reputation and career to be ruined.
Pitt would despise him for that. He would know. Pitt would always know in the end. And that too would hurt. In its own way it would hurt as much as any rejection by Eleanor. She might hate him, but she at least would know it was because he obeyed a higher honor. With Pitt it would be because he had betrayed himself and sunk to a level where Pitt could only despise him.
And how would the Inner Circle punish him? They would-of that he now had no doubt.
How could he have been so gullible, so naive and incredibly, blindly stupid? Because he had been flattered, thought about it too little, and seen only what he wanted to see, without thinking deeply or looking below the surface. Self-disgust added to the furor in his mind.
He must concentrate.
Eleanor was looking at him with clear, gray eyes, waiting for him to give some sensible, strong answer. What could he say? He must stop indulging in passions and try to concentrate his brain.
“Are you sure there is no good political reason for such a reversal?” he asked, seeking for time to clear his head and sort emotion from reason.
“Yes I am sure,” she said unhappily. “That is what he quarreled with Sir John about. Had there been a political reason he would have told him of it, and Sir John would still have been disappointed, but he would have understood. They would not have parted with ill feeling. They have been friends and political allies for too long.”
He named the only other cause he dared, and it had to be dismissed.
“And you are certain he has no personal motive, no financial one, for his decision.” Then he feared she might think he believed Byam dishonest, and hurried on. “I say so only to dismiss it. It could not be that Sir John thought such a thing?”
“No.” Her brows furrowed. “I cannot imagine that he did.” There was a brief lift of hope in her voice, just for a moment. Ugly as the thought was, it was still better than the other one which lay like a stone in her mind. Then the lightness faded again. “No, Sholto has never had personal interests that would jeopardize his political impartiality. It would be less than totally honest in the best of circumstances, and in the worst might easily make his situation impossible.” She looked away, out through the window at the leaves against the light. “His personal fortune comes from family estates in Huntingdonshire, and large holdings in Wales and Ireland. He has never taken any part in banking or commerce, and certainly not in importing or exporting.”
“I see.”
She lowered her eyes and her expression tightened again as though she was expecting a blow, perhaps self- inflicted, but only before fate could do it instead.
“No, Mr. Drummond, there is no easy, honorable answer that I can find, and believe me, I have racked my brain looking. And-and apart from all the explanations reason might try, the worst thing is that Sholto is so changed in himself.” Suddenly she looked up and met his eyes so intensely and with such undisguised emotion he felt as if she had touched him physically. “He is afraid, he is every bit as afraid as I am. The only difference is that he knows what it is he fears, and I am only plagued by guesses.”
There was no way to avoid it and retain a shred of honesty, and honesty mattered to him desperately where she was concerned. It was the one closeness permitted.
He forced out the words.
“What are your guesses?”
Her voice was full of pain. “That someone else has the letter and Weems’s notes of Sholto’s payments to him, and he is blackmailing him, just as Weems did. It must be the murderer, mustn’t it?”
He could not deny it. “I can think of no one else.”
She looked away again. “Why won’t he tell me? That is what I cannot understand. I know all about Laura Anstiss, he has nothing to hide. It was foolish perhaps, a misjudgment of youth, but if he told me now that he is still being blackmailed, what is there to lose? I never blamed him for it.” She moved her foot along the smooth brass fender as if fidgeting gave her some ease. “I wondered if in some way he was still defending Frederick Anstiss. Friendship can tie you so hard-and so close-and he still feels guilty…” She looked at him, puckering her brows. “But I don’t see how, do you? If he told you that there was another blackmailer now, it would surely help your investigation, wouldn’t it? It would at least be knowledge-and how would that hurt Frederick? He already knows more than we do about Laura’s death. He saw her and he knew she was obsessed with Sholto-temporarily mad- however you wish to name it.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t understand. But sometimes old guilt, however unreasonable, can make us defend people…” He tailed off. It was not necessary to say all this. She knew it, and it availed little. It did not answer her fear.
“Do you believe he knows who it is?” He asked what they were both dreading.
She winced but did not look away.
“I have thought he might. And there is only one reason he would not tell you.” Her voice sank even lower. “Because he means to confront the man himself. Mr. Drummond, I am so afraid he will. And that one of them will not live.”
He reached for her without thinking of propriety or conscience, only of her anguish. He held her hands in his own.
“My dear. You must not think such a thing. It is ridiculous. If Lord Byam knows who it is, he will tell me and we will arrest the man quietly, discreetly, and he will have no opportunity to speak to anyone before his trial. And by then we will have found a way to make it in his own interests to be silent.”
“Can you?” she whispered.
“Of course.” He held her hands very gently. “That is why he called me in the beginning,” he went on. “He would not be so hysterical now as to turn to violence himself. He never did harm Weems-he paid the miserable devil. Now when we know about Laura Anstiss’s death, and there is Weems’s murder to solve, he has even less reason to face the man personally. If he were violent, believe me, he would have acted long ago, not now.”
There was no answering hope in her eyes. In fact she looked even more wretched with fear.
“Eleanor!” He was unaware of having used her name. “Eleanor-” He was about to ask what troubled her so terribly, when the answer came too glaringly to his mind. She had admitted the possibility that Byam himself had murdered Weems, and the blackmail now was not over anything so simple and relatively innocent as Laura Anstiss’s death and his part in it. This was a blackmail he could not confess to Drummond and ask his help. Someone had seen him, someone knew. Or perhaps Weems had taken even more precautions than he had said, and somehow his protector was now avenging him.
“It is possible-isn’t it?” she whispered, her face white. Then she lowered her eyes, slipping her hands out of his and clasping them together. “God forgive me for even having let such a thought into my mind.”
He struggled through emotion for a thread of reason, something to cling onto to help him, and to help himself from taking her in his arms and holding her, abusing her trust and her distress. He forced the thought from him and let go of her hands, stepping back. Then he saw the sudden bleakness in her face.
“You find me disloyal,” she said with hopelessness. “I cannot blame you.”
“No. My dear-I-” He floundered, not knowing what to say, how to redeem himself without telling her the impossible truth. He stared helplessly.
She looked back at him, her eyes widening, then filling with wonder.
He blushed scarlet, knowing he had betrayed himself. There were no possible words, no excuses. All he could do was assure her he would take no advantage. But how to do that and be believed, and retain some shred of her respect…
He looked at her, his face burning.
She was smiling.
Very gently she took his hand; her fingers were warm. She held it for a moment, then let it go.
He felt wildly close to her, as if she had kissed him, but sweeter than that, less the passion of an instant, longer lasting, and without haste or pity. He searched her eyes, and saw in them no fear, no fear at all, a world of regret, but no blame. Was it possible? He dared not think it. It must be thrust from his mind.
“There-there are other reasons,” he began hesitantly. “Things to think of…” He went on, fumbling for a thread of continued, sensible thought. “If he had killed Weems, why did he not take the letter then-and the papers? If he could not find them, surely he would not have told us but simply taken the chance that we would not either. After all, he knew they were there and would look for them; we did not even know of their existence.”
