“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. He had come to her for help without thinking for a moment that perhaps the truth could be painful for her. Now he was ashamed of taking it for granted. “I need to know more of him than public opinion can tell me,” he explained.

“Of course you do,” she agreed with asperity. “May I ask what it is you suspect him of? Not actually murder, surely?”

“You think he would not kill, even to protect his reputation?”

“You are being evasive, Thomas!” she replied, but there was a slight tremor in her voice. “Is that your way of allowing me to understand that you do?”

“No,” he said quickly, guilt biting a little deeper. “I spoke with him, and he confuses me. I want a clearer impression of him, without unintentionally placing the thoughts in your mind by telling you too much.”

“I am not a servant girl to be so easily led,” she said with undisguised disparagement. Then, when she saw him blush, she smiled with the charm she had used to devastate men, and occasionally women as well, all her life. “I do not believe for a moment that Saville Ryerson would kill to protect his reputation,” she said with conviction. “But I do not find it impossible to accept that he would do so to defend his life, or someone else’s, or for a cause that he held sufficiently important. Which I profoundly doubt would be anything to do with cotton strikes in Manchester. What other issues are there at stake?”

“None that I know of,” he replied, the tightness easing out of him again at her warmth. “And I don’t know of any real reason why Lovat should be a threat to Miss Zakhari.”

“Might he have attacked her, or attempted an assault which she rejected?” Vespasia asked with a frown.

“At three o’clock in the morning, in her back garden?” he said dryly.

Her expression was momentarily comical.

“Oh-hardly,” she agreed. “One does not meet in such circumstances unless one has some nature of assignation.” Then total seriousness returned. “And one does not innocently take a gun. It was her gun, I assume?” Hope of denial was born and died in the same instant. “I admit, I read only the headlines. It seemed of no concern to me then.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “It was her gun, but she said she found it there. She heard the shot and that is why she went outside. He was already dead when she reached him.”

“And what does Saville Ryerson say?” she asked.

“That Lovat was dead when he got there,” he replied. “And he helped her lift the body into a wheelbarrow in order to take it to Hyde Park and leave it there. The police were called by someone, we don’t know who, and arrived in time to find her with the body. Ryerson had gone to the mews to harness a horse to the gig.”

Vespasia sighed, her eyes troubled. “Oh, dear. I presume the evidence bears all this out.” It was hardly a question.

“Yes, so far. Certainly someone lifted the body for her.” He watched her face. “You don’t find that hard to believe?”

She looked away. “No. Perhaps I had better tell you from the beginning.”

“Please.” He sat back a little in his chair, still watching her.

“The Ryersons were landed gentry,” she began quietly, her voice remote in memory. “They had only the occasional link with aristocracy, but plenty of money. There were two or three sisters, I believe, but Saville was the only son. He was well educated at Eton, and then Cambridge, then the army for a spell. He served with distinction, but did not wish to make a career of it. He stood for Parliament around about 1860, and won easily.” Regret touched so softly he barely saw it. “He married well,” she continued. “I don’t believe it was a love match, but it was certainly amiable enough, which is as much as most people expect.”

Beyond the windows in the garden a bird was hopping over the grass and the late roses glowed in vivid ambers and reds.

“Then she was killed,” Vespasia went on, startling Pitt so he gasped and coughed.

She glanced at him with a very slight, wry smile. “Not murdered, Thomas. It was an accident. I suppose if it happened now, you might be sent to investigate it, although I doubt you would find any more than they did then.” She sat very still as she went on. “She was on holiday in Ireland. It was one of their periodic unpleasantnesses, and she was caught in the crossfire. It was criminal, of course, in that they were shooting each other. It was an ambush intended for political victims, and it was accidental that Libby Ryerson moved into the path at exactly that moment.”

Pitt felt a stark sadness for Ryerson. It was a harsh way to lose someone. Had he blamed himself that he had not prevented it, somehow foreseen and guarded against it?

“Where was he?”

“In London.”

“Why was she in Ireland?”

“She had many Anglo-Irish friends. She was a beautiful woman, restless for experience-adventure.”

He was not sure what she meant, and hesitant to ask. It seemed intrusive not only to the dead woman but to Vespasia’s implicit understanding of her as well. “Had they children?” he asked instead.

“No,” she replied with a touch of sadness. “They had only been married two or three years.”

“And he never married again?”

“No.” Now her eyes met his candidly. “And before you ask me why, I do not know. He certainly had mistresses enough, and many women who would have accepted him.” A thread of humor touched her mouth. “If you are looking for some dark secret in his personal life, I do not believe you will find it… not in that area, anyway. And I know of no other scandal, financial or political.”

He thought carefully before asking the next question, but he realized as he formed the words in his mind that it was the one which had driven all the others and weighed most heavily on him.

“Do you know anything that connects him to Victor Narraway, professionally or personally?”

Vespasia’s eyes widened very slightly. “No. Do you believe there is something?”

“I don’t know.” That was not strictly true. He did not know in a rational sense, but he was perfectly sure that Narraway was gripped by a hard and profound emotion when he thought of Ryerson. He had sent Pitt to see him instead of going himself for a reason so powerful it overrode judgment. He had rationalized it afterwards, not before. “I had that impression,” he added aloud.

Vespasia leaned a little towards him, only the slightest yielding of the stiffness of her back. “Be careful, Thomas. Saville Ryerson is a man of intelligence and deep political judgment, but above all he is a man of feeling. He has worked hard for his beliefs and for the people he represents. He has not spared his time or his means to benefit Manchester, and much of the north of England, and he has done it alone, and quite often with too little thanks.” She lifted her thin shoulders very slightly. “The Lancashire people are loyal, but they are quick-tempered and not overfond of London-made decisions. They have not always understood him. Because he is clever he has made enemies in Westminster: ambitious young men who want to topple him and take his place. Be very sure you are right before you accuse him of anything. It will ruin him, and you cannot undo that by withdrawing the charge afterwards.”

“I’m trying to save him, Aunt Vespasia!” Pitt responded fervently. “I simply don’t know how to!”

She turned away, staring at the gilt-edged mirror on the far wall, its beveled glass reflecting the leaves of the birch trees twisting and flickering in the slight wind outside.

“Perhaps you can’t,” she replied so softly he barely heard her. “He may love this Egyptian woman enough to have been complicit in her crime. Do what you have to, Thomas, but please do it as gently as you can.”

“I will,” he promised, wondering how on earth he would.