In Bed with a Stranger

Picking up his coffee, Kit shrugged, his expression closed. ‘Not much. Bank statements and share reports. Some more information about the Alnburgh estate.’ He stopped and took a mouthful of coffee. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, picked up a letter from one of the piles and held it out to her. ‘And this.’

Scanning down the first few formal lines, Sophie frowned in confusion.

‘What is it?’

‘A letter from Ralph’s solicitors in Hawksworth. They received this letter to forward on to me.’

He slid a folded piece of paper out from the pile and tossed it onto the desk beside her. Something in the abruptness of his movements told her that it was significant, though his face was as inscrutable as ever, his eyes opaque.

Warily Sophie picked up the thick pale blue paper and unfolded it. The script on it was even and sloping—the hand of a person who was used to writing letters rather than sending texts or emails, Sophie thought vaguely as she began to read.

My Dear Kit—

I know this letter will come as a surprise, and after all this time am not foolish enough to believe it will be a pleasant one, however I must put aside my selfish trepidation and confront things I should have dealt with a long time ago.

Sophie’s heart had started to beat very hard. She glanced up at Kit, her mouth open to say something, but his head was half turned away from her as he continued working his way through the pile of post, not inviting comment. She carried on reading.

I’m sorry—that’s the first thing I want to say, although those words are too little, too late. There is so much more I need to add to them. There are things I’d like to explain for my own selfish reasons, in the hope you might understand and perhaps even forgive, and other things I need to tell you that are very much in your interest. Things that will affect you now, and will go on affecting your family far into the future.

A pulse of adrenaline hit Sophie’s bloodstream as she read that bit. She carried on, skimming faster now, impatient to find out what it all meant.

The last thing I want to do is pressure you for any kind of response, so on the basis that you have my address at the top of this letter and the warmest and most sincere of invitations to come here at any time to suit you, I will leave you to make your own decision.

Know, though, how much it would mean to me to see you.

Your hopeful mother Juliet Fitzroy

Slowly Sophie put down the letter, her head spinning.

‘So your mother wants you to go and see her?’ she said, admittedly rather stupidly.

Kit tossed another envelope into the bin. ‘So it would appear, Mr Holmes.’

‘Will you go?’ With shaking fingers Sophie scrabbled to

unfold the paper again, to see where exactly Juliet Fitzroy lived. ‘Imlil,’ she said in a puzzled voice, then read the line below on the address. ‘Blimey—Morocco?’

‘Exactly.’ Kit sounded offhand to the point of boredom as the contents of the envelope followed it into the bin. ‘It’s not exactly a few stops on the District line, and I can’t think what she could say that would make the trip worthwhile.’

Sophie tapped a finger against her closed lips, her thoughts racing ahead. Morocco. Heat and sand and … harem pants. Probably. In truth she didn’t know an awful lot about Morocco beyond the fact that she’d always liked the sound of it and that, right now, it seemed like a very favourable alternative to Chelsea, and the oppressive atmosphere that seemed to be stifling them both in the quiet, immaculate house.

‘I’ve always wanted to go to Morocco,’ she said, with a hint of wistfulness. ‘I wonder how she ended up living there? And why she’s chosen to get in touch now, after all this time?’

‘I assume because she knows her little secret will have been uncovered by Ralph’s death.’ Kit was writing something on the bottom of a letter from the bank. ‘Perhaps she wants to introduce me to my real father—although that’s assuming she knows who he is. There could be thousands of possible candidates for all I know.’

Oh, God. Sophie suddenly felt dizzy as she remembered a letter she had found tucked into a book in the library at Alnburgh. She’d known at the time it was wrong to read it, but one look at the first line and she’d been unable to resist. She wished now that she’d been stronger, so she wouldn’t be in the position of knowing more about Kit’s paternity than he did.

Getting up from the edge of the desk, she paced to the bookcase on the other side of the room, deliberately turning her back on him. ‘There aren’t.’ She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, wincing. ‘She knows.’

There was a pause. On the bookcase in front of her, betweenthe volumes of military history and thick books on Middle Eastern politics, was a photograph. It showed a Kit she didn’t know, standing in the centre of a group of men in camouflage jackets in front of an army truck.

‘How do you know?’

He spoke with sinister softness. Light-headed with apprehension, Sophie turned round. ‘Do you remember that day at Alnburgh, when I was … ill …?’ She’d got her period and had been completely unprepared, and Kit had stepped in and taken control. She smiled faintly. ‘You showed me into the library while you went to the village shop.’

‘I remember.’ His voice held an edge of steel that made the smile wither. ‘And?’

‘And I looked at the books while I was waiting.’ She went over to lean against the desk beside him again, longing to touch him but not quite knowing how to. ‘I found some old Georgette Heyer—she’s my absolute favourite, so I took one down and opened it, and a letter fell out.’ She looked down at her hands, picking at one of the ragged nails she’d meant to file before he came home. ‘A love letter. It was addressed to “My Darling Juliet”.’

Kit wasn’t looking at her. He was staring straight ahead, out of the window, the slats of the blind casting bars of shadows on his damaged face so that he looked as if he were in a cage. When he said nothing, Sophie went on in a voice that was husky and hesitant.

‘A-at first I assumed it was from Ralph and I was amazed. It was so beautifully romantic—so tender and passionate, and I just couldn’t imagine him writing anything like that.’

‘So who was it from?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t have a chance to finish it before you came back, and …’ she couldn’t stop herself from reaching out then, touching his cheek with the backs of her fingers as she recalled the tension that had vibrated between them ‘… then

it kind of went out of my head for a while. I did look later, when I put the book back, but it wasn’t signed with a name.’

He got to his feet, taking a few steps away from her.

‘So how do you know it wasn’t Ralph?’

‘Because it talked about you,’ Sophie said, very softly, standing up too. ‘You must only have been tiny and he’d obviously just come back from visiting. He said how painful it was for him to leave you, knowing it was Ralph you thought of as your father.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ Kit demanded icily.

Sophie swallowed. ‘It was none of my business at the time. I knew straight away that I shouldn’t have read it, and, let’s face it, we didn’t exactly know each other well enough for me to drop that kind of information casually into the conversation. And then afterwards … there just wasn’t the chance.’ She paused, nervously moistening her lips as she gathered the courage to voice the misgivings that had been silently closing in on her since she’d woken that morning. ‘I don’t know, Kit, sometimes I think we hardly know each other any better now.’

Her stomach was in knots as she waited for him to reply. Standing with his back to her, his shoulders looking as if they’d been carved from granite. And then he sighed, and some of the tension went out of them.

‘I’m sorry.’ He turned round. ‘I don’t understand it, that’s all. Why the hell didn’t she just leave Ralph and go to be with him—whoever he was—and take me with her?’

The bitterness in his tone made her heart ache with compassion, but at the same time a part of it sang. Because anger was emotion, and because he was talking to her about it.

She shrugged, taking care to sound casual. ‘Maybe that’s what she wants to explain.’ Going over to him, she stretched up to lightly kiss his lips. ‘Let’s go. Let’s go to Morocco and find out.’

CHAPTER THREE

AND so, with her characteristic clear-sightedness, Sophie made the decision that they should go to see Juliet. All that was left for Kit to do was make the arrangements.

If it hadn’t been for her he would simply have put the letter into the waste-paper bin, along with all the rest of the junk mail. He had long ago closed his heart to the woman who had walked out on him when he was six years old, promising to return. That broken promise, perhaps more than her abandonment, had sown seeds of wariness and mistrust in him that grew over the years into a forest of thorns around his heart. Sophie alone had slipped through its branches.

And in the same way, when he’d shown her the letter she had cut through the anger and bitterness and made it all seem so simple. So obvious. About facts, not emotions.

Odd that he of all people should need reminding of that.

‘First class?’ Sophie murmured, looking up at him from under her lashes as he steered her in the direction of the passenger lounge at London City Airport. ‘How sweet of you to remember I never travel any other way.’