Midnight at Marble Arch Read Free Page A

out of her bedroom.”
    “I had noticed,” Pitt said drily. “Are you sure it’s normal?”
    “Consider yourself lucky,” she replied with a slight grimace. “Myfather had three daughters. As soon as Sarah was all right, I started, and then when I was more or less sane again, it was Emily’s turn.”
    “I suppose I should be grateful Daniel’s a boy,” he said ruefully.
    She gave a little laugh. “He’ll have his own set of problems,” she replied. “It’s just that you’ll understand them better—and I won’t.”
    He looked at her with sudden, intense gentleness. “She’ll be all right, won’t she?”
    “Jemima? Of course.” She refused to think otherwise.
    He put his hand over hers and held it. “And Angeles Castelbranco?”
    “I expect so, although she looked terribly fragile to me just now. But I expect it’s all the same thing. Sixteen is so very young. I shudder when I remember myself at that age. I thought I knew so much, which shows how desperately little I really did know.”
    “I wouldn’t tell Jemima that, if I were you,” he advised.
    She gave him a wry look. “I hadn’t planned on it, Thomas.”
    T WO HOURS LATER THE idea had crossed Pitt’s mind a few times that he and Charlotte could finally excuse themselves and go home, satisfied that duty had been fulfilled. He caught sight of her at the far side of the room, talking to Vespasia. Watching them, he could not help smiling. Charlotte’s dark, chestnut-colored hair was almost untouched by gray; Vespasia’s was totally silver. To him, Charlotte was increasingly lovely, and he never tired of looking at her. He knew she did not have the staggering beauty that was still there in Vespasia’s face—the grace of her bones, the delicacy—but he could see so much of each in Charlotte’s poise and vitality. Standing together now, they spoke as if they were oblivious to the rest of the room.
    He became aware of someone near him, and turned to see Victor Narraway a few feet over, looking in the same direction. His face was unreadable, his eyes so dark they seemed black, his thick hair heavily streaked with silver. Less than a year ago he had been Pitt’s superior in Special Branch, a man with access to a host of secrets and the iron willto use them as need and conscience dictated. He also had a steadiness of nerve Pitt thought he himself might never achieve.
    Betrayal from within the department had cost Narraway his position and Pitt had been set in his place, his enemies sure he would not have the steel in his soul to succeed. They had been wrong, at least so far. But Victor Narraway had remained out of office, removed to the House of Lords, where his abilities were wasted. There were always committees, and political intrigues of one sort or another, but nothing that offered the immense power he had once wielded. That in itself might not matter to him, but to be unable to use his extraordinary talents was a loss he surely found hard to bear.
    “Looking for the cue to go home?” Narraway asked with a slight smile, reading Pitt as easily as he always had.
    “It’s not far off midnight. I don’t think we really need to stay much longer,” Pitt agreed, returning the slightly rueful smile. “It’ll probably take half an hour to make all the appropriate goodbyes.”
    “And Charlotte, another half hour after that,” Narraway added, glancing across the room toward Charlotte and Vespasia.
    Pitt shrugged, not needing to answer. The remark was made with affection—or probably more than that, as he well knew.
    Before his train of thought could go any further, they were joined by a slender man well into his forties. His dark hair was threaded with gray at the temples but there was a youthful energy in his unusual face. He was not exactly handsome—his nose was not straight and his mouth was a little generous—but the vitality in him commanded not only attention but an instinctive liking.
    “Good evening, m’lord,” he said to