Free Belgrave Square by Anne Perry Page B

expression was one of anticipating anger. There was a mixture of eagerness and tension in her now, and she seemed acutely aware of Lord Anstiss. Her eyes flickered to him as if she was uncertain whether to speak or not.
    Charlotte smiled at her sweetly, and indeed she felt a certain sympathy.
    “I was thinking of type rather than quality. Perhaps I expressed myself poorly. I apologize. Have you seen anything of great interest recently, Mrs. Walters?”
    “Oh—” Mrs. Walters shrugged. “I saw
Otello
a few weeks ago. Verdi, you know? It is his latest. Have you seen it?”
    “No,” Charlotte admitted readily. “I have been rather preoccupied with other things. Was it excellent?”
    “Oh yes. Do you not think so, Lord Anstiss?” She turned to him with a bright glance.
    “Indeed.” Anstiss gave a lengthy, informed and sensitive opinion of the work and of the particular performance he had seen, his face full of power and animation, his choice of words individual and obviously colored by his own intense feeling. No one interrupted him, and Charlotte listened with interest. It made her wish dearly that such events were within possibility for her. But it was never going to be more than a dream, and this was a game, a few days out of Emily’s life. Charlotte should enjoy them for what they were, and do her best to acquit herself honorably.
    “How well you describe it, my lord,” she said with a smile. “You make me feel not only as if I had been there, but in the most excellent company.”
    A quick pleasure lit his face. “Thank you, Mrs. Pitt. What a charming compliment. You have made my evening doubly enjoyable in retrospect.” The phrase was conventionally polite,and yet she felt had he not meant it he would have said nothing.
    Mrs. Walters’s face darkened. “I am sure we all find you most interesting to listen to,” she said a trifle peevishly. “You must have seen something of note, Mrs. Pitt. You surely have not spent all your time pursuing your brother-in-law’s career? I thought he was but very lately come to political interest.”
    Next to Mrs. Walters, Lord Byam disengaged himself from his group and turned towards them.
    “His interest is long-standing,” Charlotte contradicted. “It is his decision to stand for Parliament which is recent.”
    “A nice distinction,” Anstiss observed with relish. “Don’t you think so, Byam?”
    Byam smiled, a warm, natural gesture. “I take your point, Mrs. Pitt. Still, it is a pity if it has required so much of your time you have had no opportunity to refresh yourself with theater or music.”
    “Oh I have, my lord.” Charlotte did not wish to appear too earnest or single-minded. She racked her memory for any acceptable affair she had attended, and stretched the truth by a few years. “I did a short while ago see a delightful performance of a light opera by Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan. Not quite Verdi, I confess, but a charming evening.”
    Mrs. Walters raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.
    “I agree,” Eleanor Byam said quickly. “We cannot be indulging in great tragedy all the time. I saw
Patience
again last month. I still found it highly entertaining, and so many tunes stayed in my mind.” She glanced at her husband.
    “Indeed,” he agreed, but he looked not at her but at Anstiss. “Did you not find the whole plot and the humor of it delicious—knowing your opinion of the aesthetic set?”
    Anstiss stared somewhere over their heads, his eyes bright with inner humor, as if he took some point deeper than the mere words. “Mr. Oscar Wilde should be flattered,” he replied lightly. “His wit and his ideas have been immortalized and will be sung and whistled by half London, and done so without their knowing why.”
    “Particularly the song about the silver churn,” Byam said quietly, smiling and looking at no one in particular. Hehummed a few bars. “Magnetism is a most curious quality. Why do some have it, and some not?”
    “Are you