No Ordinary Gentleman

My footsteps echo against the ancient stone as I trudge along, praying I’m going in the right direction and that I won’t end up in the dungeons. Or come face-to-face with any of the castle’s ghosts. But then I hear a noise echoing from the end of the hallway. It sounds as though someone is in pain. Like centuries of pain as a long-drawn-out wail echoes along the walls. A fist clamps around my suddenly rapidly beating heart, my feet shuffling to a stop and almost turning in the other direction.

Another moan sounds.

Where the fluff is a crucifix when you want one?

The next moan comes as I pivot on my toes. I’d rather risk bumping into Alexander than whatever lurks down there. But then the tenor changes, and I freeze in place.

Did that moan include the words, yes, daddy, again?

Surely, that’s not . . . there must be better places in the castle to have sex on the down low.

Say, the kitchen. Or behind a screen in a display room.

My steps are almost silent as I make my way along the hallway to where the light spills from an open door. I’m not a voyeur, but there’s no point in backtracking if I don’t have to. And if the “daddy and his baby” don’t want to get busted, they should’ve closed the door behind them.

Nope, not a voyeur, I think as I draw closer. Especially as it might be, say, Mr McCain and Dougal. Or Chrissy and Mr McCain. Or maybe all three of them!

Eww. I press my hand to my mouth to stifle a giggle.

“Yes! Yes! Fuck me like that!”

I’ll just close my eyes as I pass.

But then, something other than a moan sounds from the open door.

“Okay, so what do you want?”

I freeze again, this time due to the distinct lack of sexual undertone in that question. Weird, considering only a moment ago, it sounded like someone was about to . . . you know.

I hear the voice again, though the conversation is one-sided and mostly indistinct. It’s Griffin, I know that for sure, but who’s he with?

I move closer as Griffin growls, “I need more time. You’ll get me fucking struck off, then I’ll be no use to you.”

I take a super quick peek around the open door, my head immediately swinging back before I try a second time once I realise he’s facing the other way. But Griffin isn’t looking out of the window. Rather, his head is dropped between his shoulders. He’s sitting at a desk that looks nothing like Isla’s or Alexander’s. It’s easily as old but less ornate, the patina worn, and the wood scarred.

His laptop is open on the desk, and I find myself wondering what the Wi-Fi signal is like down here. Worse, I imagine. The room is old and full of brown cardboard boxes, the kind that holds box files full of documents. There’s no sitting area, tea sets, or whisky decanters down here, and I suddenly feel a little sad for him.

He swings back around in his chair the second I duck back around the doorframe.

Close call. But I can’t stay here, and as a roll of thunder sounds from outside, I’m not going back the other way, either.

I’ll count to thirty, then stamp my feet a little before appearing to move past the door. But before I get to fifteen, and Griffin sighs the kind of sigh that seems to bear the weight of the world in it, I realise I can’t go rushing past.

Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, and . . .

“Oh, Griffin! What are you doing down here?”

Sounds plausible enough, right?

“Jesus, Holly!” he says, lowering from about three foot above his chair. “You scared the living crap out of me!”

“I’m sorry,” I say—giggle—sounding not sorry at all. “I thought you must’ve heard me, all the noise I was making, whistling and humming as I skipped along the corridor.”

Overplaying it, maybe? Once a ham, always a ham.

“Fuck.” He presses a hand to his chest as though to reassure his frantic heart that all is well. There, there, little guy. “Never interrupt a man when he’s deep in contemplation.”

“No?” I ask doubtfully and with a hint of amusement.

“We’re gone.” He makes a shooing motion with the same hand. “Well, physically, we’re here, but mentally, we’re not at all.”

I don’t think I need convincing of that, I think tartly.

“So, where’d you go during this sacred contemplation?”

“To examine the cemetery of our fallen dreams. The dearth of our missed opportunities.”

I can literally feel my eyebrows coming off the top of my head. I’m being out-hammed.

“Really? Whenever I’ve asked a man what he was thinking, the answer has without exception been nothing.” The latter I add in a deep tone.

“That’s the answer we use when we’re thinking about fucking you.” His gaze roams over me suggestively. “Ask me what I’m thinking,” he adds. “Go on, I dare you.”