She paused on the point of going.
‘We’re so pleased you’ve decided to settle here.’ She touched his cheek with her hand. ‘Though of course things will have to change between us.’
‘I beg your pardon.’ Caught off balance by her remark, he had failed to catch the teasing note in her voice.
‘You’ll be my patient from now on, Angus. At least, I assume so. That’ll put an entirely new complexion on our relationship. For instance, I noticed you were hardly limping at all when we walked along here. Is your gout better?’
‘Not altogether.’ Sinclair frowned. The subject wasn’t one he liked aired. ‘It comes and goes.’
‘That’s usually the case. There are a number of remedies we can try. But in the meantime, prayer and fasting have been known to work wonders.’
‘I’m not sure I fancy either.’
She was already walking to the gate as he spoke, and she turned.
‘That’s what I was afraid of.’
Pausing to run her fingers through her hair, she shook her head in a gesture that reminded him, with a surge of pleasure, of the young woman he had first known twenty years before.
‘I can see already you’re going to be a difficult patient. I shall have to keep a close eye on you.’
With a wave to them she went off, and the two men watched as she walked down the stream, her fair hair bright in the sunlight, moving with a grace that was almost a girl’s.
Madden grunted. He turned to Sinclair.
‘Well? Shall we go inside, Angus?’
‘Why not?’
But the chief inspector dallied for a moment. Her last words had sounded a reassuring note and he wanted to dwell on them. There were many reasons for the choice he had made, but one in particular seemed to matter more than any other as he watched her figure disappear round a bend in the stream. He knew now that however long his life lasted, she would always be a part of it.
