“I don’t know. But that isn’t going to happen.” She shook her head fractionally. “I’m not married to William Monk; I’m married to you. I can’t grieve over Hester’s problems. That’s up to her.”

Rathbone had a sharp flash of memory, so vivid that it seemed Hester was in front of him now, her face as intense as Margaret’s, but angry, vulnerable, passionately concerned for the problems of someone else, needing to find an answer for them, unable to rest or sleep until she had. She had frightened him, and excited him. And he had loved her for that.

He lowered his eyes away from Margaret’s gaze. He did not want to see into her emotions, in case it left an emptiness in him. And he did not want her to see into his.

He let go of her hands and stood up. “I’m going back into my study. I need to read it all one last time. Try to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.” It was a lie. He did not need to, or intend to, read it all again. He simply wanted to be alone, where he also could rest. For all his attempts to comfort Margaret, he was a good deal more anxious than he wished her to know.

THE COURTROOM WAS PACKED, and people were turned away even before the preliminaries of the trial commenced. By the time the first witness was called, the atmosphere was like that before an electric storm. Rathbone was not surprised. He had expected it, because the prospect of a respectable lawyer charged with murdering a seedy riverside pimp in particularly squalid circumstances had driven the more lurid journalists to speculate up to the legal limit, and beyond, in what it was permissible to print. Even thought he had expected the crowd, he dreaded the pain he would see in Margaret’s face. He had considered asking her not to come but had known that she would see it as an invitation to cowardice—worse than that, to betrayal.

Winchester called Monk first, as Rathbone had expected.

Monk climbed the spiral steps up to the witness stand high above the body of the court, and stood there elegantly, as always. He looked assured. Only Rathbone, who knew him so well, could see the tension in his body, the uncharacteristic complete stillness as he waited for Winchester to begin.

Winchester’s first questions were simple, a matter of identifying Monk so the jury knew exactly who he was, and his seniority, then establishing time and place, and who had called Monk to the scene, for what reason.

“You were standing on the riverbank in the early morning mist,” Winchester said.

“Actually, in the water,” Monk corrected him.

“Shallow?”

“Over the knees, and muddy.” Monk gave a slight wince at the memory of it.

“And no doubt cold,” Winchester added.

“Yes.”