William Monk 03 - Defend and Betray

myself, but he had a name as a soldier’s soldier, a good-enough leader, inspiring, personally heroic, but outside uniform not a colorful man, tactically neither a hero nor a disaster.”
    “He did not fight in the Crimea, then?” she said too quickly for thought or consideration to guard her tongue. “They were all one or the other—mostly the other.”
    A smile puckered his lips against his will. He knew the army’s weaknesses, but they were a closed subject, like family faults, not to be exposed or even admitted to outsiders—least of all women.
    “No,” he said guardedly. “As I understand it he served most of his active time in India—and then spent a lot of years here at home, in high command, training younger officers and the like.”
    “What was his personal reputation? What did people think of him?” She straightened his blanket yet again, quite unnecessarily but from habit.
    “I’ve no idea.” He seemed surprised to be asked. “Never heard anything at all. I told you—he was not personally a colorful man. For heaven’s sake, do go and see Mrs. Sobell. You have to discover the truth in the matter and save poor Mrs. Carlyon—or the daughter.”
    “Yes, Major. I am about to go.” And without adding anything further except a farewell, she left him alone to think and imagine until she should return.
    * * *
    Edith met her with a quick, anxious interest, rising from the chair where she had been sitting awkwardly, one leg folded under her. She looked tired and too pale for her dark mourning dress to flatter her. Her long fair hair was already pulled untidy, as if she had been running her hand over her head and had caught the strands of it absentmindedly.
    “Ah, Hester. I am so glad you could come. The major did not mind? How good of him. Have you learned anything? What has Mr. Rathbone discovered? Oh, please, do come and sit down—here.” She indicated the place opposite where she had been, and resumed her own seat.
    Hester obeyed, not bothering to arrange her skirts.
    “I am afraid very little so far,” she answered, responding to the last question, knowing it was the only one which mattered. “And of course there will be limits to what he could tell me anyway, since I have no standing in the case.”
    Edith looked momentarily confused, then quite suddenly she understood.
    “Oh yes—of course.” Her face was bleak, as if the different nature of things lent a grimmer reality to it. “But he is working on it?”
    “Of course. Mr. Monk is investigating. I expect he will come here in due course.”
    “They won’t tell him anything.” Edith’s brows rose in surprise.
    Hester smiled. “Not intentionally, I know. But he is already engaged with the possibility that it was not Alexandra who killed the general, and certainly not for the reason she said. Edith …”
    Edith stared at her, waiting, her eyes intent.
    “Edith, it may be that it was Sabella after all—but is that going to be an answer that Alexandra will want? Should we be doing her any service to prove it? She has chosen to give her life to save Sabella—if indeed Sabella is guilty.” She leaned forward earnestly. “But what if it was neither of them? If Alexandra simply thinks it is Sabella and she is confessing to protect her …”
    “Yes,” Edith said eagerly. “That would be marvelous! Hester, do you think it could be true?”
    “Perhaps—but then who? Louisa? Maxim Furnival?”
    “Ah.” The light died out of Edith’s eyes. “Honestly, I wish it could be Louisa, but I doubt it. Why should she?”
    “Might she really have been having an affair with the general, and he threw her over—told her it was all finished? You said she was not a woman to take rejection lightly.”
    Edith’s face reflected a curious mixture of emotions: amusement in her eyes, sadness in her mouth, even a shadow of guilt.
    “You never knew Thaddeus, or you wouldn’t seriously think of such a thing. He was …” She hesitated, her mind reaching for ideas and framing them into words. “He was … remote. Whatever passion there was in him was private, and chilly, not something to be shared. I never saw him deeply moved by anything.”
    A quick smile touched her mouth, imagination, pity and regret in it. “Except stories of heroism, loyalty and sacrifice. I remember him reading ‘Sohrab and Rustum’ when it was first published four years ago.” She glanced at Hester and saw her incomprehension. “It’s a tragic poem by