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Part Five: Confessions

The Howards' principal guest room was on the second storey, a large dormered space once shared by their two sons. Charles and Dorothy slept on the floor below, affording their houseguests a generous measure of privacy. The smaller bedroom across the landing where Cecily usually stayed was unoccupied this weekend, as his stepdaughter was away at a Girl Guide rally in Berkshire. Foyle found himself feeling grateful that she was out of the way just now, given the current tension between himself and his wife.

He slipped quietly into the bedroom, removing his coat and tie and loosening his collar, and stopped short at the sight of the flat, empty bed. Before his surprise could mushroom into concern, though, he spotted her curled up in the recessed window seat overlooking the garden. She was huddled motionless against the dormer, facing the glass, with an eiderdown wrapped round her shoulders against the autumn chill. Clearly she had been watching for his return.

Moving closer, he studied her carefully in the silvery moonlight streaming through the window. As he'd suspected, she had dozed off. Her eyes were puffy and traces of tears were still visible on her face. He felt a fresh pang of regret, followed by an even stronger wave of love and protectiveness. "Katherine?" he murmured, resting a gentle hand on her shoulder.

She drew in a slow breath and opened her eyes, those lovely, expressive brown eyes that had been his undoing from the day they'd met. She looked up at him for a long moment. "You came back," she whispered. "Christopher …"

He blinked. Had she been afraid he wouldn't? "Katherine, I – "

She spoke at the same instant. "I'm sorry, darling, I'm so, so – "

And then he was sitting in the window seat beside her, stroking her arm. "No, no," he said thickly. "My fault. Shouldn't have been so harsh. Just … the idea of him touching you. I was afraid he'd …" he choked off, unable to bring himself to utter even a polite euphemism for the ugly word. "Couldn't bear that. If I'd known …"

"I'm sorry I never told you, Christopher, truly I am. I never imagined I'd see him again. It was so long ago. And honestly, I had no idea you'd be so upset!"

He gave her a stern look. "Course I'm bloody upset. Doesn't matter how long ago it was." Her eyes widened slightly; she had very rarely heard him swear. "If I'd known … if I'd had a clue about how that man behaved toward you, I could have protected you from him tonight."

"I realise that now, but please, darling, try to understand," she replied, covering his hand with hers. "What happened with Rupert all those years ago – it was … unpleasant, certainly, but it didn't … scar me. It was a … a footnote to the most devastating loss of my life. Coming in the wake of Stephen's death, it barely registered. Honestly, I've hardly given it – or him – a thought in years."

Her face, illuminated only by the silvery moonlight from the window, was a study in sincerity, but he could hear the ache in her voice. He felt a wave of remorse for letting her suffer this loss alone for so long. "Kate," he said huskily, using the name he reserved only for their most private moments. He took her hand in both of his, distantly noticing how cold her fingers were. "Will you … tell me about that time? About … Stephen?"

Her eyes locked on his. "Are you sure?"

"Yyyyyes. Should have asked long ago." He gave her hand a gentle squeeze of encouragement.

Katherine drew a deep breath, as though searching for where to begin. When she spoke, her words were slow and measured at first, gradually gaining momentum as her memories took shape. "Well … it was a Friday evening. I remember it had been a beautiful day, sunny and hot, over eighty. The Whirlwind was on convoy duty south of Ireland. They'd been out for about three months. They were torpedoed in the early evening, around six, and within a few hours the first rumors started flying round the base.

"All that night, all the next day I was frantic – couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, but I had to try to keep a calm façade for Cecily's sake. She was five, old enough to know something was wrong. The telegram came at half-past eleven the next night … I'll never forget the feeling. It was like … like falling. Falling down a well, or off a cliff, in slow motion, with nothing to grab on to and never hitting bottom. I don't really remember much about the next few days, honestly. A blur." She broke off and swallowed hard, then continued, her voice choked.

"It turned out that Stephen was the only officer who'd been killed, apart from the commander. They lost 57 ratings. One of his shipmates wrote to me later and told me he and the CO had been on the bridge, just above where the torpedo hit. They never had a chance. All my neighbours in the officers' quarters were so kind – they brought food, looked after Cecily, helped me pack – but there was nobody else in my shoes. The commander's family lived off-base somewhere; I never met them. I didn't know where to go or what to do, but I knew I had to leave. Every man I saw in uniform was a reminder – it was unbearable.

"It was a few days later that Rupert … his wife had sent him up to help me with my boxes. They lived in the flat downstairs. Cecily used to play with their little girl sometimes. I hardly knew him – we'd met once or twice, I think, when Stephen and I were first posted to Plymouth, but he hadn't made much of an impression. Not a lot to say for himself. It never occurred to me for a second that he might … do anything like that. Especially just after …" Her voice caught.

Christopher was watching her intently, still holding her hand with a firm, steady pressure. He could feel her pain as though it were his own. "Course not."

"I was a wreck, kept falling apart. I'd be all right for a bit, then something would set me off. I remember I'd just found Stephen's book and broken down again."

"Stephen's book?"

"His manuscript. On Richard I."

"He was writing a book?" She had never mentioned this before.

"Well, trying to. He'd been at it for five or six years, but with all the moving around and no money for France, he hadn't got very far."

"France?"

"Most of the records from the Lionheart's reign are at Fontevrault Abbey, in Anjou. He needed to go there for research, but we could never manage it. Anyway, I found the box with his notes and went to pieces again. Rupert put his arm round me, patted me on the back a bit. Then, after I'd pulled myself together, he said …" her voice wavered, "… he said, 'God, you smell so good,' and suddenly he was all over me."

Tears welled up in her eyes, but she blinked them back fiercely. "I couldn't … couldn't believe it was happening. I couldn't even react at first, I was so shocked. I think that was when it sank in that Stephen was gone, really gone. I didn't think Rupert would have dared try anything like that if he'd been alive. I felt so vulnerable, Christopher! There was no one I could turn to, no one. Our friends from his teaching days were scattered everywhere by the war. His brothers were both at sea. And yes, I suppose I did consider reporting him for about two minutes, but I knew it would be my word against his. I had no proof. And Rupert was a Commander while I was only the wife of a Lieutenant – and rank matters in the Navy, I'd been a Navy wife long enough to know that. Plus, I was American. A foreigner. You remember, before America came into the war we weren't very well regarded in England. I didn't think anybody would take any notice ... just dismiss me as a troublemaker. So I just got out of Plymouth as quickly as I could."

"Where did you go?"

She sighed. "To Folkestone, to Stephen's parents. I had nowhere else to go, but … it was a mistake. They tried to be welcoming, but … we never did see eye-to-eye. On anything." She shook her head ruefully. "Even after ten years of marriage I never felt like they really accepted me. I was too bookish, too foreign, too middle class – not at all 'the right sort', especially to his mother. We'd visited them occasionally over the years, but it wasn't so bad then because Stephen was with me. But once he was gone … I knew it wouldn't work, not for long, and I was right. In the end I barely lasted a fortnight.

"Cecily made friends with a little girl called Nell who lived in a cottage up the lane. I was happy that she'd found someone to play with, but my mother-in-law was horrified. It just wasn't done, she kept saying, for the granddaughter of the big house to associate with that sort of child. 'Frightfully common', she said, and of course I knew that deep down she thought I was just as common. I just couldn't let her infect Cecily with her snobbery. I knew I had to get away."

Foyle's sympathy was mixed with a growing sense of shame. He had never stopped to consider how much more difficult her widowed circumstances had been than his own. Losing Rosalind had devastated him, certainly, but he'd had plenty of friends and neighbours to offer support. He'd had a job into which he could throw his energies, distracting him from his grief, and an adolescent son in need of comfort and care. Most important of all, he and Andrew had had the security of an adequate income and a stable and permanent home. The newly widowed Katherine had enjoyed none of these consolations except for her small daughter. "What did you do?" he asked softly.

"Sarah rescued me, thank God. She rang up to see how I was getting on and invited us to stay with her and the children for a bit. Max had just left home to start his intelligence job. She was wonderful, gave me the space I needed. So when my Navy pension came through I started looking for a flat nearby. The rest you know."

He badly wanted to pull her into his arms, but the faint echo of my precious Richard was still reverberating in his ears, an unspoken barrier. But she made no attempt to explain it; instead, she was look at him with quiet expectancy, clearly ready for him to reciprocate.

He knew this wouldn't be easy, so he drew in a deep, silent breath and fumbled for the right words. "I met Rosalind," he said quietly, "at a Red Cross dance in Hampshire during the war. Took a bayonet at the Somme," he gestured to his left shoulder with the scar she knew so well, "then came down with some sort of fever so they shipped me home. July 1916, this was. After I got out of hospital I had some leave, so one night I had a look in at the dance. She was eighteen, just finished school. She had the gentlest hands, the sweetest smile … I was smitten. Didn't think I'd have a chance with her. Her family was quite well-off compared to mine. Worked up the nerve to ask if she'd write to me just before I went back to France. We corresponded for several months, then I got sent home in the spring of 1917 for Officer Cadet training at Aldershot. We were married in September, just before I was sent back to France. Andrew arrived nine months later."

He broke off, then forced himself to go on. "After I was demobbed I went back to the police as a detective sergeant. I couldn't give her the kind of life she'd been raised to, but I was determined to pull myself up the ladder. In time I made inspector and we bought the house. She painted, looked after Andrew, gave a lot of time to local charities. I thought things would always be the way they were … happy. Peaceful. And then one winter, a fortnight after New Year … she became ill."

His voice grew gruffer, heavier. "At first it was just a headache, low fever, loss of appetite. She refused the doctor, said she'd shake it in a day or two. I had to go out of town for a few days on a case. By the time I got back she could barely get out of bed. Seventeen days later she was gone." He closed his eyes as the memories washed over him: the terror in Andrew's eyes, the echoing footsteps of the doctors and nurses in the hospital ward, the deep coughs that racked her emaciated body, her skin burning with fever, her delirious muttering. And then at last her thin hand growing cold in his as the first rays of pale sunlight pierced that icy February night. The never-ending nightmare of her loss.

He felt Katherine's fingers tighten in his and opened his eyes to see her watching him, her own brimming with empathy. "Oh, darling," she whispered. "I'm so, so sorry. Do you … do you still visit her grave?"

He stiffened. Even now he quietly kept up the custom of visiting the churchyard on significant days: her birthday, their wedding anniversary, the date of her death. He had continued to make these visits even after his remarriage, though they had become more sporadic over the past couple of years. He had been careful to keep them from Katherine lest they should upset her. Now he nodded reluctantly, unable to dissemble in the face of a direct question.

Her gaze shifted away. "I do envy you that."

He blinked. "Envy? Why?"

"Having a place to go when you need to – to – remember her."

Of course, he thought with a fresh wave of compassion. Why had he never thought of it? Stephen had been lost at sea. There was no grave for her to visit, no place for her to take her grief when it welled up, as it still must. "Where do you go?"

She sighed. "I walk by the sea. And then … I come home to you and Cecily, and count my blessings."

The urge to hold her close was nearly overwhelming, but the niggling whisper in the back of his mind held him back. There was still that final secret, the last mystery to be explained. There seemed nothing for it but to ask. "And … Richard?"

She shook her head sadly. "He's in Glasgow. I've never been back."

He waited, but she said nothing else. "Will you tell me about him?"

She shrugged. "There's really nothing you don't already know."

He gave a slight, bewildered shake of the head. "Mmmm. Don't think so."

"Of course you do. I told you all about it years ago. Don't you remember?"

"Nnnnno."

A look akin to betrayal wiped the sorrow from her face. "Of course I did, Christopher. I told you everything. How hard it was, losing him. He was so … so tiny. Six weeks premature …" silent tears began to course down her cheeks.

The penny dropped with a horrible, wrenching jolt. My precious Richard … God forgive him, he should have guessed. "Richard was your baby?" He gathered her in his arms at last, his jealousy replaced with a stinging remorse. Of course she had told him about her stillborn son, about the difficult birth that had nearly killed her. He had filed the information away and seldom if ever thought of it again. I've been so blind, he thought, blind and utterly selfish. Wanting her to put her old life behind her while still clinging to my own. How could I not have seen this grief that she's been carrying round with her all this time? "Oh, Kate, love … I'm so sorry. You never told me his name," he murmured helplessly into her dark hair.

"Didn't I?" she choked against his shoulder.

He held her and let her cry, stroking her back, his insides churning with guilt. He had failed her inexcusably. What could he do to make things right?

In time her sobs trailed off into hitching breaths and she lifted her head. "Forgive me, darling, I'm not usually so maudlin. It's just … he's been on my mind a lot these past few days. Last Wednesday would have been his ninth birthday."

As he brushed the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs a plan began to take shape in his mind, a way he could begin to atone. "Kate, love. Listen to me. You say Richard is buried in Glasgow?"

She nodded. "Yes. It was hard to leave him behind, but we just couldn't afford to have him moved to the family plot in Folkestone. A few months later Stephen was offered the position in the States and we had to leave."

"And you've never been back?"

"No. Well, the war, you know, travel restrictions …"

"Well, I think you should go."

Her eyes widened. "To Scotland?"

"Of course."

"Oh, but it's such a long way. Someday, perhaps."

"Not someday. Soon."

"But what about you and Cecily? I can't just leave you to fend for yourselves."

"Of course you could, but there's no need. I'll come with you." It was unthinkable that he would let her make such a sad journey on her own. "Soon as you like. In a fortnight, perhaps, when Cecily has her half-term – take her with us. Or leave her with Sarah if you prefer."

"Oh, darling. That would be wonderful, but – it's too much, really. The train is so dear, and there would be hotel bills –"

"Don't worry about any of that. This is important, love. You should visit your son's grave. I'd have taken you before if I'd known."

"Christopher!" Her voice was tremulous, barely above a whisper. She pulled his head down to kiss him gratefully. The knot of tension in his chest dissolved as he responded, tenderly at first, then with rapidly spiralling passion. "Sweet Kate," he breathed between kisses. In no time he was pulling her to her feet, the eiderdown falling from her shoulders. His breath caught when he saw her nightdress, an alluring midnight-blue silk negligée that she'd first worn on their wedding night. It was something she saved for special occasions, and it never failed to fire his arousal. In a heady rush of desire he guided her to the bed.

The lovemaking that followed was imbued with a special tenderness that elevated the intimacy to an exquisite level. Christopher was undone. Determined to make up for his neglect, he took extra care to ensure her pleasure, delaying his own gratification until he'd brought her to climax again and again. In doing so he lost himself in her, body and soul, in a way he'd never quite experienced before.

He held her close in the blissful afterglow, quietly stunned by the intensity of the encounter. The rawness of his emotions had made it feel as though he were making love to her for the first time, yet it was infinitely sweeter, because they each knew how to touch and to move to give the other the greatest pleasure.

The difference tonight had been less physical than emotional, he reflected, letting his fingers play through her hair. Katherine had been right. As much as he'd dreaded discussing Rosalind, doing so had released a long-buried grief. Moreover, he could see that his reticence had created a rift in his marriage, nearly imperceptible but real. Sharing their most private pain had healed it, helped them to understand each other more deeply. Far from pulling them apart, it had brought them closer than before.

It was a lesson he must remember. Even after four years, Christopher still saw her as a miracle in his life. Katherine had opened his heart, transformed his lonely existence and brought him endless joy. She deserved all the honesty, all the consideration and all the love that he had to give. No more secrets between us, he thought, pressing a kiss on her brow before letting sleep claim him.

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Finis