve time in prison, as Oscar Wilde had done.
What a damnable mess.
Which was what Elena said to Allenby as soon as they left the table and were alone.
“We’re too late to do anything about Hastings,” he replied. “We have to be ahead on the next scandal and be quite sure we know who is involved.”
“And forestall it?”
“If we can think how,” Allenby said. “It could be that charge or any other. Repton knew that.”
Elena nodded, knowing there was nothing she could say that would help.