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

his goblet. Lowering it, he murmured, “I feel like I’m on a journey of penance—almost dying, yet not being allowed to get off so easily, my consequent convalescence, and, presumably, eventually, my task to complete. The way I now view it, only once that task is done will I be allowed to know peace, to finally finish paying my full penance for my past deeds.”
    Roland regarded him in silence. A minute ticked past, then Roland said, “I can see that you believe that, and I can mount no argument against your logic. Your view is much as mine would be were I in your place. However, to return to the aspect of your situation that remains to be addressed, you are well enough now to actively seek your path—the one along which your task to complete lies. Yet to my mind, you’re still waiting—still passive, not actively seeking.”
    Thomas frowned. After several moments, he said, “I had thought—assumed—that Fate, or the Deity, would find me when they were ready . . . when they felt I was ready. I assumed that all I needed to do was wait here, and my task would find me.”
    Roland’s lips twisted. “That might be so, but the priory is a highly circumscribed world. Your task may well lie beyond our walls, and you might not find it unless you actively seek it.”
    Thomas said nothing, simply stared, unseeing, at his feet.
    Roland waited several minutes, then murmured, “Just open your mind to the question. Clarity will come to you in time.”
    T hat night, Thomas tossed and turned on his narrow cot in the last cell of the infirmary. Roland’s words, their implication—that to complete his penance and find true peace he would need to leave the confines of the priory, and the safety its walls afforded, and seek his ordained task in the wider world—and the ramifications of that churned through his mind.
    He knew he was the sort of character who liked to be in charge, and in control of his own destiny, most of all. And he was manipulative, more or less instinctively. Was staying here, supposedly waiting, simply another way of him trying to exert some control?
    Trying to force Fate, or God, to play by his rules?
    One thing he knew beyond question, beyond doubt—he hated stepping into unknown situations. He always had.
    And he still had no clue, no inkling at all, of what his ordained task might be.
    To accept the risk and simply set out, and trust that his task would find him, that by seeking, he would find it . . .
    Having faith in anything but himself had never come easily.
    “I t’s time I left the priory.” Using his cane for support, Thomas let himself down into the armchair beside the hearth in Roland’s study.
    Sinking into the armchair opposite, Roland studied him, then nodded. “You’ve achieved all that you set out to achieve here.”
    Rather grimly, Thomas nodded back. “I made a pact with myself—if, by the time I amassed sufficient funds for the priory and the abbey to undertake the building works you and the abbot have set your hearts upon, my fated task had yet to find me, then I would accept that verdict and go forth and actively search for it. As of this morning, that time is upon me—as I’m aware you’ve always thought, my task is clearly not fated to find me within these walls.”
    Head tipping, Roland searched Thomas’s face. “I’ve never understood your reluctance to go back into the world. It’s not as if it and its ways are unknown to you.”
    “No. And to be perfectly candid, I’m not sure I understand my . . . antipathy toward it, either.” Thomas paused, then continued, self-deprecation clear in his tone, “I can only surmise that some deep-seated self-preservatory instinct would prefer I remain in relative comfort here, rather than expose myself to the vagaries of life in a world where many have every reason to loathe, if not hang, me.”
    Roland’s gaze remained steady; Thomas could feel its weight—a weight that had grown over the last two years as Roland had