on the desk. "Something we hadn't considered yet," he murmurs. "Will an English jury understand a glancing allusion to this sort of vice?"
"Oh, the more up-to-snuff men will be delighted to explain it to the others, when they're locked up in their room," says William with a snort of amusement. "Anyone who's read Baudelaire, or—what's that old poem about the two lords' wives that still goes the rounds? They ask no joys beyond each other's smock..."
Harry winces, and returns his gaze to the blank page. "It's all nonsense, though."
"No doubt," William assures him. "My own dear wife insists on sleeping with her friends, whenever they visit."
"What I mean is, Fido—the woman—did stir up some trouble at one time, took Helen's side. I'd go so far as alienation of affections, even, if we're to use legal jargon," Harry makes himself say. This is like picking a scab, but he can't stop. "These all-engrossing passions of theirs can be damned inconvenient, can even come between man and wife, I don't deny that. But to go beyond, and fancy a monster behind every bush—"
"Yes, yes. It's after midnight," William reminds him, tapping the page.
"I'll begin in a moment." He stares at the paper, the subtle nap of it. "I know I've been mistaken before. After all, I thought Helen quite used up by motherhood," he says, hot-faced. "She seemed—to be frank, Will, she was as unresponsive to me as a dead fish."
A grimace from his brother.
"I assumed that all she wanted from men was flattery—and how wrong I was! Which makes me wonder, now, if it's theoretically—if it's within the realm of possibility that I might have been so blind as to miss other horrors going on under my very nose, in the very next room..."
"Enough! You may sit up all night trying to spook yourself," says William, standing up and stretching, "but I want my bed."
Harry stares at the page till his eyes unfocus. "What shall I put?"
"Bovill says in all likelihood it won't even be read," William tells him. "Just make a start and some suitably stern expressions will come to you. Goodnight."
Harry puts the pen down and wipes his sweating hands.
"What's the matter now?"
"It's my first attempt at forgery, after all," he says, trying for a jocular tone.
"It's not forgery when you're signing your own name," William tells him, making for the door.
***
On the second day of the petitioner's case, Bovill wears an air of mild cheer. "I will now dispose of the respondent's countercharges—libels, rather—against the good name of the petitioner. Specifically, her claim that if the adultery occurred, her husband conduced to it by neglect and cruelty. Now, a foreigner with a less than perfect grasp of the subtleties of British law might call this a strange defence from a woman who maintains her complete innocence." His tone's neutral, but he waits for the laugh. "But leaving that rather obvious point aside, let us consider how the petitioner is said to have mistreated his wife so badly that she was obliged to flee into another gentleman's arms. Oh, excuse me," he tells the jury, "I mean, of course, into the arms of not less than two other gentlemen."
This causes waves of mirth.
Harry's eyelids keep sagging. How embarrassing it would be if he were to doze off during proceedings of such importance to him. But he barely slept last night, in his narrow bed at the club, and when he did he was tormented by dreams of Helen. Not the snappish woman he shared a house with until just two weeks ago, but a dancing Helen in the glittering gauzes of an odalisque.
"Two of our witnesses—Mrs. Nichols and Mrs. Watson—have attested to the petitioner's exemplary treatment of his wife," Bovill reminds the jury. "He found her extravagance, her tantrums, and her flightiness distressing, but he bore with them all. Far from neglecting her, he maintained perfect trust in her honour while she was flitting all over the island with various officers. Even before their departure for Malta in 1857, when she demanded a separate bedroom, he had at no point insisted on his marital rights. What husband in this courtroom—in the country!—could match such forbearance?"
I sound like a doormat, thinks Harry, head down. Or a eunuch.
His barrister's tone turns outraged. "The respondent's counsel may accuse the petitioner, with the grim hindsight a courtroom offers, of uxoriousness—but what is that but husbandly love so perfect it borders on excess? They may even argue that he must have guessed the true