Seven Dials by Anne Perry Page A

waxen features, a little sunken now, and tried to imagine him alive, laughing and talking, filled with feeling. Without movement, sound, anything of the thoughts or passions that had made Lovat unique, his body told Pitt nothing more than McDade had already said. A slender woman could not possibly have lifted him. Had he suspected any violence he would presumably not have stood so close to whoever it was who shot him, which meant that either the murderer was known to him as a friend or he had not seen his assailant until the moment before the shot was fired. Either possibility answered the facts, and there was no way to tell which was the case. It was probably irrelevant anyway. The woman had killed him. Pitt’s only hope to save Ryerson was to find some mitigating reason why.
    He spent the remainder of the afternoon learning what he could about Ryerson: his present responsibilities, which were largely to do with trade both within the empire and beyond; and the constituency he represented, which was in Manchester, the heart of the cotton-spinning industry in England. It was the second largest city in Britain, and also the home of the prime minister, Mr. Gladstone.
    He was back in Keppel Street in time for dinner.
    “Can you do anything to help?” Charlotte asked, looking up from her sewing as they sat together in the parlor afterwards.
    “Help whom?” Pitt asked. “Ryerson?”
    “Of course.” She kept on weaving the needle in and out, the light flashing on it like a streak of silver, the head of it clicking very softly against her thimble. He found it a uniquely pleasing sound; it seemed to represent everything that was gentle and domestic, and there was an infinite safety in it. He had no idea what she was mending, but it was clean cotton and the faint aroma of it drifted across the short space between them.
    “Can you?” she pressed.
    “I don’t know,” he admitted, feeling the weight of it sink on him as if the room were suddenly darker. “I’m not sure he’s prepared to help himself.”
    She stared at him, her needle motionless in her hand, her face puzzled. “What do you mean? Are you saying he’s guilty?”
    “He says he’s not,” Pitt replied. “And I’m inclined to believe him.” He pictured Ryerson’s face in his mind as he had defended Ayesha Zakhari, and heard again the emotion in Ryerson’s voice. “At least I think so,” he added. “He’s willing to admit he was there, and that he actually helped her lift Lovat’s body into the barrow, intending to take it to Hyde Park.”
    “Then he is an accessory!” she said in amazement. “After the murder, even if not before.”
    “Yes, I know that,” he agreed.
    “And the prime minister wants you to protect him?” she asked, struggling with the idea.
    He stared at her. Her expression contained too many emotions for him to be certain which was the most powerful: incredulity, anger, dismay, anxiety.
    “I’m not sure,” he said honestly. “I don’t know which is the greatest ill.”
    She was confused. “What do you mean? It wouldn’t bring the government down, not so soon after the election. Ryerson would have to go, that’s all. And if he helped his mistress to murder a past lover, then so he should.”
    “The Manchester cotton workers are threatening to strike,” he pointed out. “That’s Ryerson’s department, his constituency. He’s possibly the only man who has a chance of settling the problem without ruining heaven knows how many people, workers and mill owners alike, and the shopkeepers, businesses and artisans of the nearby towns as well.”
    “I see,” she said soberly. “What can you do? You can’t conceal his involvement, can you? Would you?” She had put her sewing down now and her attention was undivided, her eyes dark and troubled.
    “I don’t suppose the question will arise,” he answered, hoping profoundly that that was true. “The Egyptian embassy knows he was there.”
    Her eyebrows rose in