"Thank you, Dr. Wade," she said quietly. "I shall endeavour not to give you cause ever to think otherwise.”
He smiled suddenly, as if for an instant he forgot the care and unhappiness which had brought them together.
"I have no doubt of you," he replied, then bowed very slightly and walked past her and down the stairs to where Sylvestra would be waiting for him in the withdrawing room.
Early in the afternoon Hester tried to spin out small domestic tasks, getting smears out of Rhys's nightshirt where one of his bandages had been pulled crooked and blood from the still-open wound had seeped through; mending a pillow case before the tiny tear became worse; sorting the books in the bedroom into some specific order. There was a knock on the door, and when she answered it the maid informed her that a gentleman had called to see her, and had been shown to the housekeeper's sitting room.
"Who is he?" Hesterasked with surprise. Her immediate thought was that it was Monk, then she realised how unlikely that was. It had come to her mind only because some thought of him was so close under the surface of her consciousness. It would be Evan, come to see if he could enlist her help in solving the mystery of Rhys's injuries, at least in learning something more about the family, and the relationship between father and son. It was absurd to feel this sudden sinking of disappointment. She would not know what to say to Monk anyway.
Nor did she know what to say to Evan. Her duty lay to the truth, but she did not know if she wanted to learn it. Her professional loyalty, and her emotions, were towards Rhys. And she was employed by Sylvestra, that required of her some kind of honesty.
She thanked the maid and finished what she was doing, then went downstairs and through the green baize door, along the passage to the housekeeper's sitting room. She went in without knocking.
She stopped abruptly. It was Monk who stood in the middle of the floor, slim and graceful in his perfectly cut coat. He looked short-tempered and impatient.
She closed the door behind her.
"How is your patient?" he asked. His expression was one of interest.
Was it politeness, or did he have a reason to care? Or was it simply something to say?
"Dr. Wade tells me he is recovering fairly well, but still far from healed," she replied a trifle stiffly. She was angry with herself for the elation she felt because it was him, and not Evan. There was nothing to be pleased about. It would only be another pointless quarrel.
"Haven't you got an opinion of your own?" He raised his eyebrows. He sounded critical.
"Of course I have," she retorted. "Do you think it is likely to be of more use to you than the doctor's?”
"Hardly "So I imagined. That is why I gave you the doctor's.”
He took a breath, and then let it out quickly.
"And he still does not speak?”
"No.”
"Or communicate in any other way?”
"If you mean in words, no. He cannot hold a pen to write. The bones in his hands are far from healed yet. I assume from your persistence, your interest is professional? I don't know why. Do you imagine he witnessed your attackers in Seven Dials, or that he knows who the assailants were?”
He put his hands in his pockets and looked down at the floor, then up at her. His expression softened, the guardedness slipped away from it.
"I would like to think he had nothing to do with them whatever." His eyes met hers, steady and clear, jolting her suddenly with memory of how well they knew each other, what losses and victories they had shared. "Are you sure that is so?”
"Yes!" she said immediately, then knew from his look, and from her own inner honesty, that it was not so. "No not absolutely." She tried again. "I don't know what happened, except that it was very dreadful, so dreadful it has rendered him speechless.”
"Is that genuine… I mean to ask that truly?" He looked apologetic, unwilling to hurt. "If you say it is so, I will accept it.”
She came further into the room, standing closer to him. The fire in the small, carefully blacked grate burned briskly, and there were two chairs near it, but she ignored them, and so did he.
"Yes," she said with complete certainty this time. "If you had seen him in nightmare, trying desperately to cry out, you would know it as I do.”
His face reflected his acceptance, but there was a sadness in it also which frightened her. It was a tenderness, something she did not often see in him, an unguarded emotion.
"Have you found evidence?" she asked, her voice catching. "Do you know something about it?”
"No." His expression did not change. "But the suggestions are increasing.”
"What? What suggestions?”
"I'm sorry, Hester. I wish it were not so.”
"What suggestions?" Her voice was rising a little higher. It was mostly fear for Rhys, but also it was the gentleness in Monk's eyes. It was too fragile to grasp, too precious to break, like a perfect reflection in water, touch it and it shatters. "What have you learned?”
"That the three men who attacked these women were gentlemen, well dressed, arriving in cabs, sometimes together, sometimes separately, leaving in a hansom, nearly always together.”
"That's nothing to do with Rhys!" She knew she was interrupting and that he would not have mentioned it had he no more than that. She just found it impossible to hear him out, the thought hurt so much. She could see he knew that, and that he hated doing it. The warmth in his eyes she would hoard up like a memory of joy, a sweet light in darkness.
"One of them was tall and slender," he went on.
The description fitted Rhys. They both knew it.
"The other two were of average height, one stockier, the other rather thin," he went on quietly.
The coals settled in the fire and neither of them noticed. There were footsteps down the corridor outside, but they passed without stopping.
Monk had not seen Arthur and Duke Kynaston, but Hester had. Glimpsed hastily, hurrying in a dark street, it could very well be them. A coldness filled her. She tried to shut it out, but memory was vivid of the cruelty in Rhys's eyes, the sense of power as he had hurt Sylvestra, his smile afterwards, his relish in it. It had not happened only once, a mistake, an aberration. He exulted in his power to hurt.
She had tried not to believe it, but in Monk's presence it was impossible. She could be furious with him, she could despise elements in him, she could disagree violently; but she could not intentionally harm him, and she could not lie. To build that barrier between them would be unbearable, like denying part of herself. The protection must be emotional, self-chosen, not to divide them but merely to cover from a pain too real.
He moved towards her. He was so close she could smell the damp wool of his coat where the rain had caught his collar.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I can't turn aside because he's injured now, or because he is your patient. If he had been alone, perhaps I could, but there are the other two.”
"I can't believe Arthur Kynaston was involved." She met his eyes. "I would have to see proof that could not be argued. I would have to hear him admit it. Duke I do not know about.”
"It could have been Rhys, Duke and someone else," he pointed out.
"Then why is Leighton Duff dead, and Duke Kynaston unhurt?”
He put out a hand as if to touch her, then let it fall.
"Because Leighton Duff guessed there was something profoundly wrong, and he followed them and challenged his son," he answered gravely, a pucker between his brows. "The one with whom he was most concerned, the one for whom he cared. And Rhys lost his temper, perhaps high on whisky, fuelled by guilt and fear, and a belief in his own power. The others ran off. The result is what Evan found… two men who began a fight and couldn't stop it, short of the death of one of them, and the near mortal injury of the other.”