William Monk 06 - Cain His Brother

heat of that desperate conclusion, so involved in it that there had been no time to feel more than a glancing moment of awkwardness.
    Now if they met again it would be different. There would be memories neither of them could ever discard or forget. Whatever he might say, whatever his manner now, she knew that for that moment when they had faced death in the closed room, he had left behind all pretense, all his preciousand careful self-protection, and had admitted in touch of aching and desperate tenderness that he too knew what it was to love.
    Not that she deluded herself the barriers would not return. Of course they would. Rescue, and a taking up of life again, had brought back all the differences, the shadows which kept them apart. She was not the kind of woman who excited him. She was too quarrelsome, too independent, too direct. She did not even know how to flirt or to charm, to make him feel gallant and protective, let alone romantic.
    And he was too often ill-tempered. He was certainly ruthless, highly critical, and his past was full of darkness and fears and ties which even he did not know, perhaps of violence he only half thought in nightmare, of cruelties he imagined but for which he had no proof—except what others told him, not in words but in the way they reacted to him, the flicker of old pain, humiliations from his keener, faster mind and his sharper tongue.
    She knew all the arguments, just like the prickling straw ends poking into her arms now, scratching her cheek and spearing through the thin stuff of her dress. And yet just like the sweet oblivion closing around her, the memory of his touch obliterated it all until she was so tired she could sleep.

  3  
    M
ONK WAS CONFUSED
by the Stonefield case. It was not that he seriously doubted what had happened to Angus Stonefield. He very much feared that Genevieve was correct and he had indeed received some kind of summons from Caleb and had gone immediately to meet him. In all probability that was why he had taken the five pounds, twelve shillings and sixpence that Arbuthnot had spoken of, and for which he had left the receipt. Monk’s difficulty was now to prove his death so that the authorities would grant Genevieve the legal status of widow and allow her to inherit his estate. Then she might sell the business before it was ruined by speculation and neglect, and no doubt the advantage his rivals would take of his absence.
    It would be good to talk to Callandra. It was part of their bargain that he share with her any case which was difficult or of particular interest.
    He was not sure if this one would catch her emotions or not, but he knew from experience that even the act of explaining it to her would clarify it in his own mind. It had happened that way more often than not. She asked pertinent questions and allowed him to escape with no generalizations or inexactitudes. Her understanding of people, especially women, was often far more acute than his. She had a perception of relationships which made him realize, with some pain and a new sense of loneliness, how little heknew of the emotions of interdependence and the closeness of daily friendship and family ties. There were so many gaps in his life, and he did not know if those things had never existed for him or if it was simply that his memory of them was gone. And if he had lived such a narrow and solitary life, was that of his own choosing? Or had some circumstance forced it upon him? What had happened to him—and more urgently by far, what had he done—in all those lost years?
    Of course, he had learned fragments, flashes of recollection prompted by some present sight or sound, the glimpse of a face. Some things he had deduced. But there were still vast, empty reaches, only a glimmer of light here and there, and he did not always like what it showed. He had been cruel of tongue, harsh of judgment, but clever … always clever.
    But if he had not truly loved anyone, or been loved, why not? What ghosts walked in that darkness? What injuries might there be, and would he ever know? Might they return to horrify him with guilt … or offer him a chance to repay? Might he after all discover acts of generosity and warmth, companionship he would want to recall, sweetness that was precious even in hindsight?
    But no matter how hard he searched, nothing returned. There was no shred of memory there, not a face, a smell, or sound that was familiar. The only friends he knew were those of the