“Please. Kerra.”
“No. Please Dellen. That was the game. Dellen did as she pleased, and she still does. And the rest of us walk on cat’s feet all round her because we’re so afraid we’ll set her off again.”
“I’m not responsible. You know that. I’ve never been able…There are things I can’t…”
Dellen turned away, sobbing. She bent across the work top, her arms extended. Her posture suggested submission and penitence. Her daughter could do what she would with her. Buckle of belt, cat-o’-nine-tails, scourge, whip. What did it matter? Punish me, punish me, make me suffer for my sins.
But Kerra knew better than to believe at this point. Too much water had flowed beneath the arc of this endless bridge they walked upon, and all of it went and had always gone in the same direction.
“Don’t even try that,” she told her mother.
“I am who I am,” Dellen said, weeping.
“So try being someone else.”
DAIDRE TRIED TO PICK up the bill for dinner, but this was something Lynley wouldn’t allow. It was not only that a gentleman never let a lady pay for a meal that they had enjoyed together, he told her. It was also that he’d dined at her home on the previous night and if they wanted to keep matters on an even keel between them, then it was his turn to provide a meal for her. And even if she felt otherwise about the situation, he could hardly ask her to pay for what she’d barely consumed at the Curlew Inn.
“I am sorry about the meal,” he told her.
“You can hardly be blamed for my choice, Thomas. I should have known better than to order something referred to as ‘the vegetarian surprise.’”
She’d wrinkled her nose and then chuckled when she’d seen it, and he could hardly blame her. What had arrived for her consumption was something green baked into a loaf, with a side dish of rice and vegetables boiled so thoroughly that they were nearly drained of colour. She’d gamely washed down the rice and the medley of veg with the Curlew Inn’s best wine?an indifferent French Chablis insufficiently cooled?but she’d given up after a few bites of the loaf. She’d cheerfully pronounced herself “Quite full. It’s amazingly rich, a bit like cheesecake,” and she’d looked astonished that he hadn’t believed her. When he’d declared he intended to take her out for a proper dinner, she told him it would probably have to be in Bristol because there wasn’t likely to be a place in Cornwall that would meet her gastronomic standards. “I’m a troublesome wretch when it comes to food. I should broaden my horizons to fish, but somehow I can’t get my mind round to it.”
They left the Curlew Inn and went out into the evening, where darkness was falling. She remarked upon the change in seasons, the subtle manner in which daylight began extending itself from winter solstice onward. She said she never really understood why people hated winter so much as she herself found it a most comforting season. “It leads directly to renewal,” she said. “I like that about it. It always suggests forgiveness to me.”
“Are you in need of forgiveness?” They were walking in the direction of Lynley’s hired car, which he’d left at the junction of the high street and the lane leading down to the beach. He watched her in the fading light, waiting to read something revealing in her answer.