With a groan, he got to his feet and went to his bedroom, shedding his suit and then collapsing on his bed in his small clothes. Shivering, he pulled a heavy quilt on top of him and stared up at the ceiling as he admitted for the first time how empty his life had become.
For the first few years after he’d left the army, it had been strange to be in a place of his own, instead of surrounded by others all the time. At first, he’d enjoyed the solitude, glad not to have to listen to snores and farts all night long. But very soon, the charm of being alone wore off, and he found himself missing the camaraderie, the friendship, the feeling of working toward a common goal.
He’d enjoyed his police work at first as well, but as the years had dragged on, he’d stopped feeling that he was making a difference, instead seeing it all as a somewhat desperate attempt to put his fingers in the holes of a leaking dyke. Every time he plugged one, it seemed that ten more opened up. His life had become a constant dance of contorting himself to plug those holes—a lonely dance, made even more so once O’Brien had left.
But he’d never before felt like he’d failed as utterly as he did tonight, knowing that Evelyn Lindsay might still be here if he’d simply manage to figure out who The Viper was and stop him in the months he’d had to do so.
Frustration surged through him, and his mind turned once again to Jocelyn crying in his arms, her sorrow for her sister pouring out of her in a painful wave. He’d felt every single one of her tears, and he’d have done nearly anything to bear her pain for her.
He hadn’t had these sort of feelings for a woman since Marina had broken his heart all those years ago. He’d thought that Marina had taken every bit of tenderness and passion with her when she’d left him.
But perhaps some lingering kernel of it remained.
He knew it was absolutely ridiculous to be having those feelings for this particular woman. They were worlds apart, and there was nothing he could do to change that. Just because his friend had found a way to be with a woman of the ton didn’t mean that he and Jocelyn could ever do the same.
But perhaps the time had come to look for another, more suitable woman to give his heart to. Maybe it was time to stop coming home to an empty flat. He’d always thought he wanted children, but he was thirty years old, and if he was going to ever become a father, it was probably time to get started.
The thought brought him a strange measure of peace.
Perhaps Jocelyn had come into his life just to show him that it was possible to care about a woman again.