‘You don’t have to. I can handle it. If you’d feel safer in the larder that’s—’
‘No. I want to help and I’d rather be doing something constructive—it will stop my imagination from going into an overdrive of scenarios.’
‘OK.’
Admiration touched him at her attitude. Her body language showed her fear as they walked towards the lounge—the clench of her hands, the pallor of her face—but her step did not falter. And once in the lounge, after one glance at the expanse of cracked window, where wind and rain now flung themselves at the glass in a grey lashing of force, she set to work.
It was almost as if her reaction wasn’t fear of the storm itself per se.
Working quickly, they emptied the room of furniture and then piled it up against the door.
‘That’s the best we can do,’ Marcus said. ‘Let’s grab some cushions and blankets from the bedroom and then get ourselves into the larder. There’s enough room for us to sleep in there if need be.’
To his annoyance there was the smallest of tremors in his voice. Unbelievable, Alrikson. A storm was raging out there, and he was thinking about his libido!
‘Let’s go.’
It didn’t take long for Marcus to realise that his libido would be difficult to exclude from the party. The larder, whilst it was spacious for storage, was not really designed to accommodate two adults, let alone allow a sizeable chunk of space between them.
It was an aspect of the larder that had clearly occurred to April as well.
‘Well, this is cosy,’ she said, and then looked aghast both at the words and the utterly false breeziness she’d uttered them with. ‘And safe. That’s the most important thing, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is.’
Her face creased with worry. ‘How bad do you think it will be for Lycander?’
‘Hard to say. We put up flood walls recently, but the winds and rains will still cause a lot of damage.’
Frustration suddenly flooded him. He should be there. Helping.
‘You can’t be there,’ she said. ‘However much you want to be.’
Marcus blinked, wondered since when he’d been so easy to read. Since never.
‘I know that. Nonetheless, I could make a difference back there.’
‘You’ve made a difference here. If you hadn’t turned the helicopter back we could have died. We could have been caught in this—could have crashed into the sea, could have been blown away... That was your call and you made it. So, yes, we are stuck here. But there are emergency services in Lycander. And I’ll bet you and Prince Frederick have overhauled them. I bet you’ve put procedures in place to deal with this. And those procedures will save lives. That is the most important thing—life. Anything else can be replaced. So right now this larder is the safest place for you to be.’
Her voice grew serious.
‘All we can do is hunker down and hope the storm doesn’t get in. We just need to work out a way to pass the time...’
And there was his libido again. The words that she’d meant in all innocence took on a double meaning and silence spread an awkward blanket over them.
April looked around, as if in search of an activity, a distraction. ‘How about a game of I Spy? That’s what my parents always suggested on long car journeys.’
‘I’ve never played it,’ Marcus said.
It would never have occurred to his birth parents to play anything with their children. And, once adopted, Marcus had done his best to stay out of the way, not to intrude on his new family.
He’d known that Louise and Bill Alrikson had adopted him as an add-on—for Elvira’s sake. Elvira had been the child they’d craved; they’d certainly not set out to take on a damaged twelve-year-old. And who could blame them? Certainly not Marcus. It had made perfect sense.
So he’d tried to make himself invisible, so that they and Elvira could get on with forging a bond, being a family.
‘Marcus?’ April’s voice tugged him back to the present.
‘I Spy it is,’ he said.