Trial by Desire (Carhart 2)

“I am a gentleman. I’m the heir presumptive to the Marquess of Blakely.”

A crease formed in the magistrate’s brow, and he peered once at Harcroft. “But you said—that is, I thought Mrs. Carhart—”

“My wife is Lady Kathleen Carhart. The prosecutor did disclose that she is the Duke of Ware’s daughter, did he not? This is not a suit that you can dispose of in such a summary fashion.”

As Ned spoke, the magistrate looked to Harcroft again, his lips thinning. Ned could imagine how this particular case had evolved. Harcroft had indeed tried to take the upper hand. No doubt he’d impressed the judge with his title. Perhaps he’d even attempted to purchase the outcome with a few well-placed bank notes. But even the most corrupt magistrate would balk at sending a duke’s daughter to gaol for money.

Under Ned’s scrutiny, this particular magistrate straightened his wig and shuffled the papers on his bench. “Perhaps a fine,” he said to Harcroft. “You’ll be satisfied with a fine—a few shillings?”

“The Countess of Harcroft,” the earl said, with a cutting look at Ned, “is worth a great deal more than a few shillings. That woman has my wife. I want her back. No, Your Worship—I must insist on pressing charges. Trial will proceed.”

The magistrate pressed his hand to his forehead for a few seconds before he spoke. “This court,” he muttered, “has decided to reject the first argument put forward by Mr. Carhart. The accused in this case must remain Mrs.—that is, Lady Kathleen Carhart.”

His Worship, Ned thought grimly, was hiding his guilt behind an excess of formality.

“On what grounds, Your Worship?”

“By the evidence I have heard, the events in question occurred when you were absent from the country. We no longer live in times so benighted that we imagine a husband is responsible for everything a wife does. You are free of indictment.”

“I don’t want to be free,” Ned protested. “In fact, I want you to let her go and charge me instead.”

“Facts, Mr. Carhart, are facts. Wants are wants. The law does not allow me to substitute one for the other, no matter how keen the wanting might be.” The magistrate drew himself up as he spoke. Law hadn’t seemed to matter much to him before he discovered that Kate was the daughter of a duke. “Mr. Carhart also suggested that Lady Kathleen be tried by jury.”

Harcroft smiled at Ned. “I am perfectly happy to put the evidence I’ve obtained before a jury,” he said with an aggressive lift of his chin. “I should love to have one sworn in, right at this instant.”

“Right now?” The magistrate looked vaguely ill. “But it is almost three in the afternoon.”

“What has that to do with anything?” Harcroft demanded.

“This court closes at three.” The magistrate glanced at Harcroft, astounded. “We don’t stay after hours, my lord. Not—not for anything.”

Harcroft stared ahead, his jaw working. “Very well. Toss her in the cells. We’ll finish this in the morning.”

“The cells!” Kate said.

“Lady Kathleen,” Ned said quietly, “will not be seeing the inside of the cells. Surely Your Worship recognizes that a gentleman such as myself can be trusted to return her for trial tomorrow.” He stared the magistrate full in the eyes, letting his threat sink in. If a duke and a marquess were to turn their attention on a puny little police magistrate, the man would be stripped of his seat on the bench before he had a chance to pronounce sentence.

“Ah. Yes.” The magistrate glanced warily from Ned to Harcroft, and licked his lips.

An earl could cost him his seat, as well. Ned would have felt sorry for the magistrate, except that he’d agreed to go along with this travesty in the first place.

“I release the prisoner into her husband’s care for tomorrow’s trial,” the man finally said. “We’ll start at eleven. Sharp.”

NED FELT HOLLOW ON THE carriage ride home. He’d known Harcroft was planning something. He just hadn’t guessed what. He should have known. He should have done something. But now Kate was threatened, and all his fine plans to prove himself tangled up in his mind.

“Are you sure,” Kate asked dryly, seated across from him, “that we can’t just slay this dragon?”

“Ha.” Ned shook his head wistfully. “I think there are a handful of swords somewhere in Gareth’s home. Maybe stored in the attic?”

It was an enchanting thought, that—sneaking into Harcroft’s house in the dark of night, swathed in a black cloak, sword in hand. With nobody to prosecute the case on the morrow, Kate would be sent home.

It would be lovely, up until the moment when Harcroft was discovered dead in his home. At which point the municipal police wouldn’t need to look far to discover a person who had both an interest in his demise, and an inconvenient bloody sword wrapped in a black cloak.

As if Kate knew the path down which his thoughts had drifted, as if she’d trodden silently down the hallway of his imagination, sword in hand, she sighed. “Drat.” The carriage rolled up to the house and she shook her head as the door opened.

She disappeared into the night, and Ned stared after her. She’d meant the crack about dragons as a joke, as a way to defuse the tense, despairing energy that ran between them. But to him, it felt like more. Dragon or no, she was in need of a hero. And lo, here sat Ned, in the carriage still. He fought the urge to rush into the servants’ quarters in search of long kitchen knives. Some knight he made.

Damn it.

As names went, “Harcroft” didn’t even have a particularly villainous ring to it. It sounded respectable. Stodgy, even. And the threat—imprisonment—wasn’t even the sort of thing that could be slain. Not by typically heroic means. The heroes in the stories had it easy. A week ago Ned had been trying to figure out how to win Louisa’s freedom. Now he was fighting for his wife’s. His entire quest had started off-kilter, and it had only skewed with the passage of time.

Ned pushed himself out of the carriage. “You know,” he said, catching up to her at the door, “If I killed Gareth, we could forestall this whole affair, too. I’d be the Marquess of Blakely. And you, as my wife, could only be charged in the House of Lords.”

“Well. There’s a thought. And so convenient, since the swords are stored in his attics.” Her lips quirked up.

And the sight of that tentative smile—the first he’d seen since she’d been taken to Queen Square—was exactly what Ned needed. Enough with the analogies. Enough with the panic. Kate didn’t need the sort of hero that slew her enemies. That was the easy kind of heroism—the stab-and-vanquish sort. Any idiot with a sword or a kitchen knife could engage in the appropriate hacking motions. No. At this moment Kate needed a real hero. The kind that would put a smile on her face today, and bring her victory tomorrow.

Ned could be that sort of hero.

She walked into the parlor and sat on the silk-cushioned sofa, her silhouette illuminated by the firelight. She turned to look into it, presenting him with her back.

Her back seemed as good a place as any to start. The thin, tense line of her stance made a miserable curve.

He set his hands on her shoulders. The silk of her gown seemed cool to his touch as he slid his hands down; he could feel the ridges of whalebone beneath, stiff lines against his hand. She was wearing a small corset, one that fit neatly under her breasts, clasping her ribs. The chances of his being able to remove it seemed as dim as the lighting in the room.

But above that garment, he could still massage away the hard knots of worry that had collected in her shoulders. He took them on, one by one, letting his fingers speak the reassurance that his voice could not. And once her shoulders had loosened, he noticed how tight her lower back seemed, just at the edges of her corset.

There was only one way to defeat Harcroft on the morrow. Oh, it was possible that Harcroft’s information wasn’t sound, that the testimony he’d collected—and the gravity of his charge—would leave the jury unconvinced. But Ned wasn’t willing to accept a mere possibility of her r

elease. After all, she was charged with a crime, and however good her intentions, she had committed it. He’d gambled enough in his youth; Ned was not going to merely toss the metaphorical dice again and pray for the best.

He pressed his palms into the heated curves of her waist and made gentle circles there, over and over, until those muscles, too, had relaxed.

By contrast, he was all on edge. Kate could tell the entire truth of her story—that Louisa had come willingly, that she’d been beaten by her husband—but so long as Louisa was absent, it was Kate’s word against Harcroft’s.

She had relaxed a little more under his touch, but she was still stiff. Her hands were still clenched at her sides, her fingernails biting into the palms of her hand.

There was the possibility of countering Harcroft’s claims with charges of their own. Assault on Kate, assault on Louisa herself. But every charge Ned could imagine would require Kate to explain the circumstances that had brought them about. She would have to admit her guilt. No, there had to be another way out of this. Something that would leave Kate unquestionably free.

He took her hands. They were still cold and trembled slightly. He flattened her delicate fingers between his, and then pressed his thumb along her palm. Trust me. Trust me. He coaxed the tension from every finger, squeezing them in his grip, working his way up the muscles of her forearm.

She had leaned back as he rubbed her arms, her body molding against his. Holding her as closely as he was, he couldn’t help but brush his arms against her chest. And as he did, he couldn’t help but notice that her nipples had grown hard and tense. And so he massaged them, too.

He made little circles with his fingers about her breasts, radiating from the center on out. She let out a sound, halfway between a sigh and a sob, as he did so. And when that did not relieve the tension in those tight buds—when she turned around and straddled him, her petticoats covering his legs, her thighs clasping his, her body sweet against his—well. Only a cad would have left her in such a state.