The vestibule outside the courtroom was empty. She guided Frederick to a bench.
“We’re probably imagining things,” she said. Her grandfather’s hand shook as he dragged out a handkerchief and blotted his face.
“Probably,” he replied after a long pause. “It’s been a stressful day, and this hearing has stirred up bad memories. That man is surely no one. He looks like an ordinary laborer, not a Blackstone.”
But he did look like a Blackstone. Her parents had more than a dozen photographs of Willy, and she’d seen them all. He was a sturdy little boy, with an olive complexion and unusually pale eyes. It was impossible to guess what he would have looked like had he grown up.
“I didn’t see him,” Edwin said. “Describe him.”
“He looks like Theodore,” Frederick groused. “All except the rude stare. My son was a kind and gentle man, nothing like that ruffian.”
A roar of laughter rose from the courtroom, followed by a banging of the gavel. The judge demanded order, then said something else so low she couldn’t hear.
“Objection!” the Blackstone attorney shouted, but the judge overruled the objection and continued speaking.
“It doesn’t sound like things are going well,” Edwin said.
Gwen nodded and hurried to the courtroom doors, cocking her ear to listen. The judge said the Blackstones hadn’t proven their case and there was no point in continuing the discussion about damages without a finding of libel.
A cheer rose from the crowd, complete with hooting, stomping, and jeering. The judge banged his gavel for order, but it didn’t stop the commotion. Footsteps came pounding toward the door, and she backed away and returned to her grandfather.
“It sounds like we lost,” she said. “Stay here. I’m going to find that man before he leaves.”
The doors opened, and two hundred people came streaming out. She had to battle the crowd to keep moving toward the doors, determined to intercept the man with the pale eyes and the scar that split his eyebrow.
He wasn’t hard to spot. He was a few inches taller than most of the triumphant and jeering spectators. She pushed through the crowd and managed to grab his elbow.
“Please,” she said. “We need to talk to you.”
He glanced at her through narrowed eyes. “Who is ‘we’?” he asked in a challenging tone.
“My grandfather and I would like to speak to you.”
Frederick was already by her side. Edwin stood a few yards away, watching from a distance. The crowd thinned as the courtroom emptied quickly, and they gestured for the man to follow them a few yards away where it wasn’t so crowded.
“I’m Gwen Blackstone Kellerman, and this is my grandfather, Frederick Blackstone,” she said. “May I ask your name?”
He stared at her grandfather. His demeanor was suspicious and hostile, without an ounce of the deferential respect people usually afforded her grandfather. “Liam,” he finally said. “Liam Malone.”
She sucked in a quick breath. “Are you related to Mick Malone?”
“Yeah, he’s sort of an uncle.”
“Sort of?”
“Yeah, sort of,” he said impatiently. “Look, what’s your business with me?”
Heavens above, what if Mick had snatched her brother and smuggled him away to be raised by someone in his family? William was so young when he was taken that he might have no memory of his early years. The possibility that she could be looking at her long-lost brother was too preposterous to believe, but she couldn’t entirely dismiss it either.
“Exactly how are you related to Mick Malone?”
He narrowed his eyes. “It’s none of your business, lady.”
“You don’t need to be so rude,” she said. “All I did was ask a polite question.”
The hint of a sneer darkened Liam Malone’s face. “Blackstones aren’t polite. You stand on the throat of the working people so you can slurp up ill-gotten gains.” He glanced at the sapphire on her hand. “That pretty blue rock on your finger could choke a horse. How many children went hungry so you could walk around with that vulgar ring?”
“That’s enough,” Frederick warned. “You are to treat my granddaughter with respect.”
“I’d respect her a lot more if she yanked that ring off her finger and dropped it in the nearest collection basket for the poor.”
“This is my wedding ring,” she defended, cradling it against her chest.
“And within a city block of this courthouse there are hungry kids without shoes.” He bellowed the charge so loudly that it echoed down the marble corridors of the courthouse. “You think you’re above criticism because you’re a woman? My mother has burns on her hands from working in a glass factory. The girls in my town drop out of school at twelve to work in the mills. What have you ever done? In your entire life, what have you ever accomplished to earn that rock on your finger?”
Anger gathered and grew brighter. She didn’t deserve this narrow-minded man’s insults and impulsively tugged the ring off and thrust it at him. “Here! It’s yours. Do what you like with it.”
He blinked, staring at her without making any move to take the ring. Onlookers had gathered, and it felt hot and airless in here, but she couldn’t back down. Reporters watched with curious eyes as Liam continued to glare at her without moving.
“Go ahead, take it,” she prompted. “Sell it and give the money to an orphanage. And while you’re at it, sell that union pin on your lapel. You don’t get to issue challenges like that without giving up something of your own.”
He kept his eyes locked on hers as emotions flashed across his face. He opened and closed his mouth as though uncertain how to answer her, but he soon found his voice.
“You probably like masquerading as Lady Bountiful, especially since there are a bunch of reporters here to witness it,” he said. “One can always expect the Blackstones to paint themselves with a saintly brush. I’m surprised you weren’t wearing a halo in the courtroom.”
He grabbed the ring and shoved it in his pocket, then smirked at her before disappearing into the crowd heading out the door.
Every impulse urged her to run after him and get her ring back. What a vile man. She’d hire someone to watch him and see what he did with her ring. She’d let him sell it, but if a penny of the proceeds went into his own pocket instead of helping the poor, she’d trumpet the news and knock him off his self-righteous pedestal.
“He’s not one of us,” Frederick said in a low voice beside her. “He looks like Theodore, but that doesn’t prove anything.”
“Hush,” she whispered, because reporters were still watching, but she and Edwin traded worried glances. It was impossible to know what sort of person Willy would have become if he grew up in the warped, shady custody of the Malones.
“We’ll have to keep an eye on him,” Edwin said, and Gwen nodded, even though in her heart she knew Frederick was probably right. Her father had doted on Willy, and she didn’t want to believe the cheerful boy he described could turn into that hostile, smirking man.
Patrick emerged from the courtroom riding a wave of exhilaration. Mick’s book would proceed to publication, and today’s ruling would make it hard for the Blackstones to come after them again.