He pales at the sight of me. Dreadful, that I have this effect on another human being.

“I’ve come to apologize.”

He looks utterly bewildered.

“Philip. I should have taken you at your word.”

He takes his time replying, so long that I wonder if he’s going to send me away.

“I’ve behaved very badly,” he says in the end.

“The point is, what you actually said was true.”

He considers that. “Er, would you like to come in? You look awfully cold.”

I wasn’t planning to. I’d pictured myself making my request on the doorstep. That way, he’d find it easier to refuse if he wanted to. But I see now that it was a terrible idea and I should leave with No, thank you, I won’t disturb you. I simply came to apologize. A sudden fit of shivering seizes me.

He opens the door wide. “Come in, James,” he says.

—

He sloshes Scotch into my coffee without asking, doses his own cup liberally. “I did fall in love, James, I really did. You need to know that.”

I’m not at all sure I do, especially since I believe him this time. But we both gulp at our mugs, and the Scotch and the silence work away at me.

“So at least you cared for her, you mean,” I say finally.

He looks down, addresses the knots in the pine table. “It took me a long time to forget her. No, not forget her. I never did that.” He looks up, almost accusingly. “That day at your party. Suddenly there you were talking about Yvette, your late wife. And I thought, he’s that Mr. Acton, and then I realized, oh, my God, she’s dead . . .”

I remember him kneeling white-faced by his mother’s wheelchair. “I’m sorry. It must have been a blow.”

His laugh is sad and almost soundless. “You’re extremely forbearing.”

“I don’t know about that. A better man would thank you for being kind to her, appreciating her. Making her laugh. I was doing a very bad job of all that, you see, at the time. And when . . . when it came to it, you didn’t take advantage of her unhappiness.”

“But you’re not going to thank me.”

“Nope.” I toss back the remains of my drink. “I’m not a bloody saint, Philip.”

That makes him smile. “James, it’s entirely inappropriate for me to say so . . .” He pauses, his eyes shining. “But you were a lucky man.”

—

“Obviously you’re the talk of Upton,” he tells me a short while later, after we’ve refilled our mugs. “Rumor has it that a beam hit you on the head and you can’t speak. Which is why you’re holed up in Harvey Corey’s farmhouse. What happened to your dog? Some people are saying he died in the accident. I do hope that’s not true.”

“No, thank goodness . . .”