“Huh.” She pushed her hands into the pockets of her dark green puffed jacket and pursed her lips.
He knew his sarcasm went too far, and she was hardly to know how he lived up here. Not that it was any of her business, of course. But still. He was annoyed with himself and found that he just took it out on her, by saying, “Nor do I have staff to clean windows or lug desks about. I was just going to get a bucket of water to clean up your new office block.”
Her face broke alight into smiles, and she breezed past his snideness. “Oh wow, hooray, can I have a look?” She pulled her hands out of her pockets and clapped them together in excitement. He couldn’t help smiling at her enthusiasm.
“Go on, go in - I’ll be back in a moment.”
When he returned to the newly designated office, carrying a bucket of water, she was sitting behind the desk with her booted feet up on the wood, waving a pen in the air and pretending to be a Very Important Boss. She grinned as he set the bucket by the window. “You there,” she pronounced, with a cut-glass southern accent, “clean things.”
“I brought this here for you to do the cleaning, actually,” he said, dropping old newspapers onto the desk. “And do you mind, with your feet? That thing’s an antique.”
She snatched her boots from the table and sat forward on the chair, reddening and apologising in horror. “You shouldn’t have… not for in here, for us…”
He laughed at her mortification. “Everything’s a damn antique, actually. That’s the curse of manorial living. I’ve never had to buy furniture in my life. Except at Uni, when I did splash out on one of those plastic inflatable chairs.”
“Ha! I had one as well, a double-seater, in see-through lime green. It lasted a week before someone stood on it in stilettos.”
“A week? So long?” Richard dipped a cloth into the bucket and began to wipe the grime from the windows. “Mine was wrecked within a day. Ahh, happy times.”
“What did you study?”
“Environmental science. No, don’t be impressed,” he stopped her with a wave of his hand. “I didn’t finish. I had to come home. Family business. Anyway, yourself? College, University?”
“Local college to do office administration and secretarial skills.”
“Typing and stuff?”
She raised one brown-blonde eyebrow at him and sighed. I guess we both have to put up with assumptions from people who know nothing, he realised. But she didn’t argue. “Yes, typing and stuff. Making the tea, wearing short skirts, all the usual secretarial skills.”
“Ouch. Sorry. Well, good for you. And now you’re working down at Gussy’s.”
“How do you know that?”
Double ouch. He scrubbed a few congealed spiders’ webs from the corners of the wooden frame. “I was down there buying fence posts because one of my tenants has cattle and they were getting a bit restless, and Clive was in the warehouse and he mentioned you, because you’d moved here, and anyone moving to Arkthwaite is a talking point. Most people assume you’re on the run from something, or you’re a hippy trying to find yourself.”
“Most people?”
He smiled. “I know. It’s a bit odd being the centre of gossip but you get used to it. Me, I just ignore it all. Or if it’s particularly outrageous, I try to live up to it. So what is it - are you running, or are you finding? My bets have been on finding. Especially after meeting you muttering to spirits on the side of a moor.”
She stood up in a rush, agitated, and though he laughed at her awkwardness, he felt bad about teasing her, too. “I’m sorry,” he said before she could reply. “Perhaps I ought not to have intruded on you at that moment.”
“No, you shouldn’t have. And no, I’m neither running nor finding. I’m not that sort of flaky woman who needs to find anything, and I also know that whatever you look for, if you don’t find it within yourself, you won’t found it without yourself. I mean, outside yourself.”
“I know that saying.” He wrung out the cloth and peered at the window. It was looking cleaner. “It’s a bit of a depressing thought in some ways.” He shook his head as he saw more questions forming on her lips. “Don’t mind me. I always look on the grey side of things.”
“And you’ll see what you expect to see, then,” she remarked. “What is in the bucket? It smells like vinegar.”
Richard picked up some of the newspaper he’d dropped on the desk and began to dry the window glass off with it. “It is vinegar. Why, how else would you clean a window?”
“I love all that stuff! Really, vinegar? In the water? Wow, it looks like it’s working, too.”
He paused in his scrubbing and looked at her, incredulous. “Seriously? You’ve never heard of it before?”
“No, I haven’t! What other old lore do you use, old wives’ stuff and all that?”
“This isn’t some mystical old remedy, you know. It’s just… vinegar in water.”
“But it actually works! Why don’t more people do things like that, instead of buying harsh chemicals that pollute the environment and kill things?”
“Hopefully this does kill things,” he pointed out. “Flies. It’s supposed to keep flies away.”
“Oh, well, flies,” she said dismissively, picking and choosing what living creatures to get upset about.
“They’re a vital part of the cycle of life.”
“They can go off and be a vital part somewhere else.”
As he finished drying the window, she prowled around the new office, opening the filing cabinet and exploring the empty drawers. He’d put a cork noticeboard up along one wall and when he saw her looking at it, he said, “I’ve got a map of all this area that I was going to pin up there for you guys.”
She was all smiles again, and he found he had to grin back at her.
“Thank you!” she said. “I really appreciate this. We all do. We’re going to really make a difference.”
“Hang on. I’ll go and get it now.”
He’d pulled it out of a map drawer in the study the previous night, and it didn’t take him long to fetch it from the house. With Helena holding one end of it, he was able to pin it into place along the edge and then unroll it carefully. It hung over the edges of the corkboard by a few inches, but it didn’t matter.
“Wow.” Helena traced the line of the main road with her finger and followed it where it branched off to Arkthwaite. “And here’s Top Row, where I am, and here’s you… and what are all the pencilled lines?” She tapped the red and blue outlines.
“My lands,” he said. “Lord of the manor. That’s what it means. These are the demense lands, and mostly farmed by tenants.”
“So they pay you rent, and that’s what you live on?”
“Yes, pretty much. I have obligations to them, and they to me. It’s not one of those titles that comes with big stacks of cash. It’s an odd one, really.” He sighed. “People have funny ideas about titles and all that, but it’s not what you’d think. It’s just an ownership title, and half-dead, just a legacy from the past.”
“So is it different to the Lords in Parliament, then?”
“Oh God, yes. That’s an honours system. Lord of the manor is from the feudal system. It’s the only title that can be bought.”
“Ahh, right, by rich Americans and people who win the lottery?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“So what benefits do you get from being a lord of the manor?”
He laughed bitterly. “Fuck all,” he said, and turned away sharply, as bile rose in his throat.
He could feel she was startled and she moved away, silently, shocked at his sudden profanity. He kicked at the rug on the stone floor, and didn’t look towards her. “Sorry, Helena.” It was the first time he’d used her name, properly like that, and it tasted rich in his mouth. He should not have sworn. Lord of the manor indeed. He forced himself to raise his head and make eye contact. “I am sorry. That was unworthy…”
She was looking hurt, and he cast about for something to lighten
the mood, to make it all right again. “The cool thing is my passport,” he said, desperately. “For my name. It just says Richard, Lord of the Manor of Arkthwaite.”
The corner of her mouth quirked in a smile. “Yeah, that is quite cool.”
He thought of something else that would probably appeal to her. “Oh, and it’s one of the few titles that gets inherited by females, too.”
Her eyebrows raised. “Females?”
“Women. Ladies. Oh hell, what are you supposed to be called these days?”
She laughed outright then, and he relaxed. “Stuff like that makes you sound a lot older than you are,” she admonished him.
“How old do you think I am?” he said without thinking, before realising it sounded like flirting.
But she didn’t seem to notice. She shrugged and said, “Ancient,” before looking back at the map again. “Fairy Glen!” she exclaimed. “That sounds magical. There must be a reason for that. Whether you believe in fairies or not, something has to explain all the sightings people have. All those folk songs didn’t come from nowhere, you know.”
“Ahh, there’s a tale behind that place.” He moved up to stand beside her. “I can show it to you.”
“Oh, please, yes! And what’s the tale?”
“I probably ought to tell you once we’re there, otherwise you won’t want to go.”
“Come on then. Show me.”
Richard discovered he was smiling as he led Helena out of the stables and into the courtyard. He locked the office and cast a quick assessing glance over her footwear. She was dressed for hillwalking, and he nodded in approval.
They took a well-worn path that first headed downhill, away from the manor and the village, but soon it was twisting about and taking them uphill. As they went, he pointed out the names of the hills and the valleys, and surprised himself by how much local history he actually knew. He couldn’t really remember being taught any of it. It was just something that was accepted, like how to make a cup of tea, or how to sing happy birthday.
They reached a small indentation in the side of the hill, like a half-hidden cavern, all bordered by gorse and hawthorn and dogrose. “Here we are, the Fairy Glen,” he announced. “Like it?”
“It’s not quite what I expected,” she admitted. “I had hoped for swathes of flowers.”
“That’s the thing.” He was thoroughly enjoying holding court, now. “It used to be called the Hell Hole. For centuries, as far as anyone knows. Then an upright and God-fearing local minister, back in the early Victorian times, decided that such a name just wasn’t right, and he insisted it was changed to something less… satanic.”
“Oh my God.”
“That’s what he said.”
She laughed and hit him playfully on the arm. “Shut up, Richard.”
He stilled, feeling her warmth still on him even though she had only briefly touched him. He heard his own name come from her lips, and a new, strange, old, familiar feeling stole through him. He looked at her sideways, but she wasn’t looking his way. Instead, her face was alight with dreams and ideas as she gazed around the grey-green landscape.
He should go home, he knew. He had things to do. He only intended to sort out the office and then he was going to leave them - leave Helena - to their schemes. He had his own life to get on with.
But his mouth flapped and he heard himself say, “Would you like to walk on a little further to the viewpoint on the top of Rough Moor?”
* * *
Helena felt a strange, unfamiliar gurgling in the pit of her stomach as she followed Richard along a narrow path. They had to go single file as the ground was soggy and marshy to the left, and to the right was a stone wall. It took her a moment to realise that the odd feeling wasn’t an incipient stomach bug, but sheer excitement.
It wasn’t the best sort of day to be out - it would be no good for photos to splatter across Facebook to make her friends in the city jealous - but she didn’t care.
“This is so great,” she burbled happily, knowing and not caring that she was gauche in her enthusiasm. “I mean, you’re so rooted to this area, you’re like the ideal guide. This heritage, right in your blood! No wonder you came back here!”
She thought he shook his head but it was hard to tell. He strode on, his stout boots never slipping as they left the enclosed fields and struck out over open moorland. Here, there was no path at all, and she scampered to catch up so she could walk by his side.
“So what’s this called?”
“A hill,” he said, not even looking at her as he ploughed up the slope, arms pumping.
“Ha ha.” She puffed a little, and thought, God, I need to get a bit fitter than this. He was red in the face too, though. She didn’t think it could be through exertion alone. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah.”
Richard took two more steps, and stopped abruptly. Helena looked around in confusion. They weren’t at any summit or landmark - just a desolate bit of scabby moorland, overlooking a patchwork of darker green fields bordered by grey walls, far below.
He cocked his head and looked out, far away at nothing but slate-coloured sky. “I didn’t come back for this. For any of this. I came back because I had to. Family.”
A hundred different questions crowded her mind but there was no way of asking politely. She bit her lip, and managed to plunge into the worst possible topic. “So what did happen to your mother?” Oh shit. Well done, mouth.
Richard actually laughed, a barking sound, and started walking again. She leapt alongside, keeping pace as he went at a furious speed. “She’s old,” he said, “and no, I haven’t bumped her off and buried her on the hills. Sadly for village gossip, I’m afraid.”
Helena knew she’d hit a nerve and also knew she had to shut up. But she filed away the little bit of information - she is old, not she was old. His mother was still alive. She’d ask around. Someone was bound to know the truth. I wonder if I can get invited into his house? I could pretend to need the bathroom and go for an exploration. Discover the secret of the manor. She began to imagine attics and cellars and rooms of dust and memories and grand pianos covered in sheets.
Her melodramatic reverie was curtailed as the ground began to level out and she found they were on a broad, flat summit. He led her to the very centre of the hill-top plain, and from the middle they were so high and the ground so wide that they couldn’t see the valleys and dales beyond. Only the hill existed, and the sky, so much larger, as if they were closer to the heavens than to the earth. It was a desolate and haunting place. There were no birds to be seen. Just landscape and sky-scape and their own two tiny figures.
She opened her mouth to speak, but there was nothing she could say that could possibly add to the atmosphere. She spun around, feeling like she was simultaneously tiny and exposed, and yet huge and alone.
Richard was standing motionless in one place, staring across the featureless expanse of greying grass, his back to her. His hands were thrust into his pockets and his legs were slightly apart, and he made her think of trees and cathedrals and solid, immovable permanence.
Helena walked up to stand beside him, but still did not speak.
“Rough Moor,” he said. “Well?”
“It’s… amazing. I mean, if you’d said, come to this really bleak place where there’s nothing to see, I’d have laughed and refused. But actually being here… I can’t describe it to anyone.”
“You don’t need to describe it. The best things have no words attached to them. This can’t be captured in a one-hundred and forty character tweet, and it’s all the better for it.”
“God, yes, that’s so true.” She could hear her words, and they sounded hollow and insincere. But then, against a backdrop of elemental eternity, anything would ring as trite. “Richard. Thank you for bringing me here. It really means a lot to me, that you’ve taken the time and trouble to do this. I appreciate it.”
Finally, he turned to face her, and he was smiling. She smiled back. When he stop
ped frowning or sneering or being sarcastic, he looked younger. She wanted to tell him to relax and just enjoy things, but she knew he wouldn’t appreciate advice like that. Still, it was a pleasing change to have his dark eyes dancing with real delight.
“The pleasure’s mine,” he told her. “I have never brought anyone up here before.”
“Oh.” That opened so many more lines of enquiry. Not girlfriends? Or boyfriends, perhaps? Or just friends? She blew out her cheeks, searching for the right words. “Oh, I feel special,” she said at last, rather lamely.
“You should.” Lines creased around his eyes and she realised he’d never looked at her this intently, or for so long, before. A glimmer of suspicion began to form and she took a deep breath.
But before she could speak, he had taken a step closer to her, bringing him into her personal space, so near that she could smell his tweedy, spicy scent. “You have amazing eyes,” he said in a very low voice, sounding almost surprised at the words coming out of his own mouth.
She took two quick paces backwards. “Thanks. That’s nice of you. Um, let’s be getting back. You have so much work to do. And I…”
He stepped forward again, reaching out a hand to her arm, and she snatched it away. Oh my God I’m all alone up on this moor and no one knows where I am and I was warned about this man and I think he’s making a move on me and I need to get to where other people are right now and if anything happens everyone will blame me because that’s the way of it…
“Wait, Helena, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… well, I meant you had amazing eyes but I thought…”
“I’ve got to go!” The panic rose up and crashed through her body, and her hammering heart sent tingling sparks of fear across her skin. Every part of her felt hot and scared, and as she imagined being thrown to the ground, she stumbled backward again, two more steps, before turning and beginning to run in the direction they had come.
“Helena! For God’s sake woman - I’m sorry. I just said you had nice eyes, not drop your pants so I can tumble you in the grass.”
Bad Boys and Billionaires (The Naughty List Bundles) Page 44