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His eyes were brimming with tears.
“She suffered that!” he whispered. “And all the time she was here, she was thinking of me … How … how could you have let me be so selfish?”
Now without thinking she grasped his hand and held it. “It wasn’t selfishness,” she said urgently. “You couldn’t know, and really I had no right to tell you. It is a very private thing. I … I couldn’t bear you thinking—” She stopped. That would certainly be better unspoken.
He smiled at her suddenly. “I know.”
She did not know whether he knew or not, and she was certainly not about to put it to the test.
“I shan’t tell her you told me,” he promised. “At least not yet. It would embarrass her, wouldn’t it.” That was a statement, not a question. “And I shall not tell my parents. It is not my secret to share, and I think they may not see it as it should be seen.”
She knew he was certainly right about that. Bernd did not consider Victoria Stanhope a suitable friend for his son in any permanent sense, let alone more than that. But relief overwhelmed her like a great and blessed warmth, a taste of sweetness.
“Isn’t she the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen?” Robert said earnestly, his eyes bright and gentle. “Thank you for bringing her to me, Hester. I shall be grateful to you forever for that.”
11
RATHBONE BEGAN HIS DEFENSE of Zorah Rostova with a kind of despair. At the beginning, his worst fear had been that he would not be able to save her from disgrace and possibly a considerable financial punishment. He had hoped to be able to mitigate it by showing that her intention had been mistaken but honorable.
Now he was struggling to save her from the rope.
The court was packed till the room seemed airless, the people so tightly crammed together one could hear the rub of fabric on fabric, the squeak of boots, the creak of whalebone as women breathed. He could smell damp wool from a thousand coats come in from the rain. The floor was slippery with drips and puddles. Every scrap of air seemed already to have been breathed before. The windows steamed up with the exhalation.
Pressmen sat elbow to elbow, hardly able to move sufficiently to write. Pencils were sharp, licked ready. Paper was damp in shaking hands.
The jury was somber. One man with white whiskers fidgeted constantly with his handkerchief. Another smiled fleetingly at Gisela and then lo
oked quickly away again. None looked at Zorah.
The judge instructed Rathbone to begin.
Rathbone rose to his feet and called Stephan von Emden. The usher repeated the name, and his voice was swallowed by the thick, crowded room. There was no echo.
Everyone waited, necks craned. Their eyes followed him as he came in, crossed the floor and climbed the steps to the stand. Since he had been called for the defense, it was assumed he was in Zorah’s favor. The animosity could be felt in a wave of anger from the gallery.
He was sworn in.
Rathbone moved forward, feeling more vulnerable than he could ever remember in all the countless times he had done this. He had had bad cases before, clients about whom he felt dubious, clients in whom he believed but felt inadequate to defend. Never before had he been so aware of his own misjudgments and his own fallibility. He did not even feel confident he would not add to them today. The only thing he believed in totally was Hester’s loyalty to him, not that she thought he was right but that she would be there at his side to support him regardless, whatever the nature or degree of his defeat. How blind of him to have taken so long to see that beauty in her—or to realize its worth.
“Sir Oliver?” the judge prompted.
The court was waiting. He must begin, whatever he had to say, of how much or how little use. Had they any idea how lost he was? Looking at Harvester’s lean face and the expression on it, he was sure the other lawyer knew very well. There was even a kind of pity in him, though without the slightest suggestion he would stay his hand.
“Baron von Emden”—Rathbone cleared his throat—“you were staying at Wellborough Hall when Prince Friedrich met with his accident, and during the time of his apparent convalescence, and then his death, were you not?”
“Yes sir, I was,” Stephan agreed. He looked calm and very grave with his clear hazel eyes and the smooth tawny hair which fell a little forward over his right brow.
“Who else was there?” Rathbone asked. “Apart from the household staff, of course.”
“The Baron and Baroness von Seidlitz, Count Rolf Lansdorff—”
“He is the brother of Queen Ulrike, is he not?” Rathbone interrupted. “The uncle of Prince Friedrich?”
“Yes.”
“Who else?”
“Baroness Brigitte von Arlsbach, Florent Barberini and the Countess Rostova,” Stephan finished.
