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If the house were alive it would be wise, watchful, silent.
‘This is absolutely exquisite. It should really belong to the National Trust.’
Aleksey, thinking all these things, assessing, wondering, shook himself at the professor’s comment. He was profoundly shocked at such stupidity. ‘Come.’
He produced the key.
The main door appeared to be at the back of the house, something Aleksey approved of: nothing to mar the façade’s perfection. Squeezy snorted at his expression and murmured, ‘Backdoor entry for us four. Like it.’
It was very annoying having such morons with him. He turned to Ben for some support, but Ben was mouthing at something carved above the door. ‘Gui-lee-mow house? Strange name.’
Aleksey kept his smile inside and corrected softly, ‘Gilly-mot. It’s pronounced gilly-mot. Guillemot House.’
Ben pursed his lips. ‘Huh.’
Tim adjusted his glasses and held up his little book. ‘It’s a seabird that nests on the cliffs here.’ He glanced at Aleksey. ‘And I think it’s now more acceptable to saygui-moin the French way?’
If there was one thing Aleksey particularly loathed, it was people who seemed to think it was their job to correct other people’s pronunciation. ‘Whose house is it, professor?’ Aleksey tried the key. The oak door swung open to an entrance hall, corridors going left and right and a pair of double doors in front of them. The floor was a light, honey-coloured wood laid in geometric designs, some of which disappeared under these doors, which consequently invited someone entering the house to move forwards, to discover.
He accepted the invitation and pushed them wide.
The room they entered took up the entire ground floor of the main part of the house, being about sixty feet in length. The doors had opened onto the top of a flight of generously wide, curved, very shallow steps.
The walls of the room were subtle off-white, but rather than meet the high ceiling with sharp right angles, they curved slightly in a natural cove. The floor was the same patterned wood as the entrance hall and semicircle steps, but here or there it was bleached around darker rectangles where presumably rugs had once been placed. There was no furniture to speak of, just some built-in bookcases in one end wall and a small table with a broken leg lying beside them. From inside the room, it was easier to appreciate the curved turret additions to the front of the house, for each of the three sets of windows in the room, two of which faced south towards the lawns and the open view to the sea and the third to the east in a shorter wall, were elegantly curved bays with widow seats. Directly opposite the southern two of these and in the centre of the back wall was a huge fireplace. Aleksey ran his finger along the Sienna marble chimney piece, tracing one of the dark gold veins, and for the first time since he had married into it, pitied the family which had once owned, but now lost, this house.
However, thisbetterfeeling didn’t last long.
He suddenly felt like drumming his hands in glee on the wall.
Ben and Tim were trying out the window seats, which really only involved sitting in one and then moving to another. Squeezy had taken his shoes off and was seeing if he could slide in his socks on the floor. PB was joining in, or trying to stop him, it was hard to tell, and Radulf was lying in front of the empty fireplace Aleksey had been admiring, as if patiently waiting for someone to light it for him.
Aleksey thought this was a very good idea. It was now dark outside and although the south-facing room had retained some of the day’s warmth, it was cooling rapidly.
He suddenly felt a wave of tiredness so profound that he could have lain down beside Radulf and just…stopped. He remembered the long drive from Dartmoor and then the five hours sailing and tried to cut himself some slack. He started to speak, glanced over to where Ben and Tim were now sitting and discovered they’d both nodded off. Squeezy was watching them. Very quietly, he bent down and picked up his discarded shoes. Aleksey was just thinking how uncharacteristically thoughtful this was of the moron when with a gleeful whoop he shot one at Ben’s head and the other, with even better aim, at his boyfriend’s.
* * *
Once roused and given the task of collecting all they needed from the boat for this first night, Ben and the other two soon had a small mound of kit piled in front of the fireplace.
Squeezy had checked the weather forecast on the radio in the boat and claimed a storm was predicted for later the next day. He’d tied the vessel more securely, but Aleksey agreed that getting this lifeline into the shelter of the shed would be a priority in the morning.
Aleksey wanted to explore the rest of the house, find a bed, and escape the pain for a few hours, but he was hungry, as were the other five. He made a suitable gesture to the supplies; Ben got the hint and put a camping stove into the vast fireplace. As he filled the kettle with some bottled water, he rummaged with his free hand in his bag. Aleksey could have kissed him publicly with gratitude when this search through the duffle produced a tin filled with assorted chocolate bars.
Aleksey scattered some Bonio treats for the dogs, and they sat happily watching the little blue flames until the tea was made.
When Ben had his teabag squished to his satisfaction he shared with no one in particular, ‘I wish I knew what it was that prince did that made him sell this place. I don’t think anything could get me to do that.’ He blew across his mug and added, ‘I’d rather take the flack if it came out.’
Tim pushed his glasses up and offered diffidently, ‘Maybe he’s not the one who’s afraid. Maybe whatever he did involved other people more powerful than him, and it’s those people forcing him to hush it up.’
Squeezy blew out his cheeks at this suggestion. ‘More powerful than a prince? Fuck. You’d think once you got a title like that you could say fuck off to everyone.’
‘Genocide.’ Aleksey had been giving this subject some thought privately, and this was his latest theory. He could see it puzzled the others, so he added, ‘He backed a coup and there was resultant genocide.’
Ben slowly shook his head. ‘Nope. Still wouldn’t give this island up.’
Aleksey laughed and flicked his ear. ‘We can discover the rest of the place tomorrow, but Radulf is exhausted now. Come and find the bedrooms with me.’
Squeezy immediately perked up, interested. ‘Is that code for come shag me, cus if it is, I’ll stay down here and take the opportunity to do a little shaggin’ meself.’ He rubbed Radulf’s belly, which was handily close. ‘Not you, you shameless fuzzy wanton. I got me own hairy beast.’
