William Monk 03 - Defend and Betray

pushed Thaddeus over the banister, then followed him down and picked up the halberd and drove it into his body as he lay unconscious at her feet! That’s pretty terrible. What could be worse?”
    Hester swallowed but did not look away from Damaris’s eyes.
    “Whatever you found out when you went upstairs to Valentine Furnival’s room before dinner—long before Thaddeus was killed.”
    The blood fled from Damaris’s face, leaving her looking ill and vulnerable, and suddenly far younger than she was.
    “That has nothing to do with what happened to Thaddeus,” she said very quietly. “Absolutely nothing. It was something else—something …” She hunched her shoulders and her voice trailed off. She pulled her feet a little higher.
    “I think it has.” Hester could not afford to be lenient.
    The ghost of a smile crossed Damaris’s mouth and vanished. It was self-mockery and there was no shred of happiness in it.
    “You are wrong. You will have to accept my word of honor for that.”
    “I can’t. I accept that you believe it. I don’t accept you are right.”
    Damaris’s face pinched. “You don’t know what it was, and I shall not tell you. I’m sorry, but it won’t help Alexandra, and it is my—my grief, not hers.”
    Hester felt knotted up inside with shame and pity.
    “Do you know why Alexandra killed him?”
    “No.”
    “I do.”
    Damaris’s head jerked up, her eyes wide.
    “Why?” she said huskily.
    Hester took a deep breath.
    “Because he was committing sodomy and incest with his own son,” she said very quietly. Her voice sounded obscenely matter-of-fact in the silent room, as if she had made some banal remark that would be forgotten in a few moments, instead of something so dreadful they would both remember it as long as they lived.
    Damaris did not shriek or faint. She did not even look away, but her skin was whiter than before, and her eyes hollower.
    Hester realized with an increasing sickness inside that, far from disbelieving her, Damaris was not even surprised. It was as if it were a long-expected blow, coming at last. So Monk had been right. She had discovered that evening that Peverell was involved. Hester could have wept for her, for the pain. She longed to touch her, to take her in her arms as she would a weeping child, but it was useless. Nothing could reach or fold that wound.
    “You knew, didn’t you?” she said aloud. “You knew it that night!”
    “No I didn’t.” Damaris’s voice was flat, almost without expression, as if something in her were already destroyed.
    “Yes you did. You knew Peverell was doing it too, and to Valentine Furnival. That’s why you came down almost beside yourself with horror. You were close to hysterical. I don’t know how you kept any control at all. I wouldn’t have—I don’t think—”
    “Oh God—no!” Damaris was moved to utter horror at last. “No!” She uncurled herself so violently she half-fell off the settee, landing awkwardly on the ground. “No. No, I didn’t. Not Pev. How could you even think such a thing? It’s—it’s—wild—insane. Not Pev!”
    “But you knew.” For the first time Hester doubted. “Wasn’t that what you discovered when you went up to Valentine’s room?”
    “No.” Damaris was on the floor in front of her, splayedout like a colt, her long legs at angles, and yet she was absolutely natural. “No! Hester—dear heaven, please believe me, it wasn’t.”
    Hester struggled with herself. Could it be the truth?
    “Then what was it?” She frowned, racking her mind. “You came down from Valentine’s room looking as if you’d seen the wrath of heaven. Why? What else could you possibly have found out? It was nothing to do with Alexandra or Thaddeus—or Peverell, then what?”
    “I can’t tell you!”
    “Then I can’t believe you. Rathbone is going to call you to the stand. Cassian was abused by his father, his grandfather—I’m sorry—and someone else. We have to know who that other person was, and prove it. Or Alexandra will hang.”
    Damaris was so pale her skin looked gray, as if she had aged in moments.
    “I can’t. It—it would destroy Pev.” She saw Hester’s face. “No. No, it isn’t that. I swear by God—it isn’t.”
    “No one will believe you,” Hester said very quietly, although even as she said it, she knew it was a lie—she believed it. “What else could it be?”
    Damaris bowed her head in her hands and began to speak very quietly, her voice aching