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She stared at him wordlessly.
He reached one hand across the table as if to touch her, then changed his mind and withdrew it.
“Hester, we cannot afford to hide from the truth,” he said earnestly. “You have fallen into the midst of something we do not yet understand, and it would be foolish to imagine anyone involved in it is your friend, or will necessarily tell the truth if it is contrary to their interests. If Oonagh McIvor has to choose whether to blame someone in her own household or you, a stranger, we cannot rely upon her either wishing, or being able, to recall and repeat the exact truth.”
“But … but if someone in her house is a thief, surely she would wish to know that?” she protested.
“Not necessarily, particularly if it is not a maid, but one of her family.”
“But why? Why just one brooch? And why put it in my case?”
His face tightened, as if he were suddenly colder, and the anxiety in his eyes deepened.
“I don’t know, but the only alternative I can see is to suppose that you did take it, and that is not tolerable.”
The enormity of what he had said became hideously plain to her. How could she expect anyone to believe she had not seized the chance, suddenly offered, and taken the brooch … then when Mary was found dead, suddenly become frightened and tried to return it? She met Rathbone’s eyes and knew he was thinking precisely the same thing.
Did he really believe her, in his heart? Or was he only behaving as if he did because it was his professional obligation to do so? She felt as if reality were slipping away from her and nightmare closing in, isolation and helplessness, endless confusion where nothing made sense, one moment’s sanity was the next moment’s chaos.
“I didn’t take it,” she said suddenly, her voice loud in the silence. “I never saw it before I found it in my bag. I gave it straight to Callandra. What else could I have done?”
His hands closed over hers, surprisingly warm when she was so cold.
“I know you didn’t take it,” he said firmly. “And I shall prove it. But it will not be easy. You will have to resign yourself to a battle.”
She said nothing, struggling to keep the panic under control.
“Would you like me to inform your brother and sister—”
“No! No—please don’t tell Charles.” Her voice was sharp, and unconsciously she had jerked forward. “You mustn’t tell Charles—or Imogen.” She took a deep breath. Her hands were shaking. “It will be hard enough for him if he has to know, but if we can fight it first …”
He was frowning at her. “Don’t you think he would wish to know? Surely he would wish to offer you some support, some comfort?”
“Of course he would wish it,” she agreed with a fierce mixture of anger, pity and defensiveness. “But he wouldn’t know what to believe. He would want to think I was innocent, and he would not know how to. Charles is very literal. He cannot believe something he cannot understand.” She knew she sounded critical, and she had not meant to, but all her own fear and anguish was in her voice, she could hear it and it was out of control. “It would distress him, and he could do nothing to help. He would feel he ought to visit me, and that would be terrible for him.”
She wanted to explain to Rathbone about her father’s suicide when he was ruined by a cheat, and their mother’s death shortly afterwards, and the shock it had been for Charles. He had been the only one of the three children to be in England at the time, James having died recently in the Crimea, and Hester being still out there nursing. The full weight of the disgrace and the financial ruin had fallen on Charles, and then the grief afterwards.
Of course Rathbone knew something of it, because he had defended the man charged in the resulting murder case. But if he had not known the full extent of her father’s disgrace, she was not willing to tell him now, or to expose and relive her father’s vulnerability. She found herself sitting silently, risking his thinking her sullen.
Rathbone smiled very slightly, a small expression of resignation, and a kind of bitter humor.
“I think you are judging him ill,” he said calmly. “But it is not of great importance now. Perhaps later on we can discuss it again.” He rose to his feet.
“What are you going to do?” She stood up also, too quickly, knocking herself against the table and scraping the chair legs loudly on the floor. She lost her balance clumsily and only regained it by holding on to the table. “What happens next?”
He was close to her, so close she could smell the faint odor of the wool of his coat and feel the warmth of his skin. She longed for the comfort of being held with a depth that made the blood rush up to her face in shame. She straightened and took a step backwards.
“They will keep you here,” he answered, wincing. “I shall go and seek Monk and send him to learn more of the Farralines and what really happened.”
“To Edinburgh?” she said with surprise.
“Of course. I doubt there is anything more we can discover in London.”
“Oh.”
He moved to the door and knocked. “Wardress!” He turned back to see her. “Keep heart,” he said gently. “There is an answer, and we shall find it.”
She forced herself to smile. She knew he was speaking only to comfort her, but even so the words themselves had some power. She clung to them, willing herself to believe.
