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Graham's hand tightened around hers. He vibrated with suppressed fury. The wood grain beneath her fingers blurred as tears threatened. She blinked them back fiercely. She would not cry. Not here. Not now. Not in front of Hollan's smirking face.

A low murmur swept through the gallery—the hungry desire to see more of her humiliation.

Jackals, the lot of them.

Tate moved closer to the bench, lowering his voice just enough to force the room to lean in, to become co-conspirators in her undoing. "And then there is Beacon House—a charity the Duchess manages with her sister, the Duchess of Sherton. Hard questions have been asked of late after an audit of the bank records at the charity. Several key donors have withdrawn their pledges in recent days."

Abigail felt the shift happening around her. The gallery, the magistrate, even Bellamy beside her—they were all reacting, reassessing. Not because they believed Tate, but because he was making them doubt. Planting seeds of suspicion that might blossom into judgment.

She couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t keep her head high. Her shoulders slumped under the weight of it all.

“Chin up, soldier,” Graham murmured against her ear and pressed his thigh firmly against hers.

She forced her spine straight, though she longed to curl under the table until they all went away, until the world forgot she had ever been there.

"The Duchess of Eyron has surrounded herself with women who have known ruin. Convicts. Debtors. Prostitutes. And she invites these influences into the orbit of two young girls meant to one day take their place in noble society. We do not question her intentions," Tate added piously. "We question her discernment."

Abigail could barely feel her own body. Her limbs were lead, but her heart fluttered with panic.

Tate turned one final page in his notes. His voice dropped into that awful register—measured, reasonable, and merciless.

"And lastly, we must ask what influence the Duchess exerts over her husband. A man who has, in the past weeks, threatened members of the press, filed lawsuits against respected publications, and—by some accounts—nearly killed a man in an altercation on her behalf. He is at best a victim of her manipulations, at worst complicit in them. This is not the picture of a healing household. This is the picture of a match struck to dry tinder."

He stepped back with a slight bow.

"Thank you, Your Worship. I place my trust in the court's wisdom."

For one long moment, the courtroom was silent. Abigail sat shellshocked. Graham’s thigh stayed pressed hard against hers, but she could barely feel it. The lingering stench of the asylum drifted around her.

Bellamy didn't rise immediately. He sat for a moment, hands folded before him, as if considering a difficult move on a chessboard that he hadn’t anticipated.

A single tear escaped and trekked down her cheek.Then another. She tasted salt and the iron tang of helpless rage.

Then, slowly, deliberately, Mr. Bellamy stood.

"Your Worship," he began, voice steady but quiet, "my learned friend has given us a powerful story. One of seduction, impropriety, and moral rot posing as virtue."

A murmur rippled through the gallery. Someone coughed. A woman whispered something to her companion. The magistrate adjusted his spectacles, his expression unreadable.

Abigail's throat was dry as sand. She wished desperately for water, for air, for escape from this nightmare. But there was nowhere to go. Nothing to do but endure.

Bellamy turned, pacing just slightly as he spoke. "But I submit to the court that this is not, in fact, a story about scandal. It is a story about choices and growth."

He stopped, hands clasped behind his back. The simple statement hung in the air, unexpected enough to cause a lull in the whispers behind them.

"It is true that the Duchess of Eyron was once Lady Abigail Finch. It is true that she left a prominent engagement. Following which she chose a life of purpose over a life of polite compliance, and involved herself—deeply—in the lives of London's forgotten."

He looked toward Abigail—not pitying, not grandstanding. Just seeing her. For the first time since Tate began his evisceration, she took a full breath. The room steadied around her.

"And in doing so, she helped build something. Together with the Duchess of Sherton, Beacon House has become a refuge for the abandoned. A place where, by all testimony and record, women who had nothing but shame left to their name found healing, trade, dignity, and in many cases, their children returned to them."

Tate shifted in his chair. Hollan shrugged his shoulders as if to dismiss the importance of the statement. Bellamy didn't so much as glance at either of them.

"As for the 'inappropriate' company she keeps," Bellamy continued, voice rising slightly, "I remind the court—we should not measure a woman's worth by the silk of at her cuffs, but by the calluses on her hands."

Abigail's throat tightened. She didn't dare look at anyone—not at Graham, not at her sisters, not at the magistrate who held their fate in his hands. She fixed her gaze on a point on the wall, fighting to maintain her composure.

Mr. Nedley handed Bellamy a sheaf of paper. He held them up for the room to see the rough penmanship. The rustle of parchment was loud in the hushed room. "These are statements, signed and sworn, from some of the women the Duchess has worked with. Not saints. Not debutantes. But mothers,fishwives, washerwomen—women who testify not to scandal, but to salvation."