In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(105)

“It can wait a few minutes.”

“This will take far longer than a few minutes. You know how hopeless I am when it comes to making up my mind about anything. I had thought of something rather pretty with flowers. Subdued and calming. You know what I mean. But Charlie's put me off that idea. God forbid we ask him to escort Aunt Augusta into a room he considers twee. What about this one, unicorns and leopards? Isn't it ghastly?”

“But suitable for guests whose visits one wishes to curtail.”

Helen laughed. “There is that.”

[page]Lynley said nothing until she'd made her selections from all the portfolios he was holding. She covered the bed with them and went on to litter most of the floor. All the time he thought how strange it was that two days previously they'd been at odds with each other. He felt neither irritation nor animosity now. Nor did he feel that sense of betrayal that had triggered within him such righteous indignation. He experienced only a quiet surging of his heart towards hers, which some men might have identified as lust and dealt with accordingly but which he knew had nothing to do with sex and everything on earth to do with love.

He said, “You had my number in Derbyshire. I gave it to Den-ton. To Simon as well.”

She looked up. A lock of chestnut hair caught at the corner of her mouth. She brushed it away.

“You didn't ring,” he said.

“Was I meant to ring?” There was nothing coy about the question. “Charlie gave me the number, but he didn't say you'd asked me to—”

“You weren't supposed to ring. But I hoped you would. I wanted to talk to you. You left the house in the middle of our conversation the other morning, and I felt uneasy with the way things were left between us. I wanted to clear the air.”

“Oh.” The word was small. She went to the room's old Georgian dressing table and sat tentatively on the edge of its stool. She watched him gravely, a shadow playing across her cheek where her hair shielded her face from a shaft of sunlight that streamed in through the window. She looked so much like a schoolgirl waiting to be disciplined that Lynley found himself reassessing what he'd believed were his rational grievances against her.

He said, “I'm sorry about the row, Helen. You were giving your opinion. That's more than your right. I jumped all over you because I wanted you on my side. She's my wife, I thought, and this is my work and these are the decisions that I'm forced to take in the course of my work. I want her behind me, not in front of me blocking my way. I didn't think of you as an individual in that moment, just as an extension of me. So when you questioned my decision about Barbara, I saw red. My temper got away from me. And I'm sorry for it.”

Her gaze lowered. She ran her fingers along the edge of the stool and examined their route. “I didn't leave the house because you lost your temper. God knows I've seen you lose it before.”

“I know why you left. And I shouldn't have said it.”

“Said … ?”

“That remark. The tautology bit. It was thoughtless and cruel. I'd like to have your forgiveness for having said it.”

She looked up at him. “They were only words, Tommy. You don't need to ask forgiveness for your words.”

“I ask nonetheless.”

“No. What I mean is that you're already forgiven. You were forgiven at once if it comes to that. Words aren't reality, you know. They're only expressions of what people see.” She bent and took up one of the wallpaper samples, holding it the length of her arm and evaluating it for some moments. His apology, it seemed, had been accepted. But he had the distinct feeling that the subject itself was miles away from being put at rest between them.

Still, following her lead, he said helpfully in reference to the wallpaper, “That looks like a good choice.”

“Do you think so?” Helen let it fall to the floor. “Choices are what defeat me. Having to make them in the first place. And having to live with them afterwards.”

Warning flares shot up in Lynley's consciousness. His wife hadn't come into their marriage the most eager of brides. Indeed, it had taken some time to persuade her that marriage was in her interests at all. The youngest of five sisters who'd married in every possible circumstance, from into the Italian aristocracy to on the land to a Montana cattleman, she'd been a witness to the vicissitudes and vagaries that were the offspring of any permanent attachment. And she'd never prevaricated about her reluctance to become a party to what might take from her more than it could ever give. But she'd also never been a woman to let momentary discord prevail over her common sense. They'd exchanged a few harsh words, that was all. Words didn't necessarily presage anything.

Still, he said to counter the implication in her statements, “When I first knew that I loved you—have I ever told you this?—I couldn't understand how I'd managed to go so long blind to the fact. There you were, a part of my life for years, but you'd always been at the safe distance of a friend. And when I actually knew that I loved you, risking having more than your friendship seemed like risking it all.”

“It was risking it all,” she said. “There's no going back after a certain point with someone, is there? But I don't regret the risk for a moment. Do you, Tommy?”

He felt a rush of relief. “Then we're at peace.”