Defend and Betray (6 page)

“I will,” Hester promised, clasping Edith's hand. “I will try!”

“Thank you. Now you must go before anyone else comes out and finds us here—please!”

“Of course. Keep heart.”

“I will—and thank you again.”

Quickly Hester turned and accepted her cloak from the waiting maid and went to the door, her mind racing, her thoughts in turmoil, and the face of Oliver Rathbone sharp in her mind.

Chapter 2

As soon as Hester returned, Major Tiplady, who had had little to do but stare out of the window, observed from her face that something distressing had happened, and since it would soon be public knowledge in the newspapers, she did not feel she was betraying any trust by telling him. He was very aware that she had experienced something extraordinary, and to keep it secret would close him out to no purpose. It would also make it far harder to explain why she wished for yet further time away from the house.

“Oh dear,” he said as soon as she told him. He sat very upright on the chaise longue. “This is quite dreadful! Do you believe that something has turned the poor woman's mind?”

“Which woman?” She tidied away his tea tray, which the maid had not yet collected, setting it on the small table to the side. “The widow or the daughter?”

“Why—” Then he realized the pertinence of the question. “I don't know. Either of them, I suppose—or even both. Poor creatures.” He looked at her anxiously. “What do you propose to do? I cannot see anything to be done, but you seem to have something in mind.”

She flashed him a quick, uncertain smile.”I am not sure.” She closed the book he had been reading and put it on the table next to him. “I can at least do my best to find her the very best lawyer—which she will be able to afford.” She tucked his shoes neatly under the chaise.

“Will her family not do that anyway?” he asked. “Oh, for heaven's sake sit down, woman! How can anyone concentrate their thoughts when you keep moving around and fussing?”

She stopped abruptly and turned to look at him.

With unusual perception he frowned at her. “You do not need to be endlessly doing something in order to justify your position. If you humor me, that will be quite sufficient. Now I require you to stand still and answer me sensibly—if you please.,”

“Her family would like her put away with as little fuss as possible,” she replied, standing in front of him with her hands folded. “It will cause the least scandal that may be achieved after a murder.”

“I imagine they would have blamed someone else if they could,” he said thoughtfully.”But she has rather spoiled that by confessing. But I still do not see what you can do, my dear.”

“I know a lawyer who can do the miraculous with causes which seem beyond hope.”

“Indeed?” He was dubious, sitting upright and looking a little uncomfortable. “And you believe he will take this case?”

“I don't know—but I shall ask him and do my best.” She stopped, a slight flush in her face. “That is—if you will permit me the time in which to see him?”

“Of course I will. But ...” He looked vaguely self-conscious. “I would be obliged if you would allow me to know how it proceeds.”

She smiled dazzlingly at him.

“Naturally. We shall be in it together.”

“Indeed,” he said with surprise and increasing satisfaction. “Indeed we shall.”

* * * * *

Accordingly, she had no difficulty in being permitted to leave her duties once more the following day and take a hansom cab to the legal offices of Mr. Oliver Rathbone, whose acquaintance she had made at the conclusion of the Grey murder, and then resumed during the Moidore case a few months later. She had sent a letter by hand (or to be more accurate, Major Tiplady had, since he had paid the messenger), requesting that Mr. Rathbone see her on a most urgent matter, and had received an answer by return that he would be in his chambers at eleven o'clock the following day, and would see her at that hour if she wished.

Now at quarter to eleven she was traveling inside the cab with her heart racing and every jolt in the road making her gasp, trying to swallow down the nervousness rising inside her. It really was the most appalling liberty she was taking, not only on behalf of Alexandra Carlyon, whom she had never met, and who presumably had not even heard of her, but also towards Oliver Rathbone. Their relationship had been an odd one, professional in that she had twice been a witness in cases he had defended. William Monk had investigated the second one after the police force officially closed it. In both cases they had drawn Oliver Rathbone in before the conclusion.

At times the understanding between Rathbone and herself had seemed very deep, a collaboration in a cause in which they both fiercely believed. At others it had been more awkward, aware that they were a man and a woman engaged in pursuits quite outside any rules society had laid down for behavior, not lawyer and client, not employer and employee, not social friends or equals, and most certainly not a man courting a woman.

And yet their friendship was of a deeper sort than those she had shared with other men, even army surgeons in the field during the long nights in Scutari, except perhaps with Monk in the moments between their quarrels. And also there had been that one extraordinary, startling and sweet kiss, which she could still recall with a shiver of both pleasure and loneliness.

The cab was stopping and starting in the heavy traffic along High Holborn—hansoms, drays, every kind of carriage.

Please heaven Rathbone would understand this was a call most purely on business. It would be unbearable if he were to think she was pursuing him. Trying to force an acquaintance. Imagining into that moment something which they both knew he did not intend. Her face burned at the humiliation. She must be impersonal and not endeavor to exercise even the slightest undue influence, still less appear to flirt. Not that that would be difficult; she would have no idea how to flirt if her life depended upon it. Her sister-in-law had told her that countless times. If only she could be like Imogen and appeal with sweet helplessness to people, simply by her manner, so men instinctively would desire to help her. It was very nice to be efficient, but it could also be a disadvantage to be obviously so. It was also not especially attractive— either to men or to women. Men thought it unbecoming, and women found it vaguely insulting to them.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the hansom's arrival at Vere Street and Oliver Rathbone's offices, and she was obliged to descend and pay the driver. Since it was already five minutes before her appointment, she mounted the steps and presented herself to the clerk.

A few minutes later the inner door opened and Rathbone came out. He was precisely as she had remembered him; indeed she was taken aback by the vividness of her recall. He was little above average height, with fair hair graying a trifle at the temples, and dark eyes that were acutely aware of all laughter and absurdity, and yet liable to change expression to anger or pity with an instant's warning.

“How agreeable to see you again, Miss Latterly,” he said with a smile. “Won't you please come into my office, where you may tell me what business it is that brings you here?” He stood back a little to allow her to pass, then followed her in and closed the door behind him. He invited her to sit in one of the large, comfortable chairs. The office was as it had been last time she was there, spacious, surprisingly free from the oppressive feeling of too many books, and with bright light from the windows as if it were a place from which to observe the world, not one in which to hide from it.

“Thank you,” she accepted, arranging her skirts only minimally. She would not give the impression of a social call.

He sat down behind his desk and regarded her with interest.

“Another desperate case of injustice?” he asked, his eyes bright.

Instantly she felt defensive, and had to guard herself from allowing him to dictate the conversation. She remembered quickly that this was his profession, questioning people in such a way that they betrayed themselves in their answers.

“I would be foolish to prejudge it, Mr. Rathbone,” she replied with an equally charming smile. “If you were ill, I should be irritated if you consulted me and then prescribed your own treatment.”

Now his amusement was unmistakable.

“If some time I consult you, Miss Latterly, I shall keep that in mind. Although I doubt I should be so rash as ever to think of preempting your judgment. When I am ill, I am quite a pitiful object, I assure you.”

“People are also frightened and vulnerable, even pitiful, when they are accused of crime and face the law without anyone to defend them—or at least anyone adequate to the occasion,” she answered.

“And you think I might be adequate to this particular occasion?” he asked. “I am complimented, if not exactly flattered.”

“You might be, if you understood the occasion,” she said a trifle tartly.

His smile was wide and quite without guile. He had beautiful teeth.

“Bravo, Miss Latterly. I see you have not changed. Please tell me, what is this occasion?”

“Have you read of the recent death of General Thaddeus Carlyon?” She asked so as to avoid telling him that with which he was already familiar.

“I saw the obituary. I believe he met with an accident, did he not? A fall when he was out visiting someone. Was it not accidental?” He looked curious.

“No. It seems he could not have fallen in precisely that way, at least not so as to kill himself.”

“The obituary did not describe the injury.”

Memory of Damaris's words came back to her, and a wry, bitter humor. “No—they wouldn't. It has an element of the absurd. He fell over the banister from the first landing onto a suit of armor.”

“And broke his neck?”

“No. Please do not keep interrupting me, Mr. Rathbone—it is not something you might reasonably guess.” She ignored his look of slight surprise at her presumption. “It is too ridiculous. He fell onto the suit of armor and was apparently speared to death by the halberd it was holding. Only the police said it could not have happened by chance. He was speared deliberately after he had fallen and was lying senseless on the floor.”

“I see.” He was outwardly contrite. “So it was murder; that, I presume, I may safely deduce?”

“You may. The police enquired into the matter for several days, in fact two weeks. It occurred on the evening of April twentieth. Now the widow, Mrs. Alexandra Carlyon, has confessed to the crime.”

“That I might reasonably have guessed, Miss Latterly. It is regrettably not an unusual circumstance, and not absurd, except as all human relationships have an element of humor or ridiculousness in them.” He did not go on to guess for what reason she had come to see him, but he remained sitting very upright in his chair, giving her his total attention.

With an effort she refrained from smiling, although a certain amusement had touched her, albeit laced with tragedy.

“She may well be guilty,” she said instead. “But my interest in the matter is that Edith Sobell, the sister of General Carlyon, feels most strongly that she is not. Edith is convinced that Alexandra has confessed in order to protect her daughter, Sabella Pole, who is very lightly balanced, and hated her father.”

“And was present on the occasion?”

“Yes—and according to what I can learn of the affair from Damaris Erskine, the general's other sister, who was also at the ill-fated dinner party, there were several people who had the opportunity to have pushed him over the banister.”

“I cannot act for Mrs. Carlyon unless she wishes it,” he pointed out. “No doubt the Carlyon family will have their own legal counsel.”

“Peverell Erskine, Damaris's husband, is their solicitor, and Edith assures me he would not be averse to engaging the best banister available.”

His fine mouth twitched in the ghost of a smile.

“Thank you for the implied compliment.”

She ignored it, because she did not know what to say.

“Will you please see Alexandra Carlyon and at least consider the matter?” she asked him earnestly, self-consciousness overridden by the urgency of the matter. “I fear she may otherwise be shuffled away into an asylum for the criminally insane, to protect the family name, and remain there until she dies.” She leaned towards him. “Such places are the nearest we have to hell in this life—and for someone who is quite sane, simply trying to defend a daughter, it would be immeasurably worse than death.”

All the humor and light vanished from his face as if washed away. Knowledge of appalling pain filled his eyes, and there was no hesitation in him.

“I will certainly keep my mind open in the matter,” he promised. “If you ask Mr. Erskine to instruct me, and engage my services so that I may apply to speak with Mrs. Carlyon, then I will give you my word that I will do so. Although of course whether I can persuade her to tell me the truth is another thing entirely.”

“Perhaps you could engage Mr. Monk to carry out investigations, should you—” She stopped.

“I shall certainly consider it. You have not told me what was her motive in murdering her husband. Did she give one?”

She was caught off guard. She had not thought to ask.

“I have no idea,” she answered, wide-eyed in amazement at her own omission.

“It can hardly have been self-defense.” He pursed his lips. “And we would find it most difficult to argue a crime of passion, not that that is considered an excuse—for a woman, and a jury would find it most . . . unbecoming.” Again the black humor flickered across his face, as if he were conscious of the irony of it. It was a quality unusual in a man, and one of the many reasons she liked him.

“I believe the whole evening was disastrous,” she continued, watching his face. “Apparently Alexandra was upset, even before she arrived, as though she and the general had quarreled over something. And I gather from Damaris that Mrs. Furnival, the hostess, flirted with him quite openly. But that is something which I have observed quite often, and very few people are foolish enough to take exception to it. It is one of the things one simply has to endure.” She saw the feint curl of amusement at the corners of his lips, and ignored it.

“I had better wait until Mr. Erskine contacts me,” he said with returning gravity. “I will be able to speak to Mrs. Carlyon herself. I promise you I will do so.”

“Thank you. I am most obliged.” She rose to her feet, and automatically he rose also. Now it suddenly occurred to her that she owed him for his time. He had spared her almost half an hour, and she had not come prepared to pay. His fee would be a considerable amount of money from her very slender resources. It was an idiotic and embarrassing error.