by Sara Forbes
And there’s truly no telling what would have happened if I’d stayed with Ken. If yesterday is any indication, I’d have followed my cravings into a situation where I was supporting and enabling a gambler, falling deeper into debt myself and doing nobody any favors.
I park my Volkswagen in the tiny sycamore-canopied lot beside Fernborough church and fan my face with a roadmap. This is where I’d arranged to meet Letty for a chat, because I’m not going near Belgrave Castle any time soon. This time, I want her advice on how best to deal with her brother.
Within a couple of minutes, she swings up in her red Ford. I’m early, so she’s bang on time.
“Do you know what?” Letty says, with one gold-shod foot out of the car. “Of all the confounded bad luck, I missed him!”
“Who?”
“Martin Spelling, of course. I missed him. Did you see him?”
“No.”
“Oh!” She flings her arms up dramatically, pulls her handbag from the passenger seat and slams the door shut. Today she’s wearing a flouncy white blouse and hip-hugging pale blue jeans with eye-shadow to match. She totters towards me.
Of course, she’s been dying to meet this Martin person for years. Truth is, I’d forgotten all about Letty and whoever else was there when I flew off across the fields away from Ken. But I definitely didn’t see anyone with Ken.
“So what happened exactly?” I ask. “Did Ken come back to you?” I’ve been trying to fit the events of last night together like a jigsaw puzzle, but most of it is missing.
“Yes.” Letty comes up close and wiggles her eyebrows. “He looked pretty upset. What did you do to him?”
“Nothing.” I toss my hair back in annoyance. This isn’t how I wanted this conversation to start. This isn’t about what I did. It’s about what he did. And it’s a lot more serious than Letty’s demeanor is implying.
“Well. He comes rushing back into the stable after you fly off, asking where Marty is. My jaw fairly dropped at that. I hadn’t even known Marty was here.”
“Then what?” I ask, sensing the conversation is going to be derailed again, because Mysterious Marty is Letty’s favorite topic of all time.
Letty flaps her hand in exasperation. “I don’t know. Ken just went off again after talking to Sill and stroking him for a bit. I haven’t seen Ken or Alex this morning… or any tall dark strangers, for that matter.” She huffs out a breath. “Oh, it’s infuriating like you have no idea.”
Oh, I have a very good idea about infuriating. “How do you know he’s tall and dark?”
“He’s got to be, honey. He’s a spy.” Letty fixes me with a determined look. “Just roll with this one, Liv. I need something to keep me going. I have seriously run out of prospects and I’m twenty-six, bored, and completely horny.”
Snap.
I thought I’d given up men for life. I thought Peter and my dead marriage had sucked all will to get intimate with anyone out of me for the rest of my life. I thought I could live the life of the Amazonian countess, career woman extraordinaire, no time or need for men. And it was a thrilling prospect for a few weeks, fueling my ability to come back and face up to Daddy’s illness and the fact that, on paper, I was a failure at anything I’d put my hand to. Now it was going to be different. I would be strong, having escaped the shadow of my passive-aggressive ex-husband.
But in my dream of Ken last night, instead of letting my hands go as he done a few hours earlier, he kept them pinned down to that wooden plank and he kissed me—ruthlessly, forcing his tongue into every corner of my mouth, sending waves of pleasure down my neck, chest, belly, and pooling at the furnace between my legs.
Even as I bucked and pressed my abdomen into the hard wood, craving the sensation of his body against mine, he wouldn’t let my hands go, he just kept devouring me.
When I woke in a sweating mess, I was lying on my stomach with my arms pinned under me. And it wasn’t anger I was feeling but something altogether more vulnerable. I stripped my sheets off the bed before Mrs. Henry could get near them and discover the extent of my nocturnal wantonness.
Letty and I stroll along the main street of Fernborough, a tiny town of six thousand residents, its brightly painted shopfronts—most of them dating back two centuries—huddling the cobblestoned main street. Neither of us want to go into the local café because the sunshine is just too rare and glorious to waste by being indoors. Besides, I can think better when I’m moving.
“I’m worried about Ken,” I begin, determined to get my conversation on the right path this time.
“We all are.”
“No, I mean the way he’s going around questioning my tenants. Letty, he’s been knocking on doors like some vigilante, as if he’ll find the answer locally, which I very much doubt. But all he’s doing by carrying out his own private investigation is scaring the most vulnerable members of my community of tenants.”
“I suppose he feels legitimized, now that he’s friends with an MI6 spy.”
“It’s my tenants I’m worried about. They feel intimidated by his bullying—especially the more vulnerable ones. I don’t know how long he’s been taking such liberties, but I won’t stand for it.”
I walk another few steps and say in a quieter voice, “That’s why I want to go to the florists and get a bouquet for the Abduls to show that they’re welcome and appreciated in our community. It’s why I spent an hour talking to them this morning, trying to convince than that Ken wasn’t singling them out.”
Letty hums sympathetically. “Why don’t you just talk to him? He’d listen to you, Liv—he’d do anything for you.”
I shake my head bitterly. “Not anymore. I’ve burned that bridge. Besides, he seems guided only by anger these days.”
“He is very angry,” she agrees.
“But I know you have a good rapport with him. I just want you to have a word with him. Tell him he can’t scare off my tenants. He should just leave them all alone, in fact, and leave it up to the police.”
“Why, Liv? Are you afraid to talk to him?” Letty’s eyes gleam with the same hint of mischief as her brother’s.
“No.” Only somewhat nervous. “Although I’ve had my fill of angry men for one lifetime.”
“I understand,” Letty says in a softer voice. “Look, I will talk to him, but I don’t see what good it’ll do. Still, all things come to an end. He can’t be angry forever, right?”
I wish I could be so sure.
8
KEN
I’M COMING OUT OF a strange dream, when I hear a commotion downstairs—voices echoing in the main hall, the red setter puppies in their kennels outside. I grapple for the watch on my night-stand and flick on the bedside lamp.
1:15 am. What?
I swing my legs out of bed and reach for the nearest clothes lying on the armchair.
By the time I’m down the three flights of stairs, I’m wide awake.
It’s Jim, loitering in the main doorway, as if too nervous to come in fully. Mrs. B has woken too and is trying to get him to talk, as she stands there shivering in her nightie and dressing gown.
“What on earth is going on, Mrs. B?” I call down from the first landing.
Jim sags with relief when he sees me. “It’s the stables, my lord. Sill’s old one is burnt down!”
I fly down the last of the stairs, three at a time.
“Yes, it was just good luck we’d moved him to the new one. We got lucky. I guess the arsonists didn’t know that. But the beautiful stables ...”
The beautiful stables are three hundred years old—historical favorites of the public who come to visit Belgrave Castle. They’ve been in the family for generations, dating back to the third duke of Fernborough, George Belgrave, a great horseman. I can just imagine it—the dry, ancient wood must have shot up in flames in minutes.
“Who the hell is doing this?” I yank my jacket from a hanger by the door. “Did you see anyone, Jim?”
“No, my lord. Nothing. The dogs woke me—I was sleeping
in my bunk beside Sill like you asked, and I see this orange light out the window and—” he breaks off to cough.
“And you’re all right, are you?” I ask, somewhat belatedly, scanning the bedraggled man whose face is black with soot.
“Don’t you worry about me, m’lord, it’s Sill we need to calm down. And the dogs. I called the fire brigade.”
“Well done, Jim.” The nearest fire station is ten miles away so I know there’s no hope for the stables. All we can hope for is that they can isolate the fire there so it doesn’t spread across the grass to the newer stables. Of course, we’re insured to the hilt, but that doesn’t make it feel better.
“Come on, let’s go.” I grab a flashlight from the top shelf above where we hang the coats. I turn to our housekeeper. “Please, Mrs. B, bring the dogs inside and try to calm them down.”
The acrid stench of burnt straw and wood hits my nose the minute we get out into the chilly air.
As I run, the light bounces off the courtyard, the fountain, the orchard wall, casting frantic, spooky shadows. Sill needs me. I hardly feel the rough stone sunder my bare feet as we dash towards the stables. Soon the going is softer, across grassy field.
As we near the center of the smoke, I’m actually glad I can’t see anything in the dark. Some of the old stable seems to be still erect, ghostly black artifacts looming over us in the dark.
“Did you call the police, too, Jim?”
“No sir.”
“All right, we’ll do that in a bit. I want to see this for myself first.”
We’ve reached the new stables—or what we call new; they’re actually sixty years old, concrete and functional, built by my grandfather, the eleventh Duke of Fernborough, back when we had a busy yard full of thoroughbreds. My father was not equestrian-inclined. He got rid of all the horses in order to concentrate on building up the organic farm, which my brother Seb now runs with help from me and Alex.
“I was scared to leave him alone but I had to come get you,” Jim says apologetically. “I locked him in, just in case.” He hands me the key to the padlock fastening the door.
“That’s all right, Jim, you did the right thing.”
With Jim holding the flashlight, I unlock the lock and yank back the bolts of the door.
The light of my flashlight bounces off the dark mane of my horse, who’s lying lethargically in the corner. I run over and crouch next to him, talking softly, stroking him again and again. “You poor horse. It’s okay, I’ve got you. I’‘ve got you.”
I lie beside him, my heart pumping in panic at the thought of what he’s going through. I need to get him mobile again. It’s not good for him to be lying down. All I can do is mechanically stroke him, and talk to him as soothingly as I can. “You’re a survivor,” I tell him. “You’ll get through this. I don’t know who’s doing this, but it’s me they’re after, not you. I’ll protect you. I’m here now. I’ll never leave you again.”
The door creaks again and I point my flashlight up, ready to ask Jim to bring some more water as Sill’s trough is empty.
But standing ghostlike before me is not the sturdy groom. It’s a petite woman in a flowing white dressing gown, her hair glowing in the light of the torch like an apparition.
Liv.
After a silent moment that seems to drag on forever, I get up from the straw and stride across the stall toward her. I reach out and encircle her upper arm with my free hand, gripping her tight. I shine the light at her chin so as not to blind her. She may look an apparition, but she feels real.
“What are you doing here?”
She meets my gaze with determination. “It was our dog, Bieber. He kept barking. And then when I got to the window to see what the matter was, I saw the glow of the fire burning your stable. I called the fire brigade just in case. And then I had to come over.”
I sigh heavily. “I suppose the whole of Fernborough will be out once the fire engines arrive.”
Even as I say this, there’s a blaring in the distance. One vehicle by the sounds of it. They’re too late. The old stables will be useless now, already smoldering rather than burning out of control. Whoever did this may already have discovered their mistake, if indeed their intention was to get rid of Sill completely.
“Use my stables,” Liv says. “I have a free stall, a very comfortable place for Sill to rest. All you need to do is transport him there somehow. We can open a fence to make it easier to get the horse box across the fields.”
I’m clutching her arm too hard so I slacken my grip. “You’d do that?”
“Of course,” she says in a small, awed voice.
I remain quiet as I consider the options. There aren’t many. The vet said Sill shouldn’t be transported over long distances. The next yard where I can trust the staff—Fenman’s—is a good twenty-minute drive away.
“But your father hates my guts,” I growl.
“My father,” she says, with a note of steel in her voice that I’ve never heard before, “is dying. I make the decisions around here now.”
I study her face, and the way it’s lit up from below, making her lips seem huge and her eyes even more bewitching. Time stands still as I continue to stare, her eyes dancing in the light of the torch. I can’t help how my gaze travels from her eyes, to her mouth, to her breasts in the flowing nightgown, to further down, further down again, and back up.
“And you’ve decided to help me?”
She wriggles out of my clutches. “For now, yes.” Then she adds in a much softer voice, “Just let me do this for your horse. It’s the best thing for Sill.”
“You’re probably right, but—”
“Then there’s no question that it’s the right thing to do.”
What am I doing? This is the woman I swore I’d never even talk to again after she went and married Peter Maxwell. On the other hand, her stables may be safer than ours if someone is out to get me. And if we’re lucky, they won’t know. But that brings up another problem.
“No. They could burn down your stable too. I can’t take that risk.”
She’s got a strange expression her face, like she’s almost amused. But I fail to see what could be funny.
“You, Ken? Not take a risk?”
“Don’t be daft. This is different,” I say. “This concerns your safety.”
“Well, it’s just a risk we have to take,” she says firmly. “Because I can’t see any other option, can you?”
My eyes dart in Sill’s direction and back again to her. “No.”
“Well then,” she says.
“Fine, but I’m going to post one of my staff there twenty-four seven. I’ll inform the police too. You’ll be incurring no risk by having Sill in your stables, I’ll personally see to that.”
“Ken,” she says with a sigh. “You can’t eliminate all risk, but I want to see this thing through. On one condition.”
“Name it.”
“Stop blaming my tenants. Don’t even go near them, okay? Leave it to the police if they want to, but that’s not in your jurisdiction.”
I grunt. “You strike a hard bargain, Liv MacKenzie.” Got me by the balls, more like.
She smiles a triumphant little smile that I yearn to kiss roughly off her face. “You’d better believe it. Now, get yourself organized and let’s move this horse before the whole bloody country finds out about it.”
◊◊◊
The first light of dawn weakly illuminates the horizon. It takes four men—me, Seb, Alex, and Jim—and a large sheet of tarp to haul Sill onto Seb’s trailer. By this stage both houses of our estate—Alex’s and Seb’s—are awake, including the wives, the staff, and the animals.
We must look like a mob out to celebrate Guy Fawkes as we huddle around Sill’s new stable. I ask everyone to disperse as quickly as possible before the whole village comes to know of it. This was meant to be a secret operation.
Still sweating from our exertions and stinking of smoke, Alex and I run over to the Strathcairn estate in his Bentley.
Liv disappeared an hour ago, after our encounter, to explain what was happening to all and sundry in Strathcairn Castle.
“Where’s your MI6 man?” I ask Alex as we turn into the MacKenzies’ driveway. “Where did he disappear off to the other night, anyway? He’ll be interested in these new developments, no doubt.”
Alex seems to catch the irony in my voice. “He got called back to the office on a mission. He wasn’t too happy.”
“He wasn’t too happy?” I murmur.
I just knew he’d be useless. I don’t know why I got my hopes up.
As if he’s read my mind, Alex says, “Don’t underestimate Marty.”
“Of course not,” I mutter. But my mind is already elsewhere because we’ve parked the car and the main door of Strathcairn Castle has been flung open. A figure comes rushing out, carrying a load of blankets—it’s Liv.
She’s fully dressed now, as if she’s expecting action even at four A.M. All I managed to do was slip on a pair of Wellington boots that Seb’s wife Mara kindly fetched for me. So I’m still wearing yesterday’s crumpled clothes.
I scramble to get out of the car and rush toward her. She’s struggling under the weight of those heavy wool blankets.
I hold out my arms. “Allow me.”
She dumps the blankets in my arms with a grateful smile. “What else do you need?”
I raise my eyebrows at her.
“Oh,” she says, exasperated.
“This is good for starters.” I look down into her flushed face and find my gaze lingering on her sharp little features, the delicate bones of her throat, the slightly darkened color of her cheeks. “Will you come with me down to the stables?”
Okay, now I sound like a predator.
“Fine, let’s go,” she says in the same business-like tone she used on me earlier, which tells me she’s not into standing around letting me stare at her. That’s a pity, because right now that’s what I feel most like doing, especially when she’s being all bossy with me.