She began to cry and fished for a handkerchief in her pocket, then pressed it to her eyes. “I’m childless. I feel dreadfully for this dead mother. It’s nothing more than any woman would feel—”

He waited. She began, slowly, to find the steel she needed. “You’ve upset me, I’m afraid. I must apologize. It’s the weakness I’ve suffered since the spring. Perhaps you’d better leave after all. I hope you won’t speak of this to my husband. He will only be angry with me for letting you stay when I was feeling ill.”

He admired her courage. He admired her strength. But there were other lives hinging on the truth and what he had to do must be done now.

“You are Mrs. Cook, aren’t you? And the boy is yours. Are you Maude Cook—or Mary Cook—or both? Mrs. Kerr will recognize you, and so will Dr. Wilson.”

“No! No. No.”

“The child is yours,” he repeated. “But your husband believes it’s Eleanor Gray’s.”

She lifted her eyes to stare at him, startled eyes that were wide with shock. As he watched, she bit her lip, a thin line of blood marking the place.

Rutledge said, “And you’ve allowed him to think that’s true.”

Her hands reached for him, taking his arms just below his shoulders, holding him with a fierce grip that was a measure of her need. “No— you don’t understand. He knows it’s mine. Dear God, he knows. But he can’t—he hasn’t found out these things you’ve discovered. He isn’t the father, you see! He will never have children by me, I’m ruined, I can’t have more. And he hates me for that. He hates Fiona. And most of all, he hates my child. If I ever tell him the truth, even to save Fiona, he will see that the boy is given to us to raise, and then he will take the greatest pleasure in destroying him! My husband has powerful friends—the fiscal, the Chief Constable—Inspector Oliver— barristers in Jedburgh and Edinburgh. He can arrange it. He will even claim that he was Eleanor Gray’s lover if he has to! Alex will stand there in public and lie to them all, and in the end, they’ll let him have his way. The only way that Fiona and I can truly protect Ian is for her to die and the child to be left to the mercy of strangers.”

IT TOOK HIM a quarter of an hour to calm her down again. She was shaking so badly, Rutledge feared for her, but when he offered to summon Dr. Murchison, she refused to let him. Instead she asked for a sherry, and he found the decanter by the window, poured her a glass, and held it while she sipped it.