The Sugared Game - K.J. Charles Page 0,61
to say. Kim gave him a sort of half smile. “You do realise you saved my life?”
“Get going.”
Kim slipped out of the back door. Will gave it a few moments before he followed, emerging into the grey watery daylight. There was nobody in the street above and if anyone had heard the racket from the High-Low, they were clearly unconcerned.
He set off down the street, hands in his pockets because they’d started shaking.
Chapter Twelve
Will didn’t have a marvellous day after that. He didn’t regret Fuller’s death as such: he would have preferred a different outcome, but the silly sod had pulled a gun on Kim. All the same, he didn’t feel much like explaining his part in the whole thing to the police. Kim had better be right about his shadowy organisation’s powers.
It seemed he was, because after three days, nobody had come to ask Will questions, and he hadn’t seen anything in the papers. He’d bought the Standard and Evening Standard daily, and seen nothing about ‘Shocking Discovery In Night-Club’. That meant he felt less like he was about to be arrested, which was nice, but increasingly in the dark as to what the hell was going on. He wanted to know what happened now, what Mrs. Skyrme was likely to be up to, and what was in those account books and papers Kim had taken.
But he wasn’t finding out, because along with the rest of the silence, there hadn’t been a peep from Kim.
Not a call. Not a visit. The nerves receded, the time passed, the hours mounted up without communication, and Will discovered he was furious.
He had killed a man, another man, to save the bastard’s life. He’d trusted Kim enough to put himself at risk of a prison sentence, and Kim couldn’t take three minutes to say, By the way, what’s happening is... He must have found out plenty by now from the contents of Mrs. Skyrme’s safe; he’d had a private conversation with her that had clearly ended in some sort of deal, given she’d left the safe open. A private conversation Kim hadn’t wanted Will to hear.
There was something else, too. He’d lied to Mrs. Skyrme about having Flora Appleby ready as a witness, which was fine—Will had no problem with him lying to other people—but it was also, very clearly, what he should actually have done, which raised the question of why he hadn’t. Will had been all too ready to believe that Kim had respected his promise to Beaumont. Now, as the silence ticked on, he had a growing feeling that he’d fooled himself again.
He didn’t want to believe that. He didn’t want to believe that Kim would spoil everything that had grown between them. But here he sat with another body added to his tally and the dead man’s fingermarks dark on his wrists, and didn’t hear a bloody word.
He’d thought things were changing. He’d truly thought Kim was letting him inside in a way that mattered, and he’d been wrong. The barriers had come crashing down again and he was sick of it. Sick of being dragged into messes not of his making (he was aware he’d signed up eagerly, that wasn’t the point), sick of being used for dirty work, and thoroughly, deep-down heartsick of feeling like he was good enough for fighting or fucking, even for Kim to vent his feelings on much as Beaumont had, but no more. Not a partner. Not an equal. Not included.
He called Maisie to see if she’d have dinner with him, but she declined. “I can’t. Will, we’re going down to Lord Waring’s house on Saturday, to stay! He told Phoebe yesterday to bring me so he can meet me properly in a comfortable setting, and he’s even sending his chauffeur to drive us. Can you imagine?” Her voice thrummed with excitement. “So kind—and I’ve got such a lot of work to do before we go to Paris, Phoebe is having dozens of ideas and there’s no time at all to prepare. I’ll tell you all about it later. I’ve got to go.”
She hung up, which was him told. Will glared at the phone. He didn’t have Phoebe’s number since she always called him, but he had a copy of Kelly’s London Royal Blue Book. He looked up Viscount Waring, found the address in Grosvenor Square, and asked the operator to put him through.
A plummy voice answered the telephone. “The Waring residence.”
“Is Miss Stephens-Prince in?” Will had a sudden, random urge to