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Sir Herbert swallowed. He tried to speak, but his lips were dry. He tried again.
“I praised her work! I praised it a great deal. Do you think she could have misinterpreted that as admiration for her person? I praised her often!” There was a fine sweat of fear on his lip and brow. “She was the finest nurse I ever had. She was intelligent, quick to learn, precise to obey, and yet not without initiative. She was always immaculately clean. She never complained of long hours, and she fought like a tiger to save a life.” His eyes were fixed on Rathbone’s. “But I swear before God, I never meant anything personal by my praise for her—simply what I said. No more, never more!” He put his head in his hands. “God preserve me from working with young women—young women of good family who expect and desire suitors.”
Rathbone had a very powerful fear that he was going to get his wish—and be preserved from working with anyone at all—although he doubted God had anything to do with it.
“I will do everything I can,” he said with a voice far firmer and more confident than he felt. “Keep your spirits high. There is very much more than a reasonable doubt, and your own manner is one of our strongest assets. Geoffrey Taunton is by no means clear, nor Miss Cuthbertson. And there are other possibilities also—Kristian Beck, for one.”
“Yes.” Sir Herbert rose slowly, forcing himself to regain his composure. Years of ruthless self-discipline finally conquered his inner panic. “But reasonable doubt. Dear Heaven—that would ruin my career!”
“It does not have to be forever,” Rathbone said with complete honesty. “If you are acquitted, the case will remain open. It may be a very short time, a few weeks, before they find the true killer.”
But they both knew that even reasonable doubt had still to be fought for to save Sir Herbert from the gallows—and they had only a few days left.
Rathbone held out his hand. It was a gesture of faith. Sir Herbert shook it, holding on longer than was customary, as if it were a lifeline. He forced a smile which had more courage in it than confidence.
Rathbone left with a greater determination to fight than he could recall in years.
After his testimony Monk left the court, his stomach churning and his whole body clenched with anger. He did not even know against whom to direct it, and that compounded the pain inside him. Had Prudence really been so blind? He did not wish to think of her as fallible to such a monstrous degree. It was so far from the woman for whom he had felt such grief at the crowded funeral in the church at Hanwell. She had been brave, and noble, and he had felt a cleanness inside from having known of her. He had understood her dreams, and her fierce struggle, and the price she had paid for them. Something in him felt at one with her.
And yet he was so flawed himself in his judgment or he would never have loved Hermione. And the very word love seemed inappropriate when he thought of the emotion he had felt, the turmoil, the need, the loneliness. It was not for any real woman, it was for what he had imagined her to be, a dream figure who would fill all his own emptinesses, a woman of tenderness and purity, a woman who both loved and needed him. He had never looked at the reality—a woman afraid of the heights and the depths of feeling, a small, craven woman who hugged her safety to her and was content to stand on the edge of all the heat of the battle.
How could Monk, of all people, condemn Prudence Barrymore for misjudgment?
And yet it still hurt. He strode across Newgate Street regardless of horses shying and drivers shouting at him and a light gig veering out of his way. He was nearly run down by a black landau; the footman riding at the side let fly at Monk a string of language that caused even the coachman to sit a little more upright in surprise.
Without making any deliberate decision, Monk found himself going in the general direction of the hospital, and after twenty minutes’ swift walking, he hailed a hansom and completed the rest of the journey. He did not even know if Hester was on duty or in the nurses’ dormitory catching some well-needed sleep, and he was honest enough to admit he did not care. She was the only person to whom he could confide the confusion and power of his feelings.
As it chanced, she had just fallen asleep after a long day’s duty beginning before seven, but he knew where the nurses’ dormitory was and he strode in with an air of such authority that no one stopped or questioned him until he was at the entrance doorway. Then a large nurse with ginger hair and arms like a navvy stood square in the middle, staring at him grimly.
“I need to see Miss Latterly in a matter of urgency,” he said, glaring back at her. “Someone’s life may depend on the matter.” That was a lie, and he uttered it without a flicker.
“Oh yeah? Whose? Yours?”
He wondered what her regard for Sir Herbert Stanhope had been.
“None of your affair,” he said tartly. “I’ve just come from the Old Bailey, and I have business here. Now out of my way, and fetch Miss Latterly for me.”
“I don’t care if yer’ve come from ’Ell on a broomstick, yer not comin’ in ’ere.” She folded her massive arms. “I’ll go an’ tell ’er as yer ’ere if yer tell me who yer are. She can come and see yer if she feels like it.”
“Monk.”
“Never!” she said in disbelief, looking him up and down.
“That’s my name, not my calling, you fool!” he snapped. “Now tell Hester I’m here.”
She snorted loudly, but she obeyed, and about three minutes later Hester herself came out of the dormitory looking tired, very hastily dressed, and her hair over her shoulder in a long brown braid. He had never seen it down before, and it startled him. She looked quite different, younger and more vulnerable. He had a twinge of guilt for having woken her on what was essentially a selfish errand. In all probability it would make no difference at all to the fate of Sir Herbert Stanhope whether he spoke to her this evening or not.
“What happened?” she said immediately, still too full of exhaustion and sleep to have thought of all the possibilities fear could suggest.
“Nothing in particular,” he said, taking her arm to lead her away from the dormitory door. “I don’t even know if it is going well or badly. I shouldn’t have come, but there was no one else I really wished to speak to. Lovat-Smith has finished his case, and I wouldn’t care to be in Stanhope’s shoes. But then Geoffrey Taunton comes out of it badly too. He has a vile temper, and a record of violence. He was in the hospital at the time—but it’s Stanhope in the dock, and nothing so far is strong enough to change their places.”
They were in front of one of the few windows in the corridor and the late afternoon sun shone in a haze of dusty light over them and in a pool on the floor around their feet.
“Has Oliver any evidence to bring, do you know?” She was too tired to pretend formality where Rathbone was concerned.
“No I don’t. I’m afraid I was short with him. His defense so far is to make Prudence look a fool.” There was pain and anger still tight inside him.
“If she thought Sir Herbert Stanhope would marry her, she was a fool,” Hester said, but with such sadness in her voice he could not be angry with her for it.
