Payment in Blood (Inspector Lynley, #2)(57)

“Helen, I can’t bear to see you do this to yourself. You’re trying to replay St. James to a different ending. I don’t want you to do it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. None of this has anything to do with Simon.” Lady Helen remained where she was, across the room from him, as if to step in his direction were to surrender in some way. And she would never do that.

Lynley thought he saw a small bruise low on her neck where the collar of her teal blouse dipped towards the swell of her breasts. But when she moved her head, the bruise disappeared, a trick of light, a product of unhappy imagination.

“It does,” he said. “Or haven’t you noticed yet how very much like St. James he is? Even his alcoholism is St. James all over again with a simple difference in disability. Except that this time, you won’t walk out on him, will you? You won’t go gratefully when he tries to send you away.”

Lady Helen’s head turned from him. Her lips parted, then closed. He saw that she would allow him these moments of castigation, but she would offer no defence. His punishment would be never to know, never to understand completely what had drawn her to the Welshman, to be forced into guesswork that she would never affirm. He accepted this knowledge with rising anguish. Still, he wanted to touch her, feeling desperate for contact, for a moment of her warmth.

“I know you, Helen. And I understand how guilt feeds on itself. Who on earth could possibly understand that better than I? I crippled St. James. But you’ve always believed that your sin was worse, haven’t you? Because inside, where you would never have to admit it, you were relieved all those years ago when he broke your engagement. Because then you would never have to face life with a man who could no longer do all those things that, at the time, seemed so absurdly important. Skiing, bathing at resorts, dancing, hiking, having a wonderful time.”

“Damn you.” Her voice was no more than a whisper. When she met his eyes, her face was white. It was a warning. He ignored it, compelled to go on.

“For ten years you’ve had yourself on the rack over leaving St. James. And now you see an opportunity to put it all right, to make up for everything: for letting him go off to Switzerland to convalesce alone, for letting yourself be driven off when he needed you; for shirking a marriage that appeared to have responsibilities far outweighing its pleasures. Davies-Jones is going to be your redemption, isn’t he? You plan to make him whole again, just as you could have done—and didn’t do—for St. James. And then you’ll be able to forgive yourself at last. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s how it’s to be played.”

“I think you’ve said enough,” she said stiffly.

“I haven’t.” Lynley sought the words to break through to her; it was imperative that she understand. “Because he isn’t like St. James at all beneath the surface. Please. Listen to me, Helen. Davies-Jones isn’t a man you’ve known intimately, inside and out, since your eighteenth birthday. He’s a relative stranger to you, someone you can’t really know.”

“A murderer, in other words?”

“Yes. If you will.”

She flinched from the easiness of his admission, but her slender body drew strength from the passion of her reply. Muscles became tense across her face and neck, even—to his imagination—beneath the soft sleeves of her blouse.

“With me too blinded by love or remorse or guilt or whatever it is that prevents me from seeing what’s so patently obvious to you?” She flung her hand sharply towards the doorway, to the house beyond it, to the room she had occupied and what had happened within it. “Exactly when did he set this murder in motion? He left the house after the read-through. He didn’t get back till one.”

“On his own report, yes.”

“You’re saying he lied to me, Tommy. But I know he didn’t. I know he walks when he needs to drink. He told me that in London. I even walked with him out by the loch after he broke up the row between Joy Sinclair and Gabriel yesterday afternoon.”

“And don’t you see how clever that was, how all of that was to set you up to believe him when he said he’d been out walking again last night? He needed your compassion, Helen, if you were to allow him to stay in your room. And what better way to get it than to say he’d been out walking off his need to drink. He could hardly have gained your sympathy so effectively by hanging about after the read-through, could he?”

“Do you actually want me to believe that Rhys murdered his cousin while I was asleep, that he then came back into my room, and made love to me for a second time? It’s completely absurd.”

“Why?”

“Because I know him.”

“You’ve been to bed with him, Helen. I think you’ll agree that knowing a man is more complicated than falling into bed with him for a few steamy hours, no matter how pleasant they may have been.”

Her dark eyes alone bore the wound made by his words. When she spoke again, it was with heavy irony. “You choose your words well. Congratulations. They do hurt.”

Lynley felt his heart twist. “I don’t want you to be hurt! God in heaven, can’t you see that? Can’t you see that I’m trying to keep you from harm? I’m sorry about what’s happened. I’m sorry for the foul way I treated you earlier. But none of that goes any distance to change the facts of last night. Davies-Jones used you to gain access to her, Helen. He used you again after he saw to Gowan this evening. He plans to go on using you unless I can stop him. And I intend to stop him. Whether you help me or not.”