No Ordinary Gentleman

“No more snacks for you,” his uncle decrees authoritatively, and I almost ask if he means the kid or me. If I’m going to be bossed about, dominated, I like it to be—

Nope. Scratch that thought. Shove it under the bed with the headless man.

“It’s, I erm. It’s just some fruit and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.” Plus some pistachios and a slice of moist and boozy Dundee cake, and a couple of shortbread cookie tails. What? I didn’t know how long I’ll have to hide up there!

Archie’s expression twists, and he seems to think better of investigating the bag, hopping right on by me. I turn to follow his progress, my stomach swooping as I watch him come to a stop between the row of black marble pedestals, each bearing a piece of statuary. You know the one at the foot of the stairs? Worse still, the little snitch assumes the position of the missing statue, cocking his hip and pretending to hold a cup in his hand. How that didn’t snap off rather than his penis, I’ll never understand, protruding as it does.

The statue, obviously. Not the kid.

With a prickling awareness, I come to realise Alexander is now standing behind me. How stealthy.

“Uncle Sandy?” Archie sing-songs. “Holly says she has jelly on her toast for breakfast. Doesn’t that sound yucky?”

I find myself thinking back to our confusing breakfast conversation. “Jelly is just fruit,” I explain. “Like a fruit spread. A preserve? Raspberry, strawberry—”

“So, what’s the difference between jam and jelly?” he asks, butting in.

“I can answer that.” I shiver as Alexander’s low whispered response coasts my ear from behind. “I can’t jelly my cock up your arse.”

I gasp—if I had pearls, I’d grab them. That’s no way for a man of his station to—

I don’t even get to swing around to show how shocked (turned on?) I am as he saunters on by to stand in front of Archie.

Turned on by his voice in my ear, I mean. Not the other thing.

The other is . . . does not turn my knees to Jell-O.

I don’t think.

“Hello, little Apollo.”

“I’m not Apollo! Uncle Sandy, what was that thing the statue had in his hand? Hugh said it was it a can of cola.”

Alexander chuckles, his gaze swinging back to me. This is not the look of a man about to call the police, I think. Not that he can prove anything. So it’s missing. So it’s broken. It doesn’t mean it’s my fault. Not entirely.

“In one hand, he’s holding the remains of a bow,” Alexander explains. “In the other, is his quiver.”

“It didn’t look like a bow,” the kid replies, looking at his own hand.

“That’s because it’s very old. It broke a long time ago.”

“How long?”

“Well, the statue was made by a sculptor called Baccio Bandinelli in Florence, Italy, back in the fourteen hundreds.”

Oh no. I think I’m going to be sick. Maybe he will really call the police.

“That’s really old,” the little boy says with a thoughtful expression. “No wonder his willie fell off.”

Ah, fudge.

29

Alexander

“I thought I could fix it.”

Poor Holland. She looks distraught. But my God, how I want to laugh.

“I didn’t know it was that old!” Hands on her knees, she tilts her head, her eyes a little green in the light, full of a soft innocence.

The late afternoon sun casts long shadows across the room that was once my father’s study, and his father before him, dust motes dancing in its shafts. I assume a sombre mien, leaning back against the gargantuan desk. Pulvis et umbra sumus, I find myself thinking. We are but dust and shadows.

Quoting Horace? No wonder I feel like a schoolmaster, drawing out a reprimand for my own entertainment. Come closer. Bend over the desk, naughty girl . . .

“I mean, okay, so I knew it was old,” Holland continues from her position in the leather wingback chair. She looks down at her hands, then up at me again, this time with a touch of pleading. “But not that old!”

My expression twists as though troubled by the admission. The statue is old but not as old as I might’ve led her to believe. It’s a Victorian reproduction, though not to scale. The original stands in the Boboli Gardens in Florence. Not that I need to share any of that at this precisely at this moment. “I wonder, how were you going to fix it?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs a little helplessly. “I thought I might find something on YouTube to help. I was waiting until the guests left after the weekend.”

The guests and me, she really means.

Twisting from the waist, I begin to shuffle the stack of papers, allowing me time to fix my poker face. “Is that what you’ve been doing all day? Looking for answers on YouTube?” Because she hasn’t posted anything to her Instagram page. Yes, so I might be stalking it a little. Isla was right; it’s not an account dedicated to bikini shots, pouting, and overly made-up faces. It is quirky and quite fun. But it’s also a little disingenuous. Like she’s trying very hard to impress people.