The Silent Cry (25 page)

"Find out who they are, if you can, by all means," Runcorn went on.

"And tell your client. But if she provokes the local men into attacking those responsible, even killing them, then we will step in.

Murder's another thing. We'll have to go on with it until we find them. Is that what you want?”

Runcorn was right. It was choking to have to concede it.

"I'll find out who they are," Monk said almost under his breath. "And I'll prove it… not to Vida Hopgood, or to you! I'll prove it to their own bloody society! I'll see them ruined!" And with that he turned on his heel and went out of the door.

It was dark and snowing outside, but he barely noticed. His rage was blazing too hotly for mere ice in the wind to temper it.

Rhys progressed only very slowly. Dr. Wade pronounced himself satisfied with the way in which his external wounds were healing. He came out of Rhys's room looking grave but not more concerned than when Hester had shown him in. As always, he had chosen to see him alone.

Bearing in mind the site of some of the injuries, and a young man's natural modesty, it was easy to understand. Hester was not as impersonal a nurse to him as she had been to the men in the hospitals of the Crimea. There were so many of them she had had no time to become a friend to any one, except in brief moments of extremity. With Rhys she was far more than merely someone who attended to his needs.

They spent hours together, she talked to him, read to him, sometimes they laughed. She knew his family and his friends, like Arthur Kynaston, and now also his brother Duke, a young man she found less attractive.

"Satisfactory, Miss Latterly," Wade said with a very slight smile. "He seems to be responding well, although I do not wish to give false encouragement. He is certainly not recovered yet. You must still care for him with the greatest skill you possess.”

His brows drew together and he looked at her intensely. "And I cannot impress upon you too strongly how important it is that he should not be disturbed or caused anxiety, fear or other turbulence of spirit that can be avoided. You must not permit that young policeman, or any other, to force him to attempt a recollection of what happened the night of his injury. I hope you understand that? I imagine you do. I feel that you are very fully aware of his pain, and would do anything, even place yourself at risk, to protect him." He looked very slightly self-conscious, a faint colour to his cheeks. "I have a high opinion of you, Miss Latterly.”

She felt a warmth inside her. Simple praise from a colleague for whom she had a supreme regard was sweeter than the greatest extravagance from someone who did not know precisely what it meant.

"Thank you, Dr. Wade," she said quietly. "I shall endeavour not to give you cause ever to think otherwise.”

He smiled suddenly, as if for an instant he forgot the care and unhappiness which had brought them together.

"I have no doubt of you," he replied, then bowed very slightly and walked past her and down the stairs to where Sylvestra would be waiting for him in the withdrawing room.

Early in the afternoon Hester tried to spin out small domestic tasks, getting smears out of Rhys's nightshirt where one of his bandages had been pulled crooked and blood from the still-open wound had seeped through; mending a pillow case before the tiny tear became worse; sorting the books in the bedroom into some specific order. There was a knock on the door, and when she answered it the maid informed her that a gentleman had called to see her, and had been shown to the housekeeper's sitting room.

"Who is he?" Hesterasked with surprise. Her immediate thought was that it was Monk, then she realised how unlikely that was. It had come to her mind only because some thought of him was so close under the surface of her consciousness. It would be Evan, come to see if he could enlist her help in solving the mystery of Rhys's injuries, at least in learning something more about the family, and the relationship between father and son. It was absurd to feel this sudden sinking of disappointment. She would not know what to say to Monk anyway.

Nor did she know what to say to Evan. Her duty lay to the truth, but she did not know if she wanted to learn it. Her professional loyalty, and her emotions, were towards Rhys. And she was employed by Sylvestra, that required of her some kind of honesty.

She thanked the maid and finished what she was doing, then went downstairs and through the green baize door, along the passage to the housekeeper's sitting room. She went in without knocking.

She stopped abruptly. It was Monk who stood in the middle of the floor, slim and graceful in his perfectly cut coat. He looked short-tempered and impatient.

She closed the door behind her.

"How is your patient?" he asked. His expression was one of interest.

Was it politeness, or did he have a reason to care? Or was it simply something to say?

"Dr. Wade tells me he is recovering fairly well, but still far from healed," she replied a trifle stiffly. She was angry with herself for the elation she felt because it was him, and not Evan. There was nothing to be pleased about. It would only be another pointless quarrel.

"Haven't you got an opinion of your own?" He raised his eyebrows. He sounded critical.

"Of course I have," she retorted. "Do you think it is likely to be of more use to you than the doctor's?”

"Hardly "So I imagined. That is why I gave you the doctor's.”

He took a breath, and then let it out quickly.

"And he still does not speak?”

"No.”

"Or communicate in any other way?”

"If you mean in words, no. He cannot hold a pen to write. The bones in his hands are far from healed yet. I assume from your persistence, your interest is professional? I don't know why. Do you imagine he witnessed your attackers in Seven Dials, or that he knows who the assailants were?”

He put his hands in his pockets and looked down at the floor, then up at her. His expression softened, the guardedness slipped away from it.

"I would like to think he had nothing to do with them whatever." His eyes met hers, steady and clear, jolting her suddenly with memory of how well they knew each other, what losses and victories they had shared. "Are you sure that is so?”

"Yes!" she said immediately, then knew from his look, and from her own inner honesty, that it was not so. "No not absolutely." She tried again. "I don't know what happened, except that it was very dreadful, so dreadful it has rendered him speechless.”

"Is that genuine… I mean to ask that truly?" He looked apologetic, unwilling to hurt. "If you say it is so, I will accept it.”

She came further into the room, standing closer to him. The fire in the small, carefully blacked grate burned briskly, and there were two chairs near it, but she ignored them, and so did he.

"Yes," she said with complete certainty this time. "If you had seen him in nightmare, trying desperately to cry out, you would know it as I do.”

His face reflected his acceptance, but there was a sadness in it also which frightened her. It was a tenderness, something she did not often see in him, an unguarded emotion.

"Have you found evidence?" she asked, her voice catching. "Do you know something about it?”

"No." His expression did not change. "But the suggestions are increasing.”

"What? What suggestions?”

"I'm sorry, Hester. I wish it were not so.”

"What suggestions?" Her voice was rising a little higher. It was mostly fear for Rhys, but also it was the gentleness in Monk's eyes. It was too fragile to grasp, too precious to break, like a perfect reflection in water, touch it and it shatters. "What have you learned?”

"That the three men who attacked these women were gentlemen, well dressed, arriving in cabs, sometimes together, sometimes separately, leaving in a hansom, nearly always together.”

"That's nothing to do with Rhys!" She knew she was interrupting and that he would not have mentioned it had he no more than that. She just found it impossible to hear him out, the thought hurt so much. She could see he knew that, and that he hated doing it. The warmth in his eyes she would hoard up like a memory of joy, a sweet light in darkness.

"One of them was tall and slender," he went on.

The description fitted Rhys. They both knew it.

"The other two were of average height, one stockier, the other rather thin," he went on quietly.

The coals settled in the fire and neither of them noticed. There were footsteps down the corridor outside, but they passed without stopping.

Monk had not seen Arthur and Duke Kynaston, but Hester had. Glimpsed hastily, hurrying in a dark street, it could very well be them. A coldness filled her. She tried to shut it out, but memory was vivid of the cruelty in Rhys's eyes, the sense of power as he had hurt Sylvestra, his smile afterwards, his relish in it. It had not happened only once, a mistake, an aberration. He exulted in his power to hurt.

She had tried not to believe it, but in Monk's presence it was impossible. She could be furious with him, she could despise elements in him, she could disagree violently; but she could not intentionally harm him, and she could not lie. To build that barrier between them would be unbearable, like denying part of herself. The protection must be emotional, self-chosen, not to divide them but merely to cover from a pain too real.

He moved towards her. He was so close she could smell the damp wool of his coat where the rain had caught his collar.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I can't turn aside because he's injured now, or because he is your patient. If he had been alone, perhaps I could, but there are the other two.”

"I can't believe Arthur Kynaston was involved." She met his eyes. "I would have to see proof that could not be argued. I would have to hear him admit it. Duke I do not know about.”

"It could have been Rhys, Duke and someone else," he pointed out.

"Then why is Leighton Duff dead, and Duke Kynaston unhurt?”

He put out a hand as if to touch her, then let it fall.

"Because Leighton Duff guessed there was something profoundly wrong, and he followed them and challenged his son," he answered gravely, a pucker between his brows. "The one with whom he was most concerned, the one for whom he cared. And Rhys lost his temper, perhaps high on whisky, fuelled by guilt and fear, and a belief in his own power. The others ran off. The result is what Evan found… two men who began a fight and couldn't stop it, short of the death of one of them, and the near mortal injury of the other.”

She shook her head, but it was to close out the vision, to defend herself from it, not because she could deny its possibility.

This time he did put his hands on her shoulders, very gently, not to hold her, simply to touch.

She stared at the floor, refusing to look up at him.

"Or perhaps some men of the area, husbands or lovers of the last victim, brothers, or even friends, caught up with them. They had stopped running for too long… and it was they who beat them both.

Rhys cannot tell us… even if he wanted to.”

There was nothing to say. The impulse was to deny it, and that was pointless.

"I don't know any way to find out," she said defensively.

"I know." He smiled very slightly. "And if you did, you wouldn't…

until you had to know, for yourself. You would have to prove him innocent… and when you proved him guilty, you would say nothing, and I would know anyway.”

She raised her eyes quickly. "No, you wouldn't! Not if I chose to conceal it.”

He hesitated, then stepped back half a pace.

"I would know," he repeated. "Why? Would you defend him for it? I should take you to see these women, beaten by poverty, dirt, ignorance, and now beaten by three young gentlemen who are bored by their comfortable lives and want a little more dangerous entertainment, something to make the heart beat a trifle faster and bring the blood to the head." His voice was hard in his throat with outrage, a deep and abiding hurt he felt for the injured. "Some of them are no more than children. At their age you were in the schoolroom wearing a pinafore and doing your sums, and your most urgent distress was being forced to eat your rice pudding!" He was exaggerating and he knew it, but it hardly mattered. The essence was real. "You wouldn't defend that, Hester… you couldn't! You have more honour, more imagination than that!”

She turned away. "Of course I do! But you haven't seen Rhys's pain now. Judgement is fine when you only know one side. It is much harder when you know the offender, and, like him, feel his pain too.”

He stood close behind her. "I was not concerned with ease, only what was right. Sometimes we cannot have both. I know some people don't understand that, or accept it, but you do. You have always been able to face the truth, no matter what it was. You will do it this time.”

There was certainty in his voice, no doubt at all. She was Hester, reliable, strong, virtuous Hester. No need to protect her from pain or danger. No need even to worry about her!

She wanted to lash out angrily at him for taking her for granted.

She was exactly like anybody else inside, any other woman. She ached to be protected sometimes, to be cherished and have ugliness and danger warded off by someone else, not because they thought she could not bear it, but because they did not wish her hurt.

But she could not possibly say that to him… not to Monk, of all people. To be worth anything at all, it had to be offered, freely. It must be his wish, even his need. If she had been one of the fragile, warm, feminine women he so admired, he would have done it instinctively.

What could she say? She was so angry and confused and hurt, words tumbled over each other in her mind, and all of them were useless, only betraying what she felt, which was the last thing she wished him to know. She could protect herself at least as much as that.

"Of course," she said stiffly, her voice thick in her throat. "There is little point in doing anything else, is there?" She moved another step away from him, her shoulders rigid, as if she would flinch were he to touch her. "I imagine I shall endure whatever it is. I shall have no alternative.”

"You're angry," he said with a lift of surprise.

"Nonsense!" she snapped. He was missing the point entirely. It had nothing to do with Rhys Duff, or who had beaten the women. It was his assumption that she could be treated like another man, that she could and should always look after herself. She could! But that was not the point either!

"Hester!”

She had her back to him but he sounded patient and reasonable. It was like vinegar on the wound.

"Hester, I'm not choosing it to be Rhys. I'll look for any other possibility as well.”

"I know you will!”

Now he was puzzled. "Then what the devil more do you want of me? I cannot alter what happened, nor will I settle for less than the truth!