Read Online Cecilia Grant - [Blackshear Family 03] by A Woman Entangled - Free Book Online Page A

telling her, with an admonishment to allow no change in her manners with Mr. Blackshear.
    Nick bent his head to the pages of his brief and pulled one back to frown at the second, though he knew precisely what was on each page. How could he expect to see no changes in her manner, when he’d committed a shameful change in his manner with her?
    Believe me, Miss Westbrook, I’ve never for a moment imagined I was
. He had to will himself to not visibly cringe in the courtroom. At least a dozen times since last night he’d relived the taste of those words on his tongue; seen her astonishment and dismay; felt all over again the self-disgust at his want of discretion, and worse, at his having such feelings to report in the first place.
    He’d put a deal of effort, over the years, into shaping his affection along brotherly lines. He’d succeeded to a notable degree. Then there she’d been, incandescent with the triumph of her aunt’s letter, bantering with him in her flirtatious style, and when they came to speaking in temper he simply lost his head.
    It’s done. You can’t call back the words, either of you. She’ll remain your friend, or she won’t. She knows your secret, or she doesn’t. Now is this really how you want to spend your courtroom time when that baron may be watching how you do?
No. It wasn’t. Enough woolgathering. He straightened the pages of his brief and sent his attention to the boxes where the witness and prisoner stood.
    Lord only knew what Barclay would make of this case, if he’d never before experienced the criminal courts. A Miss Mary Watson stood accused of thievery from a Mr. Joseph Cutler, under circumstances that did credit to neither party. In such cases, he might tell thebaron, a barrister’s client must be Justice herself, and he always took care to picture her standing in the dock, blindfolded and regal, in place of, for example, the slatternly, fidgety woman who stood there now, periodically baring her unfortunate teeth in what seemed to be a smile. No doubt Stubbs had recommended she make some attempt to look amiable.
    She looked about as amiable as a flea-ridden cur backed into a corner. Nick allowed one glance up to the gallery, to the place where Stubbs always sat. The solicitor had apparently known this glance was coming: he shrugged and shook his head, eyes big and plaintive behind his spectacles, hands helplessly half raised and lowered again.
    Well, at least the accuser was no likelier than the prisoner to make a good impression with the jury. Mr. Cutler, perhaps striving for an air of sophistication, had no sooner taken his place in the witness box than he produced a silver toothpick and began to employ it, with an occasional flourish, in between giving his account of what had transpired.
    “She took my ring, what had a value of three shilling.” Cutler held up his denuded left hand as though to make a more emphatic proof. “Besides that, she took all the money I had on my person. Three pound in bank notes and eight shilling in coins.”
    “
All
the money you had.” George Kersey, arguing for the prosecution today, was one of those barristers who believed every bit of testimony could be improved by a turn in his own voice. In this case, admittedly, he might be right.
    “A ring, too, what were worth three shilling.” The accuser now rested his ringless hand on the box’s railing, where the jury might have a good view of it if they should need further reminding of that detail. “I woke to find all of it gone, and when I said I know she robbedme, she wouldn’t give back but two shilling and sixpence.”
    “Two shillings and sixpence, which were taken from you, without your knowledge or consent.” Kersey strode away from the witness box and spun to face Mr. Cutler again, the dramatic swirl of his robes coinciding with
knowledge or consent
. A hundred such frills and devices a barrister perfected, in order to frame pertinent points for the jury’s benefit without