Page 56 of Lair

Mrs. Colding and the other stews, ever attuned to their master’s moods, give him a wide berth, nodding to me with solemn, respectful expressions, and even Captain Redfearn makes an appearance to study me.

Something is in the offing.

Dinner is a silent affair, as is the evening basking in the top-deck Jacuzzi, the bubbling water between us feeling like an infinity of distance as he spreads his arms on the edges of the whirlpool and stares out at the panorama of the moonlit Mediterranean, the expression on his pallid face obscured into an enigma by the rising vapors. When he says goodnight, he kisses me lightly on the lips, a strange, wondering look in his eyes.

What is going on in your head, Adrian Voper?

I wake with a start in the early hours. Some instinct tells me I was woken by something, but I don’t know what. I look about, half-expecting to see a shadow looming over me, but Adrian Voper is nowhere to be seen.

Adrian.

The feeling hits me: Something is wrong. I need to talk to him.

I’m sweeping the covers back when I see, in the dimness of the master suite, that the curtains hiding the portrait of Adrian’s wife are pulled back—but there is no portrait there.

Ah.

I slip out of bed and into a robe.

Somehow, I know where I’ll find him. And I do—a lean figure standing on the swim deck, silhouetted against the wake of the Lair frothing silver in the moonlight.

He holds the portrait in his hands.

I hang back at the top of one of the staircases sweeping down to the swim deck. Waiting. Heart in throat. Even from here I can sense the coiled sadness, the air of ritual here. I should not disturb this.

Setting the portrait flat on the deck, he touches his wife’s face. Then draws out something from the lapel of his suit—a rose. He lays it on the portrait with ceremonial solemnity, and suspending the frame out over the frothing waves—my breath catches—he lets the sea take it.

The portrait rides out behind the yacht on the roiling foam, a square glint of moonlight, and is lost.

Adrian is still staring after it when I creep back to bed, not knowing what to feel.

When I wake the next morning, I immediately sense that something’s different. But what?

I prop myself up on my elbows and squint, trying to figure it out. Is it the light? The décor? Warily, I inhale through my nose, testing the air, and my eyes widen.

I turn—and yes, the roses flanking the enormous bed are gone, replaced by vases of gorgeous white lilies.

My jaw drops.

The surprise continues out into the Lair. Everywhere, the moody red buds that had ornamented every corner of every deck are gone, swapped with a fantasia of bright white lilies. The difference is staggering. The very yacht is transformed, heady with this new, clean scent. I catch a stewardess passing me with a vase of white blooms. “What...?”

She shrugs. “No idea. They were flown in this morning.”

And that’s when I see a stranger sitting on the shaded bridge deck, reading a newspaper. His crossed feet are bare, his strongly-thewed thighs in shorts, his usual business suit replaced by a billowy white Ralph Lauren shirt.

When Adrian looks up at me, his face breaks into a dazzling smile that robs the breath from my throat. “Good morning, gorgeous.”

“Morning,” I manage back, feeling my knees go weak, and jump when there’s a resounding crash—a stewardess has dropped one of the vases.

Heads whirl, bodies tense, waiting for an explosion.

But Adrian, a slow grin hitching up one side of his mouth, sets aside his newspaper and stands. “Nothing to fret over. I think we have plenty to spare, don’t you?”

Mouths hang. I turn to see Mrs. Colding, hands clasped before her, standing in the doorway behind me beaming with pride.

A miracle.

Footsteps, and then Adrian is before me, taking my hands in his. “I thought we could have a night out ashore,” he says, nodding at the looming magnificence of the Spanish coast. “What do you say?”

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