Word of Honour

'Thank you.' She frowned and seemed to choose her words. 'It's mostly been observation, you know. I saw your interest in my father's notebook, then how ill you looked in Lutetia . . . After that, I asked a few questions of people at Stonelea, read some notes of my father's. And I put two and two together.'

'But why didn't you say anything? It's been difficult, hiding it from you.'

'I thought as much. But you seemed so intent on keeping to yourself. And George.'

'He told you?'

'No. But I assumed he'd know. And you've just confirmed it.'

'Ah. Yes.' Aubrey leaned on the parapet of the bridge. Lights were streaking the water, reaching from one bank to the other. Some met in the middle, and muddled together in a whirl where the wash of boats combined. 'Who else knows?'

'No-one that I know of. Your father might suspect. And your mother. But neither has said anything to me.'

And here I was, thinking I was so clever. 'My condition is stable,' he said, answering her question. 'Thank you for asking.'

'It wasn't a polite enquiry. I'm concerned.' She held up a hand as he brightened. 'Concerned, that's all. I wouldn't like to see anything happen to you. And don't read anything into that.'

'I shan't.' I shall.

'I thought it might help, if you don't have to go to the effort of hiding it from me.'

'So I can be myself? Weak and feeble Aubrey?'

'Are you weak and feeble?'

'Just now? No. Things are well enough.'

'But you're not improving.'

'Nor deteriorating. It's satisfactory.'

'You'd never be content with satisfactory. Exceptional is your minimum acceptable standard.'

'I aim high.'

'So do I.'

'We're alike like that,' he said, more as a tactic than with any real hope.

'Yes,' she said, but her expression wasn't hopeful. It was sombre as she looked over the river. 'I blame our fathers.'

Caroline was one of the few people who had the ability to consistently flabbergast Aubrey. 'And what do our fathers have to do with this?' he said when he finally managed to put words together.

'Quite a lot, really. Look at mine. A brilliant, worldwide authority on magic. A master in his field. Consulted by governments here and abroad.' She sighed. 'It's quite a lot to live up to.'

Words eluded Aubrey again. He grasped at them, but they slipped away like eels. 'I thought I was the only one.'

She glanced at him and smiled a little. 'I guessed as much. Driven to try to emulate a great man? Always being asked about following in his footsteps? Trying to succeed, your own way, despite all this?'

'That sounds familiar.'

'And expectations.' She scowled over the bridge. 'Don't talk to me about expectations.'

'Your parents' expectations are too high?'

'What? No. They haven't had any. Or they didn't express them. They always said they didn't want to crush me with their dreams. They wanted me to find my own future.'

'So you have to try to guess what their expectations are, for fear of disappointing them.'

'That's right.' She looked squarely at him. 'Oh. It's like that for you, too?'

'For as long as I can remember.'

'Hmm. But what you don't have to contend with is a mother who is also famous and brilliant.'

'I do have a mother who is world-renowned and exceptionally accomplished. Lady Rose Fitzwilliam? You've heard of her?'

'Well, yes, but being a male you don't have to live up to her.'

'So you have to live up to your father's name as well as your mother's?'

'Raised in a prominent suffragist household like ours? Of course.'

'So you have it harder than I do. You have two parents to live up to.' It was a novel thought. Aubrey had always felt that he had a unique situation in as far as living up to parental expectations went.

'People call me driven,' Caroline said. She rested her arms on the parapet and bent to put her chin on them. 'Or ambitious. They don't realise that the only way to live up to these unstated hopes is to excel. To triumph. Even then, I'm not sure.'

'So we are alike.' As Aubrey said it, he realised that he'd placed a little too much hope on his words. He turned around so he was facing the traffic. 'So where does that leave us?'

'On a bridge. In Trinovant. Trying to do the best we can.'

'That's not what I mean.'

She looked at him and he nearly swooned at the sweetness of her smile. 'I know, Aubrey. But let's let it rest there for now, please.'

'Of course.' He straightened a jacket that didn't need straightening at all. 'Will your mother be worrying about you?'

'It's not even eight o'clock.'

'Excellent. Would you have time for the dinner I promised? Marcel's is just on the other side of the bridge.'

'I thought you'd forgotten.'

'A promise is a promise.'

Caroline was merry, entertaining and wickedly witty as Marcel himself served them. She charmed him, the other waiters, and – of course – Aubrey, but he thought that underneath her sparkle, a wistfulness lay. They ate excellent soup, fine fish, and a dessert that was both delicate and sweet. Beyond that, Aubrey couldn't remember any details about what was served to them.

When they finally reached the Hepworths' city flat – a quiet, gently curving street in Mortonbridge – they stood at the bottom of the stairs. The streetlights were lit, and the windows of the houses on both sides showed that families were in residence.

Caroline held her bag in front of her like a shield. She didn't look at him. 'Aubrey.'

He'd been waiting for this. 'I know. You think it best if we don't see each other for a while.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'It's too much, you're not ready, something like that.'

She did look at him this time. 'Is leaping to conclusions a speciality of yours?'

Aubrey went over the conversation in his mind and decided that a brief retracking was in order. 'You were about to say something?'

'Thank you. You went haring off in completely the opposite direction, you know.'

'Opposite? Do we have a future together?'

'Yes. No. Not exactly.' She paused. 'You do make things awkward, don't you?'

I was thinking the same thing of you. 'Apparently. Sometimes on purpose, too.'

'There is much to be said for not seeing you. I realised that after your poor show in Lutetia.'

Here it comes. 'I'm not going to pretend that never happened. But I have sworn it will never happen again.'

'A noble aim. But I do worry that you tend to get caught up in things. Big things. And when important events are in train, I fear that you lose sight of the people around you. They become less important.'