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‘Small, compared to the news that she was Russell’s legitimate wife, and I was a bigamist, and my children had no standing at all,’ she replied, her voice a little shaky.
‘But you believed it?’
‘She had her marriage lines with her. I could hardly refute it.’
‘You believed her that there had been no divorce?’
‘Russell told me he had never married before. If there had been a divorce, he would have said so, surely. Yes, I believed her. She had come to reclaim her place, now that there was a title and money. If she were divorced, then she would have no claim. There would be no point in her coming.’
‘What did she expect you to do?’
‘I don’t know. I was so horrified I called her a liar and said I would fight her . . . that . . . that was when she lunged at me and I stepped back, and she slipped. I . . . she . . . she slapped me, and I slapped her back. I think she was so surprised, she stepped away and turned her ankle, and fell sideways.’ Her voice was shaking. ‘She struck her head on the corner of the hearthstone . . . and . . . she didn’t move. Not at all. I stood for a moment, expecting her to rise, but she didn’t. She didn’t move . . . even to . . . breathe. I bent over her, and that’s when I realised she wasn’t breathing.’
‘You knew that?’ Daniel asked.
‘I do now. Then I thought . . . I thought she was merely insensible. I stood up and I called for Sarah, my daughter. I knew she was in her own room.’
‘Why?’
‘I thought she could help me lift her up, maybe put her on the bed, and . . . revive her. I told her to bring smelling salts. They’re very sharp. If you faint . . .’
‘And did she?’
‘Yes, she brought the salts . . . but as soon as she kneeled by the woman and touched her, she realised she was dead. I told her what had happened . . .’ Ebony looked desperate. She had at first refused to involve Sarah at all, but Daniel had told her she would not be believed if she said she had managed to lift the body without any help at all. And to implicate her lady’s maid was not only untrue, it was monstrously unfair. And above all, would not be believed. Sarah herself would not allow it.
‘And did Sarah help you to change the clothes on the dead woman to those you were wearing
? And the boots also?’ Daniel prompted.
Grisewood might have objected that Daniel was leading the witness, but he had nothing to gain from it, and sat instead with a half-smile on his face, almost a sneer of disbelief.
‘Yes,’ Ebony admitted reluctantly.
‘When the clothes were changed, you placed her back where she had originally fallen?’
‘Yes.’
‘You dressed in other clothes, leaving hers in your wardrobe, and then you left the house?’
‘Yes.’ Ebony’s voice was growing fainter as she relived the horror.
‘Allowing Sarah to identify the body as yours?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why? Why did you do that, Miss Cumberford? Why not simply report the death, that she had attacked you, and slipped and fallen?’
‘It would have come out who she was . . . and therefore that I was . . . that my children were illegitimate.’
‘Is that all?’
She stared at him with anger in her face, and utter misery. ‘No. I was afraid of being beaten again. I was tired of it, and frightened. It hurts when your bones are broken, it hurts appallingly. I . . . I couldn’t take it another time.’ She did not add that Sarah had persuaded her to, although Sarah had told Daniel that herself. Ebony refused to compromise Sarah any more than she had to.
‘The last time you were beaten was just recently, was it not?’
She closed her eyes, as if she could not bear to see the expression of pity and revulsion on people’s faces. ‘Yes.’
‘Did he injure you?’
