Fans of Eloisa James & Julia Quinn discussion
Monday Puzzler
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04/14/14 - Making his case
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Oh no, I want to keep reading! I have read a similar scene, but I don't think I've read this one, sounds good, though!
I'm waiting to hear this title, for sure.
Rarely do I know a puzzler--but I recognize this one! What an excellent book.
So much excellence in this entire book... Tortured Magistrate hides his pain, Accused Heroine wears hers on her sleeves... Angst and a happy ending! I loved it!
I don't know the book, but I think I know the author.
Mod
What is this book? it sounds good.
The answer is
by Courtney Milan. I recently re-read the series when I saw the author had published a missing scene between books two and three on her website. I still think Smite & Miranda are my favorite couple in these books.(BTW, I apologize for the duplicate title for a puzzler. It was after I posted that I saw this was used back in 2012)
And Miranda is about to smite his heart. He'll never recover.... (cue evil chuckle)
The guard returned and opened the cell door. The figure leaned down to recapture her lantern and slipped away. The lock clicked behind her. Once again, footfalls traversed the station. Five minutes, that had taken. It felt like hours. Heroine sat in shaking silence, her mind awhirl.
If sleep had been unattainable before, it was unthinkable now. Every tread of the guard’s passing reminded her of the nightmare she’d just gone through. Her hands shook. She could not find warmth, no matter how tightly she curled up. She didn’t escape that sense of terror until black night turned to dark gray, and gray turned to dawn.
Dawn brought her the first ray of hope.
Sounds of activity rose around her: the indistinct murmur of conversation in some other room, and the clop of hooves, filtered through the one high window in her cell.
A clock tower eventually chimed seven. Heroine imagined the lists going out to the magistrates. Hero might not look at his immediately. He had other duties, after all.
He might first read the paper. He’d surely look over the accounts of the more violent crimes first. Or…
With each passing quarter hour, she invented a new duty for him to perform. But each chime of the bells brought a fresh wave of anxiety. When eight o’clock came, a new fear ascended: he wasn’t coming.
That possibility had never occurred to her, not once during that foul nightmare of an evening. But he’d remarked before about the use of public power for personal gain.
At eleven, a constable unlocked her cell and escorted her to the hearing room. It was every bit as dingy as it had been when she’d stood here all those weeks ago. But the faces that watched her seemed harsher, less forgiving. And the magistrates…
There were four this time, all dressed in a somber black. Two of them scarcely glanced at her. One frowned—a frown that said he had every intention of punishing her to the
fullest sense of the law. And the last…oh, the last was Hero.
She might have collapsed with relief, seeing him there.
Yet when his eyes met hers, he showed no sign of recognition. No widening of the eyes. No smile. No shake of the head. It was as if she simply didn’t exist, except as another prisoner to be judged.
Her knees almost gave way. If he had been anyone else, she might have thought that he was acting indifferent so as best to help her during the hearing. But she knew Hero. It was no pretense when his gaze slipped over hers. He didn’t have it in him to lie that well.
No. She had to face the simple truth. He had well and truly set her to the side.
She’d forgotten what he sounded like on the bench. He was incisive and clear. He ferreted out answers. He did his duty, without regard to the person who was before him. It was going to be awful to have him do his duty toward her.
Maybe it would be worse if he did not. The other magistrates were scarcely even attending to the other prisoners. Long ago, she’d told him that magistrates and constables saw the poor as guilty before the law, no matter what had actually happened. He was the sole exception to prove that rule.
She sat through three convictions before her case was called. She struggled to her feet and half stumbled on her way to the front. Her limbs were all pins and needles. But before anyone could speak, Hero stood.
Thank God.
He did not look her way. “Gentlemen,” he said to his fellow magistrates. “This lady is known to me. I cannot grant impartial judgment in her case. It is my duty, therefore, to recuse myself.”
Her head felt light. She reached out to take the arm of the constable who’d conducted her in. She wasn’t going to faint. Damn it, she was not.
“If you must, Hero,” one of his fellow magistrates said. “Always were a bit too nice about these matters.”
The voice seemed to come from very far away.
Even in her worst imaginings, she’d supposed he would be there. It had broken her heart to imagine him treating her with indifferent, sterile fairness. But it broke her courage to not have him at all. At least he would have listened.
“Hero.” His name crept out. He must have heard her entreaty, but he didn’t flinch. He didn’t even turn around.
“I cannot hear this case,” he repeated.
There was no hint of regret in his voice. Just steel.
He walked to the door without a further backward glance. He was simply going to leave her to the mercy of his fellow magistrates—and from what he’d told her, they didn’t have anything like mercy.
She stared after him, too stunned to even make a sound.
He stopped in the doorway. His hand rested on the frame. He turned and finally, finally, he regarded her. She thought that he might apologize then, or at least offer her a smile in comfort—something so that she would know that he still cared. But there was no warmth to his gaze.
“One last thing, gentlemen.” His voice was quiet, but the hearing room was so silent she could almost hear the frightened slam of her own heartbeat.
His gaze locked with hers. “When I said that this lady was known to me, I meant that I esteem her more than anyone else on this earth.”
The bottom dropped out of her stomach. If the room had been silent before, it was death now, everyone straining to hear his words.
“If I can do my duty and walk away from my best beloved,” he said, “you can all do yours and listen to what she has to say.”