“And what if it’s a boy?” Kate asked.
He leaned over to brush a third kiss on her forehead. “Then, my love, he is really going to hate being called Lily.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Kate’s trial takes place without an indictment being presented to a grand jury. This is mostly because that step in the process would be boring to read about and boring to write about. In 1842, that step would have been necessary. I’ve taken the liberty of bending time a little in this regard; in 1849 legislation was passed that allowed police magistrates to certify that indictments could proceed to trial without being presented to a grand jury.
In early Victorian England, summary trials (that is, trials without a jury) could come before police magistrates under some circumstances (certain petty, nonviolent crimes). In many instances, particularly for the lower classes, magistrates sat as judges of fact over other crimes, too, so long as the parties agreed that no jury was necessary. It’s not always clear that the parties under those circumstances consented to the lack of jury; in some cases, they may not even have known they were entitled to a jury. Kate’s first abortive trial, interrupted by Ned, is one such. Both the speed and the apparent laxity of the courtroom depicted here are in keeping with the few accounts I’ve read of such proceedings.
Harcroft’s statements to the magistrate as to the elements and legality of abduction of a wife by persuasion were drawn (with little alteration) from Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England—presumably the source of our hypothetical Harcroft’s cribbed notes, anyway. Magistrate Fang was borrowed from Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6892-4
TRIAL BY DESIRE
Copyright © 2010 by Courtney Milan
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book please contact us at [email protected].
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.HQNBooks.com
Trial by Desire Page 29