by R. J. Scott
“Wouldn’t need to fix it if it hadn’t been jammed in the recycling and broken,” Ross muttered. Seeing Lucien, he lost the irritable expression and instead smiled. He took the list and placed it squarely on the desk. “I’ll get back to you.”
Lucien hovered uncertainly, then pulled himself together. He wasn’t a kid, he was the client. He shook hands with Kyle, then Ross, and decided he was taking control.
“I need to get back to university,” he announced.
“We’ll go now, ready?”
They crossed the office to the main door, and Lucien winced when the icy cold January air hit him square in the face. He’d not even thought to bring a jacket and was never happier to get into the car that Max unlocked. He settled in and watched the receding reflection of the manor in the side mirror as they drove down the grand drive and out onto the main road.
“I need to stop at my place. I only have my go-bag with me.”
Lucien nodded. He’d expected to need to stop, though he could understand the concept of a go-bag for emergencies, probably with all kinds of bodyguard-type stuff in it. Like what, he couldn’t imagine, but it sounded cool.
“I’m only an hour away,” Max assured him as they joined the traffic heading towards Oxford.
“It’s fine.”
“We should take the time for you to go over everything again. I might not look like I’m listening, but I will be.” He indicated and moved to the right lane to overtake a horse trailer, then slid back into the left lane, all while he talked.
“Everything?”
“Every little detail from the time you decided to drink and before that if you think it helps. I want to know all the characters.”
“You sound like it’s a play.”
Max shot him a look, and his serious blue eyes focused on Lucien for a split second before he turned back to the road. “It is like a play, I guess. The more you know the players, the easier it is to identify the bad guy.”
“When do I get to hear about your play?” Lucien asked. He was teasing, but also intrigued by the journey Max had taken to end up as Lucien’s bodyguard.
“I’m here for you. That’s all you need to know.” He didn’t look at Lucien as he said it. “Now eyes front and start from the drinking.”
Lucien sighed noisily. He didn’t want to go back there to the point where his entire life had crumbled with grief. He was desperate to avoid confronting the decisions he had made then. Not coming out to his family in such a dramatic way—that had actually been a good thing. His mom had just turned around and suggested that it was all well and good being like that in private, but that is where it should stay. His dad had agreed stiffly. No, the decision to bury his grief in whiskey or vodka or whatever else he had to hand was what he regretted and was more than a little embarrassed to share with this put-together guy who had managed to take Teddy to the floor.
“Okay, so the drinking. Guess that’s where I need to start.”
“Was it your decision to drink?”
Temper snatched his breath. “What kind of a question is that?” The way it was worded implied he didn’t know his own mind. Then he realized what he was thinking and just how stupid he sounded in his own head.
“A reasonable one,” Max said. “Did someone encourage you to drink? Were you led astray, was there someone who wanted you to commit some kind of indiscretion? Did you have a boyfriend? A wannabe lover? A friend?”
Temper subsided as quickly as it had risen, and Lucien shook his head. “I apologize.”
“And you can stop doing that.”
“What?”
“Apologizing.”
“Sorry. I mean… Okay…” Settling himself back in the seat and attempting to relax, he closed his eyes briefly. He could do this. He’d never had a boyfriend. Edward was his first and actually his last. One heated experience of frotting and that was it. I may as well be a virgin. “So,” he began carefully, “there was no boyfriend, or wannabe lover, as you put it. I hadn’t exactly come out to anyone; hell, I’d barely come out to myself. Seb was ill for a long time and I was close to him. I even had a tutor so I didn’t have to go to boarding school. I think my parents liked that there was someone for Seb as it definitely wasn’t going to be them.” He winced. He shouldn’t speak badly about his parents. He should be respectful.
“We’ll need the tutor’s name.”
“What for?”
“The list of people close to you.”
“Next you’ll want Nanny Hilda’s name,” Lucien said in disbelief.
“Of course. You had a tutor and a nanny, so I assume you’re not close to your family?”
“No. Yes.” He sighed. “Not really. What about your family?” He glanced sideways to see the faint tightening of Max’s jaw.
“As I said, we’re not talking about me.”
“Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.”
“Sorr—jeez…” Lucien felt the heat rise in his face. This was going to be one hell of a long car journey.
Chapter 3
Max listened to the story again from the beginning and tried not to interrupt with questions. He’d found that long rambling descriptions of emotions and events worked well to get the communicator to think about what he was saying.
Not to mention Lucien had the softest accent and Max loved to listen to him talk. As he drove, Max catalogued the people in Lucien’s life. The parents who appeared to deal with the death of their youngest son with stoicism, somehow forgetting that Lucien had been so close to Sebastian. Teddy who looked to have been a fixture in Lucien’s life since he was a baby, and Lucien’s older siblings, two brothers and a sister, two bankers and a lawyer, in that order.
Then there was Edward the government guy who Lucien had spent time with, Eric the cook who appeared to make the best omelets in the entire world. Add to that the staff in the main house. Then the tutor the family had poached from Oxford University who was with Lucien from eleven to sixteen. Bryce Norman was his name, and according to Lucien, he was more than a tutor. He was the companion that Lucien needed because his family wasn’t there for him. And then Seb’s live-in nurse/nanny, an older lady by the name of Hilda Carlos, who read him stories and had endless compassion. The list went on and on, but it was bereft of one thing: people that Lucien described as friends or lovers. It didn’t seem like Lucien gave any single person the label of friend, apart from Jamie his housemate, but even that seemed a loose connection because Lucien didn’t have much to say about Jamie. In fact, he was tightlipped on the subject, which raised red flags immediately. And as for lovers? He only mentioned Edward.
Now Lucien was quiet. They were only ten minutes from Max’s place, and he had one more question. A really personal question that he needed a more complete answer to.
“Tell me about your lovers.”
Silence.
Finally Lucien answered. “Uhm. I did.”
Max thought back over what he’d heard on the journey so far. He couldn’t have missed anything, he never missed anything. “I only recall Edward.”
Max caught Lucien shrugging in his peripheral vision, the shrug being the only indication he’d heard Max. “Just Edward.”
“Just Edward? Lucien, you’re twenty-five.”
“I kissed Tommy—well, he kissed me.”
“Tommy? You mean the boy who dropped out of Cardiff Uni, the one you shared a house with?”
“Yeah, we went on a date, saw a movie, and we kissed, but when we did, we realized we were better off as friends.”
“How soon after this kiss did he leave Cardiff?”
“Christ, are you implying there is a link between the kiss and him leaving?”
“No.”
“Well, it was a good couple of weeks. He just packed and went overnight, sent a letter in to the uni.”
“Do you keep in touch?”
“No. I emailed him, but he never answered, so I assume he’s washed his hands of Cardiff.”
“I’ll add him
to the list.”
More silence that was heavy with upcoming angst if Max didn’t change the direction of this conversation. It was too late when Lucien finally spoke.
“Look, you have to understand something. I’m not the most confident of people, and when I lived at home…”
“You’ve been at university over two years.” Max hadn’t done the university thing, joining the RAF at sixteen, but he wasn’t stupid. University meant parties and partners and more drink.
“I learned my lesson with Edward. He denied me when he was confronted, told them it was all me. I was grieving, drinking, betrayed, lied to… Like that is going to have me interested in relationships or casual sex.”
Max focused in on one particular point in that statement. “Told who? When you say them? Who confronted him?”
“Mother, Father, Teddy.”
“Okay, that’s fine. So, no jealous exes except potentially Edward?”
“He’s the cultural attaché in Madrid. Him and his wife and his three kids.” Lucien didn’t sound bitter or heartbroken, just resigned. “I haven’t seen him in years now, but I put him on that list.”
They pulled up to the end of Max’s street and parked the car in front of the plain, normal garage attached to the plain, normal house. Two rooms up, two down, and a bathroom. Pretty much exactly what Max needed. If he listened to Lucien, though, it was like he lived somewhere special.
“This is so lovely,” Lucien said as he followed Max in. He had to duck for the low beams, and Max realized he had got used to not having to duck. When Lucien smacked his forehead on a particularly deceptive half-hidden beam, Max made to apologize, but Lucien was grinning.
“How old is this place?” he asked, cutting Max’s apology off at the knees.
“Four hundred years or thereabouts.”
Lucien came to a dead stop in front of the open fireplace and stared. “This is like something off a picture postcard,” he finally said.
“Make yourself at home. Kettle and coffee in the kitchen, we have central heating, and it should warm up in here in a few minutes. Stay in the house and I’ll be down as quick as I can.”
Lucien nodded and disappeared into the tiny kitchen off the hall. Max could swear he was humming.
Max went up to his room and opened his small closet. He had a staple of clothes all folded neatly, courtesy of the years in the RAF. Jeans, tees, sweatshirts, and nothing at all grown-up. That was a good thing, seemed like he’d fit in okay with uni life. Shrugging off his only suit, he folded it in a carrier, just in case, then piled his entire closet contents into his two cases and an extra duffle bag.
It occurred to him that he didn’t even know what subject Lucien was studying. He’d probably have to attend lectures on the subject to stay close to Lucien. He hoped to hell it wasn’t something like particle physics.
“What are you studying?” he called down the stairs.
“English Language,” Lucien shouted back.
That’s not hard, right? After all, Max spoke English, he could handle learning about commas for a few days or weeks or however long this lasted. After adding his wash things and his meds to the case along with his Kindle and charger for his phone, he zipped it up, then managed to get both cases down the stairs to the front room where Lucien was lying back in a chair with his eyes closed.
“Who will look after this place?” Lucien asked.
“Mrs. Mathers, she lives next door.”
“Does she know what you do? How do you explain long absences to her? Will she realize that—?”
“I blame it on business. I pay her a small amount, and she doesn’t need to know anything else. Ready to go?”
Within half an hour of arriving at Max’s house, they were back on the road.
“You really do have a lovely home, you know.”
Max considered his house. He didn’t actually think of it as home yet. He’d only had it for the two years since leaving the RAF, and he’d stayed in it less than he’d expected. BI was a busy job for him. One day he’d look older than twenty-two and then maybe the jobs would slow down, but for the moment, he was taking everything he could get.
“Thank you.”
That answer appeared to mollify Lucien, who subsided into silence until they were on the M4 heading to Wales. Then he clearly wanted conversation.
“Have you been to Wales before?” he asked.
“Flown over it a couple of times,” Max answered.
“How interesting. How long were you in the Air Force?”
“Nine years.”
“What did you fly?”
“Tornado GR4, aerial reconnaissance.”
“That is such a wonderful career to have had. I’m jealous, I think. The freedom up there to fly over countries and see everything from the sky…” Lucien huffed a laugh. “I must sound like such an idiot.”
Max shook his head and decided to cut the kid some slack. Lucien mentioned that word freedom and it clearly meant a lot to him. Yes, there was freedom within the rules, and Max considered how to explain. “You’re right. When you get up into the clouds, above the clouds, with glimpses of the country below, it’s awe-inspiring.”
The car reached the bridge over the Severn, the suspension rising above them, and Max recalled one particular flight where he’d got too close for comfort to a bridge like this. He decided not to share that with Lucien because the prince apparently wanted to focus on the above-the-clouds part of it all.
“How much is the toll on this road?” Lucien asked as he scrabbled in his pocket for change.
“Five pounds or so. I have it covered.”
Lucien subsided into his seat. “Okay. Make sure you add it to expenses.”
“I can cover a toll.”
“But you shouldn’t have to.” Lucien was so earnest it was cute. “Keeping me safe is a job, not some holiday in Wales.”
“Jesus, okay, I’ll make sure I tell the office.”
“Good, good.”
They passed the tolls and finally in the tunnel that would bring them to the outskirts of Newport. They were maybe ten or so miles from Cardiff. “Tell me where I need to go.”
Lucien gave good instructions that had them pulling down a side street in among many similar streets filled with rows of terraced houses in tidy, regimented lines, most with rental signs on the walls.
“It’s all student housing,” Lucien advised. “So there’s always parking of sorts because not a lot of students have cars.”
Max didn’t really care where he parked his Ford; it was ten years old and way past looking like it was cared for. He parallel-parked outside 55 Springs Road, and they pulled out his bags then went inside the house and between them managed to shut the door.
Max dropped his bags in the hall and Lucien piled the others on top. Lucien was talking to him but he wasn’t listening to the prince, his thoughts on other things. The street itself was empty of people, with not many cars. There were black sacks at the curb waiting for rubbish pickup, and a large roll of carpet blocked the path three houses down. The area had the air of being unkempt, but was tidy enough that there were no places for potential bad guys to hide. No narrow alleys, just house after house joined to each other.
The front door of Lucien’s place was secure. It double locked, there was a chain inside and the door itself was heavy and solid.
“Who has a key?” Max asked.
“Me, Jamie, and Emily, I guess. Tommy would have had one, but when he dropped out, I assume he sent the key back to the people we rent from. They’re a family who own about ten of these houses and they’d have keys, of course. There is a general maintenance guy who comes in when we need him. He has a key.”
“Stay here,” Max ordered.
To his credit, all Lucien did was nod and shrink back against the hall wall with apprehension on his face. Too close to fear, it was not an emotion Max liked to see in his clients, even when his switching into bodyguard mode was probably at the root of it. The house was quiet, no
evidence of Lucien’s two housemates, but Max wanted to do a walkthrough as it stood. If he came across a housemate, then he had his excuse ready. I’m on the same degree course as Lucien, I’m Lucien’s boyfriend, I need a place to stay, and sorry to interrupt. He was lucky, he met no one and didn’t need to use any of the excuses.
There were four bedrooms upstairs, all with attached half baths, nothing spectacular, but neat and tidy. Room four was empty and he assumed that would be his room. Room one had posters of actors, room three was clearly Lucien’s, although how Max knew that he didn’t think about. He just knew. Room two was a mix of pinks in all kinds of shades, and even though he wasn’t one to stereotype, he assumed that was Emily’s room.
All four had locking windows, and his and Lucien’s rooms backed onto the long thin garden behind. There was no extension providing a way to climb up to the second floor. The upstairs, as far as he was concerned, was secure.
He went downstairs and looked around the front room. A TV sat in the corner, sofas, the usual stuff, with locking windows. The kitchen was a bit worrying; it had patio doors with no locks other than the standard ones, which anyone with an ounce of knowledge could break. Max added it to his mental list of things to get done. There was a breakfast area with a large table and another bathroom, this time a full bathroom with a tub.
He went back into the hall. “All done.”
“And?”
“It’s mostly secure. The only issue is the patio doors, but the garden is blocked in with other houses, so I think we’ll be okay.” He hefted his two largest bags, and without prompting, Lucien picked up the other bag and followed him upstairs. The room that Max would be staying in was big enough that it was probably a similar size to his bedroom at home, minus the low-hanging beams. The bathroom was clean, but he needed bedding and probably other shit students required, like books and a Costa Coffee card.
“I have a swim meet soon, so I’d like to get a training session in tonight,” Lucien said. He sounded nervous, but his chin was up and his stance screamed try and stop me.
“Okay. I’ll need to borrow some swim shorts.” He turned just in time to see a smirk on Lucien’s face. “What’s funny?”