Red After Dark (Blackwood Security #13) - Elise Noble Page 0,85

he took no prisoners, and more often than not, he pushed me to the point of pain and beyond. But in husband mode, he still made me swoon even after fifteen and a half years of marriage. Yes, we’d only been a proper couple for three of those years, but he’d always been a gentleman and tonight was no different.

As Black topped off my drink and pressed his thigh against mine under the table, I wondered if it was too late. Could I pretend the last two days hadn’t happened? Besides me, only Ana and Sky truly suspected Black’s duplicity. I’d already shut Sky down, and Ana would drop the matter if I asked her to. Emerald’s trail had gone cold. It would be easy to back off and let her fade into the night again.

It would also be wrong.

Alaric had only ever tried to make me happy, and he’d suffered for it. Somebody needed to make things right, and that somebody had to be me.

But for tonight, I buried all the fear and sadness along with my head in the sand, and when Black took my hand at the end of the evening and led me upstairs to bed, I let him undress me and caress me and bury himself inside me. And as the moon rose ever higher and the stars twinkled over the balcony, I thought back to my childhood, to the mother I hated so much. When I was little, maybe five or six years old, Julie Emerson had told me that people like us weren’t destined to be happy. I’d spent my whole life trying to prove her wrong, but maybe it was time to accept that just for once, on that single point, she’d been right.

CHAPTER 34 - BETHANY

“THANK YOU SO much. I’ll be sure to pass on your condolences.”

I took the covered dish and carried it into the kitchen. Hmm… Where to put it?

Alaric looked up from his spot at the table.

“Tell me that’s not another casserole.”

“The lady said it was biscuits.” But not cookie-biscuits. These were scone-biscuits, and I knew which I preferred. That wasn’t to say we didn’t have plenty of cookies too. They’d been arriving all day.

Harriet had been at Irvine’s bedside late last night when the doctors turned off his life support, right after the results of the election came in. Aidan O’Shaughnessy took the senate seat, although the news barely merited a mention on TV. It was playing second—or rather fourth—fiddle to Irvine’s tragic demise, David Biggs’s impending divorce, and Eric Ridley’s denial of any involvement in Kyla’s death. Apparently, he’d just walked in and found her like that.

Alaric shuffled the dishes around to make space for the new offering, and I grabbed the ringing phone.

“Harriet?” a lady asked.

“No, this is her friend Bethany.”

“It’s Wilma Turner—one of Harriet’s neighbours. I’m so sorry to hear about Irvine. If Harriet needs anything… A casserole?”

“We’ve got plenty of food at the moment, but thank you for the offer. If you have any spare time, though, Harriet would love some help with the animals.”

“The horses? I don’t know a thing about those beasts. I could pick up groceries or do laundry?”

That was everyone’s story. We had enough food to sink an aircraft carrier, a rota set up for washing and ironing clothes, and even a lady coming over to vacuum. But nobody had the time or the inclination to muck out.

“Fetching groceries might be useful. Could I take your number and phone you back?”

She read it out, and I added it to the list. I’d turned into Harriet’s assistant rather than Sirius’s, but Alaric didn’t seem to mind. He’d even answered a few calls himself. Harriet was sleeping now, and I was beginning to think Alaric was right about Stéphane—he hadn’t left her side since the ambulance ride to the hospital.

And Alaric had barely left mine, apart from when he slept on the sofa at night. Harriet, Stéphane, and I had taken the three upstairs bedrooms, and nobody was going to suggest Alaric sleep in Irvine’s wing. It was too soon. Harriet was raw. Raw with pain at losing her father and also with guilt that she’d spent more time with the horses than with him during his final weeks.

The funeral would be next Monday. Open casket, which freaked me out a bit because we just didn’t do that in England. In the absence of other offers, Alaric had agreed that I should stay until after Irvine’s cremation to support Harriet while