Boot Camp Bride (20 page)

‘Won’t I need my phone to keep in contact with you?’ Charlee’s brow creased as she considered the logistics of their mission.

‘You won’t get a signal on the marshes,’ he replied with such certainty that Charlee knew he’d made it his business to find out. ‘It’s a dead zone for mobile phones. I only just get a signal here, or on the edge of the village. All contact between us will have to be made via a public call box.’

‘If there is one,’ Charlee said, pointing out another flaw in the plan.

‘There is,’ he said, eating his last mussel.

‘You seem very certain.’

‘I am.’

The last was said with such authority that Charlee didn’t pursue the matter further. The waiter removed their plates and brought them lemon scented hot cloths to wipe their fingers. Then their steaks arrived and Ffinch tucked into his with all the relish of a starving man.

An hour and a half later after dessert, coffee and cognac, Charlee and Ffinch climbed the stairs to their respective bedrooms. Charlee was rather unsteady, a combination of vertiginous heels and the quantity of wine she’d consumed. She pulled a face and groaned, thinking of the hangover she would wake up with and the windswept salt marshes dashing ice-cold rain and sleet into her face. Ffinch walked up the stairs behind her, his hand resting lightly on her waist as if keeping a loving eye on her, whereas in reality he was holding her upright. Bidding the other guests goodnight, he whispered in her ear.

‘Smile, for goodness sake. You look as if you’re going to your doom, not a night of passion in The Ship Inn’s best room. Stay in role.’

‘I’m concentrating on my balance, if you must know, and,’ Charlee whipped round as his words sank in, almost falling backwards into his arms. ‘A night of passion, now hold it right there, mate. It’d take more than two glasses of champagne -’

‘Half a bottle of Rioja, a sticky with your pudding and cognac with coffee - to do what? Floor you? Make the thought of sleeping with me more palatable?’ Although he kept a straight face, Charlee detected banked down humour there.

‘You didn’t exactly drink Perrier water all night yourself,’ she said, giving him a pondering look. Then the humour vanished from his eyes and was replaced by the sorrow that never seemed to leave him. It was as if he believed he had no right to happiness because he’d messed up big time and lost two of his team.

‘Besides which,’ he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘I haven’t reached such depths of depravity or desperation that I have to get my date drunk before I can have sex with her.’ Date? Have sex with her! The words leapt out at Charlee and she was about to make another cutting remark, but he hadn’t finished. ‘If I’d wanted to ravish you, Montague - don’t you think I could have carried out my dastardly plan at the mews?’

‘In Chelsea no one can hear you scream?’ Charlee paraphrased, hiding that she was rather put out at discovering that he found her about as alluring as a wet fish.

‘Exactly. Here we are - home.’ They arrived at her door. ‘Key?’ She handed it over and he unlocked her door and put it back in her handbag. ‘Okay, you get into bed, drink a huge amount of water and knock back some painkillers, that way you’ll be fit for what I’ve got planned tomorrow.’

‘Which is?’

‘A yomp over the marshes when the tide’s out.’

‘Oh, God - I’m a dead woman,’ she moaned, covering her face with her hands. ‘I’ll be sucked down some godforsaken bog and be found thousands of years later, perfectly preserved - like those leathery corpses in the Fens. That’s if the vultures don’t pick my bones dry.’

‘Hm, I must consult
The Boys’ Own Book of Fenland Birds
,’ Ffinch said, now openly laughing. ‘I don’t remember vultures featuring widely in it.’

‘Oh, shut up, Mr Smarty Pants,’ Charlee said, giving him a push in his chest and starting to feel rather worse for wear. ‘Goodnight. I won’t be asking you in for coffee.’

‘Goodnight, Charlee - you are priceless, know that? Sleep well, but remember - gallons of water and pain killers.’ He leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek as a good fake fiancé should. At that precise moment, Charlee turned her face fractionally to the left and his kiss landed squarely on her lips.

‘Oh,’ Charlee said in surprise, leaning back against the door.

Ffinch didn’t pull away or give an embarrassed cough, despite his earlier covert assertion that she wasn’t his type. Instead, he leaned forward and deepened the kiss, unmistakably relishing the way their lips touched and their breathing became erratic. Then, just as Charlee felt herself floating above the uneven oak floor, two guests walked across the landing and he pulled back.

‘Sweet dreams, Bunnikins,’ he said softly, purely for their benefit. Charlee heard a rumble of laughter in his throat as he opened her door and pushed her gently, but firmly across the threshold.

The door closed. Charlee raised an unsteady hand to her lips, which were tingling. Just as they had done when, as child, she’d made a musical instrument out of a comb and greaseproof paper. Eventually the tingling stopped and Charlee walked into the bathroom to locate her painkillers. She stopped dead in the middle of the tiled floor as his last words penetrated the fug of her brain.

Bunnikins? Bunnikins!

She giggled. She’d never figure Ffinch out, not in a million years and felt suddenly sad that, after tonight, she’d have less than a week left in which to try.

Chapter Twenty-five
Look Out for the Vultures

Charlee woke in the middle of the night as hailstones hurled themselves at her window aided and abetted by a cutting wind off the marshes. She checked the time on her mobile phone - three a.m. Unable to sleep, she lay in the darkness expecting a hangover to manifest itself. However, apart from a raging thirst she seemed fine. She’d always had the constitution of a particularly energetic ox and it was standing her in good stead. However, deciding it was best not to take any risks, she swung her legs out of bed and headed for the loo for more painkillers and to rehydrate her liver.

It was then that she heard the other sound above the noise of the wind - a low moaning like someone in distress. It appeared to be coming from Ffinch’s bedroom. What on earth was he doing in there? Conducting a black mass complete with animal sacrifice? Or maybe those Brancaster mussels were exacting their revenge. Wrinkling her nose at the thought, she put her ear to the interconnecting door. She couldn’t just barge in, not after accusing him of engineering a have-it-away-weekend.

The moaning grew louder and became a muttering - and then she heard a name being called over and over. Taking her courage in both hands, she slipped her mobile into her dressing gown pocket, unlocked the door and peered into the darkness.

‘
No. No. Elena. Elen-ah. Virgen santísima, ayúdanos. Cristo ayúdanos. No dejes que Elena muera.
Jesús, ten piedad. Por el amor de Dios, no dejes que se ahogue.
Allesandro, ayuda!
’

Charlee stood listening as Ffinch relived the moment when he’d pleaded in Spanish with their captors to save Elena - and then turned to God, and someone called Allesandro when his pleas were ignored. She was overwhelmed by the need to go to him, to wake him from this nightmare and bring him comfort. Using the light from her mobile phone as a torch she negotiated her way across the room, allowing herself time to adjust to the darkness. His cries rang out afresh and she moved swiftly but silently to his side.

Charlee recalled reading somewhere that it was dangerous to wake people in the middle of a nightmare - or was that sleepwalking? She couldn’t remember which. Glancing down at Ffinch, she saw that he was calmer now but she was reluctant to wake him and reveal that she’d seen him at his lowest ebb. He was a proud man, guarded, too - if he knew she’d been brought to his room by his cries for help, the fragile rapport developing between them would fracture.

He turned over and flung himself on his back, hands raised above his head and with his wrists facing outwards. Charlee let the eerie light from her mobile range over him, checking that he was okay but taking care not to wake him.

‘Oh my God.’ In the faint light she could just make out livid marks scarring the flesh on the undersides of his lower arms and wrists. She’d read that drug user’s arms were marked with tramlines, but she’d never seen them for real. Her blood ran cold and she felt physically sick. Vanessa had been right when she’d accused him of gun running, drug smuggling, money laundering … and more, besides.

Charlee took a step back from his bed, appalled.

How could she have got him so wrong?

Had she been so taken up by the idea of working with Ffinch the award-winning journalist that she hadn’t thought it through properly? Or dug deeply enough to discover the truth? She swept the greenish beam of light over his bedside table - bottles of pills, prescription drugs with his name on the label. Maybe he was hooked on those, too? Frowning, she returned her phone to the pocket of her pyjamas and looked down at him, her eyes having adjusted to the darkness

Whatever had disturbed his dreams, his thrashing around and calling out seemed to have exorcised it. He was descending into the deeper reaches of sleep and his bare chest rose and fell rhythmically. For a moment the woman in Charlee took precedence over the journalist. She looked down at his bare chest, the delicate line of hair that led downwards - and wondered what lay beneath the duvet he’d almost thrown off the bed.

Did he sleep in the nude?

The thought sent lust scudding through her veins and her breath snagged in her throat. She placed her hand over her breastbone in an attempt to bring her breathing and her wicked thoughts under control. When she realised that her breathing had fallen into step with his - although her heart was still hammering away like a mad thing - she knew this man was getting to her. Overwhelmed by the need to peel back the duvet, climb inside that warm bed with him and … she checked her wild thoughts and backed away from his bed.

If he caught her there, he would naturally assume that she’d come to compromise him in some ill-thought-out scheme to prize secrets from him. Tiptoeing, she retraced her steps back to her room and closed the interconnecting door. But this time, she didn’t lock it. Instead, she fell into bed, restless and uneasy - wondering how one off-centre kiss and seeing him lying there naked and troubled had awoken unwanted feelings of yearning and desire in her.

Now it was her turn to twist the bedclothes into a knot as she pulled the duvet over her head and tried to go back to sleep. But sleep eluded her - for reasons that were only too clear to her!

The next morning, Charlee was outside The Ship Inn loaded down with birdwatching gear and looking a total wreck. After a sleepless night wondering what dark memories disturbed Ffinch’s sleep and haunted his waking hours, she’d been practically comatose over the ‘full English’ - served at an eye-wateringly early seven thirty. Ffinch on the other hand looked ready for anything. And, to Charlee’s oversensitive senses, seemed to be shouting rather than talking to her.

‘The girl in reception said that a family of barn owls lives in the field across from the car park and can be seen quartering the fields, hunting for prey. It’s a feature of the marshes apparently,’ he added breezily. Then he peered at her in a critical fashion. ‘Got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning, Montague?’

‘As a matter of fact, no!’ she snapped, hiding her blushes. Little did he know which side of whose bed she could have been climbing out of this morning! ‘Couldn’t sleep, that’s all.’ She left the sentence hanging to see if he’d mention his restless night. When he didn’t, she continued grumpily, ‘And, what kind of feckin’ owls go hunting in the day? It isn’t natural.’

‘It’s a common misconception that owls are nocturnal,’ Ffinch read from an ancient copy of
The Boys’ Own Book of Fenland Birds
. ‘They are, in fact, diurnal - if you must know.’ His eyes looked more grey than blue in the washed-out morning light and he had the appearance of a man who’d had a good night’s sleep. Charlee suspected that he found her bad mood highly diverting - Little Miss Sunshine was finally having a cloudy day!

‘Spare me the lecture, David Attenborough. I’m a country girl and have forgotten more about owls and other … random wild creatures, than a townie like you will ever learn.’ With a haughty toss of her head, Charlee hitched the rucksack containing packed lunch, bottled water and a flask of hot chocolate higher onto her shoulders and headed for the marshes. When it became plain that Ffinch wasn’t following her, she swivelled round and stood with her hands on her hips.

‘What now?’

‘Wrong way, Montague. Follow me.’ Turning on his heel, he headed for the village green without waiting for her.

‘Baden-bleedin-Powell as well, is it?’ Charlee mumbled under her breath as she followed close on his heels. ‘Will you be giving me my sixer’s badge for reading animal tracks?’

‘Stop the mutinous muttering and keep up,’ he called over his shoulder, apparently enjoying every moment of her bad mood. Fuming, Charlee followed at a trot, four of her steps being equal to one of his long strides. It was clear she would be shown no quarter this morning. Last night she’d wanted to climb into bed with him, today she had thoughts of a different nature running through her mind. Murderous ones. She’d always hated PE at school and her first foray as a serious journo was beginning to resemble a cross-country run more than the cloak and dagger mission she’d imagined.

They skirted the green and cut through a park full of static caravans closed down for the winter. Then they turned right and headed past some modern bungalows and older flint cottages overlooking the marshes. Ffinch stopped, raised his binoculars and pointed with his free hand, like a modern-day version of Millais’s
The Boyhood of Raleigh
.

‘Those are the old Coast Guards’ cottages. They’re rental properties now, but back in the day they had a perfect view of the marshes and the smugglers who tried to land contraband at high tide. Come on,’ he urged, putting down his binoculars and striding forward with renewed vigour.

‘Come on? Come on where precisely? Everything’s either covered by water or feet deep in mud.’ Charlee continued to complain as they skirted the village green where workmen were stacking reeds ready for thatching in the spring. They walked past a paper bank and towards the marshes. ‘Oh, recycling bins - how picturesque.’ Snarkily, she took a photo of the green and orange bins with her mobile phone, looking across the winter marshland where flocks of birds were coming down to feed now the receding tide made their feeding grounds accessible.

Ffinch ground to a halt and then whipped round to face her. ‘Are you going to keep this up all morning, Montague? Whatever else I thought of you, I never thought you were a quitter or a whinger.’

‘I’m not a whinger,’ she protested. Then the telling phrase rewound and ran through her befuddled brain one more time: whatever else I thought of you. What did he mean? What did he think of her, exactly? ‘Just tired, that’s all. I didn’t sleep well … get off my case, Ffinch.’

‘I’m not surprised with the amount of booze you put away,’ he said cheerfully - all the more to goad her, Charlee presumed. ‘Or was there another reason?’

‘Such as?’ Had he seen her creep in and out of his room and been feigning sleep? His expression deadpan, he raised an eyebrow and suppressed a grin. ‘What, you mean that good night kiss? Mate - get over yourself.’ She pushed him in the chest with both hands and he fell against the weatherworn fence which splintered on impact. ‘I’ve had more passionate kisses from our two black labs, Teal and Marley. Although, admittedly, your breath didn’t smell quite as strongly of doggy chews.’

For some moments he laid spreadeagled against the fence, the sloe bushes with their shrivelled berries doubling as his crown of thorns. Long, silent seconds stretched out and she took a step forwards, concerned that she had injured him.

 ‘Ffinch are you okay? Speak to me for God’s sake.’

She put the flat of her hand on his chest which was rising and falling in short, sharp breaths. Was he having a heart attack, or something? He looked young and fit, but she knew he was nowhere near the peak of fitness or health expected of a man in his early thirties. She started to unzip his waxed jacket and to rub his chest to ease his breathing. It took several seconds for her to realise that he wasn’t gasping for breath - he was laughing.

At her!

‘Why, you -’ she raised her fists to pummel his chest but he caught them and held her fast.

‘Tell me Montague, are your former boyfriends buried under the patio, having sustained fatal injuries in the course of romancing you?’

‘Romancing me? What are you, some ancient minstrel? You’ll be singing under my window next - For a man who doesn’t believe in moon in June, roses round the door and happily ever after … you have a very romantic turn of phrase.’

His lips twitched, then he sobered and sent her a straight look. ‘You might think so, but believe me, no woman would want me - not if she knew what I was really like. What I’ve done.’ The way he said it made her heart squeeze in compassion and with another emotion she couldn’t identify. She asked herself the question she couldn’t ask him - what had he done that was so terrible? A shiver coursed through her at his sudden mood change and the brooding look he sent over the marshes.

‘I know what you’re really like.’ She sent him a fierce look, not allowing him to push her away physically or emotionally. He was just beginning to open up to her and she didn’t want him to clam up. He was balanced against the fence, the weight of his rucksack making it difficult for him to right himself while he held onto her fists. He seemed in no hurry to let her go; meanwhile, she was imprisoned between his splayed legs. She felt no embarrassment at being so close and intimate; there was a part of her that knew, in spite of his warning, that she could trust him, with her life - if not her heart.

‘And what am I really like?’ he asked, pulling a self-deprecating face.

‘Mad, bad and dangerous to know,’ Charlee said with her usual flippancy.

Her knees were beginning to ache from holding herself away from him, so she relaxed and leaned against him. He was wearing double thickness walking trousers as protection against the wind, so if he did find her in the least bit arousing she’d never know. She blushed at the way her thoughts were running. Seeing him naked and vulnerable in bed last night had irrevocably altered her perception of him.

She shook away the wanton image, trying hard not to lose herself in the depths of his grey eyes; or to find his straight nose and the pensive, downward set of his lips appealing. He’d made it abundantly clear there was no place for sexual attraction in their relationship. And even if Sam Walker had commanded him to put stars in her eyes, he clearly had no intention of carrying out those orders. He was too honest - that much she knew about him.