William Monk 03 - Defend and Betray

tension in her body, the tight shoulders under the cotton blouse, and her hands clenched on her knees. “In fact, she made no secret that she had quarreled bitterly with him, and would do all she could to aid you—even at the cost of her husband’s anger.”
    Alexandra said nothing, but he could feel her emotion as if it were an electric charge in the room.
    “She said he was arbitrary and dictatorial—that he had forced her into a marriage against her will,” he went on.
    She stood up and turned away from him.
    Then again he had a sudden jolt of memory so sharp it was like a physical blow. He had been here before, stood in a cell with a small fanlight like this, and watched another slender woman with fair hair that curled at her neck. She too had been charged with killing her husband, and he had cared about it desperately.
    Who was she?
    The image was gone and all he could recapture was a shaft of dim light on hair, the angle of a shoulder, and a gray dress, skirts too long, sweeping the floor. He could recall no more, no voice, certainly no faintest echo of a face, nothing—eyes, lips—nothing at all.
    But the emotion was there. It had mattered to him so fiercely he had thrown all his mind and will into defending her.
    But why? Who was she?
    Had he succeeded? Or had she been hanged?
    Was she innocent—or guilty?
    Alexandra was talking, answering him at last.
    “What?”
    She swung around, her eyes bright and hard.
    “You come in here with a cruel tongue and no—no gentleness, no—no sensibility at all. You ask the harshest questions.” Her voice caught in her throat, gasping for breath. “You remind me of my daughter whom I shall probably never see again, except across the rail of a courtroom dock—and then you haven’t even the honor to listen to my answers! What manner of man are you? What do you really want here?”
    “I am sorry!” he said with genuine shame. “My thoughts were absent for only a moment—a memory … a—a painful one—of another time like this.”
    The anger drained out of her. She shrugged her shoulders, turning away again.
    “It doesn’t matter. None of it makes any difference.”
    He pulled his thoughts together with an effort.
    “Your daughter quarreled with her father that evening …”
    Instantly she was on guard again, her body rigid, her eyes wary.
    “She has a very fierce temper, Mrs. Carlyon—she seemed to be on the edge of hysteria when I was there. In fact I gathered that her husband was anxious for her.”
    “I already told you.” Her voice was low and hard. “She has not been well since the birth of her child. It happens sometimes. It is one of the perils of bearing children. Ask anyone who is familiar with childbirth—and …”
    “I know that,” he agreed. “Women quite often become temporarily deranged—”
    “No! Sabella was ill—that’s all.” She came forward, so close he thought she was going to grasp his arm, then she stood still with her hands by her sides. “If you are trying tosay that it was Sabella who killed Thaddeus, and not I, then you are wrong! I will confess it in court, and will certainly hang”—she said the word plainly and deliberately, like pushing her hand into a wound—“rather than allow my daughter to take the blame for my act. Do you understand me, Mr. Monk?”
    There was no jar of memory, nothing even faintly familiar. The echo was as far away now as if he had never heard it.
    “Yes, Mrs. Carlyon. It is what I would have expected you to say.”
    “It is the truth.” Her voice rose and there was a note of desperation in it, almost of pleading. “You must not accuse Sabella! If you are employed by Mr. Rathbone—Mr. Rathbone is my lawyer. He cannot say what I forbid him to.”
    It was half a statement, half a reassurance to herself.
    “He is also an officer of the court, Mrs. Carlyon,” he said with sudden gentleness. “He cannot say something which he knows beyond question to be untrue.”
    She stared at him without speaking.
    Could his memory have something to do with that older woman who wept without distorting her face? She had been the wife of the man who had taught him so much, upon whom he had modeled himself when he first came south from Northumberland. It was he who had been ruined, cheated in some way, and Monk had tried so hard to save him, and failed.
    But the image that had come to him today was of a young woman, another woman like Alexandra, charged with murdering her husband. And he