William Monk 03 - Defend and Betray

it was his own father, and he wishes to protect him, and so charges another man, a dead man, who cannot defend himself.”
    “And Cassian?” Rathbone enquired with a dangerous edge to his voice.
    “Cassian,” she said, full of contempt. “A harassed and frightened eight-year-old. Good God, man! The father he adored has been murdered, his mother is like to be hanged for it—you put him on the stand in court, and you expect him to be able to tell you the truth about his father’s love for him. Are you half-witted, man? He will say anything you force out of him. I would not condemn a cat on that.”
    “Presumably your husband is equally innocent?” Rathbone said with sarcasm.
    “It is unnecessary even to say such a thing!”
    “But you do say it?”
    “I do.”
    “Mrs. Carlyon, why do you suppose Valentine Furnival stabbed your son in the upper thigh?”
    “God alone knows. The boy is deranged. If his father has abused him for years, he might well be so.”
    “Possibly,” Rathbone agreed. “It would change manypeople. Why was your son in the boy’s bedroom without his trousers on?”
    “I beg your pardon?” Her face froze.
    “Do you wish me to repeat the question?”
    “No. It is preposterous. If Valentine says so, then he is lying. Why is not my concern.”
    “But Mrs. Carlyon, the wound the general sustained in his upper inside leg bled copiously. It was a deep wound, and yet his trousers were neither torn nor marked with blood. They cannot have been on him at the time.”
    She stared at him, her expression icy, her lips closed.
    There was a murmur through the crowd, a movement, a whisper of anger suddenly suppressed, and then silence again.
    Still she did not speak.
    “Let us turn to the question of your husband, Colonel Randolf Carlyon,” Rathbone continued. “He was a fine soldier, was he not? A man to be proud of. And he had great ambitions for his son: he also should be a hero, if possible of even higher rank—a general, in fact. And he achieved that.”
    “He did.” She lifted her chin and stared down at him with wide, dark blue eyes. “He was loved and admired by all who knew him. He would have achieved even greater things had he not been murdered in his prime. Murdered by a jealous woman.”
    “Jealous of whom, her own son?”
    “Don’t be absurd—and vulgar,” she spat.
    “Yes it is vulgar, isn’t it,” he agreed. “But true. Your daughter Damaris knew it. She accidentally found them one day …”
    “Nonsense!”
    “And recognized it again in her own son, Valentine. Is she lying also? And Miss Buchan? And Cassian? Or are they all suffering from the same frenzied and perverted delusion—each without knowing the other, and in their own private hell?”
    She hesitated. It was manifestly ridiculous.
    “And you did not know, Mrs. Carlyon? Your husband abused your son for all those years, presumably until yousent him as a boy cadet into the army. Was that why you sent him so young, to escape your husband’s appetite?”
    The atmosphere in the court was electric. The jury had expressions like a row of hangmen. Charles Hargrave looked ill. Sarah Hargrave sat next to him in body, but her heart was obviously elsewhere. Edith and Damaris sat side by side with Peverell.
    Felicia’s face was hard, her eyes glittering.
    “Boys do go into the army young, Mr. Rathbone. Perhaps you do not know that?”
    “What did your husband do then, Mrs. Carlyon? Weren’t you afraid he would do what your son did, abuse the child of some friend?”
    She stared at him in frozen silence.
    “Or did you procure some other child for him, some boot-boy, perhaps,” he went on ruthlessly, “who would be unable to retaliate—safe. Safe from scandal—and—” He stopped, staring at her. She had gone so white as to appear on the edge of collapse. She gripped the railing in front of her and her body swayed. There was a long hiss from the crowd, an ugly sound, full of hate.
    Lovat-Smith rose to his feet.
    Randolf Carlyon let out a cry which strangled in his throat, and his face went purple. He gasped for breath and people on either side of him moved away, horrified and without compassion. A bailiff moved forward to him and loosened his tie roughly.
    Rathbone would not let the moment go by.
    “That is what you did, isn’t it, Mrs. Carlyon?” he pressed. “You procured another child for your husband. Perhaps a succession of children—until you judged him too old to be a danger anymore. But you