Defend and Betray

“Oh yes,” Hester said quickly, stung for Rathbone as well as for the truth. She sat down opposite Damaris. “It isn't time yet-his turn comes next.”

“But it will be too late. The jury have already made up their minds. Couldn't you see that in their faces? I did.”

“No it isn't. There are facts to come out that will change everything, believe me.”

“Are there?” Damaris screwed up her face dubiously. “I can't imagine that.”

“Can't you?”

Damaris squinted at her. “You say that with extra meaning-as if you thought I could. I can't think of anything at all that would alter what the jury think now.”

There was no alternative, no matter how Hester hated it, and she did hate it. She felt brutal, worse than that, treacherous.

“You were at the Furnivals' house the night of the murder,” she began, although it was stating what they both knew and had never argued.

“I don't know anything,” Damaris said with absolute candor. “For heaven's sake, if I did I would have said so before now.”

“Would you? No matter how terrible it was?”

Damaris frowned. “Terrible? Alexandra pushed Thad-deus over the banister, then followed him down and picked up the halberd and drove it into his body as he lay unconscious at her feet! That's pretty terrible. What could be worse?”

Hester swallowed but did not look away from Damaris's eyes.

“Whatever you found out when you went upstairs to Valentine Furnival's room before di

The blood fled from Damaris's face, leaving her looking ill and vulnerable, and suddenly far younger than she was.

“That has nothing to do with what happened to Thaddeus,” she said very quietly. “Absolutely nothing. It was something else-something…” She hunched her shoulders and her voice trailed off. She pulled her feet a little higher.

“I think it has.” Hester could not afford to be lenient.

The ghost of a smile crossed Damaris's mouth and vanished. It was self-mockery and there was no shred of happiness in it.

“You are wrong. You will have to accept my word of honor for that.”

“I can't. I accept that you believe it. I don't accept you are right.”

Damaris's face pinched. “You don't know what it was, and I shall not tell you. I'm sorry, but it won't help Alexandra, and it is my-my grief, not hers.”

Hester felt knotted up inside with shame and pity.

“Do you know why Alexandra killed him?”

“No.”

“I do.”

Damaris's head jerked up, her eyes wide.

' “Why?” she said huskily.

Hester took a deep breath.

, “Because he was committing sodomy and incest with his own son,” she said very quietly. Her voice sounded obscenely matter-of-fact in the silent room, as if she had made some banal remark that would be forgotten in a few moments, instead of something so dreadful they would both remember it as long as they lived.

Damaris did not shriek or faint. She did not even look away, but her skin was whiter than before, and her eyes hol-lower.

Hester realized with an increasing sickness inside that, far from disbelieving her, Damaris was not even surprised. It was as if it were a long-expected blow, coming at last. So Monk had been right. She had discovered that evening that Peverell was involved. Hester could have wept for her, for the pain. She longed to touch her, to take her in her arms as she would a weeping child, but it was useless. Nothing could reach or fold that wound.

“You knew, didn't you?” she said aloud. “You knew it that night!”

“No I didn't.” Damaris's voice was fiat, almost without expression, as if something in her were already destroyed.

“Yes you did. You knew Peverell was doing it too, and to Valentine Furnival. That's why you came down almost beside yourself with horror. You were close to hysterical. I don't know how you kept any control at all. I wouldn't have- I don't think-”

“Oh God-no!” Damaris was moved to utter horror at last. “No!” She uncurled herself so violently she half-fell off the settee, landing awkwardly on the ground. “No. No, I didn't. Not Pev. How could you even think such a thing? It's-it's-wild-insane. Not Pev!”

“But you knew.” For the first time Hester doubted. “Wasn't that what you discovered when you went up to Valentine's room?”

“No.” Damaris was on the floor in front of her, splayed out like a colt, her long legs at angles, and yet she was absolutely natural. “No! Hester-dear heaven, please believe me, it wasn't.”

Hester struggled with herself. Could it be the truth?

“Then what was it?” She frowned, racking her mind. “You came down from Valentine's room looking as if you'd seen the wrath of heaven. Why? What else could you possibly have found out? It was nothing to do with Alexandra or Thaddeus-or Peverell, then what?”

“I can't tell you!”

“Then I can't believe you. Rathbone is going to call you to the stand. Cassian was abused by his father, his grandfather-I'm sorry-and someone else. We have to know who that other person was, and prove it. Or Alexandra will hang.”

Damaris was so pale her skin looked gray, as if she had aged in moments.

“I can't. It-it would destroy Pev.” She saw Hester's face. “No. No, it isn't that. I swear by God-it isn't.”

“No one will believe you,” Hester said very quietly, although even as she said it, she knew it was a lie-she believed it. “What else could it be?”

Damaris bowed her head in her hands and began to speak very quietly, her voice aching with unshed tears.

“When I was younger, before I met Pev, I fell in love with someone else. For a long time I did nothing. I loved him with… chastity. Then-I thought I was losing him. I-I loved him wildly… at least I thought I did. Then…”

“You made love,” Hester said the obvious. She was not shocked. In the same circumstances she might have done the same, had she Damaris's beauty, and wild beliefs. Even without them had she loved enough…

“Yes.” Damaris's voice choked. “I didn't keep his love… in feet I think in a way that ended it.”

Hester waited. Obviously there was more. By itself it was hardly worth repeating.

Damaris went on, her voice catching as she strove to control it, and only just succeeding. “I learned I was with child. It was Thaddeus who helped me. That was what I was talking about when I said he could be kind. I had no idea Mama knew anything about it. Thaddeus arranged for me to go away for a while, and for the child to be adopted. It was a boy. I held him once-he was beautiful.” At last she could keep the tears back no longer and she bent her head and wept, sobs shaking her body and long despairing cries tearing her beyond her strength to conceal.

Hester slid down onto the floor and put both her arms around her, holding her close, stroking her head and letting the storm burn itself out and exhaust her, all the grief and guilt of years bursting its bounds at last.

It was many minutes later when Damaris was still, and Hester spoke again.

“And what did you learn that night?”

“I learned where he was.” Damaris sniffed fiercely and sat up, reaching for a handkerchief, an idiotic piece of lace and cambric not large enough to do anything at all.

Hester stood up and went to the cloakroom and wrung out a hand towel in cold water and brought it back, and also a large piece of soft linen she found in the cupboard beside the basin. Without saying anything she handed them to Damaris.

“Well?” she asked after another moment or two.

“Thank you.” Damaris remained sitting on the floor. “I learned where he was,” she said, her composure back again: She was too worn out for any violent emotion anymore. “I learned what Thaddeus had done. Who he had… given him to.”

Hester waited, resuming her seat.

“The Furnivals,” Damaris said with a small, very sad smile. “Valentine Furnival is my son. I knew that when I saw him. I hadn't seen Valentine for years, you see, not since he was a small child-about Cassian's age, or even less. Actually I so dislike Louisa, and I didn't go there very often, and when I did he was always away at school, or when he was younger, already in bed. That evening he was at home because he'd had measles. But this time, when I saw him, he'd changed so much-grown up-and…” She took a deep, rather shaky breath. “He was so like his father when he was younger, I knew…”