William Monk 03 - Defend and Betray

yourself.”
    Lovat-Smith started up from his seat, then changed his mind and subsided into it again.
    Very slowly Cassian turned for the first time and looked at Alexandra.
    A ghost of a smile forced itself across her features, but the pain in her face was fearful.
    Cassian looked back at Rathbone.
    “Yes sir.”
    “Did your father go on doing this—this new thing, right up until just before he died?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Did anyone else, any other man, ever do this to you?”
    There was total silence except for a low sigh from somewhere at the back of the gallery.
    “We know from other people that this is so, Cassian,” Rathbone said. “You have been very brave and very honest so far. Please do not lie to us now. Did anyone else do this to you?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Who else, Cassian?”
    He glanced at the judge, then back at Rathbone.
    “I can’t say, sir. I was sworn to secrecy, and a gentleman doesn’t betray.”
    “Indeed,” Rathbone said with a note of temporary defeat in his voice. “Very well. We shall leave the subject for now. Thank you. Mr. Lovat-Smith?”
    Lovat-Smith rose and took Rathbone’s place in front of the witness stand. He spoke to Cassian candidly, quietly, man to man.
    “You kept this secret from your mother, you said?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “You never told her, not even a little bit?”
    “No sir.”
    “Do you think she knew about it anyway?”
    “No sir, I never told her. I promised not to!” He watched Lovat-Smith as he had watched Rathbone.
    “I see. Was that difficult to do, keep this secret from her?”
    “Yes sir—but I did.”
    “And she never said anything to you about it, you are quite sure?”
    “No sir, never.”
    “Thank you. Now about this other man. Was it one, or more than one? I am not asking you to give me names, just a number. That would not betray anyone.”
    Hester glanced up at Peverell in the gallery, and saw guilt in his face, and a fearful pity. But was the guilt for complicity, or merely for not having known? She felt sick in case it were complicity.
    Cassian thought for a moment or two before replying.
    “Two, sir.”
    “Two others?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Thank you. That is all. Rathbone?”
    “No more, thank you, for now. But I reserve the right to recall him, if it will help discover who these other men are.”
    “I will permit that,” the judge said quickly. “Thank you, Cassian. For the moment you may go.”
    Carefully, his legs shaking, Cassian climbed down the steps, only stumbling a little once, and then walked across the floor and disappeared out of the door with the bailiff. There was a movement around the court, murmurs of outrage and compassion. Someone called out to him. The judge started forward, but it was already done, and the words had been of encouragement. It was pointless to call order or have the offender searched for.
    “I call Felicia Carlyon,” Rathbone said loudly.
    Lovat-Smith made no objection, even though she had not been in Rathbone’s original list of witnesses and hence had been in the court all through the other testimony.
    There was a rustle of response and anticipation. But the mood of the crowd had changed entirely. It was no longer pity which moved them towards her, but pending judgment.
    She took the stand head high, body stiff, eyes angry and proud. The judge required that she unveil her face, and she did so with disdainful obedience. She swore the oath in a clear, ringing voice.
    “Mrs. Carlyon,” Rathbone began, standing in front ofher, “you appear here on subpoena. You are aware of the testimony that has been given so far.”
    “I am. It is wicked and malicious lies. Miss Buchan is an old woman who has served in my family’s house for forty years, and has become deranged in her old age. I cannot think where a spinster woman gets such vile fancies.” She made a gesture of disgust. “All I can suppose is that her natural instincts for womanhood have been warped and she has turned on men, who rejected her, and this is the outcome.”
    “And Valentine Furnival?” Rathbone asked. “He is hardly an elderly and rejected spinster. Nor a servant, old and dependent, who dare not speak ill of an employer.”
    “A boy with a boy’s carnal fantasies,” she replied. “We all know that growing children have feverish imaginations. Presumably someone did use him as he says, for which I have the natural pity anyone would. But it is wicked and irresponsible of him to say it was my son. I daresay