Slaves of Obsession - Anne Perry [121]
The shadow of a smile moved his lips, but he did not speak to her. Perhaps he did not wish the court to witness any emotion in him. Perhaps he felt that love was a private thing, and he would not share it with those who had come to stare, and to judge.
Rathbone was acutely conscious of Judith Alberton, as were most of the people in the court. There was a beauty in her carriage, and in what could be glimpsed of her features. He saw people nudge each other as she came in, and several men were unable to keep the admiration, or the interest, from their expressions.
Rathbone wondered if she was accustomed to being stared at, or if it made her uncomfortable. She looked at Merrit, who was still turned towards Breeland, then across at Rathbone. It was only a glance before she sat down, and he could not see her eyes through the veil. He only imagined the desperation she must be feeling. All the help anyone could give her could not cross the barrier of loneliness she must face, the fear of what these days would bring.
Hester was beside her, dressed in dark and pale grays, the light catching her fair skin and a little white lace at her throat. He would have recognized the curve of her cheek anywhere, and the individual way she carried her head. The greatest beauty in the world did not catch his breath that way with the ache of familiarity, the memory of so many shared struggles for victory over ignorance and wrong. Winning had mattered, of course it had, the causes had always been worth the fight, but he realized how good the battles themselves had been. This was another one, but they were not together in it as they had been in the past. Monk was between them in a new way.
He saw Breeland stiffen and a look of extraordinary dislike fill his face. Rathbone followed his glance. A slender, dark-haired man had entered the courtroom and was making his way towards a vacant seat on the edge of the aisle in the public gallery. He moved with an unusual grace and made no sound at all, taking a place where it was unnecessary to excuse himself to anyone. His remarkable eyes studied Judith Alberton, even though she was in front of him and he could not have seen her face.
Rathbone wondered if this was Philo Trace. He knew it was not Casbolt, since they had already met.
Opposite him, across the aisle, Horatio Deverill was rising to open his case. He was a tall man, slender in his youth but now thickening around the middle. His once-handsome features were slightly coarsened but still full of power and character. But it was his voice which commanded attention and forced one to listen. It was rich, idiosyncratic, with perfect enunciation. Many a jury had been mesmerized by it. When he spoke, no one’s attention wandered.
“Gentlemen,” he began, smiling at the jurors, sitting upright and self-conscious in their high, carved seats. “I shall tell you about a heinous and terrible crime. I shall show you how an honorable man, much like yourselves, was conspired against to be robbed, and then murdered, in order to gain guns for the tragic conflict which is even now being fought out in America, brother against brother.”
There was a murmur of horror and sympathy around the room.
Rathbone was not surprised. He had expected Deverill to play for any emotional reaction he could draw. He was perfectly capable of doing the same, were he to suppose it would win him a case. He did not care about individual points, only the verdict.
“And I shall show you,” Deverill continued, “that this terrible deed was not only an offense against the law of this land, and the laws of God, but against the very laws of nature itself, acknowledged by every race and nation in mankind. It was carried out at the behest