Dorchester Terrace Read Online Free Page A

limitations.”
    “Excellent!” Blantyre applauded him. “Never allow your dreams to be limited. You should aim for the stars. Live and die with your arms outstretched and your eyes seeking the next goal.”
    “Evan, you are talking nonsense,” Adriana said quietly, looking first at Charlotte, then at Pitt, judging their reactions. “Aren’t you ever afraid people will believe you?”
    “Do you believe me, Mrs. Pitt?” Blantyre inquired, his eyes wide, still challenging.
    Charlotte looked at him directly. She was quite sure of her answer.
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Blantyre, because I don’t think you mean me to, but yes, I do believe you.”
    “Bravo!” he said quietly. “I have found a sparring partner worth my efforts.” He turned to Pitt. “Does your position involve dealing with the Balkans, Mr. Pitt?”
    Pitt glanced at Jack and Emily—who had now moved farther away and were engaged in conversation elsewhere—then back at Blantyre.
    “With anyone whose activities might threaten the peace or safety of Britain,” he replied, the levity wiped from his face.
    Blantyre’s eyebrows rose. “Even if in northern Italy, or Croatia? In Vienna itself?”
    “No,” Pitt told him, keeping his expression agreeable, as if theywere playing a parlor game of no consequence. “Only on British soil. Farther afield would be Mr. Radley’s concern. As I’m sure you know.”
    “Of course.” Blantyre nodded. “That must be challenging for you, to know when you can act, and when you must leave the action to someone else. Or am I being unsophisticated? Is it actually more a matter of
how
you do a thing rather than
what
you do?”
    Pitt smiled without answering.
    “Does your search for information ever take you abroad?” Blantyre continued, completely unperturbed. “You would love Vienna. The quickness of wit, and the music. There is so much music there that is new, innovative in concept, challenging to the mind. I daresay they are musicians you have never heard of, but you will. Above all, there is a breadth of thought in a score of subjects: philosophy, science, social mores, psychology, the very fundamentals of how the human mind works. There is an intellectual imagination there that will very soon lead the world in some areas.”
    He gave a slight mocking shrug, as if to deny the heat of his feelings. “And of course there is the traditional as well.” He turned to look at Adriana. “Do you remember dancing all night to Mr. Strauss’s music? Our feet ached, the dawn was paling the sky, and yet if the orchestra had played into the daylight hours, we could not have kept still.”
    The memory was there in Adriana’s eyes, but Charlotte was certain she also saw a shadow cross her face.
    “Of course I do,” Adriana answered. “No one who has waltzed in Vienna ever completely forgets it.”
    Charlotte looked at her, fascinated by the romance of dancing to the music of the Waltz King. “You actually danced when Mr. Strauss conducted the orchestra?” she asked with awe.
    “Indeed,” Blantyre responded. “No one else can give music quite the same magic. It makes one feel as if one must dance forever. We watched the moon rise over the Danube, and talked all night with the most amazing people: princes, philosophers, artists, and scientists.”
    “Have you met the emperor Franz Josef?” Charlotte pursued. “They say he is very conservative. Is that true?” She told herself it wasto keep the conversation innocuous, but she was caught up in this dream portait of Vienna, the new inventions and new ideas of society. It was a world she herself would never see, but—at least as Blantyre had told it—Vienna was the heart of Europe. It was the place of the genesis of new ideas that would spread throughout the whole continent one day, and beyond.
    “Yes, I have, and it is true.” Blantyre was smiling but the emotion in his face was intense. There was a passion in him that was urgent, electric.
    “A grim man, with a