William Monk 17 - Acceptable Loss

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. Itwas 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.
    I N 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 areright, of course. We cannot favor