William Monk 08 - The Silent Cry

the fact that he was never, ever, a hypocrite.
    But she hated the streak of cruelty she knew in him, the arrogance, the frequent insensitivity. And he was a fool where judgment of character was concerned. He could no more read a woman’s wiles than a dog could read Spanish! He was consistently attracted to the very last sort of woman who could ever make him happy.
    Unconsciously, she was clenching her hands as she sat in the cold.
    He was bewitched, taken in again and again by pretty, softly spoken, outwardly helpless women who were shallow of nature, manipulative and essentially searching for comfortable lives far from turmoil of any kind. He would have been bored silly by any one of them within months. But their femininity flattered him, their agreement to his wildest assertions seemed like good nature and good sense, and their charming manners pleased his notion of feminine decorum. He fancied himself comfortable with them, whereas in truth he was only soothed, unchallenged, and in the end bored, imprisoned, and contemptuous.
    They were pressed in on all sides by hansoms, drays, carriages. Drivers were shouting. A horse squealed.
    Most recently Monk had fallen under the spell of the deliciously pretty and extremely shallow Countess Evelyn von Seidlitz. Monk had seen through the countess eventually, of course, but it had required unarguable evidence to convince him. And then he was angry—above all, it seemed, with Hester! She did not know why. She recalled their last meeting with twinges of pain which took her unexpectedly. It had been highly acrimonious, but then so had a great many of their meetings. Normally it caused her irritation that she had not managed to think of a suitable retaliation at the right moment, or satisfaction that she had. She was frequently furious with him, and he with her. It was not unpleasant; in fact, at times it was exhilarating. There was a kind of honesty in it, and it was without real hurt. She would never have struck at any part of him she felt might be genuinely vulnerable.
    So why had their last encounter left her this ache, this feeling of being bruised inside? She tried to recall exactly what he had said. She could not now even remember what the quarrel had been about: something to do with her arbitrariness, a favorite subject with him. He had said she was autocratic, that she judged people too harshly and only according to her own standards, which were devoid of laughter or humanity.
    The hansom lurched forward again.
    He had said she knew how to nurse the sick and reform the dilatory, the incompetent or the feckless, but she had no idea how to live like an ordinary woman, how to laugh or cry and experience the feelings of anything but a hospital matron, endlessly picking up the disasters of other people’s lives but never having a life of her own. Her ceaseless minding of other people’s business, the fact that she thought she always knew better, made her a bore.
    The sum of it had been that while her qualities were admirable, and socially very necessary, they were also personally unattractive; he could do very well without her.
    That was what had hurt. Criticism was fair, it was expected, and she could certainly give him back as much in quality and quantity as she received. But rejection was another thing altogether.
    And it was completely unfair. For once she had done nothing to warrant it. She had remained in London nursing a young man desperately damaged by paralysis. Apart from that, she had been occupied trying to save Oliver Rathbone from himself, in that he had undertaken the defense in a scandalous slander case and very nearly damaged his own career beyond repair. As it was, it had cost him his reputation in certain circles. Had he not been granted a knighthood shortly before the affair, he could certainly abandon all hope of one now! He had shed too ugly a light on royalty in general to find such favor anymore. He was no longer considered as “sound” as he had been all his life until then. He was suddenly “questionable.”
    But she found herself smiling at the thought of him. Their last meeting had been anything but acrimonious. Theirs was not really a social acquaintance, rather more a professional friendship. He had surprised her by inviting her to accompany him to dinner and then to the theater. She had accepted, and had enjoyed the evening so much she recalled it now with a little shiver of pleasure.
    At first she had felt rather awkward at the sudden