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Only he, of all the people there, knew what a supreme effort it took on Ben’s part to walk into such a gathering. He knew a great deal more about the real Ben Rider than he had the first time he’d inflicted such a social gathering on him. Ben’s idea of a good party would have been a curry in Hereford with his mates, twenty pints of lager on the subsequent pub crawl, and an obligatory kebab on the way home.
But here he was, hobnobbing with royalty. Sometimes, in the quiet hours of the night, Aleksey pondered why Ben put himself through these trials, but over the almost four years he had now known him had come to no satisfactory conclusion.
From where he waited in the shadows, it appeared to Aleksey that Ben wasn’t standing in candlelight, but that he created the illumination.
Watching those perfectly aligned features now, Aleksey had a startling flashback to a time he rarely allowed himself to recall. He’d been in a mujahideen-held village, living amongst tribesmen, conducting some negotiations he didn’t care about and which they would renege on as soon as he left. Over the inevitable rancid tea, they had produced a girl for him, a sex slave apparently, captured from one of the smaller religious groups in that vast region—a devil worshipper, according to his translator. When he had uncovered her face, he had been amazed to find brilliant jade-green eyes and a smattering of golden freckles on pale skin that accented high, pronounced cheekbones. She had the exotic beauty of her blue peacock fallen-angel god.
Ben could have been her brother.
Philipa was looking for someone to place this exotic beauty with and spotted her Godson.
Aleksey pursed his lips, watching the introduction.
He should have snapped the fuckwit’s neck rather than banish him to Washington. After all, he’d had plenty of opportunity. All that kneeling. Did teeth clamp shut at point of death? Although he had vauntingly claimed that Philipa would not be the least interested in knowing about his private life, this, obviously, was not true. What he did affected her and her ambitions. The whole purpose of him being here in this considerable luxury was to provide the false front to the world behind which she and her lover hid, and hence the earlier peck on the cheek, which apparently for the British aristocracy was quite a bold display of public affection.
Sure, he could go to whatever clubs he frequented and do whatever it was he wanted to do there (her words not his), but with her own Godson? A member ofThe Family? That, he suspected, would not be tolerated.
He wondered what they were talking about.
Ben was apparently silent, the fuckwit babbling.
He sighed.
And stepped out of the shadows.
He came forwards into the illumination, aware of the candlelight that would be dancing off his shiny blond, coincidentally newly cut hair, and extended his hand to the man on Gustav’s arm and introduced himself.
The stranger was American, but, more interestingly, now Gustav’s husband. Aleksey wished The Family luck sorting out that courtesy title.
Charm offensive successfully completed there, he turned to The Honourable, physically, so Ben got that he was being ignored.
“Congratulations are in order, I believe.”
The Honourable nodded. “How are you, Nicky? I didn’t hear from you. Not once.”
He’d forgotten the nicknames. He wondered how Ben was taking that.
“Did you expect to? How...nice. I am as you see me.” Aleksey gestured imperiously yet disarmingly around the room. “A happily married gentleman farmer. How long do you anticipate being here?”
“At this party, or back in England?”
Aleksey was reflecting that he could clarifyin this lifebut he had an audience. He was regretting not applying his short, sharp snap solution to this problem, whatever the consequences.
It would have been better for them all.
Well, better for him, which was the only thing that ever mattered.
There was still time though. Murder-suicide in a same-sex marriage? Sounded entirely plausible and understandable to him. Unstable homosexual with unfaithful husband kills his husband and then himself?
Must happen frequently. Or if it didn’t, he could start a new trend with these two.
And there would be a money motive too apparently...
They had just bought a house together. Near Washington DC.
Aleksey smirked privately when this little nugget was dropped into the conversation by the dishonourable gold digger. As if a million dollars was going to impress him. Aleksey had spent that in a week once on wine.
Ben, though, raised his eyebrows at the mention of the sum and actually said something.
