“No, fucking right you are. It’ll…I’ll maybe take it to Scotland—if I ever go…Very handy. Ta.”
Ben sighed. “Just tell him. I can’t stand the suspense.”
Nikolas laughed and handed Squeezy an envelope. “We’ve also bought the lodge we’re currently staying in from the lecherous doctor who owned it. As I’ve made you an honorary Dane, you must have a retreat on Aeroe. Here, it’s yours as well. You don’t have to take the machine to Scotland to enjoy it.” At Squeezy’s expression, he added, “Of course, we’d always welcome an invitation to join you next Christmas. Although…there’s only one bed…”
Squeezy was too overcome to hear this or take immediate advantage of its implication. He swallowed. Ben began to shiver, and Nikolas immediately urged, “Inside. You can swear some thanks at us then.”
They’d brought presents for Kate and her parents. Nikolas had left Ingrid’s present to Ben, and he’d remembered something she’d once confessed to him; she’d like to see London again and the friends she’d made there. It was an easy present, therefore; two weeks in Claridge’s hotel in the late spring with shows and trips and first class travel everywhere.
§ § §
By the time midnight had passed, Nikolas was very tired. The effort to be normal after such abnormal events had taken it out of him. Ben drove the three of them home, the sound of distant church bells reminding them of the arrival of Christmas Day. They secured the lodge, something they did methodically now every night, and went up to bed. Radulf was happy to stretch out on the sofa and enjoy the light he could see from the fire. They showered together. Nikolas needed help peeling off some of his bandaging and then replacing it, and he knew Ben just liked having him there alongside him. Ben washed Nikolas’s hair for him, carefully avoiding the stitches in his shaved, golden hair. “You’ll have to grow this out. Cover this scar up.”
“Maybe I should grow a beard. Cover the rest, too.”
“Maybe not.”
Nikolas stepped out and took two towels off the rack, passing one to Ben. “You look better.”
“I’m just fatter. I can’t believe you made us go out and eat steak before a Christmas party.”
“And I’ll continue to do so until your fatuous belief you’re stronger than me has at least some validity. But you are looking better.”
Ben climbed into bed and turned on his side, waiting for Nikolas to join him. “It seems like that was the dream now. I can’t believe I actually—” Nikolas’s fingers were on his lips, preventing him saying more about that terrible event.
He smirked. “So, it’s Christmas.”
“You don’t like Christmas, and you insisted we wouldn’t buy each other presents. Please don’t tell me you’ve bought me something anyway.” Nikolas grinned at the slight sound of panic in Ben’s voice. Things were returning to normal.
“All right, I won’t.” He pulled Ben closer, studying where he intended to kiss, building the anticipation for both of them, and then he brushed his lips over Ben’s, pulled his bottom one gently with his teeth, licking it before letting go and murmuring into the warm, eager mouth, “Do you remember the house at Horse Tor?”
Ben pulled away, sharply. “Oh, fuck, don’t tell me you’ve bought me the house!”
Nikolas frowned. “I shall curtail your friendship with Squeezy, I think. He’s a bad influence. I can’t tell you I’ve bought it, for it wasn’t for sale.”
It was Ben’s turn to frown uncertainly. “So, not such a great Christmas present then?”
“I can’t buy it for you, because you own it already, apparently. You inherited it from your real father, John Redvers, when he died.”
“Huh? Wh—? Huh?”
“Coherent to the last.” He propped himself up on one elbow, and Ben did the same, so they were facing each other, cocooned in the warm bed. “I’ve had Kate working on two things for me for some time; trying to discover your mother’s life before she arrived with you in the north of England, and discovering the provenance of the old house so we could enquire, as I promised we would, if it was for sale. She told me tonight these two strands of inquiry had merged.” He gazed at Ben. “Your mother was Elizabeth Redvers, John Redvers’s wife. When they were married, she was only seventeen and possibly pregnant with you already. He was fifty-eight. She left him four years later and took you, their only child, with her. You remember nothing of this?”
Ben shook his head. “I remembered the house—the sound of the rooks. The smell. I thought it was—”
“Your annoying and totally ridiculous belief in fate?”
Ben gave him a curious look. “And that from the man who sees and talks to ghosts.”
“Don’t change the subject, child. So, John Redvers died early this year. He spent the last three years of his life in a nursing home near Exeter. He was eighty-eight when he died. He lived at the house until he could cope no longer. He was very clear and specific in his will. He left the house and all his property to his son, Benjamin Redvers, Benjamin Rider. There’s no doubt it’s you, and I’m willing to have a DNA test done on his exhumed remains if anyone questions your rights.” Seeing Ben was not listening to him anymore he added, “I could provide your sample myself, perhaps. I often contain a great deal of your DNA these days…”
“Redvers. Rider. That’s so weird.”
“Perhaps the similarity of the names was one inducement for her to stay with your adopted father—and the proximity of the moors, which reminded her of home? At four, you’d be less likely to find the change so hard to grasp?”
“I don’t remember.”
Nikolas watched Ben carefully as he absorbed this news. He’d been in two minds on the drive back to the cabin whether to tell Ben all he’d discovered from Kate. He’d not yet told him John’s relatives were disputing the will, and this process might drag on for some time. But in the end, he’d decided it could only help Ben’s recovery to at least be given the basic information. What had happened in the bathroom two nights previous should not be forgotten by either of them, but they could move on from it—recover. Even in Nikolas’s more prosaic mind, the weeks they’d spent camped out in the old manor house on the edge of the moors now seemed like an idyll of warmth and bright colour. He could picture Ben stripped to the waist, building a dam in the stream, vital and strong; Ben running to the top of the tor every morning; Ben pressing his heavy, strong body into—
