CHAPTER TWENTY
The subterranean gym at the Aurora was well used by the residents, but few would think of venturing down there after midnight.
The equipment sat idle, the only sounds the thrum of the air conditioning and bubbling water in the adjoining pool area.
The pool itself was luxuriously long and deep in order to accommodate lane swimmers, divers, and general loungers alike.
The first time she had seen it Emily had actually squealed and may even have jumped up and down a little.
In Charlie’s company, she did her best to maintain a cool, seen-it-all-before demeanour.
Which was unlikely. The public swimming pools she had used up until that point had been workaday, noisy and crowded.
The hotel pools she had enjoyed on holidays had been nice, but not fabulous.
This one was fabulous. It wasn’t just its impressive size.
The pool room had been designed to look like it belonged in the best Art Deco party house you’d ever imagined.
There was black and jade green marble, picked out in gilding, with artfully considered lighting to avoid gloominess.
Nothing gothic to be seen here. The lines were angular and elegant, the chairs and tables, loungers and alcoves were each chosen or constructed to give yet more opulence and comfort, and the effect was stunning.
There was even a fountain at the far end with light refracting through the tumbling water.
Emily was thankful she had packed her swimsuit.
She was familiar with the gym from her Tae Kwan Do practice sessions her father had arranged before the tournament, but this was the first time she had been in the pool.
She thought of tying her hair up, then decided it would look sexier to have it flowing loose in the water.
In her turquoise suit she convinced herself she would be a mermaid, drifting about in the blue, blue pool, the clever lighting catching her as she swam.
Charlie appeared in tartan trunks, watched her for a few seconds and then ran at the pool.
With a battle cry he leapt in the air, grabbing his feet as he went up.
Emily screamed when she saw what he was about to do and turned to get out of the way but she wasn’t quick enough.
He bombed into the water, creating a ridiculously huge splash which completely swamped her.
He surfaced, laughing, in time to see Emily righting herself and spitting water.
All composure and illusion of gracefulness gone, her first thought was to swear at him, but the sight of his genuinely happy face, and the thought of how funny she must look, sent her instead into a bout of giggles.
‘You idiot!’ she shouted at him, still laughing.
Charlie dived under the surface and then bobbed up again behind her, clearly at home in the water.
‘Can you do a flip?’ he asked.
‘A what?’
‘Get up on my shoulders, hold my hands. I’ll throw you forwards.’
‘I can’t do that!’
‘It’s easy! Come on,’ he said, taking her hands. ‘Climb up. Or are you chicken?’ When she took more than two seconds to respond he began to make tiny clucking noises.
‘No way! Right, keep still,’ she said, planting her feet first on his knees and then his chest, pulling herself up with his hands until, teetering, she was standing on his shoulders. She squealed when he almost went under. ‘Keep still, Charlie!’
‘Alright, remain calm,’ he said with mock seriousness. ‘You are in the hands of an expert. Just follow my instructions and I guarantee you won’t down. Well, almost guarantee it.’
‘Hurry up, I can’t stay like this forever!’
‘OK, I’m going to bounce upwards. When I do that, let go and flip forwards. Easy,’ he insisted.
‘Oh yeah, easy,’ she murmured. She wasn’t afraid, but she wasn’t about to make a complete fool of herself, either. She knew how to fall from years of martial arts training. All she had to do was fall from a height into the water. How hard could it be?
‘OK?’ Charlie asked.
‘OK!’
She felt him drop slightly deeper into the pool, then spring upwards.
At the top of the jump she let go and sprang, curling herself over.
She felt herself flip and tumble and was amazed to find she had gone high enough and far enough to enter the water feet first. She came up gasping but more than a little pleased with herself. Charlie was openly impressed.
‘Nice work!’
‘Your turn.’
‘What? I can’t stand on you. You’re…’
‘A girl?’
‘Well yes, that, and smaller than me.’
‘I’ll have you know I’ve been throwing men twice my size over my shoulder since I was eight. Come on, or are you chicken?’ Now it was her turn to taunt with the clucking noises.
He swam behind her and took her hands, sensibly choosing to step onto her shoulders from her back rather than her chest. Emily gripped his hands tight and braced herself for his weight. He was almost in position when they began to wobble.
‘Hurry up!’ she laughed, realising he was right about being too heavy for her.
The next second he was falling backwards still holding onto her hands.
They both disappeared under the water. When they resurfaced he was laughing at her loudly.
She splashed water at him, squealing. It was only when she blinked the water from her eyes that she noticed the figure standing at the side of the pool.
Tudor made no attempt to mask the anger in his voice. ‘What in hell’s name are you doing down here!’ His face looked like thunder.
Emily searched for something to say to calm him down and save face at the same time. He had expressly told her not to leave the flat, and here she was swimming with a boy she had never met before at midnight, in the deserted gym.
Before she could form an answer, Charlie piped up. ‘It was my idea,’ he said, the fib coming easily to him.
Tudor glared at him. ‘Did I ask you a question? Didn’t think so.’
‘But… it’s not Emily’s fault…’
‘Shut the fuck up!’
‘Dad!’
‘I told you to stay in the flat. What part of that instruction was too complicated for you?’
‘I’m still in the building, aren’t I?’
‘Don’t get smart with me, young lady.’
The young lady bit made her squirm. Wasn’t it enough that he had to be throwing his weight around with Charlie?
Did he have to completely humiliate her?
She swam for the steps and climbed out with as much dignity as she could summon up.
She faced her father and spoke with more composure than she was actually feeling.
‘Dad, I wasn’t on my own. It’s Charlie’s flat, so presumably it’s OK for me to be with him.’
‘You have no idea what’s going on.’
‘So try telling me.’ From the corner of her eye she could see Charlie getting out of the pool.
‘It’s…’
‘…too difficult for me to understand.’
‘Well, we appear to be back at the bit where you didn’t understand stay in the apartment!’ He wasn’t shouting again, but he wasn’t far off it.
Charlie made the mistake of trying to smooth things over again. ‘Look, it’s late, why don’t we go back upstairs?’
Tudor rounded on him. ‘Really? Do I have to talk to you now? OK, you want a chat, start by telling me what you are doing here when your parents have forbidden you from using your flat right now? Or how about why you thought it was OK to take my daughter - who is fifteen by the way - swimming in the middle of the fucking night?’
‘Dad, leave him alone! It was my idea, OK? I wanted to go swimming. I wanted to get out of that stupid apartment where you left me on my own again. And don’t tell me it was work, or you were keeping me safe…. how come both those things always involved you seeing her again?’
Tudor shook his head. ‘DI Chowdhury is working on something connected to the attacks. She had…’
‘Save it,’ she said, striding past him and snatching up her towel from the lounger. She wrapped it around her.
‘Pumpkin…’
‘I am not your fucking pumpkin!’ she yelled, tears stinging her eyes as she ran from the room and into the foyer.
She pressed the button for the lift but it was at the top of the building and showed no sign of wanting to come down.
Cursing and wiping away tears with the back of a wet hand, she trudged up the stairs.
Tretower, Wales 1450
The garden at Tretower Court, as the new manor house was known, had been a joy to plant and a delight to watch as it grew.
Now, walking arm in arm with Tudor down through the rose arbour, Rhiannon believed she was the happiest she had ever been.
Their courtship had been swift and beautiful.
Tudor had readily agreed to become her own knight and chief of her personal guard.
All who saw them together commented on how well suited they were.
Those who had known Rhiannon for many years were glad to see her find love at last. For the people outside her own tight knit community, they were simply a well-matched couple, two young people of similar social standing, his prowess on the battlefield and in contests helping balance the inequality in their wealth.
For Rhiannon had accumulated a fortune over the years.
Money that she guarded well not for her own enjoyment or aggrandisement, but so that she might better protect those who needed her, be they local Welsh people, English folk caught up in the squabbles of their rulers, or members of her own coven.
As her skirts brushed against the lavender borders she breathed in the soothing scent and offered up a silent prayer of thanks.
Tudor stopped to pick a pink rose from the arch above him.
He turned and tucked it into the braid of her hair.
Rhiannon smiled. ‘Not a white rose, nor a red one? Even now you are a diplomat.’
‘A knight who is not will have a short career. And most probably a short life.’