“Yes.” She drew in her breath. “I never excused myself. They must think me most rude! It quite went out of my head.”
“If they did not understand at the time, I am quite certain they will now,” he assured her. “Please continue.”
“Angus received one or two household bills which he said he would attend to when he came home, then he left for his business. He said he would be home for dinner.”
“Have you seen him since, Mrs. Stonefield?”
Her voice was very quiet, almost a whisper. “No.”
“Have you had any communication from him whatever?”
“No.”
Rathbone walked a pace to the left and shifted his weight a little. He was acutely aware of Ebenezer Goode leaning back in his chair, a slight smile on his face, his eyes bright and watchful. He was at ease, confident, but never so careless as to take anything for granted.
In the dock, Caleb Stone stood motionless. His hair was long and thick and curled wildly, adding to the reckless look of his face with its wide mouth and brilliant green eyes. His very lack of movement drew the gaze in a room where everyone else fidgeted now and then, shifting position, scratching a nose or an ear, turning to look at someone or something, whispering to a neighbor. The only person who did not even glance his way was Genevieve, as if she could not bear to see his face with its mirrorlike resemblance to the husband she had loved.
“Mrs. Stonefield,” Rathbone proceeded, “has your husband ever been away from home overnight before?”
“Oh, yes, quite often. His business necessitated traveling now and then.”
“Any other purpose that you are aware of?”
“Yes …” She stared at him fixedly, her body rigid in its navy and gray wool and trimming silk. “He went quite regularly to the East End of the city, to the Limehouse area, to see his brother. He was …” She seemed lost for words.
Caleb stared as if he would force her to look at him, but she did not.
Several of the jurors were more attentive.
“Fond of him?” Rathbone suggested.
Ebenezer Goode stirred in his seat. Rathbone was leading the witness, but this time he did not object.
“In a way he loved him,” Genevieve said with a frown, still keeping her head turned away from the dock. “I think also he felt a kind of pity, because—”
This time Ebenezer Goode did rise.
“Yes, yes.” The judge waved his hand in a swift motion of dismissal. “Mrs. Stonefield, what you think is not evidence, unless you give us the reasons for your belief. Did your husband express such a sentiment?”
She looked at him with a frown. “No, my lord. It was my impression. Why else would he keep on going to see Caleb, in spite of the way Caleb treated him, unless it was loyalty, and a sort of pity? He defended him to me, even when he was most hurt.”
The judge, a small, lean man with a face so weary he looked as if he could not have slept well in years, regarded her with patient intelligence.
“Do you mean his feelings were wounded, ma’am, or his person?”
“Both, my lord. But if I cannot say what I know by instinct, and because I knew my husband, but only what I can prove by evidence, then I shall say only that he was injured in his person. He had sustained bruises, abrasions, and more than once shallow knife wounds, or some other such sharp instrument.”
Rathbone could not have planned it better. Now there was not a man or woman in the whole courtroom whose attention was not held. All the jurors were sitting bolt upright and facing the witness stand. The judge’s lugubrious face was sharp. In the crowd Rathbone saw Hester Latterly sitting beside Lady Ravensbrook, who was ashen-skinned and looked as if she had aged ten years in the last weeks. Monk had said she’d had typhoid fever. It had certainly taken its toll. Even so, she was a remarkable woman and nothing could rob her features of their character.
Ebenezer Goode bit his lip and rolled his eyes very slightly.
In the dock, Caleb Stone gave a short burst of laughter, and the guards on either side of him inched closer, their disgust plain.
The judge glanced at Rathbone.
“Do we understand, Mrs. Stonefield,” Rathbone picked up the thread again, “that your husband returned from these trips to see his brother, with injuries, sometimes quite serious and painful, and yet he still continued to make these journeys?”
“Yes,” she said steadily.