Love is a Stranger (24 page)

Nikolas turned, his expression glazed, as if he’d been miles away in some place only he could reach. He saw what Ben was holding. An expression flicked across his face that Ben couldn’t read, but he replied casually enough, “I was seventeen when that was taken. Give it to me. I forgot I had kept it.”

Holding the photo in his hands seemed more intimate than holding Nikolas’s cock in his mouth the previous night. It was the backward relationship thing again. He should have seen a picture of Nikolas as a boy long before the man bent him over a table and fucked him. He didn’t want to hand it over—he wanted to keep it. He hesitated, some deep-seated sense of wrongness about this whole situation pricking the nerves in the back of his neck. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Benjamin, give it to me!”

Ben stood up feeling irrational, stupid, even as he said it. “No. You’re going to tear it up, aren’t you?”

Almost before he had time to react, Nikolas crossed the space between them. But Ben was just that one fraction of a second faster, and he dodged, getting the photograph safety tucked in his shirt. Nikolas tried to pass off the attempt to grab the photo as something very casual and not to be thought about, for it was beneath him to protest more, but Ben wasn’t fooled for a second; for one minute he’d seen a killing rage in Nikolas’s eyes that he had never thought he’d see. He bit his lip. It was all so foolish—all for an innocent photo of a boy laughing to the camera. But, somehow, Ben felt the photograph represented far more than that. They were at something of an impasse now. He knew he’d angered Nikolas—and not one of the play arguments they both so enjoyed. This was for real. He wasn’t sure where he stood in this one. He ought to just hand the photo over—it wasn’t his, after all—but every instinct was telling him to keep it safe, that somehow Nikolas needed him to keep it safe, despite appearances.

Suddenly, Nikolas glanced around the room at the half-packed bags and the things flung on the bed. He didn’t look at Ben but said deceptively calmly, “This was a mistake. I discover I do not need any of this, after all.” With that, he walked out. Ben caught him up as he was climbing into the Range Rover.

“What about the horses?”

“I do not believe they will fit in the car. Get in. I have put in the address of the next house. We should view it, even it you are decided on buying the mill. I do not care much anymore.”

Ben got in and started the vehicle. He glanced at the stony profile next to him. He was on the point of apologising and offering up the photo, but something held him back, that little inner voice that told him it was important not to give in to Nikolas on this. For one moment, though, sitting in the car next to the silent and angry man in front of this house, Ben was back to the early years when their relationship had been one of silences and sex and nothing more. He didn’t like it, but didn’t really know what to say to break the mood.

He debated for a moment longer then took the course of least resistance and drove away from the house as commanded.

§§§

The next viewing was on the outskirts of Exeter, a long way to drive in uncomfortable silence. After some miles, Ben’s uncanny sense of direction told him they were going the wrong way, despite what the satnav was telling him. He didn’t say anything, as the machine was giving confident directions in its irritatingly superior voice, and Nikolas had put the address in. He didn’t want to get shouted at again.

The lanes began to get narrower. There were no signposts at the occasional crossroads they came to. After another hour, Ben knew they were completely lost. He could see the tors of Dartmoor rising ahead of them—they were going north, as he’d suspected. As he knew he’d get blamed for the error, despite only following a satellite, he carried on, hoping to come to some landmark he could use to navigate back to the road, but this only dug them in deeper. Nikolas appeared miles away, lost to thoughts possibly conjured by their recent conversation. He only noticed something was wrong when a branch dragged down the side of the vehicle. He sat straighter, opened his window and hissed, “You are too close. Move out.”

Ben coughed and indicated his side of the lane. There, too, the stinging nettles and foxgloves were pressed tight to the door. The hedges were at least twice the height of the Range Rover, and the lane was almost dark despite the overhead sun. Nikolas turned around and stared back at the long, green tunnel behind them and then at the satnav, which helpfully chose that moment to announce, “You have reached your destination.” Ben hit the brake, and all they could hear was birdsong and a cacophony of rooks.

“I do not believe we are in Exeter, Benjamin. Can you not do the simplest task? Back up.”

Ben bit his lip on a suitable rejoinder, reminded himself that he loved Nikolas, then turned and looked behind them. “It’s been like this for miles. Maybe we should keep going forward?”

Nikolas clenched his jaw. He actually winced as the hedgerow continued to scrape both sides of the vehicle. The lane began to descend. It got so dark Ben turned on the headlights. He began to hum
Dueling Banjos
but stopped at a glare from Nikolas. Finally, they came to the bottom of the lane and to a ford. Ben stopped driving again and chuckled. “Is this going to be the first Range Rover in London to actually go off road?”

“Stop trying to be funny and just cross.”

Ben splashed the vehicle over the ford and pushed into the still narrowing lane ahead. Finally, just as he thought he would have to stop and reverse, they came to stone pillars of a long-collapsed gate. “Yay. Civilization.”

Nikolas eyed the broken pillars speculatively, but as they had nowhere to go but forward, he didn’t comment when Ben drove through onto what had clearly once been the drive of a private house. It was now overgrown with vast rhododendron bushes and twisted oaks. Finally, they came out of the gloom and emerged onto the lip of a sunlit bowl. Ben stopped driving once more. An ancient manor house sat facing them in the distance, across what must once have been cared for grounds and a manicured lawn. Behind the house the moors rose, bracken and gorse covered, until the last fifty feet where the rocks of a tor jutted out from short moorland grass. It was utterly silent except for the sound of the rooks.

Ben drove down into the valley then climbed out of the vehicle and walked toward the house. He heard Nikolas following. “I think it’s abandoned.”

Nikolas looked around with disgust. “Either that or they murdered their gardener. Come, turn the car around. We are trespassing and should go.”

“No, wait.” Ben was peering in one of the lead-paned windows. “It’s empty. No furniture at all. No one’s here.”

“Oh, that does surprise me. I will be in the car. Give me the keys.” He held out his hand, but Ben was ignoring him. He pushed at the oak door, and it swung open. He turned with a triumphant grin. “Five minutes?”

Nikolas narrowed his eyes but relented, and they went in together.

§§§

Considering the garden was so neglected and overgrown, the house itself was in good repair, albeit empty and cold, despite the warm day. The ground floor consisted of a large hallway with a galleried landing and beyond this a kitchen, which was clearly of the days when only servants had to prepare food. It was small and dark, hardly more than a corridor with a vast fireplace. There were three main downstairs rooms, one that looked like a modest banqueting hall with yet another gallery; one had clearly been the drawing room, as it had bow windows which would have enjoyed a view of the gardens if the wisteria had not almost entirely obscured them; and the third had apparently been a library, as it was lined with bookshelves from floor to its high ceilings. Upstairs, off the main gallery, they found four large, empty rooms, which they assumed were bedrooms, and a couple of small rooms with holes in the floor, which must have once been bathrooms. There was one other small room that led to the gallery over the banqueting hall. Everything inside the house was oak panelled, and it gave a heavy feeling of permanence to the place, as if the ceaseless injuries of time couldn’t penetrate here. Everything was beautifully preserved, albeit empty and oddly abandoned.

Nikolas was leaning in the doorway of one of the bedrooms, watching Ben trail his fingers over the oak panelling. “Fascinating as this is, we need to leave.”

“Wait. Come on.” He led the way back downstairs and into the sunshine then around to the back of the house where they found the stream which they had crossed at the ford. Now, it provided a natural barrier between the grounds and the edge of the tor. It had a clapper bridge, which Ben crossed. He stood at the base of the tor, looking at the sheep trails through the bracken. He slid off his suit jacket and ripped off his tie then dropped them both on the ground. Twenty minutes later, he was at the top, sitting on the rocks, breathing in the unmistakable scent of bracken in warm sunshine. He gazed down at the house and the neglected garden, and for the first time in his life knew he was truly home.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ben lay back on the warm granite and relished the hot sun on his face. He undid a couple more of his shirt buttons and spread his fingers on the rocks, scratching idly at the lichen. He’d spent some of his most formative years training on these moors at Okehampton camp, so he supposed it wasn’t so odd he felt at home here. But there was something else, something about the house, perhaps, that stirred feelings deep within him. He sensed Nikolas’s presence and squinted up through the sun to see him sitting down next to him. He had changed into the old jeans and T-shirt that he had worn the previous evening. He lay back next to Ben, shielding his eyes from the sun. His arms were beginning to go brown without burning first—that irritating ability only some blond-haired, brown-eyed Nordic people have. Ben tensed in the angry silence but decided to make the first move to reconciliation. Arguing with Nikolas was very unpleasant. “I’m sorry. I just wanted it. I don’t have a single photograph of you.” He retrieved the photo and held it out.

Nikolas didn’t take it. Instead, a hand came over and rested on Ben’s belly, the thumb idly playing with a button. “I should not have gone to the house. That was a mistake. It has all tumbled down around me, Benjamin, and the dust of that collapse is choking me. Keep the photo if you want it so much, but you must promise me one thing. You must promise me that whatever happens in the future you will look at it and know that is the real me. If you promise me that then you can have it.”

Ben stared into the familiar, yet at the same time disturbingly unfamiliar eyes of the teenager looking back at him and nodded.

Nikolas lay back on the rocks, staring up at the sky. “I am so tired of it all.” He didn’t elaborate on this slightly unsettling statement.

Ben felt poised on the brink of a huge chasm, the past behind him full of Nikolas’s threatening dust clouds, the future ahead in this sunlit valley, but he didn’t know the way to lead Nikolas across to this place of greater safety. He felt a wash of despondency settling upon him until Nikolas said more conversationally, “This house has no stables.” Nikolas sat up and propped his chin on his hand, staring at the vast reaches of the moors all around them. “But the riding would be superb.” Ben said nothing, but a small stab of hope made the corners of his lips quirk. He pictured Nikolas on his horse, windswept and wild, and a shiver of lust so powerful swept through him that he had to sit up to hide the evidence. “The whole house probably has no electricity. But the fireplaces looked very solid.” Ben now saw Nikolas naked in firelight and ducked his head, grinning. “It is ridiculous to think of travelling to London from here. Impossible.” Ben thought about Nikolas trapped here during a Dartmoor winter, snowed in, unable to leave his side and couldn’t suppress a small chuckle. Nikolas glanced over at him. “This is the one you want.” He looked away again. “I could hold you to the letter of our agreement and say that this one was not on the list and so does not count.” He turned and studied Ben’s profile for a long time. “It may not be for sale.” He sighed. “But we can make enquiries.”

Ben then felt guilty, as if he was forcing Nikolas to do something he didn’t want to do on the basis of a false promise. He lifted his face to find the dark eyes staring off into the distance once more. The wind caught at Nik’s longish hair, and he ran his fingers through it distractedly. He closed his eyes and tipped his face to the sun. “You were right, Ben. You do have good taste.” Ben had to agree, looking at Nikolas’s blond hair glinting in the sun, that he did. He twisted around slightly and lay down with his head in Nikolas’s lap.

Automatically, Nikolas’s hand came down and his fingers began to comb through Ben’s hair. It was a rare and precious moment of intimacy they had never really explored before, and all the more welcome for their recent argument. Their relationship, begun with mindless sex, had never developed along normal patterns of slow exploration and growing familiarity. They seemed to be going backward to a beginning that in some ways was also a destination. They’d never had a date or eaten together in a restaurant—other than hotels, which they’d booked for sex. They’d never been on holiday together. They’d never held hands in public. They’d never shopped together, had no friends in common; and, in some ways, they knew very little about each other—or Ben did about Nikolas. He had been alarmed to discover that Nikolas knew more about his childhood than he did himself. He looked up at Nikolas, not surprised to find that Nik was watching the way his fingers were running through his hair.