Anne Perry - Acceptable Loss

Ballinger looked at her with a smile. “You know nothing of such men, my dear. Rupert Cardew is a wastrel, a womanizer, flattering and deceiving even married women, whom one would imagine to have more judgment and more sense.”

Margaret looked uncomfortable. She met Rathbone’s eyes, and then deliberately avoided them.

“Perhaps his grief sent him a little mad?” Gwen suggested. “It can do so. Were they close?”

“I have no idea,” Ballinger replied, regarding her with slight surprise. “I don’t think so. And Rupert was wild and selfish long before Charles’s death. It is generous of you to try to excuse him, but I’m afraid his behavior is far worse than you imagine.”

Gwen would not let it go. “Really? Lots of young men drink a little too much, Papa. Most of us know that. We only pretend not to.”

“We have to pretend a lot of things,” Celia added. “It is very foolish to admit to everything you know. You can make life impossible for yourself.”

“Really, Celia!” George remonstrated, no amusement in his face whatever.

Rathbone turned to Margaret and saw the humor in her eyes. It was a moment of understanding where words were unnecessary. He found himself looking forward to the journey home, when they would be alone in the carriage, and then even more so to arriving.

“I’m surprised if you haven’t heard word, one place or another, Oliver.” Ballinger lingered a moment before continuing. “Poor Cardew has had to bail Rupert out of more than one scandal that would have blackened the family name if he hadn’t.”

“I thought that was what you were referring to,” Gwen said ruefully.

“I’m afraid Rupert Cardew went a great deal further than that,” Ballinger told her. “He has an ungovernable temper when he is roused. He has beaten people very badly. It is only his father’s intervention that has saved him from prison.” His voice dropped. “And yet he loves the boy, as fathers do love their children, no matter what sins they commit.” He looked at Margaret, then at Gwen, and finally at Celia.

He sat quite still, a large man, heavy-shouldered, powerful, his thick-featured face benign, until one tried to read the heavy-lidded eyes, as black as coal under their drooping lids.

No one spoke. There was an intensity of emotion at the table into which speech would have been intrusive, even clumsy.

Rathbone knew that Hester had been accepting considerable donations of money from Rupert for the financing of the clinic. Would she have taken them were she aware of his darker nature, so different from the sunny charm he presented to her?

Perhaps Ballinger’s loyalty-one that could not be revealed-had also bound him to Lord Justice Sullivan. Ballinger’s purchase of the obscene photographs that Claudine Burroughs had witnessed when she’d followed Arthur that night had not been for his own personal use but had been part of a last desperate attempt to rescue Sullivan from himself. That the attempt had failed was a grief Ballinger could reveal to no one at all. In that light, Arthur’s sin was of a completely different weight. And Sullivan was dead. It was Sullivan’s surviving family that Ballinger would be protecting. The thought eased the knots inside Rathbone, and suddenly he was smiling.

It was Mrs. Ballinger who resumed the conversation. Rathbone allowed the words to pass over him. He thought instead of Ballinger’s love for his daughters, all of whom seemed to have brought him happiness.

Rathbone looked at Margaret now, leaning forward listening to George as if what he was saying interested her, though Rathbone knew that it did not. But she would never hurt George’s feelings, for Celia’s sake. The loyalty was deep, always to be trusted, relied on in hard times and easy. He found himself gazing at her, proud of her gentleness.

The last course was served, and then the ladies withdrew, leaving the gentlemen to pass the port and take a little cheese if they cared to.

In the withdrawing room the conversation was trivial again: small matters of gossip and amusement. Rathbone found it hard to join in, because he was not acquainted with most of the people they referred to, and it was even harder to laugh at the humor. The wit lacked the dryness that pleased him.

“You are quiet, Oliver,” Mrs. Ballinger observed, turning from Celia to face him, her brow furrowed. “Does something trouble you? I hope it was nothing in the dinner.”

“Of course it wasn’t, my dear,” Ballinger said quickly. “He is out of sorts because over the port and cheese I criticized his friend Monk, who is, I think, a far more dangerous man than Oliver wishes to accept. His loyalty does him credit, but I believe it is misplaced. It is not an uncommon trait to think well of our friends, in spite of evidence to the contrary.” He smiled, a brief flash of teeth. “And it is in a way admirable, I suppose.” He shrugged again, very slightly, merely a creasing of the fine fabric of his jacket. “But as he himself has just observed, in the law we cannot afford such emotional luxuries. We are the last refuge of those who desperately need no more and no less than justice.”

“Bravo, Papa,” Margaret said with a faint flush of pink across her cheeks. “How perfectly you balance the head and the heart. You are right, of course. We cannot favor loyalty over justice, or we betray not only those who trust in us, but ourselves as well.” She looked at Rathbone, waiting for him to concede her father’s point.

In that instant he realized how deep her loyalty was to her father, so deep that she did not even perceive that it was instinctive rather than a matter of reason. It made her side against Monk without hesitation. Was that what it came to-the loyalty of blood? Or was her devotion to her father stronger than any other love?

Did he feel any less for his own father?

She was waiting now, the question in her eyes. It was not really about the law. It was about Monk, and the long past they shared, the battles Margaret had not been part of, and it was perhaps also about Hester.

“My loyalty has always been to the truth,” Rathbone replied, choosing his words with intense care. “But I believe that Monk’s has also. On occasion he has been mistaken. So have I. He was slipshod in his prosecution of Jericho Phillips, and the man got off because I was more skilled, and more diligent. However, if you recall, Phillips was undoubtedly guilty, which means that Monk’s judgment of the man’s character was not at fault.”

Ballinger rested his large square-ended fingers very gently on the leather arm of his chair. “That may be true, Oliver, but you have missed the point. Monk has no right to be judging Jericho Phillips, or anyone else. He is a collector of evidence to present before the court-no more than that.”

“A sort of collector of moral refuse,” George added smugly, glancing at Ballinger, and away again.

Celia smiled.

“Then, what are we?” Oliver said, hearing the cutting edge of his own voice. “Sorters of that same refuse? Personally I am quite happy if the police at least begin the process, and give me some sort of pattern, either to confirm or deny.”

“Oh, really!” Wilbert protested.

Margaret looked unhappy, a mounting shadow in her eyes. Rathbone realized with surprise that she had not expected him to argue. In her opinion he should not have defended either Monk or himself. This quiet room was like thousands of other withdrawing rooms in London, but in subtle ways he felt alien in it. The painted walls were very similar to all the others-the heavily swagged curtains, the long windows onto the great garden, certainly the busy red and green carpet, even the brass fire irons in the hearth. It was the beliefs that were foreign to him, things as invisible and as necessary as the air.