The Actuary in Trouble E-Book

K T Bowes

• Herausgeber: K T Bowes
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

The course of true love will never run smooth for the Andreyevs; not while Rohan is still The Actuary.

Recovering from the devastation of Rohan’s last job as The Actuary, Emma Andreyev tries to settle into life as lady of the manor in the small English town of Market Harborough. But as her husband retires his alter ego and promises to become a respectable businessman, trouble descends from too many quarters to be pure coincidence.

In his rightful place at the centre of the drama is the handsome and divisive Irishman who has Emma’s affections firmly in his sights and Freda, the geriatric sleuth with the wrinkly stockings and wicked sense of humour.

Who bribed a friend to betray the Andreyevs and why?

And how can a six-year-old know so much of what goes on in the house when Emma is clueless? The answer is simple; he’s his father’s son.

Leseprobe

The Actuary in Trouble

The Calculated Risk Series

Book 3

K T Bowes

Published by Hakarimata Press

Copyright 2016

Table of Contents

Copyright Page

Would you like four free novels?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

CHAPTER ONE

From the Author

About the Author

Other books by this author:

Copyright Notice

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Acknowledgement

This novel is dedicated to a lady who had a massive influence on my thirties and prayed for me every morning at nine o’clock. I underestimated the power of those prayers and felt the lack of them when she died and interceded for me no longer.

Peggy Rapps taught me what grace and goodness looked like in the flesh and if I conjure up her face in my memory; everything else is eclipsed by her beautiful smile. She was one of the very best things about living in Market Harborough and I hope she won’t be too mortified about my fictional renovations of her apartment on Northampton Road.

I suspect right now that she’s sorting out heaven from the comfort of her armchair and laying place cards bearing the names of her family, ready for the wedding feast at the coming of the King.

She loved intrigue and excitement and had a wonderful view of the world. I wish I could tell her I’d finally written it all down.

Chapter 1

“Why won’t you tell me?” Emma postured, hands on hips and full lips pulled taut across her mouth. “You looked desperate to spill the gossip yesterday. What’s different today?”

The tall Irishman screwed up his face and turned his body sideways, deflecting Emma’s perceptive gaze. “That was yesterday. And besides, the cop was right der in da kitchen. It isn’t easy having him showing up all the time.”

Emma’s eyes narrowed. “He’s my manager’s son and he can visit at any time.” She jabbed a finger at the Irishman. “And you won’t be doing anything likely to pique his interest, will you, Christopher? So it won’t matter.”

“Er, no, I don’t think so.” His weak smile was unconvincing.

“So, tell me the big news,” Emma demanded, leaning her butt against the Aga. The warmth filtered through her maternity jeans like a sunburst and she shivered at the instant comfort. “What made you run along the hallway like a fishwife with a juicy piece of gossip.”

“Aw, nuthin’ really,” Christopher said, dismissing her with a wave of his hand. “There’s doves nestin’ in da roof of da folly is all. I thought you’d want to know.” He ran a hand through the dark waves which surged across his head, a speckling of stubble beginning along his jawline and joining up on his chin. Mischievous brown eyes sparkled in his handsome face and a vein ticked just above his shirt collar.

“Liar!” Emma spat. “Something’s going on and I will find out.” Fear crossed her expression like a scudding cloud. “It’s Rohan, isn’t it? He’s taken another job as The Actuary.” She chewed her bottom lip and anxiety filled her breast. “He promised he wouldn’t.”

“No!” Christopher exclaimed. “Yer husband’s word is his bond. He said he’d punch my lights out and he did. Left me for dead, so he did. See, he means what he says.”

“So what’s the big secret?” Emma begged. “You have to tell me.”

“No, I don’t.” Christopher crossed the room in three strides and fixed his strong arms around her. He pressed his lips to her forehead with a fraternal kiss and then let go. “Stop worrying.” He opened the fridge door and pushed his face inside, rustling wrappers and poking at tubs balanced on the shelves. Emerging with a chicken wing he closed the stainless steel door with his shapely bum and winked at Emma. “There’s nothin’ to fear. Promise.”

The kitchen door closed behind him and Emma forced herself to relax. Shaking fingers stroked the budding pregnancy which rose from her pelvis in a gentle arc and forced her into maternity jeans. “What are those men up to now?” she sighed. The warmth from the Aga soothed the backs of her legs and worked its magic into the aching small of her spine. Emma leaned her head back on her shoulders and closed tired eyes as her mind sifted through recent events. The scar on her neck from a knife attack smarted, reminding her how Rohan’s last job ended and she strengthened her resolve. He promised he’d be satisfied with a desk job as an actuary, but Christopher’s excitement the day before made her doubt. “I’ll bloody kill you,” she whispered. “There’s more at stake than just you now.”

Strong fingers snaked around her hips and she smelled the familiar masculine scent which made her heart race. “Da?” he asked, his voice husky as his lips grazed the exposed underside of Emma’s jaw and a smooth, shaved cheek brushed against her soft skin. “Who will you kill?”

“You.” Emma turned and fixed her gaze on the brilliant blue eyes which widened in surprise. Rohan Andreyev blinked once and then his pupils dilated, making his irises dance and sparkle as his eyes darkened.

“Do it slowly then, comrade,” he whispered, bowing his blond head to let his lips cover hers. “Slow and painful, with lots of screaming.” His breath felt hot on her face and Emma’s anxiety melted against her husband’s obvious desire. “Come upstairs with me. We can die together.” He pulled Emma’s hands away from the warm Aga and fixed them around his waist, pushing his body against hers. His hands got to work massaging her neck and the back of her head, his heavily accented whispers an aphrodisiac in their own league. “Syn is out for the night with friends, bloody Irishman just left and Ray went to town to see family. Come.” He ceased his ministrations and tugged at Emma’s hand, urgency in his face.

Her lips twitched with the unasked question but then relaxed into a smile. “Ok.”

The old house creaked and shuddered in the last of the winter storms as Rohan Andreyev clutched his wife’s hand and led her through the darkening corridors of the old mansion. Predating the Norman Conquest in 1066, it enfolded the Andreyevs in its bosom, thousands of square metres of living space being painstakingly renovated room by room. Emma smiled at her Russian husband in the gathering dusk, his haste masked by a limp which hindered his stride, despite his efforts to hide it.

At the bottom of the stairs he pushed her up ahead, maintaining his grasp on her fingers so she turned to face him on the first step. “Ladies first,” he whispered, fixing his long arms around Emma’s waist. He dragged her into him and she smiled, pressing her lips over his and enjoying matching his extreme height.

Her mouth tantalised Rohan’s senses, making him gasp for breath as she slipped her tongue between his full lips and let it dance with his. Soft fingers caressed the skin around the collar of his shirt and Emma deepened the kiss, feeling Rohan’s body tighten against hers. Once she possessed him she drew back, feeling his disappointment and confusion. Slipping her fingers through the buttons of her blouse, she popped the first five open, exposing a lacy bra which barely contained breasts that swelled daily with pregnancy induced hormones. His lips parted and pleasure turned his blue eyes to a stormy grey in the poor light.

“Nyet!” Rohan jumped in alarm and swore, staring at his left trouser pocket in betrayal.

“No!” Emma lurched for his phone and battled to yank it from his pocket, holding it between finger and thumb and backing up the stairs. She peered at the buttons as the screen flashed and an English sounding name beginning with ‘W’ scrolled across the screen. “Not now.” She dangled it over the bannister, watching Rohan’s face change from regret to annoyance.

“Don’t, Em.”

“I will,” she threatened. “Call them back later or I’ll drop it.”

Something flitted across Rohan’s face, an almost imperceptible emotion which Emma failed to read. It came and went, a threat of foreboding and she halted three steps away from him, fear beginning its familiar flutter in her breast. She held the phone out and he clasped it, strong fingers belonging to a tanned hand with blue veins standing out beneath blond hairs. Emma held her breath, searching Rohan’s face as he pressed buttons until the screen went dark, shoving the device back into his front trouser pocket.

He inhaled and Emma watched him replace the mask of indifference before looking up, his eyes regaining their sultry anticipation. Emma shook her head, the mood ruined but Rohan raised an eyebrow in challenge. He began the climb up to the first floor, gripping the bannister in his left hand and stepping with his left leg, bringing up the unwilling right side with an expertise born of practice. On the step below Emma’s he drew level, their faces close. She felt his soft breath against her skin, peppermint and warm. He leaned in, administering a soft nip to her lower lip while snaking his right arm around her waist. “Stop doubting me, devotchka,” he whispered. “I love you.”

Emma nodded and swallowed the panic in her throat. She closed her eyes against the soft kisses on her cheeks and the whispers of promise in her ear, allowing her husband to herd her to the four poster bed in the opulent master bedroom. Rohan undressed her, his fingers kind as they breached clasps and buttons until her full breasts spilled into his palms and her burgeoning pregnancy pressed against the scratchy zipper of his trousers. His eyes never left her face, reading her and processing her inner fears like a mathematical formula being run through a computer program. The answer was always the same.

Emma didn’t trust him.

Chapter 2

The fire in the huge grate cast a dusky glow over the furniture, turning the dark oak black and giving the room an ethereal hue. Emma shifted her head on Rohan’s chest, feeling his body shiver as her long curls caressed his flesh. With a lazy finger she traced the outline of a shrapnel scar on his stomach, knowing by heart its jagged, winding route but tracing it through an innate compulsion.

“I regret so many things.” Rohan’s low, gravelly accent broke the silence, fracturing Emma’s peace like a hatchet blow.

“What?” Alarmed, she raised her head and sought his vibrant blue eyes in the flickering light. “What do you regret? Us? Me?” Self-preservation dictated the pitch and tone of her question and Rohan brushed her rebellious fringe away from her forehead.

“No, dorogaya. Not you. I regret my conduct only.”

Emma moved so she could study his face, searching for the threat of rejection in his strong jawline or the glittering diamond blue of his irises. Her sitting distracted Rohan, his eyes roving over the silky smooth skin of her breasts and stomach as she sat between his arm and ribs and faced him. The firelight played across her nakedness and Rohan sighed and fixed his gaze on the ceiling high above his head. Emma nudged his hip with hers and the sheet slithered away from both of them.

“Relax, devotchka,” he soothed, tugging at the soft fabric. When Emma kept hold of her end he relented and lay in the half light, his muscular chest like a brick wall against the mattress. She lifted her hand and traced a line from his hip to his navel, feeling the lumps and bumps of the scars which almost killed him.

“What do you regret?” she demanded, her voice gritty with fear.

“I regret lying to Mama about falling in love with my step-sister,” he replied and Emma inhaled, his answer unexpected. “So much of my life has been intrigue and deceit and I wonder if it could’ve been different.”

Emma shrugged. “I don’t know, Rohan. We were children thrust together in a blended family by adults who didn’t know what the hell they were doing. I don’t regret the secrecy but I’m amazed it never blew up in our faces.”

Rohan nodded. “Didn’t it? I think sometimes that Mama knew.”

Emma stroked the line of hair below Rohan’s navel, smoothing her palm across his flat stomach. A smile touched her lips. “She didn’t. We fell in love, eloped to Gretna Green and married, all without interference. Even when you were deployed to Afghanistan and she discovered my pregnancy, she still didn’t realise you were Nicky’s father.”

“Da, and that’s why I feel guilty.” Rohan’s exhale shook the bed. “She had a grandson and didn’t know until it was too late.”

Emma winced. “Ro, I didn’t have a choice. She wanted to force me to abort my son. What did you expect me to do?”

“Nyet, no blame.” Rohan sat up using his stomach muscles and Emma turned, dangling her foot over the bed. Coldness seeped up her leg, the heat from the fire leaving a void outside the range of its glow. His long arms reached out to pull her into an awkward embrace which bent her spine sideways. “Der was nothing we could do. I torture myself with the hope she might have accepted my syn if she’d known. It’s just fantasy, Em. My regret is not giving her the opportunity.”

Emma shook her head and rolled her eyes against Rohan’s collarbone. It seemed pointless reminding him that Alanya’s medicinal herbs ended the lives of children and husbands alike. Her brand of maternalism involved poisoning and death. “I don’t want to go over it again,” Emma sighed. “We can’t change anything. Anton rescued me and made me promise to keep my baby away from his mother, which also meant no contact with you. You have us now, Ro. We need to look forward, not back.” Emma ran her palm across the growing mound below her belly button. “You can watch this baby be born and take its first smile and steps. It has to be good enough, Ro. I can’t give you back six years of Nicky’s life, so it’s this, or nothing.” The veiled threat hung over them both and Emma registered it at the same time it exited her lips.

Rohan’s eyes became hard like ice, his expression changing as he pushed Emma upright, holding her shoulders in his strong hands. “Don’t say that,” he said, his voice shaking. He released her left shoulder and ran his index finger down her cheek, following her jaw line to brush across her bottom lip. “Never say that. You’re all I have left.”

Emma nodded and swallowed, seeing the heartbreak behind Rohan’s curved eyelashes. “You’re grieving,” she whispered. “It’s normal, Ro. Your mother’s death was unexpected and after losing Anton too, it’s hit you doubly hard.” Emma wrapped her arms around his neck and inhaled the familiar scent of him, aftershave and male. She scooted closer, pressing her breasts against his bare chest and sensing him relax.

“But she died in prison,” Rohan said, his voice bitter. “A murderess.”

Emma squeezed him harder, her own fears pushed aside. “I know, baby. I know.”

Rohan Andreyev wouldn’t cry. Emma doubted he knew how. Watching their families grafted together without skill from the age of six, Emma grew up with the Russian brothers in her life and never saw Rohan cry. His younger brother, effeminate and tender, cried like a girl over anything which tugged his heart strings; movies, sad stories, death. But he laughed with abandon also, his acting ability making it difficult for Emma to know when it was truth or charade.

Thinking of Anton felt like picking at a loose scab, the wound underneath still fragile. Her saviour, gone without warning. Emma struggled with her own emotions, hiding her face in Rohan’s blond hair and waiting for her equilibrium to right itself. Her husband’s emotional candidness flashed warnings in her brain and wariness replaced grief.

“Is everything ok?” she asked, her tone guarded. “Is there something I need to know?”

“Da,” Rohan replied, pushing her upright. His vulnerability back under control, he smiled at her, his blond hair tickling her cheek as he nibbled the soft flesh beneath her ear lobe and nuzzled the ligament in her neck. “Ya lyublyu tebya.”

Emma sighed, recognising the Russian phonetics as she stroked a soft blond curl at the back of Rohan’s neck. “I love you too,” she replied, meaning it and hoping it was enough to get her through the storm she sensed rolling across the horizon.

Chapter 3

“Mummy! I’m home!” The front door closed and there was a scuffling sound before running feet padded down the hallway to the kitchen. Emma lifted her face, the smile already brightening her persona and she half stood to greet her son.

“Hey, baby,” she said, her voice soft and lilting. He ran around the table, his coat flapping over his hips and pushed his face into Emma’s stomach. Nicky’s slender arms wrapped around her waist in his usual excited greeting and Emma breathed in the outdoor chill which rose from his clothing. “Where’re Allaine and Kaylee?”

“Coming.” Nicky’s voice sounded muffled against Emma’s fleece. “But I wanted you first.” He gave a final squeeze and turned, trotting back to the kitchen door. Yanking it open, he yelled down the echoing corridor, “I’m in the kitchen.”

Emma heard a faint reply and then the light patter of a female tread. “Nicky,” she hissed, coupling her rebuke with a look of sympathy. “Please don’t leave guests at the front door, sweetheart. It’s rude.”

Her son’s brow furrowed as he processed her words before nodding. “Ok. I just wanted to see you first and make sure you was happy.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Emma asked, resting her fingers on the dimpled wood and feeling wrong-footed.

“Coz you sometimes get sad,” Nicky replied and Emma swallowed, forcing a stupid grin on her face as a little girl with swinging pigtails danced into the room. Purple swinging pigtails.

“We lost you,” she announced with a giggle and Nicky glanced towards Emma with a look of guilt on his face. “This house is massive.”

“Where’s Mummy?” Emma asked, staring at the door in expectation of her friend’s arrival and sneaking a sideways look at the purple hair.

“I’m here.” Allaine breezed through the kitchen door, closing it behind her. The heat from the Aga hit her like a humid wall and she shrugged out of her winter coat, revealing a slender body and gentle face with the inner beauty gifted by her Swedish forebears. She jerked her head towards Kaylee’s purple pigtails and waggled her eyebrows. “Don’t ask,” she whispered. “Wash-in-wash-out hair dye which apparently doesn’t wash out.”

Emma stifled a giggle. “Tea or coffee?”

“I would say vodka, but I’m driving. Coffee should be fine.”

Emma moved towards the counter and flicked the kettle on to boil. “Ro’s got some vodka somewhere, but it’s the genuine Russian stuff. It would probably blow a normal person’s head off.”

Allaine sank into a chair and ran a hand through her blonde bobbed hair. “A few hours of oblivion sound perfect.” She peered over the table at the two children squatted in front of the Aga. Seeing them stroking the black spaniel butted up to the heat, she relaxed. Their six-year-old style conversation involved Barbie dolls and the merits of bungee jumping and Allaine rolled her eyes.

“What’s with the you-know-what?” Emma asked, clanking mugs on the counter and stabbing a spoon into a jar of coffee. She halted, staring at the brown granules nestled in the bowl of the spoon and wrinkled her nose. Allaine rose and seized her hand, tipping the coffee back in the pot.

“Tea will be fine,” she said, her tone soothing. “Just as you think you’re over morning sickness, back it comes.”

Emma nodded and sank into Allaine’s vacated chair. “Thanks. I’ll be ok.” She breathed out through pursed lips and Allaine sought to distract her, speaking in an ancient maternal code learned by instinct.

“Somebody wanted something in their you-know-what and I thought it’d be ok seeing as it’s holidays. Now the something won’t come out of the you-know-what and is making the somebody distressed at the thought of you-know-where starting next week.”

Emma glanced at Nicky and caught his eye. His father’s blue eyes sparkled back at her, filled with amusement and the threat of a giggle explosion. Emma gave him a look which straightened his lips into a line, but she could see he struggled. Alone with Emma for almost all his six years of life gave them a bond far stronger than the hypothetical umbilical cord. Surviving on the wretched council estate made him wily and perceptive. Analytical like Rohan, code was wasted on him, reduced to comfort for the speaker while Nicky eaves dropped like a spy.

“The fire’s on in the sitting room,” Emma said, staring at her son until he got the message. “Take Kaylee in there to watch TV but behave.” She raised an eyebrow in warning and Nicky twisted his face in disappointment.

“Can I just...?”

“No!” Emma replied.

“Yeah!” Kaylee sat up like a meerkat, resting her delicate knees on the hard tiles. “Can I see the secret passage?”

Nicky’s eyes glinted with mischief, fading to dismay as Emma hardened her resolve. “No. Daddy’s locked it. You don’t go down there.”

Kaylee postured as though shaping up for a tantrum and Allaine shook her head. “Do as you’re told or we’ll go home right now.”

Both children allowed their shoulders to slump, slouching through the kitchen door and slip sliding along the hallway floor boards in their socks. Allaine walked the ten steps to the kitchen door and closed it behind them. “They can’t get down there, can they?” she asked, concerned.

Emma shook her head. “Rohan’s jammed it closed. It needs to be opened from the inside and Nicky doesn’t know where the other entrances are. He’s spent most of the holiday trying to find them.”

Allaine flipped tea bags into the dustbin and plonked a mug in front of Emma, sinking into an adjacent seat with a sigh. “What am I gonna do? School starts on Tuesday and I can’t get that dye out of her hair. I can’t send a purple headed child to a Year 2 class; Dalton will send her home. And then what will I do?”

“Did you take her to a hairdresser?” Emma asked, sipping the tea and feeling a wave of nausea clench her throat.

“Yeah, already tried that. They wanted eighty quid to sort it out and reckon they need to dye it blonde. I’d have to sign a waiver to allow them to use bleach and it might all fall out.”

“Oh.” Emma pushed her mug away. “I remember a neighbour in Wales doing something similar. She had the loveliest auburn hair and dyed it blue for a Halloween party with one of those temporary dyes and then couldn’t get it out. Lucya helped her because she had a job interview the next day.” Emma’s eyes grew dull as another grief bit at her soul. Allaine laid a gentle hand over hers.

“Lucya sounds amazing.”

“She was.” Emma smiled, but the expression held pain. “How many people would take in a pregnant sixteen-year-old running away from home? She opened her front door and Anton said, ‘You don’t know me, but I’m your grandson. This is Rohan’s wife and she’s pregnant.’ Then he passed out on the doormat from driving for eight hours with chronic Glandular Fever.” Emma chewed her bottom lip and ran a hand over her burgeoning stomach. “Pity Rohan doesn’t remember her.”

Allaine’s blue eyes were gentle and attentive, fixed on Emma’s lips as they moved making no sound. She grew anxious in the moments of silence as Emma struggled with her memories, both women startled by the sound of childish giggling in the corridor outside. The dog barked and the front door slammed. “TV must be boring,” Allaine said. “Sounds like they’ve gone outside.”

Emma’s brow knitted and she stood and left the room, tracing the children’s steps to the front door. Nicky clutched his skateboard under his arm and strode along the driveway, Kaylee bouncing along next to him. “Hey, guys. Where’re you going?” she called.

Nicky squeezed his eyes tight shut and grimaced. “Sorry, Mummy. We should’ve asked.”

Emma folded her arms and leaned against the door frame, her face stern. “Yes, you should. You don’t just disappear without telling a grown up.”

“We did!” Injustice flared in Kaylee’s eyes as she folded her arms and mimicked Emma.

“Yeah, not the right one though,” Nicky said, his stage whisper carrying across the distance. “We asked Ray and he said we could skate in front of the stables. He’s over there with Christopher.”

“What?” Emma disappeared inside the house for a moment, wrenching her ankle boots from the cupboard in the lobby. She hopped onto the front steps, shoving her feet into them. “What’s going on?”

“Wait.” Allaine caught her up, pushing her toes into Emma’s wellingtons. “Gosh, your feet are small.” She walked like a penguin, complaining. “Kaylee, are you misbehaving?”

“No!” The child looked shocked. “We asked the man!”

With a huge sigh, Emma dragged her cardigan tighter around her breasts and hugged herself to keep warm. She strode after the children and saw the confusion in Nicky’s face as she approached. “You ask me, Nicky, not Ray, not Christopher, me!”

“What about Daddy?” he asked facetiously. “Can I ask him?”

Emma gritted her teeth, feeling her son testing the boundaries. “What do you think?” she replied.

Nicky picked at a stone in the wheel of his skateboard and nodded, not daring to meet his mother’s eye. “I think yes, I can ask Daddy,” he concluded.

Emma strode through the archway into the stable yard and stopped, her boots sliding on the concrete. Ray supervised a crew of workmen as they navigated the stairs from Christopher’s apartment, bearing huge sheets of glass between them. “Stay there!” she called to Nicky, who halted under the arch. “It’s not safe here, especially for you zinging around on a skateboard.”

“Zinging,” Nicky sniggered, sounding out the word for his audience and punctuating each repetition with a snort. “Zinging.”

Ray heard Emma’s boots tapping across the rutted surface and whipped around, his face relaxing as he saw it was her. “Hey, miss,” he said, his tone casual.

“What’s going on?” Frustration gilded Emma’s voice and Ray’s forehead creased in confusion.

“Christopher’s moving into the folly, miss, like you said he could.”

Emma watched the workmen struggle across the cobbles closest to the Tudor style buildings, their boots slipping and sliding on the surface. “Who are they?” she demanded, pointing her index finger in their direction.

“Oh, just some local guys but they won’t spread gossip, miss. I know the bloke on the left from the army and he’ll keep his mouth shut about the stuff they shift.”

Emma’s hands reached her hips and she glanced back at Allaine and the children, their outlines back-lit by the watery sun, casting them into silhouettes. Nicky stood on his skateboard gyrating his hips back and forth and holding onto Kaylee’s shoulders. His blue eyes studied his mother with veiled interest. “Why did nobody tell me what was happening?” she hissed. “Don’t I have a right to know what’s going on in my own home?”

Ray swallowed. “I just do what I’m told, miss.” He licked his lips and his eyes darted everywhere but at Emma’s face.

Anger tugged at her sensibility and she descended into rich bitch mode, unfamiliar territory which made her afraid of the words that spewed from her pretty mouth. “I gave you a list of jobs at the start of the week and you’ve chosen to do this instead?” Emma waved her arm towards the workmen as they struggled to fix the glass into the bed of their truck. “I didn’t write that list for fun.”

“I’ll get to it, miss.” Ray licked his lips again and a vein pulsed in his neck, thrumming blood past his jaw line and into a face which flushed red. “Christopher asked me to...”

“Christopher.” Emma said the name with distaste, the Irishman’s influence on her home and life acting like a hidden fissure in a rock face, undermining everything from the inside. She turned glassy eyes on Ray’s embarrassment. “I didn’t realise you worked for Christopher. My apologies.” She backed away, the damage done as Ray registered the threat and opened his mouth to protest. Emma’s boots sounded loud and clunky as she switched from cobbles to concrete, striding away in fury. Ray’s eyes widened as she stopped and skidded, turning to face him. “Oh, and Ray. Don’t tell my son what he can and can’t do in future. He checks with me, not you.”

“I’m sorry, miss can we talk about this?” Ray called after her as Emma strode away from the stable yard. He sounded distressed, caught between a rock and a hard place and faring badly under the pressure. To her shame, Emma ignored him, intersecting with the little knot under the archway who stared at her in surprise.

“Are you ok?” Allaine asked, her blue eyes troubled. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Emma shook her head, noticing Nicky’s scowl. “No. I own this massive house and acres of property and not one person on it does what I ask.” Petulance forced a shrieking quality into the sentence and Emma winced.

“We just wanted to skate!” Nicky retorted. “Ya didn’t have to be mean to Ray!”

Emma rounded on him, her eyes flashing. Her blood pushed into her brain at a furious rate, making her chest feel like a pressure cooker. The scar on the soft flesh of her neck throbbed, a reminder of Ray’s skill as an army medic as he stitched her up on the kitchen table. Anger dissipated quicker than it bloomed and Emma’s eyes glittered with tears. “I’m sorry,” she said and Nicky’s brows knitted.

“I love you, Mummy,” he said, his magic key to the world’s suffering, doled out like candy. He carried his skateboard under one arm and used the other to wrap around her waist; reminiscent of the old days when they co-existed in starvation and solidarity on the council estate. “It’ll be ok,” he affirmed in his childish optimism. “I don’t have to skate today.”

The group walked back to the house in silence and kicked off their outer clothing in the lobby. The house felt luke warm despite the gravity fed radiators pumping out hot air and running through cash like a London stockbroker. Emma forced a smile onto her lips and turned to Nicky. “Go into the basement and ride your skateboard on the tiles down there in the corridor. Don’t go into the rooms, though.”

The boy’s eyes lit up. “Yeah! Thanks, Mummy.” He disappeared off to the left, past the kitchen door, trailing Kaylee behind him.

“What’s downstairs?” Allaine asked, curiosity making her tilt her body to watch the running children.

“A cellar.” Emma placed her boots on a shelf in the cupboard and pushed the wellingtons Allaine handed her, into the bottom next to a man’s pair and a child’s. “There’s a set of stairs in the old boot room past the kitchen. The floors down there are quarry tiled and the corridor runs parallel to this one.” She jerked her head to the left, encompassing the ornate archway and passage beyond. “But the skateboard makes a terrific noise on the tiles so I don’t usually let him.” She exhaled in annoyance. “I didn’t remind him not to go into the wine cellar.” Emma chewed her bottom lip. “He can’t resist things like that. The darkness and dust act like a little boy magnet. Go back into the kitchen where it’s warm and I’ll nip down and see if Ray’s managed to mend the lock on the door. It was one of his jobs this week.” She stopped herself mid eye roll and forced a smile onto her face. “See you in a minute,” she said.

Emma gripped the hand rail as she descended into the old servants’ quarters, the ghosts of former service staff seeming to still as the mistress of the house deigned to visit. The steps were worn into a groove in the centre of each tread, the scurrying of countless feet over the centuries leaving their mark as they fetched and carried for the gentry upstairs. The archivist in Emma delighted in the history of Wingate Hall but the pregnant mother felt unnerved by the potential treachery of the stairs.

Two rooms downstairs made up the wine cellar, mostly empty but filled with hopeful racks of shelving, biding their time before a restock. The other two made up a series of boiler rooms, visited only when the heating system failed to crank out hot air or someone received a cold douse mid shower. Other vacant alcoves in the huge area represented the servants’ dining room, accessed through an archway and some form of workroom. “Nicky?” Emma called, hearing no sounds of skating. Her heart sank. “Nicky!” she shouted, her voice echoing in the cavernous space. The dull light bulb probed the first of the boiler rooms as the stairs terminated on the western side of the room, its glow pathetically inadequate.

“What?” Her son’s face appeared, a cobweb adorning his blond hair. “I was just showing Kaylee around.”

The little girl’s eyes resembled glassy saucers and Emma detected a frisson of fear in the brown orbs. “It’s amazin’ down ‘ere,” the child gushed.

Emma crooked an index finger and the children skittered towards her, the skateboard abandoned in lieu of other, more promising adventures. “This is the list of rules,” she stated, glaring at her son’s look of annoyance. “I’ll repeat them for Kaylee so you both know. You do not go into the wine cellars because the shelves are unstable and might fall on you. You do not touch the boiler equipment because it has the potential to blow up you and the rest of this house. If I find you doing either...” Emma fixed her brown-eyed gaze on Nicky, “and I will be checking when you least expect it, you will never come down here again. Do you understand?”

The children nodded, Nicky producing the requisite, “Yes, Mummy.” The cobweb dangling over his left ear said otherwise.

“I mean it,” Emma reaffirmed. “You’ve already been in the wine cellar when you know it’s naughty. That’s your last warning.”

Nicky swallowed and his eyes bugged. Emma hid the smirk, maintaining her hard line against the only person in her life who was still amenable to her control. “I know everything,” she stressed, wagging her finger. “So don’t make the mistake of thinking I don’t.”

“Ok.” Nicky looked contrite and padded through the far door of the boiler room, aiming for the corridor and wide spaces on the other side of the wine cellar.

Kaylee turned, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Can we look for the secret passages?” she begged.

“Yep, sure,” Emma said. “There aren’t any down here so go for it. Just don’t go in the places I asked you not to.”

“See, told you,” Nicky griped. “There’s none down here.”

Emma faced the stairs again, pausing at the dog leg half way up to listen. The sound of the skateboard wheels began on the quarry tiles, dull and rumbling, guaranteed to be heard from the kitchen above and annoying after a few hours. She smirked, pushing away guilt at her lie. The locked door outside the wine cellar led to another set of stairs which terminated in the butler’s pantry. If Nicky found access to that, she figured they’d never see him again. The Lords and their offspring might have owned Wingate Hall through centuries of English turmoil and changes of guard, but a sequence of capable butlers ruled it with an iron fist. It made perfect sense that the butler’s pantry would be the epicentre of everything, including the series of passages which ran behind walls and under floors, stretching as far as the ancient chapel a few miles away in the grounds of the house and the folly on the edge of the property, the folly into which the troublesome Irishman currently moved his belongings.

Chapter 4

Emma reached the kitchen

Chapter 5

“Hahaha!” Nicky’s giggles echoed in the cavernous basement, interspersed by the sound of his skateboard wheels running across the quarry tiles.