For the Sake of Elena (Inspector Lynley, #5)(126)

“Even that, Inspector. Once she told me she was pregnant, I nearly convinced myself that the vasectomy had gone wrong all those years ago and that the child was really mine.”

“Have you any idea who the father was?”

“No. But I’ve spent hours since last Wednesday wondering about it.”

“Where have your thoughts led you?”

“To the same conclusion again and again. If she slept with me to have revenge on her father, whomever else she slept with, it was for the same reason. It didn’t have anything to do with love.”

“Yet you were willing to take up a life with her in spite of knowing all this?”

“Pathetic, isn’t it? I wanted passion again. I wanted to feel alive. I told myself that I would be good for her. I thought that with me she would be able to let go of her grievances against Anthony eventually. I believed I’d be enough for her. I’d be able to heal her. It was an adolescent little fantasy that I clung to till the end.”

Lady Helen placed her balloon glass on the table next to Troughton’s. She kept her fingers carefully on its rim. She said, “And what about your wife?”

“I hadn’t told her about Elena yet.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” he said. “You meant what about the fact that Rowena bore my children and did my laundry and cooked my meals and cleaned my house. What about those seventeen years of loyalty and devotion. What about my commitment to her, not to mention my responsibilities to the University, to my students, to my colleagues. What about my ethics and my morals and my values and my conscience. That’s what you meant, isn’t it?”

“I suppose it is.”

He looked away from them, eyes focussed on nothing. “Some kinds of marriages wear at a person until the only thing left is a body that’s simply going through the motions.”

“I wonder if that’s your wife’s conclusion as well.”

“Rowena wants out of this marriage as much as I do. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

Now, in the darkness on the terrace, Lynley felt burdened not only by Troughton’s assessment of his marriage but also by the mixture of revulsion and indifference he had expressed towards his wife. More than anything, he wished Helen had not been with him to hear the story of his attachment to Elena Weaver and his maddeningly level-headed rationale for that attachment. For as the historian had calmly outlined his reasons for turning away from his wife and seeking the company and the love of a woman young enough to be his daughter, Lynley believed he had finally come to understand at least part of what lay at the root of Helen’s refusal to marry him.

The understanding had been an uneasiness churning within him—asking to be noticed—since the start of the evening in Bulstrode Gardens. It had demanded some sort of spoken release in the musty confines of Victor Troughton’s study.

What we ask of them, he thought. What we expect, what we demand. But never what we will give in return. Never what they want. And never a moment’s thorough consideration of the burdens which our desires and requirements place upon them.

He looked up at the vast grey darkness of the cloud-heavy sky. A distant light winked in it.

“What are you seeing?” Lady Helen asked him.

“A shooting star, I think. Close your eyes, Helen. Quickly. Make a wish.” He did so himself.

She laughed at him quietly. “You’re wishing on a plane, Tommy. It’s heading for Heathrow.”

He opened his eyes, saw that she was right. “I’ve no viable future in astronomy, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t believe that. You used to point out all the constellations to me. In Cornwall. Don’t you remember?”

“It was all show, Helen darling. I was trying to impress you.”

“Were you? Well, I was suitably impressed.”

He turned to look at her. He reached for her hand. In spite of the cold, she wasn’t wearing gloves, and he pressed her cool fingers against his cheek. He kissed her palm.

“I sat there and listened and realised that he may as well have been me,” he said, “because it all boils down to what men want, Helen. And what we want is women. But not as individuals, not as living, breathing, vulnerable human beings with a set of desires and dreams of their own. We want them—you—as extensions of ourselves. And I’m among the worst.”

Her hand moved in his, but she didn’t withdraw it. Rather, her fingers entwined with his.

“And as I listened to him, Helen, I thought of all the ways I’ve wanted you. As my lover, as my wife, as the mother of my children. In my bed. In my car. In my home. Entertaining my friends. Listening to me talk about my work. Sitting next to me quietly when I don’t feel like speaking. Waiting up for me when I’m out on a case. Opening your heart to me. Making yourself mine. And those are the operative words I kept hearing: I, me, my, mine.” He looked across the Backs to the smudgy forms of English oaks and common alders that were little more than shadows against a charcoal sky. When he turned back to her, her expression was grave, but her eyes were still on him. They were dark and kind.

“There’s no sin in that, Tommy.”

“You’re right,” he replied. “There’s only self in it. What I want. When I want it. And you’re meant to cooperate because you’re a woman. That’s how I’ve been, isn’t it? No better than your brother-in-law, no better than Troughton.”