Weighed in the Balance (19 page)

“Why are you so interested in Zorah?” Evelyn was equally blunt. There was a sharp light in her eye.

Monk lied perfectly easily. “Because she is going to make an extremely unpleasant scene, but it might bring you back to London, and I shall like that, but not if she has the power to hurt you.”

“She cannot hurt me,” Evelyn said with conviction, smiling at him now. “But you are very charming to worry. People at home don’t take her as seriously as you imagine, you know.”

“Why not?” He was genuinely curious.

She shrugged, sliding a little closer to him. “Oh, she’s always been outrageous. People with any sense will simply think she is trying to draw attention to herself again. She’s probably had an affair die on her, and she wants to do something dramatic. She gets bored very easily, you know. And she hates to be ignored.”

Thinking of Zorah as he had seen her, he could not readily imagine anyone ignoring her. He could understand finding her intimidating, or embarrassing, but never boring. But perhaps even eccentricity could become tedious in time, if it were contrived for effect rather than springing from genuine character. Was Zorah a poseur after all? He would be surprisingly disappointed if it should prove to be true.

“Do you think so?” he said skeptically, touching her hair, feeling its softness slide through his fingers.

“I have no doubt. Look across the lagoon, William. Do you see the Santa Maria Maggiore over there? Isn’t that marvelous?” She pointed across the great stretch of blue-green tide to the distant marble of the domed church which seemed to be floating on the water’s face.

He saw it with a sense of unreality. Only the breeze on his skin and the slight movement of the boat made him realize it was not a painted scene.

“Last time Zorah had an affair which went wrong, she shot him,” Evelyn said casually.

He stiffened. “What?”

“Last time Zorah had an affair and the man left her, she shot him,” Evelyn repeated, twisting around to look up at Monk with wide, pansy-brown eyes.

“And she got away with it?” Monk was incredulous.

“Oh, yes. It was all quite fair. Dueling is accepted in our country.” She regarded his amazement with satisfaction. Then she started to laugh. “Of course, it is normally men who duel, and then with swords. I think Zorah chose a pistol deliberately. She used to be quite good with a sword, but she’s getting slower as she gets older. And he was quite young, and very good.”

“So she shot him!”

“Oh, not dead!” she said happily. “Just in the shoulder. It was all very silly. She was furious because he appeared at a ball and made much play with this other woman, who was very pretty and very young. It all degenerated into a quarrel a few days later. Zorah behaved appallingly, striding into his club wearing boots and smoking a cigar. She challenged him to a duel, and without looking a complete coward, he had to accept, which made him seem a fool when she won.” She nestled a little closer to him. “He never really got over it. I’m afraid people laughed. And, of course, the story grew in the telling.”

Monk had some sympathy with the man. He had had his fill of overbearing women. It was an extremely unattractive trait. And it required more courage than many have, especially the young, to withstand mockery.

“And you thought she might have made this accusation simply to become the center of attraction again?” he asked, smiling down at her and tracing his finger over the curve of her cheek and neck.

“Not entirely.” She was smiling. “But she has little compunction where she feels strongly.”

“Against Gisela?”

“And against unification,” she agreed. “She spends very
little time at home, but she is a patriot at heart. She loves individuality, character, extremes, and the right to choose. I doubt she will see the benefits of trade and protection of a larger state. It is unromantic, but then most people lead very unromantic lives.”

“And you?” he asked, kissing her cheek and her throat. Her skin was soft and warm in the sunlight.

“I am very practical,” she said seriously. “I know that beauty costs money; you cannot have great parties, lovely works of art or theater, horse races, operas and balls if all your money is going into arms and munitions to fight a war.” She pushed her fingers gently through his hair. “I know land gets trampled, villages destroyed, crops burned and men killed when a country is invaded. There is no point whatever in fighting against the inevitable. I would rather pretend it was what I wanted all along and give in to it gracefully.”

“Is it inevitable?” he asked.

“Probably. I don’t know a great deal about politics. Only what I overhear.” She pulled back a little and stared up at him. “If you want to know more, you’ll have to come home with me when we go, next week. Perhaps you should?” There was laughter in her face. “Discover if there was really a plot to bring Friedrich back to the throne and someone murdered him to prevent it!”

“What a good idea.” He kissed her again. “I think that will be absolutely necessary.”

6

R
ATHBONE SEIZED THE LETTER
Simms was holding and tore it open. It was from Venice, and that had to mean Monk. It was not as long as he had hoped.

Rathbone swore and threw the letter down on his desk. Perhaps it was foolish, but he had hoped Monk would discover something which would show a new aspect of Gisela, perhaps a lover, a younger man, a brief obsession which had led her to long for her freedom. Or perhaps Friedrich had discovered her indiscretion and threatened to make it public, and leave her.

But Monk was right. It was almost certainly a political crime, if there were a crime at all, and Zorah’s accusation was motivated more by jealousy than any basis in fact. The only legal advice he could honestly give her was to withdraw her charge and apologize unreservedly. Perhaps if she pleaded distress at Friedrich’s death, and deep disappointment that he could not lead the battle for independence, there might be some compassion towards her. Damages might be moderated. Even so, she would almost certainly have ruined herself.

“Apologize?” she said incredulously when Rathbone was shown into her room with its exotic shawl and red leather sofa. “I will not!” The weather was considerably colder than when
he had first come, and there was a huge fire roaring in the grate, flames leaping, throwing a red light into the bearskins on the floor and giving the room a barbaric look, curiously warming.

“You have no other reasonable choice,” he said vehemently. “We have found no proof whatever of your charge. We are left with suppositions, which may well be true, but we cannot demonstrate them, and even if we could, they are no defense.”

“Then I shall have to make an unreasonable choice,” she said flatly. “Do I assume this is your very proper way of retreating from my case?” Her eyes were level and cold, a flare of challenge in them, and acute disappointment.

Rathbone was irritated, and if he were honest, a little stung. “If you do assume it, madam, you do so wrongly,” he snapped. “It is my duty to advise you as to facts and my considered opinion as to what they may mean. Then I shall take your instructions, providing they do not require me to say or do anything that is contrary to the law.”

“How terribly English.” There was both laughter and contempt in her face. “It must make you feel impossibly safe—and comfortable. You live in the heart of an empire which stretches all ’round the world.” She was angry now. “Name a continent and your British redcoats have fought there, carried by your British navy, subdued the natives and taught them Christianity, whether they wished to learn it or not, and instructed their princes how to behave like Englishmen.”

What she said was true, and it startled him and made him feel suddenly artificial, violated and rather pompous.

Her voice was charged with emotion, deep and husky in her throat.

“You’ve forgotten what it is like to be frightened,” she went on. “To look at your neighbors and wonder when they are going to swallow you. Oh, I know you read about it in your history books! You learn about Napoleon and King Philip of Spain—and how you were on the brink of invasion, with your backs against the wall. But you beat them, didn’t you! You
always won.” Her body was tight under its silk gown, and her face twisted with anger. “Well, we won’t win, Sir Oliver. We shall lose. It may be immediately, it may be in ten years, or even twenty, but in the end we shall lose. It is the manner of our losing that we may be able to control, that’s all. Have you the faintest idea what that feels like? I think not!”

“On the contrary,” Rathbone said sardonically, although his words were only a defense against his own misjudgment and vulnerability. “I am imagining losing very vividly, and I am about to experience it in the courtroom.” He knew as he said it that his own small personal defeat did not compare with the defeat of nations, the loss of centuries-old identity and concepts of freedom, however illusionary.

“You’ve given up!” she said with a lift of surprise which was contempt rather than question.

In spite of determining not to be, he was provoked. He would not let her see it. “I have faced reality,” he contradicted. “That is a different side of the same coin. We have no alternative. It lies with me to tell you the facts and give you the best chance I can; and with you to choose.”

Her eyebrows rose sharply. “Whether I surrender before the battle or fight until I may be beaten? What a nice irony. That is exactly the dilemma my country faces. For my country I think I do not choose assimilation, even though we cannot win. For myself I choose war.”

“You cannot win either, madam,” he said reluctantly. He hated having to tell her. She was stubborn, foolish, arrogant and self-indulgent, but she had courage and, after her own fashion, a kind of honor. Above all, she cared passionately. She would be hurt, and that knowledge pained him.

“Are you saying I should withdraw my charge, say that I lied, and ask that creature’s pardon for it?” she demanded.

“You will have to eventually. Do you want to do it privately now, or publicly, when she proves you incapable of supporting your charge?”

“It would not be private,” she pointed out. “Gisela would make sure everyone knew or there would be no purpose. Not that it matters. I will not withdraw. She murdered him. The fact that you cannot find the proof of it alters nothing.”

He was galled that she should place the responsibility upon him.