“Mary Winters?” Vail repeated the name softly, his tone subtly different from the gentle cynicism of a moment ago. The deep voice had expressed the merest hint of interest in what the speakers had said, but since it was the first he had shown in any of the gossip they had offered, they hurried to enlighten him.
“A serving girl who tried to murder her master,” Alton began to explain, only to be silenced by several protesting voices.
“Governess,” someone corrected. “She was the child’s governess.”
“There’s no proof she was attempting to kill him.” Another voice came clearly through the hubbub. “She claims she struck in self-defense.”
‘Of course,” someone else said derisively. “What else could she say, given what she had done?”
“Apparently the merchant discovered the woman had been stealing the household moneys, as good as taking food out of the mouths of his dying wife and his son while he’d been away on business,” Alton continued, over several protesting voices. “Naturally, Tray wick was horrified, angry enough to upbraid her, even to threaten legal action. The thought of prison must have frightened her to death. Later that night, she attacked him with the poker and knocked him unconscious into the fire. He suffered the most abominable burns to his face. It’s said his visage is permanently marred.”
“That’s the merchant’s version,” the viscount said dismissively. “The few villagers who had contact with the woman, however, are openly doubtful of that sequence of events. For one thing, it doesn’t explain the blow to her face.”
“And what do they believe?” Vail asked. His eyes were not on the speaker, but rather on his fingers, which, despite the sudden pounding of his heart, still appeared relaxed, idly playing with one of the cards from the now forgotten game. Ironically, he noted, the card was the queen of hearts.
“That Mary Winters was defending herself from Traywick’s unwanted sexual advances,” Salisbury said succinctly. “His wife had recently died, and the merchant is deemed to be a man of strong and…somewhat strange sexual appetite. He has an unsavory reputation for cruelty among the local prostitutes. Despite the death of the wife, the governess was still living in his home. She has no family, no one to offer her protection. Maybe he thought he could get away with assaulting her, or that a spinster in her situation would welcome his advances in the hope that eventually, if she pleased him, they would lead to an offer of marriage.”
“But she was dressed,” someone reminded him. “Remember that. She was fully dressed when she came into the village to get help.”
“With a torn nightgown left behind as proof of his attack.”
“Which she could have torn herself to back up her version of events.”
The excited babble of argument grew and expanded, each speaker repeating assertions that had already been made innumerable times since news of the country scandal reached the capital. No one could have explained why, but the circumstances surrounding the case had fired enough interest that the trial of Mary Winters had become something of a cause célèbre.
“Consider that the child cannot speak,” Alton said. “Sure evidence that something untoward occurred.”
“Perhaps evidence that he had watched his beloved governess being attacked by his drunken father.”
“Traywick had been drinking. There’s no doubt of that. The constable found the empty decanter of port overturned in his room.”
“The woman poured it out to give weight to her version.”
“Why was she fully dressed?”
“Would you have her run into the village naked? Use your head, man.”
“And no one knows whether or not the child is capable of verifying either story. Traywick won’t allow anyone to question him.”
“And the outcome?” Vail asked. The quiet authority in the duke’s voice broke through the confusion. There was silence for a moment as they considered the surprising question, but after all, they gradually realized, Vail had been out of the country. He could not be expected to know the details they were so familiar with.
“Well,” Alton admitted, “there has been no outcome. Not yet, at any rate. The charge of attempted murder was too serious for the local magistrate to hear, so it’s been put over until the assizes. The trial is to convene…” He paused, uncertain.
“This week,” someone supplied.
“The location?” Vail asked. The gray eyes lifted to the speaker who seemed to have more factual knowledge than the rest. Somehow the duke’s face had changed, its planes reset into granite, as cold and as hard as the gaze he was wont to direct at those who had dared through the years to encroach upon his fiercely protected privacy.
“Penhurst,” Harry Caldwell supplied. He was better versed in the controversy than anyone, since his father’s manor house was the largest in the district where the assizes would be held.
The duke’s mouth moved slightly. It was a location less than forty miles from his own estate. Despite the failure of the searches he had launched, Mary Winters had not traveled far in the intervening years.
“Then, gentlemen, if you will forgive me, it seems I have a journey to undertake.”
The duke rose. Despite the hours he had sat at this table, the black coat and trousers, the silk waistcoat and the snowwhite stock were perfect, just as they had been when he left his valet’s hands. He adjusted his sleeves, and then glanced up to find shocked curiosity manifested on the faces of the gentlemen who had sought to entertain him.
“Journey?” Harry Caldwell repeated carefully.
“Penhurst, I believe you said,” Vail affirmed.
“To the trial? You plan to attend Mary Winters’s trial?” The question was one they all had, but only Alton had the presence of mind to give voice to it.
“It seems, gentlemen, rumor has erred in asserting that Mary Winters is without protection,” Vail said simply.
He inclined his head politely, at the same time fighting the urge to smile that their slack-jawed shock had evoked. He could imagine, given the ardor with which they had argued the case, how his declaration would be bandied about over dinner tables and hands of whist in the days to come.
Let them gossip and be damned, Vail found himself thinking. Perhaps it would add some semblance of importance to the meaningless chatter with which they usually entertained one another. Of course, none of them would ever know the real story.
“Again, gentlemen—I bid you good-night.”
They watched in stunned silence as His Grace, the Duke of Vail, made his unhurried exit from the club.
Mary Winters had been told what to expect only because she was persistent enough to ask and ask repeatedly. She had had no idea how such affairs were conducted, and when it was all explained to her by the local constable, her intellect had easily seen through the flaws in the process, but, of course, the fact that she found them to be vastly unjust would have no effect on the proceedings.
She was the accused, which meant, as it had been explained to her, that she would not be called upon to give testimony. Indeed, she would not be allowed to tell her version of the story at all. She had been accused of a crime, and it was assumed, therefore, that a crime had been committed. The only investigation of the events in question would be conducted on that premise. She had been asked if she wished to engage a serjeant-at-law to represent her, but since she had no funds with which to hire counsel, she had