Chapter 33 #2
‘Aha! Yes, and what did it change to?’ It was uncanny to see the excitable spirit of merciless exposé switch so readily from Johan to Ruby. It was clear that she was revelling in it just as much as Johan had only moments before. Adam reassured himself that this one, at least, was more deserved.
‘He sounded like a toff,’ Heather chimed in. ‘No more of that hammy cockney twang …’
‘Ding ding ding.’ Ruby swung back around to face Johan again. He had turned ashen. ‘What’s your real name, Jojo? I don’t have a clue exactly how posh you are, but I’d bet Heather’s last can of McEwan’s that you’re far from Hackney born and bred.’
Johan blinked into the middle distance for a moment, stunned, before composing himself. He tried a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
And then he bent into a deep bow. ‘Bravo, madame, quite the little detective you are. I’d say I’ve met my match.’ He gave Ruby a wink before walking away.
Ruby watched him, taking another swig of beer, as if gearing up to hurl one last word in his direction. She must have thought better of it.
She turned back to Adam and Heather. ‘Anyone fancy a spliff then?’
‘Fucking hell, yeah, I think I need one.’ Heather got up.
Adam remained seated. ‘I’m OK, thanks. I might try and find Noah.’
The two women shrugged and left Adam for the night. He took a few minutes to try and regulate the thrum of the blood beating in his ears.
The yell of anger made him think of his biological father, the one he preferred not to think about.
It made him feel as though he had better hide before the belt found him.
Even now, more than a decade later, over a year since he’d lost his real father, Adam could still hear the venom of his first father’s voice in that of everyone who ever raised theirs around him.
After Adam had collected himself, he headed back inside. The lateness of night was bleeding into the earliness of morning, and the guests had thinned. Only the drunkest remained, and finally the sound system had been put to use. Although not good use – the bassy speakers were blaring Lionel Richie.
Adam weaved through the stragglers, and racked his mind for where Noah might be.
He searched the kitchen, the library, the sitting room and knocked on a couple of bathroom doors downstairs, to no avail.
Upstairs he tried a few of the empty guest rooms, and then tried Noah’s bedroom door.
He pushed it ajar just slightly when he heard the sound of a voice on the other side.
The slice of the view he got wasn’t Noah.
The pretty young girl, who’d drawn the eyes of the ballroom with her long legs, golden mane and girlish smile, was on her knees, her head straddled by Martin’s hairy thighs. He stroked her hair and murmured down at her as she sucked his cock.
Adam quickly and quietly closed the door.
He’d seen Opal speaking with the two of them earlier in the evening.
Adam wondered if she knew, if this was some sort of arrangement.
Surely it was all far too brazen otherwise; the door hadn’t even been locked.
Adam got the sense that the two were sort of hoping to be discovered.
Why else would they be at it in someone else’s bedroom?
As he stood in the corridor, it occurred to Adam the one place he hadn’t yet looked: Noah’s studio. Adam went out the back door through the kitchen this time, and jogged across the lawn. As he approached the outbuilding he heard Noah’s voice, and another. It was Opal.
They hadn’t spotted him in the dark, and they were sitting on the two chairs on the patio that the studio shared with Heather’s.
Their faces were lit by the glow of a candle on the table between them.
They were shielded from view from anyone at the party by the building itself.
Adam could see that the two were holding hands.
‘I really don’t want you to worry about this, Noah. I don’t care how you got here; honestly I’m just grateful that you did.’
Noah’s head hung onto his chest, and Opal used her free hand to lift his chin up to meet her gaze. ‘I want you know that you deserve to be here as much as anybody.’
‘But I lied to you, Opal, and you’ve been so good to me …’
This time her hand found his lips, her index finger quietening his words. Adam stopped in his tracks.
‘Please, Noah, don’t. I … The truth is that you’ve awakened something in me.’ Adam could see the creep of Opal’s blush, even from this distance, even in this light. ‘Something that I thought that I’d lost … or rather something that had been stolen …’
It was she, now, who dropped her eyes down. ‘You’re a beautiful soul, Noah, inside and out …’
Later, after he had snuck away, back into the house, and back into his bed, when he was replaying the scene over and over in his mind, Adam wouldn’t be able to decide for certain who leant in first.
Maybe it had been Opal when she caught Noah’s eyes again who had parted her lips slightly and tilted her head up towards him.
Or maybe it had been Noah who had mirrored her gesture from moments before and lifted her face up to his.
Had she been quicker to wind her fingers into his hair, or had he circled her waist and pulled her into him first?
Adam would agonise over the particulars until the sunlight filtered through his heavy curtains.
Either version of events made Adam’s stomach churn with angst. He had been too slow, too cautious in his approach of Noah and now it was too late.
The viper had struck. Opal and her husband deserved each other.
As the sun rose in the sky, Adam fell into a fitful sleep and it was the intercut scenes of the lord and lady of the manor tending to their nubile prey that haunted his dreams.