Betrayal at Lisson Grove (Treason at Lisson Grove)

NARRAWAY WENT OUT ALMOST immediately. Charlotte began by unpacking her case and shaking the creases out of the few clothes she had brought. There was only one dress suitable for any sort of formal occasion, but she had some time ago decided to copy the noted actress Lillie Langtry and add different effects to it each time: two lace shawls, one white, one black; special gloves; a necklace of hematite and rock crystals; earrings; anything that would draw the attention from the fact that it was the same gown. At least it fit remarkably well. Women might be perfectly aware that it was the same one each time she wore it, but with luck men would notice only that it became her.

As she hung it up in the wardrobe along with a good costume with two skirts, and a lighter-weight dress, she remembered the days when Pitt had still been in the police, and she and Emily had tried their own hands at helping with detection. Of course that had been particularly when the victims had been from high Society, to which they had access, and Pitt could observe them only as a police officer, when behavior was unnatural and everyone very much on their guard.

At that time his cases had been rooted in human passions, and occasionally social ills, but never secrets of state. There had been no reason why he would not discuss them with her and benefit from her greater insight into Society’s rules and structures, and especially the subtler ways of women whose lives were so different from his own he could not guess what lay behind their manners and their words.

At times it had been dangerous. But she had loved the adventure of both heart and mind, the cause for which to fight. She had never for an instant been bored, or suffered the greater dullness of soul that comes when one does not have a purpose one believes in passionately.

Charlotte laid out her toiletries both on the dressing table and in the very pleasant bathroom that she shared with another female guest. Then she took off her traveling skirt and blouse, removed the pins from her hair, and lay down on the bed in her petticoat.

She must have fallen asleep because she woke to hear a tap on the door. She sat up, for a moment completely at a loss as to where she was. The furniture, the lamps on the walls, the windows were all unfamiliar. Then it came back to her and she rose so quickly she was dragging the coverlet with her.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Victor,” he replied quietly, perhaps remembering he was supposed to be her brother, and Mrs. Hogan might have excellent hearing.

“Oh.” She looked down at herself in her underclothes, hair all over the place. “A moment, please,” she requested. There was no chance in the world of redoing her hair, but she must make herself decent. She was suddenly self-conscious about her appearance. She seized her skirt and jacket and pulled them on, misbuttoning the latter in her haste and having then to undo it all and start anew. He must be standing in the corridor, wondering what on earth was the matter with her.

“I’m coming,” she repeated. There was no time to do more than put the brush through her hair, then pull the door open.

He looked tired, but it did not stop the amusement in his eyes when he saw her, or a flash of appreciation she would have preferred not to be aware of. Perhaps she was not beautiful—certainly not in a conventional sense—but she was a remarkably handsome woman with fair, warm-toned skin and rich hair. And she had never, since turning sixteen, lacked the shape or allure of womanhood.

“You are invited to dinner this evening,” he said as soon as he was inside the room and the door closed. “It is at the home of John and Bridget Tyrone, whom I dare not meet yet. My friend Fiachra McDaid will escort you. I’ve known him a long time, and he will treat you with courtesy. Will you go … please?”

“Of course I will,” she said instantly. “Tell me something about Mr. McDaid, and about Mr. and Mrs. Tyrone. Any advantage I can have, so much the better. And what do they know of you? Will they be startled that you suddenly produce a half sister?” She smiled slightly. “Apart from someone looking for distant family in Ireland. And how well do you and I know each other? Do I know you work with Special Branch? We had better have grown up quite separately, because we know too little of each other. Even one mistake would arouse suspicion.”

He leaned against the doorjamb, hands in his pockets. He looked completely casual, nothing like the man she knew professionally. She had a momentary vision of how he must have been twenty years ago: intelligent, elusive, unattainable—but to some women that in itself was an irresistible temptation. Before her marriage, and occasionally since, she had known women for whom that was an excitement far greater than the thought of a suitable marriage, even than a title or money.

She stood still, waiting for his reply, conscious of her traveling costume and extremely untidy hair.