A Test of Wills - Charles Todd [115]
“Yes,” he said, getting to his feet and walking to the window where she couldn’t see his face. “It would be easy to say that the war came between us, Jean and me. All those years of separation. But I know it’s something deeper than that. She’s frightened by the—the man who came back. The Ian Rutledge she wanted to marry went away in 1914, and the Army sent a stranger home in his place five years later. She doesn’t even recognize him anymore. As far as that goes, I’m not sure that she’s the girl I remember. Somehow she’s grown into a woman who lives in a world I’ve lost touch with. And I can’t find my way back to it. I came home expecting to turn back the clock. You can’t. It doesn’t work that way.” He stopped, realizing that he’d never even told Frances that much.
“No,” she said simply, watching him, seeing—although he wasn’t aware of it—his reflection in the dark glass. “You can’t turn back the clock. To where it’s safe and comfortable again.”
His back was still toward her, his thoughts far away. She said, “Don’t put this burden on me, Inspector Rutledge. Don’t ask me to make a decision for Mark Wilton.”
“I already have. Just by coming here.”
“Damn you!”
He turned, saw the flush of anger and hurt on her face.
And then, out of nowhere he had his answer, as if it had come through the night to touch him, but he knew how it had come—from his own recognition of the pain and the loss he’d sensed from the start in her.
Lettice Wood wasn’t grieving for Mark Wilton. She was grieving for Charles Harris. And it was Charles Harris that she loved, who had come between her and the wedding in September, who had called off the wedding because he wanted his ward and—she wanted him.
She saw something in his expression that warned her just in the last split second. She was off the sofa in a flash, on her way out of the room, running away from him to the safety and comfort of her own apartments.
Rutledge caught her arm, swung her around, held her with a grip that was bruising, but she didn’t notice, she was struggling to free herself, her dark hair flying in swirls around his face and hands.
“It’s true, isn’t it? Tell me!”
“No—no, let me go. I won’t be a part of this. I’ve killed Charles, I’ve got his blood on my soul, and I won’t kill Mark as well! Let me go!”
“You loved him—didn’t you!” he demanded, shaking her.
“God help me—oh, yes, I loved him!”
“Were you ever in love with Mark?”
She stopped struggling, standing almost frozen in his hands. Then she began speaking, wearily, disjointedly, as if it took more strength than she could muster. And yet she didn’t try to hide her face or those strange, remarkable eyes.
“Did I ever love him? Oh, yes—I thought I did. Charles brought him home, he believed I’d like him, love him. And I did. I told myself that what I’d felt for Charles was only a girl’s crush, a silly thing you grow out of, and I’d better hurry before I’d harmed what we’d had between us since the beginning, when I was a small, frightened child—an affection that was deep and caring and wonderfully comforting.”
She took a deep breath as if steadying herself. “But Tuesday—two weeks ago now—I was in the drawing room, just finishing with flowers for the vases there, and Charles came in, and I—I don’t know, one of the bowls slipped somehow as I was lifting it back onto the bookshelf, and he reached for me before it could fall on me and hurt me, and the next thing I knew—I was in his arms, I was being held against his heart and I could hear it beating as wildly as mine, and he kissed me.”
Her eyes closed for a moment, reliving that kiss; then they opened, and he saw emptiness in them, pain. “He stopped, swearing at