Page 32 of Monstrous Travels as Wicked as Sin

As though Percy needed a reminder as to why he adored Joe so desperately, Joe immediately responded, “I’d definitely bury them in the old graves.”

Percy stifled the burst of butterflies in his stomach. “So we may have some rather grisly finds out there if we don’t find the remains in the house. They should be relatively well-preserved from the cool of winter, depending what she did to them beforethey died. If she drained their blood first, I’d imagine there are fewer gases to build up in the bodies, so they?—”

“Can we talk details after dinner?” asked Joe, also moving for a crunchily salted thick-cut chip in preference to what was left of his very red steak. He cracked it open and a veritable cloud of pillowy potato burst free.

“Sorry. Dreadful manners.” Percy topped up Joe’s wine and took another chip for himself.

Buying the exorbitantly priced, flaked sea salt had caused a minor argument at the shop, but as it crunched between Joe’s teeth, he had to admit to himself, yet again, Percy had been exactly right to buy it. “The real question is, what did she want their blood for? If it was a spell, why did she need so much? And if she was feeding something… It’s either very dead or very hungry by now.”

“A worrying thought. And why only girls?”

“They’re much easier to kidnap and overpower,” Joe suggested. “And much less likely to be taken seriously by police if they look a certain way.”

“Like Althea,” Percy agreed. He softened the sentiment with a defeated chuckle. “My god, she has ghastly taste.”

Joe laughed, too. “You’re very good to buy her all the hideous things.” Once he had accepted that Percy would spoil Althea and there wasn’t a thing Joe could do to stop him, it had become its own entertainment to watch Percy’s reactions to her choices. The yellow bikini in Sicily had very nearly pushed him over the edge, and it was just as well a bottle of wine arrived to keep him occupied about three minutes after she unveiled it at the beach. In front of Leo, of course, who didn’t look half as disgusted as Percy had. Quite the opposite. Swallowing down a mouthful at the memory, Joe said, “Tell Leo to stay away from her, won’t you.”

Not that it was a question, but Percy supplied an assenting nod, topped with the news, “I told him I’d fire him if he makes a move within the next six months.”

Subduing the eye-roll that came naturally, “I’m sure he’s terrified.”

Percy spoke in that rather soft and charming way he did on occasion where Leo and Althea were concerned. “He’s a good kid. And when I’m done with him, he’ll be the most eligible bachelor she’s likely to meet. She’d be wise to throw her lot in with someone like that. But he knows he needs to let her get herself together first.”

Joe raised an eyebrow. “He knows that, or you told him?”

“Both,” said Percy. “But do give the boy some credit. There’s a reason I made him my assistant.” Joe took a breath to delve a little deeper into that mystery, but Percy was back to the last thing. “I think you’re right about Althea’s selection. On paper, she’s a perfect victim.”

“Interviewing her as a potential nanny would have allowed Cleo to ask more personal questions than any other job, I’m guessing. She would have known Althea was alone overseas and unlikely to be missed. That she had no family nearby.”

“All true.” Percy, finished his meal, pushed his cutlery together, and leaned back in his chair with his wine. “You’re smart and pretty.”

A perfectly unsophisticated giggle was carefully controlled by a deep-voiced, “Thank you.”

Percy watched him a little longer, then decided aloud, “Let’s do the first month at your place.” It was worth it just to see the way Joe’s eyes brightened.

“What? You’ll move in with me?”

“We’ll trial a month, if that suits you. Then, if we haven’t been caught living in sin by your parishioners, we’ll reassess the situation. Does that sound okay?”

Percy was a dream. An absolute dream. To have been a priest, with no hope of love for so long, and now to have a man who cooked like this, who was willing to make a sacrifice like that, who looked the way Percy did, who adored him and would do anything for him, who was about to go dig up bodies with him for no reason other than basic altruism—it was beyond logic. Beyond luck. Almost beyond reality. “That sounds more than okay. If you think you can put up with the décor.”

Percy’s eyes dipped over his exquisite fiancé. “There’s only one thing I’m going to be looking at. If I’m with you, I don’t care about the rest of it.”

Joe squeezed Percy’s hand across the table. “Explain to me how I got so lucky.”

“Not everyone would call it luck to have a madman obsessed with them.” Percy lit three cigarettes, passed one to Joe, and place another beneath Molly’s white teeth, after he planted her back in the centre of the table.

Joe breathed in Percy’s dangerous gorgeousness along with the toxic smoke. Blue eyes he would die for one thousand times over. His one true love. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

LOVERS, LETTERS, SOUPE À L'OIGNON

True to his word, Percy could, and did, also make breakfast. Joe awoke in their four-poster bed to eggs and bacon and tea and toast and Percy. Half-naked Percy, crawling back into the sheets with a kiss, his skin cool from the morning air, flush against Joe’s cozy body. Kisses fresh and beautiful, and the delightful energy of the man, rested and ready for an adventure, and so happy. Joe didn’t think he’d ever seen Percy that happy, despite the screams of the cursed skull that had kept them both awake half the night.

He knew Percy must have, somewhere in the back of his mind, the horror of the day ahead, but he didn’t say a word about it. It was, after all, par for the course. Pleasure where he could take it, appalling hideousness and death, then pleasure again and twice as frenzied. Back and forth, back and forth, like a pendulum.

It was strange for Joe to observe, but it was an honour to be the person—theonlyperson—who got to be there for both extremes. And maybe, it occurred to Joe, maybe that was why Joe was the one. Percy’s one and only true love. He was the one person who could face the darkness, then revel in the light with him.

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