AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“But you believe him?” Miriam said curiously. “Why?”
Beata hesitated. What was her own dignity worth? No one’s life!
“Because I know Oliver Rathbone well, and he has known Monk for fourteen years through good times and bad, and he believes him absolutely. They have fought some fierce battles side by side, and never failed each other. Monk never gave up on Oliver when he was in terrible trouble and facing ruin.”
Miriam smiled with quick, complete understanding. “You know him well? Sir Oliver Rathbone?” All the light and shadows of meaning were there in the question: pain again, and the sharp, empty feeling of loss.
“Yes,” Beata answered.
“And I think perhaps you are fond of him?” Miriam asked. The shadows in her eyes, in her face, showed plainly that it was not an idle question.
Another stripping away of the masks of comfort. Beata felt almost naked. She found herself avoiding Miriam’s eyes, not because she was lying, but because she could not bear this poised, beautiful woman, so deeply loved, to see into her feelings. One thing would lead to another until everything was laid bare.
“I find him very agreeable,” Beata answered. How empty that sounded, and how artificial. Surely Miriam would see right through it? Would she imagine something far more…intimate? She felt the blood hot i
n her face, as if she had lied already.
She must remember what she was here for. “Miriam…I want to help Oliver to defend Monk, and win. McNab has nursed a long revenge, sixteen years long. It was not Monk’s fault McNab’s half brother committed a crime for which he was hanged. Even if revenge is ever just, which I am not certain it is, this one is not.”
Miriam gave a tiny, sad smile. “McNab’s revenge is not just, but society’s revenge on his brother was?”
“Monk was not guilty of Nairn’s crime, and he isn’t guilty of killing Pettifer. But he’ll hang for it if we don’t find the truth, and prove it. Do you remember him from San Francisco? I suspect McNab is going to try to link Monk somehow with Piers’s death, in order to show a pattern of violent behavior.”
Miriam looked stunned. “But that’s…that’s absurd! Why on earth would Monk have killed Piers?”
“I don’t know!” Beata tried not to sound impatient. “Maybe for money. Heaven’s sake, Miriam, there were enough adventurers along the Californian coast who would do anything for enough money to get a stake to buy land that might have gold. Life was wild and terrible and exhilarating…and deep. Of course Monk would have fit in then, as a young man looking for the chance of adventure and a future.”
Miriam seemed to look for words without finding them, unable to comprehend what she was hearing.
Beata dismissed it. “Never mind. What did you want McNab to do, and what does he want from you?”
Miriam remained silent.
The parlor maid came in with tea, put the tray on the table, and left, closing the door behind her.
Miriam poured the tea for each of them. She remembered exactly how Beata liked it, with no milk, and a tiny drop of honey.
“What do you want from McNab?” Beata repeated.
Miriam passed the tea across and Beata took it. “I suppose you will tell Rathbone if I don’t explain it to you,” she said.
Beata put the cup down. With no milk in it, the tea would be scalding hot. “Yes. I’m not going to let McNab have his revenge.”
Miriam smiled, but there was sadness in her eyes. “You always were more straitlaced than you looked. Still, I’m surprised you stayed married to a High Court judge. It must have been like wearing an iron corset….”
“Red-hot iron…”
“I’m sorry. You think I don’t know, but I do.”
“Do you?” Beata doubted it.
“There are different kinds of pain: that the loss of dreams leaves, and the pain of emptiness that gradually starves the soul.”
“McNab…” Beata reminded her. Only the present mattered now.
“He wanted information about Monk, and the gold rush years,” Miriam replied.
It all made sense. “I see. And what did you want from him in return?”
