AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And it wasn’t as if he had nothing else to do either.
He had an awful lot of balls in the air now.
At least Philipa had not taken any further juggling. Figuratively or not.
They’d never gotten along better.
Apparently, she hadn’t believed one word of his fiction about a rather heroic Russian soldier called Aleksey Primakov. He hadn’t told it with a straight face, and it had been related over a pile of smoking clothes and a bed wrecked from the kind of sex that would very quickly tell any woman that this was not a normal situation, or man, come to that.
But whatever they’d both taken from that night, it had made them easier with each other than they had ever been. He now let his guard drop around her when it was just the two of them, and he made her laugh, which was definitely new. She particularly enjoyed his imitation of her (sometimes) favourite person, which being a student of languages and accents he could do very easily, but more, she seemed to enjoy, share even, his quirky sense of humour. The fit of the box trapping him eased, and he could only assume that the cage which awaited her became more acceptable with his encouraging disparagement of it.
So comfortable were they now they often shared tea and a cigarette around the table when the servants were dismissed. They owned a huge house together, after all, which he paid for but she cared for, and this division of labour needed discussing. She made endless, fascinating lists about her country weekends for friends. The wine, the food, the décor, the entertainments. He thought about the rooms which had secure locks, and what he would do in them with Ben.
It was at one such chat, on a gloomy November evening, when she muttered somewhat caustically, “Stop sulking.”
He looked up, surprised. “I am quietly reading my newspaper.”
“No, you’re sulking. Anyway, where is your diary?”
“In my head?”
“Well take this down on a spare brain cell. I’ll be here for Christmas, of course. So must you, because we’ll have quite a large party. But on the twenty-ninth we’re going away for a week until after the New Year, so you’ll have the house to yourself. Maybe you could think of something or someone to do that would stop you sulking…”
He returned a sardonic smile and went back to his editorial.
“Do you want the servants?”
“Not particularly. And not all at once.” He felt her ire and added more sensibly, “No. I prefer being here without them, as you know.”
“Oh, yes, I have noticed how you like cleaning your own bathroom and doing laundry, and cooking your own food—well, uncorking your own wine, anyway. Right, well I’ll give cook and most of the house staff the week off then, after the Christmas party. You can sort the grooms and grounds staff however you wish.”
“Yes, all right. Where are you going?”
“Scotland. A little croft on Islay apparently.”
Aleksey tried to prevent his expression of horror. “Delightful.”
“Not particularly. I’ll be missing out on lovely Hogmanay at Balmoral. Bagpipes, haggis, dancing.She’sgoing to betheremaking babies. I’m in a croft.”
“Ack. You’ll be enjoying the pipes, too. You’ve said they play quite well—occasionally.”
She shot him a look which made him laugh and took the opportunity to add, obviously a little gleefully, “So, what have you done about this bloody badger business he ordered you to sort?”
* * *
Chapter 45
Nine Years Ago
So, yes, an awful lot of balls in the air and only him to juggle them.
Fucking badgers. Aleksey Primakov being nagged about something no one was even sure existed except in children’s books was quite intolerable.He’dnever seen a fucking badger anyway, and that’s all that counted.
He’d sunk a long way in his life since pushing his brother off a balcony, but he wasn’t so low yet as to concern himself with road kill.
It hadn’t taken long, of course, for the rabid Arab to find out the result of the inquest into the fire.
One Nathan Stones apparently, and not one Benjamin Rider. Not the operative he had assumed he had heroically murdered.
