In Bed with a Stranger. India Grey

… you know … he sounds OK,’ she lied vaguely. ‘But I want to hear about you. Are you and Sergio all packed and ready to hit tinseltown?’

      Jasper leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hands over his face. ‘The packing’s ongoing, but, believe me, I have never been more ready for anything in my life. After everything that’s happened in the last six months—Dad dying, the whole coming-out thing, Alnburgh turning out to be mine and not Kit’s—I can’t wait to get on that plane and just leave it all behind. I intend to spend the next three months lying by the pool drinking cocktails while Sergio’s at work.’

      ‘If I didn’t know you better I’d say you were ruthlessly attempting to make me wild with envy.’

      ‘Rumbled.’ Jasper grinned as the waiter arrived, his tray held high. ‘Is it working?’

      ‘Nope.’ The waiter placed a large gin and tonic clinking with ice in front of her. ‘The pool and the cocktails sound lovely, but honestly for the first time in my life I have no desire to be anywhere other than here. Well, not here, obviously,’ she said, nodding towards one of Covent Garden’s famous street performers, ‘since there’s only so long I could watch a poncey out-of-work actor juggle with knives. But at home. With Kit.’

      Jasper eyed her narrowly, tapping his pursed lips thoughtfully with a finger.

      ‘I’m thinking alien abduction. I know there should be a more logical explanation for this complete character transformation from the girl who still has a phone on pay-as-you-go because a contract is too much commitment, to the woman whose idea of excitement is …’ he waved a dismissive hand ‘… pegging out washing or something, but I just can’t think what it could be …’

      ‘Love,’ Sophie said simply, taking a mouthful of gin. ‘And maybe, having been on the move constantly all my life, I’m just ready to stay still now.’ She glanced at him guiltily. ‘I keep sneaking into furniture shops to look at sofas and I’ve developed a terrible obsession with paint colour charts. I suppose I just want a home.’

      ‘Well, Kit’s pad in one of Chelsea’s most desirable garden squares isn’t a bad start on the property ladder,’ Jasper said, scooping up crab pâté on a piece of rye bread. ‘Better than Alnburgh, anyway. You had a narrow escape there.’

      ‘You can say that again. So, are you planning to move in when you get back from LA, then?’

      Jasper grimaced. ‘God, no. The windswept Northumberland coast is hardly the hub of the film industry and I can’t exactly see Sergio walking down to the village shop and asking Mrs Watts for foie gras and the latest copy of Empire magazine.’

      Taking another mouthful of gin, Sophie hid a smile. He was right; Sergio had shown up in Alnburgh for Ralph’s funeral and it had been like seeing a parrot at the North Pole.

      ‘So what will happen to it?’ She speared an olive from her salad. Curiously, she cared much more about the future of Alnburgh Castle now there was no question of it involving Kit or her. She’d been so miserable there when she’d gone up to stay with Jasper last winter that the thought of actually living within its cold stone walls was enough to bring her out in goosebumps. But now that possibility had been removed,

      and sitting in the sunshine in the middle of Covent Garden, she could feel a sort of abstract affection for the place.

      ‘I don’t know.’ Jasper sighed again. ‘The legal situation is utterly incomprehensible and the finances are worse. It’s such a bloody mess—I still can’t forgive Dad for dropping a bombshell like that in his will. The fact that Kit isn’t his natural son is just a technicality—he was brought up at Alnburgh and he’s taken responsibility for the place almost single-handed for the last fifteen years. I guess that if I’m gutted by the way things have turned out, it must be even worse for him. Has he mentioned it in his letters or anything?’

      Not meeting his eye, Sophie shook her head.

      ‘No, he hasn’t mentioned it.’

      The fact was he hadn’t mentioned anything much. Before he went he’d warned her that phone calls were frustrating and best avoided so she hadn’t expected him to ring, but she couldn’t help being a bit disappointed that he hadn’t. She had written to him several times a week—long letters, full of news and silly anecdotes and how much she was missing him. His replies had been infrequent, short and impersonal, and had left her feeling more lonely than if he hadn’t written at all.

      ‘I just hope he doesn’t hate me too much, that’s all,’ Jasper said unhappily. ‘Alnburgh meant everything to him.’

      ‘Don’t be silly. It’s not your fault that Kit’s mother disappeared with another man when he was just a little boy, is it? And anyway, it’s all in the past now, and, as my barking-mad mother would say, everything happens for a reason. If Kit was the heir there’d be absolutely no chance I’d be marrying him. He’d need a horsey wife who came complete with her own heirloom tiara and a three-year guarantee to produce a son. I’d fail on all counts.’

      Her tone was flippant, but her smile stiffened slightly as she said the bit about the son. Jasper didn’t seem to notice.

      ‘You come closer than Sergio. You’d both look good in a

      tiara, but you certainly have the edge when it comes to bearing heirs.’

      ‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’

      It was no good. To her shame both her voice and her smile cracked and she had to press her hand to her mouth. Across the table Jasper looked horrified.

      ‘Soph? What’s wrong?’

      She grabbed her drink and took a gulp. The gin was cold, bitter, good. It felt as if it was clearing her head, although that was probably an ironic illusion.

      ‘I’m fine. I finally saw a doctor about the monthly hell that is my period, that’s all.’

      Jasper’s eyes widened. ‘God, Soph—it’s nothing—?’

      She waved a hand. ‘No, no, nothing serious. It’s as I thought—endometriosis. The good news is it’s not life-threatening, but the bad news is that there’s not much they can do about it and it could make getting pregnant a problem.’

      ‘Oh, honey. I had no idea having children was so important to you.’

      ‘Neither did I, until I met Kit.’ Sophie slid her sunglasses back down, feeling in need of something to hide behind. Having spent years listening to her mother and the women in the haphazard commune in which she’d grown up analyse everything in minute, head-wrecking detail, she usually went out of her way to avoid any kind of serious discussion, but there was part of her that wanted to share this bittersweet new feeling. ‘Finding out it might be difficult has made me realise how important it is—how’s that for irony?’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, the doctor didn’t say it was impossible, just that it could take a long time and it was best not to leave it too long.’

      He reached across the table and took her hand.

      ‘So when are you going to start trying?’

      Sophie looked at her phone again and looked up at him with a determined smile. ‘In about twenty-seven and a half hours.’

      The second hand quivered slightly as it edged wearily around the clock face. Sitting on a plastic chair in Intensive Care, watching it with wide-eyed fatigue, Kit kept thinking that it wouldn’t make it through the next minute.

      He knew the feeling.

      He had been here since late afternoon, English time, when the emergency medical helicopter had finally landed, bringing Sapper Kyle Lewis home. Sedated into unconsciousness, with bullets in his head and chest, it wasn’t quite the homecoming Lewis had looked forward to.

      Kit sank his head into his hands. The now familiar, tingling numbness was back, stealing up through his fingertips until he felt as if he were dissolving.

      ‘Coffee, Major Fitzroy?’