Beauchamp lowered his forehead onto the tabletop as behind him, the eggs began to burn.
Chapter Nine
Mercèwas turning tight circles by his feet, which Vidal recognised as a sign of her imminent betrayal of the flagstones. Connor was sitting on the low garden wall in his shorts and a t-shirt that had seen better mornings, towel around his neck, waiting for Vidal to stop talking long enough to begin his press-ups. Vidal had no intention of stopping.
“Forty million, Connor.Forty.Look at it, look at the number.” He thrust the mobile under Connor’s nose. “And the comments! A man in Reykjavík has begun a petition. Someone in Lagos has written a sonnet in iambic pentameter, and the scansion isperfect, I have checked.”
Connor took the mobile out of his hand, scrolled, and began to laugh. He leaned across the gap between them and kissed Vidal on the mouth, ending with his forehead pressed against Vidal’s own.
“You absolute troublemaker.”
“I am astatesman, Connor.”
“You’re a troublemaker who knows how to take advantage of good lighting.” Connor’s eyes dropped, and his hand came to Vidal’s elbow, easing him a half-step sideways. “Move your foot, sweetheart, she’s about to go on your slipper.”
Vidal looked down. Mercè had stopped circling and was beginning the purposeful crouch that preceded her usual atrocities. He stepped neatly back onto a safer flagstone and watched her settle her business into a tuft of moss.
“Connor, you are anatural. Truly. I have known her three years and I cannot read her like that. You took one look and youknew. It is a gift.Mi amor, yes,yes, that’s it, my darling girl, do not be shy on your father’s account, he has seen much worse. Connor, look at her form!”
Connor snorted, distanced himself slightly, and lowered himself into the press-up position. His shoulder-knots, which Vidal had at last been permitted to press his thumbs into two nights ago, a sensation that had proved every bit as satisfying as he’d suspected, flexed and released under the thin cotton of the t-shirt. Vidal sat down on the warm stone Connor had vacated, propped his chin on one hand, and divided his attention between the rhythmic descent of those shoulders and the scroll of his own screen.
“Listen to this one.This man could read me the Cardonan tax code and I would weep.Connor, I have read the Cardonan tax code. It is, in fact,movingin places —”
His mobile rang in his hand. He looked down at the screen, and the smile that broke across his face was the one he had been holding in reserve since the moment the view counter passed a million.
He swiped to answer at once.
“Papà!” Vidal swung his legs up onto the wall and tucked his feet beneath him, mobile pressed close to his ear. “Have youseen it? Tell me you have seen it. Forty million views,Papà, forty! I have made the morning bulletin on the BBC!”
“Vidal.”
The sound of his own name stopped him. “Yes,Papà?”
“What in the name of God do you think you are doing?”
The sun went off the back of Vidal’s neck all at once, and the chill came up through him. “I — the video,Papà, I was —”
“You were what? You were performing? You were making jokes about Ferrer’s moustache at the window of the safe flat that the King of the United Kingdom has arranged for you?” Carlos’s voice didn’t rise, and yet his anger was clear. “You stood in front of that window,fill meu. With the curtains open and the street behind you. Do you understand what you have done?”
“I —”
“I have spent the last three hours on the telephone with men who do not sleep, Vidal. Men whose entire profession is the keeping of people like you alive. Do you know what one of them said to me, twenty minutes ago? He said,Your Serene Highness, with respect, your son has just broadcast his address across the internet.The view through the glass. The angle of the light. A determined man with a half-decent map of Mayfair could be at his door inside the hour.”
Vidal’s free hand had crept up to the gold necklace at his throat. He closed his fingers around the crucifix.
“You are not in Cardona any more, my son. You are not surrounded by men who have known you since you were in short trousers. There are people, Vidal, who wish you harm. Not all of them far away, and they would prefer that the Montcada name stop appearing on the news. Ferrer has a long reach, and you have just made yourself the most visible exile in Europe over the course of one morning.”
Carlos paused. When he spoke again his voice was quieter.
“I have been so frightened today, Vidal. I am frightened now. I am sitting in a borrowed room, watching my son TREND on the internet, and I cannot reach across the water and put my hand on the back of your neck and tell you to be careful.”
Vidal pressed the crucifix hard enough that he felt the shape of it dig into his palm. “Sí, papà.” His voice came out smaller than he had heard it in some time. “I understand.”
“Promet-m’ho, that you will be more careful.”
“I promise.”
Across the lawn, Connor had paused mid press-up, head turned towards him. Vidal lifted one hand in a steady wave that showed him nothing was wrong, and turned his face away towards the wall.
