Almost Heaven Part 34

Sutherland swung around. his eyes lighting up, and renewed excitement throbbed in the great chamber. "You admit this is a cruel man?"

"Yes, I do," Elizabeth emphatically declared. "My dear, poor woman, could you tell us-all of us some examples of his cruelty?"

"Yes, and when I do, I know you will all understand how truly cruel my husband can be and why I ran off with Robert-my brother, that is." Madly, she tried to think of half-truths that would not const.i.tute perjury, and she remembered Ian's words the night he came looking for her at Havenhurst.

"Yes, go on." Everyone in the galleries leaned forward in unison, and Elizabeth had the feeling the whole building was tipping toward her. "When was the last time your husband was cruel?"

"Well, just before I left he threatened to cut off my allowance-I had overspent it, and I hated to admit it."

"You were afraid he would beat you for it?"

"No, I was afraid he wouldn't give me more until next quarter!"

Someone in the gallery laughed, then the sound was instantly choked. Sutherland started to frown darkly, but Elizabeth plunged ahead. "My husband and I were discussing that very thing-my allowance, I mean-two nights before I ran away with Bobby."

"And did he become abusive during that discussion? Is that the night your maid testified that you were weeping?"

"Yes, I believe it was!" "Why were you weeping, Lady Thornton?" The galleries tipped further toward her.

"I was in a terrible taking," Elizabeth said, stating a fact. "I wanted to go away with Bobby. In order to do it, I had to sell my lovely emeralds, which Lord Thornton gave me." Seized with inspiration, she leaned confiding inches toward the Lord Chancellor upon the woolsack. "I knew he would buy me more, you know." Startled laughter rang out from the galleries, and it was the encouragement Elizabeth desperately needed.

Lord Sutherland, however, wasn't laughing. He sensed that she was trying to dupe him, but with all the arrogance typical of most of his s.e.x, he could not believe she was smart enough to actually attempt, let alone accomplish it. "I'm supposed to believe you sold your emeralds out of some freakish start-out of a frivolous desire to go off with a man you claim was your brother?"

"Goodness, I don't know what you are supposed to believe. I only know I did it."

"Madam!" he snapped. "You were on the verge of tears. according to the jeweler to whom you sold them, If you were in a frivolous mood, why were you on the verge of tears?"

Elizabeth gave him a vacuous look. "I liked my emeralds."

Guffaws erupted from the floor to the rafters. Elizabeth waited until they were finished before she leaned forward and said in a proud, confiding tone, "My husband often says that emeralds match my eyes. Isn't that sweet?"

Sutherland was beginning to grind his teeth, Elizabeth noted. Afraid to look at Ian, she cast a quick glance at Peterson Delham and saw him watching her alertly with something that might well have been admiration.

"So!" Sutherland boomed in a voice that was nearly a rant. "We are now supposed to believe that you weren't really afraid of your husband?"

"Of course I was. Didn't I just explain how very cruel he can be?" she asked with another vacuous look. "Naturally, when Bobby showed me his back I couldn't help thinking that a man who would threaten to cut off his wife's allowance would be capable of anything-"

Loud guffaws lasted much longer this time, and even after they died down, Elizabeth noticed derisive grins where before there had been condemnation and disbelief. "And," Sutherland boomed, when he could be heard again, "we are also supposed to believe that you ran off with a man you claim is your brother and have been cozily in England somewhere-"

Elizabeth nodded emphatically and helpfully provided, "In Helmshead-it is the sweetest village by the sea. I was having a very pleas-very peaceful time until I read the paper and realized my husband was on trial. Bobby didn't think I should come back at all, because he was still provoked about being put on one of my husband's ships. But I thought I ought."

"And what," Sutherland gritted, "do you claim is the reason you decided you ought?"

"I didn't think Lord Thornton would like being hanged-" More mirth exploded through the House, and Elizabeth had to wait for a full minute before she could continue. "And so I gave Bobby my money, and he went on to have his own agreeable life, as I said earlier."

"Lady Thornton," Sutherland said' in an awful, silky voice that made Elizabeth shake inside, "does the word 'perjury' have any meaning to you?"

"I believe," Elizabeth said, "it means to tell a lie in a place like this."

"Do you know how the Crown punishes perjurers? They are sentenced to gaol, and they live their lives in a dark, dank cell. Would you want that to happen to you?"

"It certainly doesn't sound very agreeable," Elizabeth said. "Would I be able to take my jewels and gowns?"

Shouts of laughter shook the chandeliers that hung from the vaulted ceilings.

"No, you would not!" "Then I'm certainly happy I haven't lied." Sutherland was no longer certain whether he'd been duped, but he sensed that he'd lost his effort to make Elizabeth sound like a clever, scheming adulteress or a terrified, intimidated wife. The bizarre story of her flight with her brother had now taken on a certain absurd credibility, and he realized it with a sinking heart and a furious glower. "Madam, would you perjure yourself to protect that man?" His arm swung toward Ian, and Elizabeth's gaze followed helplessly. Her heart froze with terror when she saw that, if anything, Ian looked more bored, more coldly remote and unmoved than he had before.

"I asked you," Sutherland boomed, "if you would perjure yourself to save that man from going to the gallows next month."

Elizabeth would have died to save him. Tearing her gaze from Ian's terrifying face, she pinned a blank smile on her face. "Next month? What a disagreeable thing to suggest! Why, next month is-is Lady Northam's ball, and Kensington very specifically promised that we would go," thunderous guffaws exploded, rocking the rafters, drowning out Elizabeth's last words-"and that I could have a new fur."

Elizabeth waited, sensing that she had succeeded, not because her performance had been so convincing, but because many of the lords had wives who never thought beyond the next gown or ball or fur, and so she seemed entirely believable to them.

"No further questions!" Sutherland rapped out, casting a contemptuous glance over her.

Peterson Delham slowly arose, and though his expression was carefully blank, even bemused, Elizabeth sensed rather than saw that he was silently applauding her. "Lady Thornton," he said in formal tones, "is there anything else you have to say to this court?"

She realized that he wanted her to say something else, and in her state of relieved exhaustion Elizabeth couldn't think what it was. She said the only thing she could think of; and she knew soon after she began speaking that he was pleased. "Yes, my lord. I wish to say how very sorry I am for the bother Bobby and I have caused everyone. I was wrong to believe him and to dash off without a word to anyone. And it was wrong of him to remain so angry with my husband all this time over what was, after all, rather an act of kindness on his part." She sensed that she was going too far, sounding too sensible, and she hastily added, "If Kensington had had Bobby tossed into gaol for trying to shoot him, I daresay Bobby would have found it nearly as disagreeable a place as I. He is," she confided, "a very fastidious person!"

"Lady Thornton!" the Lord Chancellor said when the fresh waves of laughter had diminished to ripples. "You may step down." At the scathing tone in his voice Elizabeth dared a look in his direction, and then she almost missed her step when she saw the furious scorn on his face. The other lords might think her an incorrigible henwit, but the Lord Chancellor looked as if he would personally have enjoyed throttling her.

On shaking limbs Elizabeth permitted Peterson Delham's a.s.sistant to escort her from the hall, but when they came to the far wall and he reached for the door leading to the corridor, Elizabeth shook her head and looked imploringly into his eyes. "Please," she whispered, already watching over his shoulder, trying to see what would .happen next, "let me stay over there in the alcove. Don't make me wait out there, wondering. " she begged, watching a man striding swiftly down the long aisle from the main doors at the back of the chambers, heading straight for Peterson Delham.

"Very well," he agreed uneasily after a moment, "but don't make a sound. This will all be over soon," he added consolingly.

"Do you mean. " she whispered, her gaze glued to the man walking up to Peterson Delham, "that I did well enough up there for them to release my husband now?"

"No, my lady. Hush, now. And don't worry." Elizabeth was more puzzled than worried at that moment, because for the first time since she'd seen him, Ian seemed to take an interest in something that was happening. He glanced briefly toward the man talking to Peterson Delham, and for a split second she actually thought she saw a look of grim amus.e.m.e.nt flicker on Ian's impa.s.sive face. Following the a.s.sistant into the alcove, she stood beside the dowager, unaware of the gruff, approving look that lady .was giving her. "What's happening?" she asked the a.s.sistant when he evidenced no sign of needing to return to his seat.

"He's going to pull it on," the young man said, grinning. "My Lord Chancellor," Peterson Delham raised his voice as he nodded quickly at the man who'd been talking to him. "With the court's permission-indulgence, I might say-I would like to present one more witness who, we believe, will provide indisputable proof that no harm came to Robert Cameron as a direct or indirect result of the time he spent on board the ship Arianna. If this proof is acceptable to the court, then I feel confident this entire matter can be put to rest in short order."

"I feel no such confidence'" snapped Lord Sutherland. Even from there Elizabeth could see the Lord Chancellor's profile harden as he turned to glance at the prosecutor.

"Let us hope for the best," the Lord Chancellor told Lord Sutherland. "This trial has already exceeded the limits of decorum and taste, and that is due in no small part, my lord, to you." Glancing at Peterson Delham, he said irritably, "Proceed."

"Thank you, my Lord Chancellor. We call to the witness box Captain George Granthome."

Elizabeth's breath stopped as a suspicion of what was going to happen was born in her mind. From the side of the room the doors opened, and a tall, muscular man came striding down the aisle. Behind him a cl.u.s.ter of burly, tanned, and weathered men gathered as if waiting to be called. Seamen. She'd seen enough fishermen in Helmshead to recognize those unmistakable features. The man named Captain Granthome took the witness box, and from the moment he began to answer Peterson Delham's questions, Elizabeth realized Ian's acquittal of Robert's "death" had been a foregone conclusion before she ever walked in. Captain Granthome testified to Robert's treatment on board the Arianna and to the fact that he had escaped when the ship made an unscheduled stop for repairs. And he smoothly managed to indicate that his entire crew was also prepared to testify. It hit Elizabeth then that all her terror during the trip down, all her fears while she testified, were actually groundless. With Ian able to prove that Robert had come to no harm at his hands, Elizabeth's disappearance would have lost all sinister implications.

She rounded in angry stupefaction on the grinning a.s.sistant, who was listening attentively to the captain's testimony. "Why on earth didn't you say in the papers what had happened to my brother? Obviously my husband and Mr. Delham knew it. And you must have known you could provide the captain and crew to prove it."

Reluctantly, the a.s.sistant tore his gaze from the bench and said softly, "It was your husband's idea to wait until the trial was under way before springing his defense on them."

"But why?"

"Because our ill.u.s.trious prosecutor and his staff showed no sign of dropping the case no matter what we claimed. They believed their evidence was enough for a conviction, and if we'd told them about the Arianna, they'd have kept stalling for time to look for more evidence to disprove Captain Granthome's potential testimony. Moreover, the Arianna and his crew were on a voyage, and we weren't completely certain we could locate them and get them back here in time to testify. Now our frustrated Lord Prosecutor has nothing readily at hand to use as reb.u.t.tal, because he didn't antic.i.p.ate this. And if your brother is never seen again, there's still no point in his digging about for more circ.u.mstantial, incriminating evidence, because even if he found it-which he won't-your husband cannot be tried twice for the same crime."

Now Elizabeth understood why Ian had looked bored and disinterested, even though she still couldn't comprehend why he'd never softened when she'd explained it was Robert she was with, not a lover, and offered the proof of Mrs. Hogan's letter and even the promise of her testimony.

"Your husband orchestrated the entire maneuver," the a.s.sistant said, looking admiringly at Ian, who was being addressed by the Lord Chancellor. "Planned his own defense. Brilliant man, your husband. Oh, and by the by, Mr. Delham said to tell you that you were splendid up there."

From that point on, the rest of the proceedings seemed to move with the swiftness of a necessary, but meaningless ritual. Obviously realizing that he hadn't a chance of discrediting the testimony of the Arianna's entire crew Lord Sutherland put only a few perfunctory questions to Captain Granthome, and then allowed him to be dismissed. After that, there remained only the closing statements of both barristers, and then the Lord Chancellor called for a vote.

In renewed tension, Elizabeth listened and watched as the Lord High Steward called out the name of each lord. One after another, each peer arose, placed his right hand upon his breast, and declared either "Not guilty upon my honor," or "Guilty upon my honor." The final vote was 324 to 14, in favor of acquittal. The dissenters, Peterson Delham's a.s.sistant whispered to Elizabeth were men who were either biased against Ian for personal reasons, or else they doubted the reliability of her testimony and Captain Granthome's.

Elizabeth scarcely heard that. All she cared about was that the majority were for acquittal, and that the Lord Chancellor had finally turned to p.r.o.nounce judgment and was speaking.

"Lord Thornton," the Lord Chancellor was saying to Ian as Ian slowly rose, "it is the finding of this commission that you are innocent of all charges against you. You are free to leave." He paused as if debating something, then said, in what struck Elizabeth as a discordant note of humor, "I would like to suggest informally that if it is your intention to abide under the same roof as your wife tonight, you seriously reconsider that notion. In your place I would be sorely tempted to commit the act that you have already been accused of committing. Although," he added as laughter began to rumble through the galleries, "I feel certain you could count on an acquittal here on grounds of justifiable cause."

Elizabeth closed her eyes against the shame that she hadn't let herself feel over her testimony. She told herself that it was better to be mistaken for an absurd henwit than a scheming adulteress, but when she opened them again and saw Ian striding up the aisle, away from her, she no longer cared one way or another.

"Come, Elizabeth," the dowager said, gently putting her hand on Elizabeth's arm. "I've no doubt the press will be out there. The sooner we leave, the better our chance to evade them."

That proved to be pure whimsy, Elizabeth saw as soon as they emerged into the sunlight. The press, and a mob of spectators who'd come to hear firsthand news of the day's trial, had gathered in front of Ian's path. Instead of trying to dash around them Ian shouldered his way through them, his jaw clenched. Drowning in agony, Elizabeth watched as they called epithets and accusations at him. "Oh, my G.o.d," she said, "look what I've done to him."

The moment Ian's coach thundered away, the crowd turned, looking for new prey as the lords began emerging from the building.

"It's her!" a man from the Gazette who wrote about the doings of the ton shouted, pointing toward Elizabeth, and suddenly the press and the mob of spectators were descending on her in terrifying numbers. "Quick, Lady Thornton," an unfamiliar young man said urgently, dragging her back into the building, "follow me. There's another way out around the corner."

Elizabeth obeyed automatically, clutching the d.u.c.h.ess's arm as they plowed back through the lords who were heading for the doors. "Which coach is yours?" he asked, looking from one to the other.

The d.u.c.h.ess described her vehicle, and he nodded. "Stay here. Don't go out there. I'll have your coachman drive around this side to fetch you."

Ten minutes later the d.u.c.h.ess's coach had made its way to the side, and they were inside its safety. Elizabeth leaned out the door. "Thank you," she told the young man, waiting for him to give his name.

He tipped his hat. "Thomas Tyson, Lady Thornton, from the Times. No, don't look panicked," he said rea.s.suringly. "I haven't any notion of trying to barge in there with you now. Accosting ladies in coaches is not at all my style." For emphasis he closed the door of the coach.

"In that case," Elizabeth told him through the open window with her best attempt at a grateful smile, "I'm afraid you're not going to do very well as a journalist."

"Perhaps you'd consent to talk to me another time-in private?"

"Perhaps," Elizabeth said vaguely as their coachman sent the horses off at a slow trot, wending their way around the vehicles already crowding into the busy street.

Closing her eyes, Elizabeth leaned her head wearily against the squabs. The image of Ian being chased by a mob and called "Murderer!" and "Wife killer!" dug viciously into Elizabeth's battered senses. In an aching whisper she asked the d.u.c.h.ess, "How long have they been doing that to him? Mobbing him and cursing him?"

"Over a month." Elizabeth drew a shattered breath, her voice filled with tears. "Do you have any idea how proud Ian is?" she whispered brokenly. "He is so proud. . . and I made an accused murderer out of him. Tomorrow he'll be a public joke."

The dowager hesitated and then said brusquely, "He is a strong man who has never cared for anyone's opinion except perhaps yours and Jordan's and a very few other's. In any case, I daresay you, not Kensington, will look the fool in tomorrow's papers."

"Will you take me to the house?" "The one on Promenade?"

Elizabeth was momentarily shocked out of her misery. "No, of course not. Our house on Upper Brook Street."

"I do not think," the d.u.c.h.ess said sternly, "that is a wise idea. You heard what the Lord Chancellor said."

Elizabeth disagreed, with only a tremor of doubt. "I would much rather face Ian now than dread doing it for an entire night."

The dowager, obviously determined to give Ian time to get his temper under control, remembered a pressing need to stop at the home of an ailing friend, and then at another. By the time they finally arrived in Upper Brook Street it was nearly dark, and Elizabeth was quaking with nerves-and that was before their own butler looked at her as if she were beneath contempt. Obviously Ian had returned, and the servants' grapevine already had the news of Elizabeth's testimony in the House of Lords. "Where is my husband, Dolton?" she asked him.

"In his study," Dolton said, stepping back from the door.

Elizabeth's gaze riveted on the trunks already standing in the hall and the servants carrying more of them downstairs. Her heart hammering wildly, she walked swiftly down the hall and into Ian's study, coming to a halt a few feet inside, pausing to gather her wits before he turned and saw her. He was holding a drink in his hand, staring down into the fireplace. He'd removed his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves, and Elizabeth saw with a fresh pang of remorse that he was even thinner than he'd seemed in the House. She tried to think how to begin, and because she was so overwhelmed with emotions and explanations she tackled the least important-but most immediate-problem first, the trunks in the hall. "Are-are you leaving?"

She saw his shoulders stiffen at the sound of her voice, and when he turned and looked at her, she could almost feel the effort he was exerting to keep his rage under control. "You're leaving," he bit out.

In silent, helpless protest Elizabeth shook her head and started slowly across the carpet, dimly aware that this was worse, much worse than merely standing up in front of several hundred lords in the House.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," he warned softly. "Do-do what?" Elizabeth said shakily.

"Get any nearer to me." She stopped cold, her mind registering the physical threat in his voice, refusing to believe it, her gaze searching his granite features.

"Ian," she began, stretching her hand out in a gesture of mute appeal, then letting it fall to her side when her beseeching move got nothing from him but a blast of contempt from his eyes. "I realize," she began again, her voice trembling with emotion while she tried to think how to begin to diffuse his wrath, "that you must despise me for what I've done." "You're right." "But," Elizabeth continued bravely, "I am prepared to do anything, anything to try to atone for it. No matter how it must seem to you now, I never stopped loving-"

His voice cracked like a whiplash. "Shut up!" "No, you have to listen to me," she said, speaking more quickly now, driven by panic and an awful sense of foreboding that nothing she could do or say would ever make him soften. "I never stopped loving you, even when I-"

"I'm warning you, Elizabeth," he said in a murderous voice, "shut up and get out! Get out of my house and out of my life!" , "Is-is it Robert? I mean, do you not believe Robert was the man I was with?"

"I don't give a d.a.m.n who the son of a b.i.t.c.h was." Elizabeth began to quake in genuine terror, because he meant that-she could see that he did. "It was Robert, exactly as I said," she continued haltingly. "I can prove it to you beyond any doubt, if you'll let me."

He laughed at that, a short, strangled laugh that was more deadly and final than his anger had been. "Elizabeth, I wouldn't believe you if I'd seen you with him. Am I making myself clear? You are a consummate liar and a magnificent actress."

"If you're saying that be-because of the foolish things I said in the witness box, you s-surely must know why I did it."

His contemptuous gaze raked her. "Of course I know why you did it! It was a means to an end-the same reason you've had for everything you do. You'd sleep with a snake if it gave you a means to an end."

"Why are you saying this?" she cried.

"Because on the same day your investigator told you I was responsible for your brother's disappearance, you stood beside me in a G.o.dd.a.m.ned church and vowed to love me unto death! You were willing to marry a man you believed could be a murderer, to sleep with a murderer."

"You don't believe that! I can prove it somehow-I know I can, if you'll just give me a chance-"

"No."

"Ian-"

"I don't want proof."

"I love you," she said brokenly.

"I don't want your 'love,' and I don't want you. Now-" He glanced up when Dolton knocked on the door.

"Mr. Larimore is here, my lord."

"Tell him I'll be with him directly," Ian announced, and Elizabeth gaped at him. "You-you're going to have a business meeting now?"

"Not exactly, my love. I've sent for Larimore for a different reason this time."

Nameless fright quaked down Elizabeth's spine at his tone. "What-what other reason would you have for summoning a solicitor at a time like this?"