Page 74 of A Madness So Discreet

“Adelaide’s coming to get me tonight, supposedly whisking me off to happy seclusion. Really we’ll be at the inn, right alongside the Times fellow. Adelaide said he’s quite handsome and has promised good seats for herself and her widowed friend for the trial. I’ll undoubtedly have an excellent view of the witness stand.”

Thornhollow sighed and threw a stone in the lake. “Introducing the two of you was one of my larger mistakes. I should tell Janey I’ve changed my mind and have you thrown in isolation until this whole mess is through. You’d have plenty of privacy there.”

“Try it,” Elizabeth said, baring her teeth.

“You’re a rather stunning widow,” Adelaide said as she pinned Grace’s veil on the next morning. “We’ll keep that face covered for more reasons than one. I’ll be thumping fellows left and right just to clear a path for us otherwise.”

Grace smiled, though it felt weak even to her, as she tried to keep a calm face in front of her friend. “I don’t think you’d mind thumping them.”

“A few,” she agreed, fixing her own hat in the mirror. “Though if I were to go after my prime target I’m sure the bailiff would wrestle me down.”

“I’d very much like to see you toe-to-toe with my father,” Grace said. “He’s not much for women’s rights.”

“We’re all lucky the judge is, otherwise I don’t think this would have ever made it to trial. Although, Melancthon tells me as soon as whispers of trouble spread to Boston your father’s political enemies were here to make sure the right voices were heard. Guilty or not, they weren’t taking chances on it being hushed up.

“Regardless, as much as I’d like to take a swing at your father, I think dear little brother would be my first victim.”

Grace laughed, the sound tinged with desperation, her veil puffing out with her breath. “You love him dearly and him you. Why neither one of you acknowledges it I don’t know.”

“Because we’re Thornhollows,” Adelaide said. “Emotions are not in our blood.” She turned from the mirror, face suddenly serious. “I’ll have you know my intentions for helping you, Grace. I think it’ll do you good to see your father put away for all the demons he’s brought upon you. You’ve earned the right to that, and I’ll see you have it. But you also need to know that I share my brother’s opinion that you’ve removed yourself too thoroughly from your own feelings. It doesn’t come naturally to you as it does to myself and Melancthon. I fear you’re nearing a precipice, and I’d rather be next to you when you go over.”

“There is nothing wrong with me,” Grace said as they left their room, ignoring that her hands trembled inside each other. “But I appreciate everything you’ve done. You’ve gone to great trouble just to help me, and I have no way to repay you.”

Adelaide rolled her eyes. “Going against Melancthon’s wishes is its own reward.”

They had to walk to the courthouse. Mr. Turner, Adelaide’s gentleman friend from the Times, joined them. The streets were packed with carriages, most of them headed for the same destination. Newspaper boys yelled from street corners, and prostitutes called from alleyways, hoping to distract a few of the novelty seekers with something more pleasurable than rhetoric.

Mr. Turner cleared the way for them once inside the courthouse, his press badge bringing them closer to the front than otherwise possible and his glib tongue explaining the need of seats for the two women as well. Grace settled in, her black skirts swishing around her as she crossed her ankles, grinding them together almost painfully to give herself something to focus on other than the fluttering of her stomach.

Even though it had bordered on cool outdoors, the inside of the courtroom was uncomfortably warm, the press of bodies adding heat. Words flew through the air, blurring together in a din that filled Grace’s ears and had her retreating inside herself despite the physical veil in front of her face. She sat still and stony while Adelaide made conversation with Mr. Turner.

The courtroom erupted when her father was brought in, everyone around her rising to their feet, some screaming about the ridiculousness of the charges, while others jeered him. Grace stayed in her seat with Adelaide’s hands on her own, only too glad to have her view blocked by a man’s back at that moment.

The judge banged his gavel repeatedly, only gaining order once he threatened to bar the public from the proceedings if they couldn’t control themselves. A dark murmur passed through the crowd but they found their seats, the man in front of her one of the last to rest. Grace felt her breaths coming shallow and quick as she saw Nathaniel Mae close up for the first time since being dragged screaming from her own home, her belly heavy with his child.

He seemed no worse for wear, his black mustache trim as ever, no hair on his head out of place. He rested easily at the defense table, calm as if he were taking in a ball game on a summer’s day. He turned to speak to Mr. Atkinson, his lawyer, and Grace felt even the smallest of inhalations catch in her chest as his eye passed over her.

She had wanted to be here, she reminded herself. She had wanted to see him squirm and quiver under the stern eye of the law, but she had forgotten his panache, his absolute certainty in his divine right to behave as he saw fit. Grace had stilled her tongue in part to forget language and the sound of speech, but the sight of him brought his voice into her head as if she were back in their home, watching him fix his hair in her bedroom mirror.

“Appearances are everything, Grace,” he had said. “As long as no one suspects something, it didn’t happen.”

“Appearances are everything,” she whispered to herself now, as he shared a laugh with his defense team. If he had a shred of doubt as to his own victory he would not show it. Grace’s breathing evened out. “That works both ways, Father,” she said quietly.

“What was that, Madeleine?” Adelaide asked.

“I asked what happens now?” Grace said.

“Ah, well, today are the opening statements and if we’re lucky, the prosecution presents their case. With Pickering aiming for the death penalty it could go into more than one day if there’s a lot of cross-examining. You may change your mind about wanting to be here. I guarantee you with the heat, half this room files out by lunchtime. It’s all fun when we’re speculating from the comfort of our homes about sex and murder, but when we’re smelling each other’s stenches while the coroner goes on about body temperatures and timetables it loses most of its shine.”

Adelaide was right in some respects. The facts of the case were presented from both sides, each with their own interpretation. That Jenny Cantor was dead could not be denied, and Atkinson—a small man with a full head of white hair—made much of the tragedy of that fact. But that his client was the one that murdered her, the very presumption of accusing an outstanding citizen of such a crime was an outrage in itself.

Beside Grace, Adelaide huffed into her fan. “Sorry, old boy,” she muttered. “But the grand jury charged him. They don’t do that on whims, you know.”

Grace leaned to speak to her friend, irritated by how easily their assertion of her father’s innocence had ruffled her. “I almost think he believes what he’s saying.”

“He believes what he’s paid to believe,” Adelaide said.

The prosecution kept their opening statement brief, saying only that the facts would speak for themselves, and that Nathaniel Mae’s public facade was very different from the real man, whose dark appetites were only now coming to light.