The Actuary (The Calculated Risk, #1) by K T Bowes

Author:K T Bowes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery, espionage, Russian, veteran romance, romantic suspense
Publisher: K T Bowes
Published: 2021-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 31

Emma woke with a start, as though she’d just closed her eyes. She groaned as Nicky bounced from the bed with enthusiasm. “I like Uncle Ro’s bed, Mummy. It’s squishy.” He skipped across the floor and dropped to his knees to pet Farrell.

“Mmnn.” Emma pressed her face against Rohan’s pillow and pleaded with a God who didn’t seem to like her much. Nicky’s shrill voice sounded overloud in the darkness. She rolled onto her back and contemplated telling him the truth about Rohan. But the words stuck in her throat, making a liar of her. She’d do it when Rohan got home, spreading the responsibility as though it would guarantee his tenuous return.

For the next three weeks, Emma drove her son to school in the Mercedes, wrestling the expensive vehicle around the narrow Market Harborough streets. Rohan’s house seemed strange without his gentle presence, and she avoided going back to it. She wondered about the archiving job but venturing into the school office to enquire meant speaking to Felicity. So, she relied on the cash Rohan had left to sustain her and Nicky and allowed fate to cast her into a fragile limbo.

Avoiding the silence of Rohan’s house or the risk of running into Alanya, Emma explored further afield, trespassing over the invisible border into Northamptonshire. Farrell rode on the passenger seat, creating a line of nose moisture on the window. The car cruised through rolling green countryside with ease, and she grew braver behind the wheel each day. At the end of the first week, she chanced upon a layby on a quiet country road. Driving sleet forced her to pull over and park for a while until the angry clouds moved south to douse a rural population. Emma leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes, tuning out the whisper of snow coating the car. “Just come home, Rohan,” she pleaded. “This is ridiculous.” His lack of contact ate into her, punishing her for straying with the Irishman. Or heralding the disaster Rohan had warned.

A red brick manor house with sandstone detail stood on a hill above the road. Neglect stained its gothic facade, and empty black windows stared unseeing through the blizzard.

Emma imagined herself as the lady of such a manor, holding court in her morning room and drinking tea from a delicate china cup. The thought amused her, but the archivist in her cried out to the history of the house. She visited again the next day and then the next, parking in the layby and studying the proportions and architecture. The ornate gates deterred unwanted visitors, denying her closer scrutiny of the building.

Emma found a pair of binoculars in Rohan’s bureau and stuffed a wad of printer paper into an old leather file. She returned to the layby the next day to study the house in more detail. The proportions of the main house appeared to predate the Norman Conquest and piqued her curiosity. Her deft fingers sketched its outline on the paper, hoping to enlist Nicky in an internet search on Rohan’s computer.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.