Slippery Creatures (The Will Darling Adventures, #1)

by K.J. Charles

As he took over the running of the place in his uncle’s last illness, though, he became increasingly aware of them looming around him, full of knowledge and secrets and lies. So much that, when Uncle William had died, Will remembered an ancient piece of lore about bees, and he’d cleared his throat and told the books, “He’s gone.”

He’d been apprenticed to a joiner before the war, but that felt like decades ago: all he was good at now was killing people, which was discouraged.

“Who says I’m a pacifist? I did my bit out there and I’d do it again, but I got my medals for hand to hand fighting. It’s when you take the personal out of it—the barrage from miles away, the machine guns—that it becomes slaughter.

“My grateful nation wasn’t grateful enough to give me a job. I pawned my medals to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly, and I’ll tell you what, the Military Cross doesn’t fetch a great deal, no matter how many bars you have on it. The pawnbroker told me I should have tried for a Victoria Cross. That would be worth something, he said.”

Kim’s glance flickered down his body, a tiny movement but enough to make Will think of him going to his knees. “I’ve an obliging nature.” Will stepped closer. Kim was just a few inches away. He could reach out and touch. “Show me.”

“What I say is, one can be as moral as one likes but one should have the courtesy to do it in private, like any other bad habit. Goodness me, I didn’t ask, how rude. Did you have any joy from your labours today?”

“You will get yourself killed through bloody-mindedness. You cannot handle this alone.” “I know. That was why I wanted your help,” Will said. “Shame how it worked out. What’s the thing the chap says in Timon of Athens? ‘I wonder men dare trust themselves with men.’ I read that yesterday. Stuck with me, for some reason.”

Will searched her face. She smiled at him, merry-eyed. “What, darling?” “I think you’re rather lovely,” he said, startling himself. “I know I am,” Phoebe assured him. “But it’s always nice to be told so.”

He sat alone in his empty bookshop for a while, with paper slowly turning to dust around him, watching spindle-legged harvestmen weave webs to replace the ones he’d swept away. Then he got up, and put his coat on.

“I might just be nervy.” “You are a terribly delicate flower.” “It’s the waiting,” Will said. “At least in the trenches, when they tapped you for a raid, you know it was happening and you got on with it.” “Scheduled mayhem is more convenient? I suppose you can put it in your diary. Work around it.” “‘Sorry, I’ve no time for a knife fight in the street on Thursday, could you make it Friday?’”

“Thing is I’ve only done that once and it wasn’t marvellous for anyone. You know. Flanders.” Kim paused. “Do you mean Flanders as in ‘it was wartime’, or is there a Belgian buggery problem I should know of?”

When he slept, he dreamed of the night with Kim. That made waking even worse.

“You’ve got a funny way of recruiting people. Have you tried an application form? Might be easier.”

His eyes were very dark in the dim light, and he looked—it was hard to identify that look. It held something of the expression you saw in church sometimes, when people were lost in the invisible, and the pain in their minds was edged with hope.