The time had come.
A low titter rippled through the onlookers as faces turned and hands lifted to point her out, the sound spreading throughthe throng faster than any carriage. The crowd compressed around her without quite touching, curiosity drawing bodies closer whilst constables fought to maintain order.
Then the reporters appeared with notebooks ready and pencils lifted, their questions striking from every side in overlapping fragments too numerous for Nora to understand, let alone answer. The inquiries blurred into a single current of accusation and interest, a hunger manifest in suits with ink-stained cuffs as they probed at matters no stranger had any right to touch.
A laugh broke somewhere to her left, quickly smothered, and Nora’s face heated beneath the weight of so many staring eyes; she kept her gaze fixed upon the entrance ahead, fingers tightening around the folds of her skirt whilst every step seemed longer than the last. And a small part of her hoped and prayed that there wouldn’t be a seat available for her. That she could retreat to the quiet of her bedchamber with her door closed fast against the world. Against everything.
Inside, the noise reverberated off stone and plaster, and the air held the close, stale smell of damp wool, ink, dust, and too many people shut too long inside walls that had never been intended to hold the whole of London’s curiosity. Nora kept her head lowered as she followed the narrow path carved ahead of her, though lowering her head did little good, for whispers followed her along as every eye in the building took its fill of her.
Surely there would be no room in the Old Court. The galleries were filled, the benches taken, and the court too swollen with spectators to admit another soul.
It was for the best.
But as she hesitated near the doorway, a court officer stepped forward.
“Miss Eden?”
The sound of her name made her fingers tighten against her reticule. “Yes.”
“This way, if you please.”
Nora stared at him, too startled at first to move. “Is there a seat?”
“Yes, miss.” His expression remained professionally blank, though not unkind. “I was asked to ensure you had one.”
“Asked?” The word left her before she could stop it.
The fellow offered no answer beyond a small inclination of his head, then turned slightly to indicate the way through the press of people waiting near the court. Nora followed because there seemed nothing else to do, surprise settling uneasily beside dread as he guided her toward the room where every eye, every whisper, and every judgment waited.
The Old Court received her with the same close, airless intensity of the past three days. The empty judge’s seat waited above them, the symbols of law and the Crown decorating the wood, and below it, the clerks’ places stood in careful order, with their tools and chairs at the ready, and the barristers’ benches awaited the army of men set to argue the case.
Above and behind, the public gallery was already filled to bursting. People leaned toward one another in murmured conversations that redoubled whenever Nora glanced their way. Reporters had their notebooks at the ready, heads bent together in that peculiar stillness of men waiting for a feast to be served.
Nora’s gaze caught upon the dock and the rail where Papa had waited each day beneath the watch of the court. Even without him there, it remained the most dreadful point in the room, as though the very air around it rang with accusation.
The officer guided her toward a seat set aside near the front of the public area. Close enough to see, but tucked to the side in a manner that afforded her more privacy than the gallery. Though there was no hiding her entirely.
The brim of one lady’s hat tilted in her direction. A reporter near the side wall looked up from his notebook just long enough to study her face before scribbling a note. Every small movement carried meaning now, every glance another quiet measurement of whether she appeared repentant enough, ruined enough, or heartless enough to entertain.
“Surely, she must have known,” murmured the man seated directly behind her.
His companion huffed, his eyes raking over Nora, though she tried her best to ignore it. “I cannot fathom how his kin were ignorant of his crimes. It was so blatant, and I would wager she turned on him out of spite.”
“An unnatural creature to be certain,” replied the first. “A daughter turning on her father flies in the face of all that is good…”
Drawing in a breath, Nora ignored them, but now seated, it was difficult not to listen as the pair picked apart all the business with the wisdom that hindsight afforded. Their words slipped beneath her skin, and Nora’s hands tightened in her lap. Keeping her gaze fixed ahead, she forced her chin to lift when every instinct urged her to collapse in on herself until no one could see her at all. The effort of it consumed every breath. Nora’s shoulders ached from the strain, and the back of her neck prickled beneath the attention gathering behind her.
So lost in her thoughts, Nora paid no mind when someone stepped past her—until he sat in the empty seat beside her. Resting his hat upon his knee, Mr. Jack Hatcher’s broad shoulders filled the space. In fact, the gentleman was of sufficient size that he blocked her from many of the gawkers.
Then his gaze moved to the pair behind her, and their conversation died between one word and the next. Not faded. Not lowered gradually into discretion. But halted as thoroughly as if one of them had been slapped. Mr. Hatcher’s attentionpassed over the other spectators with the same quiet severity, and it was as though someone cast a spell over that corner of the courtroom, for the hush spread outward, turning attention away from her like a dam diverting a stream.
Was he the mysterious someone who had reserved this seat, or rather bribed the officers to hold it?
Nora’s fingers trembled in her lap, and she squeezed them tight. For the past three days, she’d spied the elder Mr. Hatcher in the gallery, standing near but never intruding, and some part of her had wondered if that distance was just another acquaintance turning on her. Heaven knew that the past two months had seen plenty of that.
Yet now he sat beside her without explanation. Forming a solid wall between her and the gawkers.
The consideration nearly undid her. Nora wanted to thank him—the words rose painfully in her throat, pressing there until she could scarcely swallow—but something in the set of his jaw warned her that he did not welcome the acknowledgment. But the past months had taught her the value of loyal friends, and she could not ignore this gesture altogether.
