A Calculating Heart Read Online Free Page B

across his face. Parents. He was going to have to meet them. Oh, Lord … he really wasn’t up for this. It was already beginning to feel oppressive. Not Camilla herself, who was delightful, clever, astonishingly sensuous and touchingly young, but the set-up, the encroaching involvement of other people. A wedding. Relations. She would want babies, eventually. Shades of the family prison-house begin to close upon the ageing rake, thought Leo – and a lot of people would doubtless say it served him bloody well right.
    He shouldn’t have asked her to marry him. Just to move in. But in thinking that, wasn’t he admitting that the thing wasn’t necessarily going to be long-term? It was possible that she would grow tired first, feel the need of someone younger, closer to her own age, but in all honesty, the doubts lay with him. He knew himself too well. How long until his notoriously restless gaze fell upon someone – male or female – and he found himself unable to resist the temptation? He loved Camilla, but he didn’t trust himself. Just a couple of months ago certain episodes with that departed wretch, Gideon, had forcedLeo to the decision that some clean, respectable living was what he needed at his age. For Oliver’s sake, if not his own.
    He closed his eyes at the recollection of that narrowly averted scandal. Gideon, now mercifully deceased, had been a rising young star in the Civil Service, and he and Leo had become close for a while. Far too close, in hindsight. Gideon, besides being a heavy gambler with a taste for expensive living which far outstripped his means, had also turned out to have a nice little sideline in blackmail. Leo, it ultimately transpired, had been one of his intended victims, and only Gideon’s untimely demise had relieved Leo of the obligation of forking out a hundred thousand pounds to the young wretch. Yes, that incident had certainly served as a reminder that Leo was capable of living far too dangerously. Camilla had seemed the answer to that. Marry her, settle down, live quietly … Now, as the reality of what it all involved began to dawn on him, he felt less certain.
    With a groan of exasperation, he stood up and paced around the room. Forget Camilla for the moment. Forget about marrying anybody. That could wait. The pressing issue at the moment was what he should do about this hellish thing in the papers, and limiting the damage it was bound to cause. The one person to whom he very much needed to talk was Anthony. There was no one closer. But he had succeeded in damaging that precious relationship through his own irresponsible behaviour. The mistake had been to sleep with him, to let Anthony think there was something more to it than … What? Friendship? He doubted if therewas any of that left. A week ago Anthony had been ready to leave chambers just to get away from Leo, so hurt and disillusioned was he, and Leo, having spoken to him only once since then – a brief, unhappy exchange which had resolved nothing – had no idea if that was still his firm intention.
    He needed to speak to him, to sound him out, to help him decide what to do. He had never gone to Anthony in that way before. Maybe it would help to resolve more than one troublesome issue. He went to the phone and picked it up, and rang chambers, asking to speak to Anthony.

CHAPTER TWO
    After taking Leo’s call, Anthony stood up and paced round his room to stretch his long legs. The dark, sensuous good looks which had so attracted Leo four years ago, when Anthony had first come to 5 Caper Court as a raw and nervous pupil, had taken on something of a hard edge over the last year or so. He paused at the window, as he did countless times each day, and gazed with troubled and brooding eyes at the sundial set in the stones of the wall opposite. The conversation with Leo had been brief, perfunctory, and a little puzzling. First Leo had asked if Anthony had seen the papers.
    ‘No,’ Anthony had said. ‘Not yet.