A Sudden, Fearful Death

"I-I don't recall the question," she said wretchedly.

Rathbone answered before Hardie could reword it and make it innocuous.

"You are not saying that Prudence Barrymore was blackmailing Sir Herbert, are you?" he demanded, his voice louder and sharper than he had intended.

"Yes," she said quietly. "Yes, she was blackmailing him."

"But," Rathbone protested, as if horror-stricken, "but you said-why, for God's sake? You said yourself she had no wish whatever to marry him!"

Berenice stared at him with unmitigated hatred.

"She wanted him to help her gain medical training. I know that from deduction-not observation. You cannot charge me with concealing it."

"Ch-charge you?" Rathbone stammered.

"For God's sake!" She leaned over the witness stand railing, her face twisted with fury. "You know he killed her! You just have to go through this charade because you are supposed to defend him. Get on with it! Get it done!"

Rathbone turned to her very slightly, then away again to look up at Sir Herbert in the dock.

His face was gray, his mouth slack with disbelief, his eyes bright with sick panic.

There was only the faintest, thinnest flicker of hope. Very slowly he turned from Rathbone to the jury. He looked at one, then another, then another, right to the last. Then he knew it was defeat… final and absolute.

There was silence in the room. Not even a pencil moved.

Philomena Stanhope looked up at the dock steadily, and there was something in her face very close to pity.

Lovat-Smith held out his hand to Rathbone, his face burning with admiration.

About the Author

ANNE PERRY is the author of two acclaimed series set in Victorian England. Her William Monk novels include Death of a Stranger and The Shifting Tide. Among her novels featuring Charlotte and Thomas Pitt are the New York Times bestselling Southampton Row and Long Spoon Lane. With No Graves As Yet, also a New York Times bestseller, Perry began a new miniseries set during World War I. Her short story "Heroes" won an Edgar Award. Anne Perry lives in the Scottish Highlands. Visit her website at www.anneperry.net.

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