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But Genevieve felt no such restrictions.
“Miss Latterly is not a servant, Mrs. Gibbons,” she said smartly. “She is a professional person who has given her time freely out of regard for Lady Ravensbrook, who might well have died if it had not been for her treatment!”
“If you can call nursing a profession,” Mrs. Gibbons retorted with a sniff. “And it is the good Lord who heals the sick, not any of us, Mrs. Stonefield. As a Christian woman, I’m sure you know that.”
Thoughts flashed across Hester’s mind about the virtues of Christian women, beginning with charity, but this was not the time to enter into an argument she could not win.
“Thank you for bringing me the message, Mrs. Gibbons,” she said, baring her teeth in a gesture that bore little resemblance to a smile. “How kind of you.” And with a nod to Genevieve, she rose to her feet and left the room.
The butler’s pantry was two doors along the passage, and she went in without knocking.
She was startled to see Monk standing there looking almost haggard. His face was pale and there were lines of strain unlike anything she had seen in him since the Grey case.
“What is it?” she asked, closing the door behind her, her stomach sinking with dread. “It can’t be Stonefield, can it? It … it’s not Callandra.” Pain almost dizzied her. “Has something happened to Callandra?”
“No!” His voice was strident. He controlled it with an effort. “No,” he repeated more calmly. His face was full of emotion and he was obviously finding it extremely difficult to frame the words to tell her.
She forced back her impatience. She had seen both shock and fear before and she knew the signs. To have affected Monk this way it must be something very dreadful indeed.
“Sit down and tell me,” she said gently. “What has happened?”
Temper flared in his eyes, then died away, replaced by the fear again. The very fact that he did not retaliate chilled her even more. She sat down on the drab, overstuffed chair and folded her hands in her lap, under her apron, where he could not see that they were clenched together.
“I have been accused of assault.” He said the words between his teeth, not looking at her.
“And are you guilty?” she asked levelly, knowing his rage and his physical strength. She had not forgotten the body in Mecklenburg Square, beaten to death, and that Monk had once feared he had done it himself.
His eyes widened, glaring at her, his features twisted with outrage.
“No!” he shouted. “God in heaven, no! How can you even ask?” The words choked him. He looked as if he could never forgive her for the question. He was shaking with fury, his body so tensed he was even now at the edge of violence, simply to release what was becoming unbearable.
“Because I know you,” she answered, feeling increasingly that perhaps she did not. “If someone angered you enough, you might—”
“A woman!” The cry strangled in his throat. “Assault a woman? Force myself on her?”
She was stunned. It was so absurd it was almost funny.
Except that he was obviously serious, and profoundly frightened. Such a charge would ruin him, she knew that only too well. Her own professional existence also rested on reputation, and she knew how nearly she had once lost that. It had been Monk who had fought for her, worked night and day to prove her innocence.
“That’s ridiculous,” she said gravely. “Obviously she cannot prove it to be so, but equally obviously you cannot prove it not to be, or you would not be here. Who is she, and what happened? Is she someone you rejected? Or has she some other reason for such a charge? Do you suppose she is with child, and needs to blame someone for it to claim her own innocence in the matter?”
“I don’t know.” At last he sat down as well, staring at the patched carpet on the floor. “I don’t know why she has done it, except that it was deliberate. We were in a hansom, going home after an evening”—he hesitated, still looking down—“an evening of mild entertainment, a pleasant dinner. She suddenly tore open the bodice of her dress, then glared at me with the most violent hatred, screamed, and threw herself out of the carriage with it under way, in front of a score of guests leaving a party in North Audley Street!”
She felt a chill of fear touch her also. Such behavior held an element of madness. The woman had risked not only Monk’s reputation but a good deal of her own as well. However innocent she claimed to be, there would be talk, speculation, tongues willing to be unkind.
“Who is she?” she asked again.
“Drusilla Wyndham,” he said very quietly, still not looking at her.
She said nothing. A curious mix of emotions filled her mind: relief that after all he could not now love Drusilla, that Drusilla had failed him in every way, and her own hatred of Drusilla of a quite different nature from before, because now the woman threatened him. There was also fear for the injury Drusilla would do him, and anger for the injustice of it. She did not even think of curiosity as to why.
“Who is she?” she asked. “I mean socially. Where does she come from?”
He looked up at her, meeting her eyes for the first time.
“I don’t know more than I could judge from her manner and her speech, which was enough. But what does it matter? Whoever she is, she can ruin me by the suggestion. She doesn’t have to be related to anyone important.” His voice rose again with impatience that she did not understand the point. “Any woman making the charge, except perhaps a servant or a prostitute—”
“I know that.” She cut across him just as sharply, jerking her hand to dismiss the notion. “I’m not thinking of that, I’m thinking how to fight her. Know your enemy!”
