"Do you know what happened that night?”
He nodded, still not taking his eyes from hers, although the horror in him was so palpable she could feel coldness creeping through her, and despair so great it consumed and destroyed everything else.
"Rhys…" She put her hand on his arm, holding him hard, feeling the muscle and bone beneath her fingers. "I'll help you in any way I can, but I have to know how to. Can you tell me, somehow, what happened?
You were there, you saw it. If you want to plead against the charge they are bringing, then you must give them something else to believe.”
For seconds he simply gazed back at her, then slowly he closed his eyes and turned away.
"Rhys!”
He shook his head.
She did not know what to think. Whatever had happened, he still could not bear to have anyone know. Even facing arrest, and in time trial for his life, he would not impart it.
But did he understand that? Did he imagine because Evan had not taken him away that somehow it would not happen?
"Rhys!" she said urgently. "It hasn't gone away, you know. You are under house arrest. It is just the same as being in a public cell, or in Newgate. The only reason you are here, not there, is because you are too ill to move. There will be a trial, and if you are found guilty, they will take you to Newgate, no matter how ill you are. They won't care, because they will hang you anyway…" She could not go on. She could not bear it, even though he had not turned back or even opened his eyes. His body was rigid, tears running under his lids, and down his cheeks.
"Rhys," she said softly. "I have to make you realise this is real. You must tell someone the truth, to save yourself!”
Again he shook his head.
"Did you kill him?" she whispered.
He shook his head again, very little, but quite unmistakably.
"But you know who did!" she persisted.
He turned back very slowly, meeting her eyes. He lay still for seconds. She could hear the sound of distant feet as a maid crossed the landing.
"Do you?" she said again.
He closed his eyes without answering.
She stood up and went out of the room and down the stairs to the withdrawing room where Sylvestra was moving aimlessly from one idle task to another. A pile of embroidery yarns sat tangled on a small table, linen bunched up near them. A bowl of winter flowers from the hothouse were half arranged, half simply poked into the water. Several letters lay on a salver on the large semi-circular table by the wall, two were opened, the others were not.
She swung around as soon as she heard the door.
"How is he?" she asked quickly, then bit her lip as though unsure what she wanted the answer to be. "I simply don't know what to do. Leighton was my husband. I owe him… everything, not only loyalty but love, respect, decency." Her brow puckered. "How could it have happened? What… what changed him? And don't tell me Rhys hasn't changed…
I've seen the difference in him and it terrifies me!”
She swung away, her hands clenched in front of her. A less controlled woman would have wept, or screamed, thrown something just to release the tension inside herself.
"He never used to be like this, Miss Latterly." Her voice was tight in her throat as if she had difficulty in making herself speak. "He was wilful at times, thoughtless, like most young people, but there was no cruelty in him. I don't understand it. I thought I was so tired last night I would have slept with exhaustion. I wanted to." She emphasised it fiercely. "I wanted simply to cease to be able to think or feel anything. But I lay awake for hours. I racked my brain trying to understand what had changed him, why he had become so different, when it had begun to happen. I found no answer. It still makes no sense to me." She turned back to Hester, her face bleak and desperate.
"Why would anyone want to beat those women? Why rape a woman who is willing anyway? Why would anyone do that? It isn't sane…”
"I don't understand either," Hester said candidly. "But obviously it is not appetite, but rather more a desire for power over someone else, a need to hurt and humiliate…" She stopped. Sylvestra was looking at her with amazement, as though she had said something new and almost inconceivable.
"Haven't you ever wanted to punish, not for justice but for anger?”
Hesterasked her.
"I… I suppose so," Sylvestra said slowly. "But that is hardly…
yes, I suppose I have." She stared at Hester curiously. "Are you saying it is the same thing, hideously magnified?”
"I don't know. I am only trying to imagine.”
The fire settled with a shower of sparks.
"You mean it is not appetite… but… hate?" Sylvestra asked, struggling to understand.
"Perhaps.”
"But why would Rhys hate such women? He doesn't even know them!”
"Maybe it doesn't matter who it is. Anyone will do, the weaker, the more vulnerable, the better…”
"Stop it!" Sylvestra took a shuddering breath. "I'm sorry. It is not your fault. I asked you, and now I do not want to hear the answer.”
Her hands were twisting around one another. She had scratched herself with her nails but she seemed unaware of it. "Poor Leighton. He must have suspected there was something terribly wrong for ages, and at last he had to put it to the test. And when he followed him, and he knew…
." She could not finish. They stood there in the quiet, dignified room, two women imagining the same terrible scene in the alley, father and son face to face over a horror which had to divide them for ever.
And then the son had attacked, perhaps out of rage, or guilt, perhaps out of some kind of fear that he would be caught by the law, and he imagined he could escape the consequences if he fought his way out. And they had beaten and punched and kicked at each other until Leighton was dead, and Rhys was so badly hurt he lost consciousness and lay there on the stones, soaked with his own blood.
And now it was so terrible to him he could not accept that it was he who had done it. It had been another person, another self, one he did not own.
"We must find a barrister for him," Hester said aloud. "He must have some defence when he comes to trial. Do you have someone you wish?”
"A barrister?" Sylvestra blinked. "Will they really try him? He is too ill! He must be mad, won't they realise that? Corriden will tell them…”
"He is not too mad to stand trial," Hester said with absolute certainty. "Whether insanity will be the best defence or not, I cannot say, but you must find a barrister. Do you have someone?”
Sylvestra seemed to find it difficult to concentrate. Her eyes looked without focus. "A barrister? Mr. Caulfield has always dealt with our affairs. Of course I have never spoken to him. Leighton handled business, naturally.”
"Is he a solicitor?" Hesterasked, almost sure of the answer. "You need a barrister for this, someone who will appear in court to represent Rhys. He must be engaged through Mr. Caulfield, but if you do not have any preferences, I am acquainted with Sir Oliver Rathbone.
He is the best barrister there is.”
"I… suppose so…" Sylvestra was uncertain. Hester was not sure if it was her shock at the turn of events, or if now she doubted whether she wished to engage an unknown barrister, at unknown expense, to defend Rhys, when she feared him guilty. Maybe it was simply too big a decision for her to make alone. She was not used to decision.
She had always had her husband to see to such things. He would find and assess the information. His word would be final. She would probably not even be expected to contribute an opinion.
It was up to Hester to see Rhys was defended. Possibly no one else would.
"I'll speak to Sir Oliver, and ask him to come to see you." She chose not to make it a question, so Sylvestra could not so easily refuse. She smiled encouragingly. "Will it be reasonable if I go first thing in the morning?”
Sylvestra drew in her breath, but could not make up her mind.
"Thank you," Hesteraccepted, her voice gentle, full of an assurance she was far from feeling.