“I’m staying with a friend until I find somewhere.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m doing some modelling at the moment, but I want to go travelling.”
Felicity had worked as a model before her first marriage, something Ben obviously knew. He had occasionally gone on assignment for the department using a photo shoot as a cover. He was consequently more than able to talk convincingly about the work. She tentatively mentioned she had thought about returning to modelling one day.
As soon as he finished the coffee, he stood to take his leave, not wanting to make her uncomfortable, but as she was showing him to the door, he said, “Radulf bought a little something for your daughter to thank her, too—after all, she did all the hard work…Would it be all right if I brought it around for her tonight? I could push it through the door if you would prefer.”
She hesitated for a second. Ben heard volumes in the hesitation and then she nodded. “Of course. We have ballet tonight, but we’ll be home by seven. She’d love to see Radulf again.”
Ben gave her a smile that had charmed far harder targets than this one.
When he got home, Radulf levered himself from his basket and came up, wagging his tail. There was no destruction. Ben gave him a look. Radulf returned it, all innocence. Ben wasn’t fooled. The dog was plotting something.
He grabbed his bike gear, let himself out again, and made his way to the underground garage where he stored his Ducati. With a sense of freedom at last, he pointed the bike toward the west and took off. He had no real destination in mind, he just needed the space. He had spent the first ten years of his working life in the army and the last four working in the department for Nikolas, and presumably his masters. Life had been relatively simple then. He did what he was told without questioning too much what he was actually doing. He’d killed people. He assumed he’d ruined lives and created collateral damage with each operation, but that had always been something other people had to worry about. This was different. He couldn’t justify what he was doing, and this uncertainty disturbed him. And yet, there was also something off about Felicity and Alice that he couldn’t quite define. It had been there in that slight hesitation at the door. It was there in the endless texting when she took the dog for a walk. In some ways, it was there in her vapid existence. Ben wasn’t experienced enough to work out why he felt uneasy.
After he’d ridden for a few hours and taken a breather at the coast, he returned to London and let himself into the house quietly. He didn’t want to encounter Nikolas and have to attempt to explain his confused concerns. He grabbed the small gift he’d bought earlier, clipped Radulf to his lead and went to get the vehicle. He was going to have to teach Radulf to ride on the back of the Ducati; he hated driving in London and resented the parking difficulties. Then he remembered Radulf was going back to the shelter when they were finished. It put a bit of a dampener on the trip over to the house. Radulf didn’t appear to let his future bother him. He liked the Range Rover and particularly liked sitting in the back with his head stuck out of the window. Ben could see him every time he glanced in his wing mirror and it cheered him up slightly.
Alice answered the door and fell to her knees to embrace Radulf. Ben had dressed him in a particularly fetching bandana (another reason he’d snuck out of the house without wanting to encounter Nikolas), and when Alice exclaimed in delight at it, he handed her the present he’d brought—another one for her dog. She ran back into the house, shouting for him to follow her. Ben took the invite at face value and followed her to the kitchen. She was busy showing her mother the bandana and tying it on her dog. He watched mother and daughter together for as long as he could without appearing creepy and then made his excuses to leave. Felicity followed him out. And there it was again, something just not quite right. She was polite and friendly; she thanked him, but there was something in her eyes that made Ben feel uncomfortable, like he was missing something he ought to see.
He returned to the house, but he couldn’t settle to anything. He felt as if he wanted to be in constant motion. He decided to take the dog for a walk and maybe circumvent whatever the creature was plotting. He called up to the office that he was going out, but to his amazement, Nikolas came down and said casually, “I will come with you.” At Ben’s expression, he added with a shrug, “As you so kindly pointed out, at my advanced age, I need to keep my joints working.” Ben made a noncommittal noise but proceeded out the door and took his usual route to the canal. Nikolas, he noticed, didn’t seem to be suffering from advanced age-related decrepitude just yet. He sauntered along, apparently taking an interest in the sights. He stopped when they reached the towpath and bent his head to light a cigarette, giving Ben a sly smirk. “What? We are outside. It is allowed.”
“I don’t complain because it’s inside or out. It’s going to kill you.”
“Rubbish. I shall die of old age first, according to you.”
“Will you stop—?”
“So, tell me about the job.”
“It’s good. I’ve met the mother and daughter and been to their house a couple of times. Established a lot of trust.”
“And…?”
“And what?”
“And what has you troubled, Benjamin? I did not agree to this strange English habit of moving slowly on one’s feet with a gay-looking dog just to argue with you about my smoking—as much fun as that is, obviously. Something has been wrong since I got back, and I want to know what it is.”
Ben ran his fingers through his hair before he realised that was Nikolas’s gesture. A month of living together and he was becoming Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen.
“Ben…?”
Ben sat down on the grass bank, letting Radulf off his lead. Nikolas looked askance at the grass but eventually sat down next to him.
“She’s nice—Felicity. And the girl, Alice, is happy. This is all wrong. I’m not doing it. I’m not taking her away from her mother, Nikolas. Get someone else to do it.” There. He’d said it at last. He waited for the explosion.
Nikolas squinted around his cigarette smoke and asked very calmly, “Should I get someone else permanently or just for jobs you do not want to do?”
Ben turned to him, unable to read his expression. “I guess that’s up to you. You hold all the cards.”
Nikolas nodded. “I do.” He continued to smoke for a while then said without much change of tone from his comments about the passing scenery, “I once spent some years in a prison camp in Siberia. I learnt to play many games, most of which are not to be spoken of. But I learnt to play cards. One game was bridge, and it is a much better game, I discovered, than solitaire. It is a game where success is entirely dependent on trust and a deep understanding of your partner. Ben, you are my partner. If you think this job is compromised, we will not do it. I trust your judgement implicitly. But, please, do one thing for me before you decide. Meet the stepfather.” Ben was so incapacitated by shock at Nikolas’s words and at the fact that the other man had finally shared some part of his past that he couldn’t reply. He just nodded, bewildered. Nikolas smiled and patted his leg. “Come. I would hate for the damp to get into my joints.”
§§§
Ben lay awake long after Nikolas had fallen asleep, thinking. He was working out how he was going to return to the house to meet Felicity’s husband, but mostly he was thinking about Nikolas. He was the proverbial riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Every time Ben thought he’d found the real Nikolas, that man he had found slipped away again into shadows and illusion. He was no longer the secretive head of a Black Ops department. He wasn’t a de facto member of the Royal Family, living the life of a phenomenally wealthy, landed aristocrat, and now he wasn’t, apparently, the man Ben thought he was beginning to know quite well.Prison camp? Siberia? What the fuck?Ben turned his head to study the sleeping man next to him. As if sensing the scrutiny, Nikolas turned in his sleep and flung an arm over Ben’s waist. Ben put his hand down and began to rub his thumb idly on the pale skin.
He was very curious to know what other games Nikolas had been forced to play in prison.
