Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair) (2 page)

Months had passed since the man he’d been had died.

Yet he was still alive, and that he didn’t understand.

He’d been beyond ready to go, to leave this world for all time. To spare the rest of the world his continued presence.

But that, apparently, was not to be.

According to Brother Roland, the Infirmarer, the man who had cared for him, who had saved him and had prevented the him he now was from dying, he was improving and would improve further with time.

He was convalescing, as yet unable to move without assistance, but otherwise able.

Able, at last, to think.

He still suffered constant pain, but although he could feel it, he no longer heeded it; pain had become such an unrelentingly insistent companion that he took it for granted and it no longer distracted him, no longer interfered with his ability to function.

He heard footsteps on the gravel, and from their steady pace he knew who was approaching before Roland appeared beneath the archway from the priory courtyard.

Roland glanced around, spotted Thomas, and walked across to the bench.

Thomas managed a crooked smile and waited as, returning the welcome with a nod, Roland gathered his robes and sat alongside him.

For several minutes, they looked out over the garden, silently savoring the tranquility of the scene, then Roland asked, simply, bluntly, as was his way, “So who is Thomas Glendower?”

Thomas felt his lips curve. He’d been expecting the question, had known it would come soon enough.

And because he liked Roland, he was prepared to answer.

Roland was a type of man Thomas recognized, a man who almost certainly shared a similar background to himself but who had taken a very different path. There was much in Roland that Thomas understood and, with his new understanding born of death, could now appreciate and admire.

Without shifting his gaze from the greenery and the bobbing flower heads, Thomas said, “I was born into the minor aristocracy, but my parents died in an accident when I was six. I had no close relatives, so was passed into the care of a guardian, one of my father’s friends who held a lofty position socially and politically, but who, by no stretch of the imagination, could have been termed a good man. Under his tutelage, I evolved in ways that, perhaps, had he been otherwise, I would not have, but as he took his own life at the time I reached my majority, how I lived the rest of my previous life lies entirely on my own head.”

He paused, reflecting, then continued, his damaged voice still guttural, but clear, “I was warned, at that time, to mind my ways, warned that I needed to exercise caution, but, as young men are wont to do, I thought I knew best and set out to explore all life had to offer me. In material terms, I prospered, yet by choice I remained largely alone, for I did not feel any need for personal connection. That, more than anything else, was my downfall. Because I didn’t think of others, I caused others—many others—pain. More, I brought desolation, and even death. I caused others to die. And for that . . . I died.”

Roland remained silent for some time, then asked, “You killed people?”

“Yes.”

“By your own hand?”

It was tempting to lie, but he owed Roland the truth. “No. I never killed anyone directly, but I did cause them to be killed.”

Brow furrowed, Roland cast him a sidelong glance. “You ordered others to kill them?”

It would, Thomas reflected, have been easier to lie. Resting the back of his head against the wall, he said, “No, but the orders I gave caused them to be killed.” Having gone that far and sensing Roland’s utter confusion, he felt compelled to explain, “It wasn’t straightforward. I wanted something—several somethings over the years—and so I ordered others to arrange it, to get those things for me. I never knew about the deaths until the end, but had I thought things through . . . but I didn’t, you see? I never thought about others at all—that was my failing. I operated as if my actions had no impact on anyone else, but I was entirely wrong, and they did. And when I eventually realized that, I put a stop to it.”

Another pause ensued while Roland digested that. Then he said, “Thomas Glendower isn’t the name you were born with, is it?”

Thomas nodded. “But the name I was born with died with the man I was—I killed him not only physically but in every other way as well. I made sure reparation was paid on every level.” He paused, inwardly acknowledging how right that decision still felt, then went on, “The man I was is dead, and no good—indeed, much harm to others—would come from resurrecting him. And I’m prepared to swear to that on the priory’s Bible.”

Roland humphed.

Thomas simply waited, with a patience the last months had taught him, to learn what his fate would be now that he’d admitted to the crimes of his past.

Eventually, his gaze, like Thomas’s, on the garden, Roland shifted, leaning his forearms on his thighs and clasping his hands between his knees. “There were times, especially during the first days you were here, when I didn’t expect you to live. I had to break bones and wrench tendons to reset your joints—I had to dose you against infection, I had to sedate you against the pain. I had to straighten your spine and hope I didn’t kill you in the process. You were unconscious throughout—I couldn’t tell if you wished to live or die. So I held aloof. I didn’t pray for your death, yet neither did I pray for you to live.”

Hands gripping tightly, Roland continued, “Prior Geoffrey had a different view. He saw your survival as likely, even assured, because, in his eyes, the fact that you had been delivered into my hands, especially in the state you were in, was a sign of divine intervention.”

Thomas blinked. “That can’t be right.”

Roland snorted. “After what you’ve just told me, I can see why you might think so, but . . . I’ve known Geoffrey for years. He was my mentor when I was a novice. He is unbelievably shrewd and farsighted, especially when it comes to his fellow men and their foibles.” Roland paused, then said, “I’m coming around to his way of thinking.”

“What?” Startled, Thomas let his cynicism show. “That because of my attempt to pay for my sins, the Good Lord has forgiven me?”

Roland chuckled, dryly, wryly. Turning his head, he met Thomas’s gaze. “No, not that. Geoffrey believes you’ve been spared for a reason. For a purpose. He believes Our Lord has some task in mind for you—something only you can do, and you’ve been spared so that you can do it.”

Thomas saw the solidifying certainty in Roland’s eyes.

As if to confirm Thomas’s insight, Roland nodded. “And after what you’ve just told me, I’m even more inclined to agree with Geoffrey. No matter what you might think, Our Lord is not finished with you.”

Thomas didn’t know what to make of that. He was tempted to point out that he wasn’t religious, that he wasn’t even certain he believed in any deity. In Fate, perhaps, but in God? He couldn’t claim any conviction.

But sitting in the sunshine, meeting Roland’s level gaze . . . he had to think to do it, but he slightly raised one shoulder—the less damaged one—and said, “Well, no doubt we’ll see.”

M
onths passed before Thomas, propped up on crutches, could manage well enough to reach the priory library. There he discovered, as he’d hoped, the news sheets from London, delivered every afternoon, although for whose benefit he could not say; no one else in the house seemed interested enough to read them.

Another month saw him petitioning Prior Geoffrey to be allowed to repay the priory by assisting with their investments. Geoffrey, every bit as shrewd as Roland had painted him, agreed, and for the first time in a very long time, Thomas started to feel as if he was living, rather than simply existing.

As he’d told Geoffrey, if he’d been spared for some reason, then presumably that reason would make itself known in good time. Until then, in keeping with the ethos of the house, he should make himself useful. And the only skill he had lay in making money—in taking money and making it into more.

Other than requesting a vow that any action Thomas took would be entirely legal and aboveboard, Geoffrey had been agreeable, not to say enthusiastic, and had personally shown Thomas the priory’s records and ledgers.

Several months later, the priory’s investments were steadily improving.

Seated at his now habitual place at the end of a table in one corner of the library where winter light spilled through the diamond panes in the leaded windows, Thomas was working through the details of a proposition the priory’s investment agent—immensely invigorated now that someone was actually encouraging him—had submitted, when Roland entered the library and saw him.

A benevolent smile on his face, Roland walked over, pulled out the chair alongside Thomas, and sat.

Thomas merely arched a brow in greeting, but otherwise kept working through his figures until he reached the end.

Then he looked up and met Roland’s steady gray gaze. As usual, the big, broad-shouldered man—as tall as Thomas, but heavier, stocky and strong, and where Thomas was fair and brown-y blond, Roland was fair and dark; Thomas felt certain Roland had French blood somewhere in his recent ancestry—had settled with his forearms on the table, his big, well-shaped hands clasped before him. Leaning back in his chair, Thomas arched a brow, this time in open question.

Smile deepening a fraction, Roland said, “When I asked for your name, you were in extremis, barely conscious and nearly out of your mind with pain, yet you answered. Until you told me otherwise, I believed that Thomas Glendower was your name. You’ve been answering without hesitation to that name for months. So . . .” Roland’s gray gaze studied Thomas’s hazel eyes. “Am I right in assuming that Thomas Glendower actually exists?”

Thomas nodded. “He does. He is”—he gestured, something he could at last freely do, and with reasonable grace—“an alter ego of mine, one I set up before I attained my majority, but which I had rarely used, at least not for the schemes that were my other self’s undoing.” He paused, considering, then said, “If I’m to live in the world long enough to fulfill whatever purpose Fate or the Deity wants me to achieve, then I need an identity, and Thomas is . . . not perfect, not completely free of sin, but he is resurrectable, useable for this purpose at least.”

Roland nodded. “You mentioned that you, at least as you were, had a tendency not to think of others—to be less than aware of the impact of your actions on others.” Fixing his gaze on Thomas’s eyes, Roland said, “So I feel I should ask—does Thomas have any dependents? Anyone for whom his—your—disappearance, and prolonged absence, will cause difficulties?”

Thomas blinked; slowly, he sat straighter. “Not immediate difficulties—not even after this amount of time. But eventually . . . yes.”

“Indeed,” Roland said. “So consider this a jog to your elbow. Although you might choose to remain in seclusion here, pending enlightenment as to your purpose, you can write now”—with his head, he indicated the pen Thomas had set down—“and you should reestablish contact with those dependents, to reassure them and keep your affairs in order.”

Thomas thought that through, then met Roland’s eyes. “Thank you.”

Roland’s ready smile appeared, then he pushed back from the table. “I’ll leave you to it. Any letter you want sent, simply leave it on the salver on the table outside Geoffrey’s study.”

Thomas nodded.

As Roland walked off, Thomas debated, then reached for a fresh sheet of paper.

Half an hour later, leaning heavily on his crutches, Thomas struggled into the hallway outside the prior’s study. Pausing by the table set against the wall, chest heaving, he drew in a deeper breath and dropped the two missives he’d clutched in one hand onto the waiting salver. Both letters bore London addresses; the first was to Drayton, Thomas Glendower’s business agent, and the second was for Marwell, Thomas’s solicitor.

Balancing on the crutches, Thomas stared at the letters, lying on top of a small pile. They were his first foray back into the world outside the priory—a step the magnitude of which he felt certain Roland had appreciated.

But, indeed, it had had to be done; the letters had had to be written, the step taken.

Gripping his crutches, Thomas turned and clomped away.

T
he library became his workplace and the seasons rolled on. Winter passed, and spring arrived, along with the abbot of the abbey to which the priory was attached. Having seen the recent financial reports from Prior Geoffrey, the abbot wished to inquire whether Thomas might manage to perform a similar miracle with the abbey’s fortunes.

Thomas was pleased to accept the challenge; managing more funds would keep him occupied, keep his mind engaged, and sharpen his faculties. It would also force him to deal with more people, and he was starting to realize that he needed steady practice in the art of, as Roland, with telling simplicity, put it, thinking of others.

For Thomas, that had never, and still did not, come naturally. He had to remind himself to do it, to think his actions and their ramifications through from the perspectives of others involved.

As he still had no clue as to the purpose for which he’d been spared, he accepted that, in order to remain even within the world enclosed by the priory walls, he needed to learn how to live with others without inadvertently causing harm through his habitual self-absorption.