laughed bitterly. "I don't suppose they'd ever believe it, even if they saw the act."
"I don't know," she admitted. "The old colonel does it too - so he would be no help. Presumably Felicia never knew? I don't know how Alexandra did; the child certainly didn't tell her. He was sworn to secrecy, and terrified. He'd been told his mother wouldn't love him anymore, that she'd hate him and send him away if she ever found out."
His face was pale, the skin drawn tight.
"How do you know?"
Detail by detail she related to him the events of the afternoon. The clerk knocked on the door and said that the next client was here. Rathbone told him to go away again.
"Oh God," he said quietly when she had finished. He turned from the window where he had moved when she was halfway through. His face was twisted with pity, and anger for the pain and loneliness and the fear of it. "Hester..."
"You can help her, can'tyou?" she pleaded. "She'Uhang for it, if you don't, and he'll have no one. He'll be left in that house - for it to go on."
"I know!" He turned away and looked out of the window. "I'll do what I can. Let me think. Come back tomorrow, with Monk." His hands clenched by his sides."We have no proof."
She wanted to cry out that there must be, but she knew he did not speak lightly, or from defeat, only from the need to be exact. She rose to her feet and stood a little behind him.
"You've done what seemed impossible before," she said tentatively.
He looked back at her, smiling, his eyes very soft.
"My dear Hester.
She did not flinch or ease the demand in her face.
"I'll try," he said quietly. "I promise you I will try."
She smiled quickly, reached up her hand and brushed his cheek, without knowing why, then turned and left, going out into the clerk's office with her head high.
* * * * *
The following day, late in the morning, Rathbone, Monk and Hester sat in the office in Vere Street with all doors closed and all other business suspended until they should have reached a decision. It was June 16.
Monk had just heard from Hester what she had learned at the Carlyon house. He sat pale-faced, his lips tight, his knuckles clenched. It marred his opinion of himself that he was shocked, but he was, too deeply to conceal it. It had not occurred to him that someone of the breeding and reputation of General Carlyon should indulge in such a devastating abuse. He was too angry even to resent the fact that it had not occurred to him to look for such an answer. All his thoughts were outward, to Alexandra, to Cassian, and to what was to come.
"Is it a defense?" he demanded of Rathbone. "Will the judge dismiss it?"
"No," Rathbone said quietly. He was very grave this morning and his long face was marked by lines of tiredness; even his eyes looked weary. "I have been reading cases all night, checking every point of law I can find on the subject, and I come back each time to what is, I think, our only chance, and that is a defense of provocation. The law states that if a person receives extraordinary provocation, and that may take many forms, then the charge of murder may be reduced to manslaughter."
"That's not good enough," Monk interrupted, his voice rising with his emotion. "This was justifiable. For God's sake, what else could she do? Her husband was committing incest and sodomy against her child. She had not only a right but a duty to protect him. The law gave her nothing - she has no rights in her son. In law it is his child, but the law never intended he should be free to do that to him."
"Of course not," Rathbone agreed quietly, the effort of restraint trembling behind it. "Nevertheless, the law gives a woman no rights in her child. She has no means to support it, and no freedom to leave her husband if he does not wish her to, and certainly no way to take her child with her."
"Then what else can she do but kill him?" Monk's face was white. "How can we tolerate a law which affords no possible justice? And the injustice is unspeakable."
"We change it, we don't break it," Rathbone replied.
Monk swore briefly and violently.
"I agree," Rathbone said with a tight smile. "Now may we proceed with what