The Problem with Seduction - By Emma Locke Page 0,118
the right touch of pain.
“Captain Finn, tell us about the fraud perpetrated by the prisoner.”
Con forced his hands to relax at his sides. Willed his heart not to come thumping through his chest.
“Almost fourteen months ago,” Finn said in a clear voice, “my mistress informed me that she was increasing. She believed herself to be in love with me and fancied we should elope.”
“But aren’t you married?” his barrister asked.
“Yes. My wife is here today.” A commotion ensued as the spectators attempted to identify Mrs. Finn. “But my former mistress is a reckless, headstrong sort of woman. She did not care that I am happily married. She demanded that I leave my wife and live as her husband. When this failed, she turned to pleading.”
“And how did you respond?”
Finn glowered. “I told her in no uncertain terms I would not leave my wife.”
A murmur of approval rolled through the room.
His barrister crossed his arms as if deeply perceiving this information. “How did she respond?”
Finn held up his hands in supplication. “She left me. She was free to do so. I wouldn’t have known anything more had she not written to me to tell me the sex of the child.”
“Which was?” The barrister looked on in earnest.
“Male.” Finn looked at Con, this time with unbridled disgust. “Naturally, I went to Devon to collect my son. Generously, I think, I invited my estranged mistress to return with me. She did for a time, but we didn’t suit. I terminated our contract and set up another woman to care for the child.”
Grunts of approval mingled with the sound of people shifting uncomfortably in their seats.
The barrister tapped a finger against the side of his face. “When did you see her again?”
Finn’s upper lip curled. “I did not see her until after the prisoner approached me with the outlandish proposal that the child was his, not mine.”
The barrister waited a breath to let that sink in. Then he continued, “And how did the prisoner suppose this mistake had been made?”
Finn’s chin notched upward. His shoulders set back. “He told me that he and my former mistress had engaged in an illicit affair contrary to the terms of our agreement.”
The barrister looked around at the occupants of the Old Bailey as he said, “Do you believe your mistress violated your agreement? Are you accusing her of breach of contract?”
Finn looked taken aback. “Well, no. I don’t believe she was with anyone but me. She was desperately in love with me, as I said.”
“That is all I have for Captain Finn, my lord.”
The judge nodded. “The defense may proceed.”
Lord Bart stood. He carried himself with a sureness and compactness that the other Alexander brothers lacked. “Captain Finn, the idea that your mistress did not engage in an external affair because she was ‘desperately in love with you’ is a romantic, ephemeral notion for the court to accept. Do you have proof that she did not, in fact, ply her trade elsewhere?”
Con winced. He hated to think about Elizabeth in such sordid terms.
But the trial was not about her character, it was about his. There was one way to show the jurors that he truly did have feelings for the woman whose reputation would be in tatters by the end of this cross-examination. He turned and found her beautiful face in the crowd. With his eyes, he told her what he should have said earlier. I love you.
“She would not have dallied,” Finn said firmly.
“I see,” Bart said. “But you were not with her at all times, correct? You have a wife, and as an officer in His Majesty’s Navy, you must spend long stretches of time away. Is it reasonable to think you were always with her, to the extent that you know without a doubt that she did not stray?”
Con’s spirits raised a fraction.
Finn’s jaw set. He said his lines as if they were rehearsed. “She presented the child to me as mine. She never once alluded to the possibility of it being anyone else’s. I didn’t hear of her supposed affair with the prisoner until after I’d replaced her with another woman. My lord, I believe that is her motivation for attempting to swindle me of my own son.”
Bart stepped forward. “But you admit it is possible for her to have engaged with another man.” He waited, along with the court, for Finn to answer the question.
Finn ground his teeth, the first visible sign he was agitated. “I do not believe she would have.”