on the front wall of the house. He had never considered the heraldic device anything more than an amusing anachronism, but now he saw it as a declaration of strength. The hound and the lion facing off in combat, the hound overpowered but showing no fear.
'I knew you loved Roderick,' he said. 'I saw that you loved him. I wanted to punish you.'
'But I loved you as well. What I felt for Roddy had nothing to do with you.'
'It wasn't a question of thinking you didn't love me. It was more an unwillingness to see you and forgive you for being what you were.'
'For wanting someone besides your father?'
'For giving in to the wanting while Father was alive. I couldn't deal with that. I couldn't stand what it meant.'
She looked beyond him, towards the Tudor gatehouse. 'I gave in,' she said. 'Yes. I did that. I wish I'd had the nobility or the courage or whatever it would have taken to send Roddy away when I first realized how much I did love him. But I didn't possess whatever strength it would have taken to do that, Tommy. Other women probably do. But I was weak. I was needy. I asked myself how evil it could be if Roddy and I truly loved each other. How great a wrong were we committing if we turned a blind eye to social condemnation and acted on that love? I wanted him. To have him and still live with myself, I made neat compartments out of my life – children in one, your father in another, Roddy in a third – and I was a different person for each part. What I didn't expect was that you would burst out of the section I'd reserved for you and see the person who wanted Roddy. I didn't think you'd ever see me for what I was.'
'What were you really, Mother? Nothing more or less than a human being. I couldn't accept that.'
'It's all right. I understand.'
'I had to make you suffer. I knew Roderick wanted to marry you. I swore it would never happen. Your primary loyalty was to the family and to Howenstow. I knew he wouldn't marry you unless you'd promise to leave the estate. So I kept you here like a prisoner, all these years.'
'You don't have that power. I chose to stay.'
He shook his head. 'You would have left Howenstow the moment I married.' He saw in her face that this was the truth. She dropped her eyes. 'I knew that, Mother. I used that knowledge as a weapon. If I married, you were free. So I didn't marry.'
'You never met the right woman.'
'Why on earth won't you let me take the blame I deserve?'
She looked up at that. 'I don't want you in pain, darling. I didn't want it then. I don't want it now.'
Nothing could have stirred him to greater remorse. No rebuke, no recrimination. He felt like a swine.
'You seem to think the burden is all on your shoulders,' his mother said. 'Don't you know a hundred thousand times I've wished that you hadn't found us together, that I hadn't struck out at you, that I had done something -said something, anything – to help you with your grief. Because it
'It would have given you something.'
'Yes. It still can.'
A lightening of her voice – an underlying gentleness -told him what she had not yet said. 'He's asked you again? Good. I'm glad of it. It's more forgiveness than I deserve.'
She took his arm. 'That time is finished, Tommy.' Which was so much her way at the heart of the matter, offering a forgiveness that swept away the anger of half a lifetime.
'That simply?' he asked.
'Darling Tommy, that simply.'
St James walked some paces behind Lynley and Deborah. He watched their progress, making a study of their proximity to each other. He memorized the details of Lynley's arm round Deborah's shoulders, hers round his waist, the angle of their heads as they talked, the contrast in the colour of their hair. He saw how they walked in perfect rhythm, their strides the same length, fluid and smooth. He watched them and tried not to think about the previous night, about his realization that he could no longer run from her and continue to live with himself, about the moment when his stunned awareness had finally absorbed the fact that he would have to do so.
Any man who had known her less well would have labelled her actions on the previous night as a clever manipulation whose end-product gleaned her the witnessing of a measure of suffering to pay for the suffering he'd inflicted upon her. A confession of her adolescent love for him; an admission of that love's attendant desire; an encounter that blended the strongest elements of emotion and arousal; an abrupt conclusion when she was certain that he intended no further flight. But, even if he wanted to evaluate her behaviour as a manipulative woman's act of spite, he could not do it. For she had not known he would leave his bedroom and join her in the study, nor could she have anticipated that after years of separation and rejection he would finally let go of the worst of his fears. She had not asked him to join her, she had not asked him to drop onto the ottoman next to her, she had not asked him to take her into his arms. He had only himself to blame for having crossed the boundary into betrayal and for having assumed in the white heat of the moment that she would be willing to cross it as well.
He had forced her hand, he had called for a decision. She had made it. If he was to survive from this time on, he knew he would have to do it alone. Unbearable now, he tried to believe that the thought would become more endurable in time.
Propitiable gods held back the rain although the sky was growing rapidly more tenebrous when they reached the cove. Far out to sea, the sun burst through a ragged tear in the clouds, casting beams like a golden spotlight on the water below. But it was only a momentary break in the weather. No sailor or fisherman would have been deceived by its transitory beauty.
Below them on the beach, two teenaged boys were idly smoking near the rocks. One was tall and big-boned with a shock of bright orange hair, the other small and whip-thin with great knobs on his knees. Despite the weather, they were dressed for swimming. On the ground at their feet lay a stack of towels, two face masks, two snorkels. Looking up, the orange-haired boy saw Lynley and waved. The other glanced over his shoulder and tossed his cigarette aside.
'Where do you suppose Brooke threw the cameras in?' Lynley asked St James.
'He was on the rocks Friday afternoon. My guess is that he'd have edged out as far as he could go and heaved the case into the water. What's the bottom like?'
'Mostly granite.'
'And the water's clear. If the camera case is there, they'll be able to see it.'
Lynley nodded and made the descent, leaving St James with Deborah on the cliff. They watched as he crossed the narrow strand and shook both boys' hands. They grinned, one driving his fingers into his hair and scratching his scalp, the other shifting from foot to foot. They both looked cold.
'Not exactly the best weather for a swim,' Deborah remarked.
St James said nothing.
The boys pulled on face masks, adjusted their snorkels and headed for the water, one on either side of the rocks. Alongside them, Lynley climbed the granite outcropping and picked his way out to its furthest point.
The surface of the water was extraordinarily calm since a natural reef protected the cove. Even from the cliff, St James could see the anemones that grew on the outcropping beneath the water, their stamen swaying in the gentle current. Above and around them, broad-leafed kelp undulated. Beneath them, crabs hid. The cove was a combination of reef and tide pools, sea-life and sand. It was not the best location for a swim, but it had no match as a site for the disposing of an object one wished to go unrecovered for years. Within weeks, the camera case would be shrouded by barnacles, sea urchins and anemones. Within months, it would lose both shape and definition, ultimately coming to resemble the rocks themselves.
If the case was there, however, the two boys were having difficulty finding it. Again and again, they bobbed to the surface on either side of Lynley. Each time, they carried nothing with them. Each time, they shook their heads.
