attacked. Also, although I do not doubt that it did happen, we have no proof. In Mrs. Quixwood’s case her beaten body was found on the floor of her own house. There was no place for doubt as to what happened, only as to who the man was.”
Castelbranco gulped. “It was Forsbrook. Angeles told her mother so.”
Pitt knew better than to argue. Castelbranco believed his daughter. He had to: every loyalty in him demanded it.
“If I could prove it, I would charge Forsbrook and bring him to trial,” Pitt said with absolute honesty. “But if I charge him and can’t bring it to trial, then public sympathy will be with him. If I can rake up enough evidence to try him, and fail to convict—which needs evidence beyond a reasonable doubt—then I will have made all the details public and given him the opportunity to say whatever he pleases about Angeles, blacken her reputation with whatever he wants to invent. No one can claim innocence or purity for every minute of his or her life—you and I both know that. And an accused man has the right to defend himself.”
Castelbranco stared at him in horror, swaying a little on his feet.
“Rafael,” Pitt continued, his voice even lower, “the jury will be composed entirely of men, as it is everywhere. Some of them may be fathers, some may not. Most of them will have seen women who were not their wives, whom they lusted after, particularly when they were young and unmarried. They will all, at times, have been tempted to behave badly, and I daresay most of them will have done so, to one degree or another. And most of them will have been accused of things they considered unfair, whether related to love affairs or not. Forsbrook would be there, sober and sad-faced, swearing to his innocence, very English, very gentlemanly. He will say that she was beautiful and he complimented her. She misunderstood, her English not being fluent.”
Castelbranco blinked back tears.
Pitt forced the pictures of Angeles out of his mind, and then—with even more difficulty—made himself forget Jemima: her passionate face so like Charlotte’s; the trust in her eyes when she looked at him, the father who had protected her all her life.
“Angeles will not be there to tell them what truly happened,” he said. “All I can offer you is the promise that I will not forget it, and if I can ever prove Forsbrook’s guilt without crucifying Angeles in the process, I will do it. But if I rush forward and try, and fail, then even if I had all the proof in the world afterward, I could not try him a second time. The law does not allow anyone to be tried twice for the same offense. And he will know that as well as I do. Let the threat, at least, remain over his head.”
Castelbranco nodded very slightly. Too broken to speak, he turned and walked out of the door, leaving it open behind him, and Pitt alone in the room.
CHAPTER
14
IT WAS A HOT summer day at the Old Bailey, the central criminal court in London, when the trial of Alban Hythe, charged with the rape of Catherine Quixwood, began.
The gallery was crowded. Narraway was thankful for his influence—without it, he would not have been able to find a seat, except possibly at the very back. He had wanted to ask Vespasia if she would come. He would have valued her opinion, possibly even her advice. If he was honest with himself, most of all he would have liked her company. He knew this was going to be painful.
He had considered calling her; his hand had hovered over the telephone, and then he’d realized how often he had asked for her time recently, and never for any social or pleasurable reason, such as attending the opera or the theater. She had always been willing, even gracious about accepting, but surely one day she would politely and gently refuse. She must have put up a warning hand to hundreds of men during her life, to tell them that they were asking too much, presuming on friendship a trifle too often.
Was he doing that?
He was not used to rejection, not when it actually mattered, and he realized with a shock like a stab of physical pain that it mattered. If she were to turn away from him it would hurt him in a way and with a depth that he had not experienced for years.