The judge, a small, lean man with a face so weary he looked as if he could not have slept well in years, regarded her with patient intelligence. “Do you mean his feelings were wounded, ma'am, or his person?”

“Both, my lord. But if I cannot say what I know by instinct, and because I knew my husband, but only what I can prove by evidence, then I shall say only that he was injured in his person. He had sustained bruises, abrasions, and more than once shallow knife wounds, or some other such sharp instrument.”

Rathbone could not have planned it better. Now there was not a man or woman in the whole courtroom whose attention was not held. All the jurors were sitting bolt upright and facing the witness stand. The judge's lugubrious face was sharp. In the crowd Rathbone saw Hester Latterly sitting beside Lady Ravensbrook, who was ashen-skinned and looked as if she had aged ten years in the last weeks. Monk had said she'd had typhoid fever. It had certainly taken its toll. Even so, she was a remarkable woman and nothing could rob her features of their character.

Ebenezer Goode bit his lip and rolled his eyes very slightly.

In the dock, Caleb Stone gave a short burst of laughter, and the guards on either side of him inched closer, their disgust plain.

The judge glanced at Rathbone.

“Do we understand, Mrs. Stonefield,” Rathbone picked up the thread again, “that your husband returned from these trips to see his brother, with injuries, sometimes quite serious and painful, and yet he still continued to make these journeys?”

“Yes,” she said steadily.

“What explanation did he offer you for this unusual behavior?” Rathbone inquired.

“That Caleb was his brother,” she answered, “and he could not desert him.

Caleb had no one else. They were twins, and it was a bond which could not be broken, even by Caleb's hatred and his jealousy.”

In the dock, Caleb's manacled hands, strong and slender, grasped the railing till his knuckles shone white.

Rathbone prayed she would remember precisely what they had discussed and agreed. So far it was going perfectly.

“Were you not afraid that one day the injuries might be more serious?” he asked. “Perhaps he might be crippled or maimed for life?”

Her face was pale and tense, and still she stared straight ahead of her.

“Yes-I was terrified of it. I implored him not to go again.”

“But your pleas did not change his mind?”

“No. He said he could not abandon Caleb.” She ignored Caleb's snort of derision, almost anguish. “He could always remember the boy he had been,”

she said chokingly. “And all that they had shared as children, the grief of their parents' death . . .” She blinked several times and her effort to maintain control was apparent.

Rathbone restrained himself from looking at the jury, but he could almost feel their sympathy like a warm tide across the room.