Anne Perry - A Breach of Promise

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, if not of yourself."

"By admitting to a crime of which neither of us is guilty?" Wolff said bitterly.

Rathbone rose to his feet. "My lord, may I ask for an adjournment so I may speak with my client and with Mr. Sacheverall? Perhaps we can come to some understanding which would be preferable to this present discussion, which is proving nothing."

"I think that would be advisable," McKeever agreed, reaching his hand towards the gavel again as there was a murmur of disappointment in the gallery and several of the jurors muttered, whether it was in agreement or disagreement, it was not possible to say. "Mr. Sacheverall?" He did not wait for the answer but assumed it. "Good. This court is adjourned until two o'clock this afternoon."

Rathbone leaned towards Melville, still sitting motionless. He grasped his arm and felt the muscles locked.

"What can he prove?" he whispered fiercely. "What is Wolff to you?"

Melville relaxed very slowly, as if he were waking from a trance.

A smile with a hint of hysteria in it touched his lips and then vanished.

"Not my homosexual lover!" he said with a gasp of disbelief, as if the idea had a kind of desperate humor to it. "I swear that in the name of God! He is as normal, as masculine, a man as ever drew breath."

"Then what? Is he some relative by blood or marriage?" Even as he asked, Rathbone could not believe it was blood. The two men were physically as unalike as possible. Wolff must have been four or five inches the taller and two stones heavier. He was as dark as Melville was fair, as brooding, mystic and Celtic as Melville was open, direct and Saxon. "What?" he repeated firmly.

But Melville refused to answer.

The bailiff was beside the table.

"Mr. Sacheverall is waiting for you, Sir Oliver. I'll take you to him, if you come with me."

"Do you want to withdraw?" Rathbone demanded, still facing Melville. "I can't make that decision for you. I don't know what Sacheverall will find or what these witnesses may say."

"Neither do I!" Melville said jerkily. "But I am not going to marry Zillah Lambert." He closed his eyes. "Just do what you can…" His voice cracked and he turned away.

Rathbone had no choice but to go with the bailiff and meet with Sacheverall, not knowing what he could salvage of the chaos he had been thrown into. Except that if he were honest, he had not been thrown, he had leaped, more or less open-eyed. His own lack of thought had earned him this.

Sacheverall was half sitting on the bare table in the small room set aside for just this sort of meeting. He did not stand when Rathbone came in and closed the door. His fair eyebrows rose quizzically.

"Ready to retreat?"

Rathbone sat in one of the chairs and leaned back, crossing his legs. He realized he disliked Sacheverall, not because he was losing-he had lost cases before, to adversaries he both liked and admired-but for the way in which Sacheverall savored the misfortune this would bring to Melville, and his own part in making it happen. The prosecutor was not serving justice but some emotion of his own. Rathbone resented giving him anything.

"If you mean ready to capitulate, no, I'm not. If you mean discuss the situation, then of course. I thought I had already made that plain in asking for an adjournment."

"For God's sake, man!" Sacheverall said with a half laugh. "You're beaten! Give in gracefully and I won't call my witnesses who can place Wolff and Melville together in the most intimate and compromising circumstances. Of course the man doesn't want to marry!" His voice was rich with scorn. "He's a homosexual… I'll use the politest word I can for what he does." His expression made all too evident what manner of word was running through his mind.

"You can use whatever word is natural to you," Rathbone answered with a sneer he did not bother to hide. "You have no reputation to guard in here."

Sacheverall flushed. Perhaps he was more aware than he showed that he was awkward beside Rathbone, clumsy, inelegant, that his ears were too large.