Believing the Lie Read Online Free PDF

one corner of the room. It wasn’t quite cold enough for a coal fire although the ancient manor house was always rather chilly, so he lit a bank of candles and fixed them to the cast iron grate; then he lit two more and placed them on the table. As he did so, he heard the kitchen door open, followed by the sound of Kav’s keys being tossed into the chipped chamber pot on the window seat. A moment later Kav’s footsteps crossed the kitchen flagstones, and the squeak of the old range’s door caused Ian to smile. It was Kav’s night to cook, not his, and Kav had just discovered the first surprise.
    “Ian?” More footsteps across the slate flagstones and then into andacross the hallan. Ian had left the door to the fire house open, and he said, “In here,” and waited.
    Kav paused at the doorway. His gaze went from Ian to the table with its candles to the fireplace with
its
candles to Ian again. His gaze went then from Ian’s face to Ian’s clothes and it lingered exactly where Ian wanted it to linger. But after a moment of the kind of tension that, at one time, would have sent the two of them directly to the bedroom, Kav said, “I had to work with the blokes today. We were shorthanded. I’m filthy. I’ll have a wash and get changed,” and backed out of the room without another word. This was enough to tell Ian that his lover knew what the scene before him presaged. This was also enough to tell Ian what direction their coming conversation was, as usual, going to take. An unspoken message of this kind from Kaveh would at one time have been enough to stymie him, but Ian decided that wouldn’t be the case tonight. Three years of concealment and one year in the open had taught him the value of living as he was meant to live.
    It was thirty minutes before Kaveh rejoined him, and despite the fact that the meat was ten minutes out of the oven and the vegetables were well on their way to becoming a culinary disappointment, Ian was determined not to feel affronted by the time it had taken the other man to return. He poured the wine—forty quid for the bottle, not that it mattered, considering the occasion—and he nodded to the two glasses. He picked his own up, said, “It’s a good Bordeaux,” and waited for Kav to join him for a toast. For clearly, Ian thought, Kaveh saw that a toast was Ian’s intention, else why would he be standing there with his glass lifted and an expectant smile on his face?
    For a second time, Kav’s gaze took in the table. He said, “Two places? Did she ring you or something?”
    “I rang her.” Ian lowered his glass.
    “And what?”
    “I asked for another night.”
    “And she actually cooperated?”
    “For once. Aren’t you having some wine, Kav? I got it in Windermere. That wine shop we were in last—”
    “I had words with bloody old George.” Kav inclined his head in the direction of the road. “He caught me on the way in. He’s complaining about the heating again. He said he’s entitled to central heating.
Entitled
he said.”
    “He’s got plenty of coal. Why’s he not using it if the cottage is too cold?”
    “He says he doesn’t want a coal fire. He wants central heating. He says if he doesn’t have it, he’s looking for another situation.”
    “When he lived here, he didn’t have central heating, for God’s sake.”
    “He had the house itself. I think he saw that as compensation.”
    “Well, he’s going to have to learn to cope, and if he can’t do that, he’ll have to find another farm to rent. Anyway, I don’t want to spend this evening talking about George Cowley’s grievances against us. The farm was for sale. We bought it. He didn’t. Full stop.”
    “
You
bought it.”
    “A technicality soon to be taken care of, I hope, when there’ll be no I. No yours and mine. No me, no you. Only we.” Ian took up the second glass and carried it to Kav. Kav hesitated for a moment. Then he accepted it. “Jesus God, I want you,” Ian said. And then with a