by Anne Perry
Of course, Hester would be there. She would be trying every last instant there was, racking her brain for anything to do to help, lying awake at night, worrying and hurting for him.
And when it was all over, even if he was criticized, ridiculed and disgraced for his foolishness, his alliance against the establishment, she would be there to stand beside him. She would help to defend him to others, even if in private she castigated him with her tongue. She would urge him to get up and fight again, face the world regardless of its anger or contempt. The greater his need, the more certainly would she be there.
He recalled with a surge of warmth how she had knelt in front of him in his own worst hour, when he was terrified and appalled, how she had pleaded with him, and browbeaten him into the courage to keep on struggling. Even at the very darkest moment, when she must have faced the possibility of his guilt, it had never entered her mind to abandon him. Her loyalty went beyond trust in innocence or in victory, it was the willingness to be there in defeat, even in one which was deserved.
She had none of Evelyn’s magic, her beauty or glorious charm. But there was something about her clean courage and her undeviating honor which now seemed infinitely desirable—like ice-cold pure water when one is cloyed with sugar and parched with thirst.
“Thank you,” he said stiffly. “I am sure it is delightful, but I have a duty in London … and friends … for whom I care.” He bowed with almost Germanic formality, touching his heels. “Your company has been utterly delightful, Baroness, but it is time I returned to reality. Good night … and good-bye.”
Her face dropped slack with amusement, then tightened into a blazing, incredulous rage.
Monk walked back towards the staircase and the way out.
8
ON THE LONG and tedious journey home, Monk turned over in his mind what he could tell Rathbone that could be of any service to him in the case. He reviewed it in his mind over and over again, but no matter how many times he did, there was nothing of substance that could be used to defend Zorah Rostova. Whichever of the couple had been the intended victim, there was no way in which Gisela could be guilty.
The only mitigating fact was the extreme likelihood that Friedrich had indeed been murdered.
On arrival in London, Monk went straight to his rooms in Fitzroy Street and unpacked his cases. He had a steaming bath and changed his linen. He requested his landlady to bring him a hot cup of tea, something which he had not had since leaving home over two weeks before. Then he felt as ready as he could be to present himself at Vere Street. He dreaded delivering such news, but there was no alternative.
Rathbone did not pretend any of the usual preliminary courtesies. He opened his office door as soon as he heard Monk’s voice speaking to Simms. He looked as perfectly dressed as always, but Monk saw the signs of tiredness and strain in his face.
“Good afternoon, Monk,” he said immediately. “Come in.” He glanced at the clerk. “Thank you, Simms.” He stood aside to allow Monk past him into the office.
“Shall I bring tea, Sir Oliver?” Simms asked, glancing from one to the other of them. He knew the importance of the case and of the news which Monk might bring. He had already read from Monk’s manner that it was not good.
“Oh … yes, by all means.” Rathbone was looking not at Simms but at Monk. He searched Monk’s eyes and saw defeat in them. “Thank you,” he added, his voice carrying his disappointment, too heavy for his self-mastery to conceal it.
Inside, he closed the door and walked stiffly around his desk to the far side. He pulled his chair back and sat down.
Monk sat in the nearer one.
Rathbone did not cross his legs as usual, nor did he lean back. His face was calm and his eyes direct, but there was fear in them as he regarded Monk.
Monk saw no purpose in telling the story in chronological order. It would only spin out the tension.
“I think it very probable Friedrich was murdered,” he said flatly. “We have every cause to raise the issue, and we may even be able to prove it, with good luck and considerable skill. But there is no possibility that Gisela is guilty.”
Rathbone stared back without replying.
“There really is none,” Monk repeated. He hated having to say this. It was the same feeling of helplessness again, carrying all the old sense of watching while someone you ought to save was suffering, losing. He owed Rathbone nothing, and it was entirely his own fault that he had taken such an absurd case, but all that touched his reason, not his emotions.
He took a deep breath. “Friedrich was her life. She did not have a lover, and neither did he. Friend and enemy alike knew that they adored each other. They did nothing apart. Every evidence I found indicates they were still as deeply in love as in the beginning.”
“But duty?” Rathbone urged. “Was there a plot to invite him back to Felzburg to lead the fight for independence, or not?”
“Almost certainly—”
“Then …”
“Then nothing!” Monk said tartly. “He didn’t bow to duty twelve years ago, and nothing whatever suggests there has been the slightest change.”
Rathbone clenched his fist on the desk, his knuckles shining. “Twelve years ago his country was not facing forced unification with the rest of the German states. Surely he had that much honor in him—that much patriotism and sense of who he was. Damn it, Monk, he was born to be king!”
Monk heard the rising desperation in Rathbone’s voice. He could see it in his eyes, in the spots of color in his cheeks. He had nothing whatever with which to help. Everything he knew made it worse.
“He was a man who gave up everything for the woman he loved,” he said clearly and levelly. “And there is nothing … absolutely nothing … to indicate that he ever, for a moment, regretted that decision. If his people wanted him back, then they would have to take his wife with him. The decision was theirs, and apparently he had always believed they would make it in her favor.”
Rathbone stared at him.
The silence in the room was so heavy the clock seemed to bang out the seconds. The muffled clatter of the traffic beyond the windows came from another world.
“What?” Rathbone said at last. “What is it, Monk? What is it that you are not telling me?”
“That there seems to me every possibility that Friedrich was not the intended victim, but Gisela herself,” he replied. He was about to go on, explaining why, but he saw the understanding of it already there in Rathbone’s face.
“Who?” Rathbone said huskily.
“Perhaps Zorah herself. She is an ardent independent.”
Rathbone paled.
“Or anyone else who was of the independent party,” Monk went on. “The worst possibility—”
“Worst!” Rathbone’s voice was high and sharp with sarcasm. “Worse than my own client?”
“Yes.” Monk could not withhold the truth.
Rathbone glared at him with disbelief.
Monk struck the blow. “Count Lansdorff. The Queen’s brother, acting on her behalf.”
Rathbone tried to speak, but his voice failed him. His face was paper white.
“I’m sorry,” Monk said inadequately. “But that is the truth. You can’t fight without knowing it. Opposing Counsel will find it out, if he’s any good at all. She’ll tell him, if nothing else.”
Rathbone continued to stare at him.
“Of course she will!” Monk banged the desk impatiently. “Queen Ulrike drove her out in the first place. If Ulrike had been for her, instead of against her, twelve years ago, Gisela might be crown princess now. She knows that. There can’t be any love lost on either side. But this time Gisela held the winning hand. If they wanted Friedrich back, it would be on his terms … which would include his wife.”
“Would it?” Rathbone was clinging to straws. “You think he would insist, even in these circumstances?”
“Wouldn’t you?” Monk demanded. “Apart from his love for her, which nobody anywhere questions, what would the world think o
f him if he abandoned her now? It is an ugly picture of a man setting aside a wife of twelve years, when anyone with brains can see that he doesn’t have to. He can’t plead duty when he has the power… ”
“Unless Gisela is dead,” Rathbone finished for him. “Yes, all right … I see the logic of it. It is unarguable. The Queen had every reason to want Gisela dead, and none at all to want to kill Friedrich. Oh, God! And the Lord Chancellor told me to handle the defense with suitable discretion.” He started to laugh, but there was a bitterness in it which was close to hysteria.
“Stop it!” Monk snapped, panic rising inside him too. He was failing again. Rathbone was not only without a defense, he was losing his self-control as well. “It is not your duty to protect the Felzburg royal family. You must defend Zorah Rostova the best way you can … now that you’ve said you will.” His tone conveyed his opinion of that decision. “I assume you have done everything you can to persuade her to withdraw?”
Rathbone glared at him. “Quite. And failed.”
“Well, we may at least be able to convince a jury that a reasonable person could believe it was murder,” Monk said, watching Rathbone’s face. “You will be able to put the doctor on the stand and question him pretty rigorously.”
Rathbone shut his eyes. “An exhumation?” The words came out between stiff lips. “The Lord Chancellor will love that! Are you sure we have grounds for it? We will need something incontrovertible. The authorities will be very loath to do it. Abdicated or not, he was the Crown Prince of a foreign country.”
“He is buried in England, though,” Monk replied. “He died here. That makes him subject to British law. And he not only abdicated but was exiled. He was no longer a citizen of his own country.” He leaned a little over the desk. “But it may not be necessary actually to exhume the body. Simply the knowledge that we could, and would, might be sufficient to provide some considerably more precise answers from the doctor and from the Wellboroughs and their servants.”
Rathbone stood up and walked towards the window, his back to the room. He pushed his hands into his pockets, dragging them out of shape uncharacteristically. His body was rigid.
“I suppose proving that it was murder is about the only course left to me. At least that will show she was not merely mischievous, only grossly mistaken. If it is shown, beyond any doubt, that Gisela is innocent, perhaps she may still apologize. If she doesn’t, there is nothing left I can do to help her. I will have taken on a madwoman as a client.”
Monk intended to be tactful, and so refrained from comment, but his silence was just as eloquent.
Rathbone turned from the window, the sun at his back. He had regained some command of himself. His smile was rueful and self-mocking.
“Then perhaps you had better try Wellborough Hall again and see if you can find something in more detail than before. The only real victory left would be to discover who did kill him. It would not vindicate Zorah in law, but it might, to some extent, in public opinion, and that is what we are fighting almost as much. Please God it was not the Queen!”
Monk stood up. “Between now and next Monday?”
Rathbone nodded. “If you please.”
Monk felt time closing in. He was being asked more than he could possibly do. It frightened him because he wanted to succeed. If he failed, Rathbone was going to lose a great deal, perhaps the glamour and the prizes of his profession. He would not recover his prestige after a loss not due to circumstance but to a misjudgment as grave as this. Zorah was not merely guilty of some crime, she was guilty of a social sin of monumental proportions. She would have offended the sensibilities and beliefs of both the aristocracy and the ordinary people who delighted in a love story and fairy tale come true, and who had believed it for twelve years. It tainted not only the royalty of Europe but their own royalty as well. It was one thing to criticize the establishment in the privacy of one’s home or around the dinner tables of friends; it was something quite different to expose their faults in a courtroom for the world to behold. A man who caused that, and protected the woman who was at the root of it, could not easily be forgiven.
If it should turn out to be Ulrike, or someone acting in her interests, with her knowledge or not, it would be catastrophic. Rathbone would become a celebrity, remembered only for this one startling case. Everyone would know his name, but no respectable person would want to be associated with him. His professional reputation would be worthless.
He had no right to place Monk in the position of having to rescue him from his own stupidity. And Monk resented appallingly that he could not do it. It was the same failure over again, and it hurt.
“Perhaps it might help to know what you have learned and achieved over the last two weeks, while I have been chasing over half of Europe to discover Gisela’s complete innocence,” he said cuttingly. “Apart from failing to persuade Countess Rostova to withdraw her accusation, that is.”
Rathbone looked at him with amazement and then intense dislike. “I employ you, Monk,” he said icily. “You do not employ me. If the time comes when you do, then you may require me to report my doings to you, but not until.”
“In other words, you’ve done nothing of use!”
“If you don’t think you can discover anything useful at Wellborough Hall,” Rathbone retaliated, “then tell me. Otherwise, don’t waste what little time there is arguing. Get on your way. If you need money, ask Simms.”
Monk was profoundly stung, not so much by the slight to his abilities, he could have foreseen that, and perhaps he deserved it, but the reference to money was cruel. It placed him on a level with a tradesman, which was precisely what Rathbone had intended. It was a reminder of their social and financial difference. It was also a mark of how frightened Rathbone was.
“I won’t discover anything,” Monk said through clenched teeth. “There isn’t any damn thing to discover.” And he swung on his heels and went out of the door, leaving it swinging on its hinges.
However, he was obliged to go to Simms and ask for more money, which galled his temper so much he almost did not do it, but necessity prevailed.
It was only when he was outside in the street that he cooled down sufficiently to remember just how frightened Rathbone was. That he would let himself lash out at Monk showed his vulnerability more than anything else he could have done or said.
Monk did not consciously decide to go to see Hester, it simply seemed the natural thing to do, given Rathbone’s dilemma and Monk’s own feelings of fury and helplessness. When things were at their worst, there was a gentleness in her he could trust absolutely. She would never fail.
He saw a hansom a dozen yards ahead of him along Vere Street as he was striding along the pavement. He increased his pace, calling out. The cab stopped, and he swung up into the seat, calling out the address on Hill Street where he knew Hester had been employed before he had left for Venice, assuming she would still be there. He disliked acknowledging a feeling of urgency to see her, but it filled him till no other thought was possible, and there was a perverse pleasure in the cleanness of it, after the memory of Evelyn.
It was a long way from the area of Lincoln’s Inn Fields to Berkeley Square and Hill Street, and he settled back in his seat for the ride. It had been exciting to be in Europe, to see different sights, smell the utterly different smells of a foreign city, hear the sounds of other languages around him, but there was a unique pleasure in being home again amongst what was familiar. He realized only then how tense he had been when he did not understand most of what was being said and he had to concentrate for the occasional word which made sense and to deduce from actions and expressions what was meant. He had been very dependent upon the goodwill of others. There was a great freedom in being back in the surroundings where he had knowledge—and the power that gave.
He had very little idea of what he wanted to say to Hester. It was a turmoil in his mind, a matter of emotion rather than thought. It would fall into order when he needed it to. He was not ready yet.
<
br /> The cab reached Hill Street, and the driver pulled up the horse and waited for Monk to alight and pay him.
“Thank you,” Monk said absently, handing over the coins and tuppence extra. He walked across the footpath and went up the steps. It crossed his mind that it might be inconvenient for Hester to receive callers, especially a man. It might even be embarrassing if her employers misunderstood. But he did not even hesitate in his stride, much less change his mind. He pulled the bell hard and waited.
The door opened, and a footman faced him.
“Good afternoon, sir?”
“Good afternoon.” Monk did not feel like exchanging pleasantries, but experience had taught him that it was frequently the fastest way to obtain what he wished. He produced a card and laid it on the salver. “Is Miss Hester Latterly still residing in this house? I have just returned from abroad and must leave again this evening for the country. There is a matter of urgency concerning a mutual friend about which I would like to inform her and perhaps ask her advice.” He had not lied, but his words implied a medical emergency, and he was happy to leave the misunderstanding.
“Yes, sir, she is still with us,” the footman replied. “If you care to come in, I will inquire if it is possible for you to see her.”
Monk was shown to the library, a most agreeable place to wait. The room was comfortably furnished in a rather old-fashioned manner. The leather upholstery was worn where arms had rested on the chairs, and the pattern in the carpet was brighter around the edges, where no one had trodden. A fire burned briskly in the grate. There were hundreds of books from which he could have chosen to read, had he wished, but he was too impatient even to open one, let alone concentrate on the words inside. He paced back and forth, turning sharply every seven paces.
It was over ten minutes before the door opened and Hester came in. She was dressed in deep blue, which was unusually becoming to her. She looked nothing like as tired as the last time he had seen her. In fact, she looked very fresh; there was color in her complexion and a rich sheen on her hair. He was instantly annoyed. Did she not care that Rathbone was on the brink of disaster? Or was she too stupid to appreciate the magnitude of it?
