The Silent Cry - Anne Perry [16]
Not that Hester’s friendship with Monk could easily be categorized. Pressing through the traffic in the rain, she thought of it with a mixture of emotions, all of them disturbingly powerful. It had lurched from an initial mutual contempt to a kind of trust which was unique in her life, and she believed in his also. And then, as if suddenly afraid of such vulnerability, they had been quick to quarrel, to find fault and keep little rein on temper.
But in times of need, and the mutual caring for some cause, they had worked together in an understanding that ran deeper than words, or the need or time for explanations.
In one fearful hour in Edinburgh, when they had believed they faced death, it had seemed to be that kind of love which touches only a few lives, a depth of unity which is of the heart and mind and soul, and for one aching moment of the body also.
In the lurching of the cab and the hiss of wheels in the rain she could remember Edinburgh as if it had been yesterday.
But the experience had been too dangerous to the emotions, too demanding for either of them to dare again.
Or had it only been he who would not dare?
That was a question she did not want to ask herself; she had not meant to allow the thought into her mind … and there it was, hard and painful. Now she refused to express it. She did not know. She did not want to. Anyway, it was all irrelevant. There were parts of Monk she admired greatly: his courage; his strength of will; his intelligence; his loyalty to his beliefs; his passion for justice; his ability to face almost any kind of truth, no matter how dreadful; and 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