‘I really don’t want you to worry about this, Noah. I don’t care how you got here; honestly I’m just grateful that you did.’
Noah’s head hung onto his chest, and Opal used her free hand to lift his chin up to meet her gaze. ‘I want you know that you deserve to be here as much as anybody.’
‘But I lied to you, Opal, and you’ve been so good to me …’
This time her hand found his lips, her index finger quietening his words. Adam stopped in his tracks.
‘Please, Noah, don’t. I … The truth is that you’ve awakened something in me.’ Adam could see the creep of Opal’s blush,even from this distance, even in this light. ‘Something that I thought that I’d lost … or rather something that had been stolen …’
It was she, now, who dropped her eyes down. ‘You’re a beautiful soul, Noah, inside and out …’
Later, after he had snuck away, back into the house, and back into his bed, when he was replaying the scene over and over in his mind, Adam wouldn’t be able to decide for certain who leant in first.
Maybe it had been Opal when she caught Noah’s eyes again who had parted her lips slightly and tilted her head up towards him. Or maybe it had been Noah who had mirrored her gesture from moments before and lifted her face up to his. Had she been quicker to wind her fingers into his hair, or had he circled her waist and pulled her into him first?
Adam would agonise over the particulars until the sunlight filtered through his heavy curtains. Either version of events made Adam’s stomach churn with angst. He had been too slow, too cautious in his approach of Noah and now it was too late. The viper had struck. Opal and her husband deserved each other. As the sun rose in the sky, Adam fell into a fitful sleep and it was the intercut scenes of the lord and lady of the manor tending to their nubile prey that haunted his dreams.
Chapter 34
They were sitting toe to toe in the bathtub. It was quite an intimate set-up if Ruby thought about it too much, and as she was stoned, she was invariably thinking about it too much. They had taken their shoes off without much thought, as though they might actually be getting ready to run the water. Then Ruby had rolled her stockings down. Now with the rest of their bodies fully clothed, the nakedness of their feet was distracting. Heather’s toenails were painted a deep blue, which Ruby found surprising. But then again that was Heather: endlessly surprising.
She was reserved and yet forthright, butch and yet delicate, no-nonsense and yet understanding. Ruby didn’t think she’d ever met anyone like Heather before.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Heather asked as she passed Ruby the joint. They’d rolled a towel under the door and opened the windows wide. Ruby could see the perfect crescent of the moon resting on top of the treeline. She found herself suddenly embarrassed by Heather’s question.
‘Just how weird toes are.’ It was partly true. Heather’s expression remained unchanged; she seemed to be bothacknowledging Ruby’s answer and asking for more. Ruby was compelled to say, ‘And thinking about how dope you are.’
Heather broke into an easy smile. ‘I think you’re dope too.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you, you know? That dressing-down you gave Johan as well …’ Ruby shook her head and sucked her teeth in admiration. The two began to laugh.
‘You pulled a few punches as well. That posh boy reveal was something else. How did you work that out?’
‘It just came to me earlier. There was this guy who …’ Ruby trailed off. She’d all but forgotten about her encounter with creepy Neil. ‘He, you know, he was getting … close.’ Ruby peeked up through her eyelashes at Heather, who nodded understandingly. Ruby didn’t need to expand, or explain. There was the mutual experience of being a woman in the world that didn’t need spelling out.
‘Anyway, Johan sort of stepped up, and got me away from the perv, but not before the perv recognised him, asked him if he was the “Anker boy”.’ Ruby leant over to pass the joint back.
‘And then after I was thinking, like ship and anchor, until I saw spotted the engraving on the back of the bench earlier:Bestowed by Sir Sebastian Anker, Marquis of wherever the fuck, and it clicked.’
‘Wow.’ Heather seemed impressed and Ruby revelled in it. ‘You know I always thought there was something dodgy about him,’ Heather mused, ‘and what does he even need that money for anyway if he’s some kind of duke?’
Ruby hadn’t yet considered this, and she felt the discomfort of rage course through her. ‘Who the fuck knows – just wantsto make sure none of us upstart riff-raff get a look-in?’ Ruby tried to sound unbothered.
Heather seemed to sense the incongruence between her words and her feelings. ‘What’s going on between you two? I can never figure it out.’
‘You’ve been trying, have you?’ Ruby felt a flicker in the pit of her stomach at the thought of being on Heather’s mind.
Heather shrugged, and even scrutinising her face, Ruby couldn’t get a read. It was unsettling. ‘I don’t know. He’s a weird bloke. Reeks of … insecurity.’
Ruby nodded slowly. Her first instinct was to defend Johan, which surprised her, but if she was being honest with herself, she agreed with Heather. She’d never quite been able to put her finger on it; maybe something about the magnetism of the attraction between them had blinded her to it, but now that she thought about it, he was a man who needed to be reassured. Reassured that she wanted him, reassured that he was desirable.
Every night that she had sneaked into his bedroom he had asked her to spend the night. Usually he tried to play it off as nonchalant. ‘Will you be staying tonight?’ But each time that her answer was no he failed to hide his disappointment. And then there was the kissing thing. Ruby hadn’t done it on purpose; in fact she’d been taken aback when he mentioned it.
‘You know we’ve never kissed?’ Johan had said. And Ruby had resisted the urge to protest just long enough to realise it was true. That first night in the corridor their lips had never met, and since then, their lips had made acquaintance with almost every other part of each other’s bodies. But it was truethat when they were fucking, it was always at arm’s length. They would watch each other more than they would hold each other. In Ruby’s mind that made sense; they were combatants rather than partners.
When Johan had brought it up, though, it was plaintively. The conversation had been so off-putting that Ruby had fled his bed even quicker than usual.
‘I’d say that’s a fair assessment.’ Ruby held Heather’s gaze, simultaneously daring Heather to ask more and fearing that she would. Heather didn’t push it. It was Ruby who felt compelled to say something more. ‘We’ve fucked a couple of times, but I think he’s more keen than I am.’
