Craving the Forbidden

by India Grey

  And then, very gently Sophie put her hand over his, lacing her cold fingers through his, caressing the back of his hand with her thumb with a touch that had nothing to do with sex, but was about comfort and understanding.

  And he wasn’t alone any more.

  ‘Lovely service,’ people murmured, dabbing their eyes as they filed out into the sharp sunlight to the strains of The Beatles singing ‘In My Life’. That had been Jasper’s idea.

  ‘You OK?’ Sophie asked him, slipping her arm through his as Tatiana was swept up in a subdued round of air-kissing and clashing hat brims.

  ‘Bearing up.’ He gave her a bleak smile. ‘I need a drink.’

  ‘What happens now?’

  ‘We go back for the interment.’ He shuddered. ‘There’s a Fitzroy family vault at Alnburgh, below the old chapel in the North Gate. It’s tiny, and just like the location for a low-budget horror film, so I’ll spare you that grisly little scene. Mum and I, and the vicar—and Kit too, I suppose—will do the honours, by which time everyone should have made their way back up to the castle for the drinks. Would you mind staying here and sort of shepherding them in the right direction?’

  In spite of the sunshine the wind sweeping the exposed clifftop was like sharpened razor blades. Jasper was rigid with cold and spoke through clenched teeth to stop them chattering. Weight had dropped off him in the last week, Sophie noticed, but whether it was from pining for his father or for Sergio she wasn’t sure. Reaching up, she pressed a kiss on his frozen cheek.

  ‘Of course I will. Go and say your goodbyes.’

  He got into the car beside Tatiana. ‘Save a drink for me,’ he said dismally. ‘Don’t let the hordes drink us dry.’

  Sophie bent to look at him through the open door. ‘Of course I will.’

  She turned round. Kit was standing behind her, obviously waiting to get into the car, his eyes fixed on some point in the far distance rather than at her rear.

  ‘Sorry.’ Hastily Sophie stepped out of the way. ‘Are you going to the interment too?’ she added in a low voice.

  A muscle twitched in his cheek. ‘Yes. For appearance’s sake. At some point Jasper and I need to have a proper talk, but today isn’t the right time.’ He looked at her, almost reluctantly, with eyes that were as bleak as the snow-covered Cheviots stretching away behind him. ‘At some point you and I should probably talk too.’

  An icy gust of wind whipped a strand of hair across Sophie’s face. Moving her head to flick it out of the way again, a movement in the distance caught her eye. Someone was vaulting over the low wall that separated the graveyard from the road, loping towards them between the frosty headstones.

  Oh, no … Oh, please, no … Not now …

  Sophie felt the blood drain from her head. It was a familiar enough figure, although incongruous in this setting. A bottle of vodka swung from one hand.

  ‘Today might not be the best time for that either,’ she said, folding her arms across her chest to steady herself. ‘You should go—I think they’re waiting.’

  It was an answer of sorts, Kit thought blackly as he lowered himself into the Bentley and slammed the door. Just not the one he’d hoped for.

  As the car began to move slowly away in the wake of the hearse Kit watched her take a few steps backwards, and then turn and slip into the cluster of people left behind outside the church. He lost sight of her for a few seconds, but then caught a glimpse of her hair, fiery against the monochrome landscape. She was hurrying in the direction of someone walking through the churchyard.

  ‘Such a lot of people,’ said Tatiana vaguely, pulling her black gloves off. ‘Your father had so many friends.’

  Jasper put an arm around her. ‘It was a great service. Even Dad, who hated church, would have enjoyed it.’

  Kit turned his face to the window.

  The man’s clothes marked him out as being separate from the funeral-goers. He was dressed neither as a mourner nor in the waterproofs and walking boots of the locals, but in skintight jeans, some kind of on-trend, tailored jacket with his shirt tails hanging down beneath it. Urban clothes. There was a kind of defiant swagger to the man’s posture and movements, as if he was doing something reckless but didn’t care, and as the car waited to pull out onto the main road Kit watched in the wing mirror as Sophie approached him, shaking her head. It looked as if she was pleading with him.

  The car moved again, and for a few seconds the view in the wing mirror was a blur of hedge and empty sky. Kit stared straight ahead. His hands were clenched into fists, his heart beating heavily in his chest.

  He waited, counting the beats. And then, just before the bend in the road when the church would be out of sight, he turned and looked back in time to see her put her arms around him.

  When she’d taken his hand in church like that, it had changed something. Or maybe that was wrong—maybe it hadn’t changed, so much as shown him what was there before that he hadn’t wanted to admit.

  That possibly what he wanted from her—with her—wasn’t just sex. And the hope that, at some point, when she had settled things with Jasper, she might want that too.

  It looked as if he’d been wrong.

  ‘Please, Sergio. It won’t be for long. A couple of hours—maybe three, just until the funeral is over.’

  Sergio twitched impatiently out of her embrace. ‘Three hours,’ he sneered. ‘You make it sound like nothing, but every hour is like a month. I’ve waited over a week already and I’ve just spent all day on a stupid train. I need him, Sophie. And he needs me.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Sophie soothed, glancing back at the church with its dwindling crowd of mourners, and sending up a silent prayer for patience. Or, failing that, forgiveness for putting her hands round Sergio’s elegant, self-absorbed neck and killing him.

  What had Kit meant, they needed to talk? And why did bloody Sergio have to choose the very moment when she could have asked him to stage his ridiculous, melodramatic appearance?

  ‘You don’t,’ Sergio moaned theatrically. ‘Nobody knows.’

  ‘I know that Jasper’s in despair without you,’ Sophie said with exaggerated patience. ‘I know he misses you every second, but I also know that his mother needs him right now. And he needs to get closure on this before he can be with you properly.’

  It was the right thing to say. ‘Closure’ was the kind of psychological pseudoscience that Sergio lapped up.

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Sensing victory, Sophie took the bottle out of his hand and began to lead him through the gravestones back in the direction from which he’d just come. ‘And I also think that you’re tired. You’ve had a horrible week and an exhausting journey. The pub in the village has rooms—why don’t we see if they have anything available and I’ll tell Jasper to join you there as soon as he can? It would be better than staying at the castle, just for now.’

  Sergio cast a wistful glance up at Alnburgh Castle, its turrets and battlements gilded by the low winter sun. Sophie sensed rebellion brewing and increased her pace, which wasn’t easy with her heels snagging into the frosty grass. ‘Here—I’ll come with you and make sure you’re settled,’ she said firmly. ‘And then I’ll go to Jasper and tell him where you are.’

  Sergio took her arm and gave it a brief, hard squeeze, in the manner of a doomed character in a war film. His blue eyes were soulful. ‘Thank you, Sophie, I do as you say. I trust you.’

  The hallway was filled with the sound of voices and a throng of black-clad people, many of whom had been here only a week earlier for Ralph’s party. After the surreal awfulness of the little scene in the Alnburgh vault Kit felt in desperate need of a stiff drink, but he couldn’t go more than a couple of paces without someone else waylaying him to offer condolences, usually followed by congratulations on the medal.

  His replies were bland and automatic, and all the time he was aware of his heart beating slightly too fast and his body vibrating with tension as he surreptitiously looked around for Sophie.r />
  ‘Your father must have been immensely proud of you,’ said an elderly cousin of Ralph’s in an even more elderly fur coat. The statement was wrong in so many ways that for a moment Kit couldn’t think what could have prompted her to make it. ‘For the George Medal,’ she prompted, taking a sip of sherry and looking at him expectantly.

  It was far too much trouble to explain that such was his father’s indifference that he hadn’t told him. Oh, and that he wasn’t actually his father either. Instead he gave a neutral smile and made a polite reply before excusing himself and moving away.

  Conversation was impossible when there was so much that he couldn’t say. To anyone except Sophie.

  He had to find her.

  ‘Kit.’

  The voice was familiar, but unexpected. Feeling a hand on his arm, Kit looked around to see a large black hat and, beneath it, looking tanned, beautiful but distinctly uneasy, was Alexia.

  ‘Darling, I’m so sorry,’ she murmured, holding on to her hat with one hand as she reached to kiss each of his cheeks. ‘Such a shock. You must all be devastated.’

  ‘Something like that. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.’

  Kit knew that his voice suggested that the surprise wasn’t entirely a pleasant one, and mentally berated himself. It wasn’t Alexia’s fault he’d seen Sophie falling into the arms of some tosser in a girl’s jacket amongst the headstones, or that she’d subsequently disappeared.

  ‘Olympia and I were in St Moritz last weekend, but when her mother told us what happened I just wanted to be here. For you, really. I know I wasn’t lucky enough to know your father well, but …’ Beneath her skiing tan her cheeks were pink. ‘I wanted to make sure you’re OK. I still care about you, you know …’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She bent her head slightly, so the brim of her hat hid her face, and said quietly, ‘Kit—it must be a horrible time. Don’t be alone.’

  Kit felt a great wave of despair wash over him. What was this, International Irony Day? For just about the first time in his life he didn’t want to be alone, but the only person he wanted to be with didn’t seem to share the feeling.

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ he said wearily, preparing to make his escape. And no doubt he would, but not in the way she meant.

  ‘Hello, Kit—so sorry about your father.’

  If they were standing in the armoury hall, Kit reflected, at this point he would have had difficulty stopping himself grabbing one of the pistols so thoroughly polished by Sophie and putting it against his head. As it was he was left with no choice but to submit to Olympia Rothwell-Hyde’s over-scented embrace and muster a death-row smile.

  ‘Olympia.’

  ‘Ma said you were an absolute god at the party, when it happened,’ she said, blue eyes wide with what possibly passed for sincerity in the circles she moved in. ‘Real heroic stuff.’

  ‘Obviously not,’ Kit said coolly, glancing round, ‘since we find ourselves here …’

  Olympia, obviously unaware that it was International Irony Day, wasn’t thrown off her stride for a second. Leaning forwards, sheltering beneath the brim of Alexia’s hat like a spy in an Inspector Clousseau film, she lowered her voice to an excited whisper.

  ‘Darling, I have to ask … That redhead you sat next to in church. She looks terribly like a girl we used to know at school called Summer Greenham, but it can’t be—’

  Electricity snapped through him, jolting him out of his apathy.

  ‘Sophie. She’s called Sophie Greenham.’

  ‘Then it is her!’ Olympia’s upper-crust voice held a mixture of incredulity and triumph as she looked at Alexia. ‘Who can blame her for ditching that embarrassing drippy hippy name? She should have changed her surname too—apparently it came from the lesbian peace camp place. Anyway, darling, none of that explains what she’s doing here. Does she work here, because if so I would so keep an eye on the family silver—’

  ‘She’s Jasper’s girlfriend.’ Maybe if he said it often enough he’d accept it.

  ‘No way. No. Way! Seriously? Ohmigod!’

  Kit stood completely still while this pantomime of disbelief was going on, but beneath his implacable exterior icy bursts of adrenaline were pumping through his veins.

  ‘Meaning?’

  Beside Olympia, Alexia shifted uneasily on her designer heels. Olympia ploughed on, too caught up in the thrill of gossip to notice the tension that suddenly seemed to crackle in the air.

  ‘She came to our school from some filthy traveller camp—an aunt took pity on her and wanted to civilise her before it was too late, or something. Whatevs.’ She waved a dismissive hand. ‘Total waste of money as she was expelled in the end, for stealing.’ She took a sip of champagne before continuing in her confident, bitchy drawl. ‘It was just before the school prom and a friend of ours had been sent some money by her mother to buy a dress. Well, the cash disappeared from the dorm and suddenly—by astonishing coincidence—Miss Greenham-Extremely-Common, who had previously rocked the jumble-sale-reject look, appears with a very nice new dress.’

  A pulse was throbbing in Kit’s temple. ‘And you put two and two together,’ he said icily.

  Olympia looked surprised and slightly indignant. ‘And reached a very obvious four. Her aunt admitted she hadn’t given her any money—I think the fees were quite enough of a stretch for her—and the only explanation Summer could give was that her mother had bought it for her. Her mother who lived on a bus, and hadn’t been seen for, like, a year or something and so was conveniently unavailable for comment, having nothing as modern as a telephone …’

  Looking down at the floor, Kit shook his head and gave a soft, humourless laugh. ‘And therefore unavailable to back her up either.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Kit,’ said Olympia, in the kind of jolly, dismissive tone that suggested they were having a huge joke and he was spoiling it. ‘Sometimes you don’t need evidence because the truth is so obvious that everyone can see it. And anyway—’ she gave him a sly smirk from beneath her blonde flicky fringe ‘—if she’s Jasper’s girlfriend, why would she have just been checking into a room in the pub in the village with some bloke? Alexia and I went for a quick drinkie to warm ourselves up after the service and saw her.’ The smirk hardened into a look of grim triumph. ‘Room three, if you don’t believe me.’

  If Sophie had known she was going to walk back from the village to the castle in the snow, she would have left the shag-me shoes at home and worn something more sensible.

  It was just as well her toes were frozen, since she suspected they’d be even more painful if they weren’t. Unfortunately even the cold couldn’t anaesthetise the raw blisters on her heels and it was only the thought of finding Kit, hearing what it was he had to say that kept her going.

  She also had to find Jasper and break the news to him that Sergio had turned up. Having ordered an enormous breakfast for him to mop up some of the vodka and waited to make sure he ate it, she had finally left him crashed out on the bed. He shouldn’t be any trouble for the next hour or so, but now the formal part of the funeral was over she knew that Jasper wouldn’t want to wait to go and see him. And also she was guiltily keen to pass over the responsibility for him to Jasper as soon as possible. Sitting and listening to him endlessly talking about his emotions, analysing every thought that had flickered across his butterfly brain in the last week had made her want to start on the vodka herself. She had found herself thinking wistfully of Kit’s reserve. His understatement. His emotional integrity.

  Gritting her teeth against the pain, she quickened her steps.

  The drive up to the castle was choked with cars. People had obviously decided they were staying for a while, and parked in solid rows, making it impossible for anyone to leave. Weaving through them, Sophie could hear the sound of voices spilling out through the open door and carrying on the frosty air.

  Her heart was beating rapidly as she went up the steps, and it was nothing to do with the brisk walk. She paused in the armoury h
all, tugging down her jacket and smoothing her skirt with trembling hands, noticing abstractedly that the Sellotaped hem was coming down.

  ‘Is everything all right, Miss Greenham?’

  Thomas was standing in the archway, holding a tray of champagne, looking at her with some concern. Sophie realised what a sight she must look in her sawn-off dress with her face scarlet from cold and exertion, clashing madly with her hair.

  ‘Oh, yes, thank you. I just walked up from the village, that’s all. Do you know where Jasper is?’

  ‘Master Jasper went up to his room when he got back from the interment,’ said Thomas, lowering his voice respectfully. ‘I don’t think he’s come down yet.’

  ‘OK. Thanks. I’ll go up and see if he’s all right.’ She hesitated, feeling a warm blush gather in her already fiery cheeks. ‘Oh, and I don’t suppose you know where I could find Kit, do you?’

  ‘I believe he’s here somewhere,’ Thomas said, turning round creakily, putting the champagne glasses in peril as he surveyed the packed room behind him. ‘I saw him come in a little while ago. Ah, yes—there he is, talking to the young lady in the large hat.’

  Of course, he was so much taller than everyone else so it wasn’t too hard to spot him. He was standing with his back half to her, so she couldn’t see his face properly, only the scimitar curve of one hard cheekbone. A cloud of butterflies rose in her stomach.

  And then she saw who he was talking to. And they turned into a writhing mass of snakes.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A CHILDHOOD spent moving around, living in cramped spaces with barely any room for personal possessions, being ready to move on at a moment’s notice, had left its mark on Sophie in many ways. One of them was that she travelled light and rarely unpacked.

  Once she’d seen Jasper it didn’t take her long to get her few things together. It took a little longer to get herself together, but after a while she felt strong enough to say goodbye to her little room and slip along the corridor to the back staircase.