The statue, obviously. Not the kid.
With a prickling awareness, I come to realise Alexander is now standing behind me. How stealthy.
“Uncle Sandy?” Archie sing-songs. “Holly says she has jelly on her toast for breakfast. Doesn’t that sound yucky?”
I find myself thinking back to our confusing breakfast conversation. “Jelly is just fruit,” I explain. “Like a fruit spread. A preserve? Raspberry, strawberry—”
“So, what’s the difference between jam and jelly?” he asks, butting in.
“I can answer that.” I shiver as Alexander’s low whispered response coasts my ear from behind. “I can’t jelly my cock up your arse.”
I gasp—if I had pearls, I’d grab them. That’s no way for a man of his station to—
I don’t even get to swing around to show how shocked (turned on?) I am as he saunters on by to stand in front of Archie.
Turned on by his voice in my ear, I mean. Not the other thing.
The other is . . . does not turn my knees to Jell-O.
I don’t think.
“Hello, little Apollo.”
“I’m not Apollo! Uncle Sandy, what was that thing the statue had in his hand? Hugh said it was it a can of cola.”
Alexander chuckles, his gaze swinging back to me. This is not the look of a man about to call the police, I think. Not that he can prove anything. So it’s missing. So it’s broken. It doesn’t mean it’s my fault. Not entirely.
“In one hand, he’s holding the remains of a bow,” Alexander explains. “In the other, is his quiver.”
“It didn’t look like a bow,” the kid replies, looking at his own hand.
“That’s because it’s very old. It broke a long time ago.”
“How long?”
“Well, the statue was made by a sculptor called Baccio Bandinelli in Florence, Italy, back in the fourteen hundreds.”
Oh no. I think I’m going to be sick. Maybe he will really call the police.
“That’s really old,” the little boy says with a thoughtful expression. “No wonder his willie fell off.”
Ah, fudge.
29
Alexander
“I thought I could fix it.”
Poor Holland. She looks distraught. But my God, how I want to laugh.
“I didn’t know it was that old!” Hands on her knees, she tilts her head, her eyes a little green in the light, full of a soft innocence.
The late afternoon sun casts long shadows across the room that was once my father’s study, and his father before him, dust motes dancing in its shafts. I assume a sombre mien, leaning back against the gargantuan desk. Pulvis et umbra sumus, I find myself thinking. We are but dust and shadows.
Quoting Horace? No wonder I feel like a schoolmaster, drawing out a reprimand for my own entertainment. Come closer. Bend over the desk, naughty girl . . .
“I mean, okay, so I knew it was old,” Holland continues from her position in the leather wingback chair. She looks down at her hands, then up at me again, this time with a touch of pleading. “But not that old!”
My expression twists as though troubled by the admission. The statue is old but not as old as I might’ve led her to believe. It’s a Victorian reproduction, though not to scale. The original stands in the Boboli Gardens in Florence. Not that I need to share any of that at this precisely at this moment. “I wonder, how were you going to fix it?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs a little helplessly. “I thought I might find something on YouTube to help. I was waiting until the guests left after the weekend.”
The guests and me, she really means.
Twisting from the waist, I begin to shuffle the stack of papers, allowing me time to fix my poker face. “Is that what you’ve been doing all day? Looking for answers on YouTube?” Because she hasn’t posted anything to her Instagram page. Yes, so I might be stalking it a little. Isla was right; it’s not an account dedicated to bikini shots, pouting, and overly made-up faces. It is quirky and quite fun. But it’s also a little disingenuous. Like she’s trying very hard to impress people.
“No.”
“Where have you been?” I ask, turning back to face her.
“I—”
“Did you think you could avoid me after last night?”
“I went to speak to Lady Isla,” she says, not answering my question and avoiding my eyes as she twists a loose thread at her knees. Not so much a loose thread as a line of them cutting across the hole at the knee of her jeans. Artfully ripped, I suppose. She catches me watching, her gaze dipping to her sparkly running shoes that look to have had a run-in with a puddle or two.
“Oh?” And why?
“I went to see her because I was going to leave.” My stomach constricts intensely and immediately. Her head lifts, our gazes meet, and I see the conflict there. Conflict I understand because neither of us could’ve anticipated this. “After last night.”
“It was that bad, was it?” I try to keep my words light. I fail.
“No, you know it wasn’t,” she says softly, her cheeks turning a delicate pink. “But—”
“Regrets happen in the daylight . . .” I allow my words to trail off, hoping she’ll fill in the blanks. Cold feet. That’s all this is. Nothing to worry about.
“No, I don’t regret it. But not regretting spending the night with you doesn’t make it right, either.”
That, at least, is gratifying to know. Especially if it’s not flattery. Flattery I don’t need. Holland, however . . .
Do I need her?
There was a reason I spent the morning looking for her and an afternoon thinking about her in a darkened cinema.
“Alexander, we can’t do this,” she adds almost plaintively. “Isla is relying on me, and I work for you, and I swore to myself a long time ago that I would never have a relationship with someone I worked with.”
There’s a story behind the statement, but I park it to one side. For now.
“I take it Cameron doesn’t count.” My tone is sharp, the words coming from some place defensive, reinforced as I fold my arms. I flex my biceps for good measure, like a child greedy for reassurance.
“What?” She drags her gaze higher, blinking as she does so.
Though the action was juvenile, I find I’m still gratified to see she hasn’t changed her mind since last night. If nothing else, she still wants me.
“He’s part of the castle team. Could you have a relationship with him? He has asked you out.”
“That has nothing to do with you.” Her tone is prim, her hands suddenly tightening on her knees. “You have your rules around relationships. And so do I,” she adds after a brief pause.
“What are my rules?” I find myself purring almost dangerously.
“Don’t play games,” she replies, her tone arch. “I heard what you said at dinner last night. You only involve yourself with women who are okay with you not committing. I guess I must look like the ideal candidate.” She makes a flourish with her hands which I suppose is to indicate how she looks, perhaps her age. Granted, she’s not the kind of woman I might ordinarily glance at twice in the street. But fuck it, she’s more than that, and she’s more than just turned my head. Since that strange Wednesday afternoon in London, her presence in the world has threatened to turn my life upside down. Threatened to turn me inside fucking out!