Read Southampton Row for Free Online Page B

mind more on political policies and less on the person, might have missed it.
    He leaned forward and redirected the driver of his hansom.
    But when he arrived the butler told him with profound apologies that Mr. and Mrs. Radley were out at a dinner party and could not reasonably be expected home before one in the morning at the earliest.
    Pitt thanked him and declined the offer to wait, as the butler had known he would. He returned to the cab, and told the driver to take him instead to Cornwallis’s flat in Piccadilly.
    A manservant answered the door and without question conducted him through to Cornwallis’s small sitting room. It was furnished in the elegant but spare style of a captain’s cabin at sea, full of books, polished brass and dark, gleaming wood. Above the mantel shelf there was a painting of a square-rigged brigantine running before a gale.
    “Mr. Pitt, sir,” the manservant announced.
    Cornwallis dropped his book and rose to his feet in surprise and some alarm. “Pitt? What is it? What’s happened? Why are you not on Dartmoor?”
    Pitt did not answer.
    Cornwallis glanced at the manservant, then back at Pitt. “Have you eaten?” he asked.
    Pitt was startled to realize that he had had nothing since the pie in the tavern near the factory. “No . . . not for a while.” He sank down in the chair opposite Cornwallis’s. “Bread and cheese would be fine . . . or cake if you have it.” He missed Gracie’s baking already, and the tins at home were empty. She had made nothing, expecting them all to be away.
    “Bring Mr. Pitt bread and cheese,” Cornwallis directed. “And cider, and a slice of cake.” He looked back at Pitt. “Or would you prefer tea?”
    “Cider is excellent,” Pitt replied, easing himself into the softness of the chair.
    The manservant departed, closing the door behind him.
    “Well?” Cornwallis demanded, resuming his own seat and the frown returning to his face. He was not handsome but there was a strength and a symmetry in his features which pleased one the longer one looked at him. When he moved it was with the grace and balance of his long years at sea, when he had had only the quarterdeck in which to pace.
    “Something has arisen in connection with one of the parliamentary seats which Narraway wishes me to . . . to watch.” He saw the flash of anger in Cornwallis’s face, and knew it was because he saw injustice in Narraway’s not honoring Bow Street’s commitment to Pitt’s leave. It added to the outrage of the entire dismissal of Pitt’s reposting to suit the vengeance of the Inner Circle. All the old presumptions and certainties were gone, for both of them.
    But Cornwallis did not probe. He was accustomed to the solitary life of a captain at sea who must listen to his officers but share only practicalities with them, not explain himself or indulge in emotions. He must always remain apart, maintain as much as possible of the fiction that he was never afraid, never lonely, never in doubt. It was the discipline of a lifetime and he could not now breach it. It had become part of his personality and he was no longer aware of it as a separate decision.
    The manservant returned with the bread, cheese, cider and cake, for which Pitt thanked him. “You are welcome, sir.” He bowed and withdrew.
    “What do you know of Charles Voisey?” Pitt asked as he spread the crusty bread with butter and cut off a heavy slice of pale, rich Caerphilly cheese and felt it crumble beneath the knife. He bit into it hungrily. It was sharp and creamy in his mouth.
    Cornwallis’s lips tightened, but he did not ask why Pitt wanted to know. “Only what is public information,” he replied. “Harrow and Oxford, then called to the bar. Was a brilliant lawyer who made a good deal of money, but of more value in the long run, a great many friends in the places that count, and I don’t doubt a few enemies as well. Elevated to the bench, and then very quickly to the Court of Appeal. He knows how