Free Midnight at Marble Arch by Anne Perry

pale as she did so, and she moved hastily and without looking at him.
    Outside in the sun Charlotte kept up the pretense while they walked side by side the hundred yards or so to where Vespasia had just left another conversation. She was standing in the sun, her face lifted a little to its light, looking more like the Italians with whom she had stood at the barracks in ’48 than the English aristocrat she was now. Charlotte wondered what memories were in her mind or her heart.
    Charlotte and Angeles approached Vespasia. They went through with the charade, the polite smiles, the affected interest, the trivial exchange of words, until convention was satisfied. Then Angeles excused herself and Vespasia looked at Charlotte.
    “I think perhaps you had better explain,” she invited.
    Charlotte told her briefly what she had observed, adding no comment, watching Vespasia’s face for her reaction.
    “Oh dear.” Vespasia’s eyes were sad, her face in an expression of profound gravity.
    Charlotte waited, fear beginning to grow inside her. She had been clinging to a hope that she was being unnecessarily alarmed, and now it was melting away.
    “What is it you think?” she said at last.
    Still Vespasia hesitated. “I think that Angeles Castelbranco has had a terrible experience,” she said at last.
    It was exactly what Charlotte had thought also, though she had hoped she was being melodramatic. “How terrible?” she asked. “More than just … a forced kiss, perhaps a torn gown?”
    Vespasia’s mouth pulled tight in deep unhappiness. “She appears a healthy young woman. I’m sure she could slap someone hard enough to make her refusal known very plainly. And from what you say, she was not acquainted with this young man Andersley.”
    “No. He introduced himself. It seemed they had not met until that point.”
    “But she was so frightened that she backed away from him even though he did not actually touch her?”
    “Yes. She didn’t look just unwilling, or even as if it were merely distasteful. She looked terrified.” Charlotte pictured Angeles’s face again. Her expression had been unmistakable. “You believe she was far more seriously assaulted, don’t you?”
    “I think that is probably so,” Vespasia agreed, her voice low and strained with pity.
    “What are we going to do?” Charlotte’s mind raced over the possibilities, beginning with talking to Pitt.
    “Nothing,” Vespasia replied.
    “Nothing! But if she was actually raped that’s one of the worst possible crimes.” Charlotte was outraged. It was totally out of character for Vespasia, of all people, to be so callous. “She must be helped,” she said hotly. “And above all, whoever did it must be punished, put in prison.” The thought of the man getting away with such a thing was intolerable.
    Vespasia put her hand very gently on Charlotte’s arm. “And if Angeles names a young man and says that he raped her, what do you suppose will happen?”
    Charlotte tried to imagine it. The anguish would be profound. Isaura Castelbranco would be distraught for her daughter. Charlotte felt cold throughout her body at the thought of such a thing happening to Jemima. It was almost impossible to hold in the mind, it was so appalling.But if it ever happened, she would injure somebody in the most terrible revenge she could imagine. She would destroy him!
    And it would change nothing. All the pain she could inflict would do nothing to help Jemima.
    “Exactly,” Vespasia agreed gently, as if she had followed Charlotte’s train of thought. “It is an injury no punishment is ever going to heal. To blame anyone else, even if you could prove her total innocence—”
    “Of course she’s innocent!” Charlotte interrupted. “She’s sixteen! She’s a child!”
    “For goodness’ sake, my dear, were you innocent at sixteen?”
    “Of course I was! I was innocent until—”
    “I’m not questioning your chastity,” Vespasia said a little more tartly. “I