“Fifty?” she asked, unaffected. “Fifty-five? It’s long past time you learned this lesson. Your hair is gray. Don’t act like a child.”

He stared at her, cold as the wind slicing through her coat, then pushed past. Surprised, she let him have a yard or two.

“I’m not the one acting like a child.” He threw the words over his shoulder, and she hurried over the treacherous pavement.

“Please don’t shout,” she said. “The last thing we need is this in the news as well.”

“You’re the fool,” he said, “for imagining anything like acquittal.”

“I’m not; Cyril’s lawyer was explicitly clear on that point. All I want is to keep him off the scaffold.”

Aristide gave a bark of laughter that caught somewhere inside his chest and tore, becoming an ugly cough. When he’d recovered, he said, “And how much is that costing you?”

“I don’t see how that matters.” She had only meant to see him back to his hotel. How had they fallen to fighting again?

“How much?” he demanded. “You only had three rooms open downstairs at that country house of yours. All the others were done up in dust sheets, except where you’d poached furniture. And a handful of people doing jobs fit for a full set of fingers and toes. Have you sold your land to pay his lawyer? Hired out in Eel Town? Or is that next week, after you indenture your son?”

Sudden fury stuck her to the spot. “How dare you.”

“You’ll be bankrupt before he hangs.”

“Enough!” She put her hands to her ears, and realized they had both gone numb: there was more pressure than sensation against her skin. “Why should I hear this from you? What right do you have? You’ve barely even spoken to him since you dumped him in my lap. Just stuck me with him and then got on with your own life. Your own business. As if that were more important.”

“I put my business in the kitty for him,” said Aristide. “And I lost everything I bet! That was my tar in Frye’s warehouse.”

“And now it’s all of us in a kettle, ready to start shrieking. You gave Frye a scare and you gave Saeger a grievance. Now one of them’s mounted a tight defense and the other’s on the march, and neither of them are primed to play kindly with my brother.” Pettiness, which had been building at a steady boil, overspilled from her now and scorched in the flame of her anger. Why shouldn’t he hear what Cyril had made her listen to? “He doesn’t even want to be saved, Aristide. He’s going to let them put a noose around his neck and happily.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”