Page 85 of What Cannot Be Said

“In other words, your insight into the precariousness of my situation might not be exactly up-to-date, hmm?”

“Always a possibility,” agreed Sebastian. “There’s no denying the Palace is pushing Bow Street for an arrest—any arrest. How good is your alibi for that Sunday?”

Pitcairn’s head fell back as he looked up, his face bleak. “I don’t have one. I was alone, working on a concerto.”

“Unfortunate. Because I’ve no doubt that if the Home Office can come up with an excuse to hang a Spencean, they’d be more than happy to take it.”

Pitcairn stood and reached for his coat. “Since when do they need an excuse?”

“Oh, they always like to have one. Although if they can’t find one, they aren’t above making one up.”

The fencing master shrugged into his coat, then straightened his lapels with studied care. “Exactly why are you here?”

“I’m wondering if Emma ever talked to you about her cousin Arabella.”

Pitcairn turned to hunker down and stow his foil and mask in the canvas case that lay open at his feet. “Why? Why are you asking me about that?”

“Did she?”

He was silent for a moment as he fastened the straps of the case, then pushed to his feet. “She did—several times. There was no love lost between those two cousins.”

“So I’ve been told. Do you know why?”

“You’ve met the girl, haven’t you? Arabella, I mean.”

“I have, yes. She comes across as a quiet, innocent child.”

“Ah, yes; I’ve seen that act, too.”

“You’re suggesting it’s an act?”

“Let’s put it this way: Arabella might be only fifteen, but she’s the kind of female a man like me stays far, far away from. Or at least, he does if he’s wise. And while I may have made any number of stupid mistakes in my life, I’m not that stupid.”

“Care to elaborate on that?”

Pitcairn glanced over to where the girl had been. She was now gone. “Not really, no.”

“I take it Arabella was trying to attract your interest?”

“If you were a man in my position, would you answer that?”

Sebastian met Pitcairn’s intense gaze and held it. “Probably not.”

Pitcairn sucked in his cheeks and looked away again, his throat working as he swallowed. And for one brief moment, the swordsman’s usual facade of rigid self-control slipped, and Sebastian could see all of his grief, all of the painful longing and desperate yearning of a man who’d just lost a woman he would never have been allowed to have but couldn’t stop loving anyway. Then the fencing master gave a faint shake of his head, and that brief moment of vulnerability was gone.

“What?” said Sebastian, watching him.

Pitcairn reached for his hat and positioned it carefully. “It’s just... the only reason Arabella was even doing it was because she was always so bloody jealous of Emma.”

“Do you know why?”

“Why?” Pitcairn shrugged. “Jealousy is such a poisonous emotion, isn’t it? Once it gets started, it can eat away at a person until they’re so consumed by it that they lose all sense of proportion. All I know is, whatever Emma had, Arabella wanted—particularly a grandfather who wasn’t ‘tainted’ by trade and a mother who wasn’t certified insane. But it didn’t stop there. She was jealous of Emma’s house because it was bigger than hers and on Grosvenor Square; she was jealous because everyone talked about how pretty Emma was. Someone admired Emma’s singing last Christmas, so Arabella was jealous of her voice; their dancing instructor praised Emma’s dancing, so Arabella was jealous of that, too. I don’t know exactly how she realized that Emma and I were... friends; all I know is that she decided she wanted me to find her attractive, too. And believe me, nothing is more terrifying to someone like me than the attentions of a wellborn English schoolgirl he can’t afford either to spurn or encourage.”

“So which did you do?” said Sebastian as they began to pick their way through the rubble, toward the street. “Spurn or encourage her?”

“What do you think? I was trying to do neither, but it wasn’t easy. The way she kept finding an excuse to show up around the time of Malcolm’s lessons, it had reached the point I was counting the days until he left for Scotland. Except then...” He blinked, his voice trailing away.

“I take it Emma told you Lady Salinger is in an asylum?”

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