by Anne Perry
The room was full of lights. The chandeliers glittered pendant from the ceiling, their crystal facets winking in the barest movement of air. Lights burned from all the gas brackets on the walls. Diamonds sparkled around throats, on arms and in hair, even on slender wrists, waved to emphasize a remark. Reflected light glanced from polished tables and on silver and in glass.
The soft buzz of voices was interrupted by laughter, the chink of goblets. It all looked so gay and unshadowed. But he longed to go outside to the solitude and the concealing darkness of the summer garden, where his face would not be read, no one else saw or remembered who spoke to whom, and where at least for a while he could be alone.
He stood undecided, and perhaps it would be more honest to say unable to make the decision to escape, in case he was observed. It was an entirely new experience for him to feel so racked by guilt, so uncertain of his own judgments. Of course he had made mistakes, but he had understood them, and they had not corroded his underlying belief in himself.
But this was entirely different. Why had he joined the secret brotherhood of the Inner Circle? He could remember Pitt’s face as exactly as if he had only just left him, standing in his office looking tired, deep lines of strain around his mouth, and his eyes unhappy. Drummond had realized immediately that Pitt’s distress was more than merely professional, but he had still been totally unprepared for what had followed. Pitt had not merely told him of corruption on the force, officers who were members of the Inner Circle and had been pressed by that secret brotherhood to use their professional power in the interests of members, but he had quietly but relentlessly asked him of his own concern with the brotherhood, and if he had been aware what hostage he was to their commands, and the penalties for disobedience. He had been civil, even gentle, but the train of doubt he had started in Drummond’s mind was beyond evasion, as he had known it must be.
He could answer Pitt with innocence. No, he had never made any decision of even the slightest degree to comply with the brotherhood’s wishes. But would that always be so? Was it so now? He had answered Byam’s summons because Byam was a brother. He had interfered with the course of investigation in Clerkenwell, and put Pitt onto the case of William Weems’s death, to suit the brotherhood. What else might he have done, unrealizing from whence the request originated? He racked his brain, and could not remember or decide.
And what might he yet do, if he discovered evidence that Byam was guilty, if not of Weems’s murder, then of complicity in it, or of sheltering whoever had done it, or merely of concealing evidence? What would the brotherhood do if he did not comply? He remembered with a bitter chill the secret initiation, which he had simply thought colorful and a trifle absurd at the time. But looking back now, it had contained some very dark threats to those who betrayed a brother or revealed any of the group’s secrets. He had thought them in a rather adolescent way romantic until now, insomuch as he had thought of them at all: the sorts of things boys got up to in the long holidays out of school when there was little to occupy the imagination but summer days and stories of adventure.
Now it seemed from Pitt as if the Inner Circle exercised a very real discipline on its errant members, and punishment was swift and extremely unpleasant. Would it be visited on him? Of course. Why not, if he failed in his duty to his oaths?
Even more unpleasant to him would be if he were asked to administer punishment upon another. Would he do it?
No!
Regina Cars well passed close to him, hesitated in her step as if to speak, then saw his face more closely and continued on her way. A sensitive woman.
But why would he not carry out such a punishment? He knew the answer before he was prepared to admit it.
Because a man must be free to follow his own conscience. No society of any sort, whatever its aims, however noble, must be allowed to dictate what a man believes to be right or wrong.
But that is not what the oath had said. And now that he saw it in plainer light, that was where he had made the mistake upon which all the others depended. He had sworn allegiance to people, not to an ideal, to something unknown which might change from what he believed to what he did not—and he had allowed himself no avenue of redress. That was what Pitt had pointed out to him.
He could see Byam and Lord Anstiss talking together, Anstiss standing square, a glass in his hand, his stocky body at ease, but not elegant. Beside him Byam stood a little sideways, his weight asymmetrically balanced, with a curious kind of grace, but there was a tension in him that showed in the angle of his head, his tight fingers around his goblet.
He was not close enough to hear their words, but he followed the emotion of the conversation from their expressions. Anstiss was speaking, his face full of animation, eyes wide and candid. He put his arm on Byam’s affectionately.
Byam laughed, and for a moment the anxiety slipped from him and the weariness ironed out of his features. Drummond could see in him the young man he must have been twenty years ago before the tragedy of Laura Anstiss’s infatuation and death. He and Anstiss were simply two friends who cared for each other, enjoyed each other’s company with an open trust and fellowship like the best of brothers. They shared interests, hopes, laughter—until Anstiss’s fragile, unstable wife had stepped between them, and her death had left pain and guilt.
Anstiss held his glass up to the light and said something.
Byam replied, and they both laughed.
Anstiss turned, his expression altered, hardening, and he said something to Byam.
The moment froze. They both stood motionless, the chandeliers blazing, the lights winking on the glasses. Then all the pain and the weariness returned to Byam’s face. He set his glass down on the sideboard near him, made some reply to Anstiss, and walked away.
The dull color touched Anstiss’s cheeks and he opened his mouth to reply, then changed his mind, but the fierce, suppressed emotion remained in his face.
Byam was walking over towards where Drummond was standing. He could see him clearly now. He did not look like a man who had just quarreled, rather like one who has resumed a familiar burden after a short respite, and not for the first time. He did not look bruised so much as unbearably tired.
Drummond watched him with a wild and painful mixture of emotions. He could never know what the exchange with Anstiss had been, but he could guess. He was sorry for Byam. He was a man in a frightening situation, through no fault of his own, a misjudgment of a woman’s character which anyone might make, especially a youth. He had done what he saw as the honorable thing, and it had ended in a tragedy he could not possibly have foreseen. And he had suffered a guilt for it ever since.
Now he faced the very real possibility of being charged and even tried for murder because of it. If Pitt did not find the murderer, Byam could even be hanged. Would he call on the brotherhood to help him? Surely he would—and long before it reached trial. How would Drummond respond then? What could Byam ask? So far it had been entirely honorable, but then the danger was still very slight, only problematical. When it became real and within a matter of days, or even hours, and the shadow of Newgate and the dock touched him, might he not ask what was far less honorable?
Would others of the brotherhood exercise their power on his behalf? That was the question Drummond had been avoiding asking himself ever since Pitt spoke to him. Just how far would the Inner Circle go to protect its own? They had spoken of high moral values, and in the same breath of loyalty to each other above all. No one had thought to ask which principle governed when one could not observe them both, certainly Drummond had not. Now the dark and highly painful thought came to him that it might be the personal loyalty.
And what would he do then?
There was only one possible answer. He would betray the Inner Circle.
He drew in a deep breath. He felt better for having framed the question, and the answer, to himself.
A footman, less sensitive than Regina Carswell, interrupted his thoughts to offer him a glass. He refused with a ti
ght smile. At the far side of the room Eleanor Byam was talking to Anstiss now. She looked stiff and very formal. He wondered about her relationship with Anstiss. Did she like or dislike him? Was she even jealous of the past so charged with emotion and in which she had no part? Did she resent Anstiss because it was his wife who had caused so much pain, and because his mere existence was a constant reminder to her husband of his guilt? Knowing so little made Drummond feel at a disadvantage.
And that was his last, and perhaps his own deepest, guilt: his feeling for Eleanor. It was far more powerful than he wished to admit, and acutely personal. Part of him wanted to protect Byam, for her sake; another uglier part would gladly have seen him removed, disgraced in her eyes, leaving her free to love elsewhere, in time.
Love. That was the word he had avoided saying even to himself.
He turned away from the room and walked past the great swathed curtain and out onto the balcony. He needed not only to be alone, but to be unseen by others. His face might too easily reveal him, and he could not force himself into communication now.
He did not know how long he stood staring into the soft radiance of the night, glimmering from the reflected lamps like a row of suspended moons along the street, tree branches gleaming where the rays caught them, leaves dancing and turning in the breeze.
At last he was interrupted by a voice, tentative and apologetic, but carrying an urgency that even embarrassment and the knowledge of intrusion would not curb.
“Mr. Drummond—”
He knew it instantly. It was Eleanor Byam. It was as if his thoughts had conjured her there, and he felt guilty for her presence, as if somehow she knew what was in his mind, and worse, his heart. He turned slowly to face her, trying to compose himself and his racing pulse.
“Yes—Lady Byam?”
“I’m—I’m sorry for disturbing you, when you seem to wish to be alone …” she began. It appeared she was finding it every bit as difficult as he.
“I merely wished for a little air,” he lied, trying to ease her embarrassment.
“You are very generous.” Her voice was lower and there was a touch of warmth in it now which caught his emotions like touching a fine cut on the skin. “Please do not be polite with me,” she went on urgently. “It is a time when I must be honest with you, regardless of how painful it might be.”
He was about to interrupt, but she did not allow him time.
“Something further has happened which disturbs me more than I know how to describe …” He longed to say something, even more to do something to comfort her. His instinct was to touch her, and it would have been unforgivable.
She plunged on through his desperate silence.
“Sir John Seaforth, a long-standing friend and colleague of Sholto’s, came to visit yesterday evening. I merely saw him arrive and he looked angry but well in command of himself, and hopeful, as if he believed Sholto could make right whatever it was that so upset him.” She seemed uncertain how to express herself. Drummond was acutely aware of her so close to him he could smell the faint perfume of geraniums and hear the whisper of taffeta as she breathed in and out.
“You saw him arrive?” he asked pointlessly.
She took it as a request for some explanation.
“Yes—Sholto was upstairs at the time, and I have known Sir John for many years myself. He was shown to the withdrawing room while the footman was sent to inform Sholto of his arrival. He spoke only a few words to me. He was quite clearly not in a mood to exchange small talk, and I was sensible of that. As soon as the footman returned to say Sholto would receive him in the library, he went to that room.”
“Did Lord Byam tell you why he called?”
“No—he would not discuss it. I know it was very heated, because I crossed the hall some twenty minutes later to go upstairs, and I heard their voices from the library. I could catch only the occasional word, and the tone was so unpleasant I was embarrassed that one of them might open the door and see me. I did not wish either of them to know I had overheard what was obviously a most violent quarrel. I caught the words deceit and betrayal used by Sir John …” Her voice shook a little and she swallowed several times before she continued. “I did not hear Sholto reply, but from the raised voices immediately afterwards, Sir John was not in any way appeased.”
“You said he was a colleague.” Drummond sought for something to say that might allay her fears, and found nothing. Now only the truth would be any use, and the more he heard, the less did that promise any comfort. “In the Treasury?”
“No—no, he is a member of Parliament, deeply concerned with trade and financial matters.”
“Did you hear any more of the discussions?”
“No. As I was coming down the stairs again Sir John was leaving. I did not wish to meet with him when he was so deeply angry and it must be of the greatest embarrassment to him, since he had undoubtedly quarreled bitterly with Sholto. I waited in the shadows at the top of the stairs, and I saw Sholto bid him good-bye. They were both very stiff and barely civil to one another. I think perhaps had the footman not been there, they might not even have pretended so far.”
“Did you ask Lord Byam the cause of his quarrel?”
“Yes—not immediately. He was too furious at the time, and …” Her voice sank to little more than a whisper. “And I was afraid of what his answer would be.”
Drummond forgot himself at last. He took her hand in his and felt her fingers tighten in a quick grasp as if he were a lifeline and she feared drowning in her distress.
“What was his answer?” he said, closing his hand over hers also.
“He said it was a political difference about finance,” she said miserably.
“And do you not believe that?”
“No—I—Mr. Drummond—I fear something terrible has happened, that whatever Sholto is so afraid of has actually come to pass. I feel as if I have betrayed him myself, even to think of it, but it lies so deeply in me I can deny it to myself no longer. I fear Sir John knows of Laura Anstiss’s death, and Sholto’s part in it, innocent as it was—and he knows of Weems’s blackmail.”
She swallowed and struggled for a moment to regain her composure before going on. “I believe him mistaken, and quite terribly wrong, but I think he believes Sholto killed Weems. That is all I can imagine that would make him so fearfully enraged with Sholto, and Sholto unable to defend himself. You see he still does feel guilty over Laura’s death, even though he had no possible idea she was so—so wild, and self-destructive.”
She looked at Drummond earnestly. “He did not imagine anyone, least of all she, would fall so in love with him she would sooner die than live without him. It is surely not—not quite sane—is it? When one hardly knows someone, and has shared no … intimacy of even the slightest sort with her?”
“I think it is sane,” he said slowly. “But perhaps it is a little …” He searched for a word that would not be too cruel, too dismissive of an emotion he was trying to understand only too sharply in himself. “A little weak,” he said. “Life often gives one the feeling that it is beyond enduring at the time. But with courage, one does—one has to. Perhaps that is something Laura Anstiss had never learned.”
“Poor Laura,” she whispered. “How well you put it. It is as if you have known …” She drew in her breath quickly and looked away. “I’m sorry, that is intrusive. Thank you for being so—” She withdrew her hand. “So patient, Mr. Drummond. I feel better to have told you.”
“I will do all I can, I promise you,” he said quietly. “We have several others we suspect, whose motives are stronger than Lord Byam’s—and who can give no account of where they were at the time.”
“Have you?” There was a lift in her voice for the first time.
“Yes—yes. There is cause to have much hope.”
“Thank you.” And with a rustle of taffeta, she moved away back towards the room and the lights and the laughter.
At the end of the evening when the last guests had departed,
Charlotte, Emily and Jack were seated in the withdrawing room. The gas was turned low and the last glasses and small dishes were packed up for the servants to take away and deal with before they too were able to go to bed.
Emily turned to Jack. She was interested in Charlotte’s affairs, but his took precedence.
“Was the evening successful?” she asked eagerly. “You seemed to be a long time in the library with Lord Anstiss. Did he ask you a great deal?”
Jack smiled, wiping as if by magic the tiredness from his face.
“Yes,” he said with deep satisfaction. “And he told me a great deal which I did not know. He is an extraordinarily …” He looked for the right word. “… magnetic man. His knowledge is vast, but far more than that, he speaks with so much vitality and wit. And I think his influence is greater than I first supposed.”
“But he liked you?” Emily pressed with a fine grasp of what was important. “What did he say? Jack, don’t keep us in suspense!”
His smile broadened. “He invited me to join a most select society which does a great deal of good work, often secretly. They provide funds for many charities, strive to fight inequity and injustice, even some of the more dangerous and ugly facets of crime.”
“It sounds excellent!” Emily was enthusiastic. “Are you going to join?”
“No!” Charlotte said with vehemence so sharp both Jack and Emily turned to her with incredulity. “No,” she said more moderately. “You must know a great deal more about it before you join anything.”
“Charlotte! It is a society wholly dedicated to doing good,” Emily said reasonably. “What could possibly be wrong with that?” She turned around to Jack again. “Isn’t it?”
