"Quintin, Jardine - Autographs in the Rain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Quintin Jardine)

'I'm sorry. I really am,' he replied sincerely, 'but I still think it was for
the best.'

'So do I, now; no doubt about it. But back while it was happening
She smiled up at him, with a flash of mischief in her eye. 'Did you love me,
then?'

He nodded, his steely hair glinting under the street lights. 'Yup.'
She opened her mouth to respond but broke off as a pedestrian paused,
and turned to stare at her. The man seemed to hesitate, then carried on his
way. She looked back at him, the interruption over. 'But not as much as you
loved her?' It was a statement as much as a question.

'It wasn't just that. I loved her, sure... although to be absolutely truthful,
I liked you more. Ahhh ...' He paused for a few seconds, gazing up at the
night. 'Look, Lou, I don't care about religion or any of that stuff, just about
what's right and what's wrong. My first personal commandment is loyalty.
I've broken it twice in my life, and found that I hated myself for it, on both
occasions.

'The way I came to see it back then was that I made a promise when I got
engaged. If I had broken it off, I couldn't have hacked the guilt, and sooner
or later, I'd have blamed it on you.'

'And I'd have hated that, for sure,' she conceded. She chuckled again,
deep and warm, at his frown. 'Don't worry, I haven't spent the last twenty
five years pining for my lost love. I've found a few since then: two marriages,
three serious affairs . . . not bad for a wee girl from Bearsden. I've never
felt a pang of guilt, either. We're totally different personalities, you see:
yours is set in concrete and mine's tossing about on life's restless ocean.
'I'd have left you by the time I was twenty-one. For sure.'
She paused as a red bus roared by, close to the kerb. 'When was your
other fall from grace?' she asked him.

'A couple of years back,' he answered. 'My second wife and I had a
major fall-out; she went back to the States, and I got involved with someone
else. We got over it, though. We found out that we mattered too much to
each other to let go.'

AUTOGRAPHS IN THE RAIN

She smiled again. 'So there's no point in my asking you back to my
place for a nightcap?'

He raised an eyebrow at her question, and glanced away, out into the

street. 'That would depe

In mid-sentence, he stopped, threw his left arm round her waist and
flung himself sideways, pulling her with him as he dived behind an