The Dilemma [antikvár]

July 1994'All I want you to do,' said Bard with a kind of deadly patience, 'is say I wasn't in London that day. That I was with you. In the country. Or somewhere, anywhere. It's hardly a major lie. That surely isn't so very much to ask?'Francesca looked at him for a long time, at this man she had thought she knew so well and loved so much, and felt panic rising so hard within her she felt physically near to choking on it.Knowing that if she refused it would not only mean that Bard might go to prison, would certainly be convicted as a crook (albeit of the more socially acceptable variety), that her children would be branded for the rest of their lives as the children of a crook, that the entire family, including her own mother, would turn against her, that many other people would face disgrace and disillusion, that some other scapegoat would have to be found for what Bard had undoubtedly done; but it would also mean that she would be free of him, free of the fear, the pressure, the nightmare, the lies. And free to go where she really wanted to go, with whom she really wanted to be.And she sat there in silence, staring at him, and she could see the desperation growing in his eyes, desperation and increasing antagonism, and fear added to her panic and she thought she could not imagine a dilemma more deadly, more dangerous, than the one she was in now.