ELEVEN
Evie didn’t bother going to breakfast. There would have been nothing to eat. Nothing to do but look at him across the table, and smell all the sausages and bacon and hot, buttered bread, and listen to them all talk about the day’s sport .
It’s what I’m here for.
She knew that was true. Of course she knew that was true. It was the reason for the whole weekend, showing Domnall that wonderful British tradition of killing things that didn’t need to be killed, all of it an excuse really, for her father to show off his land, to show off the men that worked for him, to show off his guns and the gundogs, pedigree bred for generations. The poor birds were just collateral damage.
The dried poppy head she was twisting in her fingers snapped off, and she winced guiltily, quickly breaking it open to at least scatter the seeds around, before wandering deeper into the garden. There were broad, manicured beds here at the side of the house. They led to the rhododendron walk—narrow paths between dense, glossy bushes. Almost a maze, they grew so high. In the summer, they were tropical bright, covered in red and pink flowers. Now just the leaves remained, dark green and a little dusty, dead brown ones on the path, leathery and dried, crackling faintly under her feet. A few birds flitted in the secret shadows deep within the bushes, but not much else moved. These were ornamental plants, grown for show, not wildlife.
Around a corner, she could see a patch of green, the great lawn opening up, bigger than several football fields, separating the back of Conyers House from the distant brick wall that marked the boundary of Redbridge—the smaller estate where Amy lived.
It’s where she was heading, taking this long, winding route among the secrecy of the cave-like rhododendrons, because first she needed…she needed…she didn’t know what. Just that she was irritable and on edge.
It was Aubrey’s fault. The way he’d looked at her! Like she was an idiot. “This is how you’re helping, is it? Humiliating me in front of my client?” Heat crawled up her neck, and a rhododendron leaf went the same way as the poppy, torn between her fingers. Yes, fine, it had been a stupid thing to do. But honestly, it really had been spur of the moment. Waking up with Aubrey in her bed, all the hard features of his face softened, and the memory of words in the night still hanging in the air. For a moment, he’d felt like a friend. As though they were on the same side. He’d confided in her, come to her room when he had nowhere else to go. And on hearing Liv’s voice outside, well… Why not pay her back? The walls of Conyers weren’t that thin. If Aubrey had heard her last night, it was because she’d wanted to be heard. What better revenge than to make her think Aubrey had spent the whole night in her room and hadn’t heard a peep?
“You’re insane.”
“At least I don’t kill animals for fun,” she muttered to the garden air. It didn’t care. And besides, she wasn’t really talking to the garden, she was talking to Aubrey the way he was in her mind, pressed up against her in that corridor after they stumbled into the wall, his body against hers. An echo of the feeling went through her. And with it, the same flutter of excitement. He was a tall, strong, well-built, very solid sort of man. And his body had entirely covered hers. Again she saw it all in a flash. The laughing tumble out of her room, the jar as her back hit the wall, the pressure and heat of his body against hers, his mouth against her ear, his palm against the wall on her other side. Aubrey everywhere—just for a moment. Smell and touch and warmth and pressure.
“My current impulse is to throttle you.”
Humiliating, that her impulse had been almost entirely the opposite: Her mouth on his neck, not her fingers.
The rhododendrons ran out, and she was back on the open lawn, a weak dawn sketching the scene in silver and muted pastels. The blue gate in the brick wall that led to Redbridge was a flash of colour. She lifted her chin and set off towards it, but two voices, calling almost at once, halted her step.
Amy, calling from the right, coming round the side of the house leading two donkeys in rope halters. And much closer, Aubrey’s voice, coming from her left, from the back of the house.
“Evie.”
She stopped, looked around at him.
He had changed for the hunt. Instead of the traditional tweeds her father always wore, he was in sturdy black trousers, leather boots, a black-t-shirt and a jacket that was halfway between country wear and sportswear. He looked like a very competent and probably quite senior member of the military elite attempting to pass incognito as a civilian. Failing.
“You’re sulking,” he accused her, before he’d even stopped walking. He came up to her in a rush, seeming to see only her, though Amy and the donkeys were by now only a few metres away. “It’s unfair to hate me for going shooting when I don’t have a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice.”
His eyes narrowed in irritation, then he jumped, cursing, as a big shaggy donkey head stretched out and lipped curiously at his jacket. “What the—?”
“Sorry,” Amy said, pulling ineffectually on the lead rope. “Quixote thinks everything is food.”
Evie watched the exchange, laughing despite her mood. There was a smear of green slobber on the sleeve of Aubrey’s jacket.
“Aubrey, this my friend Amy. And these are Quixote and Panza.” She stepped up to the donkeys and rubbed Panza behind one of his long, drooping ears.
“Do they shake hands?” Aubrey said dryly, offering his own to Amy. She shook it, regarding him with what appeared to Evie to be open curiosity.
Amy laughed. “Not yet.”
Aubrey studied the donkeys for a moment. “Spanish, I presume. Given the names.” He looked at Evie. “Your donkeys. From your Spanish sanctuary. The one that got shut down.”
She paused, surprised he’d remembered, occupying herself with a long stroke of Panza’s ear before replying. “Yes. They were all I could afford to save. I had them shipped to England. Amy has stables at Redbridge. I knew they’d have a good home there.”
Amy smiled. “The new stars of our petting farm. Seemed like we may as well do it, given we’ve already got pigs, sheep, and chickens. The visitors love them. They’ve had a very spoilt summer.”
Evie grinned, studying the fat donkeys, their dusty, shaggy coats. They’d never look smart, but they were vastly improved from the starving, mangy things that had arrived at the sanctuary. “They’re looking gorgeous, Amy. Were you bringing them to see me?”
“Yes. And to persuade you to let me drag you back to Redbridge and spend the day.”
“As if I need persuading! I was heading there anyway. I’ve no desire to be at Conyers today.”
Amy flashed Aubrey a speculative look. He was frowning at the donkeys as though he’d never seen one in his life. Perhaps he hadn’t. He stretched out a tentative hand. Quixote gave it a polite sniff.
“Aubrey’s here with my father. On business,” Evie said, although she’d already told Amy and Hugo all this last night. But Amy’s expression seemed to demand the point be repeated. “They’re going to shoot some birds this morning,” she added with a sharp smile. “Apparently it’s an essential part of modern business.”
Aubrey gave her a sour look.
“You do have a choice,” she said, unable to stop herself continuing the conversation they were having before Amy arrived.
“I beg to differ.”
But Amy was watching, and Evie couldn’t give way to the emotions pressing on her. She barely knew what they were anyway. She tossed her head and tried to smile, scratching Panza’s neck with a small shrug. “Tell them you strained your arm snatching candy from babies.”
“Yes. Well. Some of those toddlers are surprisingly strong.”
Amy laughed, then hid it guiltily because she was on Evie’s side. Surely. Had to be.
Evie had no comeback. Don’t do it, was all she could think to say. I can’t bear it. Don’t do it. She focused on Panza’s neck, on the fur and the coarse, grey-tipped guard hairs.
Aubrey waited for her to speak, or maybe he paused, trying to find his own line. Either way, they were silent for a moment. Until he gave up, bid a polite farewell to Amy, and left, heading back to the house. Evie could hear the vehicles in the yard. Men’s voices. The shooting party assembling.
“Interesting man,” said Amy casually.
“Awful man.”
“Good sense of humour.”
“Strange, twisted sense of humour.”
“Young—”
“Barely.”
“Attractive, friends with Roscoe…”
“Ugh. Stop it, Amy. He’s worse than my father.”
Amy gave her a look.
“OK,” Evie conceded. “Not worse. But same ballpark. Besides…” She gave Panza’s neck a firm pat, sending up a cloud of dust. “You like Hugo. I don’t trust your taste in men at all.”
Even from Redbridge, Evie occasionally caught the sound of distant shots, carried on the air. She tensed each time, a shudder going through her.
Amy, who was working alongside her, the two of them tidying up vegetable beds in Redbridge’s walled garden ready for winter, grimaced in sympathy. “I know it’s horrid. Try not to think about it.”
It was a common enough sound in the autumn months, especially around here. Evie had thought she was used to it, had finally grown out of the childish softness that sent her running in tears to her room every time the shots rang out in the field or the hounds in full voice led the horses galloping. But today, her mind was there, among the tweed and the clack of loading shells and the smell of guns and the good-natured, hard-working gundogs, their panting breath foggy in the air.
Aubrey was there. Mud on his boots. Shotgun broken over the crook of his arm. Or raised to his cheek, dark eye tracking the flight of some helpless bird.
Crack.
She jumped as the faint noise reached her across the fields.
“They’ll be finishing soon anyway,” said Amy. “They’re back for lunch, the housekeeper said so. Your dad’s insisting Hugo and I go over today. I’m going to make an excuse for lunch, but I don’t think we’ll be able to avoid dinner.”
“They’ll serve the duck they’ve shot,” Evie said glumly, pulling a bamboo cane from the earth and adding it to her bundle. “The partridge.”
“Surely you can escape dinner?” Amy said gently, knowing full well the state of things between Evie and her father. The man would want Hugo there, as eldest son and heir. And Amy, gentle and polite and the daughter of a family even older than theirs, was always welcome at Conyers. Her father approved of Amy. Or the Amy he knew, who sat meekly and quietly and appeared to act exactly like he wished his own daughter would.
Should Evie avoid dinner? She was still very far from achieving her goal. Aubrey would be leaving tomorrow morning. It seemed impossible, right now, to imagine a scenario in which he would comfortably leave her alone in a room with his laptop. It was something he’d only do with a friend, a lover…
“My current impulse is to throttle you.”
Evie winced, though no shot sounded. There wasn’t a single thing she’d done so far today that had helped her mission. She worked silently down the line of canes, bundling them together absently. Maybe she ought to tell FTP it couldn’t be done. But she’d already let them down once. All she needed was a few emails. Just a few minutes' access. It wouldn’t hurt Aubrey—FTP would keep his name out of it. She just needed more time…
“I could survive dinner,” she said to Amy. “If you’re there.”
“Then I’ll be there,” Amy said. “Even if there is something you’re not telling me.”
Evie tensed. “What?”
“Why, if everything you told me earlier is true, is the entire Conyers household under the impression you’re actually, um…”
“What?” Evie asked warily, though she could guess exactly what it was.
“That you’re…um…” Amy paused, always awkward about these things.
Evie yanked out another cane. “Shagging Aubrey Ford, my dad’s head of tax strategy?”
“Not quite how my housekeeper put it… But. Yes.”
Evie shook her head. “No. It’s just cover for this FTP thing. Explains why I’m there. Gets me close to Domnall.”
The story she’d told Amy and Hugo was the same one she’d told Aubrey: that she was there merely to observe Domnall. She busied herself with untangling some garden wire from the fence post at the end of the row. Lying to Amy was her least favourite part of the whole plan. But she didn’t want anyone to know Aubrey’s unwitting role in her real mission. And when, in his usual non-subtle way, Hugo had exclaimed yesterday upon seeing her, “Why on earth are you at Conyers while Dad’s here with his awful work people?” she couldn’t bring herself to tell them the real plan. Hugo was already laughing at her anyway before she explained more than the briefest outline.
“My sister, the spy. You’re hardly inconspicuous. Didn’t they see those photos of you chained to a bulldozer?”
“You really think this Domnall man is going to say something incriminating?” Amy asked now. “Something FTP can use?”
The jagged end of the wire snagged on Evie’s finger, gave her a tiny, stinging cut. She sucked it briefly, shaking her head in reply. “I have no idea. But you never know what might happen.”
“And this Aubrey man…”
“Fake.”
“He knows?”
“He knows it’s fake.”
“But he knows what you’re planning with Domnall?”
“He hates Domnall.” She explained briefly about Liv. “So you see, it’s very definitely all fake. I hate him, and he only has eyes for Liv. We’re just using each other.”
Amy nodded. Said nothing.