Acceptable Loss Read online

  Monk gave a slight shrug. “I thought you would want to know.” He did not add anything about Ballinger, or Margaret, but it did not need to be said between them. Neither of them would ever forget that night on Jericho Phillips’s boat—the horror and the fear that Scuff was already dead and they were too late, the stench of the dead rats in the bilges as they pulled him out, small and very white, his body shaking. Nor would they forget the corpses at Execution Dock.

  “You are sure it was him?” Rathbone asked. He was surprised how normal his voice sounded.

  “The bastard was strangled with his cravat,” Monk told him. “The surgeon cut it out of Parfitt’s neck where the flesh had swollen over it. The design is unusual—dark blue with gold leopards on it, in threes.”

  Rathbone felt the knots ease in his stomach even more. It was proof. He was filled with shame that someone else’s despair should be such a relief to him. He knew now with certainty that he had been afraid that Ballinger was somehow involved; as the fear slipped away, he understood the power of it, and was almost giddy at the release.

  “Yes,” he said. “You are right, that does seem conclusive. I’m very sorry. Lord Cardew will be devastated. Poor man.”

  Monk said nothing. His face was still pale, and there was a bleakness in his eyes. He nodded slowly, gave Rathbone a slight smile in acknowledgment, then turned on his heel and left.

  Rathbone heard him outside declining the clerk’s offer of a cup of tea.

  With the door closed again, Rathbone sat down behind his desk and found himself shaking with an overwhelming sense of having escaped a danger he had been bracing himself against until his body had ached with the strain of it. He had failed to pursue the possibility of Ballinger’s guilt because of the irredeemable pain it would have caused Margaret were her father to be implicated. She loved her father unconditionally, with the same love that she must have borne for him in childhood, and Rathbone admired her for it.

  It was the first time he had ever avoided seeking the truth, and he was ashamed. Fate had allowed him to escape facing the possible reality, and it was an undeserved gift.

  This evening he would take Margaret to the dinner party for which they had already accepted an invitation. He would make it a celebration, a time of happiness she would remember. He allowed himself to think of that until the clerk told him the first client of the day had arrived.

  THE DINNER PARTY WAS magnificent. Rathbone had recently given Margaret a beautiful necklace of garnets and river pearls, with earrings and a bracelet to match. It was a bit extravagant, but exactly the kind of rich yet discreet setting she most liked. This evening she wore them with a gown of deep wine-red silk. It was fuller-skirted than she usually chose and perhaps even a little lower at the bosom. The jewels gleamed against her pale, flawless skin, and with a faint flush of happiness in her cheeks she was lovelier than he had ever seen her before.

  They swept into the main reception room with a rustle of silk and to polite words of welcome. There were nearly a score of people present. The men were in elegant black, women in a blaze of colors, from the youngest in gleaming pastels to older doyennes of the aristocracy in burgundies, midnight blues, plums, and rich browns. Diamonds glinted with suppressed fire; ropes of pearls glowed on bare skin. There was soft laughter, the clink of glass, slight movement, like a wind through a field of flowers.

  Margaret held Rathbone’s arm a little more tightly. He could smell the warmth of her perfume, sweet and indefinable.

  “Ah! Sir Oliver—Lady Rathbone! How delightful to see you.” The welcome was repeated again and again. He knew them all and didn’t need to rack his memory for a name, a position, or an achievement. He replied easily, shared a joke or an item of news, a comment on the latest book or exhibition of art.

  It was not until they went in to dinner that he realized there was an odd number of them, something no hostess in England would ever allow intentionally.

  “What is it?” Margaret whispered, seeing his puzzlement.

  “There are nineteen of us,” he replied, speaking almost under his breath.

  “Something must have happened,” she said with certainty. “Someone is ill.” She looked around casually, trying to conceal the fact. “It’s a man,” she said finally. “There are ten women here.”

  Then suddenly the answer was obvious, as was the reason no one had mentioned it. The missing man was Lord Cardew.

  Considering who had been invited, Rathbone was certain that when the ladies had retired after dinner, the gentlemen would be discussing over port and cigars the vexed question of industrial pollution. He remembered Ballinger saying it was a subject Lord Cardew had been involved in for years. Rathbone wondered if it had been Cardew who had somehow prevailed upon Lord Justice Garslake to change his mind, and thus the ruling of the Court of Appeal on the case.

  He felt a sinking sensation of misery inside himself, and guilt that he was here with his happiness unclouded. It was in no way his fault that Rupert Cardew had murdered Parfitt. It was Rathbone’s relief that shamed him, and the fact that he had been prepared to look the other way when discomfort threatened his own happiness. Perhaps Lord Cardew had done that for years—refused to see what Rupert really was, face the truth and at least attempt to do something about it. In that, then, they would be the same, except that Rathbone had not had to pay anything for it.

  “Oliver?” Margaret’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

  He dismissed them immediately, forcing himself to think only of the moment, and of her.

  “Yes,” he lied. “Someone must have been taken ill. Let us hope it is slight and he will soon be better.” He put his hand over hers briefly, then moved forward, smiling, and took his place at the table.

  No one mentioned Cardew, or any other subject that could cloud the enjoyment of the occasion. Rathbone was happy to see Margaret so forgetting her earlier shyness that she laughed openly, making amusing and sometimes even slightly barbed responses to the opinions with which she disagreed. More than once a ripple of laughter swept around the table, a flash of appreciation for her wit.

  Rathbone was proud of her.

  He thought of Hester—her quick tongue, the passion that made her outrageous at times, her fury at incompetence and the pride that covered deceit, the pity that made her crusade so inappropriately, caring too little for the consequences. He would always find her exciting, but he had once mistaken that for love and imagined he would be happy with her. Thank heaven she had refused him. At a dinner party like this, he would always have been waiting for her to say something disastrous, something so candid it could never be forgotten, much less ignored.

  He looked across the table now at Margaret, her face serious as she answered the man to her left, talking about the enormous power of industry and the complexity of profit and responsibility. There was nothing dismissive in his attitude. He was not in the slightest humoring her as he explained how such giants could not be fought against.

  Rathbone smiled. And then, as if sensing his gaze on her, Margaret looked up, and her eyes were warm, bright, full of happiness.

  That sweet mood of intimacy lasted all through the carriage ride home, and became more intense as they dismissed the servants for the night and went upstairs alone. Suddenly passion was easy and without hesitation. There was no moment of reassurance necessary, no asking. To have spoken at all would have been to doubt the gift of such happiness.

  BUT THE NEXT MORNING in Rathbone’s office, his peace of mind and heart was shattered.

  “Lord Cardew is here to see you, Sir Oliver,” the clerk said gravely. “I told him that I would have to consult you, but I took the liberty of asking Lady Lavinia Stock if she would consult you at another time. The matter is trivial, and she was quite agreeable to postponing her appointment.”

  Rathbone stared at him, horrified. The man was an excellent clerk, and had given too many years’ loyal service for Rathbone to dispense with him, but this was nonetheless a liberty.

  The c
lerk had a slight flush in his cheeks, but he met Rathbone’s eyes without blinking.

  “Knowing you as I do, sir, I felt certain that you would offer him at least the kindness of listening to him, even should you not wish to take the case—or not feel it is one you are able to handle.”

  Rathbone drew in his breath to give a swift retort, and realized with a mild amusement that the man had very neatly boxed him in. He would never admit that he was not able to handle a case, nor on the other hand could he refuse to listen to Cardew in what must be the most appalling state of distress of his life.

  “You had better show him in, since you have clearly made up your mind that I should take the case,” he said drily.

  The clerk bowed. “It is not for me to decide which cases you take, Sir Oliver. I will show Lord Cardew in immediately. Shall I make tea, or perhaps in the circumstances you would prefer something a little stronger? Perhaps the brandy?”

  “Tea will be excellent, thank you. I shall need to be very sober indeed to help in this matter. And …”

  “Yes, Sir Oliver?”

  “We shall have words about this later.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll bring the tea as soon as it is brewed.”

  He returned a moment later and opened the door for Lord Cardew. He was in his early sixties, although today he looked twenty years more. His skin was drained of all color, and dry like old parchment. He stood straight, shoulders squared, but he moved as if his whole body were filled with pain.

  Anything as banal as “Good morning” seemed ridiculous. There could be nothing good in it for this man. Rathbone thanked the clerk and excused him, then gestured to the big leather chair opposite the desk, for Cardew to sit down.

  “I am aware of what has happened,” Rathbone said quickly, to spare Cardew the pain of telling him. “At least the rudiments.”

  Cardew looked startled.

  “Commander Monk has long been a friend of mine,” Rathbone explained.

  “He tells you of all his cases?” Cardew asked with disbelief.

  “Not at all, sir. But this one distressed him more than most, because of its connection to the Jericho Phillips case a very short while ago.”

  Cardew looked like an old man too stubborn to admit defeat. Rathbone had seen other men like that, for whom surrender was too alien to be considered. They were bewildered, carrying on from force of habit and inability to think of any alternative.

  “Why should he be distressed?” Cardew asked. “He is doing his job. In his place I would assume my son to be guilty. Such evidence as they have indicates it to be so. That creature was undoubtedly killed with Rupert’s cravat. Even I could not argue against it. The thing is distinctive. I know. I gave it to him. Apparently they cut it off the wretched man’s neck.”

  “Did Rupert confess that he did it?” Rathbone asked.

  A flush spread up Cardew’s cheeks, and he lowered his eyes. Cowardice was a sin neither his nature nor his upbringing could forgive. A gentleman did not make excuses, he did not complain, and above all he did not lie to escape the consequences of his acts.

  “No, he did not,” he said, so quietly that Rathbone barely heard him.

  Rathbone considered any words of comfort he could offer, and all were inadequate, trite, or the very lies that Cardew so despised.

  “What is it you would like me to do?” Rathbone said gently.

  Cardew looked up. “Do you know what Parfitt was?”

  “I know at least something of it.” Memory assailed Rathbone like a wave of nausea. “I know what Jericho Phillips was. I was there on his boat. I saw his corpse at Execution Dock, and I could look at it without regret. He died obscenely, but I could feel only relief that he was gone. I’m not proud of that. Indeed, it is something I prefer not to recall.”

  “Then, you will understand why I have no pity for Mickey Parfitt,” Cardew replied. “Is there not some plea of mitigation you can make for the man who killed him—if only to save him from the gallows?” He said the last word as if sticking a knife into himself.

  “I can try,” Rathbone said reluctantly. How often had this man pleaded with someone for leniency toward the son who had let him down with such anguish? Did he never grow tired of it? Did he wonder now whether, if he had made Rupert pay for his errors earlier, pay the full price then when they’d been so much less, might Rupert have learned the lesson, and this would not now be happening? Did he go on, exhausted as he was, because he understood that his gentleness before had been only an evasion of the inevitable? That in that space between, it had grown until now the price would be his life?

  Cardew leaned forward, his face tense, his eyes fixed on Rathbone’s. “He won’t tell me what happened. I was able to see him only briefly before they took him away. But if he killed Parfitt, then perhaps it was in self-defense. Or the defense of someone else. Is that mitigation in the law?”

  “If it was to save the life of someone else who was in immediate danger of being killed, then it is certainly more than mitigation,” Rathbone answered. “If it can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, it is justification. But I’m afraid that might be very difficult to convince a jury of now, when Rupert has been arrested, since an innocent man would have said so at the time.”

  Cardew winced. “Of course. Yet I cannot believe that Rupert would kill him without the most terrible compulsion to do so. He has a temper, but he is not a fool.” He swallowed hard, as if he had an obstruction in his throat. “And in spite of his immorality in other directions, he has a sense of honor, in his own way. Killing a man in cold blood, even a man like Parfitt, would not be … acceptable. It is a coward’s way.” Unconsciously his shoulders squared a little as he said this, as though facing some threat himself.

  Rathbone smiled slightly, but utterly without pleasure. “I have some difficulty in deciding for myself what ‘cold blood’ really is.”

  At that moment the clerk knocked on the door and, with Rathbone’s permission, came in with the tray, of tea in a silver pot, a silver cream jug and sugar bowl, and silver tongs and teaspoons. The porcelain was plain, delicate, and ornamented only by a small blue crown. In spite of Rathbone’s refusal, the clerk had also brought a bottle of Napoleon brandy, and set it on the sideboard. He poured the tea, then excused himself and withdrew.

  “How civilized,” Cardew said with a desperate edge to his voice. “How intensely British. We sit here with tea in German porcelain cups, with French brandy if we need the fire of it, and we talk about murder, justice, and hanging. We would sit exactly like this, with the same tone of voice, if we were speaking of the weather.”

  “Because we have to use our intelligence, not our emotions,” Rathbone answered. “The self-indulgence of feelings will not help your son.”

  “Self-indulgence,” Cardew said with the first touch of bitterness that Rathbone had heard in him. “Rupert’s sin, which I never curbed in him. I saw it, and I let it pass, as if he would grow out of it. Why is it we still see our sons as children who can be excused, given time and love and patience, even when they are grown men and need to know better? The world will make no such excuses for them, and it is deceit that we do. Unspoken, of course, but a deceit nevertheless.”

  “Because we love day by day, inch by inch,” Rathbone replied. “We don’t notice the passing of time and the dangers that we should have prevented, or at least should have warned of. But none of that will help us now.” He looked steadily at Cardew. “You obviously are familiar with Parfitt’s name and reputation. How do you come to know that, sir?”

  Cardew was startled, then deeply uncomfortable.

  Rathbone had a nightmarish thought that perhaps Cardew himself had once been tempted to such pastimes as Parfitt had provided, and then he dismissed it as ridiculous and repulsive. Nevertheless, the question required an answer, and he waited for it.

  Cardew avoided his eyes again. “Rupert has caused me a certain embarrassment most of his adult life, let us say the last fifteen years, since he was eighteen. Often
I have known in what ways because I … I helped him when necessary.” It was an evasion of the ugliness of the truth, and they were both embarrassingly aware of it. Even now Cardew could not bring himself to be literal.

  Rathbone was not enlightened by euphemisms. “Lord Cardew,” he said grimly, “I cannot do anything useful for your son if I don’t know what I am fighting against. What trouble? He paid for prostitution—unflattering, but not unusual. Certainly not a crime for which any gentleman is punished by the law, especially a man who is not married and therefore does not owe a sexual loyalty to anyone. It is not worth mentioning—and is far better than seducing a young woman of virtue and with expectation of marriage. That is a moral offense of some weight, but still not punishable by law.”

  Cardew’s face was ashen, his shoulders so tight that in places they strained the fabric of his jacket, but he said nothing.

  “Force would be a different matter,” Rathbone continued. “Rape is a crime, no matter who the victim is, although society would bother little if the woman were of questionable virtue anyway. Unless there were a great deal of violence involved. Is that the case?”

  “Rupert has a temper,” Cardew said almost under his breath, his voice cracking with emotional tension, “but so far as I am aware, his quarrels were always with other men.”

  “Violent?” Rathbone pressed.

  Cardew hesitated. “Yes … sometimes. I don’t know what they were about. I preferred not to.”

  “But they were not justified?”

  “Justified? How can beating a man nearly senseless be justified?”

  “Self-defense … or defense of someone else weaker, already injured, or in some other way helpless.”

  “I wish I could believe it was as excusable as that.”