Dorchester Terrace Read Online Free PDF

the swirl and shift of the glittering party in front of them.
    “I am afraid that mercy will override the necessity for action,”Vespasia said at last. “Thomas has never balked from looking at the truth, however harsh, or tragic, or compromised by blame in many places. But he has not previously had to do more than present the evidence. Now he may have to be judge, jury, and even executioner himself. Decisions are not always black-and-white, and yet they must still be made. To whom does he turn for advice, for someone who will reconsider, balance what might be a mistake, find a fact he had not seen, which may well change everything?”
    “No one,” Narraway said simply. “Do you think I don’t know that? Do you imagine that I have not lain awake all night staring at the ceiling and wondering if I had done the right thing myself, or perhaps sent a man wholly or partially innocent to his death because I could not afford to hesitate?”
    Vespasia studied him carefully: his eyes, his mouth, the deep-etched lines of his face, the gray in his thick shock of black hair.
    “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “You wear your worries with sufficient grace that I had not seen the burden they’ve created clearly enough.”
    He found himself blushing. It was a compliment he had not expected from Vespasia. He was a little alarmed at how much it pleased him. It also made him vulnerable—something he was not used to, except with Charlotte Pitt—and he knew that he must force it to the back of his mind again.
    “You must have thought me inhuman,” he replied, then wished he had not been so open.
    “Not inhuman,” Vespasia said ruefully. “Just far more certain of yourself than I have ever been. I admired that in you, even if it left me in awe, and kept me at some distance.”
    Now he was really surprised. He had not imagined Vespasia in awe of anyone. She had been flattered by emperors, admired by the tsar of all the Russias, and courted by half of Europe.
    “Don’t be so silly!” she said sharply, as if reading his thoughts. “Privilege of birth is a duty, not an achievement! I admire those who have mastered themselves in order to be where they are, rather than having been handed it by circumstance.”
    “Like Pitt?” he asked.
    “I was thinking of you,” she said drily. “But yes, like Thomas.”
    “And did you fear for me, when judgment lay in my hands?”
    “No, my dear, because you have the steel in your soul. You will survive your mistakes.”
    “And Pitt?”
    “I hope so. But I fear it will be far harder for him. He is more of an idealist than you ever were, and perhaps more than I. He still has a certain innocence, courage to believe in the best.”
    “Was I wrong to recommend him?” Narraway asked.
    She would have liked to answer him easily, reassure him, but if she lied now she would leave them isolated from each other when perhaps they might most need to be allied. And she had long ago given up telling lies beyond the trivial ones of courtesy, when the truth served no purpose.
    “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “We shall see.”

T WO DAYS AFTER THE reception, Vespasia received the news that a woman she had known and admired some time in the past, Serafina Montserrat, was ill and confined to her bed.
    It is seldom easy to visit those who are not well, but it is far harder when both you and they know that recovery is not possible. What does one say that has any kind of honesty, and yet does not carry with it the breath of despair?
    Vespasia had contemplated this while taking a bath perfumed with her favorite mixture of essences: lavender, rosemary, and eucalyptus in bicarbonate of soda crystals, which always invigorated and lifted the spirits. Now she sat in her dressing room before the looking glass while her maid arranged her hair before assisting with the tiny buttons of her dress. Today Vespasia had chosen a gown of indigo-shaded wool, which was both flattering and warm. She firmly