Acceptable Loss - Anne Perry [104]
Rathbone said nothing. He disliked the idea, but it was reasonable, and perhaps the only course he had.
“I did not kill that filthy little man!” Ballinger’s voice was raised, brittle with anger and fear. “For God’s sake, do your job!”
MARGARET WAS ALREADY AT home when Rathbone arrived.
“How is he?” she said as soon as Rathbone was through the door, even before he had given his coat to the butler.
“Full of courage,” he said gently, kissing her cheek. There was no point in telling her anything else.
She pulled away from him so she could see his face, as if from studying it she could better tell if he was merely trying to comfort her.
He looked at her steadily, lying superbly.
Finally she smiled, her face catching some of its old calm and the loveliness that had first drawn him to her.
“He’s brave,” she said simply. “And of course he is innocent. He knows you can get this ridiculous charge thrown out. After this, Oliver, you cannot remain such close friends with Monk.” She looked at him gravely. “He has not the honor or the integrity you thought. I know that disillusion is terribly painful, but pretending it does not exist helps nothing. It doesn’t change the truth. I’m so sorry.” She smiled slightly, a warm little gesture. “Actually I’m sorry for myself too, because I admired Hester so much, and I shall lose her friendship over this as well. I doubt it will be practicable for me to remain at the clinic.”
He was taken aback. “Margaret, all he’s done is answer Winchester’s questions, and he has no choice in the matter.”
The warmth vanished from her eyes. “How can you say that? He was the one who went after Papa in the first place. We wouldn’t even be answering the charge at all if he had simply followed the evidence to Rupert Cardew.”
Suddenly he was cold. His whole fabric of certainty was tearing apart. He had drawn in his breath to say that Hattie could prove Cardew innocent, but he realized it was only her word that did, and Margaret would argue that Monk had coerced her. Rathbone knew that Monk was a man of passions and convictions, brave enough and perhaps ruthless enough to follow whatever he believed to be right.
What if Monk were tragically wrong? What if it had been Cardew all along, and Monk had simply refused to believe it? It is so easy to believe what we need to. He had been wrong before; everyone has.
Margaret was talking again.
“Consider it, Oliver. Think honestly. You know that Monk is convinced Papa had something to do with Jericho Phillips, because as Jericho’s solicitor, Papa convinced you to represent Phillips. Monk doesn’t understand that that is what lawyers do! I think he has never really forgiven you for defending Phillips in court. He doesn’t like to be beaten.” She took a step closer to him. “Poor people with little education can be very proud, very stiff, unable to accept criticism, let alone defeat, especially from a friend. He admires you and he can’t bear to be wrong in your eyes. It’s an ugly trait of character, a weakness, but it is not so rare.”
Was she right? Monk was prickly, but a bit less so since his marriage to Hester. However, victory still mattered intensely to him. Rathbone could see in his mind’s eye Monk’s rage when Rathbone had beaten him in court over Phillips. Was this his revenge, even if Monk had not been aware of it himself? Was this the old Monk reasserting himself, the man who had been so feared before his accident and the loss of memory had made him so vulnerable?
He looked at Margaret. The gentleness was back in her face.
“I plan to take him through all the evidence tomorrow. I’ll show the jury just how preposterous it is,” he promised. “We will not be able to protect Rupert.