The Mansion Hall was the public residence of the Lord Mayor, often used for ceremonies of state and large social gatherings. On this occasion, what looked like a ballroom or banquet hall had been fitted out to accommodate the commission proceedings. A makeshift jury box sat off to one side, and a minstrel’s gallery opposite the witness box provided seating for spectators.

The ladies were handed into the front-row seats in the gallery. The general public and the press would crowd in behind them and even hang about outside the open windows. Witnesses, members of the bar, and other worthy local gentlemen were permitted to sit in the banquet hall proper, rows of chairs having been set up facing the commissioners’ table.

Rothhaven took his place at the counsel table, Cranmouth beside him, a quantity of bound volumes arranged on the table along with paper and pencils. At the opposite table, Weatherby pretended to read a law book, while a clerk at his side arranged ink and writing paper.

“Are you expecting somebody, Con?” Althea asked. “You keep watching the gallery doorway.”

Blast all perceptive siblings to perdition. “Why would I be expecting anybody?”

“Because normally, you’d have your sketch pad out of your reticule by now, and yet, you’re fidgeting instead.”

Jane smiled pleasantly at Lady Phoebe Philpot, who’d arrived with Mrs. Elspeth Weatherby. Neville Philpot was conferring with Solomon Weatherby at the counsel table, and neither man’s expression reflected the solemnity of the occasion.

“Where is Stephen?” Constance asked, quietly, because the gallery was growing crowded and journalists were everywhere.

“Stephen and Rothhaven were conferring late into the evening,” Jane said. “I think they have common ground of a sort, and it’s wonderful to see Stephen embarking on a friendship.”

“Wonderful of Rothhaven,” Constance replied, “to make the effort of forming a friendship with a contrary, self-absorbed in-law. I think I’m about to be sick.”

Jane passed over a peppermint. “Duchesses do not get sick, not in public.”

Althea took a mint too.

A slight commotion behind the counsel tables ensued as Stephen emerged from the corridor and offered a nod to Neville Philpot. A word or two might have been exchanged between Stephen and Weatherby, but then Stephen was moving across the room to take a seat beside Quinn.

“What was that about?” Jane murmured.

“I don’t know,” Constance said, the upset in her tummy growing worse. “I don’t like it.”

She stole another glance over her shoulder. The gallery and banquet hall were packed, the bailiffs were closing the doors to further spectators, and still Miss Abbott was nowhere to be seen.

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

The trial was off to a splendid start, in Neville’s opinion, in part because Lord Nathaniel Rothmere, as the Duke of Rothhaven’s next of kin, had announced that Ebenezer Cranmouth would be called as a witness.

The result was, Cranmouth could not represent His Grace.