It was a relief to travel back to London the next day, and return to my wife, out of the reach of that monstrous desire. However, having entered the house and found my wife sitting at table with the remains of a good luncheon, I found it very hard to face her. I sat down next to her, unable to greet her with a kiss, as I should. She laid a light hand on my shoulder, and caressed my neck for a second as she spoke.

'John, you know I understand. He was a wonder to me when first we met. That you should be so deeply attached to him is no mystery to me.' Her abruptness stung me into speech,

'But we did nothing while we were away together. My darling, I promise you, nothing at all. Or, since I must be honest with you, I will admit I was sorely tempted at one point. You are right that we have been close, and I am as open to temptation as the next man, but I kissed him upon the cheek as a friend might. That is all.'

'You should have done more, if that is truly all you did.'

'What?' I asked, confused at her imperative tone. 'Why? In heaven's name, why?'

'Did you want to, in your heart?' She looked at me frankly, and I knew I would answer truthfully.

'Yes. In truth, I did. But I could not. You are my wife, and no permission you may give me can be enough to make me betray you in that fashion. You don't know what you are asking of me.'

'Did it hurt? To step away from him. John? Did it, in fact, break your heart?' She was not mocking me, her voice was low and comforting.

'Those are strong words, Caroline...'

'Did it? My love, did it?'

'Yes.'

Yes, it did. It was like losing him again. It was as if I were cutting my own heart out of my chest and leaving it with him, because I could not bear to keep it apart from him. It hurt. It still hurts now.

'Then I think we have reached a point where I can no longer involve myself. John, shh,' she hushed me as I started to protest. 'Not for myself. I told you before, I can bear to share you. I cannot bear to see you refusing to be shared, and being miserable for that reason and for my sake.'

'What?' I asked, but a treacherous bubble of hope was forming in the base of my trachea, making it hard to swallow.

'I do not believe you will ever be able to love me as you love him. Protest all you like, but it is the truth, and you know it. I would rather not endure the guilt of separating you, and I can see now that my noble husband is going to remain as stubborn as a mule on this issue. So I will release you. I love you, John. I love you so much that I am doing the single most ridiculous thing that I have ever done in my life. I have never been so selfless. You bring out the best in me, John. And so, I insist, this is what we will do. I will arrange things so there is no shame to it. Somehow we will manage that.'

'No. No, I cannot let you...You are wrong, Caro, my wife, you cannot do this, it is not...' She had risen from her seat, and now walked to the door.

'I have a friend nearby who takes in lodgers. I will discuss with her the possibilities of a set of rooms. I would still like to see you, sometimes, if I may. Unless that is too awkward for you, in which case I will move back to Banbury, but I have grown to like it here.'

She was talking so fast, she had moved from introduction, through reasoning and into insanity with incredible speed. Now she left me alone and I took up my hat, not yet having removed my coat, and left the house. I needed to walk, to collect my thoughts.

I turned towards the park and walked to the lake. The water calmed my seething brain. I could not do what Caroline was asking. I could not. It was wrong. I left all that behind when I was young. And yet, now she talked of separation if I refused. Did that not change the game? Of course it did. My mind seized upon it and would not let go. I could do whatever I wanted. She had released me. I was free. I could go to him, ask him if he were willing to indulge me, even as I was still married. Ask him if his passion still ran hot enough for me...

For the first time it occurred to me that Holmes had struggled with our own separation as much as I. Granted, in my my mind, I could lay the blame on him, and thereby persuade myself that he deserved whatever suffering came his way; but really, that held no water, even with me.

I could see it, now. Our time on Dartmoor had been very torture for him. In the bedroom, that first night, he had struggled with himself, not to touch me, not even to brush his hand over me. It had been sore temptation, too: unable to stop himself from coming in and sitting with me, he had, nonetheless, kept his distance, expended a great deal of effort in holding himself back. Then in the cupboard, he had trembled as he rested against me. I had dismissed it as the effects of the chase, had not even recalled it afterwards, but if I had wanted to kiss him, I was now certain that desire had also been in him. And Dartmoor had not been the only time.

Whenever he had come to the house, there had been those moments: the occasions upon which our feet had touched under the dining table, and he had pressed his foot hard against my leg, then let it run, softly, in a caress of my calves that sent shivers through me that I had to excuse as a chill; simply reminding me that I had been his. Yet there had been restraint, even then. Whenever Caroline had left us alone together, I had always been painfully aware of my wife's presence in the next room, of being in our shared, marital home, and I had no desire to risk any sort of gesture of that kind under the circumstances. However, I was also aware that Holmes might have no such compunction. I had assumed, therefore, from his inaction, that his desire was merely to tease, to be mischievous with me, no longer, in actual fact, to touch at the slightest opportunity.

I had been wrong. I could see that clearly now. He had held himself back from me in the truest spirit of friendship, and by brute force of will alone. Although it felt like self-aggrandisement even to think it, I could now admit that he still wanted me, still desired my body. Still hoped for me to change my mind and go to him, unhindered by morality. I chose, now, to do so.

I turned towards Baker Street, feeling sure that I would find him at home today. I would enter those rooms and present myself to him. I would kiss him, I would touch him and hold him exactly as I wished, and I knew he would return my embraces. I knew he would. If I once put my arms around him and pressed my lips to his, he would wrap his own arms around me in return. He would hold me to him, and blue fire would course through me, knocking all common sense from me, leaving me to forget the world, and love him only.

At the gate to the park, however, I was suddenly confronted with my wife, walking briskly along, past the entrance, about to step down to cross the road. She looked at me levelly.

'I am on my way to find some accommodation,' she said, calmly, then turned away, waiting for a carriage to pass before she could step down. She was at the far side of the pavement, and I called to her, wanting her to return to me so that I could change her mind away from this lunatic course of action. I would not go to Holmes, I would simply persuade her to stay.

She stepped away from me, and down into the road. She looked back as she crossed, and her face was unreadable, but it was not her face I watched. From around the corner, a carriage hurtled, its pair of horses galloping away from the driver, bits between their teeth. I opened my arms, waved them to warn her, but she frowned at me. The time was not long enough for this communication, but it stretched out in all the terrible detail of the passing seconds before the carriage hit my wife, knocking her clear across the street, where she landed with a crack I could hear plainly from my post on the kerbside.

My spread arms folded back in as instinct brought my hands up to cover my mouth and hold back the scream of horror. Then time began to flow once more, and I found myself running, my medical training overcoming all my other instincts. I was by her side, touching her, smoothing my hands across the brow I had, only minutes before, been told I had lost the right to touch forever. Her glazed eyes stared up at me, without a hint of accusation, and I rocked back on my heels, landing in a seated crouch upon the pavement.

There were people all around. Witnesses. They had seen... the carriage had gone, unable to stop, the driver, control lost, perhaps no fault of his, no blame to be apportioned. Perhaps a loud noise had startled the horses into their stampede. Who was I to the lady? Her husband? Well then sir, you will be greatly distressed. Come, sit over here. Is there someone we can fetch for you. Do you have a relative, a friend? Does the lady...?

Tea in a china cup from the adjacent house, a sip of brandy from a tall gentleman's flask cane. Then my own voice, hoarse with shock, but certain in its intent:

'Sherlock Holmes. He is my friend. Sherlock Holmes, please.'

Then minutes of nothing, but a growing sense of horror that the emotion I was feeling in greatest measure was not grief, or anger, but relief. I struggled to alter myself, to make myself feel distress for the death of this lovely woman, who had given me all her love, and for whom I had, at the least, felt great affection... And there was nothing there. A nothing which burst into a great wave of disgusting, abhorrent joy as Holmes came around the corner, striding out at great speed, with his cane in one hand, his cloak billowing. He talked to the policeman who was taking down the statements of the witnesses, and took me by the arm, hauling me to my feet.

We spent time in the street, in a cab, in corridors, in a morgue, in a small interview room. Holmes was there throughout. He spoke to them, not to me. I said only what I had to – the emotions through which I was trying to sort were too confusing, required too much attention to waste time on their pointless enquiries. They let us go at last, and Holmes took my arm and walked me out into the street.

He bundled me into the first cab we saw, and sat next to me, not looking me in the eye. He still had not spoken a single word to me when we alighted at Baker Street and entered our dear old rooms, climbing the stairs to the landing, where he held the door open for me, and shut it behind us.

He moved out of my line of sight for a moment, and returned with a tumbler of brandy, which he gestured for me to drink. I took it gratefully, and drank the whole, considerable measure in one gulp. He sat me on the sofa then, and crouched in front of me. As his hands fell on my knees and gripped there, I felt time slow back down to a sensible speed, and I listened as he spoke at last.

'Watson...' There was a knock on the door, and Mrs Hudson pushed it open.

'Doctor Watson,' she said, her voice shocked and low, though her body moved briskly to set the tea tray she carried onto the table so that she could approach me. Holmes rose, his knees creaking as he unbent. I stood with him and allowed Mrs Hudson to wrap her arms around me and pull me gently against her bosom. Tears were welling in her eyes, but she was apparently doing her best not to cry. She let go then, sharing the dignity of her fortitude with me, not knowing that it was not needed.

'Oh, Doctor Watson, you poor man. I just heard, from the boy at the door. There's hot sweet tea on the table. Mr Holmes, you will look after him for now? I am in the middle of baking day, or I would...' She looked over at Holmes, and he nodded, stepping closer to me, and gesturing me to sit at the table.

'I will keep him the best company I can, Mrs Hudson,' he said, and the tenderness in his tone was as much for her as it was for me. She nodded and left the room to return to her baking, the smells of which were wafting up the stairs.

I had only just taken my seat, and Holmes, having poured for us both, sat opposite me, when there was another knock at the door, and without any hesitation, it opened, and Lestrade swept into the room. I was thrust back in my mind to a night long before, when he had interrupted us in far less acceptable circumstances.

Holmes' tone was icy when he stood and spoke:

'Lestrade, to what do we owe the pleasure?' Lestrade had the good grace to look embarrassed about his sudden entry. He stood there, twisting his hat brim with nervous hands.

'My apologies, Mr Holmes, Doctor Watson; I heard the news just now when I returned to the station, and I had to come and offer my condolences and any assistance I might be able to provide. Shocking business, shocking.' He had taken a step forward, resting a hand upon my shoulder for an instant, then removing it hurriedly as he received the most dangerous and unpleasant of looks from my good friend. I frowned at Holmes, then at Lestrade.

'Lestrade, you objected to my marriage altogether,' I pointed out. My body was still shaking, but my mind was startlingly clear and untroubled in its own way.

'I...I...' He stuttered into silence. Holmes had steepled his fingers and was regarding us over them with interest.

'You said it was a terrible idea and that I should think again.'

Lestrade had now had time to pull himself together and retaliate.

'Nevertheless, Doctor Watson, it would be callous in the extreme for me to suggest that the death of your wife could be due cause for anything other than grief.' I sighed and nodded. Yes, grief was certainly what I should feel, for a fellow human being if not purely for my own spouse.

I glanced back at Holmes, he looked calmly interested, and I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering if he had known that Lestrade had openly disapproved of my marriage. As I turned back to Lestrade, I felt Holmes' foot fall upon mine under the table, rubbing up the side of my ankle. The action brought back the most sudden and vivid memory of a day on the moors when he had untwisted the deep reticence of his own personality, and taken me apart with the simplest of touches. I felt the blood pounding through me, the first thrumming pulses of frustrated desire hitting me in the chest like great storm-blasts of wind.

Lestrade seemed to have run out of anything to say. He nodded twice to himself, then once to me, once to Holmes.

'Well, if there is anything I can do to be of assistance, you know where I may be found. My...my thoughts are with you.' He replaced his hat on his head, touched the brim to us and left.

I stared at Holmes, as his foot continued to move gently against my own. Suddenly it was withdrawn, and he leaned forward, taking up his cup and signalling for me to do the same.

'Drink your tea Watson; do as you have been told by our excellent landlady, then come back to the fireside. I wish to talk with you, if you will permit me?' I nodded, already sipping my hot, sweet tea, and he was silent as I drank, though after a while he rose, went to the fire and poked it back into life. When I had drained my cup, I rose carefully, so as not to upset the delicate equilibrium of mind over matter, which was holding back my ignoble emotions. I sat in my chair and at once he knelt before me again, his hands gripping my knees as he spoke in a low voice.

'Watson, I did a terrible thing. Forgive me.'

I shook my head to clear it. His words made no sense.

'I forced you into marriage, when you did not desire it.'

'What?'

'You married because you believed me. For no other reason.'

'I...' I stuttered to a halt. I wanted to say yes, yes! I wanted to voice again the affirmation I had made so brokenly in Slough, not all that long ago. But I could not. That would be to admit my own guilt. His mouth twitched in a rueful half-smile.

'I know. I knew before I pushed you down the aisle. But I was too much of a coward to admit it. Watson. My dear, dear Watson. Will you admit that you did not love her, or is that too much to ask?' He looked so pathetically concerned that the shock still pinning me down almost lifted enough to let me laugh.

'I did not love her, not as I should,' I said, feeling a great weight lifting from my shoulders. 'Oh, that is terribly wrong,' I continued, knowing that at the moment I was almost booking my direct ticket to hell. 'But, I enjoyed her company. She was a fine woman...' I stopped. I could not speak thus of a woman who had not been dead a day yet. Holmes ran his hands a little further up my thighs.

'Never allow me to manipulate you like that. Never. No matter how you love me. Do not accept what I say as gospel, do not do it, man! It has almost killed me to know that you trusted me so, and that I betrayed your trust more dreadfully than you had ever imagined I could.'

My mind finally worked its way through a little of the labyrinth.

'But why, Holmes? Why push me away?'

'Because you expected to be married again, and I could not bear to have it waiting for me in the future. Better to get it over with, to make the break clean. So you were correct in what you said: the first opportunity I had, I pushed you over the cliff to save myself. I was entirely selfish, but it almost destroyed me. I could not do without you very well. If you ever forgive me...'

'If I...?' The thought that I would hold it against him had not crossed my mind. I went over his reasoning in my head. I should have been furious with him. As if from a distance, I could see that what he had done was unpardonable. But then, so were my actions. It was I who had married Caroline, not he. It was I who had lied before God and witnesses to tie her to me. It was I who had repented of my decision to marry her even before she had reached my side on our wedding day. It was I who had crushed my heart up small and hidden it away in a locked box so that its yearnings, its truth, could not disturb my falsified happiness. And Holmes had done nothing but suggest the path. Suggest it, and then seek at the first instant of its fulfilment to drag me back to him. The gift of the hatstand, the taking of my hand on any pretext during the times he had stolen me from my wife for a case. Who was more to blame?

Who cared? Perhaps at that moment I lost all moral sensibility, but my heart was freed from its box and it leapt in my chest, and I forgave him in that same heart: I forgave him a thousand times over for every real wrong, and every perceived wrong he had ever done me. I forgave him and I loved him; loved him so much that when my hands took hold of him, and I fell forward to kneel on the floor with him, and I kissed his forehead and wrapped one arm around him so that he could not leave me, it was not achieved by my conscious mind, but by some part of me that was now adamant: I should never leave him again.

My nose was squashed against him, my mouth open against his, not kissing, just breathing him in, while a lump at the back of my throat seemed to swell, affecting my brain and making me cling to him all the tighter. He shuffled around, pulling me with strong arms between his half-crossed legs, allowing me to wrap my legs awkwardly, painfully around him. Then he pulled me closer, hooked his chin over my shoulder, let me rest my head in the crook of his neck. Let me drowse there as he rocked me like a child and all the cares of adulthood, the fears and the doubts, left me for a while. He had never said he loved me, but I believed it now, as firmly as if he were me and I could see his very thoughts. That I loved him was barely even worth the confirming. If I had had the smallest part of my heart left to give, I would have given it to Caroline, but, as it turned out, Holmes already had the whole of it, and I could never have taken even a fraction of it back.

'You are still in shock, my dear friend,' Holmes said, and I was about to chide him for teaching me my own trade, but he went on, 'You will feel grief for her at some point, no doubt, and then you will not consider yourself so dreadful a man. For you are a good man, Doctor Watson. The best man I know... The very best.' His rumbling voice faded into silence and I let myself feel nothing but the arms around me, the body at my front, the heart beating against my own. I wished he were right. Maybe he was.

Then the image of my poor, dead, not-quite-anymore wife, rose into my mind, and I pulled myself back from him to observe him. What was it about him that had allowed me to let her go with such callousness? I stared at his face and he closed his eyes, as if to let me see it clearly without the distraction of those windows to the soul. I thought I saw a new line at the corner of each eye – laughter lines, an aunt of mine called them.

Laughter. For whom had Holmes laughed in his life? For his parents? I doubted it, his family did not seem the type, if I were to judge by my small acquaintance with Mycroft. For school-friends, colleagues? It seemed unlikely. Who were they? He rarely mentioned them, and if he did, it was in largely contemptuous tones. For Mrs Hudson? Yes, perhaps. Rarely. He has always been inordinately fond of her and, when not shouting at her to carry out some task he deems imperative, can be quite gentle and obliging with her. For me then?

Yes. Oh, yes. I have seen him laugh, and I am not counting the laugh he pretends for a case, nor the sarcastic guffaw of disbelief when his opinion of the gentlemen of the Yard is running particularly low. Not even that genuine laughter I have witnessed when, as for example during our short sojourn with his old acquaintance Musgrave, he has been intoxicated with spirits and possibly, I have always suspected, a small addition of his own choice of poison. Then he had laughed like a fool, and I was so overwhelmed by it that I, in a tipsy state myself, had laughed with him, only later realising what might have caused it, and souring my opinion of the occurrence. No. I mean his true laugh. That giggle I have mentioned before in these private pages. That laugh which represents true amusement, a moment of happiness. He laughs when I am there. And I can call it mine.

My eyes moved across his face, taking in the blemish on his chin, the dip below each cheekbone when he breathed through his mouth or spoke. I read the shape of his nose and jaw, the bleed of lips into skin, the pattern of fine hairs escaping across his brow and from his hairline. I watched his pupils moving behind his eyelids, seeming to follow my movements blindly through the translucent skin. Then I turned from him to look into the fire, and he felt the change, shuffling closer to me, so that our legs touched.

The fire crackled and popped. Some green log towards the back was putting up a fight, and spat nastily every half minute or so, the sparks hitting the fender, or singeing the already pock-marked hearth-rug in front of us. I stared at the brilliance at the centre of the fire. The three large logs stacked upon the grate described a small cavern at their centre, and it was an Aladdin's cave of sparkling brightness, bright white, shot with orange and the pale flickers of blues and greens at the edge.

My face was hot with the flames, my knees protesting at the blaze focused on them, while my back remained cool. Holmes transferred his weight forward a little, so that he could reach up with one hand to touch my back. He felt the chill and grunted with dissatisfaction. Shuffling back a little, he moved himself behind me, settling with his legs hitched up to either side of me, his weight forward, in counterbalance to my own, so that he could pull me back against him, without having the pair of us topple over backwards like a pair of skittles. I leant against him, sliding forward as I did so, so that my head rested against his chest. His arms went around me, and I felt his chin come to rest on top of my head, then rub, softly, through my hair in gentle circles.

My poor, dead wife shattered like a thing of ice, and even the most moral part of me could not feel the sorrow I knew full well she deserved. In the end, she had been a mere substitute for the thing I wanted most, and now, with a little care and discretion, could have once more. I hated myself for it, but there was nothing to be done. I have seen horrors enough in my life. Maybe war, in the end, made me hard. Maybe my concern for my fellow man, on which I have always prided myself, is just another illusion in the face of my utter selfishness when it comes to Sherlock Holmes. Maybe it is simply that I was never tempted so.

I thank heaven that this set of scribblings can never be published. Quite apart from the illegality of Holmes' and my actions, I fear my general demeanour at that time showed me in a poor light. In younger days, if asked, I would have imagined that the death of my wife might have occasioned a long period of grief. Sorrow would be the order of the day; anger, even. But in truth, the only emotions I was able to muster were relief and joy. My whole body was bubbling, fizzing with the thrill of freedom, or rather, of an enslavement with which I could easily cope.

When you look at me, and think that I failed, in the end, to be quite human, remember that I had started out thinking the same thing of Holmes, and yet he turned out to be the most human man I know. Allow me this one failure. Allow me to admit that it happened, and that this was an end to it. Allow me to forget the time I trusted the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known, so greatly that I forgot to search my own heart. Allow me to admit that I still trust him. Allow me to rest my head on his chest and listen to him breathe, and admit, with absolute honesty, that I would have any other human die a thousand times, though it blew my Hippocratic oath to shreds, rather than have him taken from me. Allow me to kiss him, now, and a thousand times in the future, and let him, oh, please, let him always kiss me back.

THE END

Part three of the Hatstand Trilogy coming soon... :)