Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair) Read Online Free

then, he reasoned, he would need sufficient strength to accomplish it.
    Three years after he’d arrived at the priory, Geoffrey died. Thomas was somewhat surprised to feel sorrow, grief, and regret at the old man’s passing. Those weren’t emotions he’d experienced before, not for an acquaintance; he took their existence as a sign that he was, indeed, learning the ways of connecting with others.
    After Geoffrey was buried with all due ceremony, the remaining brothers met and elected the next prior. Thomas wasn’t surprised that the brothers’ unanimous choice was Roland.
    “To you, Prior Roland.” Leaning back in the armchair to one side of the hearth in the prior’s study, Thomas raised his goblet to Roland, seated in the chair opposite, in which Geoffrey had used to sit.
    Roland’s lips twisted, half smile, half grimace. “I wish I could say I’m thrilled, but I would much rather Geoffrey was still here with us.”
    For once, Thomas could understand. He inclined his head. “Indeed.”
    For a moment, both were silent, then Roland raised his goblet. “To absent friends.”
    “To Geoffrey.” Thomas drank, as did Roland.
    Then Roland sat back and eyed Thomas. “And, in some ways, to you—it’s you I, and my colleagues, have to thank for the priory being in such robust financial health that we will, it seems, never have to worry about our continued existence.”
    Thomas waved the thanks aside. “I was here, bored—and it was appropriate that I repay you and the house for this.” Another wave indicated his healed body. “Incidentally, can I expect any further improvement, or is this as nimble as I’m going to get?”
    Roland’s lips quirked. “You will get stronger—I’ve seen that in you over the last months. But you’ll find that your strength will be in different areas. For instance, your hands grip harder because they so often must support your weight, and your arms and shoulders will be stronger than they were, but your legs will always be weaker than before. As for nimbleness”—Roland’s tone gentled—“you will always walk with a hitching limp . . . I couldn’t fix that. And you will almost certainly always need a cane, but other than that, as you’ve already discovered, you can ride, and, in time, you’ll be able to walk much further than you presently can.”
    His gaze on his weak left leg, Thomas nodded.
    “But,” Roland continued, his voice strengthening, “to return to the point I was intending to make before you so glibly deflected me.”
    Thomas smiled wryly.
    Roland nodded. “Indeed. To return to that point, I have clearly found my place, my path leading on into the future. Like Geoffrey, I will be prior here until I die. I actively sought that path—I worked and put myself into a position from where, if my colleagues so chose, I could become prior and attain my life’s goal. As Geoffrey did before me. But what of you, Thomas? You’ve been biding time since I brought you here, but you are not the sort of man to live life by default. You’re like Geoffrey, like me, in that regard. So what is your goal?”
    Thomas sighed. Raising his head, he rested it against the well-padded leather. After a moment, he met Roland’s gaze. “I expected to die. But I didn’t. If I accept yours, Geoffrey’s, and, indeed, this house’s thesis, then I’ve been spared for some reason, presumably to fulfill some purpose—one I am uniquely qualified to carry out.” He spread his hands. “So here I am, waiting for Fate, or God, or whatever force determines these things to find me and set their ordained task before me.” He paused, then, knowing Roland was waiting for the rest, continued, “I intended, and still see my death—the true and final death of the man I was—as an inescapable payment for my sins, for the sins I committed as that man. In that context, that I’ve been spared to perform a task that only I can accomplish . . . fits, in a way.” Thomas paused, then drained