Bad Boys and Billionaires (The Naughty List Bundles)

by Synthia St. Claire

  “Ri-ight. Yeah. But look, mate, before you top yourself or anything, just remember. You don’t have to be an arsehole.”

  Richard almost smiled. Sympathy from other men was blunt and uncompromising. “I’m not going to top myself. It would make too many people happy.”

  “That’s the spirit! Now go get yourself a cup of coffee and watch a film or something. And get the beers in for next week. I’ll be up on Saturday afternoon. All right?”

  “No, don’t you dare.”

  “Coffee. Film. Bed. See you next week!”

  Richard swore at the dialling tone as the irritating Billy cancelled the call before he could be argued with any longer. “Twat.”

  He threw his phone across the floor where it collided with a table leg and broke apart in a shower of cheap-sounding plastic. He gazed around his study, usually his haven, and noticed even more dust and dirt and cobwebs. His kitchen was pristine and gleaming, but he realised that all the other rooms in the manor were sinking into filth and disrepair. He didn’t even use most of them. His mother had gone to The Larches over a year ago, and his attempt to clear out and tidy up had dragged on more and more slowly.

  He stumbled awkwardly to his feet and took one more swig from the bottle on the desk before screwing the lid back on and slamming it back into the novelty world-globe-drinks-cabinet.

  He was gripped by the urge to tour his house. The corridor was dark and he left it unlit, cannoning off the walls as he lumbered from room to musty-smelling room. A library, a sewing room, some bedrooms. Not enough bathrooms for the number of bedrooms. An old nursery, a nurse’s bedroom. Rickety stairs that let to attic rooms that contained iron bedsteads and boxes of 1920s dresses. Back down the stairs, along the gallery, and down to the ground floor. The unused grand dining room was covered in white sheets, and the double doors that went to the music room were stiff to open. In days gone by, the doors would be folded back for parties and gatherings. There was a family room, too, and he lingered here, remembering his father and his mother in happier days.

  He trudged back to the kitchen, the safe warm space that was the most used in the house. He was almost unconsciously following Billy’s advice as he over-filled the kettle and clumsily made himself a very large cup of coffee.

  He took it and slumped in the rocking chair by the cold range, and kicked off his boots at last. Is this it? Will I be sitting here like this, pissed and alone, in ten years’ time? Twenty? Will they find my dead body here?

  Who would find it?

  Billy’s voice sounded as loud as if he had infiltrated the kitchen and was hiding in the pantry. “You don’t have to be an arsehole.”

  Yeah but…

  “You don’t have to be an arsehole.”

  Yes, but I…

  “You don’t have to be an arsehole.”

  Richard took an unwise gulp of coffee and burnt his mouth. He gaped and swore and blew out his cheeks. And rose to his feet, raising the cup in his unsteady hand as a flash of insight finally battered its way into his thick, dull head, and he said aloud,

  “Shit. I don’t have to be an arsehole.”

  And then he sank back to the chair, put the coffee on the range top, and passed out.

  Chapter Twelve

  Helena appraised herself in the mirror. Only her eyes were visible, a small pale slit in a matte sea of blackness. She’d pulled a black snood up to her nose, and a dark hat was rolled down to her eyebrows. She wore a black hooded top, black jeans, and a pair of old dark brown walking boots.

  If she’d had a baseball bat, she would have carried it. Not that she thought she needed it, but just to complete the look. Although she was aware she’d probably get arrested.

  Which made her think. Have I ever seen a police officer in Arkthwaite? I’ve seen the patrol car parked up at the fast food place by Ingholme, but they say that’s just because it’s a handy central location from which they can easily respond to calls, and nothing to do with the food and free wi-fi.

  Even so, they were intent on a night of crime, and the Law of Sod and Co-incidence meant that the entire Lancashire constabulary would just happen to be on a night exercise in the area, or something equally unlikely.

  She was just dwelling on how to tell her mother she was being sent down for trespassing when there was a series of sharp raps on her front door, and she nearly bolted out through the kitchen before her hammering heart slowed and she remembered that Vicky was due.

  Helena wrenched the door open. “I nearly pissed myself.”

  “Er… and good evening to you, too. Why?”

  “Sorry. Hi. I’m nervous, and I thought you were the police.”

  “Right.” Vicky shook her head in despair. Like Helena, she was also dressed as a lumpy ninja, and she was proudly carrying a large pair of bolt cutters.

  “Where the hell did you get them?”

  “Caretaker’s store. He’s got enough stuff stashed in there to take hostages and withstand a siege, I’m telling you.”

  “Don’t get ideas for the next governors’ meeting.”

  “Ideas? I’ve made written plans, love.”

  “Aren’t you nervous?” Helena asked as she locked her front door and they stood on the step together. “I was just thinking about how to tell my mum I was going to prison for trespassing.”

  “Come on.” Vicky started off down the path. It was gone eleven, and being Monday night, the village was silent. “For a start, trespass is a civil offence, I think, so the Crown Prosecution Service won’t take it on. Richard would have to take us to court.”

  “So, that’s comforting.”

  “And anyway, we’re more likely to be prosecuted for criminal damage.”

  “Even more wonderful.”

  The houses were unlit as they crept past. Helena reflected that even if she wasn’t out on nefarious business, she would still have felt uneasy walking through the village at this time of night. As if being out and about beyond the usual bedtime automatically tinged you with dodginess.

  But they were not the only ones abroad in the stillness. Outside of the Post Office, shadows moved. There was a suppressed laugh, and someone else coughed.

  The angular frame of Tom surged forwards as they approached. “Friend or foe?”

  “Friend. Vicky and Helena,” Vicky said.

  Tom’s eyes glittered, reflecting the sodium of the three lonely streetlights that were Arkthwaite’s entire provision. “We’re all ready. Have you got spades?”

  “We’re got bolt cutters, and I dropped off some spades and forks in the hedge behind the bus shelter on the main road earlier.”

  “Good thinking. Ready, team?”

  The bundled and swathed crowd nodded eagerly, and they moved like an overweight dark snake, walking in the deserted road, heading towards the fields of the final part of the broadband trench where the surveyor had marked out a safe line with red and white tape. Coloured wooden stakes alerted them to potential hazards such as underground cables and pipelines. There wasn’t much moon, and it was cloudy, so the stakes were impossible to see but the fluttering of the tape guided them to the right place in the lower field. Helena helped Vicky retrieve the spades, and they were distributed amongst folks who hadn’t brought anything.

  They were largely anonymous in their motley disguises, but Helena identified Henderson, and Cathy, and a woman from the WI. She was suspicious of one small, fat man who might have been one of the Rain-Shine Boys, and there were other, vaguely familiar but unnameable people moving carefully in the darkness. Some had muted head torches but they were all trying to keep light to a minimum.

  Tom was in his element. He’d been so opposed to the plan until Richard had pulled out, then he’d grasped the project and run with it, more as a way of spiting Richard than anything else. He arranged everyone in one long line along the tape, and they had to wait, grasping their tools, until Tom hissed the order: “Dig!” and the first tines of metal sank into the earth.

  The previous days of rain made
it easier, but the land was still rough and stony, and it was hard going. Soon, they were shedding their layers of scarfs and hats and gloves. The whispered chatter died away as they dug, lapsing to a murmur of heavy breathing and occasional curses. The man to the right of Helena muttered an obscenity about his wellington boots, which were evidently not firm of sole, causing his instep to become tender and sore. To her left, Vicky was ploughing away with her impressive runner’s muscles, using her weight to shove the spade deep into the earth. All along the line, stretching into shadows, the villagers of Arkthwaite toiled at the almost impossible task of digging a trench for the cable.

  “Hot tea?”

  Helena jammed her spade into the soil and turned, gratefully accepting a plastic cup of steaming tea. “Ray?”

  “It is indeed. Spenser’s up at the end there, digging away but I thought I’d be more useful with drinks and food.” He poured another from the flask he was holding and handed it to Vicky. “But I will do my share of digging in a moment.”

  “This is fantastic. Thank you. We should have thought about this.”

  “Why should you? This is a community effort, remember. Not just you. You don’t have to be responsible for everything.”

  “That’s right,” Vicky interrupted. “Community, not dictatorship.”

  Helena wrapped her fingers around the cup and absorbed the stinging warmth. “Oh, you guys.”

  Ray shrugged. “This is Arkthwaite. It’s what we do.” He moved along the line, dispensing tea as he went.

  Helena bent to the plastic cup and blew on the tea. “Oh Vicky. I really think we might do this.”

  “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “He is going to go batshit when he sees it in the morning.”

  “We might have got it finished. He might never know…”

  Helena laughed. “If it takes one digger three hours to dig a trench, how long does it take twenty villagers to dig the same trench…? There’s a maths question for the next batch of testing you do at school.”

  “We’ll only get this field done,” Tom said, butting in. He was also clutching tea. “Maybe not even all of this. And there’s one more field left. But it’s the first blow! We’ve made our stand, you see. We’ve planted our flag. We’ve set it out and this is how we’re going to go on. Tomorrow night, a bit more. And a bit more.”

  “Tomorrow night, he’ll know what we’re doing. He might be waiting for us.”

  “Him and whose army? No bugger here is loyal to him. We’ve even got tenants of his out here, tonight.”

  “I would be interested to know which tenants of mine are out here.”

  Everything stopped. There was a clang of a shovel, and a few whispers, but all movement ceased as a man loomed out of the dark in front of them, and clicked a switch on a heavy torch that pointed at the ground in front of him but cast enough light to illuminate a wide circle.

  Richard lifted the torch and swept the ray along the line, and Helena’s stomach flipped in muted triumph as she finally got a sense of how many people were out in the night. There were easily thirty or forty villagers strung out in front of the flapping tape. He dazzled the light into people’s eyes and they recoiled, throwing their arms up in front of their faces as he blinded them, one by one.

  Tom stepped forward, crushing the plastic cup in his hands. It would have been more impressive if it had been a metal one, and the threatening gesture lost something as the dregs of tea splashed over his hands. He shook his fingers irritably. “And what are you going to do about this, little lord Fauntleroy?”

  “It’s my land, and I’m going to ask you all to leave.”

  Tom folded his arms. “Have a go, then.”

  Richard glared. Tom glared back.

  Vicky sighed. “Richard, we had an agreement, and so we’re getting on with the project. Nothing will be permanently damaged or destroyed. You may as well just leave us to it.”

  “I didn’t sign anything.”

  “That’s true,” Vicky said in a light voice, nodding. “The main point, though, is that we’re all here, with shovels and tools, and we’re digging a trench. And you’re there with a torch and not much else. We are not going to get into a fight. We’re just going to get on with things. No drama, no fuss.”

  Helena felt a pang of sympathy as she watched Richard flounder and oscillate between striding up to Tom to punch him, and scurrying home in a huff. He squared his shoulders and swung the torch along the line again. The villagers didn’t react well to being blinded for a second time, and someone shouted, “You’re not the Lord of me, you prick!”

  “Yeah, fuck off!” came another voice, a woman’s. Helena hoped it was someone from the WI. She could imagine Mavis hurling abuse.

  “We shall not be moved!” someone half-shouted, half-sang.

  Vicky leaned to Helena, pressing to her shoulder, and whispered, “Did you bring a brazier and a donkey jacket? Man the barricades, comrade.”

  More people were shouting now. They began to flick their torches on. A few were already filming the scene on their smartphones, and Richard looked increasingly nervous.

  Helena could feel the mood shifting and becoming darker. She didn’t want anyone to get carried away. She stepped forward, and ducked under the plastic tape, approaching Richard with her hands outstretched. She spoke in a low voice. “You may as well go home, Richard. I’m sorry. But we’re doing this, with or without you.”

  “This is my land.”

  “This is our land, remember. You’re the Lord of Arkthwaite but that brings responsibility.”

  “Don’t I fucking know it.”

  “I think you need to go home and ask yourself exactly what those responsibilities are. You shouldn’t be separate from the people of your village.”

  “You’re not my serfs.”

  “So don’t act like our feudal lord, then. Go home.”

  She waited. He looked at her, his eyes deep and hooded in the extreme shadows of a disco of torches and camera flashes and phone lights. He swept his gaze once more along the line of defiance.

  He took a step back. She held her breath as the crowd also waited, their next move predicated entirely on what he was going to choose to do.

  He took one more step back. A high teenager’s voice split the tense air: “You’re such an arsehole.”

  He stopped, and glared, and Helena began to reach out her hand to him, but he waved it away.

  “You know what? I don’t have to be an arsehole.”

  He whirled around and strode off, dimming his torch as he went so that he disappeared into darkness within a few steps.

  The villagers started to laugh. “That’s the worst come-back line I’ve ever heard,” someone snorted. “What does it even mean?”

  “I think he was trying to be cool. He kinda meant, you know, like when people say ‘I’m fat but I can lose weight but you’ll always be ugly’ or whatever.”

  Helena shook her head in disbelief. “I think he cocked that one up,” she said to Vicky.

  “At least he’s gone. Look, Helena, don’t fret about him. He’s shown his true colours.”

  “I suppose.” She kept her eyes straining through the dark. Distant headlights fired up. She followed the progress of the Landrover as it made its way back up to the manor. “I do feel sorry for him, though.”

  * * *

  The Landrover lurched and bumped, throwing him from side to side as he drove far too fast up to the manor. He yanked the handbrake on as he roared into the courtyard and the abused vehicle stalled. He pulled the key from the ignition and burst the door open, tumbling to his feet in a furious mood.

  Everyone was against him. Everyone. Even her.

  Not that he cared.

  Not that he should care.

  Fuck it. I do care. He kicked the front tyre and hurt his foot.

  It’s all bullshit. I know what my responsibilities are. I know what the right thing to do it. I am supposed to look after the land and the people, blah blah blah.
I know I should just sign something and let them finish laying their stupid broadband and probably say sorry to Helena too, and buy her flowers, and put up with her silly ideas about appearances and all that.

  He kicked the tyre again, and hurt his foot again.

  I don’t learn. I just don’t learn.

  Actually, no. I do know what I should do.

  He stopped thinking. He turned his mindless chatter off, and blanked his brain. Endless downward spirals of one-sided conversations with his own worst nature; no. That’s what he had to do. Stop thinking. Start acting.

  He dashed into the kitchen and trekked mud across the tiles as he rooted in a ceramic dish for the keys to the Big Shed. He grabbed another large torch, and some heavy gloves. Back outside, he unlocked the Big Shed and pushed the large doors back to their fullest extent.

  He powered on the lights, and they popped and burst into life, one by one, illuminating a vast cave of potential destruction. He began gathering what he was going to need; ropes, lights, a generator, jerry cans of red diesel.

  He threw them into the steel-toothed bucket and climbed up into the cab of the biggest machine he owned. He hadn’t run this beast for a long time. He fired it up and spent a few moments going through the controls. This joystick for one thing, that for another. The gears were broad and unfamiliar. He let the massive thing throb and growl as it warmed up.

  Lights. More lights. He flicked them on, firing up the array that ranged along the top edge of the cab, as well as the front and rear lamps. Let’s see what you guys make of this! Come on!

  And they were off. Slowly at first, until he grew more confident with the width of it and the overhang at the edges. He trundled the earth-mover through the village, hoping he was avoiding the parked cars and lamp-posts. Such was the stubborn size of the thing, he wasn’t sure that he’d notice if he knocked anything over.

  Then he was approaching the field once more. The snake of winking lights marked the line of toiling villagers. He turned off the road, and followed a track that led to a gate at the top of the field. He had a pang of disappointment in finding it open; he had been harbouring a fantasy of bursting through the wood, making matchsticks of it as he dramatically roared into the field.