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She did not understand. It was time to put it into unmistakable words, words that could not be misunderstood or evaded anymore.
“Doing business with men who had made their money out of slaving … and it seems I knew it.” He must say it all. Easier now than raising the subject again later. “I was bargaining for Arrol Dundas, my mentor. I don’t know whether I told him that that was where the money came from … or not. Perhaps I misled him.”
For a moment she was silent. Time ballooned out to seem like eternity.
“I see,” she said at last. “Is that why you’ve been … away … these last few days?”
“Yes …” He wanted her to know how ashamed he was, he needed her to know it, but the words were too trite. None of them meant enough for the bitter weight of regret now that he should have allowed himself to be without honor. He had degraded his own worth.
She smiled, but her eyes were filled with sadness. She reached out her hand and touched his cheek. It was a soft gesture. It did not dismiss what he had done, or excuse it, but it set it in the past.
“You’ve looked back enough,” she said quietly. “If you profited from it, it’s gone now.”
He wanted to kiss her, to be as close as people can be, to hold her tightly and feel her answering strength, but he had created the gulf and it must be she who crossed it, otherwise he would never be sure she had wished to, that he had not precipitated it.
She looked at him a moment longer, weighing what he thought, what he felt, then she was satisfied. Her eyes filled with warmth and, smiling, she put her arms around him and kissed his lips.
Relief washed over him in a warm, sweet tide. He had never been more grateful for anything in his life. He responded to her with a whole heart.
Rathbone began his defense when the trial resumed in the morning. He wore an air of confidence he was far from feeling. There was still no trace of Shearer and no sign of where he had gone. Of course, with his shipping connections that could be anywhere in Europe-or the world, for that matter.
But juries liked a person they could see and whose guilt had been shown them, not a reasonable alternative who was nothing more than a name.
He must repair the damage Deverill had done, the emotional impression he had created in the jurors’ minds. He began by calling Merrit to the stand. He watched her walk across the floor of the court. Everyone in the room must have been aware of how nervous she was. It was there in the pallor of her face, in the slight misstep as she climbed up to the witness-box, and in the quaver of her voice as she took the oath.
Again Hester sat beside Judith. Monk had given his evidence and was free to return to searching for more information about Shearer, anything at all, however tiny, that would give proof of the theory that it was he alone who had planned the robbery and the murder, knowing he would sell the guns to Breeland, but without Breeland’s foreknowledge.
Rathbone began very gently leading Merrit through her story, starting as late in events as the day of the murders itself. He did not wish to open the subject of their early acquaintance, in case Deverill should pry out of it the appearance that Breeland had courted her not for herself but purely as a means to corrupt her into helping him obtain the guns. It might not be difficult to do, given her loyalty to him, her passion against slavery and how much she had already committed herself to the cause, and could not now retreat.
Beside Hester, Judith sat a little forward, her black, lace-gloved hands knotted together in her lap. She was listening to every word, watching every gesture, each expression of the face. Hester knew she was seeking meanings, hope, wrestling with fear, trying to outguess the future. She had been there too many times herself.
On Judith’s other side, Robert Casbolt, his evidence also given, was offering silent support. He was too wise to mouth comforting words that could have no meaning. Everything lay in the balance. It all depended on Rathbone, and Merrit.
“You quarreled with your father that evening,” Rathbone was saying, looking up at Merrit on the stand. “What about … precisely?”
She cleared her throat. “His selling guns to the Confederates instead of to the Union,” she answered. “I believed he should have found a way to get out of his bond to sell them to Mr. Trace, even though he had promised to. He should have given back the money Mr. Trace had paid in advance.”
“Did he still have that money?” Rathbone asked curiously.
“I …” It was very obvious she had never considered that possibility. “I … don’t know. I assumed …”
“That he had not paid for the guns with it?” he asked. “But he did not manufacture the guns, did he?”
“No …”
“Then it may not have been possible.”
“Well … I suppose … I thought he bought them first.” Involuntarily she glanced at Casbolt as she spoke, then back to Rathbone. “But if he still owed anything, I am sure he would have made some way … I mean, when Lyman … Mr. Breeland, paid for them in full, as he could, then anything my father owed could have been paid-couldn’t it.” She spoke with confidence, sure she had the solution.
“If indeed Breeland did have the money,” Rathbone agreed.
Hester knew what he was doing-demonstrating for the jury Merrit’s trust, her naivete, and her transparent belief that the dealings were legitimate. She did not yet see how he was going to extricate Breeland from the suspicion of deceit.
“But he did!” Merrit said urgently. “He actually paid it to Mr. Shearer, at Euston, when we took the guns.”
“Did you see that?” Rathbone enquired.
