Funeral in Blue - Anne Perry [66]
“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 was going to do. For an instant he even thought of not telling her after all, but that was only his own cowardice speaking. “Imogen.”
“Imogen?” she repeated very quietly. “Imogen . . . gambling?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
She did not seem startled or disbelieving. He had expected her to reject the possibility, had been afraid he would have to persuade her, argue, even face her anger. But she was standing quite still, absorbing the information without fighting it at all. Certainly she was not angry with him.
“Hester?”
For a few more moments she ignored him, still thinking about what he had told her, taking it into her mind, working out what it meant.
“Hester?” He reached forward and touched her gently. There was no resistance in her, none of the struggle he had expected. She turned her face and looked at him. Then suddenly he realized that she had known! There was no amazement in her eyes, just a kind of relief. He had gone through this agony of decision unnecessarily. She had known about it and said nothing to him. “How long has it been going on?” he demanded roughly, drawing his hand away.
“I don’t know.” She was looking not at him but into the distance, and someplace within herself. “Only weeks . . .”
“Weeks? And after you discovered about Elissa Beck, you didn’t think to mention Imogen to me? Why not? Is your family loyalty to her so great you couldn’t have trusted me?” He realized as he said it how much it hurt to be excluded. He spoke from his own wound, like a child hitting back. He felt no ties of blood, that instinctive bond that was deeper than thought. Perhaps it was irrational, bone-deep, but if he had ever felt it, it was gone with all his memory. It left him alone, rootless, without an identity that was anything more than a few years of action and thought.
He envied her. Whether she felt close to Charles or not, whether she liked or admired him, he was a chain to the past which was unbroken, an anchor.
“I didn’t know it was gambling,” she said with a frown. “I knew there was something exciting and dangerous. I thought it was a lover. I suppose I’m glad it wasn’t.”
“But you didn’t . . .”
“Tell you?” Her eyes were very wide. “That I was afraid my brother’s wife was having an affair with someone? Of course I didn’t. Would you have expected me to, if you couldn’t help?”
He did not want to, but he understood. He would have thought less of her if she had such a vulnerability for