Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Home was a glass edifice of architectural wonder nestled incongruously into a sunlit Devon valley on the southern slopes of Dartmoor.
An old manor house, dating back in sections to Tudor times, had once stood on the land, which had been granted to Ben’s family by William the Conqueror.
Ben, come lately into this family and being welcomed by incest, intrigue, and murder, had naturally not been all that keen on rebuilding the old house when it had been destroyed in a fire.
Nikolas, however, had seen the destruction as an opportunity for a new start for both of them.
Or, if he had to be totally honest with himself—which he wasn’t all that often—a chance to make a statement about his relationship with Ben without actually having to come out and say anything at all.
Until death parts us had lost some of its allure as an expression of binding commitment when he’d believed Ben to actually be dead.
He preferred this declaration of light and life and all the things he’d thought he’d lost, Ben being both his light and his life.
So, with a little help from his impressively well-connected acquaintances, Nikolas had commissioned a unique house, which appeared to float from the very granite of the tor it was anchored to, like an exhalation of the rock itself.
It was designed in two halves, and a swim lane joined them into a whole.
This, Nikolas knew, was something particularly unusual for an English house, but as he pointed out to Ben, he wasn’t English.
He wasn’t restrained by an Englishman’s worst trait: a puritan distrust of anything luxurious.
Also, obviously, he was a billionaire, so he wasn’t curtailed in most other ways either.
He wanted a swim lane so he had one built.
The rear wing, the one emerging from the tor, was their private area: bedroom, bathroom, Nikolas’s study and Ben’s gym.
The front wing was much larger and was used both to run Nikolas’s charitable foundation ANGEL and for their friends to have accommodation whenever they wanted.
Its central hub was a vast kitchen and dining area, which for two men who couldn’t cook often seemed a bit of a waste, but one or other of them occasionally expressed a desire to learn, so that seemed enough of a reason to justify the commercial-grade stove and superb cooking utensils that graced the rack hanging from the glass ceiling.
Leading off this central hub were spokes, or segments, each one containing a guest suite and these in turn led to the outer rim of the house, the living area, which encircled the whole construction and was open plan.
This then created a circular meander from a main sitting room, through to a high-tech office, on into a music room with a grand piano, and then to a billiard room, a library, and a television room; these sections only divided by vast chimneys made of Dartmoor granite set into the middle of the floor space, each housing a log burner surrounded by leather seating.
The house was beautiful whatever the weather.
Made almost entirely of glass, it let in the sunshine whenever Devon graced them with sun, but when it didn’t, and southwest drizzle swept down off the moors for long hours, there was nothing more enticing than to be inside with the wood burners fighting the dark bleakness outside.
Nikolas had taken to drinking again. But now it was wine only and only in the same quantity as Ben drank.
Nikolas wasn’t in the habit of letting anything control him, and he didn’t see a reason why alcohol should be any different from the other demons, human and non-human alike, he’d fought and conquered.
So he’d begun joining Ben with a glass—or two, sometimes three—of red wine as they sat in the evenings by one of the fires, or played billiards, or as he played the piano.
He sometimes told people the grand piano had been his only personal extravagance in this house he’d built for Ben.
He occasionally managed to say this with a straight face.
Although he claimed he was rusty and played very badly, he played well enough to impress Ben, and that was good enough for both of them.
That Nikolas had actually indulged himself in many other areas of the house’s design and construction was most obvious in the grounds.
He’d restored the tennis court and had stables built for his horses.
His horses had now been moved from their royal stable block to this new one, and they didn’t seem to mind the change.
They had adapted quickly, perhaps because they now were ridden every day on Dartmoor.
* * *
All this hedonism was balanced somewhat by their work with ANGEL.
Ben sometimes had to remind himself Nikolas actually spent his own money on the projects they sponsored.
Unlike most charitable foundations, they didn’t ask for money or help in any way.
He constantly worried Nikolas would take on too many projects, that the ones they currently supported would be ruined if he bankrupted himself, but Nikolas only pointed to another conflict, another war somewhere or other in the world, and claimed there was little danger of his vast fortune, built entirely on misery, ever running out.
Ben slowed the car slightly as they navigated the ridge at the entrance to the grounds and then bounced along the unpaved, overgrown driveway that ran along the ridge until plunging down into the valley.
By mutual agreement, they’d left this track and the original gate in the dilapidated state they’d been in when they’d first discovered the house.
The disrepair always reminded them of the strange twists of fate which had made this unlikely place so central to their lives over the last few years.
There was nothing left of the old manor now, no indication of where it had stood or the secrets it contained.
If sunlight and pure air could banish demons, Nikolas had done a pretty good job of giving Ben the weapons he needed to win that war.
For Ben knew very well Nikolas didn’t sleep easy these days—he was often awake when Nikolas endured his nightmares, woken already by his own suffocating dreams of imprisonment in the dark, burning.
Each time Ben entered this house, it was as if another chink of light was being let into his coffin, another sliver of darkness expelled.
The most amazing thing about Nikolas’s gift to him was just that: Nikolas had designed and built this house for him. Nikolas didn’t often say I love you, but when he did, it was memorable.
They weren’t the only ones who loved the house and returning to it after any time away.
Radulf, in his darker world, had discovered other benefits of living in a house permanently flooded with light.
He knew the rooms and all their contents so well now he could navigate around as if he were seeing the same world the others did.
Ben went directly to the kitchen. Nikolas trailed after, watching him, leaning in the doorway. “What do you want to do now…?”
Ben flashed him a look, knowing that tone only too well.
He smiled privately. It was nice to be constantly wanted.
But instead of accompanying Nikolas to the bedroom, as he knew Nikolas wanted, he sat at the table with his phone.
“I’m going to call Kate. She’s spooky good. She may have something already.”
Nikolas huffed. “In that case, I think I’ll go for a ride.”
Ben nodded absentmindedly. Nikolas glanced at Radulf, murmuring, “We’re being ignored, dumbass, as usual. Do you want to come out for a run?”
Radulf lumbered up from his basket and followed the sound of Nikolas’s footsteps.
* * *
The dog had enough sight in one eye to distinguish dark from light and in bright daylight to be able to see objects and avoid them.
Running on Dartmoor, therefore, was fairly easy for him, as there were few obstacles, and he could apparently make out the large shape of the horse in the bright light.
He trotted happily alongside Nikolas up through the back of the grounds and then out through the dry stone wall to the moors themselves.
Encumbered by the dog, Nikolas didn’t give free rein to his horse and kept him at a steady pace, heading up a valley toward one of the highest points around: Drover Tor.
As they approached the rocks, Nikolas called Radulf even closer, slowing to a walk.
One of Dartmoor’s most notorious bogs lay deceptively serene and enticing just to the south of the tor, forcing them to take a less obvious route.
It occasionally crossed Nikolas’s mind that Radulf might one day blunder right into this death trap. It wasn’t a thought he wanted to test.
It took them just under an hour, taking this longer track, to reach the top of the tor. For the last hundred feet, Nikolas dismounted, hobbled the horse, clipped Radulf to his lead, and climbed. The granite rocks were easy for a human but contained hundreds of hidden traps for a horse’s legs.