Trial by Desire (Carhart 2)

Kate raised her hand gracefully. “She’s right there,” she said, pointing at Louisa.

Half the room stood, all at once. The judge banged his gavel to no avail a first time, and then louder. But it was only when he shouted a threat to have them all carried away that everyone subsided in their seats. In comparison with that roar, the silence that followed was so absolute Kate could hear the scritch of the reporters’ pencils against foolscap.

As for Harcroft… A thousand emotions seemed to flit across his face. Fear. Triumph. Concern. And then, as Louisa did not move forward down the aisle toward him, a hint of anger. He drew himself up.

A week ago, Louisa had curled into a ball, thinking of the possibility of confronting her husband. Kate could see Ned place his hand on Louisa’s shoulder. Louisa didn’t flinch.

Harcroft strode down the aisle toward her. When he was a few feet in front of her, he reached for her. But Louisa looked up. She squared her shoulders. And then without the slightest trace of uncertainty, she met his eyes.

Kate wanted to cheer. The earl stopped where he was.

“Where have you been?” He glanced about, as if searching for a hidden spring gun.

“Don’t you recall?” Louisa gave a little laugh. “I’d made plans to go to Paris. I was shopping.”

The moment of silence stretched in the courtroom, as hair-raisingly electric as the second before lightning struck. Kate could feel that energy, the back of her neck tingling in awareness.

“Shopping?” Harcroft repeated weakly. “Shopping?”

“Oh, yes. You don’t suppose I would leave for another reason, now, do you?”

Louisa gazed at him.

He was the first to look away. He looked to the back of the room—at the cadre of reporters, their pencils poised to record every word he spoke. Kate could see the visible calculation in his face. Harcroft was beloved of society.

Everyone thought he was perfect. He could no more announce his true thoughts to this room than he could fly.

“Ah.” He rubbed his head. “Shopping. Perhaps you forgot to mention.” His voice took on a darker tone. “I’ll see you home, then.”

“Oh, I’m not going with you, Harcroft. Not today.”

Every person in the room turned avariciously to Harcroft, waiting to see his reaction to that impertinence.

Harcroft whirled to face the magistrate.

“You see? Lady Kathleen has persuaded my wife to refuse me already. Clap her in chains!”

“Oh, Harcroft,” Louisa said with a sigh. “Do be rational. I made the decision not to accompany you home on my own. Do you really suppose I would be happy that you tried to toss my dearest friend into gaol, simply because you couldn’t remember my traveling plans?”

He looked dumbstruck. “I—”

“Your Worship,” Louisa continued. “The only person who is keeping me from my husband is…my husband. If anyone is to be clapped in chains, I suggest it be him.”

The spectators broke out in laughter. And as Harcroft realized it was directed at him, his countenance darkened. He took two steps down the aisle toward Louisa.

“What are you going to do, Harcroft? Force me?” Louisa laughed as she spoke. Kate knew exactly how hard it must have been for her to do that. “In front of all these people? No, darling. I’ll come home when you deliver a suitable apology. For everything you have done.”

The earl’s hands fisted at his sides. His jaw twitched in a murderous, violent anger. Kate saw his eyes sweep across the entire crowd.

“Well, my lord,” said the magistrate hopefully. “Shall we call this all’s well that ends well?”

Harcroft turned to look at the man. “I suppose this proceeding is over, Your Worship.” His eyes fell on Kate. “But it’s not over. Not until I’ve delivered the apology my wife deserves.”

AFTER THE MAGISTRATE BANGED his gavel and pronounced the court in recess again, pandemonium broke out. Ned barely managed to remain standing, buffeted as he was on all sides by the intrepid young men from the gossip rags. They dashed pell-mell through the door, nearly tripping over Ned’s feet in their haste to deliver the story.

Harcroft took one long look at Louisa, and then marched down the aisle toward her. Louisa didn’t cringe, even though he stalked up to her stiff-legged. She didn’t look away. They’d practiced that in the carriage—although, under the circumstances, Ned hadn’t managed to project even a tiny portion of the menace that Harcroft had. Oddly enough, it hadn’t been the pain that had posed the greatest difficulty. He’d gone somewhere beyond hurt, to a world where pain no longer had any meaning. It was the problem of keeping himself firmly in the present that had proved a challenge.

And he had to be in the present now. Harcroft reached for his wife. Ned wasn’t sure what the earl intended, but Ned had promised Louisa her husband wouldn’t touch her. Before he could grab her arm, Ned interposed his own body between them in a graceless, lurching motion. He intercepted Harcroft’s outstretched arm with a handshake.

“Get out of my way, Carhart,” Harcroft said through the gritted teeth of his false smile.

“Your wife has a pistol in her reticule,” Ned responded quietly. “If you touch her, she’ll shoot you.”

Harcroft glanced behind Ned. “Death threats,” he finally said. “How quaint.” He cast his wife another, more vicious look. “Enjoy your freedom,” he hissed. “I hear there are excellent sanitariums in Switzerland.”

At those words, Ned felt an inappropriate cheer. So he had guessed correctly—Harcroft had filed a petition in lunacy in the courts of Chancery. Not really a cause for rejoicing, but at least they’d been correct about that much. Good thing they’d managed to confuse that suit, at least. But cheer was a mistake. With happiness came feeling; with feeling came the urge to beat his head against a wall until he passed out and could feel pain no more. Harcroft simply glared one last time, and then stalked out of the room.

The real reason Ned had made it all this way—the real reason he’d suffered these past hours—was coming slowly down the aisle. Kate looked wonderful—small and delicate, and yet strong and indomitable. The sort of woman who might take on magistrates and madmen alike, and never blink in surprise when they crumpled at her feet.

She approached, and he wanted to fold her into an embrace. He would have, were it not for the certainty that if he l

et go of the back of the bench he was clutching, he would fall forward onto his face.

She stopped before him, smiling shyly. He could appreciate the beauty of that smile, even through the gray haze of pain that enveloped him.

“You,” she said, “look both wonderful and awful at the same time.”

“Do you like the attire? I have always dreamed of setting a new fashion in road-weary gentlemen’s attire. I call this particular knot in my cravat ‘The Incompetent.’”

She shook her head in puzzlement. “What cravat?”

“Precisely.”

She laughed. Good to know he could still make her do that, even under these circumstances. “Turn for me,” she suggested, “and let me get the full sense of the fashion.”

“Oh, no. I’m already spinning,” he informed her solemnly. And he was. The room inscribed a lazy orbit around him. He could track the path of her face, trekking across the sky like a moon on a cloudless night.

Louisa took Ned’s elbow. “Kate, there is something you need to know.”

Kate glanced at Ned again, and a hint of worry flashed across her brow. “You look as if you’re about to fall down.”

No. Not that. He’d proven…he’d proven…he’d proven something fairly clever and intelligent, and as soon as the room stopped whirling about, he would let her know what it was.

“Here,” Kate was saying. She took his other elbow, and then she and Louisa were guiding him toward a chair. He landed in a heavy thud that jarred his leg.

“You’ve been up all night,” Kate was saying. “You’re tired. And your trousers are ripped. Did you take a spill on the road?”

“I think he must have sprained his ankle,” Louisa said. “He limps.”

They were talking about him as if he were not there. In another world, another place, that would have bothered him. But Ned felt curiously as if he were not quite present. It was quite clever of them to sense that.

Kate sat down next to him.

“Sprained your ankle?” she was saying. “What on earth were you doing standing on it just now? Was this some attempt to prove some idiotic masculine point?” Her fingers against his neck were far more gentle than her words.