I sat on the sofa and placed Nate’s head in my lap. Stroking his hair, I willed him to wake up. “Nate?” He stirred slightly. “Nate.”It wasn’t my imagination—his eyelids moved. Relieved beyond words, I trailed my fingers down his cheek. “Wake up, Nate.”
When Steven returned with the coffee, Nate was upright, for certain values of the word. He couldn’t sit up straight and wascollapsed against me, his head on my shoulder. At least he was awake. Sort of. He’d slurred badly when he’d tried to speak.
Rage was building deep inside me that Steven had done this to him, but I couldn’t let it out. I had to stay watchful and steer us safely through this.
True to his word, James made Steven take some hefty swigs from the mug of coffee he’d poured before passing it to me.
“Nate?” He rolled his head on my shoulder and opened his eyes. “This’ll help,” I told him, hoping to God it was true. His eyes focused, and then he flinched back from where I was holding the mug to his lips. “No.”
“It’s okay, it’s just coffee.”
“Alex?” The confusion in his voice twisted my heart. If Steven had been within reach at that moment, I think I’d have murdered him.
“It’s okay,” I said again. “Just drink some of this for me.”
With persistent coaxing, he drank it all. By the time he’d finished, he was more alert, and I held out the mug imperiously to Steven for a refill. He looked as if he wanted to throttle me, but under his father’s eye, he simply refilled it.
By the time Nate was halfway down the second mug, he was able to hold it himself. His brain appeared to be coming back online, though he looked pale and unsteady. With cautious eyes, he appraised our situation.
James was sitting in an armchair, sipping his whisky and watching in a detached sort of way, as unperturbed as if he were at his gentlemen’s club reading theFinancial Times. Steven had slouched in another chair, and his gaze moved constantly between us and his father, his expression morphing between hostility and resentment.
“I don’t suppose you’d care to leave and forget what you’ve seen here,” James said conversationally, and I realised he was speaking to me.
“I’m not leaving Nate,” I said.
Nate, who, with an effort, sat up straight. “I’m okay,” he said, convincing precisely no one. “You should go.”
“No.”
“Alex.”At the urgency in his voice, I turned to look at him. His eyes were pleading with me. “Go.Please.”
I held his gaze, trying to read his mind. What advantage was it for me to leave? Margaret and the others were in the middle of the River Avon—if I called them, it would take them time to return. Police? James would easily convince them. Nothing to see here, officer, merely some troublesome underprivileged visitors I was trying to help. By the way, give my best to your chief constable, my good friend and golfing partner.
“I’ll leave when you do,” I said, and Nate closed his eyes, hiding his expression.
“Well, then,” James said pleasantly, sounding for all the world as if he were about to start a meeting. “Nate Mortimer, what’s your answer to Steven’s charge that you’ve been prying into my private affairs?”
“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Nate said.
“And what you said to Ella?”
His brow wrinkled. “What did I say to Ella?”
James’s temper was rising, but I didn’t think Nate was being deliberately stupid. He was struggling to understand.
“You said that Dad planned to disinherit Charlie in favour of me.” The satisfaction in Steven’s voice had me itching to punch him again.
“Oh, that. I suggested what my grandfather might do in the situation, that was all.”
He made it sound convincingly offhand, as if that had truly been his meaning. But it was too late.
“Cut out the nonsense, Nate. I know why you’re here. I’ve suspected all along, but there’s that expression, giving someone enough rope to hang themselves with.” James leaned forward slightly, his eyes gripping Nate’s. “And, between us, I’d been thinking that if you could be persuaded from your loyalties, you could be an asset to our family.”
“Dad!”
“Shut up, Steven. You’ve cocked this up so magnificently that I don’t want to hear another word from you.” His gaze was back on Nate’s, and there was something in his eyes, an expression of regret, that sent a cold shiver down my spine. “But it became clear to me last night that you march to your own beat. I could never rely fully on you. You’re sentimental, and that’s a dangerous flaw.”
He rose to his feet, and it was as if his dragon’s wings stretched out, blocking the sunshine and rendering the room small, cold and dark. Or maybe that was just the way I felt at the look in his eyes. “You’ve left me with no choice.”
