Trial by Desire (Carhart #2)

Then there was testimony from the stagecoach workers, who testified that Kate had met the nursemaid upon her arrival in London; a statement from one of her grooms, who’d conveyed Kate and an infant in a carriage to Berkswift. Finally, there was a seamstress who’d testified about parcels ordered by Lady Harcroft, but delivered on Kate’s orders to Kate’s house.


Kate had done her best to hide her traces, but once the eye of suspicion had fallen on her, her tracks were indelibly marked. She’d have been convinced of her own guilt, given that evidence.

And by the eyes of the jurors, they agreed with that assessment. After the first fifteen minutes of testimony, not one of them would meet her gaze. They had already come to a decision. She could not even blame them. She was guilty. She had stolen Harcroft’s wife. She’d just done it for a very good reason.

With that tide of evidence damning her, there was almost no reason for her to speak. Still, it was half eleven when the magistrate motioned Kate forward.

Magistrate Fang eyed her uneasily. He could not want a lady convicted, but Kate knew how suspicious the evidence seemed. That he appeared nervous was a good sign—he would be looking for ways to interpret the evidence he’d heard to exonerate her, to avoid any difficulties her father or her cousin might cause.

Finally, he sighed and began questioning her. “Lady Kathleen, did you hire Mrs. Watson as a nursemaid?”

Nothing but the truth would do. “Yes, Your Worship.”

He bit his lip and looked about, still looking for an escape. “And did you do so because you had a child of your own?” he asked hopefully.

“No, Your Worship.”

More silence. Magistrate Fang rubbed his wig. “Perhaps it was a sister you were assisting?”

“I have no sisters,” Kate answered.

“A favored servant?”

“No.”

He had just stripped Kate of any possible legitimate reason for hiring the woman. The magistrate almost pouted, and then folded his arms on the bench. “For whom, then, did you hire the nursemaid?”

With Ned absent, Kate’s only choice was to tell the truth. The question was how much of it she would have to tell before he arrived. Kate shook her head in confusion. “For Louisa, of course. Lady Harcroft. I thought we had already established that, Your Worship.”

A soft susurrus of surprise spread through the courtroom at those words.

The magistrate frowned. “And where is the nursemaid at present?”

Kate gave him a sunny smile. “I imagine she is with Lady Harcroft, although it has been some time since I last saw either of them.”

The jurors had lifted their heads at Kate’s cheerful words. She was not cringing or ducking her head. She was speaking in a pleasant tone. In short, she was not speaking as if she were a guilty woman. Kate was waltzing precariously close to the edge of the cliff. Still, she forced herself to look Harcroft in the eyes and smile.

He looked away first. A tiny victory, that, but it seemed as if an extra ray of sunshine cut through the gloom in Queen Square.

“Where,” the magistrate asked her, “is Lady Harcroft?”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly say,” Kate replied.

Another murmur from the crowd, this one louder.

“You can’t say, or you won’t?” Harcroft moved toward her. She didn’t have to pretend to shrink from him. Standing above her, tall as he was, he seemed dark and menacing. Precisely how she wanted everyone to remember him.

“Lady Kathleen,” he growled, “must I remind you that you’ve pledged yourself to tell the whole truth?”

Kate looked up, widening her eyes in pretend innocence. “Why, I am telling the truth! I truly can’t say. I believe Lady Harcroft is in transit at this moment.” At least, she hoped she was—unless something terribly untoward had happened to Ned. “Of course, as she’s not with me in London, and I’ve not had a post from her, I can’t say for sure.”

Harcroft folded his arms and glared at her. “If you hired her nursemaid and abducted her, you know her whereabouts. Divulge them, Lady Kathleen.”

“She’s in a carriage.” Kate smiled brightly. “Or—maybe she is not. It is so hard to say. If I could see her now, surely I could say where she was.”

He frowned at that bit of stupidity. “The prisoner,” he said tightly, “is mocking the honor of this court—of you, Your Worship, in front of all of London. Demand that she tell where my wife is. Demand it now.”

The magistrate reached for a handkerchief and dabbed at the sweat that trickled down his forehead. “Lady Kathleen?” he asked faintly.

At those words, the courtroom doors opened on the far edge of the crowd. As they did, a blast of midmorning sun spilled into the room. Dust motes sparkled in the sudden light, suspended in air. Then two figures, dark silhouettes against that sunlight, appeared. Kate went breathless with hope.