Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [131]
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 tight 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: