In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(76)

She hadn't been able to eat much of the lunch she'd prepared them. Neither, she had noted, had he. So she knew that she was due for some sustenance. She just wasn't sure she could manage it in his presence.

They went to the windows, where Julian set the tray on the top of an old dole cupboard. Leaning their bums against the dusty sill, they each held a mug of Darjeeling and waited for the other to speak.

“It's coming along” was Julians offering as he looked the length of the gallery to the door through which he'd entered. For an over-long time he seemed to study the grimy, ornate carving of the Britton falcon that surmounted it. “I couldn't manage any of this without you, Sam. You're a brick.”

“Just what a woman longs to hear,” Samantha replied. “Thanks very much.”

“Damn. I didn't mean—”

“Never mind.” Samantha took a sip of tea. She kept her eyes on its milky surface. “Why didn't you tell me, Julie? I thought we were close.”

Next to her, he slurped his tea. Samantha subdued her moue of distaste. “Tell you what? And we are close. At least, I hope we are. I mean, I want us to be. Without you here, I would have packed it all in a long time ago. You're practically the best friend I have.”

“Practically,” she said. “That limbo place.”

“You know what I'm saying.”

And the trouble was, she did know. She knew what he was saying, what he meant, and how he felt. She wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him into an understanding of what it meant that such an unspoken communication should exist between them. But she couldn't do so, so she settled on trying to ferret out some of the real story of what had occurred between her cousin and Nicola, not really knowing what she'd do with the facts when and if she got them.

“I'd no idea you'd even thought about asking Nicola to marry you, Julie. When the police brought it up, I didn't know what to think.”

“About what?”

“About why you hadn't told me. First, that you'd asked her. Then, that she'd said no.”

“Frankly, I hoped she'd reconsider.”

“I wish you had told me.”

“Why?”

“It would have made things … easier, I suppose.”

At that, he turned. She could feel his gaze on her, and she grew restive under it. “Easier? How could knowing I'd asked Nicola to marry me and been turned down have made anything easier? And for whom?”

His words were guarded, careful for the first time, which made her speak guardedly in reply. “Easier for you, of course. I had the feeling something was wrong all day Tuesday If you'd told me, I could have given you some support. It can't have been easy, waiting through Tuesday night and Wednesday. I expect you didn't get a minute's sleep.”

Silence for a terribly long moment. Then quietly, “Yes. That's true enough.”

“Well, we could have talked about it. It helps to talk, don't you think?”

“Talking would have … I don't know, Sam. We'd been terribly close, the two of us, in the last few weeks. It felt so good. And I—”

Samantha warmed to the words.

“—suppose I didn't want to do anything that might kill the closeness and drive her off. Not that talking to you would have done that, because I know you wouldn't have told her we'd spoken.”

“Naturally,” Samantha said with quiet bleakness.

“I knew she'd be unlikely to reconsider. But I still hoped she would. And it seemed to me that if I said something about what was going on, it would be like bursting a bubble. Idiotic, I know. But there you have it.”

“Putting your hopes into words. Yes. I understand.”

“I suppose the truth is that I couldn't face reality. I couldn't look squarely at the fact that she didn't want me the way I wanted her. I would have done as a friend. As a lover even, when she was in the Peaks. But nothing more than that.” He picked at his wedge of cake with the fork tines. He was, she noted, eating as little as she.

Finally, he set his plate on the window sill. He said, “Did you see the eclipse?”

She frowned, then remembered. It seemed so long ago. “It didn't seem like much fun to wait for it alone. I didn't go after all.”

“That's just as well. We wouldn't want you lost on the moors.”

“Oh, that's unlikely, isn't it? It was only Eyam Moor. And even if it had been one of the others, I've been out there enough by myself that I always know where I'm—” She stopped herself. She looked at her cousin. He wasn't watching her, but his ruddy natural colouring gave him away. “Ah. I see. Is that what you think?”

“I'm sorry.” His voice was wretched. “I can't stop thinking about it. Having the police turn up made everything worse. All I can think about is what happened to her. I can't get it out of my mind.”

“Try doing what I do,” she said past a pounding heartbeat that she heard in her ears. “There are so many ways to keep one's mind occupied. Try considering, for example, the fact that dogs have been giving birth on their own for a few hundred thousand years. It's remarkable, that. One can think about it for hours. That thought alone can fill up one's head so there's no room left for anything else.”