A Breach of Promise - Anne Perry [77]
Wolff stared back at him unflinchingly, but his face was set, his eyes hard.
“I regard Mr. Melville as a good friend. I have done for some time.”
Rathbone knew what Sacheverall was going to say next, but there was no way in which he could prevent it. Any protest now would make it worse, as if he had known it himself and therefore it must be true. He felt hollow inside, a strange mixture of hot and cold.
“Is that all, Mr. Wolff?” Sacheverall raised his eyebrows very high. “Would you not say an intimate friend, with all the subtle and varied meanings that word can carry? I use it advisedly.”
There was a hiss of indrawn breath in the gallery. One of the jurors put his hand to his mouth, another shook his head, his lips compressed into a thin line. A third was pale with anger.
McKeever cleared his throat but said nothing.
Rathbone looked at Melville. His eyes were hot with misery and his fair skin was flushed. He was staring straight ahead. He refused absolutely to look back at Rathbone.
“You may use what word you like, sir,” Wolff replied steadily, his voice thick. “If your implication is that my relationship with Killian Melville is of an unnatural kind, then you are mistaken.” There was a rush of sound in the gallery, exclamations, sudden movement, a cry of disgust. A journalist broke a pencil and swore. “The acts lie in your imagination, and nowhere else,” Wolff continued more loudly to be heard. “I am under oath, and I swear to that. I have never had an intimate relationship with another man in my life, nor can I imagine such a thing.” This time the noise was louder, sharper voices. Someone shouted an accusation, another an obscenity.
McKeever banged his gavel angrily, commanding silence.
“I do not expect you to admit it, Mr. Wolff.” Sacheverall did not appear disconcerted. He gave a very slight shrug as he walked a few paces away and then swiveled on his heel and suddenly raised his voice accusingly. “But I shall call witnesses, Mr. Wolff! Is that what you want, sir? Never doubt I will, if you force me to! Admit your relationship with Killian Melville, and advise him, as your friend, your lover, to yield in this case.” He said the word lover with infinite disgust, his lips curled. “Stop defending the indefensible! Do not put it to the test, sir, because I warn you, I shall win!”
Melville sat as if frozen. His face was ashen white and the freckles stood out like dark splashes. He did not take his eyes from Wolff, and the pain in him was so powerful Rathbone could all but feel it himself. He was unaware for seconds that his own hands were clenched till his nails gouged circles in his palms.
The courtroom prickled with silence.
Isaac Wolff stood perfectly motionless. His look towards Sacheverall was scorching with contempt. A man less arrogant would have withered under it, would have faltered in self-doubt, instead of smiling.
“If it is your intention to attempt to blacken my name, or anyone else’s, through calling people up to this stand to say whatever it is they wish, then you will have to do so,” Wolff said very carefully, speaking slowly, as if he had difficulty forming the words and keeping his voice steady. “That is a matter for your own concern, not mine. I am not going to admit to something which is not true. I have already sworn that I have never had an intimate relationship with another man, only with women.” There was a buzz of titillation and embarrassment at the use of such frank words.
“I cannot and will not alter that statement, whatever threats you may make,” Wolff went on. “And if you persuade someone to forswear or perjure themselves, that is your responsibility, and you are a great deal less than honest, sir, if you try to make anyone believe the answer, for that lies with me.”
Sacheverall pushed his large hands into his pockets, dragging the shoulders of his coat.
“You force me, sir! I do not wish to do this to you. For heaven’s sake, spare yourself the shame. Think of Melville,