Pushing himself upright, he took a few steps into the room. “Oh no you don’t, Prime Minister. Me and my sisters used to play them games.”
“Harry can read you a story”—it was still Rosaline’s parent voice—“if he wants to and if you ask nicely.”
As it turned out, he did want to, and she did ask nicely. And soon Rosaline and Harry were sitting by Amelie’s bed, while Rosaline tried to talk them out of tackling Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Amelie’s copy had been a well-intentioned but, on this occasion, ill-judged gift from Cordelia and St. John. While it was certainly a very pretty edition, with art-deco sharks and submarines on the cover, the text itself remained resolutely Victorian, and despite Amelie’s enthusiasm for the idea of the story, they’d never made it past the first chapter. Still, if they got lucky, the sheer density of the prose would bore Amelie to sleep.
“‘The year 1886,’” Harry began valiantly, “‘was signalised by a remarkable incident, a mysterious and puzzling phenomenon’—bloody hell, this is hard going, init?”
It was, indeed, hard going. And Rosaline’s brain, full of entremets and victory, didn’t even try to keep up.
“‘Naval officers of all countries,’” Harry was saying, “‘and Governments of several States were deeply interested in the matter.’”
“What matter?” asked Amelie.
“Well, we ain’t been told yet. Some kind of mysterious and puzzling phenomenon.”
“Maybe it’s a hydrothermal vent. David Attenborough says they’re mysterious and puzzling so they must have been very very puzzling in 1866.”
Harry smoothed the page. “Hang on, we’re getting to it. ‘For some time past vessels had been met by “an enormous thing,” a long object, spindle-shaped, occasionally phosphorescent and infinitely larger and more rapid in its movements than a whale.’”
“I know what phosphorescent means,” offered Amelie. “It means it gives off light. Lots of things give off light in the sea because it’s very dark. It could be a squid but squids aren’t bigger than whales. And a blue whale is the biggest thing ever so it can’t be anything. Unless it’s one of those jellyfish with the fronds that go for miles and miles and miles.”
“Tell you what. There’s some more information here. ‘The facts relating to this apparition (entered in various log-books) agreed in most respects as to the shape of the object or creature in question, the untiring rapidity of its movements, its surprising power of locomotion and the peculiar life with which it seemed endowed.’”
“That’s the same information.”
“Yeah.” Harry sighed. “That’s Victorians for you.”
He returned to the book, back-and-forthing with Amelie about the identity of the strange monster and whether it might, in fact, be a small reef or a floating island.
“That would explain why it’s bigger than a whale when nothing’s bigger than a whale,” said Amelie.
“Yeah, but how’s it move so fast?”
“Maybe it’s a rocket-powered island.”
They reached the end of the chapter, with neither Amelie nor the seafaring folk of the 1860s much the wiser as to what was going on.
“Now,” Harry concluded. “‘It was the “monster” who justly or unjustly was accused of their disappearance and, thanks to it, communication between the different continents became more and more dangerous. The public demanded sharply that the seas should, at any price, be relieved from this formidable cetacean.’”
Amelie tucked Mary Shelley under the covers with her. “That means a whale. But they keep saying it’s not a whale and it’s a reef, which is stupid. This book is stupid. The Victorians were stupid.”
“Yes,” said Rosaline. “They were.”
And kissing her daughter goodnight, she left Amelie to dream of spindle-shaped objects.
Probably the decorous thing to do would have been to go downstairs and put the kettle on. But Rosaline was a single mum who had won the nation’s favourite baking competition and she wasn’t in a decorous mood. Catching Harry by his T-shirt, she reeled him into her bedroom. No sooner were they over the threshold than he kissed her again.
“Is that all right?” he asked, already breathless. “Been wanting to since Anvita interrupted.”
“More than all right.”
She kissed him back—and it roared through her like a motorcycle. Because she’d been wanting this, too, and waiting for it. All the way through the congratulations and the well-wishes. All the way home. All the way through Jules fucking Verne. Because while her life was full of good things, friends and family and baking and a whole new future, this one was just for her.
Like before, they started sweetly enough—not-quite brushes of lips to lips—but it didn’t stay that way for long, not once Rosaline discovered she was in no mood to be sweet. She was in a seeking mood. A taking mood. A hungry mood. And Harry was perfect, his mouth as eager as hers, and his body a solid weight that bore her to the bed, the strength of him a kind of liberation in those moments. An invitation, even, encouraging the rough clutch of her hands and the eager arch of her hips.
“I think,” Rosaline said, tugging at his T-shirt, “I need this off. Right the fuck now.”
Harry pushed himself to his knees between her legs—looking flushed and tousled, his mouth slightly red from her kisses. “You sure?”
“Fuck yes, I’m sure. I want to tell Anvita all about it.”
“I know you’re joking but please don’t. I’d be embarrassed.”
Slipping her palms beneath the hem of his T-shirt, she inched them upwards, the ridges of his abs against her palms. “You are aware she says you’re a stone-cold hottie and I really really agree?”
“Well, she has got pretty good taste. Sanj seems like a top bloke.”
“And I’m glad to say my taste in blokes is definitely improving.”
“Don’t let it get too good. You might dump me.”
He dragged off his T-shirt and Rosaline took a moment—okay, several moments—to appreciate it. He had a faint tan, of the “goes outdoors in summer” rather than “spray” or “bed” variety, and clearly got his money’s worth from his gym membership, his body defined but not consciously built. A tattoo of an angel’s wing covered one pec, and the words “Audere est Facere”—which she suspected was a football thing—followed the curve of his collarbone on the other side, the dark ink in perfect contrast to all that smooth skin and hard muscle. Anvita would have lost her shit.
“I think,” Rosaline said, “dumping you is very unlikely.”
He laughed. “You’re proper shallow sometimes, mate. I feel very objectified.”
“How about we objectify each other?” Rosaline de-bloused with a flourish.
Harry’s eyes flicked down and then up again. “Sounds good to me. Fucking hell, you’re fit.” He drew her in for another deep kiss. “And like”—he was openly blushing now, his fingers curled gently in her hair—“really pretty. Like princess pretty.”