“Hendrix Riff Beauchamp. That’s what’s on my birth certificate.”
Vidal didn’t laugh. He didn’t raise an eyebrow, or repeat it back with delighted mockery. He held Beauchamp’s gaze across the rug and let the name sit in the room between them.
“Hendrix Riff.”
“Yes, sir.”
“From your music-loving mother.”
“From my music-lovingfather, sir. Mum had no say in the matter and makes sure everyone knows that.”
Vidal nodded, slow and considered.
“I like it. It is a good name. It has a rhythm to it, and a wildness. I can see how a man who loves his music might have given it to a son.” He nodded decisively. “But I shall keep calling you Beauchamp, I think. It suits you better.”
“All right, sir.”
Vidal pushed himself up off the sofa with the mobile clutched against his chest. “I am going to ring Fidel to congratulate him. Also to extract a promise from him that he will not, under any circumstances, attemptEl cant dels ocellswithout first sending me a recording for my approval. This may take some time, Beauchamp. Do not wait up.”
“I won’t, sir.”
“Enjoy your match. I hope, for the sake of our continued cohabitation, that Atlético score four in the next ten minutes.”
“Unlikely, sir.”
“A man can dream.”
He went down the corridor with the mobile already pressed to his ear. Beauchamp picked his beer up from the side table and settled back into the armchair to watch the rest of the match.
Chapter Seventeen
Mercèhad given up on him around ten. She was now curled in the warm dent at the far end of the sofa, her back pointedly turned to him. He had not taken her downstairs to the garden to see Connor, and now she was sulking.
Vidal did not want to be made to feel better about his situation. This morning, he wanted to sit on the sofa in rumpled clothes and stare at the wall, feeling exactly as miserable as he was.
He had been there for some hours when he became dimly aware that Beauchamp had let himself out of the flat. This was unusual enough to register through the fog. Beauchamp had, ever since the TikTok fiasco, made a habit of dispatching Young or one of the others for the daily errands, on the grounds that the principal was safer when his attaché was in the building with him. Vidal had taken this as yet another act of care from the man.
Vidal considered this change in behaviour, clocked it as Beauchamp reacting to him being unpleasant and cranky, and then went back to staring at the wall.
The flat’s door opened again some time after eleven. Vidal heard the soft clunk of the deadbolt and the shuffle of a man wiping his shoes on the mat. Beauchamp stopped in the archway to the drawing room, holding the paper bag against his hip with one hand and a white box from a patisserie with the other.
“Sir.”
“Beauchamp.”
Beauchamp came into the room and set the box down on the coffee table. From the paper bag he produced a candle in a familiar glass jar with a cream oval-shaped label. He placed it on the side table next to Vidal’s elbow without ceremony.
It was Diptyque’s Figuier candle. The one he had been describing to Beauchamp in the back of the Bentley on the night of his arrival. “And these,” Beauchamp said, opening the white box, “are for Adelina.”
Inside the box were two cupcakes. They were small and neat, frosted in pale buttercream, and into the top of each one Beauchamp had pressed a single thin pink birthday candle.
Vidal stood up. Mercè, dislodged, gave him a wounded look from the cushion. He crossed the rug in two strides and put his arms around Beauchamp, pressing his face into the warm wool of his charcoal jumper. After a beat, Beauchamp brought one hand up and laid it briefly between Vidal’s shoulder blades.
There were several things Vidal might have said then, but that would have ruined the moment. Instead he held on to Beauchamp for a long unhurried moment. When he stepped back, he held out his hand for the lighter that Beauchamp produced from the front pocket of his jeans.
He lit the first candle, then the second, shielding the flames with the curve of his palm until they steadied. He sat back on his heels and looked at them.
“Adelina Sofia Montcada.” His voice was quiet. “Welcome to the world, my darling girl. Your uncle Vidal is in London, and he is lighting a candle for you. He is going to spoil you so completely when he meets you that your mother will never forgive him.”
