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Her temper snapped. “Don’t answer every question with another question, Oliver! For the love of heaven, be honest for once!”
He felt as if he had been slapped. He knew the color burned up his face. “That is honest, Margaret. I gave Warne the picture so he had a choice of defending the ordinary, trusting men and women whom Drew was slandering and holding up to public mockery. They deserved that.”
“You hypocrite!” Her voice was very nearly a shout, her face dark with fury. “You can introduce that filthy photograph into the courtroom and sit there full of righteous indignation as if you knew nothing about it. I’m glad they found out that it was you who gave it to Warne. You can’t hide anymore. Everyone will know you for what you are.”
The lash of her tongue hurt so sharply that for a moment he could hardly draw breath to defend himself.
She mistook his silence for weakness. “I wish my father were alive to see this,” she went on, choking a little on her own words. “It would be perfect. Well, at least I am here. And believe me, I will watch with pleasure.”
“I’m sure your father’s appreciation would be the sharpest of all,” he said bitterly. “That is why he had the pictures in the first place, to bring about justice that could be forced no other way. I understood that in him-obviously far more than you did, or do even now.”
She froze, her face white. “Liar! How dare you suggest such a thing to me? Is that your defense? To blame a dead man you have made sure cannot speak for himself? Well, I can speak for him, and I will. The world will see you for what you are-a man who places pride and opportunism before everything else: before family or honor, or even human decency.”
He struggled for something to say that would put them back on common ground, some shared belief. They had cared for each other once.
She was not prepared to wait for him.
“I will not discuss my father with you. For you to suggest you are alike in anything is an insult to him, and I won’t listen. I came to tell you that I am consulting a lawyer-a friend of my father’s, who still has some regard toward the family-because I do not wish to remain connected to you in any way, least of all in the public mind. I don’t think it will be difficult, in the circumstances you have created, for me to obtain a divorce. I will revert to my maiden name. I no longer wish to be known as Margaret Rathbone. I imagine you can understand that, but if you don’t it really doesn’t matter to me. I am informing you simply as a matter of courtesy.”
He should have been expecting it. It was the perfect opportunity for her to set herself free. She did not have to accuse him of anything, not that there were many excuses for a woman to divorce her husband. She could not claim infidelity, as a man could against his wife. But society would never blame her if she did not want to be associated with him when he was standing trial for perverting the course of justice.
Perhaps some would have admired her loyalty had she remained with him. He thought of other women he had known who had risked everything they possessed, even their lives, to prove the innocence of the husbands they loved
. But then the key to that loyalty was their love.
And those husbands had loved their wives with a matching depth and devotion.
He felt weary, as though his body were bruised from blow after blow. He did not want to go on fighting a battle he could not win. What would winning be, anyway? He could not persuade her to see the truth, still less care for him again. And if he were to tell himself the hard, bare truth, he no longer wanted her to care.
He looked at Margaret. Was there even any point in protesting, saying that it would have been nice had she at least given him the benefit of the doubt first, and got her blow in only after he was found guilty? There was nothing left to salvage: he hoped only to avoid sinking to the lowest in himself. He could force her to reason her way to the truth: that he could have gotten the pictures only from Ballinger, but she did not want to see that.
Anger and bitterness were twisting her face. She had once been so much better than that. She had known gentleness, laughter, purpose. Whether the loss of any of it was his fault or not didn’t really matter now.
“Do whatever you think is best,” he said quietly. “I shall instruct my solicitor to accommodate you.”
For a moment there was victory in her face; then it faded, as if the taste had not been what she expected it to be.
“Thank you,” she said in acknowledgment. “Good night.”
“Goodbye, Margaret,” he replied.
CHAPTER 11
“Where are you going to begin?” Hester asked Monk over the breakfast table. It was so early in the morning that Scuff was still upstairs getting ready to go to school.
Monk had no need to ask her what she was referring to. The only subject on both their minds was Oliver Rathbone. Monk had lain awake a good deal of the night wondering that same thing himself. He had listened to her even breathing in the dark, not certain if it were actually so even as to indicate that she was deliberately pretending to be asleep; but he had not asked, even in a whisper, because he had no comfort or assurance to offer.
Now she was ignoring her toast and watching him, waiting for his reply, her eyes shadowed and her face tense. He wished he had something positive to say.
“The best thing would be if I could find something to prove that Taft’s death had nothing to do with Oliver,” he replied.
She bit her lip and pulled her mouth tight. “He still gave Warne the picture. Isn’t that what they’re going to charge him with?”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But he could argue that he only realized it was Drew in the photograph when the case was about to close. But yes, of course he should have stepped down.”
“William, he hated what Drew and Taft were doing to those people,” she said grimly. “It revolted him as much as it did us. He did it to ruin Drew’s testimony because he didn’t want those slimy men to get away with it. People are going to know that. But he should have introduced the evidence some other way, so it wasn’t sprung on Gavinton.”
“That is true, and that is what the prosecution will say,” he conceded. “But if Gavinton had had time to prepare a defense, he might have had the picture disallowed, and then its value would have been nothing. As it was, no one else saw it, but they all saw the look of revulsion on Gavinton’s face, and they knew damned well that Drew knew what it was.”
