hope that she might have come in any manner of kindness faded away. He was foolish to have entertained it in the first place. The whole world had altered for him, erupted and caved in on itself. How he must be an embarrassment to her, even an encumbrance.
When Ballinger had been tried her world had been destroyed. Rathbone’s had not. It had hurt, certainly. He had been confused, desperate to find some defense for him, torn between loyalty to Margaret and loyalty to his own duty and beliefs. When it all ended he had been left with a sense of loss, but he was still whole. It was she who had suffered a permanent injury.
Now the tables were turned. This time she would lose very little, actually perhaps nothing at all. He was legally bound to look after her financially, and he would have done it whether the law required it of him or not. But she would not accept anything from him. She would rather live in near poverty with her mother than take his money. If he were sent to prison and therefore had nothing, she would not lose.
Then why had she come? Not to assuage his anxiety for her, but to rejoice in his downfall.
Margaret was regarding him now with contempt, waiting for him to find his tongue.
“Nothing to say, Oliver?” she asked finally. “Did you not know before what it feels like to be accused, unable to prove your innocence and having to depend on someone else to do it for you? Suddenly you’re helpless too. Now you know how your clients felt, their fear, and why they trusted you. They did so because they were desperate, terrified, and had nowhere else to turn.” She smiled tightly. “To you the law is a way to show off your skills, to win publicly, and of course to make money. To them it’s survival or death. It looks a little different from the side you’re on now, doesn’t it?”
She was being unfair. He had taken every case seriously and given every single one his all, even when in the end he lost, as he had with Ballinger.
“I can give a defense, Margaret,” he said with as much self-control as he could. His voice sounded rasping. “Sometimes I can prove a man innocent, sometimes I can mitigate a sentence. I cannot save a guilty man. Are you suggesting that I should? If everyone is to be set free at the end, regardless, why bother with a trial?”
“So that the lawyer can strut around, show off, and earn money, of course!” she snapped. “And the public can have its entertainment.” Then she waved her hand sharply, as if she could brush the subject out of the way. “But you are guilty, aren’t you? Or are you going to say that it was not you who gave obscene pictures to Warne so that Drew would be destroyed as a witness?” The look of disbelief on her face was savage.
“You think the picture should be suppressed, and the jury have no idea what kind of a man Drew is”-he put all his incredulity and contempt into his voice-“so he can go on slandering the other members of the congregation and be believed?”
Her temper snapped. “Don’t answer every question with another question, Oliver! For the love of heaven, be honest for once!”
He felt as if he had been slapped. He knew the color burned up his face. “That is honest, Margaret. I gave Warne the picture so he had a choice of defending the ordinary, trusting men and women whom Drew was slandering and holding up to public mockery. They deserved that.”
“You hypocrite!” Her voice was very nearly a shout, her face dark with fury. “You can introduce that filthy photograph into the courtroom and sit there full of righteous indignation as if you knew nothing about it. I’m glad they found out that it was you who gave it to Warne. You can’t hide anymore. Everyone will know you for what you are.”
The lash of her tongue hurt so sharply that for a moment he could hardly draw breath to defend himself.
She mistook his silence for weakness. “I wish my father were alive to see this,” she went on, choking a little on her own words. “It would be perfect. Well, at least I am here. And believe me, I will watch with pleasure.”
“I’m sure your father’s appreciation would be the sharpest of all,” he said bitterly. “That is why he had the pictures in the first place, to bring about justice that could be forced no other way. I understood that in him- obviously far more than you did, or do even now.”
She froze, her face white. “Liar! How dare you suggest such a thing to me? Is that your defense? To blame a dead man you have made sure cannot speak for himself? Well, I can speak for him, and I will. The world will see you for what you are-a man who places pride and opportunism before everything else: before family or honor, or even human decency.”
He struggled for something to say that would put them back on common ground, some shared belief. They had cared for each other once.
She was not prepared to wait for him.
“I will not discuss my father with you. For you to suggest you are alike in anything is an insult to him, and I won’t listen. I came to tell you that I am consulting a lawyer-a friend of my father’s, who still has some regard toward the family-because I do not wish to remain connected to you in any way, least of all in the public mind. I don’t think it will be difficult, in the circumstances you have created, for me to obtain a divorce. I will revert to my maiden name. I no longer wish to be known as Margaret Rathbone. I imagine you can understand that, but if you don’t it really doesn’t matter to me. I am informing you simply as a matter of courtesy.”
He should have been expecting it. It was the perfect opportunity for her to set herself free. She did not have to accuse him of anything, not that there were many excuses for a woman to divorce her husband. She could not claim infidelity, as a man could against his wife. But society would never blame her if she did not want to be associated with him when he was standing trial for perverting the course of justice.
Perhaps some would have admired her loyalty had she remained with him. He thought of other women he had known who had risked everything they possessed, even their lives, to prove the innocence of the husbands they loved. But then the key to that loyalty was their love.
And those husbands had loved their wives with a matching depth and devotion.
He felt weary, as though his body were bruised from blow after blow. He did not want to go on fighting a battle he could not win. What would winning be, anyway? He could not persuade her to see the truth, still less care for him again. And if he were to tell himself the hard, bare truth, he no longer wanted her to care.
He looked at Margaret. Was there even any point in protesting, saying that it would have been nice had she at least given him the benefit of the doubt first, and got her blow in only after he was found guilty? There was nothing left to salvage: he hoped only to avoid sinking to the lowest in himself. He could force her to reason her way to the truth: that he could have gotten the pictures only from Ballinger, but she did not want to see that.
Anger and bitterness were twisting her face. She had once been so much better than that. She had known gentleness, laughter, purpose. Whether the loss of any of it was his fault or not didn’t really matter now.
“Do whatever you think is best,” he said quietly. “I shall instruct my solicitor to accommodate you.”
For a moment there was victory in her face; then it faded, as if the taste had not been what she expected it to be.
“Thank you,” she said in acknowledgment. “Good night.”
“Goodbye, Margaret,” he replied.
CHAPTER 11
“Where are you going to begin?” Hester asked Monk over the breakfast table. It was so early in the morning that Scuff was still upstairs getting ready to go to school.
Monk had no need to ask her what she was referring to. The only subject on both their minds was Oliver Rathbone. Monk had lain awake a good deal of the night wondering that same thing himself. He had listened to her even breathing in the dark, not certain if it were actually so even as to indicate that she was deliberately pretending to be asleep; but he had not asked, even in a whisper, because he had no comfort or assurance to offer.
Now she was ignoring her toast and watching him, waiting for his reply, her eyes shadowed and her face tense. He wished he had something positive to say.
“The best thing would be if I could find something to prove that Taft’s death had nothing to do with Oliver,” he replied.
She bit her lip and pulled her mouth tight. “He still gave Warne the picture. Isn’t that what they’re going to
