Page 99 of Cain His Brother (William Monk 6)

“No …” Her voice was a whisper.

“Will you please speak so we may hear

you, Miss Herries?” the judge directed.

“No.”

“Not at all?” Rathbone pressed.

“No.”

“He didn’t say that he had met him?”

“No.”

“And you didn’t ask?” Rathbone allowed his eyebrows to shoot up. “Did you not care? You surprise me. Was it not the money for the rent of your home which Angus was to bring? Surely that was a matter of the utmost importance to you?”

“I took the message,” she said flatly. “Wot else weren’t up ter me ter ask.”

“And he didn’t tell you? Reassure you, for example? How boorish. Perhaps he was in too foul a temper.”

This time Ebenezer Goode did rise.

“My lord, my learned friend is making suggestions for which he has had no grounds, and they are the merest speculation.…”

“Yes, yes,” the judge agreed. “Mr. Rathbone, please do not lead your witness with such remarks. You know better than that. Ask your question and have done.”

“My lord. Miss Herries, was Caleb in a bad temper when you saw him again?”

“No.”

“Just a little hurt?”

“Hurt?” she said suspiciously.

“Stiff! Bruised?”

“Yeah, well …” She hesitated, weighing how far she dare lie. Her glance slid once towards Caleb, then quickly away again. She was frightened, weighing one danger against another.

Rathbone was sorry for her, but he could not relent. There were facets of his professional skills he did not enjoy.

It would be overdoing it to draw the jury’s attention to her dilemma. They had seen Caleb’s face. They knew her position. Better to allow them to deduce it than to patronize them, risk having them think he was too eager.

“I do not ask you to tell us how he obtained any injuries he may have received, Miss Herries,” he helped her. “If you do not know, simply say whether he was injured in any way, or not. You are surely in a circumstance to know. He was your lover.”

“ ’E were ’urt, yeah,” she conceded. “But ’e didn’t say ’ow, an I don’t ask. There’s lot’s o’ fights in Lime’ouse an’ Blackwall. Fights any night, an’ most days. Caleb often got ’urt, but ’e never killed no one, far as I know.” Her chin came up a fraction. “Not that anyone got the best of ’im neither.”

“I can well believe it, ma’am. I have heard suggestions he is a very powerful man with an excellent skill in defending himself, and considerable physical courage.”

She stood a little straighter, her head high.

“That’s right. No one beats Caleb Stone.”

Her pride caught him with a knife stab of pity, and he knew, almost without letting his eyes stray to the jury, that it was also the last fragment needed to tip the thin balance of belief towards conviction.

“Thank you, Miss Herries.” He turned to Goode. “Your witness, sir.”

Goode rose slowly, as if he were tired, uncurling his long legs. He ambled across the open space of the floor and stopped before the witness stand, looking up at her.