Almost Heaven (65 page)

“Well, the first part of that is no longer a worry. Have you stopped the trial?” the duchess said.

“Stopped the trial,” he expostulated. “My dear duchess, it would take the prince or God to stop this trial.”

“They will have to settle for Lady Thornton,” the dowager snapped.

Lord Kyleton swung around, his gaze riveting on Elizabeth, and his expression went from shock to relief to biting contempt. He withdrew his gaze and quickly turned, his hand reaching for a heavy door beside which sentries stood at attention. “Stay here. I’ll get a note to Kensington’s barrister that he is to meet us out here. Don’t speak to a soul or reveal this woman’s identity until Peterson Delham comes out here. I suspect he’ll want to spring this as a surprise at the right moment.”

Elizabeth stood stock still, braced against the pain of his blistering look, aware of its cause. In the eyes of everyone who’d followed the stories in the newspapers. Elizabeth was either dead or an adulteress who’d deserted her husband for an unidentified lover. Since she was here in the flesh and not dead, Lord Kyleton obviously believed the latter. And Elizabeth knew that every man in the cavernous chamber on the other side of that door – including her husband – was going to think exactly the same thing of her until she proved them wrong.

The duchess had hardly spoken at all in the coach during their ride here; she’d listened closely to Elizabeth’s explanation, but she obviously wanted it proven in that chamber before she accepted it herself. That withholding of faith by the dowager, who’d believed in Elizabeth when scarcely anyone else had, hurt Elizabeth far more than Lord Kyleton’s condemning glance.

A few minutes later Lord Kyleton returned to the hallway. “Peterson Delham was handed my note a moment ago. We’ll see what happens next.”

“Did you tell him Lady Thornton is here?”

“No, your grace,” he said with strained patience. “In a trial, timing can mean everything. Delham must decide what he wants to do and when he wants to do it.”

Elizabeth felt like screaming with frustration at this new delay. Ian was on the other side of those doors, and she wanted to burst past them and let him see her so badly that it took a physical effort to stand rigidly still. She told herself that in a few minutes he would see her and hear what she had to say. Just a few more minutes before she could explain to him that it was Robert she’d been traveling with, not a lover. Once he understood that, he would surely forgive her – eventually – for the rest of the pain she’d caused him. Elizabeth didn’t care what the hundreds of lords in that chamber thought of her; she could endure their censure for as long as she lived, so long as Ian forgave her.

After what seemed like a lifetime, not a quarter-hour, the doors opened, and Peterson Delham, Ian’s barrister, strode into the hall. “What in God’s name do you want, Kyleton? I’ve got all I can do to keep this trial from becoming a massacre, and you drag me out here in the middle of the most damning testimony yet!”

Lord Kyleton looked uneasily at the few men strolling about the hall, then he cupped his hand near Peterson Delham’s ear and spoke rapidly. Delham’s gaze froze on Elizabeth’s face at the same instant his hand locked on Elizabeth’s arm, and he marched her forcibly across the hall toward a closed door. “We’ll talk in there,” he said tersely.

The room into which he hauled her contained a desk and six straight-back chairs; Delham went straight to the desk and flung himself into the chair behind it. Steepling his fingers, he gazed at Elizabeth over the tops of them, scrutinizing her every feature with eyes like blue daggers, and when he spoke his voice was like a blast of ice: “Lady Thornton, how very
good
of you to find the time to pay us a social call! Would it be too pushing of me to inquire as to your whereabouts during the last six weeks?”

At that moment Elizabeth’s only thought was that if Ian’s barrister felt this way about her, how much more hatred she would face when she confronted Ian himself. “I-I can imagine what you must be thinking,” she began in a conciliatory manner.

He interrupted sarcastically, “Oh, I don’t think you can. madam. If you could, you’d be quite horrified at this moment.”

“I can explain everything,” Elizabeth burst out.

“Really?”
he drawled blightingly. “A pity you didn’t try do that six weeks ago!”

“I’m here to do it now,” Elizabeth cried, clinging to a slender thread of control.

“Begin at your leisure,” he drawled sarcastically. “There are only three hundred people across the hall awaiting your convenience.”

Panic and frustration made Elizabeth’s voice shake and her temper explode. “Now see here, sir, I have not traveled day and night so that I can stand here while you waste time insulting me! I came here the instant I read a paper and realized my husband is in trouble. I’ve come to prove I’m alive and unharmed, and that my brother is also alive!”

Instead of looking pleased or relieved he looked more snide than before. “Do tell, madam. I am on tenterhooks to hear the whole of it.”

“Why are you doing this?” Elizabeth cried. “For the love of heaven, I’m on your side!”

“Thank God we don’t have more like you.” Elizabeth steadfastly ignored that and launched into a swift but complete version of everything that had happened from the moment Robert came up behind her at Havenhurst. Finished, she stood up, ready to go in and tell everyone across the hall the same thing, but Delham continued to pillory her with his gaze, watching her in silence above his steepled fingertips. “Are we supposed to believe that Banbury tale?” he snapped at last. “Your brother is alive, but he isn’t here. Are we supposed to accept the word of a married woman who brazenly traveled as man and wife with another man –”

“With my
brother.”
Elizabeth retorted, bracing her palms on the desk, as if by sheer proximity she could make him understand.

“So
you
want us to believe. Why, Lady Thornton? Why this sudden interest in your husband’s well-being?”

“Delham!” the duchess barked. “Are you mad? Anyone can see she’s telling the truth – -even I – and I wasn’t inclined to believe a word she said when she arrived at my house! You are tearing into her for no reason –”

Without moving his eyes from Elizabeth, Mr. Delham said shortly, “Your grace, what I’ve been doing is nothing to what the prosecution will try to do to her story. If she can’t hold up in here, she hasn’t a chance out there’“

“I don’t understand this at all!” Elizabeth cried with panic and fury. “By being here I can disprove that my husband has done away with me. And I have a letter from Mrs. Hogan describing my brother in detail and stating that we were together. She will come here herself if you need her, only she is with child and couldn’t travel as quickly as I had to do. This is a trial to prove whether or not my husband is guilty of those crimes. I know the truth, and I can prove he isn’t.”

“You’re mistaken, Lady Thornton,” Delham said in a bitter voice. “Because of its sensational nature and the wild conjecture in the press, this is no longer a quest for truth and justice in the House of Lords. This is now an amphitheater, and the prosecution is in the center of the stage, playing a starring role before an audience of thousands allover England who will read about it in the papers. They’re bent on giving a stellar performance, and they’ve been doing just that. Very well,” he said after a moment. “Let’s see how well you can deal with them.”

Elizabeth was so relieved to see him stand up at last that not even his last remarks about the prosecution’s motives had any weight with her. “I’ve told you everything exactly as it happened, and I’ve brought Mrs. Hogan’s letter here to verify the part about Robert. She will come here herself, as I said, if it’s necessary. She can describe him for everyone and even identify him from portraits I have of him –”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps you’ve described him well for her and paid her to do this,” he remarked, again assuming the prosecutor’s role.
“Have
you promised her money for coming here, by the way?”

“Yes, but –”

“Never mind,” he clipped angrily. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter?” she repeated dumbly. “But Lord Kyleton said the prosecution’s best case, and most damning case, has always been about my brother.”

“As I’ve just told you,” he said coldly, “it is not my primary concern at this moment. I’m going to put you where you can hear what I’m saying for the next few moments without being seen by anyone. My assistant will come to escort you to the witness box.”

“Will-will you tell Ian I’m here?” she asked in a suffocated little voice.

“Absolutely not. I want him to have his first glimpse of you along with everyone else. I want them to see his initial reaction and judge its validity.” With the duchess following behind he led them to another door, then stepped aside, and Elizabeth realized they were in a secluded alcove where they could see everything and everyone without being seen. Her pulse began to race as her senses tried to take in the entire kaleidoscope of color and movement and sound. The long, chamber with its high, vaulted ceilings was buzzing loudly with hundreds of muted conversations taking place in the galleries above and on the benches below, where lords of the realm sat, waiting impatiently for the trial to continue.

Not far from their alcove the scarlet-robed and bewigged Lord Chancellor was seated on the traditional red Woolsack, from where he would preside over the trial.

Below and about him were more grim-faced men in scarlet robes and powdered wigs, including eight judges and the Crown’s prosecutors. Seated at another table were men whom Elizabeth presumed to be Ian’s solicitors and their clerks, more grim-faced men in scarlet robes and powdered wigs. Elizabeth watched Peterson Delham striding forward down the aisle, and she tried desperately to see around him. Surely Ian would be seated at whatever table . . . her frantic gaze skidded to a stop, riveting on his beloved face. His name rose to her lips, and she bit down to stop herself from crying out to him that she was there. At the same time a teary smile touched her lips, because everything about him – even the nonchalant way he was sitting – was so achingly, beautifully familiar. Other accused men must surely have sat at rigid and respectful attention, but not Ian, she realized with a pang of pride and a twinge of alarm. As if he intended to display his utter contempt for the legality, the validity, of the proceedings against him, Ian was sitting in the accused box, his right elbow resting on the polished wooden ledge that surrounded him, his booted foot propped atop his knee. He looked dispassionate, cold, and in complete control.

“I trust that you’re ready to begin again, Mr. Delham,” the Lord Chancellor said irritably, and the instant his voice rose the great hall grew instantly quiet. In the galleries above and on the benches below, lords stiffened with attention and turned alertly toward the Chancellor – everyone did. Everyone, Elizabeth noted, except for Ian, who continued to lounge in his chair, looking impatient now, as if the trial was a farce taking his time away from weightier matters.

“I apologize again for this delay, my lords,” Delham said after pausing to whisper something to the youngest of Ian’s solicitors, who was seated at a table near Delham. The young man arose abruptly and started around the perimeter of
 
the room – heading, Elizabeth realized, straight toward her. Turning back to the Lord Chancellor, Delham said with extreme courtesy, “My Lord, if you will permit me a little leeway in procedure at this time, I believe we can resolve the entire issue at hand without further debate or calling of witnesses.”

“Explain your meaning, Mr. Delham,” he commanded curtly.

“I wish to call a surprise witness to the witness box and to be permitted to ask her only one question. Afterward my lord prosecutor may question her at any length, and to any degree he desires.”

The Lord Chancellor turned to consult with a man Elizabeth surmised must be the head prosecutor the Attorney-General. “Have you any objection, Lord Sutherland?”

Lord Sutherland arose, a tall man with a hawk nose and thin lips, garbed in the requisite scarlet robes and powdered wig. “Certainly not, my lord,” he said in a tone that was almost snide. “We’ve waited for Mr. Delham twice already today. What is one more delay in the execution of English justice?”

“Bring your witness forward, Mr. Delham. And after this I’ll countenance no more delays in these proceedings. Is that understood?”

Elizabeth actually jumped when the young solicitor stepped into the alcove and touched her arm. Her eyes riveted on Ian, she started forward on wooden legs, her heart thundering against her ribs, and that was
before
Peterson Delham said in a voice that carried to the highest tiers of seats, “My lords, we call to the witness box the Marchioness of Kensington!”

Waves of shock and tension seemed to scream through the huge chamber. Everyone leaned forward in their seats, but Elizabeth didn’t notice that. Her eyes were on Ian; she saw his entire body stiffen, saw his gaze snap to her face . . . and then his face hardened into a mask of freezing rage, his amber eyes turning an icy, metallic gold.

Shaking beneath the blast of his gaze, Elizabeth walked into the witness box and repeated the oath that was being read to her. Then Peterson Delham was strolling forward. “Will you state your name, please, for the benefit and hearing of all within these chambers?”