Blind Justice: A William Monk Novel by Anne Perry

were to do it again, I would choose something warmer,” Beata said deliberately.
    York raised his eyebrows. “Warmer? How can blue be warmer, unless you go into purple, which I would dislike intensely. I cannot imagine living with purple curtains.”
    She did not retreat. “I was thinking of yellow,” she replied. “I have always thought I would like yellow one day, like sunlight on the walls.”
    Rathbone thought how pleasant that would be. He found himself smiling.
    “A yellow room?” Mary Allan said, unimpressed.
    “What would you do for curtains?” York asked. “I refuse to live in the middle of a glass bowl like a goldfish!”
    “Perhaps the color of whisky?” Rathbone suggested.
    Beata flashed him a sudden smile then looked down the moment before York turned to stare at her.
    “It sounds very …” Mary Allan started, and then gave up.
    “Like scrambled eggs on burned toast,” York responded.
    Allan laughed nervously.
    “Afternoon sunlight, and a good glass of single malt,” Rathbone said with a smile, meeting York’s eyes and challenging him to be rude enough to argue.
    R ATHBONE TURNED OVER THE conversation again on the ride home. He took a hansom because he no longer kept a carriage of his own. He could easily afford it, but without Margaret to use it, it was an unnecessary luxury.
    Was there really going to be a major fraud case brought against a church, or was York simply playing a game with Allan and Rathbone to see whose ambition was greater? He considered that quite a serious possibility. He had sensed a detachment in York, as if other people’s feelingswere of amusement to him, but of no concern. He found it disconcerting. The man was clever, but he could not like him.
    Beata York was a different matter altogether. There was a grace in her that he found quite beautiful. Even sitting here in the hansom jolting over the cobble in the flickering light of street lamps, if he closed his eyes he could see her face again quite clearly in his mind’s eye. He imagined the curve of her cheek, the quick humor in her eyes, and then the loneliness he had seen in that single smile, when she disagreed with York but could do no more than hint at it because of the restrictions of company. Was it different when they were alone? Was the distance between them less disguised?
    The church case he mentioned would be very difficult indeed to handle. People’s religious feelings ran deep and were often completely irrational. It would take considerable skill to disentangle the law of the land from what might be perceived to be God’s law. The trouble was everybody had a different picture of God. Opposing views were not considered interesting, but rather all too often were felt to be blasphemous, and as such to be punished. Some religions even considered it the duty of their followers to undertake the delivering of such punishment themselves.
    And who were the victims of such a theft? That was a whole other complicated area.
    If it came to trial, did Rathbone want that case? It would be an honor to be given it, wouldn’t it? Or would he get it simply because he was too new on the bench to have the power and the connections to pass it off to someone else?
    But it would be interesting, a challenge to his skill, and if he succeeded he might build up a reputation for dealing with complicated and sensitive issues. Dangerous, perhaps. The risk of failure always carried a price, but the rewards were correspondingly high. He had no one to consider but himself. Why not? Perhaps something with high stakes to play for, whether he won or lost, was what he needed.
    He sat back in the hansom and watched the dark houses slip by him. Occasionally he saw chinks of light and imagined families sittingtogether, perhaps talking over the day. Where there were no lights they might already be in bed. He passed little other traffic and what there was moved briskly. Everyone had somewhere to go.
    Yes, he would like the case, if he were