Anne Perry - Defend and Betray

“I saw the balcony, and the banister where he went over.”

She winced.

“I assume he fell backwards?”

“Yes.” Her voice was unsteady, little more than a whisper.

“Onto the suit of armor?”

“Yes.”

“That must have made a considerable noise.”

“Of course. I expected people to come and see what had happened-but no one did.”

“The withdrawing room is at the back of the house. You knew that.”

“Of course I did. I thought one of the servants might hear.”

“Then what? You followed him down and saw he was struck senseless with the fell-and no one had come. So you picked up the halberd and drove it into his body?”

She was white-faced, her eyes like dark holes. This time her voice would hardly come at all.

“Yes.”

“His chest? He was lying on his back. You did say he went over backwards?”

“Yes.” She gulped. “Do we have to go over this? It cannot serve any purpose.”

“You must have hated him very much.”

“I didn't-” She stopped, drew in her breath and went on, her eyes down, away from his. “I already told Mr. Rathbone. He was having an affair with Louisa Furnival. I was…jealous.”

He did not believe her.

“I also saw your daughter.”

She froze, sitting totally immobile.

“She was very concerned for you.” He knew he was being cruel, but he saw no alternative. He had to find the truth. With lies and defenses Rathbone might only make matters worse in court. “I am afraid my presence seemed to precipitate a quarrel between her and her husband.”

She glared at him fiercely. For the first time there was real, violent emotion in her.

“You had no right to go to her! She is ill-and she has just lost her father. Whatever he was to me, he was her father. You…” She stopped, perhaps aware of the absurdity of her position, if indeed it was she who had killed the general.

“She did not seem greatly distressed by his death,” he said deliberately, watching not only her face but also the tension in her body, the tight shoulders under the cotton blouse, and her hands clenched on her knees. “In fact, she made no secret that she had quarreled bitterly with him, and would do all she could to aid you-even at the cost of her husband's anger.”

Alexandra said nothing, but he could feel her emotion as if it were an electric charge in the room.

“She said he was arbitrary and dictatorial-that he had forced her into a marriage against her will,” he went on.

She stood up and turned away from him.

Then again he had a sudden jolt of memory so sharp it was like a physical blow. He had been here before, stood in a cell with a small fanlight like this, and watched another slender woman with fair hair that curled at her neck. She too had been charged with killing her husband, and he had cared about it desperately.

Who was she?

The image was gone and all he could recapture was a shaft of dim light on hair, the angle of a shoulder, and a gray dress, skirts too long, sweeping the floor. He could recall no more, no voice, certainly no faintest echo of a face, nothing- eyes, lips-nothing at all.

But the emotion was there. It had mattered to him so fiercely he had thrown all his mind and will into defending her.

But why? Who was she?

Had he succeeded? Or had she been hanged?

Was she innocent-or guilty?

Alexandra was talking, answering him at last.

“What?”

She swung around, her eyes bright and hard.

“You come in here with a cruel tongue and no-no gentleness, no-no sensibility at all. You ask the harshest questions.” Her voice caught in her throat, gasping for breath. “You remind me of my daughter whom I shall probably never see again, except across the rail of a courtroom dock-and then you haven't even the honor to listen to my answers! What manner of man are you? What do you really want here?”

“I am sorry!” he said with genuine shame. “My thoughts were absent for only a moment-a memory… a-a painful one-of another time like this.”

The anger drained out of her. She shrugged her shoulders, turning away again.

“It doesn't matter. None of it makes any difference.”

He pulled his thoughts together with an effort.

“Your daughter quarreled with her father that evening…”

Instantly she was on guard again, her body rigid, her eyes wary.

“She has a very fierce temper, Mrs. Carlyon-she seemed to be on the edge of hysteria when I was there. In fact I gathered that her husband was anxious for her.”

“I already told you.” Her voice was low and hard. “She has not been well since the birth of her child. It happens sometimes. It is one of the perils of bearing children. Ask anyone who is familiar with childbirth-and…”

“I know that,” he agreed. “Women quite often become temporarily deranged-”

“No! Sabella was ill-that's all.” She came forward, so close he thought she was going to grasp his arm, then she stood still with her hands by her sides. “If you are trying to say that it was Sabella who killed Thaddeus, and not I, then you are wrong! I will confess it in court, and will certainly hang”-she said the word plainly and deliberately, like pushing her hand into a wound-”rather than allow my daughter to take the blame for my act. Do you understand me, Mr. Monk?”

' There was no j ar of memory, nothing even faintly familiar. The echo was as far away now as if he had never heard it.

“Yes, Mrs. Carlyon. It is what I would have expected you to say.”

“It is the truth.” Her voice rose and there was a note of desperation in it, almost of pleading. “You must not accuse Sabella! If you are employed by Mr. Rathbone-Mr. Rathbone is my lawyer. He cannot say what I forbid him to.”

It was half a statement, half a reassurance to herself.

“He is also an officer of the court, Mrs. Carlyon,” he said with sudden gentleness. “He cannot say something which he knows beyond question to be untrue.”

She stared at him without speaking.

Could his memory have something to do with that older woman who wept without distorting her face? She had been the wife of the man who had taught him so much, upon whom he had modeled himself when he first came south from Northumberland. It was he who had been ruined, cheated in some way, and Monk had tried so hard to save him, and failed.

But the image that had come to him today was of a young woman, another woman like Alexandra, charged with murdering her husband. And he had come here, like this, to help her.

Had he failed? Was that why she no longer knew him? There was no record of her among his possessions, no letters, no pictures, not even a name written down. Why? Why had he ceased to know her?

The answers crowded in on him: because he had failed, she had gone to the gallows…

“I shall do what I can to help, Mrs. Carlyon,” he said quietly. “To find the truth-and then you and Mr. Rathbone must do with it whatever you wish.”

At mid-morning on May 11, Hester received an urgent invitation from Edith to call upon her at Carlyon House. It was hand-written and delivered by a messenger, a small boy with a cap pulled over his ears and a broken front tooth. It requested Hester to come at her earliest convenience, and that she would be most welcome to stay for luncheon if she wished.

“By all means,” Major Tiplady said graciously. He was feeling better with every day, and was now quite well enough to be ferociously bored with his immobility, to have read all he wished of both daily newspapers and books from his own collection and those he requested from the libraries of friends. He enjoyed Hester's conversation, but he longed for some new event or circumstance to intrude into his rife.