Sin by Josephine Hart Read Free Book Online

did you do this to yourself? Why didn’t you send for your own lover? Why did you let me do these things to you? Where did you learn to betray yourself? Who taught you? Me. I suppose it was me.
    We drove towards a small restaurant in Mayfair—an unsurprising choice and therefore in its way a soothing one. I gazed at the creamy silk reflection of myself in the car’s side mirror. I could safely assume that Elizabeth would be in black. I felt that Charles Harding’s memory of his first dinner with Elizabeth should contain in its shadows my ivory-clothed figure. I thought how important it was to dress the part. Even when forced to wait in the wings.
    Sir Charles was there before us. Elizabeth, by accident of course, was late. We sipped our drinks. And I felt him absorb my beauty with some interest, as we waited for the arrival of the one for whom the dinner really was intended. Grave, stark and with a graceful, understated apology, Elizabeth sat down.
    Sir Charles had manoeuvred himself into our lives. I guessed that he rarely wasted time. And that the dinner would be the first of many.
    I sat beside him. Elizabeth and Dominick sat opposite. Dominick, trapped, and Elizabeth less free than she knew. Elizabeth, believing herself to be part of a family outing, relaxed enough over dinner to entrance Charles Harding. I listened as she answered his delicately phrased enquiries.
    â€œYes, I’ve kept my studio. I go there to paint. Every day. Dominick once explained to me in mathematical terms the beauty of its proportions. But I love it for its light, all of which comes through the skylight. So I’m undistracted by windows onto gardens, or onto other houses. It’s perhaps unkind of me to say so, but I find solitude even more important now.”
    â€œWhy unkind?”
    â€œOh, because everyone—my parents, Dominick, Ruth in particular—has been so very supportive and good to me. And, of course, my darling son, Stephen, who has tried so hard to comfort me. It seems wrong … unfeeling … in the face of all this love to say that I need to be alone.”
    â€œAnd your paintings? What are you painting now?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œNothing? But I thought you said you went there to paint.”
    â€œYes. That’s true. I go there to paint. But I do not.”
    I didn’t know this. Will I ever know you, Elizabeth?
    â€œWhy not?” Sir Charles asked.
    â€œI don’t know. But I know it’s right that I should go there every day. And one day it will be the right day.”
    Sir Charles cleared his throat. Touched, no doubt.
    â€œSo what do you do there?”
    â€œI sit and wait.”
    â€œFor inspiration?” I asked. This really had gone on long enough.
    â€œI wait for the thing that is right for me to paint.”
    â€œWhy not continue with the …” I remembered Hubert’s phrase … “Enchantment?”
    â€œBecause that would imply that Hubert’s death had not changed me.”
    We were all silent.
    â€œI must stop now. I’ve spoken more about me than is …”
    â€œThan is your wont.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWell, here’s to waiting … for what is right.” Sir Charles raised his glass. I watched him drink her in. And I looked at Dominick, who innocently raised his glass to me and clearly didn’t taste the pain.

FIFTEEN
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    â€œTell me about Charles Harding.” Helen and I were having lunch.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œDidn’t you know he’s trying to buy Alpha?”
    â€œDoes that matter to you? You’ve never expressed an interest in the company before.”
    â€œLet’s just say I’m a hidden sort of person.” I laughed.
    â€œI don’t really know him all that well.”
    â€œYou know him better than I do. So give me some idea.”
    â€œWell, he’s feared.”
    â€œBy whom?”
    â€œIn publishing, of course. And in the