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“Of course,” Patrick said quietly. “I knew you would be. I want to do something about it, but I’m not sure how. Maybe if he could be charged with anything, and come to trial, all sorts of questions could be raised. Why did such a man have this post in Washington? Why, if he is innocent of the assault of Rebecca Thorwood, did he leave without any preparation, such as ending the rent of his apartment? He took only his clothes, eluding the police to leave the embassy at night and collect his things from his apartment. Then he went to New York, and straight on to the next ship leaving for Southampton. That looks like running away, doesn’t it? Why?” Patrick’s voice in the near darkness was tense with emotion. “Surely the accusation of assault and theft would have to arise if he were in court for any offense committed in England? We’ve just got to get him to trial.” He did not ask Daniel outright to help, but it was threaded through his words.
Daniel thought about it. He could understand Patrick’s sense of outrage. He would have felt it, too, if an American had committed such a disgusting act in London and then fled home, pleading diplomatic immunity. “Tried for what?” he asked slowly. “He’s been in America for the last few years, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, but the British Embassy anywhere is British territory,” Patrick said, “as is any country’s embassy. If he had done something there…” He stopped, looking at Daniel intensely.
“I suppose it would…” Daniel wanted to be cautious. This was far outside his experience, and yet he felt the same anger, pity, and outrage at the injustice that Patrick did.
“Will you help?” Patrick asked. “If there is something you can do?”
“Yes—yes, of course I will.”
Patrick turned toward the light from the drawing-room windows, and Daniel could see his face was lit with a wide, warm smile. He did not need to say anything.
CHAPTER
Two
DANIEL LEFT QUITE late and Jemima noticed how much more relaxed Patrick seemed to be. This had been their second night here, and all the old warmth and familiarity had wrapped around her. She saw that Patrick was beginning to feel it, too. She had not realized how much it mattered to her. Had she been aware of his nervousness at meeting the one member of her family who had not gone to New York for the wedding? It was not Daniel’s choice, of course, but it still left him a stranger to Patrick, apart from Jemima’s frequent references to him.
Now they were upstairs with the bedroom door closed, and the rest of the house was quiet. Jemima had checked on Cassie and watched her for a few moments, sound asleep, her doll in her arms. Sophie, too, was quietly sleeping. She was such a good baby.
Then Jemima changed into her nightgown, ready for bed, her hair loose around her shoulders. Patrick was standing in front of the closed curtains. She had not known when she first moved to New York that there was a certain amount of prejudice there against the Irish. It had struck her like a slap across the face that her charming, funny, and brave husband was unacceptable to some people because he was of Irish descent. She had noticed it only slowly: one incident, then another. Small signs, such as a notice in a boardinghouse window that Irish and Jews were not welcomed in the establishment. Prejudice is so much more apparent when it is not your own. He would never deny his heritage. Loyalty to one’s own people is only strengthened by other people’s attacks. In a way, you are defined by the decision to abandon your heritage, or to double your loyalty when it is attacked. Patrick doubled it. She had wanted him to; she would have been bitterly disillusioned had he not.
She, too, felt a loyalty, sharply reawakened by returning to the familiar Englishness in the house in which she had grown up. There were the watercolor paintings of English scenes, her father’s books on the shelves, not in order of size, but of subject. And there were her mother’s casual, informal arrangements of garden flowers, all sorts together, but to Jemima, it always worked. She was ashamed that it was a young Englishman from the British Embassy in Washington who had attacked Rebecca Thorwood. It felt like a betrayal of all that people like her family held dear.
Jemima clearly remembered Daniel being born. She certainly could remember him at the age Cassie was now. It startled her how protective of him she was. She would never let him know, of course. That would embarrass him, and probably her, too. It would upset the casual ease of their relationship, and the balance of power. He was the man and felt a certain superiority in that, which she would certainly not grant. She was the elder, though the difference had ceased to matter years ago.
“Did you tell Daniel?” she asked.
“What?” Patrick replied, not certain what she was asking.
“About Rebecca…and the assault.”
Patrick came over and climbed onto the comfortable bed. “Yes, of course. We need as much time as possible to act. We won’t be here more than a month. I can’t afford to be away for more than that. I’ve taken this year’s holiday and probably next year’s as well.” He leaned across and touched her gently. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but this really matters. Have you seen Rebecca lately?”
“Yes…” Jemima answered quickly. Anyone who had seen Rebecca at all must have noticed the difference in her. She was now pale, intensely nervous, speaking softly, and only if she was directly addressed. Jemima knew that she slept little and ate without appetite or pleasure. “I know,” she added, “she must feel as if nobody cares, except her own family. What did Daniel say?”
“He’ll help.” Patrick smiled. “He’s pretty decent, your brother. A newly minted lawyer, for sure. And careful! Very English!”
“Of course he’s English!” Patrick likely thought both her father and her brother very Establishment figures, but Jemima knew all about the unconventional background of Sir Thomas Pitt, head of Special Branch.
Her father was so familiar to her, and she had found him comfortable as far back as her memory stretched. But at that time he had been a very ordinary policeman. A tall, gentle man, with untamed hair, which was always too long, and clothes that were always untidy, their collars crooked and the pockets full of things he might need one day: pencils, packets of peppermint bull’s-eyes, scraps of paper, small balls of string. And a woolen scarf in winter.
Inside, he was the same man who became Sir Thomas Pitt, who looked like a gentleman and had always behaved like one. And spoken like one. Pitt was the son of a gamekeeper, but he had been educated alongside the son of the manor house to provide the wealthy boy with a spur to success. Instead, it was Pitt, the gamekeeper’s son, who had outstripped him.
But Patrick didn’t know that. He certainly shouldn’t know that Pitt’s father, her grandfather, had been transported to Australia as a punishment for poaching, a crime of which Pitt had never believed him guilty, but which had been impossible to prove. She did not know how long ago her father had stopped trying.
Maybe she would tell Patrick that, but not yet. Loyalty kept her silent. Once in a great while she had seen the sadness in her father’s face, and knew that it was from a hurt that never totally went away.
She pushed those thoughts aside. “What are you going to do?” she asked Patrick.
He looked at her inquiringly.
“About Philip Sidney? What an honorable name! He doesn’t deserve it,” she answered with sudden heat.
He looked totally confused.
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