Almost Heaven (66 page)

Elizabeth swallowed and, tearing her gaze from Ian’s, said as loudly as she could, “Elizabeth Marie Cameron.”

Pandemonium erupted all around her,. and white-wigged heads tipped toward one another while the Lord Chancellor called sharply for silence.

“Will the court permit me to verify this by asking the accused if this is indeed his wife?” Delham asked when order was restored.

The Lord Chancellor’s narrowed gaze swung from Elizabeth’s face to Ian. “Indeed.”

“Lord Thornton,” Delham asked calmly, watching Ian’s reaction, “is this woman before us the wife whose disappearance – whose murder – you have been accused of causing?”

Ian’s jaw clenched, and he nodded curtly. “For the information of those present, Lord Thornton has identified this witness as his wife. I have no further questions,”

Elizabeth clutched the wooden edge of the witness box, her widened eyes on Peterson Delham, unable to believe he wasn’t going to question her about Robert.

“I have
several
questions, my lords,” said the Attorney General, Lord Sutherland.

With trepidation Elizabeth watched Lord Sutherland stroll forward, but when he spoke she was staggered by the kindness in his voice. Even in her state of fright and desperation Elizabeth could actually feel the contempt, the male fury, being blasted at her from all around the chamber – everywhere but from him.

“Lady Thornton,” Lord Sutherland began, looking confused and almost relieved that she was here to clear up matters. “Please, there is no need to look frightened. I have only a few questions. Would you kindly tell us what brings you here at this late date, in what is obviously a state of great anxiety, to reveal your presence?”

“I-I came because I discovered that my husband is accused of murdering my brother and me,” Elizabeth said, trying to speak loudly enough to be heard across the echoing chamber.

“Where have you been until now?”

“I’ve been in Helmshead with my brother, Rob –”

“Did she say
brother?”
demanded one of the Crown’s solicitors. Lord Sutherland suffered the same shock that rocketed through the chambers causing another outbreak of conversation, which in turn caused the Lord Chancellor to call for order. The prosecutor’s shock, however, did not last very long. Recovering almost at once, he said, “You have come here to tell us that not only are you alive and unharmed,” he summarized thoughtfully, “but that you have been with the brother who has been missing for two years – the brother of whom no one has been able to find a trace – not your investigator, Mr. Wordsworth, nor the Crown’s investigators, nor even those hired by your husband?”

Elizabeth’s startled gaze flew to Ian and ricocheted in alarm from the glacial hatred on his face. “Yes, that’s correct.”

“And where is this brother?” For emphasis he made a sweeping gesture and looked around as if searching for Robert. “Have you brought him so that we can see him as we’re seeing you – alive and unharmed?”

“No,” Elizabeth said. “I haven’t, but –”

“Please just answer my questions,” Lord Sutherland admonished. For a long moment he looked nonplussed, then he said, “Lady Thornton, I believe we would all like to hear why you left the safety and comfort of your home six weeks ago, fled in secrecy from your husband, and have now returned at this last desperate hour to plead that we have all somehow made a mistake in thinking your life or your brother’s life could be in danger. Begin at the beginning, if you please.”

Elizabeth was so relieved that she was being given a chance to tell her story that she related it verbatim, just as she’d rehearsed it in the coach over and over again carefully leaving out parts that would make Robert seem like a liar or a madman bent on having Ian hang for murders he didn’t commit. With careful, rehearsed words she swiftly painted Robert as she truly saw him – a young man who had been driven by pain and deprivation to wrongly seek vengeance against her husband; a young man whom her husband had saved from the gallows or lifelong imprisonment by charitably having him put on a ship and taken abroad; a young man who had then suffered, through his own unintentional actions, great trials and even vicious beatings for which he had wrongly blamed Ian Thornton.

Because she was desperate and frightened and had practiced the speech so many times, Elizabeth delivered her testimony with the flat unemotionalism of a rehearsed speech, and in a surprisingly short time she was done. The only time she faltered was when she had to confess that she had actually believed her husband guilty of her brother’s beatings. During that awful moment her gaze slid penitently to Ian, and the altered expression on his face was more terrifying because it was bored – as if she were a very poor actress playing a role in an exceedingly boring play he was being forced to watch.

Lord Sutherland broke the deafening silence that followed her testimony with a short, pitying laugh, and suddenly his eyes were piercing hers and his raised voice was hammering at her, “My dear woman, I have one question for you, and it is much like my earlier one. I want to know
why.”

For an inexplicable reason, Elizabeth felt icy fear starting to quake through her, as if her heart understood that something awful was happening – that she had not been believed, and he was now going to make absolutely certain that she would never be. “Why-why what?” she stammered.

“Why
have you come here to tell us such an amazing tale in hopes of saving the life of this man from whom you admit you fled weeks ago?”

Elizabeth looked beseechingly to Peterson Delham, who shrugged as if in resigned disgust. In her petrified state she remembered his words in the anteroom, and now she understood them:
“What I’ve been doing to her is nothing to
what
the prosecution will do to her story
. . .
This
is no
longer a quest for truth and justice .
. .
this is an amphitheater, and the prosecution is bent on giving a stellar performance
. . .  

“Lady Thornton!” the prosecutor rapped out, and he began firing questions at her so rapidly that she could scarcely keep track of them. “Tell us the truth, Lady Thornton. Did that man” – his finger pointed accusingly to where Ian was sitting out of Elizabeth’s vision – “find you and bribe you to come back here and tell us this absurd tale? Or did he find you and threaten your life if you didn’t come here today? Isn’t it true that you have no idea where your brother is? Isn’t it true that by your own admission a few moments ago you fled in terror for your life from this cruel man? Isn’t it true that you are afraid of further cruelty from him –”

“No!”
Elizabeth cried. Her gaze raced over the male faces around and above her, and she could see not one that looked anything but either dubious or contemptuous of the truths she had told.

“No further questions!”

“Wait!”
In that infinitesimal moment of time Elizabeth realized that if she couldn’t convince them she was telling the truth, she might be able to convince them she was too stupid to make up such a lie. “Yes, my lord,” her voice rang out. “I cannot deny it – about his cruelty, I mean.”

Sutherland swung around, his eyes lighting up, and renewed excitement throbbed in the great chamber. “You admit this is a cruel man?”

“Yes, I do,” Elizabeth emphatically declared.

“My dear, poor woman, could you tell us – all of us some examples of his cruelty?”

“Yes, and when I do, I know you will all understand how truly cruel my husband can be and why I ran off with Robert – my brother, that is.” Madly, she tried to think of half-truths that would not constitute perjury, and she remembered Ian’s words the night he came looking for her at Havenhurst.

“Yes, go on.” Everyone in the galleries leaned forward in unison, and Elizabeth had the feeling the whole building was tipping toward her. “When was the last time your husband was cruel?”

“Well, just before I left he threatened to cut off my allowance – I had overspent it, and I hated to admit it.”

“You were afraid he would beat you for it?”

“No, I was afraid he wouldn’t give me
more
until next quarter!”

Someone in the gallery laughed, then the sound was instantly choked. Sutherland started to frown darkly, but Elizabeth plunged ahead. “My husband and I were discussing that very thing – my allowance, I mean – two nights before I ran away with Bobby.”

“And did he become abusive during that discussion? Is that the night your maid testified that you were weeping?”

“Yes, I believe it was!”

“Why were you weeping, Lady Thornton?” The galleries tipped further toward her.

“I was in a terrible taking,” Elizabeth said, stating a fact. “I wanted to go away with Bobby. In order to do it, I had to sell my lovely emeralds, which Lord Thornton gave me.” Seized with inspiration, she leaned confiding inches toward the Lord Chancellor upon the woolsack. “I
knew
he would buy me more, you know.” Startled laughter rang out from the galleries, and it was the encouragement Elizabeth desperately needed.

Lord Sutherland, however, wasn’t laughing. He sensed that she was trying to dupe him, but with all the arrogance typical of most of his sex, he could not believe she was smart enough to actually attempt, let alone accomplish it. “I’m supposed to believe you sold your emeralds out of some freakish start – out of a frivolous desire to go off with a man you claim was your brother?”

“Goodness, I don’t know what you are
supposed
to believe. I only know I did it.”

“Madam!” he snapped. “You were on the verge of
tears,
according to the jeweler to whom you sold them. If you were in a frivolous mood, why were you on the verge of tears?”

Elizabeth gave him a vacuous look. “I
liked
my emeralds.”

Guffaws erupted from the floor to the rafters. Elizabeth waited until they were finished before she leaned forward and said in a proud, confiding tone, “My husband often says that emeralds match my eyes. Isn’t that sweet?”

Sutherland was beginning to grind his teeth, Elizabeth noted. Afraid to look at Ian, she cast a quick glance at Peterson Delham and saw him watching her alertly with something that might well have been admiration.

“So!” Sutherland boomed in a voice that was nearly a rant. “We are
now
supposed to believe that you weren’t really afraid of your husband?”

“Of course I was. Didn’t I just explain how very cruel he can be?” she asked with another vacuous look. “Naturally, when Bobby showed me his back I couldn’t help thinking that a man who would threaten to cut off his wife’s allowance would be capable of
anything
–
”

Loud guffaws lasted much longer this time, and even after they died down, Elizabeth noticed derisive grins where before there had been condemnation and disbelief. “And,” Sutherland boomed, when he could be heard again, “we are also supposed to believe that you ran off with a man you claim is your brother and have been cozily in England somewhere –”

Elizabeth nodded emphatically and helpfully provided, “In Helmshead – it is the
sweetest
village by the sea. I was having a very pleas – very
peaceful
time until I read the paper and realized my husband was on trial. Bobby didn’t think I should come back at all, because he was still provoked about being put on one of my husband’s ships. But I thought I ought.”

“And what,” Sutherland gritted, “do you claim is the reason you decided you ought?”

“I didn’t think Lord Thornton would like being hanged –” More mirth exploded through the House, and Elizabeth had to wait for a full minute before she could continue. “And so I gave Bobby my money, and he went on to have his own agreeable life, as I said earlier.”

“Lady Thornton,” Sutherland said in an awful, silky voice that made Elizabeth shake inside, “does the word ‘perjury’ have any meaning to you?”

“I believe,” Elizabeth said, “it means to tell a lie in a place like this.”

“Do you know how the Crown punishes perjurers? They are sentenced to gaol, and they live their lives in a dark, dank cell. Would you want that to happen to you?”

“It certainly doesn’t sound very agreeable,” Elizabeth said. “Would I be able to take my jewels and gowns?”

Shouts of laughter shook the chandeliers that hung from the vaulted ceilings.

“No, you would not!”

“Then I’m certainly happy I haven’t lied.” Sutherland was no longer certain whether he’d been duped, but he sensed that he’d lost his effort to make Elizabeth sound like a clever, scheming adulteress or a terrified, intimidated wife. The bizarre story of her flight with her brother had now taken on a certain absurd credibility, and he realized it with a sinking heart and a furious glower. “Madam, would you perjure yourself to protect that man?” His arm swung toward Ian, and Elizabeth’s gaze followed helplessly. Her heart froze with terror when she saw that, if anything, Ian looked more bored, more coldly remote and unmoved than he had before.

“I asked you,” Sutherland boomed, “if you would perjure yourself to save that man from going to the gallows next month.”