CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Nikolas appeared to have learnt his lesson the next morning, for when they went down to the dining room for breakfast, he ordered and ate a bowl of fruit. It seemed to be his new policy that if he gave the appearance of eating something, he at least got to eat what he liked and not Ben’s choice of food. But he always enjoyed watching Ben eat for some reason, and sat contentedly reading the paper and drinking coffee as yet another full English bit the dust alongside him.
“So, we got more houses to see today?”
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to speak with your mouth full?”
Ben swallowed. “No, she didn’t have time before my father murdered her.”
Nikolas looked up sharply. “God, I am sorry, Ben. It was an expression. I did not think.”
Ben shrugged. “The truth doesn’t hurt me, Nik. It was the lies that were tearing me apart. I have you to thank for the truth, so no apology needed.”
Studying his coffee for a moment, Nikolas sighed. “Yes. We are seeing three. But I am becoming disenchanted with the process.”
“Maybe you should let me choose.”
Nikolas glanced up again. He appeared to be considering this—which had actually just been a joke. He narrowed his eyes, tapping his fingers lightly against his coffee cup. “I am almost tempted to say yes. I will think about it.”
He ordered more coffee. Ben ordered more toast. Finally, Nikolas nodded. “All right. You choose—one of the houses we see today. You decide on one of them, and we will buy it. I will have forgotten how to ride entirely if I do not have my horses soon.”
Ben murmured, “You remembered pretty well last night.”
Nikolas’s colour rose just slightly on his striking face. “So, are we agreed?”
Ben nodded. “Sure. I’ve got great taste. I chose you, after all. Do I need to know how much you can afford? Just in case I pick one that’s too much?”
Nikolas chuckled, clearly pleased with the earlier compliment. “No, you do not need to know. Be uninhibited in your selection.”
Ben actually felt enthused about the whole process. He was up and ready to go. Nikolas wanted more coffee. Ben said he’d go up and pack. He was deep into Nikolas’s bag, rummaging, when Nikolas came back. He smirked as he watched Ben from the doorway. “You won’t find it.”
“Where is it?” Ben held out his hand.
Nikolas shrugged and handed his phone over.
Ben scrolled to images. Empty.
“I am not stupid, Ben. Obviously you would want to find them. I emailed them to myself and deleted them from there.”
Ben almost stomped his foot. “I’ll get Kate to hack your account.”
Nikolas laughed, a genuinely delighted sound. “I seriously advise against that, for your sake. Oh, stop being such a baby. Come here. I will delete them.” He sat on the edge of the bed. Ben warily joined him and handed the phone over. To get less light on the screen, Nikolas lay back and held the phone up over his head as he connected to his account. “There.”
Ben lay back too and together they contemplated the images, which Nikolas had set on a loop. He’d taken far more than Ben realised. They told pretty much the whole story of Ben’s interrogation and capitulation—in high definition and close up. Ben swallowed deeply. “So, maybe don’t delete them?”
Nikolas nodded silently. Ben felt a hand on his stomach, just resting on the crisp dress shirt. He put his hand over it, and Nikolas entwined their fingers. He lifted Nikolas’s hand to his lips and kissed each finger. He loved Nikolas’s hands—the immaculately manicured nails, his long, almost surgeon-delicate fingers. “You should play the piano—fingers like these.”
Nikolas turned his head away and didn’t reply for a minute then said almost too casually, “Actually, I can. I learnt for many years.”
Ben turned his head to stare at the tousled, blond hair next to him. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Yes, apparently I cannot buy a house. Come, we must go. Are you packed?”
§§§
They set the satnav for the first house on the day’s list and drove back to the main road. The house was a converted mill on a small tributary of the Exe, and Ben liked it immediately. On three floors, the current owners had done a sympathetic renovation, even leaving original architectural features and the occasional holes in the floors where the mill machinery would have been. The master bedroom was on the top floor and had a balcony. Ben leant on the railing, staring down at the peaceful river below. The sun caught his tousled hair, showing off the highlights he’d developed under a far harsher sun. He sensed Nikolas leaning in the doorway watching him and turned. “What?”
Nikolas shrugged. “I do not give you compliments, as you know, but consider yourself complimented.” Ben smiled and leant back on the railing, casually crossing his ankles, stretching out his fabulous body, which was only enhanced by his tailored suit. They didn’t realise that they lost time just staring at each other until they heard a discreet cough, and the agent said, “The field is across the lane and comes with a new stable. Shall we view that now?” They walked in the sunshine across to the field, and Nikolas cast a cursory glance at it and nodded. They thanked the agent, said they’d be in touch and got back in the car. Ben was reluctant to leave. “This is okay, Nik.”
Nikolas shrugged. “If you like it, buy it.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. We are not committed. If it bores us, we will move again.”
Ben turned to him. “How many houses have you lived in—in your whole life?”
Nikolas pursed his lips. “I have no idea. I have never thought about it.”
“Well?”
“Ben, why—?”
“Please.”
Nikolas sighed then appeared to be counting. “How long does a stay have to be to count?”
“I guess anything that wasn’t a holiday—anything over a month?”
There was a long silence. “Twenty, but some of those I do not remember but was told about or have seen photographs of.”
“Photographs? Of your childhood?” Ben usually found it hard to believe Nikolas had actually been a child, but to discover proof existed of this odd idea fascinated him. “Where are they? Do you have other houses now than the one in London?”
Nikolas nodded. “Of course. Just drive, Ben, please. Take the road to Barton Combe.”
Ben jerked his eyes to Nikolas. “Why?”
Nikolas stared resolutely out of the windscreen then replied grudgingly, “Philipa is in Scotland with the family. I want to take the opportunity to collect some of my belongings.”
Ben kept glancing over, sensing a familiar imploding mood as Nikolas plunged into whatever dark memories and thoughts he was burdened with. Ben tapped him on the thigh. “Can we take the billiard table?”
§§§
Ben hadn’t been to Nikolas’s house since New Year’s Eve, when he had killed men there. The place was much the same, despite the violent death that had visited it. It was quieter without the inevitable pack of dogs—and the terrorists—but much the same. He knew where Nikolas would want to go first and followed him, amused, to the stables. Ben had to work hard then not to be jealous of a horse, as Nik lavished far more endearments and attention on the dumb animal than he ever did on him. He decided to leave him to it and find something to eat. Breakfast seemed a very long time ago. As Philipa was gone for some weeks, most of the staff had been given holidays and only a skeleton crew remained to look after the horses and provide security for the house. Consequently, Ben was left in peace to make a raid on the fridge and larder.
He made a plate of interesting looking things and sat down at the table, thinking how his life had changed since the last time he’d sat there. When he’d eaten his fill, he made a sandwich for Nikolas and took it out to the stables. Nikolas wasn’t there. He wandered back into the house, searching the rooms, and eventually found him up in the bedroom Ben had briefly seen at New Year’s. Then it had been dark, and he’d only been able to glimpse a stark simplicity to the room that had told him it was Nikolas’s. Now the afternoon sun lit the room. Nikolas was leaning in the window, back to the door. Ben wasn’t sure whether to knock. His relationship with Nikolas was still so undefined that when it was taken out of the artificial environment they had created for themselves, it puzzled him what it actually was. Was he Nikolas’s chauffeur with fringe benefits? His employee—with the same benefits? He surely wasn’t his…boyfriend? He snorted faintly at this thought, which took away his dilemma about whether to knock when Nikolas said distinctly, “Give me a minute. I will come down presently.”
Ben heard something in the voice that made him hesitate. Nikolas was still very hard to read, even after all the things they had done together. He debated but then came further into the room, putting the sandwich down on the chest of drawers. He came up behind Nikolas and slid his arms around him, kissing the back of his neck, but Nikolas didn’t turn around. His body was rigid, his arms folded tightly over his chest as if he was barely holding himself together. Ben was afraid of what might happen if the hold slipped. Instead of trying to distract him with sex, which was so very tempting to do, he let him go and began to wander around the room, looking at the pictures he’d only seen faintly in moonlight a few months before. The pictures of a storm-swept beach were still captivating but painfully empty. Ben liked pictures with things in them.
The drawer alongside the bed had been pulled out and rifled through; things lay on the floor, some on the bed, some thrown carelessly into an open bag. Ben sat down, idly rummaging, waiting for Nikolas to want him again, and saw a photograph left behind at the bottom of the drawer. He pulled it out and his eyes went wide. It was a photograph of Nikolas in his teens—unmistakable; he hadn’t actually changed all that much. He had been caught at a table in a window bay, painting. It looked as if the photographer had suddenly called him and he’d turned, face open and innocent, grin as wide as the sun, poised with his right hand about to make a stroke to the painting he was completing, his left holding a shell. The photograph was in black and white and all the more exquisite for that—the kind of photograph that launched careers, made names, became iconic for the model or the photographer, or both. Ben made a small noise in the back of his throat. “This is so beautiful! How old were you?”
Nikolas turned, his expression glazed, as if he’d been miles away in some place only he could reach. He saw what Ben was holding. An expression flicked across his face that Ben couldn’t read, but he replied casually enough, “I was seventeen when that was taken. Give it to me. I forgot I had kept it.”
Holding the photo in his hands seemed more intimate than holding Nikolas’s cock in his mouth the previous night. It was the backward relationship thing again. He should have seen a picture of Nikolas as a boy long before the man bent him over a table and fucked him. He didn’t want to hand it over—he wanted to keep it. He hesitated, some deep-seated sense of wrongness about this whole situation pricking the nerves in the back of his neck. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Benjamin, give it to me!”
Ben stood up feeling irrational, stupid, even as he said it. “No. You’re going to tear it up, aren’t you?”
Almost before he had time to react, Nikolas crossed the space between them. But Ben was just that one fraction of a second faster, and he dodged, getting the photograph safety tucked in his shirt. Nikolas tried to pass off the attempt to grab the photo as something very casual and not to be thought about, for it was beneath him to protest more, but Ben wasn’t fooled for a second; for one minute he’d seen a killing rage in Nikolas’s eyes that he had never thought he’d see. He bit his lip. It was all so foolish—all for an innocent photo of a boy laughing to the camera. But, somehow, Ben felt the photograph represented far more than that. They were at something of an impasse now. He knew he’d angered Nikolas—and not one of the play arguments they both so enjoyed. This was for real. He wasn’t sure where he stood in this one. He ought to just hand the photo over—it wasn’t his, after all—but every instinct was telling him to keep it safe, that somehow Nikolas needed him to keep it safe, despite appearances.
Suddenly, Nikolas glanced around the room at the half-packed bags and the things flung on the bed. He didn’t look at Ben but said deceptively calmly, “This was a mistake. I discover I do not need any of this, after all.” With that, he walked out. Ben caught him up as he was climbing into the Range Rover.
“What about the horses?”
“I do not believe they will fit in the car. Get in. I have put in the address of the next house. We should view it, even it you are decided on buying the mill. I do not care much anymore.”
Ben got in and started the vehicle. He glanced at the stony profile next to him. He was on the point of apologising and offering up the photo, but something held him back, that little inner voice that told him it was important not to give in to Nikolas on this. For one moment, though, sitting in the car next to the silent and angry man in front of this house, Ben was back to the early years when their relationship had been one of silences and sex and nothing more. He didn’t like it, but didn’t really know what to say to break the mood.
He debated for a moment longer then took the course of least resistance and drove away from the house as commanded.
§§§
The next viewing was on the outskirts of Exeter, a long way to drive in uncomfortable silence. After some miles, Ben’s uncanny sense of direction told him they were going the wrong way, despite what the satnav was telling him. He didn’t say anything, as the machine was giving confident directions in its irritatingly superior voice, and Nikolas had put the address in. He didn’t want to get shouted at again.
The lanes began to get narrower. There were no signposts at the occasional crossroads they came to. After another hour, Ben knew they were completely lost. He could see the tors of Dartmoor rising ahead of them—they were going north, as he’d suspected. As he knew he’d get blamed for the error, despite only following a satellite, he carried on, hoping to come to some landmark he could use to navigate back to the road, but this only dug them in deeper. Nikolas appeared miles away, lost to thoughts possibly conjured by their recent conversation. He only noticed something was wrong when a branch dragged down the side of the vehicle. He sat straighter, opened his window and hissed, “You are too close. Move out.”
Ben coughed and indicated his side of the lane. There, too, the stinging nettles and foxgloves were pressed tight to the door. The hedges were at least twice the height of the Range Rover, and the lane was almost dark despite the overhead sun. Nikolas turned around and stared back at the long, green tunnel behind them and then at the satnav, which helpfully chose that moment to announce, “You have reached your destination.” Ben hit the brake, and all they could hear was birdsong and a cacophony of rooks.
“I do not believe we are in Exeter, Benjamin. Can you not do the simplest task? Back up.”
Ben bit his lip on a suitable rejoinder, reminded himself that he loved Nikolas, then turned and looked behind them. “It’s been like this for miles. Maybe we should keep going forward?”
Nikolas clenched his jaw. He actually winced as the hedgerow continued to scrape both sides of the vehicle. The lane began to descend. It got so dark Ben turned on the headlights. He began to hum Dueling Banjos but stopped at a glare from Nikolas. Finally, they came to the bottom of the lane and to a ford. Ben stopped driving again and chuckled. “Is this going to be the first Range Rover in London to actually go off road?”
“Stop trying to be funny and just cross.”
Ben splashed the vehicle over the ford and pushed into the still narrowing lane ahead. Finally, just as he thought he would have to stop and reverse, they came to stone pillars of a long-collapsed gate. “Yay. Civilization.”
Nikolas eyed the broken pillars speculatively, but as they had nowhere to go but forward, he didn’t comment when Ben drove through onto what had clearly once been the drive of a private house. It was now overgrown with vast rhododendron bushes and twisted oaks. Finally, they came out of the gloom and emerged onto the lip of a sunlit bowl. Ben stopped driving once more. An ancient manor house sat facing them in the distance, across what must once have been cared for grounds and a manicured lawn. Behind the house the moors rose, bracken and gorse covered, until the last fifty feet where the rocks of a tor jutted out from short moorland grass. It was utterly silent except for the sound of the rooks.
Ben drove down into the valley then climbed out of the vehicle and walked toward the house. He heard Nikolas following. “I think it’s abandoned.”
Nikolas looked around with disgust. “Either that or they murdered their gardener. Come, turn the car around. We are trespassing and should go.”
“No, wait.” Ben was peering in one of the lead-paned windows. “It’s empty. No furniture at all. No one’s here.”
“Oh, that does surprise me. I will be in the car. Give me the keys.” He held out his hand, but Ben was ignoring him. He pushed at the oak door, and it swung open. He turned with a triumphant grin. “Five minutes?”
Nikolas narrowed his eyes but relented, and they went in together.
§§§
Considering the garden was so neglected and overgrown, the house itself was in good repair, albeit empty and cold, despite the warm day. The ground floor consisted of a large hallway with a galleried landing and beyond this a kitchen, which was clearly of the days when only servants had to prepare food. It was small and dark, hardly more than a corridor with a vast fireplace. There were three main downstairs rooms, one that looked like a modest banqueting hall with yet another gallery; one had clearly been the drawing room, as it had bow windows which would have enjoyed a view of the gardens if the wisteria had not almost entirely obscured them; and the third had apparently been a library, as it was lined with bookshelves from floor to its high ceilings. Upstairs, off the main gallery, they found four large, empty rooms, which they assumed were bedrooms, and a couple of small rooms with holes in the floor, which must have once been bathrooms. There was one other small room that led to the gallery over the banqueting hall. Everything inside the house was oak panelled, and it gave a heavy feeling of permanence to the place, as if the ceaseless injuries of time couldn’t penetrate here. Everything was beautifully preserved, albeit empty and oddly abandoned.
Nikolas was leaning in the doorway of one of the bedrooms, watching Ben trail his fingers over the oak panelling. “Fascinating as this is, we need to leave.”
“Wait. Come on.” He led the way back downstairs and into the sunshine then around to the back of the house where they found the stream which they had crossed at the ford. Now, it provided a natural barrier between the grounds and the edge of the tor. It had a clapper bridge, which Ben crossed. He stood at the base of the tor, looking at the sheep trails through the bracken. He slid off his suit jacket and ripped off his tie then dropped them both on the ground. Twenty minutes later, he was at the top, sitting on the rocks, breathing in the unmistakable scent of bracken in warm sunshine. He gazed down at the house and the neglected garden, and for the first time in his life knew he was truly home.