Free Traitors Gate by Anne Perry Page A

then resumed her conversation.
    It took Charlotte several minutes to find Pitt. He had moved from the main reception room with its blazing chandeliers up a shallow flight of steps into a quieter room where he was deep in conversation with the man who resembled Linus Chancellor, and the extraordinary woman who was with him.
    Charlotte hesitated, uncertain whether if she approached, she might be interrupting, but the woman glanced up and their eyes met with a jolt of interest that was almost a familiarity.
    The man followed her line of sight, and Pitt also turned.
    Charlotte went forward and was introduced.
    “Mr. Jeremiah Thorne of the Colonial Office,” Pitt said quietly. “And Mrs. Thorne. May I present my wife.”
    “How do you do, Mrs. Pitt,” Mrs. Thorne said immediately. “Are you interested in Africa? I do hope not. I am bored to weeping with it. Please come and talk to me aboutsomething else. Almost anything would do, except India, which from this distance is much the same.”
    “Christabel …” Thorne said with alarm, but Charlotte could see that it was largely assumed, and he was possibly quite used to her manner, and in no way truly disturbed.
    “Yes my dear,” she said absently. “I am going to speak with Mrs. Pitt. We shall find something to entertain us, either something profoundly serious and worthy, like saving souls or bodies; or else totally trivial, like criticizing the fashions of everyone else we can see, and speculating on which respectable lady of uncertain years is seeking which wretched young man to marry her daughter.”
    Thorne smiled and groaned at the same time, but there was quite obviously profound affection in it; then he turned back to Pitt.
    Charlotte followed Christabel Thorne with considerable interest; the conversation promised to be different and lively.
    “If you come to these sort of things as often as I do, you must find them desperately tedious by now,” Christabel said with a smile. Her large eyes were very penetrating, and Charlotte could imagine she would paralyze many a timid soul into silence, or stuttering and incoherent sentences.
    “I have never been to one before.” Charlotte decided to be just as frank. It was the only defense against pretentiousness, and being caught at it. “Since my marriage I have been out socially only on certain specific occasions that have called for …” She stopped. To have admitted they were when she was involving herself in Pitt’s investigations was perhaps a little too candid even for this occasion.
    Christabel’s high eyebrows rose even higher, her face full of interest. “Yes?”
    Charlotte still hesitated.
    “You were going to say?” Christabel prompted. There was nothing unfriendly in her stare, simply a consuming interest.
    Charlotte gave up. She knew already Christabel wouldnot forgive a lie, or even half of one, and naturally since Thorne knew Pitt’s profession, she assumed Christabel did too. “A little meddling in my husband’s cases,” she finished with a slight smile. “There are sometimes places which as a member of the police—”
    “How perfectly marvelous!” Christabel interrupted her. “But of course. You have no need to explain, my dear. It is all quite clear, and completely justified. This time you are here because he has been invited on this wretched business of African information going missing.” A look of contempt crossed her face. “Greed can make people do the grubbiest of things … at least some people.” She caught sight of Charlotte’s face. “Don’t look so upset, my dear. I overheard my husband speaking about it just now. One was always aware of the possibility. Wherever there is a fortune to be made, there will be those who cheat to get advantage. It is simply unusual that they have had the courage and openness to bring in the police. I applaud it. But you will still find this evening growing dull, because very few people say anything they really mean.”
    A footman stopped by