“There may be fragments left in there.”
“Stop being melodramatic. It’s just a scratch.”
Ben looked pointedly at all the kit drying in the sun and said stonily, “You’re maybe not the best person to judge? Your whole reality has been screwed since you were ten. So don’t argue with me, yeah?”
Nikolas frowned. “Why do you say that? I’m the sanest person I know—you included.”
“Jesus. Do you listen to yourself? What other ten-year-old was in the hospital with internal injuries or being taken to executions? Torture camps? Seriously, that isn’t normal, and it’s not right.”
Nikolas laughed. “Where did you hear that from—? Ah, Kate, of course. It’s ridiculous. I made a perfectly acceptable deal with the devil, and the devil always keeps his word. I had the best of everything. The finest academies for my education, I travelled to learn languages, I had tutors, swimming lessons, music, horses…I was indulged and spoilt. What you say is ridiculous.”
“Huh. Well, I’m wrong then. So, what was the deal you made with the devil, Aleksey? Aged ten?”
Nikolas tried to stand, but his leg gave out, and he sat back down, pale. “It was hardly a sacrifice for all that I was given—to be my brother for him. You shouldn’t have asked Kate. Women do not understand these things. They are soft and think always with their wombs.”
“Huh, well that’s the first thing I always think about Kate, that she’s thinking with her womb. So…being your brother for him, in this easy,normaldeal…exactly how did you do that then? Or maybe the question should bewheredid you have to do that?”
“You clearly think you already know. Leave me be. I’m sick.”
“You are if you think what your father did to you is acceptable.”
“He gave meeverything. Hemademe. What sacrifice was it to be in his bed when he wanted me…?” He stopped and frowned then murmured, “No, Nikolas. I forget myself sometimes. He wanted Nikolas. He thought I was Nikolas. Ack, Aleksey would have killed him for the things he made him do. For the pain.” He put a hand to his forehead. “I think Iamsick. IamAleksey. Am I Aleksey?” With that, Nikolas tumbled backward off the bench, and it was only Ben’s quick reactions that prevented his head from hitting the stone flags of the old patio. Ben hefted him up onto his shoulder and carried him back to the makeshift bed and wondered what he should do. Nikolas was very hot, his leg was swelling, and he’d already been sick once. He decided to wait it out. He went to fetch a bowl of cool water and sat alongside the mat while Nikolas ranted in his fever. He caught a word or two when they were in English or French, but the Danish and Russian were too quick and garbled to follow. He appeared to be talking to people as if he could actually see them standing there in the room. So vivid were Nikolas’s hallucinations Ben found himself looking over his shoulder once or twice, and the skin on his scalp crawled as if being touched by unseen fingers. Radulf, wolf of the house, he noticed, was nowhere to be seen.
The fever broke in the early hours of the following morning. A very pale and very wan Nikolas opened his eyes and took a deep breath. Ben was almost asleep with his head on the bare chest, one arm over the thin waist. Nikolas pushed his fingers into Ben’s tousled hair and tugged him fully awake, and, before Ben was really cognisant, drew him up for a kiss.
It broke both of them.
Ben was the first to admit it, pulling away to stop the tears coming, trying to control his breathing, but Nikolas wasn’t far behind and, apparently, even less used to having such emotion overwhelm him. He appeared utterly unable to work out what to do, finally just throwing an arm over his face for privacy and letting the tears run.
Ben recovered first; Nikolas needed him. He lay down next to the distraught man, his face pushed into the crook of Nikolas’s shoulder, and just stroked his thumb over the prominent, wet cheekbones until the frightening crying eased. Finally, he lifted his head and murmured wryly, “So I guess we can drop the pretence that you don’t want me?” Nikolas gave a long shuddering breath and took his arm away.
“I understand my feelings well enough. It’s you that I cannot fathom. Why are you here, Benjamin?”
Ben kissed the cheekbone he’d been stroking. “Well the house was full of dead Russians, so I kinda had nowhere else to go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Nikolas wanted to sit outside in the sun and fresh air, so Ben helped him limp to the bench. He left him sitting there while he went to boil some water. He came back with another set of clean clothes, the water, and Nikolas’s shaving kit. “You want some help?” Nikolas shrugged. Ben shook his head. “Nope, gonna need more encouragement than that.”
Nikolas gave him a look that was so derisive and so familiar they both laughed, and that was even more familiar still. Ben bent down to begin the shave, but Nikolas caught him around the back of the neck and finished the kiss he’d begun earlier.
That was the most familiar of all.
While he was holding Nikolas’s face, running the razor over his stubble, Ben asked deceptively casually, “Why didn’t you just tell me, Nik?”
Nikolas was watching him carefully, the shaving forcing intimacy. “I didn’t know where to start. I tried once or twice but…” He shrugged and said a lot in that small gesture.
Ben wasn’t prepared to have to work this out, however; he wanted to hear it in words. He gave Nikolas the silent treatment for the rest of the shave, and apparently hearing plenty in this, Nikolas was forced to continue, “You can understand, Ben, that there are many aspects of my story I wouldn’t like to talk about. I didn’t want you to see me in that light. I shot my father, what sort of—?”
“Fucking hell. You’re lyingagain.” He sat back on his heels, the razor dangling soapy from his fingers. “Yourbrothershot your father!” He resumed the shaving and hissed under his breath, “What is wrong with you, Nik?”
Nikolas held his wrist still and lifted his fathomless, dark eyes to Ben’s. “Kate? I shall have to rethink her employment.” Ben eased his wrist away from the tight hold and continued the shave. He didn’t say anything, and the silence stretched uncomfortably once more. Finally, Nikolas snapped, “You want to know? All right, I’ll tell you. He had a place at Kobenhavns Universitet—university in Copenhagen…”
“Yeah, thanks for the translation. I’ve only been learning Danish for four months, so I missed that.”
Nikolas laughed at his stony words and expression, and Ben glanced up at him more, contritely. Nikolas ruffled his hair. “And we both know how well that has been going. I shall have to start teaching you. I taught…” He trailed off and swallowed, frowning. Ben suddenly felt an intense stab of pity for this man he’d been so furious with only a moment ago. Who was he to push Nikolas into these sad memories? He was about to tell him to forget it, to keep his secrets if they caused him so much pain to share, when Nikolas continued, “My father said he had to stay in Moscow and attend university there. Nika didn’t want to. Perhaps he feared our father was tiring of me. I was seventeen and not so amenable as I’d once been.”
Ben laid down the razor. “Nikolas knew? He knew what was going on between…?”
