It was only a flicker. A half second of something crossing his features before he smoothed it back down. But Eleanor had spent three weeks in Boston reading faces exactly like his, watching for the moment a confident liar realized the ground had shifted and she caught it. And so did Judge Puit. Mr.
Whitaker, the judge said slowly, "Is there a copy of that letter in your files?" "I send a great deal of correspondence," Charles said. "Too smooth, too fast. I couldn't possibly recall the contents of every That's not what I asked. I asked if there's a copy.
Charles's jaw worked. His lawyer had gone very still beside him, and Eleanor understood that the lawyer at least knew exactly what a copy of that letter would prove, and was praying his client would lie. Well, "There may be," Charles said finally. "I keep records, as any prudent man does. Then this court will see it."
Judge Puit's voice left no room. I'll send my clerk to your office within the hour, and you'll produce every piece of correspondence between yourself and Mr. Carter, including the offer to purchase. If it says what Mrs. Carter claims, we'll have our answer about the good faith of this petition.
And if you refuse to produce it, or if it should happen to go missing between now and then, I'll draw my own conclusions about why. He picked up his gavel. This hearing is in recess until that letter is in my hands. The room broke into noise again, but this was a different noise, and Eleanor felt the change in it. It was the sound of a crowd that had come to watch a widow torn apart, and was slowly realizing it had watched something else entirely.
They did not have to wait the full hour. Charles Whitaker's lawyer requested a private word with the judge and the two of them and Charles disappeared into a back room while the courtroom buzzed and Eleanor sat with Nathaniel's hand crushing hers and Clara pressed tight against her side and Henry half asleep in Nathaniel's lap and none of them said a word because there was nothing to say that wasn't a prayer. You bluffed him. Nathaniel finally murmured low for her alone. There might not even be a copy.
There's a copy. Eleanor kept her eyes on the back room door. A man like that never destroys anything that might be useful later. That's what made him dangerous, and it's what's going to finish him, she swallowed. Assuming I read him right.
And if you didn't, then I'll have gambled your ranch on a hunch, Eleanor said quietly. And you'd have every right to never forgive me for it. Nathaniel's hand tightened on hers. Eleanor, look at me. She did.