I wondered if he was conscious of it, too. I wondered if it brought back to him, as vividly as it did to me, the other times we had been together. Not that this palatial hotel was anything like the places we had stayed at before. We had chosen sleepy country pubs where we felt shut away from the outside world, where they served roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for dinner and a huge platter of bacon and eggs to entice us down in the morning. We’d had a special favorite, an ancient millhouse lying in a fold of the Sussex Downs, a few miles inland from Brighton. Our bedroom was cozy under the thatch, with heavy oaken beams and beeswax-scented furniture. The whispering of water from the stream outside was a gentle background to the night hours. A favorite place. My memory was running riot. In reality Brett and I had stayed there only twice. The white telephone on the bedside table reminded me that I had promised to call Rudi. I felt a curious reluctance, but I wanted to ask about Madeleine, too.
