Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [133]
“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