Secrets Remembered (2 page)

Aidan whistled. He had no illusions about his father. The old sod never issued idle threats, as several of his competitors had discovered. Never anything against the law, but Aidan wouldn’t have been surprised to find out it was a close run thing. Jeff, the co-owner of Diomhair, would need to be warned to take care. It had occurred to him his father might already have meddled. There had been more than one occasion lately where suspicious activity had been discovered on and around the estate that belonged to Diomhair. In one instance it had endangered life, and they were all very alert these days.

Aidan frowned as he closed down his computer and locked up the desk drawers. There was no way he was going to let his father interfere with or upset his life, or that of his close friends. Never again would Aidan deny his needs and wants for the sake of an uneasy relationship with his parent. Not even if Hell froze over. Nor would he ever be at his father’s beck and call and work for him. It had taken Aidan a lot of soul searching to decide he had to stand up to the domineering man and tell him he wasn’t willing to compromise his lifestyle for the sake of his father’s perceptions and preferences. Unfortunately, it seemed the elder Jefferies wasn’t prepared to accept that.

Whatever anyone thought to the contrary, Aidan’s desires as a Dom were as necessary to him as breathing. Not every day, and not in a whole lifestyle scenario, not anymore. But he was a Dom, and as such could not and would not be anything else. His parent demanding he stay away from all things even remotely connected with BDSM was a no go, and he’d said so.

His father had retaliated by sacking him from the company business, removing him from his will and effectively washing his hands of him. As he also refused to give Aidan references or salary in lieu of notice, at first, money had been tight. Only a lovely and unasked for loan from his godmother, along with the offer of a cottage she no longer used, had saved him from the dole queue.

Aidan had packed his bags, walked out of his company flat and never looked back. Within a year or so, by dint of hard work, two jobs and scrimping and saving, he’d repaid the loan and been flabbergasted when his godmother had gifted him the cottage.

“Saves a bit of inheritance tax,” she’d told him with a grin.

Now after listening to his father ranting, he wondered how he’d stuck it all for so long. From the first flogger his father had ‘discovered’ hidden under Aidan’s bed—who had given his parent that information? he wondered—to the threats to use it on him. Such as, ‘I’ll show you what for’, blustering and threatening to show him what a ‘real’ whipping was like. His father was a bully. If it hadn’t been for his mum, his gentle, wouldn’t say boo to a goose let alone Murison Patterson Jefferies mum, Aidan would have left sooner. Eventually, though, his mum had urged him to leave.

“I will if you will,” she’d said.

They both had. Leona Jefferies moved to Lanzarote to be close to her sister, then to live a happy and fulfilled life, and eventually get a rich Spanish boyfriend, and Aidan to Scotland. To also live a happy and fulfilled life, but until recently not anywhere approaching rich.

“Okay, are you all set?” Aidan asked Jackie as he locked his office door behind him. He took his jacket and bike helmet down from the cloak stand and helped Jackie into a bright, multi-colored fluorescent jacket that almost hurt his eyes. It clashed magnificently with her electric blue skirt and flowery Doc Martens.

“Yep. You okay? I didn’t hear any shouting or the stapler hitting the wall.”

“I didn’t need to go that far. He worked himself up into an early temper and hung up. Thank goodness. I can’t spare the energy to interact with him. It’s much too exhausting. Anyway that’ll be it for a few weeks until something or someone else rattles his cage.” Aidan had no intention of worrying Jackie by sharing his father’s threats unless he had to. “Right, let’s be off.”

“You’re on.” Her feather earrings stroked her shoulders and she flicked them away with impatience. “Damned things, I should know better.”

* * * *

Every time he drove the ten minutes or so it took to ride his precious Ducati from one village to the next, Aidan realized over again how right he’d been to have his office away from the house. It gave him time to wind down and, in his mind, change from Aiden the ad-man to Aidan the whatever he fancied. Tonight he needed those few minutes of enjoyment that his bike brought him. The conversation with his father had rattled him more than he’d realized. By the time he turned the bike into his driveway, he was relaxed and ready for a chilled out evening.

His phone rang as he unlocked the front door. Aidan didn’t think it would be his father, not yet. His way was to simmer for a few days, plot and plan then send in the big guns. Whatever or whoever they were.

Last time it had been Lynette. A pneumatic brunette who was supposed to be a lawyer, and a wannabe sub. He’d soon found out that, apart from the fake breasts, that was wrong on both other counts. She’d lit no spark of interest in Aidan whatsoever and in a fit of pique had revealed she was there on his father’s behest. To blackmail him into, as she called it, turning normal or being taken to court.

Aidan had waved her goodbye instead.

He kicked the door shut behind him, dropped the bike and house keys in the ornate porcelain bowl on the side table and fished his mobile out of his jeans pocket. As ever it snagged. He swore under his breath, released it and answered the call. It was from Jeff, one of the owners of Diomhair, who sounded more than flustered.

“Shit and bugger, Ade, thank God I got you. I know you need an evening off, but you did say you had nothing planned. Shit, please don’t now tell me you’ve got a hot date with a leggy blonde or whatever. Oh blimey, why does it happen like this? Jess and David are away overnight and, hells bells, Kath’s gone into labor.” Kath was his sub and partner, who was due to give birth to their twins, obviously somewhat earlier than anticipated. Jess was his sister and co-owner of Diomhair. David was her Dom and her husband. They were all people Aidan counted amongst his closest friends

“It wasn’t supposed to happen yet. Fuck, she’s due to go in at the weekend for a section,” Jeff continued in a rush. His words tumbled over each other. “Two babies and all that, and her being little. Oh damn information overload and I’m babbling. Yes, pet, I won’t be long.” Aidan assumed that was for Kath, not him.

“Anyway, Ross isn’t capable of leading wax, or knife play, not yet, and there’s a potential sub booked a private session. She’s been cleared and everything, but can you help? I really don’t want to cancel if possible because she’s said how worried she is. I reckon it’s now or never, and God almighty she shouts sub. She’s been to several group nights and now wants to take it a step further. Ross will be there as back-up, as will Connie Dores. Otherwise I’d have told her to reschedule.” There was a strange keening noise from the phone.

“Hell. Look we have to go. I’m not up to delivering babies. Can you do it?”

Aidan assumed Jeff meant the session, not acting as a midwife. There was only one possible answer. “Of course, what time?”

“Seven.” The phone went dead.

Poor Jeff, he sounded frazzled. Kath and he were happy and settled, with a wedding in the offing once, as Kath put it, her boobs didn’t enter the room ten minutes before the rest of her. However, the imminent birth of his children seemed to have turned the steady, level-headed Dom into a gibbering idiot.
Poor bloke.

Instead of steak and Shiraz, Aidan settled for salad and water. If he was showing a sub wax play, or any type of play for that matter, he didn’t need the heavy stomach that steak would give him. He never ever drank and played so that didn’t enter the equation. By six-thirty he was dressed in his favorite leather trousers and a black T-shirt, back on his bike and on his way toward Diomhair. Aidan remembered Jeff hadn’t given him any information about the wannabe sub. No name or description. However, if Ross didn’t know, all the details should be in the computer.

He guided the powerful bike around the potholes in the back drive of the castle. It was the most direct way for him to enter and shaved several miles off the distance he would cover if he used the more conventional route. Aidan sometimes thought that the upkeep of the track must be like the Forth Road Bridge painting cycle. A never-ending job to keep it up to scratch. Slowly he circled the castle to put the bike in the garage he habitually used. A red Honda was parked nearby and as he left the garage and locked it, Ross and Connie got out of the other vehicle. They weren’t a couple yet, but Aidan had noticed how they gravitated toward each other whenever possible, and Connie deferred to Ross whenever they
were
together.

“Hey, you two, you’re my back-up then?” He pulled the key to the castle’s main door out of his pocket and dealt with the security alarm. Once inside he switched off the extra detectors that had been added over the last few weeks. Ever since Jeff had decided someone had entered the building via the secret passage built into the walls.

“Right-o, let’s go in and get stuff sorted. Do we have any details regarding the potential sub?” Aidan asked them. “Name? Age? Sex?”

Ross shook his head. “I just got a frantic phone call to make sure I could still come and bring Connie with me. I tell you, man, the groans and swear words I could hear in the background were gruesome. I never knew Kath had such an extensive cussword vocabulary. I was impressed. Mind you, most of them seemed to involve cutting off Jeff in his prime. And making sure he never got her into the situation again. I just said sure and let them head off to be parents.”

Aidan shrugged. The only annotation in the diary was
A. 7. Maybe sub? Wax or knife. Ross and Connie to assist.
No wonder Ross had baulked at taking charge. It was acknowledged that Aidan or Jeff were the best Doms for those scenes, although Aidan thought once Ross gained confidence, he’d give them a run for their money.

“Ah well, we’ll know when she turns up. Okay, let’s get sorted. I was told seven and it’s quarter to.”

It took scant minutes to make sure everything was as it should be and a further thirty to decide that whoever the wannabe—or it seemed now not so wannabe—sub was, she’d decided not to show.

Aidan thanked Ross and Connie for their attendance and offered them a dungeon to play in. To his amusement, they both blushed and shook their heads. With time on his hands, Aidan decided to spend some of it practicing his knife throwing. Not run-of-the-mill D/s play, but something he enjoyed. Especially when he imagined it was his father he had pinioned to the revolving circle of wood, with the knives landing close enough to make Murison Jefferies sweat. Aidan hadn’t realized he had a malicious streak until that enjoyable scenario had flashed into his mind a few months earlier.

After he’d finished and cleaned his knives, he intended to have a sweaty session on the running machine in the tiny gym Jeff had had installed for his family and friends to use. Owing to pressure of work, and play of the nicest kind, Aidan had neglected it lately. He’d only just managed to snag the odd run here and there, and he missed the routine. A good spell on the treadmill and the punch bag would do him good.

He made a swift phone call to David, to apprise him of the situation and assure him there was no need to return to the club. Evidently they were on their way back, but would go straight to the hospital to see what was happening there, and text Aidan if there was any news.

Aidan nipped into the Dom’s locker room, grabbed his sports bag and black running shorts and a T-shirt, which had lost the sleeves in a new washing machine/clueless male incident months before. It suited him fine for working out. In a much better frame of mind than he had been earlier, he headed to toward the gym. He’d change there and shower afterwards in the tiny locker room next door. With a much lighter heart, he whistled as he scrolled down the messages on his phone and listened to a call on his answer phone.

Chapter Two

Damn, blast and fuck.
Someone had gotten the supposed timings all wrong. Deep inside Diomhair castle, Ailsa McLagan heard a tuneful whistle, glanced along the corridor in the direction from where it was coming and swore roundly. There was no way she could afford to be caught there. She took a deep breath and opened a door on her right. It led into a shoebox-sized cupboard with dusty shelves and not much else. Just as well. Taking care not to hit her elbow on the wall, she slid onto one of the shelves, and closed the door behind her, thankful to see a handle on the inside. She well remembered getting locked in the under stair cupboard at her gran’s by accident, or goaded on by her cousin, it was a toss-up as to which was the reason. There hadn’t been a handle on the inside. Gran just leaned hard on the door if she ever shut herself in. The four-year-old Ailsa wasn’t heavy or strong enough to do that.

By the time someone had realized she was missing, she’d been in there a good ten minutes. The darkness hadn’t bothered her. The thought of spiders had, and her screams had gotten louder and louder, until she was discovered. Then she was pulled out and to her annoyance had had her bottom smacked for disobeying her gran’s edict to stay away from it. She’d never like corporal punishment, but after that, even a playful pat was enough for her to clench her teeth and her fists.

Dust tickled her nose as she remembered the ignominy of having her bum smacked in front of her cousin Sandra. To give Sandra her due, Sandra had tried to say it was her fault, but she’d been ignored. Ailsa had been scolded before on more than one occasion when she’d tried to go inside the cupboard. It held some strange fascination for her. Well up to then. Right up until her gran left the house for a smaller, compact bungalow more than twenty years later, Ailsa had never ventured near it again. Even when she’d helped Gran move, the cupboard remained in her ‘oh no, not me’ area.

Something tickled her cheek and she bit back a scream. It was a tendril of her hair that had fallen forward, not a spider. A noise outside made her even less inclined to open her mouth. Somehow she managed not to move—it was handy being pint sized—or sneeze as voices got louder.