William Monk 12 - Funeral in Blue

it?” she repeated. “Kristian?”
    “Yes . . .”
    She stiffened, the color draining from her face. She put the pan down, in case she dropped it.
    “I followed his actions on the evening of the murders,” he said quietly. “He wasn’t where he said. He had the times wrong.”
    The muscles in her neck tightened, as if she were expecting a blow.
    “Not necessarily a lie,” he continued. “He may just be mistaken.”
    There was an edge to her voice. “That’s not all, is it?”
    “No.” Should he tell her about Charles and Imogen now, deal with it all in one terrible stroke? Perhaps honesty was the only healing thing left.
    “What else?” she asked.
    He knew she was still thinking of Kristian. He answered that first, and because it led so naturally into having seen Imogen. “I went to Swinton Street, to a gambling house the constable told me about.” He saw her wince very slightly. He had no idea she found gambling so repellent. Did she not understand it at all? There was a puritan streak in her that he loved only because it was part of her. He both admired it and was infuriated by it. In the beginning of their acquaintance he had thought it hypocrisy, and despised it. Later he had taught himself to tolerate it. Now again he found it oddly narrow and without compassion. But he did not want to quarrel. Perhaps it was memory of her father’s speculation, and ruin, which hurt. Although that was hardly gambling, only what any man in business might do, and much of his actual loss was nobly motivated. He had been duped by a man of the utmost dishonor.
    She was waiting for him to continue, as if she was afraid to press him.
    “Elissa used to go there fairly often,” he went on. “She lost a great deal. Even when she won, she put her money back on the table again and played it.”
    Hester was looking puzzled, a slight frown on her face. “I suppose that’s the way gamblers are. If they could stop when they won it wouldn’t be a problem. Poor soul. What an idiotic way to destroy yourself—and those who love you.”
    “I thought you were going to say ’and those you love,’ ” he observed.
    “I was,” she replied. “And then I thought it’s really the other way. I think Kristian may have loved her more than she loved him. It looks as if she may have lost that ability. If she did love him enough, surely she would never have gone on until she stripped him of almost everything.”
    “It’s a compulsion,” he tried to explain. She had not seen the faces of the gamblers, the avid eyes shining with appetite, the rigid bodies, the hands clenched, breath held as they waited for the card or the dice to fall. It was a lust beyond control. “They can’t help it,” he added aloud. He was thinking of Imogen, trying to soften the thought in her for when she had to face it within her own family.
    “Perhaps not.” She did not argue as he had expected her to. “But it still kills love.”
    “Hester, love is . . .” He did not know how to finish.
    “What?” she asked.
    “Different things.” He was still seeking to explain. “Different things for one person from another. It’s not always obvious. You can love and . . .”
    “If your love remains, you don’t place your own needs before theirs,” she said simply. “You might, with moral duties, but not with appetite. Maybe they can’t help it. I don’t know. But if something takes away your ability to sacrifice your own wants for the sake of someone else, then it has robbed you of honor and love. They aren’t just nice warm feelings, they are a willingness to act for someone else’s good before your own.”
    He did not answer. He was surprised by what she had said, and even more that he had no argument with any part of it. He could still see Imogen’s pale face and bright eyes and the hectic excitement in her.
    “I’m not saying she could help it,” Hester went on. “I don’t know if she could or not. I think after Vienna something inside her was changed. The reason doesn’t alter what she did to Kristian.”
    “What?”
    “Aren’t you listening to yourself?” Her voice became sharper. “William! What else is it?”
    He hated telling her, but he could no longer avoid it. “I saw someone else there that I knew.”
    “Gambling?” There was fear in her voice as she watched him. She knew that this was what he had been putting off saying. “Who? Kristian?”
    “No . . .” He saw the easing of tension in her, and loathed what he