‘I brought you.’ The look that accompanied this did nothing to ruin his mood, as it reminded him of someone else who occasionally said very similar things. He dismounted and then put his arms up and swung her down, something she really didn’t need but clearly enjoyed. She flung her arm around his waist and stretched up to kiss his cheek.
They walked their horses over, tied them to a National Park signpost, and joined the short queue. She was cheekily fishing in his pockets for his wallet when a woman behind them muttered under her breath, but loud enough to be intentionally audible, ‘You’re old enough to be her father! It’s disgusting.’
They both froze then turned their heads to her at the same moment, and he was fairly sure Emilia’s expression mirrored his own. Up to this point the stranger had only observed them from behind. Now, glancing up at his face, she appeared to be slightly regretting her comment, but she rallied and added, ‘And you should both be wearing hard hats.’
‘Should we be eating ice cream? In your opinion?’
Emilia nudged him but he ignored her. ‘Our dogs are unleashed as well. Perhaps that requires your permission?’
It could have been the accent. It might have been the actual dogs who chose that moment to appear from their rummage in the waste bin behind the van. It might have been the fearsome scar. He hoped it was what Ben called his predatory eyes, but whatever the reason, the woman was now backing away. He stepped closer. He could sense Emilia’s anxiety, the sudden plunge in her mood. He put an arm over her shoulder. ‘My daughter and I would like to order now. Do you have any suggestions?’
She woman coloured deeply, glanced between them and returned to her car. He shrugged and turned back to the man in the window, flipped Emilia’s hair to annoy her and commented dryly, ‘When you relate this story to Ben, which you will inevitably do, please mention that there were no bodies involved?’
She ordered.
They moved off to sit on some rocks beneath the tor.
She began to feed Radulf and PB their treats.
Studying her own ice cream with great intensity, she said suddenly, ‘My mother was born in America, but my grandparents were both from Ireland. They died before I was born. But I look just like her. Dad called her his Celtic princess.’
He just watched her, silent.
‘Dad never spoke Russian at home, although he rang Babushka every week, so we sort of knew he wasn’t American, but never really made the connection, I guess. But mom never talked about her parents much. Then I lost them all, and suddenly went to Russia, then Scotland, then here…’ She split her cone between the dogs. ‘I am entirely rootless. A spirit in the wind. Except for you—my father not father.’
He pulled her head closer and kissed into her hair. A rare gesture for him with anyone but Ben or Molly. ‘My daughter not daughter.’
‘Do you have any other suggestions for me?’ She sounded more like The Terminator than him, Aleksey reckoned, but it was an amusing impression.
‘This story is going to go around the family like wildfire, isn’t it? And it will be embellished on each telling?’
She stood up and cheekily offered him her hand, which he accepted, and she pulled him to his feet.
They remounted. As they urged their horses into an easy trot towards home, she said under her breath, ‘My Viking warrior.’
He replied equally slyly, ‘My Celtic princess,’ and both sensed something that had been unspoken in their relationship was now entirely settled between them.
* * *
Chapter Fifteen
Ben and Molly were home when Aleksey strode through the door. Sitting at the kitchen table doing her homework, she immediately flung herself out of her chair and into his arms, as if he’d been away a lot longer than just a week. Ben, watching this and twisting his bracelet around his wrist, gave him a slightly wan smile.
Aleksey nodded for him to put the kettle on then sat at the table with Molly on his lap. She was still in her uniform, a miniature navy blazer with purple piping, tartan kilt and a navy sweater. ‘Look at my homework book, papa. I have two gold stars already.’ Then she burst into tears.
Aleksey’s emotional reserves were slightly tapped out after his ride with Emilia, so he almost held her away with a recoil of distaste, but caught himself just in time, and instead asked in Russian, their shared private language, ‘What’s wrong, my little sunshine?’
She shook her head against his chest but before he could think to phrase this another way, she fell asleep. Ben put a pot of tea on the table with a plate of biscuits and poured him a cup. ‘She was like that all the way home—happy, crying, sleeping. I think full days are too much for her.’
‘Well she either went up a year early or fell behind a year. Autumn birthdays are like that. If she stayed down in the nursery all her friends would go on without her.’
‘I didn’t go to school all day until I was five.’
‘I was eleven—but for different reasons.’
Ben smiled. Aleksey reached out his free hand and stroked through his dark hair. Ben’s phoned buzzed and he pulled it out, read the text and appeared to cheer up remarkably quickly. ‘Squeezy says they’re going to the pub.’ He glanced a bit guiltily at him.
Aleksey definitively didn’t want to be part of that trip, so said quite genuinely, ‘Go. I’ll take her back to Sarah when she wakes up.’
