Rathbone smiled. “I imagine you have a natural sympathy for Miss Harcus. She was young, like yourself, not more than four or five years older, and very much in love with a charming and dynamic man. You must know how she felt, her whole future before her, full of promise.”

She swallowed convulsively, and nodded.

“I am sorry, but we need you to speak,” Rathbone said apologetically.

“Yes, I do,” she said huskily. “I can imagine it very well.”

“Have you ever been in love, Miss Baltimore, even if it had not yet reached more than a matter of understanding between you?”

Fowler was on his feet. “My lord, that is completely irrelevant to the issue of this court, and it is grossly intrusive! Miss Baltimore’s personal feelings have no place here and should be respected by—”

The judge flapped his hand at him impatiently. “Yes, yes, Mr. Fowler. Sir Oliver, your point? Or you may continue no further on this rambling excursion of yours.”

“My lord.” Rathbone looked up at Livia. “Miss Baltimore, has Mr. Dalgarno paid court to you? Please do not be modest or discreet to the detriment of the truth. Trust me. And do not oblige me to ask other witnesses to refute any denial made in the effort to protect your reputation. There is nothing to be ashamed of in someone’s paying court to you, even professing love and asking you for your hand in marriage.”

Her face was scarlet, but she looked directly at Rathbone. “Yes. Mr. Dalgarno has done me the honor of asking me to marry him. We are simply not in a position to make the matter public so soon after my father’s death. It would be insensitive . . . and . . . wrong.”

There was a gasp of breath around the court. Now, at last, Rathbone had their attention. The judge’s eyes opened very wide, and he shook his head slowly from side to side, not in denial but in surprise.

Fowler rose to his feet, and then before anyone directed him, sat down again.

“Just so,” Rathbone said when the noise permitted him. “Not to mention the death of his previous fiancée, who heard of his change of heart only weeks earlier, but still kept her own passionate feelings toward him. I assume, Miss Baltimore, that although she must have been made aware of you, you were not aware of her?”

Hester looked across at Dalgarno and saw the tight, desperate look in his face. He had to see the jurors’ increasing contempt for him. In law, to have deceived and discarded a woman, unless there were a promise, was not an offense. But he also knew that logic does not always override emotion. He shot a look of pure loathing at Rathbone, which had he seen it, should have scorched his tongue into silence.