The Missing Page (Page & Sommers #2)

by Cat Sebastian

“James was surprised as well,” Edith said. “The letter from the solicitor said the uncle’s will stipulated that all legatees attend the reading at the family home in Cornwall or forfeit their bequest.” Leo’s eyebrows shot straight up. “Was it his uncle’s dying wish to reenact a radio drama?”

“Rose. Must be twenty years now. 1927 or so. And she didn’t disappear, Cora. She had a swimming accident.” “Is that right? I always hoped she ran off with the chauffeur,” Cora sighed.

Over half an hour passed, and still Leo hadn’t returned. James’s first thought, naturally, was that the car had exploded.

One of the corners of Leo’s mouth ticked up in a tired smile. “A reading of the will. For God’s sake, James. I half expected to find you all shooting one another. Cabinets of exotic poisons left unlocked. Sharpened daggers mounted above the chimneypiece.” “Ah. I see. You came for the entertainment potential.”

“I showered at your house. Had to get rid of the blood.” James shot him an alarmed look. “Not my blood,” Leo said reassuringly. Christ, he had to stop talking.

He was his—lover? Friend? Both designations seemed inadequate, almost coy, when used to describe a person who was becoming the fixed point about which James’s world orbited.

It was the sort of behavioral tic that in anyone else Leo might have found silly, but he felt fiercely defensive of James’s carefully ordered world. He would cheerfully shoot anyone who mislaid James’s toothbrush, and was only stopped by the consideration that this would displease James and also cause a great deal of annoyance for both of them.

That brought Leo up short. “He can go get fucked. I’ll go tell him so myself, if you don’t mind.”

“Not surprised, just pleased to see you,” James said in a wild understatement. But the truth was that James was always a bit surprised when Leo returned. Not because he didn’t trust Leo or because he thought Leo didn’t care enough for him to come back, but because it seemed completely fantastical that a person like Leo came to James not only once, not only twice, but again and again. It was as if some rare bird had alighted on James’s finger—it would be mad to expect it to become a regular occurrence.

The sun was now high enough in the sky for him to get a good look at Blackthorn. It was, he supposed, not actively hideous, if one went in for twee faux-gothic nooks and crannies and pretty little embellishments. Leo did not go in for any of those things. If pressed to choose a style of architecture he did go in for, he’d choose something spare and modern without any of these embarrassing excesses. But then he’d remember James’s house—their house? James thought so, but he was not a reliable source of information on this topic—and its quaint window seat and pointless little gable. And he’d have to concede that his definition of what a home ought to look like was out of alignment with all his aesthetic principles.

Leo knew what it was like to finally stop checking impulses, to finally acknowledge that there was someone inside who had impulses. He had let the contours of his world be shaped entirely by his work, and Camilla had perhaps done something similar—but instead of work, she served some other god. Her husband? Propriety? He didn’t know, and it probably didn’t matter. What mattered was that something had happened to make Camilla cast off the things she had once thought paramount.