Pitt felt as if he had been hit so hard the breath had been forced out of him, and he could not fill his lungs again. Instead there was an ache inside him almost enough to make him cry out.
Vespasia!
“Please do it,” Narraway said urgently. “It shouldn’t be a stranger.” He did not beg, but it was there in his eyes.
There was only one possible answer. Pitt nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and went back to the front door and out to the quiet street.
He took the first hansom and gave Vespasia’s address. He rode through the darkness without thinking. There was no point in rehearsing how he would say such a thing. There was no way.
The cab pulled up and he alighted. He rang the doorbell and to his surprise it was answered within moments.
“Good evening, sir,” the butler said quietly. “Her Ladyship is still up. Would you care to come in, and I shall tell her you are here.”
“Thank you …” Pitt was confused, walking in a nightmare. He followed the butler into the yellow room and stood waiting.
He had no idea whether it was two or three minutes, or ten, before the door opened and Vespasia came in. She was wearing a long silk robe of almost white, her hair still coiled loosely on her head. She looked fragile, old, and almost ethereally beautiful. It was impossible not to think of her as a passionate woman who had loved unforgettably one Roman summer half a century ago.
Pitt found the tears choking his throat and stinging his eyes.
“It’s all right, Thomas,” she said so quietly he barely heard her. “I know he’s dead. He wrote to me, telling me what he would do. It was he who killed James Sissons, believing it was what Sissons himself had intended, but at the last moment lost his nerve to be a hero after all.” She stopped for a moment, struggling to keep her composure. “You are free to use this, to see that Isaac Karansky is not blamed for a crime he did not commit—and perhaps that Charles Voisey is, although I am not certain how you can accomplish that.”
Pitt loathed telling her, but it was not a lie that could live.
“Voisey says he shot him in self-defense. I don’t know that we can prove otherwise.”
Vespasia almost smiled. “I’m sure he did,” she agreed. “Charles Voisey is the leader of the Inner Circle. If they had succeeded in their conspiracy to cause revolution, he would have become the first president of Britain.”
For an instant, the beat of a heart, Pitt was astonished. Then the beat passed, and it all made perfect sense: Martin Fetters’s discovery of the plot, his facing Adinett—who was probably Voisey’s friend and lieutenant—and being killed because he wanted reform but not revolution. And then for all his power and his loyalty, Voisey could not save Adinett. No wonder he hated Pitt and had used all his influence to destroy him.
And Mario Corena, a man driven by a simpler, purer fire, had been used and deceived to destroy Sissons. Now, realizing it at last, he had tried to turn it back on Voisey.
“You don’t understand, do you?” Vespasia said softly. “Voisey meant to be the ultimate hero of all reform, to be the leader into a new age … perhaps originally his aims were good. He certainly had some good men with him. Only his arrogance led him to believe he had the right to decide for the rest of us what was in our best good and then force it upon us, with or without our consent.”
“Yes … I know …” Pitt began.
She shook her head, the tears glistening in her eyes. “But he can never do that now. He has killed the greatest republican hero of the century … above any one country’s individuality or nationalism.”
He thought he began to see just a glimmer, like a distant star. “But it was self-defense,” he said slowly.
She smiled, and the tears slid down her cheeks. “Because he discovered the conspiracy to overturn the throne, to invent this spurious debt of the Prince of Wales, and murder Sissons and create riot—and when Mario realized he knew, he attacked him, so of course Voisey had to shoot. He is a very brave man! Almost single-handedly he has uncovered a terrible conspiracy and named the men in it—who will certainly be at the least disgraced, maybe arrested. Perhaps the Queen will even knight him … don’t you think? I must speak to Somerset Carlisle and see if it can be arranged.” Then she turned away and walked out of the room without speaking again. She could no longer keep within her the grief and the longing that consumed her.
Pitt stood still until her footsteps died away, then he turned and walked back into the hall. It was empty except for the butler, who showed him out into the lamp-lit street.
Almost exactly a month later, Pitt, superintendent of Bow Street again, stood beside Charlotte in the throne room in Buckingham Palace. He was acutely uncomfortable in a new suit, an immaculate shirt, collar high and straight, boots perfect. Even his hair was well cut and tidy. Charlotte had a new gown, and he had never seen her look lovelier.
But it was Vespasia, a few feet away, who held his attention. She was gowned in dove gray with pearls at her throat and ears. Her hair gleamed silver, her chin was high, her face exquisite, delicate, very pale. She refused to lean on Somerset Carlisle’s arm, even though he stood ready and watchful to help.
A little in front of them, Charles Voisey knelt on one knee as another old woman, short, dumpy, sharp-eyed, moved a trifle clumsily to touch the sword to his shoulder and command him to arise.
“We are sensible of the great service you have given us, for the throne and the continued safety and prosperity of your country, Sir Charles,” she said distinctly. “It is our pleasure to acknowledge before the world the acts of selfless courage and loyalty which you have performed in private.”
The Prince of Wales, standing a few yards away, beamed his approval and even more heartfelt gratitude. “The throne has no more loyal servant … or friend,” he said appreciatively.
There was a rustle of enthusiastic applause from the audience of courtiers.
Voisey tried to speak, and choked, as he would be choked from now on, should he ever again raise his voice for a republic.
Victoria was accustomed to men being overcome in her presence. She ignored it, as good manners required.
Voisey bowed and turned to leave. As he did so he looked at Pitt with a hatred so violent, so intense, his body shook with it, and there were beads of sweat in his face.
Charlotte grasped Pitt’s arm until her fingers dug into his flesh even through the fabric of his coat.
Voisey looked at Vespasia. She met his gaze unblinkingly, her head high, and she smiled with that same passionate calm with which Mario Corena had died.
Then she turned and walked away so he should not see her tears.
Read on for a preview of Anne Perry’s next thrilling novel
SOUTHAMPTON ROW,
featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt
Now in bookstores everywhere.
Published by The Random House Publishing Group.
“I’M SORRY,” Assistant Commissioner Cornwallis said quietly, his face a mask of guilt and unhappiness. “I did everything I could, made every argument, moral and legal. But I can’t fight the Inner Circle.”
Pitt was stunned. He stood in the middle of the office with the sunlight splashing across the floor and the noise of horses’ hooves, wheels on the cobbles and the shouts of drivers barely muffled beyond the window. Pleasure boats plied up and down the Thames on the hot June day. After the Whitechapel conspiracy he had been reinstated as superintendent of the Bow Street police station. Queen Victoria herself had thanked him for his courage and loyalty. Now, Cornwallis was dismissing him again! “They can’t,” Pitt protested. “Her Majesty herself …”