The lights turned to him as people stopped to stare.
“What do you make of this!” he roared, sticking his head out of the side window, his words lost in the grunt of the machine as he descended on the terrified villagers. “What do you make of this?”
* * *
“Holy crap!” Helena dropped her shovel and grabbed Vicky’s arm. “He’s going to flatten us! What the hell is he thinking?”
“He must be pissed.” Vicky shook her head in amazement. All around them, the villagers were contracting, gathering into a group for safety. “Tom? What the hell do we do?”
Tom waved his spade in the air and yelled at the approaching digger. “Fuck you!”
The huge earth-mover bore down upon them relentlessly. It was bristling with lights, lit up like a concert at a rock stadium. She could see Richard’s head sticking out of the side window, but had no idea what he was shouting. Tighter the villagers crowded together as the digger grew nearer, a steady creep towards destruction.
“Stop!” Helena yelled, but he was already coming to a halt. It juddered and shook and the wheels ground to rest. Inside the cab, she could see him fiddle with levers and push buttons. The watching crowd waited, tense, as the door swung open and he climbed down to the ground. With the lights of the digger behind him, he was just a silhouette against a painful backdrop.
“What do you think of this, then?” Richard shouted at them.
“What do you think you’re going to do with it?” Tom screeched back at him.
“What do you think it does, you pillock?” Richard’s voice was loud and steady. He didn’t sound drunk. “It’s a digger. How long were you planning on being here, digging by hand in the dark?”
A murmur ran through the crowd as people tried to process his meaning. Helena and Vicky turned to one another. “What’s going on?”
“You gonna do the digging for us?” someone yelled out in disbelief, expecting a mocking reply.
“Well I would but there’s a bunch of twats standing in the way.”
The people gasped and the tight bunch started to move, breaking apart as some folks backed away and others moved closer to Richard. “We’re not twats,” someone grunted.
“You’re in the way, though.”
“Yes, but…”
“But what? Look. You’re all trespassing. You’re going to be at this for weeks, the way you’re going on. Let’s get this thing over with, all right? And by over with, I mean, let’s dig this damn trench. So come on. Is Henderson here?”
“Aye.”
“You’ve got a digger. Why didn’t you bring it?”
“The noise…”
“Jesus. Go and get it. I’ve got a generator in the bucket here. Someone sort that out, let’s rig up lights.”
“Er…” Helena stepped forward. “I hate to be the voice of reason here, but if you’re giving permission, we could all just go to bed, and do this sensibly, in the daytime.”
The milling crowd paused. Suddenly she realised she was in the spotlight, opposite Richard, and they were the focus. Richard scratched his chin.
“Well, yes,” he admitted. “But this makes a much better story for the newspapers, doesn’t it? Bit of publicity won’t harm.”
“You didn’t actually think this through, did you?” Helena was laughing as she spoke.
“No, I didn’t,” he said, and the laughter rippled through the watchers.
“Oh, you nob,” someone called, but without the threat and malice of earlier.
“Look, I got carried away, all right? And no, I’m not drunk. Not even remotely.”
“Makes a change.”
Richard ignored the anonymous mutterer. “But you’re right. Um, maybe we should just leave everything where it is and do this in the morning?”
Some people said they were at work, and one or two hissed something scathing about it all being a plot to trick them into going home. Henderson asked, “So, do you want me to get my digger now or what?”
Richard waved his hands helplessly. “Okay, where’s Tom?”
“What do you want from me?” Tom was surly, his moment of glory now receding.
“Well, it’s up to you, I suppose. You’ve been organising most of this, from what I understand.”
“I don’t bloody know what’s going on.”
“Look.” Helena raised her voice. “It’s gone midnight. Richard, is this a cruel trick?”
“No! I can’t believe you’d even think that. I’ll sign something if that makes you happier.”
“It’s all right,” called the teenage voice from before. “I’ve recorded it all.”
“There you go,” Richard said. “No joke.”
“Okay then.” Helena pointed at the expectant crowd. “Home. Everyone home, and thank you all so much for coming out. We’ve made a stand, and we’ve won!” There was a suppressed cheer. “Tomorrow, anyone who can come, do so. Let’s see what we can get done. Call here for an hour, a day, whatever you can spare. We’ll keep on till it’s done. But now… let’s get to bed.”
“Hooray!”
One by one, the villagers drifted off. Everyone wanted to come and speak to Helena and Vicky before they left, and they were surrounded by a press of people, all chattering and smiling. It was fifteen minutes before the field was nearly empty. Finally, only Tom, Vicky, Helena and Richard remained.
“Go on, let’s get going,” Helena said.
Tom and Richard seemed unwilling to be the first to move. “What if we go and then he sabotages everything?” Tom said.
“For God’s sake, Tom. I’m not going to.”
“Hmm.”
Vicky looked from Helena to Richard and back again. “Tom. Come on. Will you walk me home?”
“Why?”
“It’s dark and it would be polite.”
He made another disparaging noise and they could all see a derogatory remark form on his lips. Vicky grabbed his arm and began to haul him off across the field. “Thank you,” they heard her say pointedly as they disappeared.
Richard was still framed as a black shape with the spotlights of the digger at his back. Helena raised her hand to try and shade her eyes, to see him better. “Well,” she said. “What made you change your mind?”
“Come and sit in the digger. Let’s talk.”
He led her to the monster machine and helped her up into the cab. It only had one seat, and she perched on it while he stood awkwardly to one side, half-leaning on a door post with his arm curled around the jamb. He leaned past her to flick some switches, plunging the field into darkness as the lights faded. His arm was warm against her legs as he had to reach past her, and his scent took her back to those brief happy memories of before.
He straightened up and she realised she’d been almost holding her breath to absorb the feeling of his proximity. He looked at her, and she could only gaze back at him, too afraid of speaking and shattering the moment.
“Midnight. It’s a funny time,” he said.
“It’s gone midnight.”
“It’s one of those boundary times, when the veil between the worlds is said to be thinner. Like the equinoxes and midsummer and midwinter. And Halloween, of course. It’s all about possibility and change.”
“That’s a bit deep.”
“Yes, and why not?”
Helena blinked. She had a host of sarcastic and witty remarks to make but not one of them felt right. “It’s not like you.”
“No, that’s true. I’m usually an arsehole.”
“I didn’t mean-”
“It’s okay, I’m not being funny. I’m trying to be different, that’s all. All these responsibilities, all this bullshit about what I should and shouldn’t do, for the land, for the people, for my family. And what about me?”
“What about you?”
“I want to be happy.”
“That’s a good aim,” she said, hesitantly. Where is this going? “What will make you happy? Sell the manor house, obviously. Move back to London? Fi
nish your studies, and tie up that loose end?”
Now it was Richard’s turn to look surprised. “No, good God, what gave you that idea?”
“Oh. I thought it was obvious…”
He leaned forward, bending over her, and grabbed both her hands in one, still hanging on to the door with his other. “Helena, you daft brush! You make me happy.”
“I… what?” Her mouth went dry. Was this another cruel trick? She suddenly became very aware that she was on her own in a field in the middle of the night, and this man had proved himself to be hopelessly unpredictable. She was a little nervous.
“It’s you, Helena. You. I want to be happy and you make me smile, you make me laugh, you make me think. You make me want to be better than the person I am. You made me see who I was and I really didn’t like it. It’s you. I’ve been as miserable as sin these past few weeks and it’s made me behave even worse than usual. You make me want to be the best I can be.”
“Richard. I don’t know what to say. Except…” she curled her hands tightly in a ball under his palm. “Except, I have got into a muddle with some things.”
“Yeah. The whole ‘don’t compliment my looks’ thing. I’m not going to back down on this, though. Helena, you are beautiful.” She felt her face flinch but she held her tongue. “You are lovely and I’m going to say it every day. Every day… till I die.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. My love is conditional, Helena.”
She bit her lip and tried to will the tears to dry before they fell. Love? She shook her head.
He continued. “It’s conditional on being able to tell you how beautiful you are to me. It’s conditional on being able to say it to you today, and tomorrow, and in ten years’ time, and in twenty. It’s conditional on being able to see your beauty when you are upset and when you are angry. When you are sick and when you are tired. When you are old. Can you accept those conditions of my love, Helena?”
“But I…”
“What?”
His tone of voice was firm and final. He knew what she was going to say and she knew it, too. She closed her mouth and looked at him helplessly. They stayed like that for a moment, poised, dangling in the boundary between the worlds, precisely between before and after.
“Yes.”
His smile became a wide, wild grin before he bent forward even further, swinging on his arm, dipping his head to hers to plant a great big sloppy kiss on her lips. She’d expected a romantic kiss of tenderness, not this over-excited upwelling of sheer delight and she pulled back, spluttering and laughing, wrestling her hands free of his grasp so she could fend him off better. “Richard! Pack it in!”
“Helena, I mean it.”
“I know, I know!”
His laughter was infectious. He nudged her, and said, “Shift up. Have you ever driven one of these before?”
“What do you think? Of course not. And there’s nowhere for me to shift to.”
He grabbed her hips and sidled onto the seat, pulling her onto his lap. She leaned to the left so he could see past her, and he reached out either side of her body to access the controls. “Let’s drive!”
“I can’t believe this. Don’t we need to leave this here for tomorrow?”
“I’ll bring it back, don’t worry. Will you flick those switches there?”
She started pressing buttons and the field was lit up again. Soon the engine was thrumming with life and they began to make laborious progress up the field and through the gate.
“Where are we going?”
“Home. Is that okay?”
“To the manor…”
“Yes.” They trundled past the parked cars and got too close, setting off the alarm on a dark blue Volvo. “Shit. Whoops. We need to make a quick getaway. Hang on!”
The speed increased by a painful one mile an hour and the journey seemed to last for ages as they inched through the no-longer-sleeping village.
“This is amazing,” Helena said. “I mean, stupid, but amazing. I kind of want it to last forever, but also I need it to end because the vibrations have made my bottom go numb.”
“You get used to it. I haven’t had any sensations below my chest for years now.”
“Oh really?” Helena leaned back against him and wriggled.
“Are you flirting with me, missus?”
“I might be. I’m quite worried about this lack of sensation. I wondered if there was anything I might do to help.”
He groaned, his breath blowing against the back of her ear and making her skin tingle deliciously. “That’s not helping.”
“Sorry,” she said, continuing to grind on his lap.
“I’m going to end up crashing this thing… hang on, let me park!”
They lurched along the lane to the manor house and he swung it towards a large shed where the doors were already open. They growled to a halt inside. Richard took a deep breath.
“Helena, do you want me to take you back to yours? I’ll walk you home or run you in the Landy. Whichever. It’s late, and you need to be at work in the morning.”
“That would be sensible, yes.” She gyrated her hips as much as she could, pressing harder.
“Helena…”
“But sensible has a time and place.”
His hands dropped to her upper thighs and ran along up to her hips, curling his fingers around her waist. “So, do you want to come inside with me then?”
“In many ways, yes.”
“What are you saying?”
“You know what I’m saying. Let me show you.” She twisted around, awkwardly in the confined space, and kissed him, planting her lips on his in the tender, sensual way she had wanted earlier. She let her tongue dart into his mouth, and her hands roam his upper body, feeling the ropes of tendon on his shoulders and neck. His hands responded, playing from her waist, igniting her with a heart-thumping passion as they moved up to caress her breasts.
“Helena… let’s go inside.”
He spoke with difficulty and she didn’t make it easy for him as he tried to clamber out of the digger, half-helping, half-carrying her. She let herself fall against him so that he had to wrap his arms around her, and kiss her again, and again, before they even got to the doors of the shed.
“Helena, have I told you how beautiful you are lately?”
“Not for at least ten minutes. Are you trying to break me?”
“Yes, of course.”
They tumbled into the manor, staggering into the dark kitchen and leaving a trail of shoes and boots and coats and hats. They kissed again in the hallway, and halfway up the stairs.
Helena didn’t even look around. She’d imagined a guided tour of the place for ages, but now she was finally here, all she wanted to do was get into his bedroom, and more. Along the galleried landing, and through a door at the end of the corridor, and at last she was in his bedroom and in his arms and he was laying her down on the bed with a look of tenderness fringed with lust and need, and she reached up her arms to pull him down to her, and so they kissed again.
Chapter Thirteen
Helena woke early in the unfamiliar bed, and stayed very still as she tried to absorb the surroundings. She was lying on her back, naked, and staring up at an ornately painted ceiling. It was all blue and golden curls, and carved wood, a total riot of faded decadence. It was dim in the room, but she remembered huge, heavy velvet curtains and rugs that heaped up and overlapped. She could hear Richard’s steady breathing, but she couldn’t feel any heat from his body, so she slowly turned her head to one side. She was trying to pretend she was still asleep while she sorted it all out in her head.
The bed was enormous; that was why she couldn’t feel him. He was a good three feet away from her, sprawled out, with the sheets tangled around his legs. In the shadows his face was indistinct but his head was tipped back and she could see the dark angle of his chin jutting upwards. Defiant and stubborn, even in sleep.
She let her eyes close while she ran through a morning-after mental check.
Did I want to be here? Yes. Do I remember everything? Yes. Was it fun?
Hell, yes.
Do I still want to be here when he wakes up?
She raised herself up on her elbow then, and he stirred. She pulled up the duvet around her, because modesty always crept back in the morning, and said, “Hello.”
He blinked, sighed, and made a groaning noise before passing wind quite noisily. “Richard!” she squealed and grabbed a spare pillow - the bed was piled with unnecessary soft things - and hit him on the head with it.
He swore, and fought her off. He threw the pillow across the room and clapped his hands over his face. “Shit, sorry, Helena. I was half-asleep. I’m used to waking up on my own… you must think I’m a right animal.”
“Yes, and that’s part of the appeal.”
“What time is it?”
She squirmed around, and found her bag on the floor by her side of the bed. “Half past six.”
“Ahh. Time to get up.” He sat up and she let her gaze linger on his chest, all chiselled planes of black and grey in the gloom.
“Do you remember last night?” she asked hesitantly.
“Yes. Do you?”
“Yes. Um…” Suddenly she was consumed by awkwardness. All her confidence had ebbed away. She was convinced she’d done the right thing, and had no regrets… but what about him? She didn’t want to ask in case she sounded like a needy sort of woman.
“Helena. Come here.”
He stretched out his arms and drew her close to him, skin against skin, and leaned back against the headboard so that she could nestle against his warm body. He wrapped himself around her in a secure embrace.
“I thought we were getting up?”
“I just wanted to hold you for a moment. I don’t want you to think this was a one-off.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, I hope it wasn’t… I don’t know. It’s up to you.”
“Me?”
Bad Boys and Billionaires (The Naughty List Bundles) Page 59