Dorchester Terrace Read Online Free

black. Her eyes were dark-lashed and heavy-lidded above her high cheekbones, her mouth soft and generous. To Charlotte it was a face that was instantly likeable. She felt the moment their eyes met that the mysterious woman had a great strength.
    She introduced herself as Adriana Blantyre. Her voice was very low, just a trifle husky, and she spoke with an accent so slight that Charlotte had to strain her ears to make certain she had really heard it.
    Adriana’s husband was tall and dark, and he too had a remarkable face. At a glance he was handsome, yet there was far more to him than a mere balance or regularity of feature. Once Charlotte had met his eyes, she kept looking back at him because of their intelligence, and the fierceness of his emotion. There was a grace in the way he stood, but no ease. She felt Pitt watching her curiously as she looked at the man, and yet she did not stop herself.
    Evan Blantyre was an ex-diplomat, particularly interested in the eastern Mediterranean.
    “A marvelous place, the Mediterranean,” he said, facing Charlotte, and yet speaking almost to himself. “Part of Europe, and yet at the gateway to a world far older, and civilizations that prefigure ours and from which we are sprung.”
    “Such as Greece?” Charlotte asked, not having to feign interest. “And maybe Egypt?”
    “Byzantium, Macedonia, and before that Troy,” he elaborated. “The world of Homer, imagination and memory at the root of our thoughts, and the concepts from which they rise.”
    Charlotte could not let him go unchallenged, not because she disbelieved him but because there was an arrogance in him that she was compelled to probe.
    “Really? I would have thought Judea was the place at the root of our thoughts,” she argued.
    He smiled widely, seizing on her interest. “Judea certainly, for the roots of faith, but not of thought, or, if you prefer, philosophy, the love of wisdom rather than commanded belief. I chose my words with care, Mrs. Pitt.”
    Now she knew exactly what he meant, and that he had been deliberately baiting her, but she also saw that there was intense conviction behind what he said. There was no pretense in the passion of his voice.
    She smiled at him. “I see. And which of our modern civilizations carry the torch of that philosophy now?” It was a challenge, and she meant him to answer.
    “Ah.” Now he was ignoring the others in their group. “What an interesting question. Not Germany, all brightly polished and looking for something brave and brash to do. Not really France, although it has a uniquely piquant sophistication. Italy has sown the seeds of much glory, yet it is forever quarrelling within itself.” He made a rueful and elegant gesture.
    “And us?” Charlotte asked him, her tone a little sharper than she had meant it to be.
    “Adventurers,” he replied without hesitation. “And shopkeepers to the world.”
    “So no present-day heirs?” she said, with sudden disappointment.
    “Austro-Hungary,” he replied too quickly to conceal his own feelings. “It has inherited the mantle of the old Holy Roman Empire that bound Europe into one Christian unity after the fall of Rome itself.”
    Charlotte was startled. “Austria? But it is ramshackle, all but falling apart, isn’t it? Unless all we are told of it is nonsense?”
    Now he was amused, and he allowed her to see it. There was warmth in his smile, but also a bright and hard irony.
    “I thought I was baiting you, Mrs. Pitt, and I find instead that you are baiting me.” He turned to Pitt. “I underestimated your wife, sir. Someone mentioned that you are head of Special Branch. If that is indeed true, then I should have known better than to imagine that you would choose a wife purely for her looks, however charming.”
    Pitt was smiling now too. “I was not head of Special Branch at the time,” he replied. “But I was ambitious, and hungry enough to reach for the best with no idea of my own