The Twisted Root Page 0,3

my own, but my father is also determined to find out what has happened to Miriam. What may I do to assist you?"

"Tell me the story of your acquaintance, and all you know about Mrs. Gardiner," Monk replied with a sinking feeling inside him.

"Of course." Lucius's face softened, the strain eased out of it as if merely remembering their meeting were enough to fill him with happiness. "I had called upon a friend of mine who lived in Hampstead, and I was walking back across the Heath. It was about this time of year, and quite beautiful. There were several people around, children playing, an elderly couple quite close to me, just smiling together in the sun." He smiled to himself as he described it. "There was a small boy rolling a hoop, and a puppy chasing a stick. I stopped and watched the dog. It was so full of life, bounding along with its tail wagging, and returning the stick, immensely pleased with itself. I found I was laughing at it. It was a little while before I realized it was a young woman who was throwing the stick. Once it landed almost at my feet, and I picked it up and threw it back again, just for the pleasure of watching. Of course, she and I fell into conversation. It all happened so naturally. I asked her about the dog, and she told me it actually belonged to a friend of hers."

His eyes were far away, his memory sharp. "One subject of conversation led to another, and before I realized it I had been talking with her for nearly an hour. I made it my business to return the following day, and she was there again." He gave a very slight shrug of self-mockery. "I don't suppose for a moment she thought it was chance, nor did I feel any inclination to pretend. There was never that between us. She seemed to perceive what I meant as naturally as if she had had the same thoughts and feelings herself. We laughed at the same things, or found them beautiful, or sad. I have never felt so totally at ease with anyone as I did with her."

Monk tried to imagine it. It was certainly not as he had felt with Hester. Invigorated, tantalized, furious, amused, admiring, even awed, but not very often comfortable.

No - that was not entirely true. Now that he had at last acknowledged to himself that he loved her, and had stopped trying to force her into the mold of the kind of woman he used to imagine he wanted, but accepted her more or less as herself, he was comfortable more often than he was not.

And, of course, there had always been the times when they were engaged in the same cause. She had fought side by side with the courage and imagination, the compassion and tenacity, that he had seen in no other woman - no other person. Then it was a kind of companionship which even Lucius Stourbridge could not guess at.

"And so your friendship progressed," he said, going on to summarize what must have followed. "In time you invited her to meet your family, and they also found her most likable."

"Yes - indeed ..." Lucius agreed. He was about to continue but Monk interrupted him. He needed the information that might help in his efforts to find the missing woman, although he held little hope the outcome would prove happy for Lucius, or indeed for any of them. A woman would not flee from her prospective husband and his house, and remain gone for the space of several days without sending word, unless there was a profound problem which she could see no way of solving.

"What do you know of Mrs. Gardiner's first husband?" Monk asked.

"I believe he was somewhat older than she," Lucius answered without hesitation. "A man in a moderate way of business, sufficient to leave her provided for, and with a good reputation and no debts of money or of honor." He said it firmly, willing Monk to believe him and accept the value of such things.

Monk read within the omissions that the late Mr. Gardiner was also of a very much more ordinary background than Lucius Stourbridge, with his inherited lands and wealth, and his father's outstanding military career. He would like to have known Miriam Gardiner's personal background, whether she spoke and comported herself like a lady, whether she had the confidence to face the Stourbridge family