He knocked back the whisky and walked to the window. The curtains were drawn. It was the first thing he had done on entering the room but now he tweaked the curtain aside and peered out into the darkness. He saw only his own reflection. The windowpane was cold beneath his fingers and his breath created a smear of mist on the glass.

There were notes he had written to her, a dozen at least he estimated, mostly arranging appointments, some accompanying flowers and other gifts, but never signed, never with an address. In his handwriting, of course, but who could prove it? One of those notes to Verity, the last one, had gone missing. He wondered about that. She had claimed not to have received it. A ruse, presumably, so that she could miss the appointment with him. So that she might, instead, attend her own appointment with this … doctor.

There was nothing else.

He turned back to the room, surveyed it.

He thought: Verity has done this, not me. The crime—an appalling crime!—had been committed by her, along with whatever unscrupulous doctor she had unearthed and colluded with. He, Alasdair, had not been a party to it.

But had he, unwittingly?

He returned to the bookshelf and pulled out a volume of criminal law. The Offences against the Person Act, 1861, Section 58. He could not recall ever reading it before. Any woman being convicted of offence of using drugs or instruments to procure abortion shall be liable to be kept in penal servitude for life.

Life! And this was an amendment to the 1837 Act, which had previously specified the death penalty.

He stood up and took a turn about the room. But there was more. Section 59 stated that anyone found to be supplying or procuring poison or instruments for the purpose of criminal abortion should be liable to be kept in penal servitude.

He thought hard. He had not supplied her with anything—except money, on a number of occasions. Money which she, presumably, had spent on this appalling act. Did that make him liable or not? He thought not, but he wasn’t sure. He pulled the book towards him and read and reread the passage but the words did not change; they said each time penal servitude for life.

He was unable to take it in. Ought he to consult his solicitor? Good God no, that would set him on a path he did not need, nor wish, to go down. He had already done all he could to mitigate his risk.

He closed the volume and carefully replaced it, replaced it all so that anyone coming in here—and who aside from the maid would come in here?—would see nothing out of place. He ran a hand along the spines of the beautiful leather-bound volumes of constitutional law. The law had been his friend, in an abstract way, but now it had turned on him.