Page 58 of Enticement
“I expect you’ll be glad to see the back of him. It’s terrible the burden he’s putting on a canny couple like you and Ross.”
“Oh, I don’t know. We quite like having him around.”
The statement met with a line of raised eyebrows.
“Don’t be silly, dear. He’s no right to go intruding on your relationship.”
Evie glanced warily about, heat rushing to her cheeks. Did the whole village know that he’d become far more than her lodger? Had Lillianna’s words of a week ago actually made the circuit round the neighbourhood?
“Still playing his old tricks?” The question sprang from a male throat. It possessed none of the twittering, fake concern of the women in their quest for gossip; rather it roiled with savage dislike.
Evie spun to face the newcomer, whom she vaguely recognized as someone Ross exchanged curiously polite nods with whenever they crossed paths. Tony, she believed him to be. She watched him tap a ciggy from a new packet. He didn’t light it up, merely propped it behind his ear so that it lay parallel to the greying patch in his otherwise mousy-coloured hair.
“I’ve heard he’s a good fuck.” He looked pointedly at her, holding her gaze while he emphasized each syllable. “He’s certainly good at fucking things up. Don’t expect anything good to come of what he’s up to. It never did in the past.” Having etched that statement deep into her psyche, he turned and strolled off towards the A road.
Bewildered, Evie stared after him, clutching her rapidly defrosting ice cream. “What the hell was that about?”
When she turned back to the women for an answer, she found they’d all fled.
The strange encounter wouldn’t leave her. Evie found herself thinking about it in odd moments, wondering what the hell Tony had meant with his words. It hadn’t so much sounded like a warning as a bitter observation. It set her wondering about the way he and Ross nodded to one another, like rival cowboys in some old Western showing grudging respect in order to maintain the status quo. Ross’s response to her text message didn’t entirely quell her anxiety.
He’s the ex of one of Kit’s exes.
She guessed Kit had stolen his girlfriend in the dim and distant past, but that didn’t really explain the reputation Kit had with the old biddies brigade. In the end, she called in to see Kit on her way to work.
Metal scaffolding enfolded the front and side of Rose Cottage, and a team of builders sat perched along the apex of the roof. They wolf whistled as she strolled up the drive, and pointed her around the back when her knock at the door went unanswered. Kit was in the garden, rinsing his hands under the outdoor standpipe.
Evie leaned against the wall of the old potting shed, watching silvery droplets sluice along his arms and into the cuffs of his three-quarter length sleeves. He still hadn’t learned how to dress down for work. Currently he wore leather trousers topped with a T-shirt that probably cost as much as a meal for four in London. Ross had tried to lend him a pair of old combats and a pullover, but Kit had left them on the bed mumbling something about the smell making him too horny to work.
“See something you like?” Kit glanced over his shoulder at her and gave her a wide grin that showed off his crooked canines. He tugged his T-shirt over his head, so that he could soap the rest of his arms and torso without getting the cloth wet. The cold water, coupled with the nip of the breeze made his delicate nipples crinkle into two coppery points. Evie moistened her lips, thinking of biting them.
“Why are you washing outside?”
“Water’s off inside, while I figure out the pipes for the utility room. That and I’m keeping the spies busy.”
“Spies?” Evie glanced up at the builders on the roof, who were now back at work stripping off the old tiles.
“Not them.”
Her gaze encompassed the garden, instead, but beside a couple of starlings pecking at the lawn, there was no other living thing in sight. “What are you on about—spies?”
“Spies…fan club… call ’em what you like. They’ve taken to sitting in the orchard to eat their lunch.”
“Who has?” Now that he mentioned it, she could see an unnatural flash of blue amongst the tree branches and a pink that wasn’t a blossom, but they had to have binoculars to be copping a gaze at Kit from that distance.
“It’s Doris’s granddaughter and her mates that work over at the riding school.”
Negligent of the spluttering water, Evie shoved Kit towards the house. “Jesus, Kit! What have you been doing? They’re barely legal.”
“They’re all perfectly legal. It’s Laura’s twenty-first in a fortnight. Doris told me. And when they’re not here checking me out, they spend most of their time propping up the bar in the pub.”
“Yeah, but still.”
“I haven’t done anything. Not unless washing’s suddenly a crime.” The gleam in his eyes told her explicitly otherwise. Not that she’d go so far as to accuse him of lying, he was merely playing loose with the details.
“Kit…”
“I get a bit lonely up here when you and Ross are at work, especially when I get thinking about all the fun things we’ve been getting up to…” His words tailed off. Evie stared at him, her mouth agape and her breath caught in her throat. He hadn’t…the bastard…He had. “You’ve been…for them! So, they’ve seen.” She had a burning urge to smack him across the face.
