Boats in the night (7 page)

Fabian interrupted Giles’s train of thought by sitting next to him and taking one of his hands, caressing it gently. The familiar touch calmed him, and he had to fight to remember why he was here.

“My money.”

Fabian gave a quizzical lift to his eyebrow. “Yes?”

“From the investments. It’s not going into my account anymore.”

“Yes?” Fabian didn’t seem at all ruffled or guilty, damn him. “Of course not, darling.

You asked me to set you up with an offshore account. Surely you had the letters through? You just need to set up a standing order for however much you need paid into your current account. I can do it for you, if you let me know how much.”

Had he had letters through? Giles thought of the pile of correspondence he’d stuffed into the drawer of the credenza in the hallway and broke out into a sweat.

“Have you been ignoring your post again? Honestly darling, it’s not like it’s going to bite you.” Fabian gave a theatrical sigh. “You need a man in your life, don’t you? Look, I know I left but I never intended it to be permanent. That’s why I haven’t been back for all my things. I want to make it work between us.” Giles looked at him in stunned surprise, but Fabian only gave a sad smile and squeezed his hand. “We were good together, weren’t we?

Remember that time we spent the weekend in Honfleur? Eating scallops in that bijou

restaurant on the harbour and then retiring to our room for the rest of the afternoon?”

Giles tried to resist the spell Fabian was conjuring, but the memories of the

picturesque Normandy resort wove themselves through his senses. The rich salty tang of the scallops, the smooth sheets in the hotel, the way Fabian had submitted to him without a fight

—something that had become far less frequent as time went by. It had been their honeymoon period and it had been good.

The door opened with a soft whisper and the receptionist walked in with a tray of

coffee things.

“Ah, Jocasta, perfect timing. Thank you, my dear. You’re an angel.”

Giles watched the ice queen melt and simper under Fabian’s attentions. The man had

always had a talent for surrounding himself with sycophants, but Giles was damned if he was ever going to be one of them again.

“It’s Jamaica Blue Mountain,” Fabian said, pouring out the expensive coffee into two delicate porcelain cups and adding a lump of brown sugar to Giles’s—just the way he liked it.

“Your favourite. Let’s drink to setting aside our differences and seeing what’s really important. Giles—” Fabian fixed him with an intense gaze that made him squirm. “Please give me another chance. I want to help you. Make things right again. What do you say?”

Giles stared in mute surprise and Fabian gave a slow smile.

It was the smile that did it. There was a smug twist to Fabian’s lips that wiped away Giles’s confusion. No, damn it! He wasn’t about to let himself be manipulated into being the bad guy again. Giles stood and strode over to the window, deliberately turning his back on his ex-lover. He barely noticed the stunning cityscape, concentrating instead on steadying his breathing, on channelling his recalcitrant impulses into a more coherent plan of action.

Fabian was clever, so Giles needed to use his intellect to get the better of the devious bastard.

When Giles was angry and emotional, Fabian always won.

“I don’t want to make things right again. Things haven’t been right between us for a long time.” Giles focused on a lone gull perched on one of the nearby chimney pots. Better that than risk looking at Fabian, in case he pulled that little-boy-lost face he always used when things weren’t going the way he wanted. Trouble was, no matter how Giles tried to guard against it, that look cut right through his defences. Fabian had suffered a terrible upbringing—he might have been privileged in terms of money and education, but to watch your own mother deteriorate in that way when you were just a small child… well, that would have to leave scars.

He watched the gull flap powerful wings and take flight, a flash of brilliant white

against the cerulean sky. He felt a stab of envy. What he wouldn’t give to soar that high, that free.

But wasn’t that what he’d done for a few short moments last night? Untethered by

responsibilities and expectations, floating on the primal bliss of another body held tight to his own? He wanted to try that again. To see if it was really Smutty who made him feel that way, and if that wild magic could be repeated without being tamed and losing its power.

Fabian was talking, Giles realised. He tuned back in reluctantly, unwilling to give up the mental picture of his and Smutty’s bodies tangled together.

“—and I realise you’ll need time to think things through, but please don’t go throwing away everything we had together on a whim.”

Giles laughed, the sound harsh and bitter. “A whim? That’s what you’re calling this, is it? No, I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, thanks. I’ve had a whole month of sick leave all by myself to dwell on it and turn it over again and again. Believe me, you did me a favour, leaving. I’d never have had the guts to do it myself, but you freed me.” Giles took a moment to think through what he’d just said. “God, that’s right!” Giles turned to face Fabian, buoyed up on his new certainty. “I’m free now. I don’t have to listen to you any more, and I don’t need your approval. That’s not how a relationship should work.”

Fabian gave him a pitying gaze. “But darling, you’ve never had a relationship with

anyone else. What makes you the expert all of a sudden?”

Giles kept his mouth firmly closed. He wasn’t going to share anything about Smutty,

because he knew exactly what Fabian would say about him. “Degenerate gypsy” would be about the best he could hope for. Besides, it wasn’t like one night together was a relationship, was it? Yet, it was strange to admit it to himself, but he’d confided more of what dwelt deep inside him in that one night than he’d ever managed in all his years with Fabian.

“I don’t believe it,” Fabian said, stepping close enough for Giles to catch a waft of his spicy cologne. “There’s someone else, isn’t there? Who could you have met? You never even go out anywhere.”

Giles didn’t respond, but Fabian seemed to take that as an affirmative. “Please be

careful, Giles. You’re a wealthy man. You need a man who’s your equal, not some gold-digger out to take advantage of your generous nature.” He laid a hand on Giles’s arm and gave him a beseeching look.

“He’s not like that. And it’s not what you think, anyway. I just… I’m ready to start again. To make plans, and you’re not a part of them.”

The beauty fled from Fabain’s eyes as they hardened. “I just hope you know what

you’re doing, darling.” The endearment sounded forced and unnatural. “My offer won’t stay open forever, you know.”

Any remaining shoots of compassion in Giles’s breast shrivelled up and died. He gave a wry smile. “Fabian,
darling
, that’s a chance I’m perfectly willing to take.”

Giles walked out of Fabian’s office and carried on down to his car without looking

back. He didn’t want to stop moving until he was back home and he’d found Smutty.

He had a theory to test.

Chapter Nine

Clearing out the boat took the best part of an hour, and after Smutty had finished it looked like he’d set up a junk yard on the side of the canal. To think Grouch left all this crap on the boat, but he’d taken his fire extinguisher with him, the tight git. Smutty sighed at the assorted detritus, trying to see the potential in the assorted hunks of broken machinery and warped lengths of timber. Ballast and fuel was about the best his mind could stretch to.

Maybe an artist would do better, seeing the broken bits and pieces as the component parts of a sculpture. But Smutty was a gardener. And now he had a garden to look after.

He set off up to the house with a spring in his step. The grass in the orchard was still wet with dew and his trousers ended up soaked from the knees down, but it was another beautiful morning so who gave a monkey’s about wet legs? It was definitely time to look for a scythe in Giles’s tool shed, though. That would be his first job of the day.

Right after checking in on Giles.

Smutty tried the kitchen door and it opened, just as Giles had promised. He called out, but the house was too still, too full of echoes to contain another living being. He experienced a brief twinge of disappointment at seeing the note on the kitchen table, weighed down with a bottle of bleach, but shrugged it off again. It was sweet of Giles to think of him.

The paper was thick and probably cost a bomb, but Giles’s handwriting was

surprisingly sloppy considering how uptight the man could be. Smutty paused for a moment before reading, wondering if Starlight would claim to be able to read something significant in the chaotic spikes and loops.

I have to run some errands. Feel free to borrow any cleaning equipment you need.

You’ll find it all either under the sink or in the walk-in cupboard next to the fridge. The
shower’s upstairs if you need it. See you later. G.

PS – Thanks for last night.

There was another line crossed out after the last sentence, but try as he might, Smutty couldn’t decipher it. He smiled to himself as he tucked the note into his pocket and looked around the spacious kitchen. So he’d been given free access to the house? Well, the cleaning cupboards and the shower, anyway. Maybe Giles simply wanted him to scrub up—him and

his dirty old boat. He’d noticed Giles’s lip curl with disgust when looking around
Freya
. No wonder, really, when you saw the squeaky clean conditions the bloke lived in. You could probably eat your dinner off those flagstones—not that he’d want to. The heavy oak table and chairs looked an awful lot more comfortable. Sturdy enough for all kinds of recreational activities, no doubt. He wondered if Giles and that racist ex of his had ever put them through their paces, or if they still needed christening. Maybe they could do it later.

Shaking the fantasy out of his head and smiling, Smutty began looking through

Giles’s kitchen for the things he needed. There was no call for harsh chemicals if he could locate some vinegar, lemons and baking soda. Cleaning first, then gardening, then a shower, then Giles would be back and they could look into that kitchen table option a little more seriously.

Smutty sang to himself as set about his chores.

***

overgrown lawn, cutting a swathe through the lush grass all the way from the back of the house to the canal. He rested the scythe against one of the apple trees and watched as a tiny blue butterfly danced among the wildflowers. The longer Giles left this as meadow, the more diverse the species would become.

Smutty wondered what his chances were of persuading Giles to give his lawn over to

the wild, or if his next command would be for Smutty to mow the whole lot down into golf-course blandness. The man clearly didn’t realise what he had here. Smutty calculated there were close on two acres of grounds with a varied mix of habitats, including a spectacular yet completely neglected old walled kitchen garden, the companion to the rose garden they’d buried the bird in. He headed back that way, drawn to the space despite knowing it would never be his.

The gate creaked and scraped over the old paving stones, but once he was inside it

was like stepping back a hundred years. Blooming fruit trees were trained against the walls, but the beds below were a riot of weeds and the more tenacious perennial herbs and

vegetables. Triffid-like rhubarbs and giant clumps of mint jostled for space with brambles and nettles. The Victorian glasshouse built against the south facing wall was grimy with decades of accumulated filth, yet only a couple of panes were cracked and he could see it wouldn’t take much more than a concerted cleaning to get it back in use.

Smutty wandered through the raised beds on his way over, mentally filling them with

herbs, climbing peas and beans, golden squashes and fragrant strawberries. You could grow more than enough fruit and veg here to keep a large family well fed, let alone a single man.

Or a couple. But there wasn’t any point in thinking that way. He had a few weeks here, tops, then he’d have to move on. Keep up his travels, never stopping to rest in one place for long enough to get attached. It was better that way. Less painful when the time came to leave.

The glasshouse door was locked, but the key lurked under an upturned flowerpot next

to the rusty bootscraper that kept guard. After wrestling with the lock for a long minute and making a mental note to bring his can of WD-40 next time, the ancient mechanism gave way and Smutty entered the humid heat.

A laugh escaped him, and he drew in a deep lungful of warm air, scented with rich

earth. Staging lined the first room, piled high with terracotta pots. Motes of dust swirled in the shafts of green tinged sunlight that penetrated the dirty glass. He looked up to the roof, admiring the ornate cast iron mechanism for raising the lights. That would probably need a good squirt of lubricant as well, but imagine what you could do with the place! Smutty’s memory conjured up the heady scent of tomatoes ripening in the sun. It would smell like home.

Home was in his mind when he heard footsteps behind him, and the joy of it

transfused him as he turned to face Giles. And maybe it was contagious, because something like joy flitted over Giles’s face, before being subsumed by naked hunger.

“This place is amazing,” Smutty said, thrilled at the way Giles’s eyes grew so dark

they seemed to absorb the light in the room. He watched, mesmerised, as Giles stalked towards him. “Do you even realise what you have here?”

“What do I have?” Giles stopped scant inches from Smutty’s body, and all of a sudden the heat was stifling.

Smutty took a step back lest he lose his train of thought. He’d never been one for

formal wear, but the cut of the dark suit made Giles’s body look even more powerful, like a wild beast had been sedated just long enough to get it dressed, but was threatening to wake up at any moment. The shirt didn’t help either, the blue reflecting up and turning Giles’s eyes the colour of a stormy ocean.