Defend and Betray - Anne Perry [185]
Miss Buchan did not speak.
“You hesitate,” Lovat-Smith challenged, his voice rising. “Why, Miss Buchan? Are you suddenly not so certain of answers? Not so easy?”
Miss Buchan was strong. She had already risked, and no doubt lost, everything. She had no stake left, nothing else could be taken from her but her self-esteem.
“You are too facile, young man,” she said with all the ineffable authority of a good governess. “Women may be as immeasurably different from each other as men. Their loyalties and values may be different also, as may be the times and circumstances in which they live. What can a woman do, in such a position? Who will believe her, if she accused a publicly loved man of such a crime?” She did not once betray that she even knew Felicia was there in the room with them, much less that she cared what Felicia thought or felt. “People do not wish to believe it of their heroes, and both Randolf and Thaddeus Carlyon were heroes, in their own ways. Society would have crucified her as a wicked woman if they did not believe her, as a venally indiscreet one if they did. She would know that, and she chose to preserve what she had. Miss Alexandra chose to save her child, or to try to. It remains to be seen whether or not she has sacrificed herself in vain.”
Lovat-Smith opened his mouth to argue, attack her again, and then looked at the jury and decided better of it.
“You are a remarkable woman, Miss Buchan,” he said with a minute bow. “It remains to be seen whether any further facts bear out your extraordinary vision of events, but no doubt you believe you speak the truth. I have nothing further to ask you.”
Rathbone declined to reexamine. He knew better than to gild the lily.
The court rose for the luncheon adjournment in an uproar.
The first witness of the afternoon was Damaris Erskine. She too looked pale, with dark circles under her eyes as if she had wept herself into exhaustion but had found little sleep. All the time her eyes kept straying to Peverell. He was sitting very upright in his seat next to Felicia and Randolf in the front of the gallery, but as apart from them in spirit as if they were in different rooms. He ignored them totally and stared without movement at Damaris, his eyes puckered in concern, his lips undecided on a smile, as if he feared it might be taken for levity rather than encouragement.
Monk sat two rows behind Hester, in the body of the court behind the lawyers. He did not wish to sit beside her. His emotions were too raw from his confrontation with Hermione. He wanted a long time alone, but circumstances made that impossible; however, there was a certain aloneness in the crowd of a courtroom, and in centering his mind and all his feelings he could on the tragedy being played out in front of him.
Rathbone began very gently, with the softly cautious voice Monk knew he adopted when he was about to deliver a mortal blow and loathed doing it, but had weighed all the facts, and the decision was irrevocable.
“Mrs. Erskine, you were present at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Furnival on the night your brother was killed, and you have already told us of the order of events as you recall them.”
“Yes,” she said almost inaudibly.
“But I think you have omitted what most undoubtedly was for you the most devastating part of the evening, that is until Dr. Hargrave said that your brother had not died by accident, but been murdered.”
Lovat-Smith leaned forward, frowning, but he did not interrupt.
“Several people have testified,” Rathbone went on, “that when you came down the stairs from seeing young Valentine Furnival, you were in a state of distress bordering on hysteria. Would you please tell us what happened up there to cause this change in you?”
Damaris studiously avoided looking towards Felicia and Randolf, nor did she look at Alexandra, sitting pale-faced and rigid in the dock. She took one or two moments to steel herself, and Rathbone waited without prompting her.
“I recognized—Valentine …” she said at last, her voice husky.
“Recognized him?” Rathbone repeated the