Defend and Betray by Anne Perry Page B

did you first realize they were enamored of each other?”
    “I don't remember.” Still she did not look at him. There was no urgency in her at all. It was quite obvious she did not care whether he believed her or not. The emotion was gone again. She shrugged very faintly. “A few weeks, I suppose. One doesn't know what one doesn't want to.” Now suddenly there was real passion in her, harsh and desperately painful. Something hurt her so deeply it was tangible in the small room.
    He was confused. One moment she felt so profoundly he could almost sense the pulse of it himself; the next she was numb, as if she were speaking of total trivialities that mattered to no one.
    “And this particular evening brought it to a climax?” he said gently.
    “Yes ...” Her voice was husky anyway, with a pleasing depth to it unusual in a woman. Now it was little above a whisper.
    “You must tell me what happened, event by event as you recall it, Mrs. Carlyon, if I am to . . . understand.” He had nearly said to help, when he remembered the hopelessness in her face and in her bearing, and knew that she had no belief in help. The promise would be without meaning to her, and she would reject him again for using it.
    As it was she still kept her face turned away and her voice was tight with emotion.
    “Understanding will not achieve anything, Mr. Rathbone. I killed him. That is all the law will know or care about. And that is unarguable.”
    He smiled wryly.”Nothing is ever unarguable in law, Mrs. Carlyon. That is how I make my living, and believe me I am good at it. I don't always win, but I do far more often than I lose.”
    She swung around to face him and for the first time there was real humor in her face, lighting it and showing a trace of the delightful woman she might be in other circumstances.
    “A true lawyer's reply,” she said quietly.'“But I am afraid I would be one of those few.”
    “Oh please. Don't defeat me before I begin!” He allowed an answering trace of lightness into his tone also. “I prefer to be beaten than to surrender.”
    “It is not your battle, Mr. Rathbone. It is mine.”
    “I would like to make it mine. And you do need a barrister of some kind to plead your case. You cannot do it yourself.”
    “All you can do is repeat my confession,” she said again.
    “Mrs. Carlyon, I dislike intensely any form of cruelty, especially that which is unnecessary, but I have to tell you the truth. If you are found guilty, without any mitigating circumstances, then you will hang.”
    She closed her eyes very slowly and took a long, deep breath, her skin ashen white. As he had thought earlier, she had already touched this in her mind, but some defense, some hope had kept it just beyond her grasp. Now it was there in words and she could no longer pretend. He felt brutal watching her, and yet to have allowed her to cling to a delusion would have been far worse, immeasurably dangerous.
    He must judge exactly, precisely all the intangible measures of fear and strength, honesty and love or hate which made her emotional balance at this moment if he were to guide her through this morass which he himself could only guess at. Public opinion would have no pity for a woman who murdered out of jealousy. In fact there would be little pity for a woman who murdered her husband whatever the reason. Anything short of life-threatening physical brutality was expected to be endured. Obscene or unnatural demands, of course, would be abhorred, but so would anyone crass enough to mention such things. What hell anyone endured in the bedroom was something people preferred not to speak of, like fatal diseases and death itself. It was not decent.
    “Mrs. Carlyon ...”
    “I know,” she whispered.”They will...” She still could not bring herself to say the words, and he did not force her. He knew they were there in her mind.
    “I can do a great deal more than simply repeat your confession, if you will tell me the truth,” he went