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“What?” Rathbone was incredulous. The idea was inconceivable.
Athol misunderstood completely. “Don’t suppose the poor woman knows,” he put in. “Wouldn’t have brought the action if she did.” He shook his head, his face still bland and certain.
“Hester means what if the man is in love with the girl’s mother,” Gabriel enlightened him. “And even if she did know, it wouldn’t stop her bringing the suit, because she will hardly be likely to tell the father, will she?”
“Good God!” Athol was astounded.
Rathbone collected his wits. “I suppose it’s possible,” he said slowly, remembering Delphine’s lovely face, her delicacy, the grace with which she moved. Melville would not be the first young man to fall in love with an older woman. It had never entered Rathbone’s thoughts, and even now he found it exceedingly difficult. Delphine had seemed so genuinely betrayed. But then maybe she had no idea.
Hester’s mind was racing ahead. “Or perhaps the girl is in love with someone else and your client knows it,” she suggested. “It could be a matter of honor with him, the greatest gift to her he could give … and she dare not tell her parents, if this other person is unsuitable. Or on the other hand, it might be pride—he could not marry a woman he knew did not love him but did love someone else. I wouldn’t! No matter how willing he was to go through with it.”
Rathbone smiled. “I’m sure you wouldn’t. But there is an optimism, or an arrogance, in many of us which makes us believe we can teach someone to love us if only we have the chance.” Then he wondered immediately if he should have said that. Was it not too close to the unspoken, vulnerable core of what lay inside himself? Did he not dream that with the chance, the time, the intimacy, Hester would learn to love him with the passion of her nature, not merely the abiding friendship? It had never occurred to him before that he might have anything in common with Melville beyond a terror of being trapped into a marriage he did not want. But perhaps he had?
He found himself unable to meet her eyes. He looked away, at the curtains, through the window at the trees, then at Gabriel.
He saw a flash of something in Gabriel’s face which could have been understanding. Gabriel was intelligent, sensitive, and before his injury he must have been remarkably handsome. His was a world of loss which made Melville’s situation, and even Zillah Lambert’s hurt feelings, seem so trivial, so easy to settle with a word or two of goodwill and an ability to forgive. If they were to smile and remain friends, society would talk about it for a brief while, but only until the next scandal broke.
“I shall put it to him.” He turned to Hester at last. “Thank you for helping me to clarify my mind. I feel as if I have the case in better perspective.” He smiled at her, then looked again at Gabriel. “Thank you for your indulgence, Lieutenant Sheldon. You have been most gracious. I wish you a speedy return of health.”
Gabriel bade him good-bye, as did Athol, and Hester rose and went with him to the door. Out on the landing, she looked at him gravely, studying his face. Was she imagining something personal rather than professional in his coming? He would very much rather she did not. He was not ready to commit himself again.
“Thank you,” he repeated.” I—I find myself at a loss to understand the case, and I am afraid I shall be of little help to my client until I do. It all seems like needless pain at the moment. I have no defense to offer for him.”
“There must be something vital that you don’t know,” she said seriously. There was no disappointment in her face that he could see, and certainly no withdrawing, or sense of criticism, or hope deferred. The knot of anxiety eased inside him. He found himself smiling at nothing.
“I think you need to know what it is,” she went on. “It may be … physical.”
“I have thought of that,” he said truthfully. “But how do you ask a man such a thing? Most men would suffer anything, even imprisonment, rather than admit it.”
“I know,” she answered so softly it was little more than a whisper. “But there are euphemisms which could be used, white lies. A doctor could be found to swear he had some illness which would make marriage impossible. Her father would understand that, even if she did not.”
“Of course … thank you for clarifying the thought so well. I …” He bit his lip ruefully. “I admit I had not known how to phrase it to ask him. Although I am not at all sure that is the answer.”
“Well, if it is not, you need to learn what is.” She was perfectly direct. “You cannot afford to lose the case because you were unaware of the personal facts.”
“I know. Of course you are right. I suppose I shall have to learn them for myself”—he smiled suddenly, widely—“and charge my client accordingly. In which case I had better win!”
She smiled back and put out her hand to touch his with quick warmth, then started down the stairs to introduce him to Perdita Sheldon, who was standing at the bottom looking puzzled.
5
MONK STOOD near the fireplace in his rooms and stared at the flames as the coals settled in a shower of sparks. Oliver Rathbone had just left. He had been there for nearly two hours explaining all he knew about his present case and the details which troubled him. And indeed he had looked less assured than usual. The difference was subtle, an inflection of the voice, something in the way he stood, but to Monk, who knew him well, it was unmistakable.
From what he had said, one could only conclude that Killian Melville had not told him the entire truth of the reason for his sudden refusal to marry Zillah Lambert. What was less easy to understand was why he still refused to tell Rathbone, who was bound to keep his confidence.
As Monk stood warming himself by the dying embers he could not rid his mind of the fear that the problem was criminal. For all his urbane appearance, his smooth good manners, his supreme confidence, Oliver Rathbone was a man who took some extraordinary risks with his career. Perhaps he did not intend to be a crusader, but lately he had unwittingly become one. The Rostova case had nearly ruined him. This one, taken on impulse, looked unlikely to improve his reputation. Realistically, there seemed little he could accomplish for his client or gain for himself.
Their interview had been awkward. Rathbone hated coming to Monk for help when it was personal rather than because a client had requested it. He had begun a trifle stiffly.
Monk had been careful to hide his sardonic amusement—well, moderately careful. Such moments were too rare, and too pleasing, not to savor a little.
Now he must decide what to do, where to begin. It was also his professional reputation being tested now. Why does a young man court a woman, apparently in every way a desirable match, and then on the brink of marriage risk his financial, professional and social well-being by breaking off the betrothal?
Only for the most powerful of reasons.
It must be the Lambert family, Zillah herself, or something to do with Melville’s own situation. Presumably, since he seemed to have courted her up until the last moment, it was something he had only just discovered. Or else it was some matter to do with his own life which he had believed he could keep hidden, and circumstances had proved him mistaken.
Was he being blackmailed? It was a dark possibility, but one which would make sense of the presently inexplicable. Monk would begin, this afternoon, with Melville himself. The trial resumed on Monday morning, which gave him less than a day and a half in which to find something to help Rathbone.
