Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [147]
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.”
“Perhaps he did take them.” She was playing devil’s advocate because it must be done. “But he did not know of this other person, if he exists, the one Weems gave a second copy to.”
“That still does not make any sense,” he answered with gathering conviction. “If he thought he had all the evidence pointing to him, he would not have sent for me. We would never have connected him with Weems, why on earth should we? And anyway, what purpose did it serve for Weems’s mysterious other person to have evidence, if no one knew of it? I cannot see Weems as a man who wished his death avenged, but it makes every sense that he would create a safeguard that his life should not be taken. And that served only so long as every person who was a danger to him knew of its existence, and that it would be used if Weems came to any harm.”
“ Perhaps he did not believe Sholto any danger to him.”
“Then why give a set of papers to this friend? And why keep the one set himself, which we know he did because Lord Byam told us of it?”
“Then if you did not find them, where are they?” she asked.
He was confounded. “I don’t know. I can only presume the murderer took them. Although why he did not take the other list as well I don’t understand.”
“What other list?” Her dark brow puckered.
It was an error, but there was no way of retrieving it, and he was not even sure he wanted to. He hated keeping so much from her.
“Oh—of course, you don’t know of that. There was a list of other people of better financial circumstances who were down as having borrowed large amounts—all of whom deny it.”
Her eyes widened. “Were they blackmailed as well?”
“It seems so.”
“And—and are they still being blackmailed?” Now there was a sharper fear in her and he understood it instantly.
He could not answer.
“No—” She breathed out. “You don’t need to say it, it is there in your face. Sholto is the only one.”
The silence lay between them. There was no need for either to spell out the reasoning. The only answer to all the questions pounding in their heads was that Byam had killed Weems, and had been seen by someone else, who was now blackmailing him, not over Laura Anstiss’s death, but over