Craving the Forbidden (Mills & Boon Modern) (The Fitzroy Legacy - Book 1) by India Grey
Authors: India Grey
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but I gather there was no warning, no explanation, no goodbye. Of course there was a divorce eventually, and apparently Juliet’s adultery was cited, but as far as I know Kit never had any contact with her again.’
Outside it had stopped snowing and the clouds had parted to show the flat disc of the full moon. From what Sophie could see, Jasper’s room looked down over some kind of inner courtyard. The castle walls rose up on all sides—battlements like jagged teeth, stone walls gleaming like pewter in the cold, bluish light. She shivered, her throat constricting with reluctant compassion for the little boy whose mother had left him here in this bleak fortress of a home.
‘So she abandoned him to go off with another man?’
Sophie’s own upbringing had been unconventional enough for her not to be easily shocked. But a mother leaving her child …
‘Pretty much. So I guess you can understand why he ended up being like he is. Ah, look—that’s better.’
He stood back, hands on hips, his face bathed in orange as the flames took hold. ‘Right—let’s find that bottle and get under the duvet. You can tell me all about Paris and how you managed to escape the clutches of that lunatic painter, and in turn I’m going to bore you senseless talking about Sergio. Do you know,’ he sighed happily, ‘he’s having a tally of the days we’re apart tattooed on his chest?’
The ancient stones on top of the parapet were worn smooth by salt wind and wild weather, and the moonlight turned them to beaten silver. Kit exhaled a cloud of frozen air, propping his elbows on the stone and looking out across the battlements to the empty beach beyond.
There was no point in even trying to get to sleep tonight, he knew that. His insomnia was always at its worst when he’d just come back from a period of active duty and his body hadn’t learned to switch off from its state of high alert. The fact that he was also back at Alnburgh made sleep doubly unlikely.
He straightened up, shoving his frozen fingers into his pockets. The tide was out and pools of water on the sand gleamed like mercury. In the distance the moon was reflected without a ripple in the dark surface of the sea.
It was bitterly cold.
Long months in the desert halfway across the world had made him forget the aching cold here. Sometimes, working in temperatures of fifty degrees wearing eighty pounds of explosive-proof kit, he would try to recapture the sensation, but out there cold became an abstract concept. Something you knew about in theory, but couldn’t imagine actually feeling .
But it was real enough now, as was the complicated mix of emotions he always experienced when he returned. He did one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet without feeling anything, and yet when he came back to the place he’d grown up in it was as if he’d had a layer of skin removed. Here it was impossible to forget the mother who had left him, or forgive the studied indifference of the father who had been left to bring him up. Here everything was magnified: bitterness, anger, frustration …
Desire.
The thought crept up on him and he shoved it away. Sophie Greenham was hardly his type, although he had to admit that doing battle with her at dinner had livened up what would otherwise have been a dismal evening. And at least her presence had meant that he didn’t feel like the only outsider.
It had also provided a distraction from the tension between him and his father. But only temporarily. Ralph was right—Kit hadn’t come up here because the party invitation was too thrilling to refuse, but Ralph’s seventieth birthday seemed like a good time to remind his father that if he didn’t transfer the ownership of Alnburgh into Kit’s name soon, it would be too late. The estate couldn’t possibly survive the inheritance tax that would be liable on it after Ralph’s death, and would no doubt have to be sold.
Kit felt fresh anger bloom inside him. He wasn’t sure why he
Outside it had stopped snowing and the clouds had parted to show the flat disc of the full moon. From what Sophie could see, Jasper’s room looked down over some kind of inner courtyard. The castle walls rose up on all sides—battlements like jagged teeth, stone walls gleaming like pewter in the cold, bluish light. She shivered, her throat constricting with reluctant compassion for the little boy whose mother had left him here in this bleak fortress of a home.
‘So she abandoned him to go off with another man?’
Sophie’s own upbringing had been unconventional enough for her not to be easily shocked. But a mother leaving her child …
‘Pretty much. So I guess you can understand why he ended up being like he is. Ah, look—that’s better.’
He stood back, hands on hips, his face bathed in orange as the flames took hold. ‘Right—let’s find that bottle and get under the duvet. You can tell me all about Paris and how you managed to escape the clutches of that lunatic painter, and in turn I’m going to bore you senseless talking about Sergio. Do you know,’ he sighed happily, ‘he’s having a tally of the days we’re apart tattooed on his chest?’
The ancient stones on top of the parapet were worn smooth by salt wind and wild weather, and the moonlight turned them to beaten silver. Kit exhaled a cloud of frozen air, propping his elbows on the stone and looking out across the battlements to the empty beach beyond.
There was no point in even trying to get to sleep tonight, he knew that. His insomnia was always at its worst when he’d just come back from a period of active duty and his body hadn’t learned to switch off from its state of high alert. The fact that he was also back at Alnburgh made sleep doubly unlikely.
He straightened up, shoving his frozen fingers into his pockets. The tide was out and pools of water on the sand gleamed like mercury. In the distance the moon was reflected without a ripple in the dark surface of the sea.
It was bitterly cold.
Long months in the desert halfway across the world had made him forget the aching cold here. Sometimes, working in temperatures of fifty degrees wearing eighty pounds of explosive-proof kit, he would try to recapture the sensation, but out there cold became an abstract concept. Something you knew about in theory, but couldn’t imagine actually feeling .
But it was real enough now, as was the complicated mix of emotions he always experienced when he returned. He did one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet without feeling anything, and yet when he came back to the place he’d grown up in it was as if he’d had a layer of skin removed. Here it was impossible to forget the mother who had left him, or forgive the studied indifference of the father who had been left to bring him up. Here everything was magnified: bitterness, anger, frustration …
Desire.
The thought crept up on him and he shoved it away. Sophie Greenham was hardly his type, although he had to admit that doing battle with her at dinner had livened up what would otherwise have been a dismal evening. And at least her presence had meant that he didn’t feel like the only outsider.
It had also provided a distraction from the tension between him and his father. But only temporarily. Ralph was right—Kit hadn’t come up here because the party invitation was too thrilling to refuse, but Ralph’s seventieth birthday seemed like a good time to remind his father that if he didn’t transfer the ownership of Alnburgh into Kit’s name soon, it would be too late. The estate couldn’t possibly survive the inheritance tax that would be liable on it after Ralph’s death, and would no doubt have to be sold.
Kit felt fresh anger bloom inside him. He wasn’t sure why he
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