Urban was crestfallen, much of the triumph drained from his face.
“The case over Osmar.”
“We can’t have.” Drummond was still confused. “It’s already been dismissed!”
“Not the prosecution,” Urban corrected with disappointed patience. “The case against the newspapers for slandering us over Latimer’s interrogation of Beulah Giles.”
“Oh!” Suddenly it came back to Drummond. He should have known straightaway; the issue had certainly been serious enough. He looked at Urban now and tried to make up for his omission. He forced his features into an expression of pleasure. “Thank heaven for that. I didn’t think it was due for trial for months yet, surely?”
“It isn’t,” Urban agreed, mollified. “They settled out of court, paid us damages-and retracted all the charges of brutality.”
“Then what was the reservation I saw in your face when you came in?” Drummond asked. “Were the damages poor?”
“No-they were excellent, and so they should be. It was a damned comprehensive slander, and they misquoted us, and even themselves,” Urban replied heatedly. “It was a hysterical and completely irresponsible piece of journalism, and the other papers that picked it up didn’t even bother to check their facts.”
Drummond waited, his eyes wide.
Urban smiled, at himself. “That swine Osmar is still free to prance around saying he is innocent and without a stain on his character.” He pushed his hands into his pockets. “Which doesn’t matter in that he’s hardly a major criminal, simply an elderly ass who fornicates in the public parks.” His face darkened and his voice took on a graver note. “But he’s also a man who uses personal influence and the obligations of past office to escape the consequences of acts he expects other people to answer to, if they are caught. He uses privilege to set the law aside when it suits him-and that is about as serious a crime against society as there can be. In some ways it’s worse than murder.” And with those passionate words he turned on his heel and went out, closing the door very quietly behind him. Drummond was left shaken so profoundly he stood in the middle of the floor with the sunlight shining around him and felt cold, the sounds of the street below like insects far away, his mind whirling.
By five o’clock he had determined what he must do, and half past nine saw him in a hansom cab on his way to Belgravia. He alighted in Belgrave Square and presented himself at number 21. The footman admitted him without question or comment except to tell him that Lord Byam had not yet returned home, but was expected.
“I’ll wait,” Drummond said without hesitation.
“Shall I inform Lady Byam you are here, sir?” the footman asked as he showed him not into the morning room, but into the library.
“It would be civil, but it is Lord Byam I wish to speak with,” Drummond replied, walking past the man into the calm room lit with the late sun reflected in dappled patterns from the leaves at the window.
“Yes sir,” the footman accepted expressionlessly. “May I bring you some refreshment? A whiskey, perhaps, or a brandy and soda, sir?”
“No thank you.” Drummond felt awkward about accepting the hospitality of a man from whom he had come determined to demand some further explanation of his deepest trouble and the tragedy and fears arising from it.
“Very good, sir.” The footman withdrew, closing the door behind him.
Drummond was too tense to sit. Over and over he had prepared in his mind what he would say, but still it was unsatisfactory. One moment it seemed too deferential, not direct enough, the next too shrill, as if he himself were frightened and unsure.
He was still wrestling with it and growing more and more torn with doubts, when five minutes later the door opened almost silently and Eleanor came in. She was dressed in soft blue-gray, the exact color of her eyes. The neckline plunged deeply and was filled with lace of a softer shade, and she wore two ropes of pearls almost to her waist. For the first instant he could only think how lovely she was. Standing in the doorway, her face a little flushed, one hand still on the knob, she was warm, elegant, graceful, everything that a man loved in a woman, everything that was gentle and strong, vulnerable and tender.
Then he realized it was a very formal gown, and he was terrified she was preparing to dine out, or to receive guests. This would mean when Byam arrived he would be in a hurry, and have no time for an extended interview, however pressing Drummond felt the matter. Eleanor must have come to explain this to him, and suggest he call another day.
“Mr. Drummond,” she said urgently, closing the door behind her. “Sholto will not be here for at least half an hour. May I speak with you?” She was obviously agitated and in some distress. Her color was high and her eyes held his with an intensity that disturbed him profoundly.
“Of course.”
She came towards him until they were both standing in the center of the floor, but she too seemed unable to sit.
“Has something-” she began, then stopped. She looked at him very directly. “Has something new happened in the case? Is that why you have come?”
For a wild moment he thought she was going to ask if he had come to arrest Byam. Had the thought entered her mind that Byam might be guilty? Or was it simply fear, and no confidence in justice?
“Nothing decisive,” he answered. “And-nothing to implicate Lord Byam.”
“Mr. Drummond-” She breathed in deeply. He could see the light on her pearls as her breast rose and fell. “Mr. Drummond, are you telling me the truth, or trying to shield me from a pain which I will eventually have to know?”
“I am telling you the truth,” he said steadily. “I have come because I need to know more, not because I already know it.”
She made as if to press him further, then changed her mind and moved away towards the mantelpiece, her back to him. There was no fire in the grate, the evening was too warm, but she stood next to it as if there were.
“You have come very opportunely,” she said in a small voice, looking down at the brass fire tongs with their finely wrought handles. “There are things I-I need to tell you.”
He waited. He longed to be able to help her, but there was nothing he could have done, even had propriety allowed.
She stayed motionless, still staring at the tongs.
“I have learned what the quarrel was which I overheard,” she went on. Her face was sad and frightened. “I discovered by accident-at the dinner table-from a young man named Valerius. In the office he holds in the Treasury Sholto has to do with foreign loans to certain countries in the empire. He has the authority to permit them or refuse. He has always been very committed to giving whatever assistance is possible. In one instance he has quite suddenly and unaccountably reversed years of policy-” She stopped and at last looked up at him, her eyes darkly troubled.
Emotions raged through him, fury at his impotence to help her. He was bound by inability, convention, his own shyness and uncertainty. He loved her, that should be admitted; it was ridiculous to go on calling it by any other name. But for him to say anything, even to allow her to know it unspoken, would be inexcusable. She was desperately vulnerable. Her husband stood in jeopardy of his life and she had come to the one person who might be able to save him; she had come trusting. To abuse that trust because of his own passion would be despicable, the lowest and most vile of acts. His face scalded hot at even the thought of it.
And he felt an impossible anger with Byam himself, for the pain and the fear he was causing her, for his failure to explain, for having come to Drummond in the first place and involved him in this dilemma with all its confusion and distress.
And as great as any of these burned an overwhelming guilt because he had been asked by a brother, in trust, to help him when he was in desperate need-and he had failed to do so. Instead he had fallen in love with the man’s wife.
He was also afraid, deeply and horribly afraid. What if Byam was guilty? What if Byam brought the pressure of the Inner Circle on Drummond to conceal that guilt? And if they were as ruthless as Pitt seemed to think, that was not an impossibility. How would he face Eleanor? He could not do it-how would he explain that to her? He would sound pompous, selfish, cowardly. She would despise him, and how that would hurt. But what was the alternative? To conceal murder, and perhaps allow an innocent man to be hanged for it, or at best, if it was unprovable, his
