Elizabeth George: A Suitable Vengeance

'We do. Because it's a fact of who I am and we can't ignore it. I've spent the last three years considering all the things I could never do at your side, things that any other man – Tommy – could do with ease.'

'What's the point of that? Why keep torturing yourself?'

'Because I had to work through it. It had to stop mattering so much that I couldn't even hold you if I were unattached to this cursed brace. It had to stop mattering so much that I'm crippled. And that's what you need to know before you leave me. That it doesn't matter any longer. Crippled or not. Half a man. Three-quarters. It doesn't matter. I want you.' And then he added unfairly but without a regret since there are no rules that govern affairs of the heart, 'Once and for life.'

It was done. In whatever fashion she would judge them, the words had been said. Three years too late, but said all the same. And, even if she chose to leave him now, at least she chose knowing the worst he was and the best. He could live with that.

'What do you want of me?' she asked.

'You know the answer to that.'

Peach moved restlessly at their feet. Someone shouted from the patch of green across Cheyne Walk. Deborah watched the river. He followed the direction of her gaze to see that the swans had cleared the final piers of the bridge. They were floating unchanged as they had done before, as they always would do, seeking the safety of Battersea.

'Deborah,' he said.

The birds gave her the answer. 'Like the swans, Simon?'

It was more than enough. 'My love, like the swans.'