“I challenged him. I spoke back to him. People didn’t do that to my father.”
“Maybe not, but why would he lock you up?”
He shrugged. “Maybe he saw me as competition.”
“But that’s petty. That wouldn’t have been the reason.” She felt so sure as she remembered the step-father she’d come to love so much.
His lip curled, and he looked away. “Of course you’d say that. You loved him.” He walked away and closed the door to the generator, and flicked off the lights. The lights in the house were blazing in one wing for him, in the other for her. A darkness divided the two wings.
“Yes, I loved him. But that’s nothing to do with what I meant. What I meant was that he was very open and warm with me and my mother. But you… You’re…” She trailed off. How could she explain without insulting him?
“I’m closed and cold.” He huffed an unamused laugh. “You’re right.” He opened the back door for her to walk through. “You’d best get changed.”
“You, too.”
They walked together through the hallway. She was intensely aware of him in a way she hadn’t been before. He’d nearly opened up to her in the barn and the thought of him as a boy, locked up and unloved, hurt her deep inside and she began to think she understood this savage man.
“Good night,” he said, walking towards his wing of the house.
“Wait!” she said impulsively. She couldn’t rid her mind of the hurt boy, spurned by his father and still bearing the scars.
He turned. “What is it?”
“I wondered…” She groped for words—any words—which would make sense of her emotions. “If…” If what? If he’d forgive her for practically accusing him of being an unfeeling bastard? She didn’t know what to say. All she knew was that she couldn’t bear to leave him like this. She wanted him to stay with her, to talk, to be normal together, to no longer endure the gaping divide which existed between them. She wanted that gone. “I wondered if you’d care for a drink?” she asked, surprising herself at her question. She was even more surprised at the need to ask it. “After we change. Charles kept the cocktail cupboard well stocked.
He didn’t reply immediately and his expression was unreadable. Then she did something which afterwards she wished she hadn’t. She licked her lips. It was instinctive and must have told him something he needed to know to make up his mind.
“Sure. I’ll meet you in the drawing room in half an hour.”
She ran up the stairs to prevent him from seeing the blush which had bloomed on her cheeks. She paused by her bedroom window, hand on the curtain, and looked out at the valley, one minute hiding from the moon under quickly scudding clouds, the next bathed in its silver light. It was a night full of weather and surprises. She tugged the curtains closed.
After a hot shower, she dressed quickly in jeans and a t-shirt and padded downstairs to the drawing room in bare feet. The atmosphere of the room was different to when her step-father had been alive. Music played and the pools of light came from side lamps, rather than the overhead chandeliers.
Sebastian stood with his back to her, looking up at the portrait of his mother which hung over the mantelpiece. She had blonde hair, swept up into an elegant chignon, and was wearing a green evening dress with diamonds. Indra had always been impressed by the woman’s gaze. It wasn’t haughty, as she’d have imagined, but playful and inviting. Nothing like that of her eldest son.
She walked up behind him. “Your mother was very beautiful.”
He looked around, not revealing he was startled except for a slight raised eyebrow. “I didn’t hear you enter the room.”
“Habit.” She gave a regretful twist of the lips. “I was raised not to draw attention to myself.”
He frowned. “Which is entirely different to any other woman I know. It always seems their objectisto draw attention to themselves.”
She walked past him and opened the sideboard cupboard, and withdrew two glasses. “Then I suppose I’m not like any other women you know.”
“You can say that again.”
“I don’t think I have to, do you?”
He shook his head and pulled out a bottle of whiskey and looked at it. He held it up. “Would you care for a glass?”
She shook her head. “I don’t drink.” She withdrew a bottle of soda water. “I’ll have a glass of this.”
“Ah, another difference to any of the other women I know.”
She shrugged. “It was how I was brought up and I don’t believe I’m missing out.”
“You’re not. Even so, old habits die hard,” he said, pouring a glass of soda water for her and whiskey for himself. He handed her the glass and swilled the amber liquid around his own glass. He held it up to the light. “The old man and I certainly share the same taste for the finer things in life.”