Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [145]
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 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,