Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(190)

Daidre felt as if cotton were stuffed into her head. The situation was so much not what she believed it should be. She said, “You don’t actually regret his death, do you? D’you know how that makes you look?”

“Don’t be foolish. Of course, I regret it. I would not have had Santo Kerne die as he did. But as I wasn’t the one to kill him?”

“You’re very likely the reason he died, for God’s sake.”

“I very seriously doubt that. Certainly Max has too much pride to kill an adolescent rival and anyway Santo wasn’t his rival, a simple fact that I could not make Max see. Santo was just…Santo.”

“A boytoy.”

“A boy, yes. A toy, rather. But that makes it sound cold and calculating and believe me it was neither. We enjoyed each other and that’s what it was between us, only. Enjoyment. Excitement. On both parts, not just on mine. Oh, you know all this, Daidre. You cannot plead ignorance. And you quite understand. You would not have lent your cottage had you not.”

“You feel no guilt.”

Aldara waved her hand towards the door, to indicate they were to leave the room and go below once more. As they descended the stairs, she said, “Guilt implies I am somehow involved in this situation, which I am not. We were lovers, full stop. We were bodies meeting in a bed for a few hours. That’s what it was, and if you really think that the mere act of intercourse led to?”

A knock came on the door. Aldara glanced at her watch. Then she looked at Daidre. Her expression was resigned, which told Daidre later that she should have anticipated what would come next. But, rather stupidly, she had not.

Aldara opened the door. A man stepped into the room. His eyes only for Aldara, he didn’t see Daidre. He kissed Aldara with the familiarity of a lover: a greeting kiss that became a coaxing kiss, which Aldara did nothing to terminate prematurely. When it did end, she said against his mouth, “You smell all of the sea.”

“I’ve been for a surf.” Then he saw Daidre. His hands dropped from Aldara’s shoulders to his sides. “I’d no idea you had company.”

“Daidre’s just on her way,” Aldara said. “D’you know Dr. Trahair, my dear? Daidre, this is Lewis.”

He looked vaguely familiar to Daidre, but she couldn’t place him. She nodded hello. She’d left her bag on the edge of the sofa, and she went to fetch it. As she did so, Aldara added, “Angarrack. Lewis Angarrack.”

Which caused Daidre to pause. She saw the resemblance, then, for of course she’d seen Madlyn more than once in the times she herself had been to Cornish Gold cider farm. She looked at Aldara, whose face was placid but whose eyes shone and whose heart was no doubt beating strongly now as anticipation sent her blood hither and yon, to all the proper places.

Daidre nodded and stepped past Lewis Angarrack, outside onto the narrow porch. Aldara murmured something to the man and followed Daidre out. She said, “You see our little problem, I think.”

Daidre glanced at her. “Actually, I don’t.”

“Her boyfriend first and now her father? It’s critical, naturally, that she never know. So as not to upset her further. It’s as Lewis wants it. What a shame, don’t you think?”

“Hardly. It’s the way you want it as well, after all. Secret. Exciting. Pleasurable.”

Aldara smiled, that slow, knowing smile that Daidre knew was part of her appeal to men. “Well, if it must be that way, it must be that way.”

“You’ve no morals, have you?” Daidre asked her friend.

“My darling. Have you?”





Chapter Twenty-seven


ULTIMATELY ON THAT MISERABLE DAY, CADAN FOUND HIMSELF in a situation in which the chickens of his machinations had finally come home to roost: caught in the sitting room of the family home in Victoria Road with his sister and Will Mendick. Madlyn, having just returned from work, was still in her Casvelyn of Cornwall getup?all stripes the colour of candy floss and a pinny with ruffles along the edges. She was slouched on the sofa, while Will stood in front of the fireplace with a bunch of daylilies dangling from his fingers. He’d shown good enough sense to buy the flowers and not bring along rejects from the wheelie bin. But that was the limit to the good sense he was showing.

Cadan himself was perched on a stool near his parrot. He’d left Pooh alone for most of the day, and he’d been intent upon making up for that with an elongated bit of bird massage, just the two of them, with the house?or at least the room?to themselves. But Madlyn had arrived home from work and on her heels had come Will. He’d apparently taken to heart Cadan’s bald-faced lies about his sister and her affections.

“…so I thought,” Will was saying, with scant encouragement from Madlyn, “that you might like…well, like to go out.”

“With who?” Madlyn said.

“With…well, with me.” He’d not presented her with the flowers yet, and Cadan was hoping fervently he’d pretend that he’d not brought them at all.

“And why would I want to do that, exactly?” Madlyn tapped her fingers on the arm of the sofa. This gesture, Cadan knew, had nothing to do with nervousness.

Will grew redder in the face?he was already blushing like a bloke with two left feet at a fox-trot lesson?and he shot a look towards Cadan that said, Give us a hand here, mate? Studiously, Cadan averted his eyes.