Midnight at Marble Arch tp-28 Read online

  Vespasia struggled to think of anything to say that would not be banal.

  “Good morning, Mr. Quixwood,” she began. “May I offer you tea, or-if you would prefer it-something more?”

  “That is kind of you, Lady Vespasia, but I shall return to my club for luncheon. I am presently living there. I … I cannot yet face returning to my home.”

  “I can imagine not,” she agreed quickly. “I would not find it hard to understand if you never did. I am sure there are other properties that would be equally agreeable, and convenient for you.”

  He smiled very slightly. “You are quite right. Forgive me for intruding on you without warning. If the matter were not of some urgency and moral importance, I would not do so.”

  She indicated the chair opposite her and, as he sat down, she resumed her own seat. “What can I do for you, Mr. Quixwood?” she invited.

  He looked down, smiling very slightly in a wry expression of amusement and pain.

  “I have heard from a friend of mine that you have been making certain inquiries about Pelham Forsbrook’s son, Neville, after the tragic night where young Angeles Castelbranco met her death.” He winced. “It is … it is a painful reminder of my own wife’s death.” His voice was husky and he clearly found mastery of his emotions almost impossible.

  Vespasia tried to think of something to ease his awkwardness, but she had no idea what he meant to say, so nothing appropriate came to mind.

  He looked up at her. “I don’t know how to say this graciously.” He bit his lip. “I know that young Neville behaved in a manner that can be described only as crass when he teased the poor girl. If he were my son, I hope I would have raised him to be more sensitive, more aware of the feelings of others, no matter how much wine he might have taken. His behavior was disgusting. There can be no argument on that. I imagine he will regret his cruelty for the rest of his life.”

  His eyes searched her face. “But I know that he did not assault her, seriously or even trivially, at Mrs. Westerley’s party. I was there myself, when young Angeles appeared looking a trifle disheveled, and her face tearstained. I assumed at the time that she had had some youthful quarrel, perhaps even an unexpected rejection. I’m afraid I thought no more of it than that, and possibly I was horribly wrong.” Now his face was filled with distress. “Since I … since …” He faltered to a stop.

  Vespasia was overwhelmed with pity for him. He must feel doubly guilty, for not being able to protect his wife, and now for having failed to see Angeles’s terrible distress, masked by her own need to hide it, and his assumption that youthful tears came and went easily.

  She leaned forward a fraction. “Mr. Quixwood,” she said very gently, “no sane person would have assumed otherwise in the circumstances. Of course girls her age both laugh and cry over things they barely remember the day after. There was nothing you could, or should, have done.” She hesitated, and then continued, “It is natural when there has been a tragedy that we relive the time before, wondering how we could have averted it. In most cases there was nothing at all to be done, but we torture ourselves anyway. We want to have helped. Above all we want to do over the past with greater wisdom, more kindness; but as the pain settles, we know we cannot. Only the future can be changed.” She wanted to comfort him regarding Catherine as well, but there was no comfort to give.

  His smile was now rueful. “I am beginning to realize that, Lady Vespasia, but slowly, and I am some distance from acceptance. What I came to say, which matters, and why I took the liberty of disturbing you, was that whatever happened to Angeles Castelbranco, I know it was not Neville Forsbrook who caused it. I was with him when she left the company and went to look at the paintings in the gallery. It was not Neville she went with, although I admit I don’t know who it was.”

  Vespasia drew in her breath to ask him if he was certain, then realized it would be pointless and a trifle insulting. Of course he was certain. He had come out of his grief and his cocoon of protection to say so.

  “Thank you, Mr. Quixwood,” she said gravely. “It would be monstrous to blame the wrong person, even for a day. Whispers are not easily silenced. You have told me this before I had the chance to speak to anyone, and perhaps have saved me from a profound error. I am grateful to you.”

  He rose to his feet, moving with stiffness, as if he hurt inwardly.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Lady Vespasia. Thank you for your wisdom. In time it will be of comfort.” He bowed, just a gesture of the head, and went to the door.

  She sat for several minutes afterward without moving, thinking, in the silent, sunlit room, how desperately fragile the illusion of safety could be.

  CHAPTER 7

  Pitt found it extremely difficult to forget the tragedy of Angeles Castelbranco’s death. Every time he heard the clink of glass or the sound of someone’s laughter, it took him back to that terrible party. In his mind he saw the ambassador’s face as he stood by the window, all expression wiped from it as if he were dead.

  Worse was the raging grief of the ambassador’s wife. She reminded him of Charlotte somehow, although she looked nothing at all like her. Yet both were fiercely devoted mothers, and that gave them a similarity greater than all differences of appearance could be.

  He sat in his office in Lisson Grove, which used to be Narraway’s. He was trying to concentrate on the papers in front of him to the exclusion of every other thought, but not very successfully. He was relieved when there was a knock on the door. The moment after, Stoker looked in.

  “Yes?” Pitt said hopefully.

  There was no pleasure in Stoker’s bony face. “The Portuguese ambassador is here and would like to see you, sir. I told him you were busy, but he said he’d wait, however long it took. Sorry, sir.”

  Pitt pushed his papers into a rough pile, turning the top one facedown. “Putting it off won’t make it any better. Ask him to come in,” he requested.

  “Do you want me to interrupt in fifteen or twenty minutes?” Stoker asked.

  Pitt gave him a bleak smile. “Not unless it’s genuine.”

  Stoker nodded and withdrew. Two minutes later the door opened again and Rafael Castelbranco came in. He looked ill, and ten years older than he had a few days ago. His cheeks were sunken; there was no color in his skin. His clothes were neat, even elegant, but now they seemed a mockery of other, happier times.

  Pitt rose to his feet and came around the desk to offer his hand.

  Castelbranco gripped it as if that in itself were some promise of help.

  At Pitt’s invitation they sat in the two armchairs between the fireplace and the window. With a small gesture of his hand, Castelbranco declined any refreshment. He had fine hands, brown-skinned and slender.

  “What can I do for you, sir?” Pitt asked. There was no point in inquiring after his health, or that of his wife. The man was shattered by grief, and she could only be the same.

  Castelbranco cleared his throat. “I know you have children,” he began. “Mrs. Pitt has been most kind to my wife, both before my daughter’s death, and since. You may perhaps imagine how we feel, but no one could know … could even think of …” He stopped himself, took several deep breaths, and continued in a more controlled tone. “I wish you to help me find out as much as I can about what happened to my daughter, and why.” He saw Pitt’s expression. “I am not looking for justice, Mr. Pitt. I realize that may be beyond anyone’s reach.” He closed his eyes a moment; whether to regain control of his voice or to hide his thoughts it was impossible to tell.

  Instead of interjecting, Pitt waited for Castelbranco to continue.

  The ambassador opened his eyes again. “I wish to silence the rumors, not only for my own sake, and my daughter’s, but for my wife’s. Until we know what happened we cannot refute even the ugliest whispers. We are helpless. It is a …” Again he stopped. Clearly none of his diplomatic skills or experience came to his aid in trying to describe what he was feeling.

  This matter was not specifically within t
he area of Special Branch’s duties. But Castelbranco was the ambassador of a foreign country with whom Britain had a long and valued relationship, and the death had taken place in Britain.

  Apart from that, simply as a human being with a daughter of a similar age, Pitt felt a sharp, very personal understanding of Castelbranco’s grief.

  “I’ll do what I can,” he promised, wondering as he said the words if he was being rash and would regret it. “But I must be discreet, or I may risk making the rumors worse, rather than better.” Did that sound like an excuse? It was not. Pitt simply knew from experience that inquiring into a rumor, or even denying it too vehemently, could result in it spreading much further.

  “I understand the risks,” Castelbranco said grimly, “but this is intolerable. What have I left to lose?” His voice trembled in spite of himself. “Angeles was betrothed to marry Tiago de Freitas, a young man of excellent family, with a bright future ahead of him and an unspotted reputation. It was in all ways an excellent match.” His hands tightened, even though they were resting in his lap. “She told me that their decision to end the engagement was mutual. But now people are suggesting that he discovered something about Angeles that was so shameful he could not live with it, and that is why the engagement was broken.”

  Pitt felt a wave of fury flow through him, then one of terrible pity. The ambassador’s body was visibly so tense, Pitt knew every muscle in him must ache, and yet how could the man possibly rest? Did he sleep at all? Or perhaps in nightmares he saw his daughter crash through the glass into the night, again and again as he watched, helpless to save her?

  Or was it even worse than that? Did he see her laughing, young, and excited at all that lay ahead of her? Did he feel her hand in his, small and soft, and then waken and remember that she was dead, broken on the outside by glass and stone, inside by terror and humiliation?

  “Exactly what has this young man said?” Pitt asked.

  “That it was Angeles who really ended the betrothal,” Castelbranco replied. “But he has not denied the rumor. He smiles sadly, and says nothing.” His voice shook with anger and the color washed up his face. “Sometimes a silence can speak more than words.”

  Pitt searched for something to say that would draw away the poison of what was being whispered, and failed. In Castelbranco’s place, Pitt would want to strike out at de Freitas-verbally, physically, anything to let loose some of the agony inside himself.

  “I’ll speak to him,” he promised. “See if he’s willing to tell me anything, and if he does I’ll follow up. If not, I’ll warn him of the dangers of careless speculation at the expense of someone else’s reputation. I don’t know what result that will have, but I’ll try. Is his business in Britain?”

  For a moment Castelbranco’s eyes softened. “At least some of it. Your words may have an effect on him. Thank you. There is no one else to defend my daughter. It makes me wonder if de Freitas was as good a choice to marry Angeles as we thought. How do you know the measure of a person, when often the event that betrays them comes too late?”

  “Half my job would be unnecessary if I knew the answer to that,” Pitt replied.

  Castelbranco rose to his feet. “Perhaps it was a foolish question. I thought I knew Tiago. I concentrate on the lesser pain of disillusion, to take my mind off the greater one of loss, imagining it will ease my grief.”

  “I would do the same,” Pitt acknowledged, rising also and holding out his hand. “I will inform you as soon as I have anything to say.”

  Tiago de Freitas received Pitt reluctantly. Pitt was sure he did it only because he could not refuse, considering Pitt’s station and the power it gave him. They met in a side office in de Freitas’s father’s highly prosperous wine import and export offices, just off Regent Street. The rooms were somber, but luxurious in their own way. There was a lot of exquisite wood, much of it carved. The furniture was embossed leather, and beneath the feet rich carpets silenced all movement.

  De Freitas was a handsome enough young man, with fine dark eyes and a magnificent head of black hair. He would have been more striking still had he been a few inches taller. He regarded Pitt somewhat cautiously.

  “What can I do for you, sir?”

  He did not invite Pitt to be seated, which pleased Pitt. There was a certain informality to sitting, and he wanted the interview to be courteous, but not easy.

  “First of all, Mr. de Freitas, I regret having to disturb you during what must surely be a difficult time. I will try to be as brief as I can,” he replied.

  De Freitas stiffened almost imperceptibly, with just a movement of the muscles in his neck.

  “Thank you,” he acknowledged. “But I am sure you did not come here just to express your condolences about my fiancée. Your card says that you are commander of Special Branch, which I am aware is a part of the Intelligence Service of this country. I will do all I can to assist you as a guest here, but I am Portuguese and I’m sure you understand the interests of my own country must come first.”

  Pitt was about to deny that his business was anything to do with national interest, then he realized that would rob him of the power he needed.

  “I would not ask it of you, sir,” he replied smoothly. “You just now referred to Miss Castelbranco as if she were still betrothed to you. I was informed that the engagement had been broken. Was that incorrect?”

  De Freitas’s black eyebrows rose. His voice was not openly defensive, but it was guarded. “How can that concern you, Mr. Pitt?”

  Pitt answered with a slight smile. “It has to do with another matter, one I cannot discuss. If you won’t tell me, I am obliged to suppose that the rumors I’ve heard regarding the entire situation may be correct. I am hoping they are not, and that for the sake of the pleasant relations that have existed between Britain and Portugal for half a millennium, I can lay them to rest.” He let the invitation hang in the air for de Freitas to pick up.

  The younger man hesitated, caught in uncertainty. A very slight flush of annoyance colored his cheeks.

  “I had preferred not to speak of it for the sake of her family, but you force my hand.” He gave a very slight shrug, not perhaps as discreetly as he had intended. “The engagement was ended.”

  “How long before her death did that happen, Mr. de Freitas?”

  Tiago looked startled. “I really don’t see how this can be of concern to the British Secret Service.” There was a touch of anger in his voice now. “It is a very personal matter.”

  “The announcement of a betrothal to marry is a very public event,” Pitt pointed out. “It is not possible to end it entirely privately, however personal the cause may be.”

  De Freitas seemed to hover between irritation and capitulation. Seconds passed as he fought with a decision.

  “I am trying to quell rumors that can only hurt the Portuguese ambassador to Britain, Mr. de Freitas,” Pitt pressed. “It is a small courtesy we can accord him at the time of a very dreadful loss. Miss Castelbranco was his only child, as I am sure you are aware.”

  De Freitas nodded. “Yes, yes, of course.” He let out a very slight sigh. “We broke our engagement less than a week before she died. I’m sorry about it, of course I am.”

  Pitt noticed how gracefully de Freitas had evaded the issue of who made the initial move to end the relationship. The way he said it, the decision sounded like an inevitable mutual agreement.

  “Was Miss Castelbranco extremely upset?” Pitt asked, determined to force the young man into an answer.

  De Freitas looked up sharply, his face reflecting a sudden anger. “If you are suggesting that her death was … was a result of my breaking off an engagement, then you are completely mistaken.” He lifted his chin a little. “It was she who ended it.”

  “Indeed? What reason did she give? One does not do such a thing lightly. Her parents would have been most distressed. As I imagine yours were also.”

  De Freitas did not answer for several moments, then he gave a brief, tight smile. “You have
me at something of a disadvantage, Mr. Pitt. I had hoped to give you a vague answer, and that you would be gentleman enough to accept it. I’m afraid I cannot say anything further without dishonoring a young woman I had thought to make my wife. Of course I understand you wish to protect her reputation, and give her family whatever comfort is possible, and I respect you for it. Indeed, I admire it. However, to assist you in that I must decline to say anything more. I’m sorry.”

  “So it wasn’t she, but you who broke the engagement,” Pitt concluded.

  De Freitas shrugged. “I’ve told you, sir. I can say nothing more. Let her rest in peace … for everyone’s sake.”

  Pitt knew he would get no more from Tiago de Freitas. He thanked him for his time and walked back through the hushed, wood-lined corridors.

  “You mean he implied that it was he who broke it off, and that he was lying to protect her?” Charlotte said incredulously that evening when Pitt was home and dinner was finished and cleared away. They were in the parlor, with the windows ajar. The slight breeze carried in the rustle of leaves and the smell of earth and cut grass. The door to the passageway was closed. Daniel and Jemima were in their respective bedrooms reading.

  “More or less,” Pitt conceded. He was not sitting. He felt too restless to settle down; perhaps because Charlotte was so angry she also could not sit.

  She looked stricken. “So whatever it is they are saying, he either believes it or he doesn’t care because he wanted to be rid of her anyway,” she accused.

  “The engagement was broken off before she died,” Pitt pointed out, shaking his head.

  “Exactly!” she retorted. “He listened to some rumor and abandoned her!” Her face was flushed and her eyes brilliant. She was so quick to defend the vulnerable. He loved her for it and he would not change her, even in situations when it would be far wiser to weigh the matter first. She had been wrong before, dangerously so, but that did not stop her.