SEVENTEEN
Evie followed the others through to the dining room with zero expectation of enjoyment. She’d never had any hopes for the whole evening, even with Hugo and Amy there, because her father was holding tight to the reins until the very last jump, and this whole elaborate evening, from the fancy clothes to the row of roasted birds down the laden dining table, was designed purely with Domnall in mind. Everyone else was an accessory. And her father would be watching her like a hawk, already in a bad mood at her still being here.
But despite all that, she’d left her room with something close to excitement in her heart, something fluttery and daft anyway, imagining tormenting Aubrey in some unspecified way, getting that muscle to tic in his jaw, bringing that unholy dark anger into his eyes, and forcing him to abandon the usual smooth disinterestedness he adopted around everyone else in order to fight.
Childish pranks, she reminded herself bitterly, seeing again the scorn on his face at Liv’s suggestion that he liked her. Her? his whole manner had suggested, Don’t be absurd.
She found, not to her surprise, that her father had done the traditional thing and split the couples up, seating Liv to his right at the head of the table, and Domnall to his left. Hugo sat on Liv’s right, and Evie sat next to him. Poor Amy was sitting to Domnall’s left, with Aubrey on her other side, facing Evie. She took her seat, arranged the napkin on her lap, though not even a crumb would fall on it, and, ignoring Aubrey who she was currently finding it difficult to look at for reasons too absurd to contemplate, smiled across the table at Amy.
Amy smiled back, resigned, then turned to Domnall, who was complimenting her on her dress. While staring at the velvet sweetheart neckline. At Evie’s side, Hugo watched, mouth set, turning a knife over in his fingers. Without taking his eyes off them, he leant towards Evie and whispered, “I suppose it’d take the shine off Dad’s whole weekend if I stabbed the guest of honour in the eye?”
Evie bit back a laugh. “It might.”
“Just checking.”
“But I’d help you hide the body.”
“Thanks, sis.”
Evie laughed again, then took a sip of water, inadvertently meeting Aubrey’s eye across the table. His expression told her nothing. He’d taken her elbow when she descended the stairs, escorted her to the hall where a fire was blazing in the ancient, enormous hearth, brought her a drink from the sideboard where they were being served, and said very little at all. There were only around twelve hours until he left, taking his laptop with him. Evie’s stomach gave an uneasy lurch, and she put her glass back down.
The food, arriving shortly afterwards, was exactly as she’d expected. Excessive and, to her, inedible. She pleated the napkin on her lap, listening to Liv’s raptures over the crackling on the duck, then looked up in surprise as Howell came back into the room, making a rather grand entrance with an enormous covered silver platter in his hands.
“A vegan meal for Miss Evelyn, courtesy of Redbridge,” he announced, and walked towards her, placing the platter in the space in front of her hastily cleared by one of the waiting staff.
“What’s this?” her father called. Everyone had paused eating. They were looking at her, the platter, the frown on her father’s face.
“Oh, ah…” Hugo said. “It’s um…from me.”
“You arranged this?” asked their father.
“Well, she can’t exactly eat the duck, can she?”
Her father’s jaw clenched. He hated having his authority disrespected. But Domnall was watching, seeming amused by the brewing domestic. The lure of money won out. George schooled his expression. “We’ll talk about this later.”
Hugo nodded tightly, the threat clear.
“Actually,” Aubrey said. “I asked Hugo to do it. If you’re annoyed that your daughter will get to eat dinner, take it up with me.”
Evie stared at him, but he was watching her father, face cool. If he was worried about her father’s wrath, he didn’t show it.
“Oh, God,” groaned Hugo beside her, hand over his eyes. “I told him not to say it.”
She looked at Amy next, trying to figure it out, but her friend shrugged, eyes wide, clearly no wiser than her. Whatever it was, it had been cooked up between the two men.
She looked again at Aubrey. He gave her a faint smile that seemed as much apology as anything. Why had he…? Why…? She forced back the idiotic threat of tears. Not now.
“Young love!” called Domnall, breaking the silence and raising his glass. “I think it’s charming.”
“Agreed,” said Amy stoutly, aiming a wink at Evie as she raised her glass, too.
And Howell, who had been waiting patiently by her elbow the whole time, now lifted the lid from the platter and calmly asked, “Shall I serve?”
“Aubrey!” she hissed, catching his sleeve, because the stupid man was on the verge of disappearing into the drawing room with all the others.
He looked back at her, frowning faintly, as though he couldn’t for the life of him think why she would want to speak to him alone. “Yes?”
Her reply was to tow him after her back down the hall until they reached an empty room. A small morning room, hardly used, now full of dusty globes and moth-bitten rugs. Oh well. It would do.
She closed the door behind them. Aubrey looked down at her, seeming mildly amused. She let go of his sleeve.
“It was you? You asked Hugo?” She didn’t know what to ask, or how. “But… Why? Why would you do that for me?”
“It puts me off my food, watching you sit there with an empty plate, and I was looking forward to the duck.” He made it sound very straightforward. A completely normal thing to do.
“But…when did you…?”
“I met Hugo in the garden at Redbridge this morning.”
Evie nodded, still completely thrown. No one had ever… Well, sometimes Roscoe smuggled in some bread, but no one had ever…
“My father’s going to kill you.”
“For giving my girlfriend dinner? Didn’t you hear Domnall? Apparently it was romantic.”
He said it with such dark sarcasm that Evie immediately felt stupid for believing it had meant anything at all.
“He’ll be angry, though,” she said, sticking with the one part of this she understood for certain.
“He needs me too much to fire me.” Then, bitterly: “I know too much.”
She frowned up at him. “What do you mean? The Domnall thing? It’s dodgy, isn’t it, the strategies you’re working on for him?”
She didn’t want him to say yes, but the confirmation was there in his eyes before he cleared it away, turning to glance around the room as though noticing it for the first time.
“Aubrey,” she said, reaching out for his sleeve again. “Don’t… Don’t do it if it’s wrong…”
He gave a small, humourless laugh and stepped back, away from her touch, sitting against the edge of a large desk that was crowding the space, his arms folded. “It’s all wrong according to you, Evie. The whole job, all of it. According to you, I’m up to my eyeballs in sin.”
“Why are you being so spiky? All I wanted to do was thank you for dinner. I’m allowed to not want you to get arrested for tax fraud, aren’t I?”
He gave another humourless laugh. “No one’s going to get arrested, Evie. It doesn’t work like that. It’s all entirely commonplace, even the worst of the things we might do. It’s everywhere. They’re all doing it. I’m more likely to get promoted than punished.”
“Well, great,” she said sourly. “Good for you.”
“But I was brought up to be a lawyer,” Aubrey continued, ignoring her sarcasm. “I was brought up with all those noble beliefs you probably have embroidered on your pillow, tattooed on your flesh—honesty and integrity and fairness, the whole damn lot. And now you…” He waved a hand at her. “You’ve gone and reminded me I’ve got a bloody conscience. And I’m extremely pissed off about it.”
She looked at him, suddenly wanting to laugh. “Sorry.”
“You should be.”
“I imagine it’s very inconvenient.”
He gave her a heavy look. “Terrible timing, Evie. Absolutely appalling.”
She really was laughing now, and he finally broke into a reluctant smile.
“So what are you going to do?” she asked.
He looked away from her and stood up, straightening his jacket. “My job. I still have to do it. But now I get to feel really, really bad about it.”
She followed Aubrey back to the drawing room, feeling like a lot of important things she’d really meant to say had been left unsaid. But that was unsurprising. He hardly ever let her speak. Not when the conversation had anything to do with him.
Perhaps all the business talk had been concluded, or was being saved for later as dawn was breaking, over whisky and cigars, because her father made no effort to cloister Domnall away with Aubrey and Liz but seemed content for all of them to stay together in the drawing room, being liberally supplied with drink.
But all the alcohol in the world couldn’t make it fun—not for Evie. Or Amy, or Hugo, or, she strongly suspected, Aubrey, though he gave no sign of it, sitting in an armchair near Domnall, conversing in his usual laconic way, drink held loosely in one hand, dryly drawing shouts of laughter from the other man.
Doing his job.
How could he stand it? Even with the little crack he’d just admitted to in his otherwise indifferent shell, he’d probably continue doing it forever. That bit of grit, that germ of a conscience, ignored and buried, made smooth. No one would ever know. Just as they’d never know he loved a woman to distraction. Drove Evie herself to distraction. Saved Domnall from ketchup and Evie from ruin. Had a heart as unfathomable as those secret rifts in the ocean floor, and just as deep. No one would know. They’d see the suits and the ironic smile. He’d do his job, obey her father. And all because he chose it. Why?
“That was so nice,” Amy said, coming to sit beside her, voice low, because Evie’s father was nearby. “What he did at dinner.”
“Mm.” Evie looked away from Aubrey and sipped her drink. Liv was standing behind Domnall’s chair, her hands on his shoulders as she joined their conversation, laughing merrily at whatever Aubrey had just said, eyes fastened to his face.
“I wish I’d thought of it myself,” Amy said. “But I never would have guessed Howell would agree to it.”
“He looks scarier than he is,” said Evie, who’d always liked the man despite his loyalty to her father. He used to occasionally pass her a useful stick if he found her staring stricken at a puddle of drowning insects. Or silently hand her a handkerchief on the many occasions she was overcome by tears.
“Howell or Aubrey?” teased Amy, grinning.
Evie pulled a face. “There’s nothing scary about Aubrey Ford.”
“He’s sort of stern-looking sometimes, don’t you think? Almost severe. Even when he’s laughing, it feels like he’s mocking you.” Amy frowned to herself. “I wouldn’t want to make him angry.”
Evie laughed. “I seem to do nothing else.”
“Isn’t it scary?”
“No.” She sipped her drink. “It makes me horny.”
Amy choked on a laugh. “Oh my God…”
“I keep fantasising about being spanked.”
Amy hid behind her hand, shaking with suppressed laughter.
Evie just grimaced at her drink, thinking she’d probably had enough. “I think I’ve got issues, Amy.”
“Dozens,” agreed Amy, still quivering with laughter.
“What are you two laughing at?” said Hugo, appearing behind them and leaning on the back of the small sofa where they sat.
“You don’t want to know,” said Evie.
“You really don’t,” seconded Amy, grinning up at him.
He gave them both a suspicious look. “I suspect you’re right.” Then he glanced around the room and leant down. “I came over to warn you, Domnall has just asked if there’s going to be dancing in a bit. I suspect he’s watched some period drama and thinks we’re going to wheel in a gramophone and break into a fox trot. Amy, this is our cue to leave.”
“Yes, go, escape.” Evie flapped a hand at them—mainly at Amy, who was looking guilty at abandoning her.
“You can sleep at Redbridge, you know. Come with us.”
But Evie, thinking about a laptop in a leather case, and whether a tipsy Aubrey might get careless about leaving it unlocked, declined the offer. “Don’t worry about me. Go, flee, before we’re asked to form a quadrille.”
They left, and Evie sat alone, content to be so, half-heartedly eavesdropping on the others but learning nothing of interest. She went to the bathroom and walked back, stomach dropping as she crossed the gallery that led to the drawing room because…
A gramophone had been wheeled out, and a waltz was playing, her father, Liv, and Aubrey standing awkwardly by while Domnall gestured enthusiastically. He caught sight of her and hurried over, grabbing her by the waist before she had time to do anything but think, Oh Shit.
Domnall clasped her close against him, and she very much regretted the near backless nature of her dress, because his large damp palm was pressed on her bare skin, and his damp red face was grinning inches from hers. He stank of spirits.
“Beautiful Evie, finally we can get properly acquainted.”
“Um…”
He forced her to turn with him, moving them a few paces forwards and back, not really dancing, but rather as though she was a Christmas tree he was trying to heft through a narrow doorway. His hand creeped lower on her back, his hot breath against her ear, and his other hand dropped hers and came down to grip her waist, pulling her harder into the flesh of his stomach and bumping her up against the insistent little bulge lower down.
Oh my God.
She tried to pull away. “Domnall, I—”
“I must cut in.” Aubrey’s voice. Aubrey there, gripping Domnall by the shoulder and taking her by the arm, pulling the man away like levering a leech from its victim.
Domnall was drunk enough he took no offence, just laughed and slapped Aubrey on the back. “All’s fair, my man, in love and war.” Then he was lurching across the room in pursuit of Liv.
Aubrey didn’t dance. He took Evie’s hand and led her out of the gallery, through the tall glass windows which had been opened to the mild night.
“Are you OK?” he asked, stopping just past the door, on the terrace outside.
The cool air felt like velvet on her skin, the perfect balm after Domnall’s sweaty grip. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Nothing bleach won’t cure. The physical and the mental kind.”
Aubrey gave her a long look, as grim and stern as Amy had described. Evie shivered.
“You’re cold.”
“No, I…”
But he was already leading her back into the house.
“Wait,” she said, stopping him just inside the doorway. “Dance for real? Wipe away the memory with a good one?”
“I haven’t a fucking clue how to waltz, Evie.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She pulled on the hand holding hers and put it around her waist. She put her hand on his shoulder and took hold of his other, stepping closer to him. He looked at her, saying nothing.
“I don’t really know either,” she said.
He smiled slightly, shaking his head, but let her step even closer still, until their fronts were almost touching, his hand sliding further round her waist, fingers warm on her goose-bumped skin. She took a deep breath, chest rising to brush his, and exhaled slowly, suddenly only able to look at his shoulders, her fingers white against the absolute black.
“Now I suppose we move,” he said—or murmured, because his mouth was by her ear, breath a ghost on her bare neck.
“That’s the idea.”
He gave a low chuckle, and they stepped to the side, back, forward, slowly, perhaps randomly, but together, his hips against hers, so close it was easy to predict his lead.
His arm tightened around her waist, brought her closer still, the friction of his waistcoat shifting the silk of her dress, everything warm and buzzing, mind and body. She heard him inhale sharply, felt the heat of his outbreath on her cheek, her temple. His jaw scraped against her, the faint rasp of stubble.
“That’s how it’s done.”
Evie looked up, found Liv clasped against Domnall, watching them.
“See, honey?”
The man just grunted, laughed. Aubrey turned, and Evie lost sight of them. She looked up at him, and the hand on his shoulder slid to the back of his neck. His step faltered, he paused.
“Kiss me,” she said. “Liv’s watching and—”
His face darkened, but she pulled him closer, and he came, until her mouth brushed his cheek. “Kiss me,” she whispered. His eyes closed, her mouth moved to the corner of his, their breaths mingling as her heart surged, pounding so hard she could feel it everywhere. “It’ll drive her crazy,” she breathed.
He drew back slightly, and she tried to follow him, lips warm, burning… But he stopped her with a hand on her jaw. His eyes were dark as he held her still.
“If I ever kiss you, Evie, it won’t be like this, childish and fake. And it won’t be because of Liv.”