The Second Time I Saw You: The Oxford Blue Series #2 Page 6

  The door creaks as Robert enters and places a tray with a fresh bottle of whisky, a jug and two glasses on the table between our chairs. ‘I brought some water too …’ he says, eyeing Alexander apprehensively. ‘Can I get you anything else, sir? Some more food? Helen could make you an omelette or a fresh sandwich? What about some coffee?’

  ‘Coffee? What would I want coffee for? I don’t know about Lauren.’ He flaps a hand in my general direction.

  I give Robert a tight smile. ‘I’m good, thanks.’

  ‘Call me if you need anything.’ Robert seems to direct this offer at me and I mouth a ‘thanks’ at him.

  The door closes with a soft click as Alexander reaches for the bottle.

  ‘See thish?’ he says, ripping off the seal. ‘This is a Glen Moray from the 1960 vintage.’ He screws the paper into a tiny ball and flicks it at the fire but it falls short. ‘It was bottled in 1988, the same year I was born.’

  He unscrews the cap and sloshes the contents first into one glass and then another, leaving a tiny puddle of amber pooling on the silver tray.

  My head has started to throb. ‘Not for me, thanks.’

  He frowns, his eyes full of hurt. ‘You have to try it. You have to drink it now, or when will you? Who knows when “when” will be. Here …’

  The tumbler trembles a little as he hands it to me and leans over, his breath reeking of whisky. He’s off his face already but who can blame him?

  He holds the glass in front of him, and the crystal and amber liquid glisten like jewels in the firelight. I cradle mine in my hands and he sniffs the glass, takes a sip and leans back against the chair, with a dramatic sigh.

  ‘Now isn’t that the best fucking thing you’ve ever tasted?’ He looks at me lustfully. ‘Apart from me, of course.’

  I take a sip and try to look as if I’m enjoying it for his sake, although by now I’m just wishing he’d stop drinking.

  ‘I’m no whisky buff but I’ll admit that it’s good.’

  ‘Good? Is that all you can say about a bottle of whisky that costs a grand?’

  ‘I don’t care how much it costs,’ I say.

  He laughs, and tosses back a third of the measure, which was generous in the first place. ‘My father would have a blue fit, if he saw me glugging it down like lemonade,’ he says, with a bitter laugh. ‘He’d hit the roof.’

  ‘Perhaps he wouldn’t mind so much in the circumstances.’

  ‘In the circumstance of him being dead?’ I flinch a little as he raises his voice, then he seems to realize he’s almost shouted and lowers it again. ‘I knew him. I knew – fucking lived – every one of his moods while I was here. You know, he told me he’d bought this to celebrate me being born, but he never opened it for some reason. God knows why, he was obviously waiting for something more momentous than that.’

  ‘Maybe he just forgot it was in the cellars …’ I say, trying to deflect his rising anger.

  He looks in my direction, but I get the impression he doesn’t really care who I am any more. ‘Maybe,’ he says truculently, briefly reminding me of Emma.

  ‘Or he might have been saving the bottle for you.’

  ‘Why would I merit something so infinitely more precious to him as this?’ He holds up the glass again and drinks it all down. Then he starts laughing, really loudly like I’ve just made some hysterically funny barrack-room joke. I put my glass down, wondering if I dare fetch Robert. I just hope Alexander passes out very soon before he can get alcohol poisoning.

  He downs the rest of the glass and while I haven’t been counting, I figure he must have had close on a bottle of whisky already today. How the hell am I going to stop him drinking himself into oblivion? Should I even try after what he’s gone through?

  He pats his lap and his eyes are hungry with lust. ‘Why don’t you come and sit here?’

  ‘I was thinking of going to bed.’

  ‘Why bother with a bed?’

  ‘Robert might come in,’ I say keeping my tone light. ‘And I’m sure you don’t want to be caught shagging by the staff.’

  ‘Personally, I don’t care but I’ll lock the door if it bothers you.’

  He gets up, or rather staggers out of his seat. I jump up and steady him with my arm around his back. ‘You’re pissed,’ I say.

  ‘Pished?’ He tries to mimic my accent. At least I think that’s what he’s trying to do.

  ‘Do you want to go and sleep?’

  ‘No. I want to fuck you.’

  He may be too drunk to stand, but he’s still incredibly strong and when he half topples, half sits back down in the armchair, I overbalance and fall into his lap. As I get my breath back, our eyes lock. His breath smells like a distillery as he kisses me and his mouth is hard against mine. Drunk he may be, but I can feel how much he wants me. Besides, he can’t drink and have sex with me at the same time so this is for his own good, I try to kid myself.

  His hand is on my thigh, pushing up my skirt. ‘Alexander, I don’t think this is the greatest idea.’

  ‘I do. If you hadn’t noticed, I’ve had quite a day and I need to forget it.’ He pulls my skirt up and his hand snakes between my legs. I’m turned on, even though he’s drunk and someone might come into the room. I make a pitiful attempt to stop him, clamping my fingers around his wrist, but despite the whisky, he’s strong and I can’t lie, I want him too. It’s been a hell of day for me too and I find myself kissing him back, my sheer lust for his body obliterating everything else. He tugs my blouse impatiently out of my skirt and his hands are all over my back, fumbling with my bra strap.

  He frowns at me. ‘What the –’

  ‘It’s front-fastening.’

  He pulls his hand from my blouse and starts to attack the buttons.

  ‘Hey …’ I reach for his hand but it’s too late and one of my buttons pings off and bounces off something as he almost tears my blouse open. I moan with pleasure as he snaps the fastening of my bra open and bares my breasts.

  Something in his eyes changes and he reaches for the bottle from the table.

  ‘Hey, no!’

  He lifts the bottle pours several hundred dollars worth of single malt over my breasts.

  ‘Alexander!’ My cry is loud as my white blouse turns amber and the whisky runs down my cleavage. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘This.’ His mouth descends on my chest and he starts licking the whisky from my breasts. He closes his mouth around my nipple, sucking it hard, and I cry out in pain and pleasure. I push my breasts together into his face and, for a second, I think I can hear voices outside the door but they move on. I’m past caring anyway; this feels like the wickedest thing I’ve ever done. It’s so, so wrong, so why do I want him more than I’ve ever done?

  I climb off his lap and pull my panties down. His eyes devour me and he starts to fumble with the zip on his trousers.

  I throw my panties on the sofa and close my hand over his. ‘Here, let me.’

  I loosen the knot on his tie and pull it over his head, trying to blot out the fact I’m about to have sex with a man in mourning clothes.

  Alexander leans back against the chair, his hands hanging limply over the edge of the armrests, with his trousers around his thighs. He licks his lips as I strip off my whisky-stained blouse and shimmy out of my skirt. I climb into his lap and straddle him, and he rests his hands lightly on my waist.

  I kiss him softly, savouring the bittersweet malt on his lips. When I stop, he looks at me. ‘Lauren?’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘I loved him, you know. Despite the fact he was an awkward sod and he blamed me for my mother’s death. I did actually love the old bastard.’

  ‘I know,’ I say.

  ‘And from now on, I think we should be honest with each other. No more shecrets.’

  ‘No more shecrets, eh?’

  ‘No. I think we should be absholutely honest with each other.’

  ‘Absholutely honest?’

  ‘Are you laughing at me?’ I think he�
�s trying to intimidate me but it’s more glazed than glare.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ Boy, am I glad he probably won’t remember any of this in the morning, after what Emma confided in me earlier.

  ‘Close your eyesh …’ he says and I obey, happy to move on from a tacit agreement I can’t keep and he probably has no intention of so doing.

  His breathing gets louder as I wait for him to kiss me again or touch my breasts. I clench my bottom and wriggle against his thighs, still waiting. When nothing happens, and his hands drop from my waist, I open my eyes. His lashes flutter once or twice against his cheek before he passes out cold.

  Getting dressed was simple; getting Alexander’s trousers zipped up again wasn’t. I’d half hoped he’d wake up but maybe it’s far better he’s unconscious and out of his misery temporarily. At least he still had his shirt on or I’d have had a hell of a time explaining that to Robert, because I had to call him in the end. There was no way I could get Alexander to bed and no way I wanted to leave him in that state all night. I’m not sure Robert believed my story that Alexander had spilled the whisky on me by accident.

  After covering him up with a tartan rug – which I’m not sure Alexander will be too amused about when he wakes up – Robert offers to check up on him periodically so I can get some rest. I don’t know when Robert gets any himself but I’m too exhausted myself to argue with the guy and anyway, he seems to consider it his duty.

  I drag myself to the guest suite I had last time I stayed here and flick the light switch, expecting to find my bags on the bed.

  ‘Miss Cusack?’

  Helen walks into the room behind me.

  ‘Hi, Helen. Do you know what happened to my bags?’

  ‘They’re in Lord Falconbury’s room, miss.’

  I can’t believe this. ‘I’m staying in the general’s room?’

  She smiles at me. ‘No. You’re staying in Alexander’s room. He asked for your things to be moved in there while you were out for a walk with Lady Emma. Is that all right? I can move them back in here if you’d prefer.’

  I blush, embarrassed at my mistake yet quietly delighted. ‘No, thank you, Helen. Things are just fine as they are.’

  So, the unthinkable has happened. An unmarried woman is sharing a room with a guy at Falconbury. The last time I was here, Alexander told me about the tradition, which I assume was enforced by his father, and even he agreed it was laughably old-fashioned, but neither of us wanted to rock the boat by complaining.

  The room is even larger than the guest suite and, unsurprisingly, exudes masculinity. There’s a sleigh bed that has to be six feet wide, a huge gentleman’s chest of drawers and an oak wardrobe. The walls are panelled in dark oak like the guest room and the prints, predictably, are largely hunting and sporting scenes. What I didn’t expect are the photographs – a dozen or more, framed in silver gilt, wood and brightly coloured plastic, all arranged on a large round table by the window.

  There’s a younger version of the general in one, leading a young Alexander on a Shetland pony, and one of the two children on a beach with fishing nets, on either side of their father. There are also two of Lady Hunt. I pick one up and look at the beautiful face that peers back at me. It’s obviously a professional shot, taken in one of the rooms at Falconbury I presume. She can’t be much older than me in the shot, and she’s wearing a pearl necklace and earrings. I wonder if it was done as an engagement portrait.

  I move on to another picture, a family snap of her and Alexander in the country, sitting next to a picnic basket. Alexander looks about ten. It can’t have been long before the car accident that ended her life and from which Emma and Alexander were lucky to escape.

  I replace it carefully and climb into his bed, wondering when – if – he’ll join me.

  I wake to the sun shining through the window and Alexander sitting on the edge of the bed. His eyes are red-rimmed with dark blotches underneath and his voice isn’t so much cut glass as dragged over broken glass.

  ‘That bad?’ he growls as I stare at him.

  I nod.

  He manages a wry smile. ‘I suspected as much but I’m avoiding mirrors this morning. I think I may have fallen asleep in the chair in the library. I was off my face last night.’

  No shit, Sherlock. I sit up, wondering if he remembers exactly what he was doing before he passed out. ‘It’s OK. You’d had quite a day.’

  ‘And a night. My head feels like it’s under mortar fire. Helen greeted me at seven o’clock with a packet of paracetamol and a bacon sandwich.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I needed the pills and I thought it was my duty to eat the bacon.’ He grimaces. ‘It’s stayed put so far.’

  ‘I’m surprised you haven’t ended up in the ER.’

  ‘It’s probably a good thing you distracted me from the second bottle.’ So, he does remember.

  ‘As I recall, most of it ended up on us, not in you.’

  His expression is stern, his voice rough. ‘That was a very expensive bottle of scotch.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But I can’t think of a better use for it,’ he adds with the faintest of smiles, which sets my pulse racing again despite myself.

  ‘No,’ I agree. I wait for him to kiss me but he rubs his chin and sighs. ‘I suppose I need a shower and a shave.’

  ‘I’d like to take a bath. What time is it now?’

  ‘Nearly ten.’

  ‘Arghh. I missed breakfast again.’

  ‘It’s becoming a habit but don’t worry, I missed it too. How do you feel about getting out of here for some brunch? I existed on a liquid diet yesterday and the bacon sandwich won’t keep me going long. I hear the full English is the only true cure for a hangover and I think we both need to get out of this house.’

  ‘What about Emma?’ I ask, remembering again, with a pang of worry, the confession she made to me. Should I tell him and risk making life even more difficult for Emma? Or am I making things worse by not telling him? Shit.

  ‘She’s going out with a friend while I see to the legal stuff but she’ll be back tomorrow and I’ll need to talk to her then. I’m not looking forward to it.’ He lets out a breath. ‘Do you mind walking into the village? I’m probably still over the limit and I need to clear my head before I deal with the lawyers later.’

  While Alexander showers and I take a quick bath, I try not to panic too much about the fact I’m missing a seminar at the faculty later today. I managed to get my tute with Professor Rafe rearranged, and while he’d ‘warned’ me about getting involved with Alexander last term, he could hardly complain about me attending the funeral.

  Yet he is my tutor and I really have to leave Falconbury on Sunday morning. Even if he wasn’t pressuring me, I’d put pressure on myself to work hard and make the most of my master’s. I only have one year here – with the vacations, it’s less than six months. Much of my first week has been spent wondering how Alexander is. I resolve to get some work done on my essay later while Alexander attends the reading of his father’s will.

  Wrapped up in a borrowed Barbour and Hunters, I tramp across the deer park to the village with Alexander, our breath misting in front of our faces. Alexander strides out, grabbing my hand and practically dragging me along and shooting out constant jibes about not being able to keep up with him. I have the feeling he’d like to put a million miles between him and Falconbury and never come back.

  Even at a brisk pace, it takes over half an hour to reach the village from the house, and I don’t think we’ve even left Falconbury land yet, but eventually Alexander pushes open the door of a tiny cafe in the centre of the village. On a January morning, the joint is hardly jumping, but there’s a definite change in the atmosphere as we walk in. I get the impression they’re amazed to see Alexander out at all, let alone with a strange girl. His shoulders are stiff as he thanks the cafe owner and one of the other customers for their condolences, but then he sets to devouring the plate of bacon, sausage and tomatoes, was
hed down with gallons of tea. I tuck into a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel and some fresh juice.

  We walk back to Falconbury at a much slower pace, Alexander stopping periodically to point out various landmarks to me, occasionally mentioning his father. He reminds me of Shakespeare’s schoolboy, creeping like snail, unwillingly, to school. Our route back takes us up a hill with a round stone tower at the top. It looks like a folly to me, stuck in the middle of nowhere.

  Finally, after a short, sharp climb, we reach the top. My breath comes in staccato bursts; I’m glowing with the effort.

  ‘I really must do more running,’ I say as Alexander stands with his hands on his hips, gazing over the view.

  ‘The last time you went running, you know what happened,’ he says reminding me of the start of last term when I tripped and sprained my ankle outside his house. I almost ended up in bed with him that day but I escaped.

  ‘Maybe that’s what I should do now. Run away from you …’

  ‘Perhaps you should.’ He keeps his eyes on the scene below us; the estate – his estate – is spread out in front of us, with Falconbury at the centre. ‘But you won’t.’

  ‘Won’t I?’ He turns to face me. ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because you want me too much for that.’

  I don’t know whether to feel incensed at the return of his arrogance – or to secretly rejoice in it. He steps forward and flames me with a look. ‘And I think we have unfinished business, Lauren.’

  I couldn’t agree more, but I also know that I arrived back here with such resolve to move on from the stormy relationship we had. This time I’m determined not to be a pushover. I’m here for him because of his father, I remind myself, and I’m not committing myself beyond that. ‘It’s cold out here,’ I murmur, distracted.

  ‘Then let’s get inside. In fact, I’ll race you back to Falconbury.’

  ‘In these?’ I point the toe of my wellington boot.

  He folds his arms. ‘Excuses already? I don’t accept that from my men.’