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At least he should have the courage to go to Rhys now, and not escape, as he would so much rather.
When he reached Rhys, Hester was already there. She turned as she heard Rathbone’s step, her eyes desperate, pleading for some hope, any hope at all.
They sat together in the gray cell below the Old Bailey. Rhys was in physical pain, muscles clenched, broken hands shaking. He looked hopeless. Hester sat next to him, her arm around his shoulders.
Rathbone was at his wits’ end.
“Rhys,” he said tensely, “you have got to tell us what happened. I want to defend you, but I have nothing with which to do it.” His own muscles were knotted tight, his hands balled into fists of frustration. “I have no weapons. Did you kill him?”
Rhys shook his head, perhaps an inch in either direction, but the denial was clear.
“Someone else did?”
Again the tiny movement, but definitely a nod.
“Do you know who?”
A nod, a bitter smile, trembling-lipped.
“Has it anything to do with your mother?”
A very slight shrug of the shoulders, then a shake. No.
“An enemy of your father’s?”
Rhys turned away, jerking his head, his hands starting to bang on his thighs, jolting the splints.
Hester grabbed his wrists. “Stop it!” she said loudly. “You must tell us, Rhys. Don’t you understand? They will find you guilty if we cannot prove it was someone else, or at least that it could have been.”
He nodded slowly but would not face her.
There was nothing left but the violence of the truth.
“They will hang you,” Rathbone said deliberately.
Rhys’s throat moved as if he would say something, then he swung away from them again, and refused to look at them anymore.
Hester stared at Rathbone, her eyes filled with tears.
He stood still for a minute, then another. There was nothing to say or do. He sighed, then left. As he was walking along the passage he passed Corriden Wade going in. At least Wade might be able to offer some physical relief, or even a draft of some sort strong enough to give a few hours’ sleep.
Farther along he encountered Sylvestra, looking so distraught she seemed on the verge of collapse. At least she had Fidelis Kynaston with her.
Rathbone spent the evening alone in his rooms, unable to eat or even to sit at his fire. He paced the floor, his mind turning over one useless fact after another, when his butler came to announce that Monk was in the hall.
“Monk!” Rathbone grasped at the very name as if it had been a raft for a drowning man. “Monk! Bring him in … immediately!”
Monk looked tired and pale. His hair dripped and his face was shining wet.
“Well?” Rathbone demanded, finding himself gulping air, his hands stiff, a tingling in his arms. “What have you?”
“I don’t know,” Monk answered bleakly. “I have no idea whether it makes things better or even worse. Leighton Duff was one of the rapists in Seven Dials, and then later in St. Giles.”
Rathbone was stunned. “What?” he said, his voice high with disbelief. It was preposterous, totally absurd. He must have misunderstood. “What did you say?”
“Leighton Duff was one of the rapists in both areas,” Monk repeated. “I have several people who will identify him, in particular a cabby who saw him in St. Giles on the night before Christmas Eve with blood on his hands and face, just after, one of the worst rapes. And Rhys was in Lowndes Square at a quiet evening with Mrs. Kynaston, Arthur Kynaston and Lady Sandon and her son.”
Rathbone felt a sense of shock so great the room seemed to sway around him.
