Honor (46 page)

Rampling rose. “Objection. Whether Mrs. O’Neill asked for the information is immaterial.”

Lyons had been right when he said Rampling wouldn’t let him get away with this line of cross-examination, but Honor saw that at least Justices Hambly and George looked astonished to hear that a family of ten lived packed together like cattle in two rooms. Perhaps they could see the benefit to family limitation after all.

“I have no further questions of this witness,” Honor said, and returned to her seat.

“Prosecution rests, Your Honor.”

Now it was Honor’s turn.

During the next hour Honor called three character witnesses to the stand, just as Philip Lyons had planned, all tenement women who were Catherine Delancy’s patients, but she asked them questions of her own devising rather than relying on Lyons’s strategy.

By use of skillful questioning gleaned from watching Cleavon Frame in Boston, Honor drew the court a portrait of a selfless, dedicated doctor who spent long hours and risked her own life to help her patients. Everyone in the courtroom except Anthony Comstock listened transfixed, and when Honor glanced at the spectators crammed together on the benches, she saw only sympathy.

Rampling found little to object to in the testimony, but when he cross-examined the women, he asked only one damning question: “Did Dr. Delancy ever give you information or devices that would keep you from having children?”

Each one indignantly replied, “Yes, but I asked her for it, and I’m glad I did!”

Honor studied the justices’ faces, hoping that the glowing character references would outweigh these admissions of guilt.

Then Honor called Dr. Hilda Steuben to the stand and got ready for fireworks.

When Hilda was sworn in, she glared at the bailiff as if he were a fractious two-year-old and said, “Young man, I am not a liar. Of course I’ll tell the truth.”

The spectators tittered, causing Justice Pike to bang his gavel and call for order.

Honor approached her witness. “Dr. Steuben, how long have you been practicing medicine?”

Seated in the witness enclosure, Hilda needed only a horned Viking helmet to complete the picture of an aggravated Norse goddess. Her demeanor telegraphed her scorn for these proceedings more clearly than mere words, especially when her gaze lit on Comstock, seated nearby.

“Twenty-five years,” she replied.

“In that time you’ve read a great deal of medical literature.”

Hilda rolled her eyes. “More than I care to remember.”

Honor walked back to her table, picked up a copy of
A Married Woman’s Secret,
and handed it to Hilda. “I’m not asking you if you’ve ever given this pamphlet to your patients, but have you ever read it? Just by chance, of course.”

“As a matter of fact, just by chance, I have.”

From his place near the witness stand, Comstock muttered, “Another peddler of filth lying to save her own skin.”

Hilda’s eyes narrowed into dire slits, and she glared at him. “There’s no law against reading, you sanctimonious old goat. You might try it sometime and let the sunlight of truth into the dark recesses of your closed little mind.”

“Dr. Steuben,” Pike said, “please refrain from such outbursts.”

“That wasn’t an outburst, Your Honor I was merely exercising my constitutional right of free speech.”

The justice scowled. “Nevertheless, please refrain from making disruptive comments in the future.” He gestured at Honor to continue.

“Doctor, what’s your expert medical opinion of the pamphlet?”

Hilda bristled. “It’s no more lewd or obscene than most medical books I’ve studied.”

The district attorney jumped to his feet like a jack-in-the-box with a broken lid. “Objection! Dr. Steuben is a physician, not a lawyer. She is not qualified to make such a judgment.”

Hilda reared back in her seat. “I beg to differ with you, sir. During all the years that I’ve been practicing medicine, I have seen the Comstock Act hang over the head of everyone in the medical profession like the sword of Damocles.”

“Dr. Steuben—”

“No, Mr. Rampling, let me finish. This absurd obscenity statute has hindered me and other experienced, well-trained doctors in our efforts to aid those who most need this information.”

Pike turned beet red. “My good lady, I’m warning you for the last time that I shall hold you in contempt of court. And I quite agree with the district attorney that you are not qualified to judge the obscenity of such a pamphlet.”

Hilda turned a darker shade of red. “I may not be a lawyer, Your Honor, but you are not a doctor, so how can you presume to tell me what is best for my patients?”

Honor stepped in before Hilda went too far and wound up spending the night in the Tombs. “Dr. Steuben, how long have you known Dr. Delancy?”

“A little over six years.”

While the courtroom listened, Hilda spent the next hour telling how her softhearted colleague had once arrived too late to save a young mother who had committed suicide by swallowing carbolic acid. She told how Catherine Delancy was almost murdered by a drunkard when she tried to deliver his wife’s baby. She told of a young mother too poor to afford a crib for her newborn baby because she had so many mouths to feed, and how it had cost the softhearted Dr. Delancy many a sleepless night.

Finally Honor said, “Thank you, Doctor. I have no further questions.”

Rampling obviously decided that Hilda was too much of an unknown quantity to cross-examine, so he said, “I have no questions of this witness.” He looked relieved when Hilda stepped down and sailed back to her seat.

Pike noticed it was one o’clock, time to adjourn for the day.

Tomorrow Honor would call her final witness.

Tomorrow Catherine’s fate and her own would be sealed.

Late that afternoon in Honor’s hot, stuffy office, after she had evaded the irate Damon and managed to say a few words to Catherine about tomorrow’s court session, she looked up out of tired eyes to find Nevada standing in the doorway.

Strange, she thought, how a man who looks so out of place everywhere else always looks so much at home here.

Though he appeared calm, anger skittered just below the surface of his composure. “Did you mean what you said to Delancy about not having anything to say to me?”

Where in God’s name had Elroy gone? Why hadn’t he warned her?

“I never say what I don’t mean,” she replied, wishing she were strong enough to resist this man’s magnetic pull, wishing she didn’t find him so damned attractive or love him so much.

He stepped into her office and closed the door. “We have to talk.”

Honor rose and shuffled the papers on her desk while she eyed him warily. She sensed a volatile shift in his mood, an air of barely restrained male displeasure that left her edgy in his presence.

He moved as quietly as a cougar, and before Honor could blink, she found her wrists restrained by his strong yet gentle hands. “I love you,” he growled, his remote gaze revealing complex emotions too deep and unsettling. “You’ve lain with me, so don’t deny that you love me. We’re mated.”

He released her wrists just long enough to grasp her hands, lift them to his cheeks, and rub his face against her palms slowly and deliberately, leaving his scent on her skin. He closed his eyes and deeply inhaled the faint rose perfume she had dabbed on her wrists just that morning. Honor couldn’t move, transfixed by the sheer eroticism of feeling his smooth, warm skin stretched taut over fine, hard facial bones. She felt as though she were petting some powerful mythical beast.

“Mine,” he whispered, lowering her quiet hands so he could reach her mouth with his own.

“No.” She stiffened at the first electric touch of his lips and turned her head away before she succumbed. “I can’t love a man who would kill another and not pay for it. I took an oath to uphold the law, damn you!”

He released her and stepped away, dragging one frustrated hand through his hair, mussing it. “God as my judge, Honor, if I had it to do over again, I would have turned myself in and served my time. But I didn’t. Can’t change history now.”

“Don’t you see?” Honor cried. “You’re just like Robert, asking me to flout the law for your convenience.”

He grew so still, nothing moved. “Why don’t you just cut out my heart and be done with it?”

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, “but that’s how I see it.”

“Guess there’s no point in flogging a dead horse. I’m right sorry, too.”

He turned and left her office without a backward glance.

When Honor heard the door to the outer office close and his footsteps die away, she sat down at her desk and cradled her head in her hands, feeling a bone-deep sickness that had nothing to do with her pregnancy. Nothing had prepared her for the soul-searing pain of losing him, not her father’s tragic and undeserved death, not the shattering discovery that Robert didn’t really love her.

Nothing.

But at least she would always have Nevada’s child.

The following morning in the Court of Special Sessions, Honor called her last witness to the stand.

“Dr. Delancy,” she began, “you have pleaded not guilty to the charges of receiving obscene literature through the mails and circulating said literature, yet the evidence against you would appear to be overwhelming. Why did you do it?”

“For the welfare of my patients,” Catherine replied in a clear, strong voice. Today she was the heroine of the
Sun
and the
World
come to life, still in mourning for her son, her head held high. As she spoke, several artists sketched her for their newspapers.

Comstock piped up, “So you admit your guilt, you godless woman,” making Honor wonder why Justice Pike never threatened to hold the pompous buffoon in contempt.

“I admit nothing!” Catherine retorted. “I have broken no laws because
A Married Woman’s Secret
is not obscene.”

Comstock shouted, “Liar!”

“Your Honor,” Honor addressed Pike with some asperity, “may I please be allowed to question my witness without interruption?”

Pike looked annoyed that she should even dare ask, but he ordered Comstock to keep quiet.

Honor turned back to Catherine. “Why do you claim it’s not obscene?”

“That pamphlet is no more obscene than the medical textbooks I studied in medical school.”

Her answer was Honor’s cue to return to the defense table and pick up the book that would be crucial to the defense. A hushed, curious silence fell on the courtroom as Honor returned to the witness stand and handed Catherine the book.

“Do you recognize this book, Dr. Delancy?” she said.

Catherine glanced at the spine, opened the book to the frontispiece, and smiled. “Yes. It is my copy of
Essentials of Obstetrics.”

“Would you tell the court what this book is about?”

“It’s a medical textbook detailing pregnancy, labor, and childbirth.”

“Would you describe the beginning of the book?”

The district attorney rose and objected. “Your Honor, I fail to see the relevance of this line of testimony.”

“I will show the relevancy shortly, Your Honor.”

Pike made a face. “Be quick about it, Mrs. Davis.”

Honor smiled at Catherine. “Please continue.”

Catherine opened the book and perused the beginning. “There are several illustrations of the female genitals, and the first chapter describes the anatomy of female genital organs.”

“Dr. Delancy, precisely what words are used to describe these organs?”

Comstock jumped up from his seat near the witness enclosure. “Your Honor, I really must protest.”

“The sooner you keep quiet,” Pike said, “the sooner we’ll finish.”

Honor could almost see the steam coming out of Comstock’s ears as he reluctantly sat down.

Catherine turned her attention back to the book. “Words such as ‘external genitals,’ ‘mons veneris,’ ‘vulva,’ ‘hymen,’ and ‘vagina’ are used.”

Honor turned, her eyes scanning the courtroom. “In fact, the words used in your medical textbook are the same as those used in
A Married Woman’s Secret.”

“The exact same words.”

Honor turned back to Catherine. “Dr. Delancy, was this book,
Essentials of Obstetrics,
in your office when Mr. Comstock searched it in 1894?”

“Yes. I always keep it right on my desk.”

“So he would have seen it.”

“He would have had to be blind not to see it.”

Honor rubbed her forehead and gave the three justices a bewildered look. “Your Honors, would you care to tell me why this pamphlet, which uses the same so-called lewd words as the medical textbook, is considered obscene, while the textbook is not?”

The three justices exchanged uncomfortable glances. Pike, clearly at a loss for words and resenting Honor for putting him in such a position, turned as red as Comstock.

“And if it is not obscene,” Honor added, her voice rising to fill the courtroom, “why was Dr. Delancy arrested?”