unnecessarily as if she thought she needed to explain her presence in his study – wearing dressing gown and slippers – after three in the morning. 'I can't think why. I ought to be exhausted. I
Her words were casual enough, well chosen and indifferent. But there was something hesitant in her voice. It tried and failed to ring true. Hearing this, he made his way across the room and lowered himself on to the ottoman next to her. It was the sort of gesture he'd never made before. In the past, her place had been on the ottoman, while he sat above her, in the chair or on the sofa.
'I couldn't sleep either,' he said, laying his crutches on the floor. 'I thought I'd have a brandy.'
'I'll get it for you.' She began to rise.
He caught her hand, stopped her. 'No. It's all right.' And when she kept her face averted, 'Deborah.'
'Yes?'
The single word was calm. Her curly mass of hair hid her face from view. She made a quick movement, like a lifting of her body, and he thought it was prelude to rising and leaving. But, instead of doing so, he heard her take a choked breath and realized with a swift dawning surprise that she was struggling not to cry.
He touched her hair, so tentatively that he knew she couldn't possibly feel that he had done so. 'What is it?'
'Nothing.'
'Deborah-'
'We were friends,' she whispered. 'You and I. We were mates. I wanted that back. I thought if I talked to you tonight… but I just couldn't find it. It's gone. And I… it hurts so much to know that. If I talk to you, if I see you, I still feel torn. I don't want that feeling. I can't face it again.'
Her voice broke. Without a thought, he encircled her shoulders with his arm. It didn't matter what he said.
Truth or lie made no difference. He had to say something to alleviate her pain.
'We'll survive all this, Deborah. We'll find our way back. We'll be what we were. Don't cry.' Roughly, he kissed the side of her head. She turned into his arms. He held her, stroked her hair, rocked her, said her name. And all at once felt flooded by peace. 'It doesn't matter,' he whispered. 'We'll always be mates. We'll never lose that. I promise.'
At his words, he felt her arms slip round him. He felt the soft pressure of her breasts against his chest. He felt her heart beating, felt his own heart pounding, and accepted the fact that he had lied to her again. They would never be friends. Friendship was absolutely impossible between them when with so simple a movement -her arms slipping round him – every part of his body lit on fire for her.
Half a dozen admonitions rang out in his head. She was Lynley's. He had hurt her quite enough already. He was betraying the oldest friendship in his life. There were boundaries between them that couldn't be crossed. His resolve was acceptance. We aren't meant to be happy. Life isn't always fair. He heard each one of them, vowed to leave the room, told himself to release her, and stayed where he was. Just to hold her, just to have her like this for one moment, just to feel her near him, just to catch the scent of her skin. It was enough. He would do nothing else… save touch her hair again, save brush it back from her face.
She lifted her head to look at him. Admonitions, intentions, boundaries and resolves were shot to oblivion. Their cost was too high. They didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Just the moment, now, with her.
He touched her cheek, her brow, traced the outline of her lips. She whispered his name, a single word that finally obliterated fear. He wondered how he had ever been afraid to lose himself in the love of this woman. She was himself. He saw that now. He accepted that truth. It was a form of fulfilment. He brought his mouth to hers.
Nothing existed save being in his arms. Nothing mattered save the warmth of his mouth and the taste of his tongue. It was as if only this single moment counted, allowing her life to be defined by his kiss.
He murmured her name, and a sure current passed between them, gathering force from the wellspring of desire. It swept away the past and took in its flow every belief, every intention, every aspect of her life but the knowledge that she wanted him. More than loyalty, more than love, more than the promise of the future, she wanted him. She told herself that this had nothing to do with the Deborah who was Tommy's, who slept in Tommy's bed, who would be Tommy's wife. This had to do only with a settling of accounts, one hour in which she would measure her worth.
'My love,' he whispered. 'Without you-'
She drew his mouth back to hers. She bit his lips gently and felt them curve in a smile. She wanted no words. In their place, she wanted only sensation. His mouth on her neck, describing a curve to the hollow of her throat; his hands on her breasts, teasing and caressing, dropping to her waist to the belt of her dressing gown, loosening it, pushing the gown from her shoulders, slipping the thin straps of her nightdress down the length of her arms. She stood. The nightdress slid to the floor. She felt his hand on her thigh.
'Deborah.'
She didn't want words. She bent to him, kissed him, felt him drawing her down to him, heard her own sigh of pleasure as his mouth found her breast.
She began to touch him. She began to undress him.
'I want you,' he whispered. 'Deborah. Look at me.'
She couldn't. She saw the candles' glow, the stone surround of the fireplace, the bookshelves, the glint of a single brass lamp on his desk. But not his eyes or his face or the shape of his mouth. She accepted his kiss. She returned his caress. But she did not look at him.
'I love you,' he whispered.
Three years. She waited for the rush of triumph, but it didn't come. Instead, one of the candles began to gutter, spilling wax in a messy flow on to the hearth. With a hiss, the flame died. The burned wick sent up a wisp of smoke whose smell was sharp and disturbing. St James turned to the source.
Deborah watched him do so. The single small flame of the remaining candle flickered like wings against his skin. His profile, his hair, the sharp edge of his jaw, the curve of his shoulder, the sure, quick movement of his lovely hands… She got to her feet. Her fingers trembled as she put on her dressing gown and fumbled uselessly with its slippery satin belt. She felt shaken to her core. No words, she thought. Anything else, but no words.
'Deborah…'
She couldn't.
'For God's sake, Deborah, what is it? What's wrong?'
She made herself look at him. His features were washed by a storm of emotion. He looked young and so vulnerable. He looked ready to be struck.
'I can't,' she said. 'Simon, I just can't.'
She turned away from him and left the room. She ran up the stairs. Tommy, she thought.
As if his name were a prayer, an invocation that could keep her from feeling both unclean and afraid.
Part Six. EXPIATION
25
The day's fair weather had begun to change by the time Lynley touched the plane down on to the tarmac at Land's End. Heavy grey clouds were scuttling in from the southwest, and what had been a mild breeze back in London was here gathering force as a rain-laden wind. This transformation in the weather was, Lynley thought bleakly, a particularly apt metaphor for the alteration that his mood and his circumstances had undergone. For he had begun the morning with a spirit uplifted by hope, but within mere hours of his having decided that the future held the promise of peace in every corner of his life, that hope had been swiftly overshadowed by a sick apprehension which he believed he had put behind him.
Unlike the anxiety of the past few days, this current uneasiness had nothing to do with his brother. Instead,
