The Sugared Game - K.J. Charles Page 0,8

changed us,” Beaumont pressed on, staring at his plate. “One forgets how much. Do you know what I mean? I’ve gone about my business as best I can, day by day, and then I see someone from the old days and I suddenly think, what would I, the man I was back then, have made of me now? If you’d told me at demob this was where I’d be in five years—”

“It’s not that bad,” Will said, hoping to cut him off. “At least you’re working. I’d have carried bricks or dustbins if anyone had let me, so champagne seems pretty good.” That got a weak sort of smile. “We’re doing the best we can. That’s something to be proud of, isn’t it?”

“Is it? How old are you, Darling?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“And not married? Is there anyone special, if it isn’t the armful in the dress?”

That was another question Will had absolutely no desire to answer. He took a mouthful of steak and kidney pie to give himself time.

Kim Secretan had unquestionably been special. They’d met back in November, in the course of dramatic events that had involved Will antagonising a criminal gang and upsetting the War Office, and they’d fit together. They didn’t belong together—Will was a plain man with a knack for violence, while Kim was a twisty upper-class bundle of nerves—but they’d fit.

Will had walked out with a few girls, and had a few encounters with men during the war, but the intense crackle of attraction with Kim had been something altogether new to him: an overwhelming physical pull combined with a deep, instinctive liking. It had been an intoxicating combination of meeting minds and bodies and desires almost overwhelming in its power, right up until he’d discovered just how much Kim was lying to him.

And afterwards, if he was honest. Kim had lied and lied and lied again, and Will had fucked him in the full knowledge that he was a lying bastard. You might even have called it making love during one long, strange night for the pleasure they’d taken in pleasing one another, right before Kim had saved his neck and betrayed him all over again.

They’d fought, with each other and with their joint enemies; they’d fucked; they’d killed. When it was all over they’d gone to the pub once or twice, had another night together. It had felt like something that might go somewhere. Like a beginning.

Will hadn’t thought twice when Kim had said he was leaving London to stay with Phoebe’s family for a week around Christmas: that was what posh people did. And he’d returned promptly enough, dropping into the bookshop on the second of January, supposedly to offer belated compliments of the season though within about four sentences he was on his knees, pleasuring Will in the back room. It had been spectacular stuff, raw desire played out in desperate, panting silence, leaving Will with a dozen finger-mark bruises on his hips and a glowing warmth that was to do with more than just an excellent Frenching.

And then Kim had said, as he was leaving, “I expect to be rather busy in the near future,” and that was it.

Will hadn’t seen him since. Kim hadn’t answered his telephone when Will had called to say he’d had his own ’phone installed, and he hadn’t replied to either of the messages Will had left with his manservant. The only reason Will knew the bastard wasn’t dead was that Phoebe would probably have mentioned it, since she was engaged to marry him in summer. He’d vanished like a ghost, leaving Will to realise how little there was between them: a lot of lies, a few fucks, a thread of intimacy and liking far too fragile to weave into anything that might cover the gaps.

He hated that this was still such a sore point. Kim had ended things, by deed if not word, close to two months ago. He ought to be no more than a pleasant memory by now, or an unpleasant one, depending on which part of their acquaintance Will was thinking about. He bitterly resented his continual awareness of Kim’s absence, that he still thought about their three nights together when he was taking matters into his own hands, that he wanted to know why he’d been treated with such indifference.

That last was particularly stupid. Of course Kim had buggered off as unpredictably as he’d appeared, because he was an untrustworthy shit and a lord. There had never been any other possible outcome. Only,