“You did?” She assumed he was joking.
“Probably the photographers my brother hired. One for each of us.”
Gen swiveled in her seat and looked out the rear window. The expressway rolled away behind them. “Really?”
“Those quick couple of turns lost them.”
When they were outside of London, Arthur drove with one hand, and his other hand was turned upward on the console between them.
Gen hesitated, but then she slid her hand into his.
Arthur sighed. “I was worried.”
She looked out the window beside her cheek. “I was worried, too.”
NEGOTIATION
Gen had seen pictures of Spencer House on a BBC program about the great manor houses, so she wasn’t shocked to see the sprawling Tudor mansion appear as they drove up a lane arched with trees.
The house that grew, and grew, the closer they got.
It grew from a house into a mansion into a city block.
Bigger and bigger and bigger.
The TV show didn’t do it justice.
Spencer House was a fortress, a small city within walls that rambled over the land and jutted into the sky.
They drove into the cobblestoned courtyard and turned the car around to drive past the other wings of the house to the garage area over on the side.
Ruckus looked out the back window, paws on the back of the seat, panting.
“This is your house?” Gen clarified.
Arthur said, “This is my home.”
The dove gray and white exterior rose all around the car. A man met them when they parked in an outside parking spot.
The older man had a weather-worn face with tanned, thick skin. He wore jeans and a mud-splattered work shirt.
In the back seat, Ruckus went nuts, hopping and barking a long, happy conversation at the guy.
Arthur hopped out of the car and hugged the man, laughing.
The man clapped Arthur on the back and laughed guffaws at him.
Arthur broke it off but kept his arm around the slightly shorter man’s shoulders. The guy was still north of six feet tall. “Gen, meet Ifan Pryce, the gamekeeper of Spencer House.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Ifan said, extending his hand. The old man’s eyes were bright blue, and he grinned a tobacco-stained smile. His accent was a little northern, maybe Welsh.
“So nice to meet you,” she said and shook his hand.
Arthur said to him, “Gen and I are going out to the deer park for a few minutes.”
“Ah, dark secrets, then,” Ifan mused.
Arthur smiled at him. “We’ll talk tomorrow morning, all right?”
“Ay-yep. Got a few things for you to look at on the accounts.”
“Splendid. Could you see that our things are taken upstairs?”
“I’ll get someone to look into it.”
Gen got the feeling that Ifan Pryce could order Arthur around if he needed to.
Arthur let Ruckus out of the back seat and waited while the dog greeted Ifan.
Ifan ruffled the dog’s ears and asked him, “You want to come run around with me, boy?”
Ruckus took a long look back at Gen with his big, brown eyes, and Ifan laughed, “Ho, ho!”
Arthur asked, “Gen, shall we?”
Gen followed Arthur, and when she looked back, Ruckus was trotting after Ifan.
The gravel in the parking lot area rolled under Gen’s shoes. The three-story extension of the house flanked both sides of the parking area. Back in the olden days, the stables and workmen had their shops in this small town attached to the main building.
He led her out through a path around the side. “There are formal gardens in the front of the house,” he said, “but I prefer the deer park. We have a herd of several hundred English fallow deer here, descended from the survivors of those hunted by King Charles and other royals on holiday.”
“The hardy survivors,” she quipped.
“Hardy, indeed.”
Forest and grasslands surrounded the manor house, and Gen traipsed through the knee-high grass, hopping over stones and clumps of shrubbery while she chased after Arthur. The afternoon was warm for early March, just sweater weather, and the early spring air cooled Gen’s face as she hiked.
“When I was a child, I used to visit my grandfather out here when I was on holiday from school,” he told her, “and before that, my parents and Christopher and I came out here for the summer holidays and Christmas.”
“I didn’t know that you knew your grandfather. I mean, because you went to that boarding school in Switzerland.”
“I knew my grandmother, too, although she died when I was around five. She used to insist that everyone eat every scrap of food on their plates because of the War. The previous earl was very gruff around children, very reserved. He was a product of his generation when children were seen and not heard, and fathers did not help raise children. I was always somewhat afraid of him as a young child, though he warmed to me later on. After my parents died, I was glad to return to school in Switzerland. I thought I might have to live here with him.”
“That’s awful.” Gen hopped over a decaying log about the size of her leg. Mushrooms grew from the softening wood. “Why didn’t you go live with your uncle?”
“My grandfather and my parents believed in boarding schools for children, especially for heirs. Christopher was only three, so my uncle took him until he was nine and sent up to Eton.”
“I’m surprised that you didn’t stay in the country. Switzerland is a long way away.”
“It was for the best, I think. My grandfather did like me around for short times during holidays because I was a quiet child.”
Impossible. “You? But you’re so—”
He turned around and grinned, walking backward with his long legs covering the ground. His dark blue sweater reflected in the ice of his eyes like azure tints in glaciers. “I’m what?”
“You’re everywhere. You’re all over the place.”
Arthur laughed. “I listened to my grandfather when he talked about our history here, and I liked to run about with Ifan and his grandson back then, too. Coming here made me feel connected to my family and Britain. Christopher was too young, toddling about. When he was little, he cried like little kids do. He hid behind my uncle even when he was older. My grandfather never took a liking to him.”
“So that’s why he didn’t inherit much.”
“No, that was planned before he was born. He was the spare, of course, in case something happened to me. Still, in case something happens to me.”
“Are you going to do that with your children, leave everything to the oldest boy and not much to the others?”
“So far I don’t have any children.”
“That you know of,” Gen chided him.
He laughed. “I’m sure I would be informed with a quick and thorough lawsuit, but I’ve been scrupulously careful. I imagine that I’ll have to do the traditional primogeniture inheritance, though. It’s the only way to care for these estates. They have to support themselves, and they can’t do that if they’re divvied up piecemeal over even one generation. Spencer House does not support itself now, even with rents and the National Trust. I kick in a lot from other sources to keep it running.”
Gen bit her tongue about private jets streaking off to Paris in the middle of the night and drunks pouring Cristal on strippers. “That must be tough.”
“Oh, I could tell you stories.”
“I’d like that.”
He stopped walking, but he was still smiling. “I could show you the house tonight, if you wanted.”
She touched his hand, just a quick tap near his wrist. “I’d like that a lot.”
They hiked through knee-high, dry winter grass and new spring shoots for twenty minutes. Last year’s grass crunched under Gen’s tennis shoes, and the tender green growth smelled clean when crushed.
As they emerged from the tree line of the woods, a clearing spread open, and the he
rd of deer grazed on the grass and jumped over each other, gamboling. All the deer were about the same size, as March was too early for fawns. Their coats were all different colors: deep rust with black lines down their backs, tan with brown lines, almost black, and a few dark-eyed, white deer. Many of them had white or lighter spots. The hopping herd looked like an earth-toned quilt, flipping around from children playing under it.
Arthur stood with his hands shoved in his jeans pockets. “This is where I come when I need to discuss something that must not be overheard.”
The afternoon sun warmed Gen’s back, and her damp tee shirt under her sweater clung to her skin from walking out so far in the early afternoon. “Do you have a lot of secret conversations?”
“I mean with the deer. I talk to the deer. They’re great listeners.” He was grinning again, and she laughed at the way his silvery eyes turned merry.
“Do the deer answer back?” she asked.
“No.”
“That’s good. Jeez, you had me worried, there.”
“About last night—”
“The deer don’t know anything about that,” Gen said.
“I’m serious.”
So she stuck her hands in her own pockets. “I threw myself at you. I’m embarrassed about it, and I’m sorry that I put you in an awkward position.”
“Don’t be embarrassed. I’m honored. I’m humbled that you would trust me so. At the very least, it’s a compliment that I won’t forget, and I meant every word I said.”
“At least all the words that you can remember,” she joked.
“I remember,” he said. “I remember every word and every moment and every brush of your skin, all night long, from kissing you before the ball to dancing with you in my arms. I remember that I was on the precipice of losing all self-control. I wanted to take you to bed and explore you for hours. Do you feel the same today, though?”
Gen blurted, “Yes.”
Damn, she hadn’t meant to say it like that. She should have been cagey and not said what she meant, led him a merry chase or something.
“Yes,” Gen said again. “I feel exactly the same as last night. I want to get over it. You’ve already helped me with getting better around men.”
“You’d have to trust me.”
“I do. I do trust you. I don’t trust anyone else.”
“You haven’t had a chance to trust anyone else,” he said. “You’re getting much better around men. Maybe a boyfriend, a relationship, would be a better choice.”
“Like who? James Knightly? I’d rather never touch a man again.”
“Who’s James Knightly?” Arthur asked, his voice quiet, seemingly disinterested.
“A guy at work. He’s such a gossip. He’s backstabbing everyone, trying to get tenancy. I don’t even know any men who interest me in the slightest.”
“All right, so not James Knightly. You could see a therapist,” Arthur said, but he sounded like he was reciting by rote, saying something that he was supposed to say rather than what he wanted to say.
“I don’t want to see a therapist. Besides, counseling and things like that turn up during the selection process for the offers of tenancy. They would crucify me. There’s so much gossip in the office, and all of it colors the senior barristers’ decisions about tenancy. It all comes back to that.”
“I could teach you how to cover your tracks, instead. You could attend counseling without anyone knowing.”
“Someone would find out. Someone always does. Your brother has a detective following me as well as you.”
Arthur puffed out his breath in something between laughter and derision. “It’s easy enough to elude someone who’s following you, especially someone who is so very bad at it.” Sarcasm sharpened his voice.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Unfortunately, for eight more months at least, I’m your client. That’s the largest problem we have,” he said.
Gen sucked in air and said, “I don’t care.”
“Good.” Arthur stepped toward her and pulled his hands out of his pockets. His voice dropped. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
“You were?” Her voice squeaked.
Arthur reached over and hooked one of his fingers around one of hers, the least possible skin-to-skin contact that still qualified as such. Her attention focused on his warm hand, one finger touching hers. “I have wanted you from the moment I saw you in that conference room. I have been waiting for months, sitting across small tables from you, feeling your legs against mine, riding in cars with you so close that I could feel the warmth of your skin, and dancing with you in my arms. I’ve been more patient than I have ever been in my life. I can hardly wait to feel your bare skin in my hands, to taste you, to make you scream my name.”
Gen’s throat closed so tightly that she had to force the words out. “I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”
“I’ve never said anything like it before.”
“You’ve never had to wait more than a few hours.”
He chuckled. “That’s probably true.” His voice was so low, even gravelly. “Are you sure about this? If your chambers find out, you could get in trouble. The ethics board. Tenancy.”
She forced her head to bob up and down, hoping that she didn’t look too stupid or like she was lying. Those silver eyes of his seemed to see everything. Sometimes, it was unnerving, and he might be seeing even more than what he mentioned.
Gen said, “It’s nobody’s business but our own. I did hear of a case where it came out that a pupil barrister got into trouble for sleeping with his client, but that’s because the client complained when it broke up her marriage. Plus, when the barrister denied that he had been involved with her, the client produced the barrister’s underwear. He really shouldn’t have let his mother sew labels into his underwear. I think that’s what really sank him.”
She needed to keep telling herself that. Otherwise, she might let something slip in the office.
He turned his hand around so that his large, warm hand wrapped around hers, more skin contact.
“I need to know some things about what happened to you,” he said. “You didn’t want to talk about it, before.”
She nodded and tried to control her breathing. She still didn’t want to talk about it.
“If you don’t want to narrate the experience,” he said, “you could tell me what things are hard limits for you.”
Gen was stumped. “I don’t know what ‘hard limits’ means.”
“Sometimes, when one is engaging in certain lifestyles, you discuss soft and hard limits, things that you might be willing to do versus things that you absolutely will not do.”
She frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“Restraints. Toys.” With his other hand, he stroked her shoulder over her tee shirt with his fingertips. “What I can do to your body or your mind.”
Oh. He meant kinky stuff.
A tremor started in her chest. “I can’t do that.”
“Not can’t,” he said, “but will not, or not yet. And that should be discussed and negotiated.”
Gen tried not to let her hands shake. His fingers were still holding hers, gently but firmly. Letting go to shake the crazies away would be weird. “I would have to trust that you wouldn’t cross those lines.”
“I won’t. I wouldn’t.” He was watching her face, his silvery eyes flicking as his gaze roamed from her eyes to her mouth. “And I have to trust that you will tell me where the lines are. I don’t want to guess. I can’t read your mind.”
Considering how easily he sussed out when anyone around him was lying, she wasn’t sure that last part was entirely true, but she saw the sense in the whole statement. “Okay.”
“If you don’t want to tell me what happened in the past, then you have to tell me what sort of things you aren’t ready for in the near future.”
“Okay.” Gen sucked in a deep breath. Her hands quivered. She desperately wanted to shake the crazies out, but she needed to st
op doing that. Her poker tell gave too much away. “Okay. Okay-okay.”
He waited, watching her, and his fingers trailed from her elbow to her upper arm.
She began, “No crowding me up against things like walls. No holding me down. No grabbing the back of my neck.” The air in her lungs ran out, and she sucked in a desperate breath.
He nodded, his expression serious. “Continue.”
“No tying me up or holding me so that I can’t get away.”
His smile was gentle. “I think you’re metaphorically tying my hands.”
Gen blurted, “No beds.”
One of his eyebrows dipped. “No beds?”
“They give me the willies, a huge platform where someone can force you down and you can’t get away. I can’t touch a bed. I don’t even like to look at them.”
He peered at her, looking at her eyes. “Then where have you been sleeping?”
“On the couch,” she admitted.
“The one in the guest bedroom?”
She nodded.
His eyes widened in horror. “On that loveseat? You’ve been sleeping on it?”
She nodded again, ashamed.
“A child couldn’t sleep on that thing. Not to mention an adult, an adult like either one of us.”
Tall, and in her case, fat around the butt and hips. “I’m sorry. You don’t think I ruined it?”
“Heavens, no. I’m mortified that we didn’t know, that something wasn’t done.” His hand left her arm, and he ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair, holding it back. “We’ll rectify that when we get back to London. As far as we are concerned, I never liked beds for anything but sleeping, anyway. Too commonplace.”
Gen wasn’t sure what to make of that at all. Maybe he did have a Red Room of Kinky Stuff in his apartment.
Arthur looked over at the deer, watching them leaping and running in the sunlight. He said, off-handedly, “You could tell me your assailant’s name.”
Gen looked over to watch the deer, too. “I don’t want to.”
“Do I know him?”
“I don’t think so. I was a few years behind you at Oxford, so I don’t think you would have overlapped with him. He wasn’t in Trinity.”
Stiff Drink: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #1 Page 29