Read Online William Monk 05 - The Sins of the Wolf by Anne Perry - Free Book Online

rugs, and Mary requested that Hester continue her account.
    Hester obliged.
    She had not intended to, but she found herself now speaking with vehemence about the ideals which had burned so deeply in her when she first returned, her passion to begin reforming the outdated hospital wards in England with their closed practices.
    Mary smiled wistfully. “If you tell me you succeeded, I shall begin to disbelieve you.”
    “And so you should. I am afraid I was dismissed for arrogance and acting without orders.” She had not meant to reveal that. It was hardly conducive to confidence in a patient, but Mary was already far more than that, and the words were out before she considered it.
    Mary laughed, a rich sound filled with delight.
    “Bravo. If we all acted only upon orders, we should stillnot have invented the wheel. What have you done about it?”
    “Done?”
    Mary put her head a little to one side, her face full of quizzical doubt.
    “Don’t tell me you have simply accepted dismissal like a good girl and gone obediently on your way! Surely you are fighting the cause in some fashion or other?”
    “Well—no….” She saw Mary’s face slowly fill with dismay. “No—because there have been other battles,” she went on hastily. “For—for justice of other sorts.”
    Mary’s eyes widened with new interest “Oh?”
    “Er—I—” Why should she be so reluctant to talk of helping Monk? There was nothing dishonorable in assisting the police. “I became acquainted with a police inspector who was investigating the murder of an army officer, and it seemed as if there was going to be a terrible miscarriage of justice….”
    “And you were able to prevent it?” Mary leaped to the conclusion. “But afterwards, did you not return to the question of nursing reform?”
    “Well …” Hester found herself coloring very faintly, Monk’s face with dark gray eyes and broad, high cheeks so vivid in her mind he could have been in the seat opposite her.
    “Well, there were other cases … soon afterwards.” She stumbled a little over the words. “And again there was the question of injustice. I was in a position to help….”
    A slow smile curled Mary’s lips. “I see. At least I think I do. And no doubt after that one, another? What is he like, this policeman of yours?”
    “Oh he is not mine!” Hester disclaimed instantly and with more vehemence than she had intended.
    “Is he not?” Mary looked unconvinced, but there was laughter in her voice. “Are you not fond of him, my dear? Tell me, how old is he, and what does he look like?”
    Hester wondered for a moment if she should tell thetruth, that Monk did not know how old he was. A carriage accident had robbed him of all his memory, and his self-knowledge was returning only in fragments as the months passed into a year, and more. It was too long a story, and not truly hers to tell. “I am not quite sure,” she prevaricated. “Around forty, I should think.”
    Mary nodded. “And his appearance, his manner?”
    Hester tried to be honest and impartial, which was more difficult than she had expected. Monk always aroused emotions in her, both admiration, for his cutting intelligence, his courage and his dedication to truth; and impatience, even contempt, for his occasional bitterness towards those he suspected of crime, not towards his own colleagues if they were less quick, less agile of mind than himself, or less willing to take risks.
    “He is a good height,” she began tentatively. “In fact, quite tall. He stands very straight, which makes him look …”
    “Elegant?” Mary suggested.
    “No—I mean, yes, it does, but that is not what I was going to say.” It was absurd to be stumbling over words this way. “I think the word I was looking for was
lithe.
He is not handsome. His features are good, but there is a directness in him, which … I was going to say that it approaches arrogance, but that is not true at all. It is arrogance, quite