He crossed the room, and then he was at the front door with his hand on the latch, not opening it, just standing there with his palm flat against the brass. Through the door, muffled but audible now that he was closer, Vidal’s voice came through in fragments. So he stayed where he was.
Chapter Thirty-One
Thedoor opened, and the man who came out was not Barnaby. He was dark-haired, sharp-featured, and wearing a midnight blue velvet blazer that had never been within a mile of a high street. Beneath it he had on: a white linen shirt, open at the collar, and trousers that tapered to a pair of suede loafers the colour of wet sand. He eased the door shut behind him and turned to face Lex.
This could only be one person: the Prince of Cardona. Barnaby’s other best friend. Vidal looked at Lex. His dark eyes moved from Lex’s face to his trainers and back up, the assessment unhurried, the verdict already reached.
“Alexander Murphy.” He said the name like a magistrate reading out a charge. “If I had gloves, I would challenge you to a duel.”
Lex blinked. “What?”
“A duel. Not in boxing, obviously. That would be stupid.” Vidal folded his arms across his chest. “Barnaby Fitznorman-Bicester is the platonic love of my life, but I would not risk my face for him. That would be a detriment to the world.”
“What would you do with the gloves?”
Vidal’s chin lifted. “Why, throw them in your face, of course! To express my disgust at your behaviour.”
Lex’s shoulders dropped. The fight posture he hadn’t realised he was holding drained out of him, because this man was five foot ten in his loafers and had the upper body strength of someone whose primary exercise was waving his arm around vigorously to emphasise his points, but he’d still come out here ready to go. For Barnaby.
“I deserve worse than that.”
Vidal flung his arms wide. The blazer billowed dramatically. “Well, yes,obviously!But one must follow tradition. And this, you see, is exactly what has got our Barnaby into trouble.” His voice climbed, gaining momentum and volume, because Vidal clearly wasn’t worried about the neighbours. “He did not follow the tradition of remaining a repressed English aristocrat. He was supposed to marry a girl called Arabella with a face like a horse and a trust fund and a cottage in the Cotswolds, and instead, you — ” Vidal jabbed a finger at Lex’s chest. “You drew him out. You fed him squid ink crisps and touched his hair, and he opened up like a…like a mussel that has been steamed, you understand? Heopened, both emotionally andsensuallyto you! And then youhurthim.”
Vidal’s arms dropped to his sides. His voice went flat.
“So now he has turtled. He is back inside his shell, and his shell is cashmere, and reads a book he is not really reading. He is being very polite to everyone, and he willneverlove again. For at least a couple of years, because he is nervy.” Vidal’s jaw tightened. “This is what you have done. You have taken a man who was brave enough to want something, and you have taught him that wanting things is dangerous.”
The silence after Vidal’s words sat between them on the doorstep. Lex didn’t try to fill it. He’d spent his whole career learning when to throw and when to absorb, and this was an absorbing moment if ever there’d been one.
He held up the shoebox he’d been carrying. Inside it was everything of Barnaby’s that had accumulated in his flat over the past few months: a mobile charger, a pair of cashmere socks rolled into a tight cylinder, a tortoiseshell comb that Barnaby kept in the bathroom, and Florence’s squeaky pork chop, which had been wedged behind the sofa cushion since her last visit.
“I’m not here to cause trouble,” Lex said. “I’ve got some of his stuff. Thought I’d drop it back.”
Vidal looked at the box. “You could have posted it.”
“Yeah.” Lex’s thumb ran along the edge of the lid. “I could’ve.”
“But you were hoping to see him.”
Lex didn’t answer that. He shifted the box to his other hand and reached inside. The squeaky pork chop was wedged beneath the socks. He pulled it out and held it up.
It was pink rubber, chewed at one end, with a moulded bone sticking out of it at an angle. He squeezed it once. The squeak cut through the quiet of Chester Square, high and sharp and unmistakable. From inside the house, Florence barked. A single, joyful detonation of recognition, followed by the scrabble of claws on hardwood as she launched herself at the front door.
Vidal’s head whipped round. He pressed his palm flat against the door behind him. “No. No, no, no. You will not weaponise the dog.”
“I’m not weaponising the dog. I’m returning her toy.”
“You are standing on this doorstep looking like a man who has been left out in the rain, which you have not. It is what you English consider a beautiful day today, and it is overcast at best. You are squeezing a small rubber pork chop to summon the onlymember of this household who is still pleased to see you. This is manipulation.”
“It’s a squeaky toy, mate.”
“It isemotionalmanipulation via a squeaky toy, and I will not allow it.” Vidal drew himself up. Behind the door, Florence whined and scratched at the wood. “You will not be given entrance just because you are a sad big man who looks like he has wilted.”
Lex put the pork chop back in the box. Florence’s scratching intensified, and then stopped, replaced by a low, sustained whine that was worse.
He sat down on the front step. The stone was cold through his joggers, and Vidal was still standing over him, arms folded, blazer catching the breeze. A woman walked past on the opposite pavement with a Waitrose bag for life.
“I’ve fucked everything up,” Lex said. He wasn’t looking at Vidal. He was looking at his hands, the tape marks still visible on both wrists. “I know I have. I know what I did and I know why it was wrong. I know saying sorry doesn’t undo it all.” He turned his hands over and pressed them flat on his thighs. “People who used to cross a restaurant to shake my hand walk the other way now. My agent’s working eighteen-hour days keeping what’s left of my career on life support. I’ve lost the Lucozade deal, the BOA’s probably done with me, and the King’s Trust haven’t even returned my calls, which is its own kind of verdict.” He paused. “None of that’s what keeps me up at night.”
