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The shadow had been a warning: look up and behold.
With startling clarity, he understood that for the two coiling effortlessly above, he was merelyprey.
It was therefore a bad time for the peace of the upland moors to be shattered by the sound of bells. He could hear them from two or three directions—church peals, giving out what sounded to him like anxious alarm. His horse snorted, perhaps picking up his sense of unease, and he struggled now to make him stand.
The sunlight vanished as quickly as it had arrived, and the land fell back into flat monochrome. Nikolas pulled his eyes from the predators above and glanced once more at his little valley and, uncharacteristically, turned abruptly for home.
Happiness and love.
He knew now what the third strand was—fear.
It was inseparable from the other two and just as potent.
Without fear that he would lose it all, the other two might be taken for granted, andthatNikolas would never do.
He urged his horse to a gallop, the drumming of hooves now adding an unwelcome counterpoint to the discordant, ominous clanging.
* * *
Chapter 3
Fourteen Years Ago
The Honourable Gustav Arthur Philippe Mountbatten (Gussy to his friends) was losing his hair. Aleksey allowed that the young man was in an unfavourable position—not everyone got judged from above like this—but, still, he was only twenty and already there was a distinct thinning in the crown of his weak-tea coloured strands. It was possibly hereditary. Ran in the family, so to speak.
It occurred to Aleksey that he knew more about this young man’s hairline than he did about his facial features, or the colour of his eyes. Were they…blue?
Theirs was an unlikely acquaintance. Association? English was a tricky language to get these things just right, but being around The Honourable made Aleksey want to improve his English. If only to puzzle out some of his expressions.
At their first introduction, two years previous, The Honourable, aged only eighteen and visiting his Godmother, Lady Philipa, at Barton Combe before 'going up', had greeted Aleksey (who had only recently slid unseen and hungry into The Family's embrace) with, "Oh, you darling girl." So, puzzled hardly covered it.
The Honourable had proved himself to be inappropriately titled that first weekend, as he'd apparently decided that his Godmother's odd, silent, and permanently closed-off new husband was fair game for someterrifically naughty fun.
Aleksey, carefully constructing his new house of cards, had not appreciated this spotlight of attention. When he had taken his opportunity to live in England in some splendour and considerable ease without having to do anything other than be present at Barton Combe when required, Aleksey had not actually realised how much effort and concentration he was going to have to put into being Nikolas.SirNikolas. Because, of course, he was notNikolas, his twin, in any way. He just called himself by Nikolas's name and then made it up each day. And every day provided challenges, some bigger than others. Most of the minor provocations of having to play this aloof aristocrat had been overcome by deep, metaphorical breaths and some counting to ten. His urge to kill people who annoyed him had generally been worked off by riding furiously across the estate and down to the beach, where alone and windswept he’d returned to himself and flown free. He'd never met a horse he hadn’t preferred to a person anyway. And Philipa's dogs were amusing in their own way. Especially when their Russian had improved a bit.
So, gradually, he'd learnt to curb his wild nature, pack himself limb by limb into a tiny box, until he only peeked out, watching the world, still with observant, predatory eyes, but the rest of him hidden and controlled.
And then The Honourable had begun to visit, and the temptation to emerge from his hiding place was almost too strong to resist. He hadn't wanted to kill anyone so much for a very long time. The Honourable just rubbed him up the wrong way, and however much he told himself to ignore him, he couldn't.
The Honourable was everything Aleksey loathed tied up in one artfully styled package.
And the more Aleksey ignored and avoided him, the more the young man pursued him.
On one weekend visit when The Honourable had been well into the first term of his obligatory History and Politics at Cambridge, Aleksey had discovered he was more of a target for the annoying one’s attentions than he had suspected. The fuckwit was intended—so he’d informed Aleksey during a very prolonged and boring dinner, possibly mistaking his quarry’s indifference for keen interest—for a rather plum posting in the Foreign Office—withhim. Aleksey had immediately had to hide the fact that he didn't know what this meant. Which was intolerable. He'd learnt English from the best teachers and tutors in the world, so why was he struggling to remember what a plum was and how or why it could relate to a job? By the time he'd suppressed his ire at being so wrong-footed by the little idiot, The Honourable had moved onto his next favourite subject—his father.Pater, the owner of a minor title and estate somewhere Aleksey didn't care about, had been at school with the royal heir.Best chums. Hence Lady Philipa being his Godmother.
"What do you think?"
Aleksey realised he was being stared at. He'd just worked out that plum might, in fact, be plumb, which was something to do with ships—or toilets. He wasn't much further forward with seeing the significance of either of these for a job. Although he had been in many shitholes of the world. But he’d never boasted about them enthusiastically.
“Darling Nikita, I said, what do you think?”
"I do not think."
The Honourable sniggered and poked him conspiratorially. Aleksey actually saw himself lift his fork and stab it into the back of the pale hand, and was only stopped from doing so by another poke and, "Don’t be such a terrible bore. Moi, in the jolly-old Foreign Orifice—with you! Well, after my marvellous posting to Washington DC so I can suck off all those frightfully hunky American Marines. What do you say? Oh, Pooky, your face. You are such a card."
"Do not call me—” Pooky? Was that another reference to toilets? “I am not—" What the fuck was a card? Was it good or bad?
"Has anyone ever told you that mascara is just so totally last year for men?"
