She giggled. “Oh, good. But where is your son?”
“He occupies his own flat on the top floor of the house,” Stone said, “and he’s probably there, in the sack with his girlfriend, as we speak.”
“Goodness, his generation starts young, don’t they?”
“How old were you on the occasion of your first time?” Stone asked.
Felicity blushed deeply.
“Oh, come on, you can tell me. Official Secrets Act, remember?”
“Sixteen,” she said. “With a young gamekeeper on my father’s estate.”
“Shades of Lady Chatterley!”
“It was only afterward that I read the novel,” she said. “But he was very sweet. He was twenty-two, and he seemed like much the older man. What about you? When was your first time?”
Stone laughed. “I was sixteen, too, and she was nineteen. Much the older woman, and I was grateful to her for her experience.”
“So we were both precocious.”
“And will be again,” Stone said. He waved at a waiter. “Check, please!”
31
There was sunlight filtering through the shutters in Stone’s bedroom when he looked over and found Felicity next to him. Their hips were touching, and she had a wisp of her red hair across her face. Gingerly, he brushed it away, and she opened her eyes.
“My goodness,” she said, turning toward him. “How long it’s been since I awoke to find a man in my bed!”
“In actual fact,” Stone said, “you awoke to find yourself in a man’s bed.”
“Even better,” she said, placing a hand on his cheek and kissing him lightly.
“More, please,” he said, and they did it again. From there it was but a short hop to an embrace and a joining of flesh.
When they had finished and lay panting in each other’s arms, Felicity said, “What will your sleeping arrangements be at the hotel?”
“I’ll be staying in a four-bedroom cottage with its own garden and pool that was part of the original deal for the building of the hotel. The master bedroom, where I will sleep, has a private, walled patio off the back garden, to which I will give you a key, so that you may steal in and out at will.”
“What a lovely arrangement,” she said.
“Of course, you may encounter a Secret Service agent or two along the way, since we’re next door to the presidential cottage, but they are very discreet people.”
She sighed. “From what you’ve told me, I won’t be able to move without rubbing elbows with either the Secret Service, the Mexican protective detail, a team of Strategic Services guards, or all of the above.”
“That’s about the size of it, but as long as you don’t come to
me naked, there shouldn’t be a problem.”
“I suppose I can stand to wait until I’m in your bedroom before disrobing.”
“A good policy. How many other Brits will be in residence?”
“I’m the only one, except for a few private citizens and one journalist,” she said. “I’m meant to be consulting with Kate Lee on some security matters, among them the signals you and I talked about last night.”
“I’m reliably informed that Kate already knows about the signal traffic. The NSA figure in charge of all that, Scott Hipp, is politically connected, and he just loves sending little items like that to the White House.”
“To which Kate is well connected,” Felicity said. “I wonder what it would be like if I were married to the prime minister.”