Elizabeth

Part One

...

"Are you sure about this?" asks Boyd, hands jammed uneasily into his pockets as he looks up at the neat, orderly house before them.

"Of course I am," she replies. "Why? Surely you're not nervous, are you?"

It's an unusual feeling, he has to admit, but for the first time in he doesn't know how long, Boyd can feel a prickle of something uncomfortable in his stomach. "Maybe," he admits, a little grudgingly.

Grace laughs, her head tilting back slightly, and the bright autumn sunshine makes her eyes gleam as she looks up at him, amusement and relaxation leaving her face open and happy.

Gorgeous, he thinks, watching her smile, the way she moves as she steps further away from him. It won't do, but he has a longer stride and moves too, is beside her before she can reach the painted, pristine front door.

It's getting on for six weeks now, and he still can't resist temptation, is still thoroughly, utterly lost in her. His hand finds hers, their grip merges and it's too easy to pull her closer, to gaze down into those bright, cheerful blue eyes that see straight through him, into him.

"Grace," he begins, and then doesn't start again, leaves the sentence dangling, unfinished. Meeting mothers… is never good. Has never once been smooth.

But she grins up at him, squeezes gently in reassurance. "Relax. You'll like her. She'll like you, I promise." A doubtful eyebrow rises, he can't help it, and Grace shakes her head. "She already does."

"How? She doesn't know me."

Grace shrugs, easy, effortless. "I've worked with you for years, Peter. She knows everything."

He steps her closer, lets his free hand settle on her waist. "Everything?"

That wicked, impish smirk nearly makes him forget himself, their surroundings. The hint of huskiness in her tone as she reconsiders, says, "Well, maybe not everything…" definitely does. Succumbing to the inevitable, he leans down at the exact moment she stands up on tiptoe, their lips meeting and merging in the in-between.

All thoughts and gentlemanly intentions go out the window the moment she leans into him and he feels the length of her body pressed against his own. Age is just a number, he knows, and it's certainly no barrier to slipping his hand beneath her jacket, letting his fingers seek and roam, gently wandering across the ridges and valleys of the vertebrae in her lower back. The feel of her skin beneath his palm is addictive, as addictive as the taste of her, the scent of her, the way his heart races in response to her.

Kissing her is so unbelievably easy and the way she answers, the way she wraps her arms around his neck and lets go of everything, losing herself so completely in the moment – it works magic on his senses, amplifies all the feedback, thrusts him into an emotional storm that's every bit as heady as it's ever been, as he could ever want it to be. More so, even. Sex and attraction is one thing, but this… these feelings, emotions…

Breathing ragged and heart racing, he pulls back a fraction, feels her soft whimper of protest that dies away as his head drops to nuzzle her neck briefly, before he returns again to the siren call of her mouth, his lips gently tracing hers before once again seeking more, the heady rush of it all amplified so many times over by the intense rush of love that has slowly but surely built up over all the long years.

As lost as he is in her he fails to hear the sound of the door opening, to register the impatient tutting and the heavy sigh of disapproval. It's only when something cold and wet hits his shoulder, splashes up into his face and hers that Boyd flinches and yanks his head back, eyes blinking rapidly against the onslaught.

An eerily similar, yet older version of the woman still partially entangled in his arms is standing on the doorstep, irked blue eyes fixed unblinkingly on him and a very familiar scowl on her face. "I can't lift a bucket these days," she announces, holding up the empty glass in her hand, "So I had to make do with this instead."

…

"I would have thought, given that even your youngest nephew is well past the chaos of his teenage hormones – and is even about to have a child of his own – that you might finally be old enough to have outgrown such nonsense," Iris sniffs, scowling at her daughter, "but then again," she continues, looking Boyd up and down, eyes scrutinising him sharply over the rim of her glasses, "I suppose I can see why you might be given to lose your senses now and then."

It's a rare feeling to find himself speechless, but in this instance Boyd can think of absolutely nothing to say. Not a single word. He tries anyway, clears his throat and begins, "I –"

Iris gifts him with a chilly glare. "Be quiet, handsome one. I didn't ask for your opinion." Fixing her gaze on her child, she stands with her hands firmly on her hips, somehow seeming much taller than the five feet and eight or so inches Boyd guesses her to be.

Feeling properly scolded he shuts his mouth and instead glances over at Grace. He wonders what she's thinking, how she's going to react. He expects her to apologise, as he intends to do himself just as soon as he's allowed to speak, but instead he finds her scowling angrily at her mother, hands also on her hips in a mirror image of the confident, assertive woman before her.

Hmm… like mother, like daughter, it seems…

Interesting…

Observing as some kind of silent, unspoken conversation passes between the two of them, a prickle of something highly uncomfortable creeps over him and he begins to wonder if perhaps he is just a little bit out of his depth here. Grace alone is enough to drive him crazy when she's riled and in an argumentative mood, but by the looks of things he's suddenly found himself with what he's rapidly beginning to suspect is the equivalent of two argumentative, riled Graces.

"What on earth did you think you were doing?" demands Iris. "I didn't bring you up to behave like that."

"Enjoying myself," mutters Grace, refusing to back down. Simultaneously stunned by the conversation going on around him, and incredibly amused by the mutinous look on her face, Boyd has to work very hard to school any trace of the desperate need to laugh from his features. If ever he wanted a glimpse of what she was like as a teenager, surely, he muses, he's seeing it right now.

Iris gives her daughter a withering glare. "And," she continues, tone just as strident, "in full view of the neighbours! There's a perfectly good porch with partial walls for that sort of thing. You'll do well to remember that in future, the pair of you."

Still unsure of what he can possibly say, but positive that he ought to say something, Boyd tries again with a restrained, polite, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Foley."

"Don't you 'Mrs. Foley' me, young man! Not when you were stood in my front garden with your tongue down my daughter's throat and your hands up her sweater."

"Mother!" protests Grace, and even though he knows her so well he swears he detects a hint of a whine in her tone.

"No!" snaps Iris. "Don't you try it either. And what time do you call this?"

"Lunch time," retorts Grace quickly, "just like we agreed."

Iris makes a show of looking at the clock. "It's half past one."

Grace rolls her eyes. "So? I said we'd be here around about this time."

"Since when has lunch time at this house ever been anything other than twelve thirty?"

"It's Saturday. We work all week – we're entitled to a lie-in and some extra rest."

The older woman eyes them both with a very shrewd expression. "Oh yes, a lie-in… of course. Silly me…"

Still struggling not to laugh, Boyd can only grin boyishly at her, amused beyond measure when she smirks back at him, and then actually winks.

…

Lunch is an easy, relaxed affair around a scarred, worn kitchen table that Boyd guesses has seen a great many moments in the Foley family history. Far easier – and certainly a lot friendlier – than he was expecting. The conversation is mostly light, and humorous. For him, at least. Grace is suddenly rather quiet, answering instead of asking the questions, and for a while he finds himself caught up in pondering why, even as he keeps up a steady, polite conversation with both of them.

It seems highly out of character for her, and he wonders if there's something wrong. If perhaps introducing him to her mother at such an early stage in their changed relationship is somehow playing on her mind, bothering her. He thinks it unlikely, but then, if all the years he's known her have taught him anything, it's that Grace doesn't always react the way he would expect her to.

"Are you any good about the house?" Iris asks, catching him off guard.

"What?" he stumbles, momentarily wrong-footed.

She reaches for her glass, and for just a moment he wonders where the contents of it are headed, but then she takes a sip and swallows. "You know, fixing things, decorating, repairs… that sort of thing."

Boyd raises an eyebrow. "Don't you have three sons?" he asks, both unwilling to find his precious, limited free time redirected away from the activities of his own choosing, and strongly suspecting he's being studied and examined with great enthusiasm and entertainment.

"Oh, I do," Iris assures him, giving him a hint of that particular smirk he's spent years receiving from Grace, "but one can never have too many men in one's life. Particularly not if they are both useful and handsome."

"Don't flatter him," Grace interjects. "He'll be insufferable all afternoon otherwise."

Quite deliberately, Boyd leans his head on hand and gazes at her, eyes full of a calculated amount of almost-but-not-quite dejection as he enquires softly, almost sadly, "You don't think I'm handsome?"

Grace snorts, pointedly not looking at him as she cuts up a slice of ham. He waits patiently until she looks up and he can snare her gaze with his own, the slightest twitch of his brow letting her know he's not giving up, that he's still after an answer to his question.

She sighs, not falling for it. "You know damn well that I do," she retorts, even as her eyes remain fixed on his, her expression becoming more and more intrigued, more captivated as the seconds drag on.

He has learned that her gaze is a dangerous thing. A place to become irretrievably lost, even at the most inopportune moments. A place to see and feel and experience all the things he's ever wanted to see and feel and experience. Somewhere to know that he is understood and accepted and wanted. Loved. Desired. Needed.

He has learned that it's a dangerous thing, yes, but he has yet to discover quite how to protect himself from it. How to prevent himself from both becoming ensnared by whatever bewitching quality it is she possesses, and then falling deeper and deeper as she holds onto him, refusing to relinquish him.

"Good Lord," announces Iris, her voice, somewhere between amused and annoyed, making both of them jump as the moment between them shatters. "You two definitely need to get out more. Spend some time outside in the fresh air – go for a nice walk and burn off some of that excess energy."

"We went away for the weekend," Boyd points out, inexplicably feeling the need to defend himself.

"Hm, so I heard. To the beach, even. Didn't get much sun though, did you?" Iris snorts, pointedly looking him up and down again. "Comfy bed, was it?"

Her audacity startles him, and then tickles him. He grins wickedly at her, entirely unabashed. "Exceedingly. There are far better – and much more entertaining – ways to burn off energy than walking."

Grace groans but Iris only laughs more as her daughter demands, "Do you two mind?"

The older woman shakes her head. "No, no. Not at all."

Reaching across under the table, Boyd rests his leg against Grace's and smiles at her in what he hopes is a winning manner. Judging from the look he receives in response though, he considers the tactic a failure. Grace is definitely riled, and that, he realises, could very definitely play in his favour. Later on. Irritating Grace – irritating her, not angering her – tends to lead to rather spectacular and particularly enjoyable consequences, he has learned. It's a fine line to walk, but over the last few weeks he's caught himself indulging in the practice on more than one occasion.

"Did you know," he begins casually, glancing over at the older woman to his left, "that she once told a suspect you were dead?" Boyd ignores the blatantly dirty look being directed his way, and instead watches with fascination as one pair of blue eyes suddenly flicker across to another, the older woman coolly regarding her daughter and the way she seems to squirm slightly.

"I was building a rapport," Grace protests. "It was important in the moment. It's not like I actually meant it."

"Charming," sniffs Iris. "Thanks a lot!"

It's highly entertaining, thinks Boyd, watching the way a woman as confident and secure, as serene and unshakably steady as Grace is, reverts, just a little bit, back into a shy, self-conscious child. He wonders what she was like as a little girl, whether he might convince her mother to tell him some of the stories, share some of her memories; show him some of the photographs. He's known Grace for the better part of twenty years, seen her change over time, watched her go through events both terrible and wonderful, but she's always had just that little bit of mystery about her. There have always been things, levels and sides and facets to her, that he's always been well aware he hasn't been privy to.

Until now. Now he's suddenly learning what hides beneath the face she shows to the rest of the world, and it's incredible. Powerful. Moving. The extraordinary mix of strength and weakness, of humour and sadness, memory and hope, of playful mischievousness and steady normality… it's intoxicating. Profoundly fascinating. The things she is slowly allowing him to see, the deliberately, carefully hidden things that she is gradually sharing with him, revealing to him bit by bit in the softer, quieter moments… it speaks volumes to him about how much she trusts him, how much their relationship means to her.

And that, he thinks, is maybe the most wonderful thing of all, because for every additional inch of herself and her history, her life, that she shares with him, he finds another barrier crumbling inside himself, finds it gets just that little bit easier to talk to her in return. To share the things that have so long haunted him and stalked him in the dark, in his weakest hours. She's been telling him for years that talking is cathartic, and he's only just now learning that he should have listened right at the beginning. That maybe he really should have grabbed her and kissed her at the end of that very first case, just like instinct screamed at him that he ought to do.

Watching her now, as she bickers and giggles with her mother, eyes glittering with happiness, he finds something he's hard put to name swelling through his chest, tugging at his limbs. It's moments like this that perhaps he treasures the most, because this is Grace as he's never known her in almost two decades of friendship. This is Grace away from work, relaxed, and without guard or filter. This is what he's been chasing and hoping for and dreaming about for longer than he'd care to admit, and what he still can't quite believe is now finally his.

"Oh, hello," smirks Iris, as his eyes flicker across to her, watching the expression on her face as she teases her daughter mercilessly. "Welcome back to the conversation."

Any response he might choose to give, suspects Boyd, his concentration immediately refocused, would rapidly be turned around and used against him so instead he opts for another of his most charming smiles, knowing full well how effective it is on not only his lover, but on most other women as well.

Not this time, it seems, if the hard, knowing stare that comes his way is anything to judge by, before, "Anyway, as I was saying, the rat girl…"

"She means Eve," Grace supplies helpfully, glancing over at him.

"Yes, I could guess as much, thank you," sighs Boyd, shivering at the thought. "I was just thinking how damn apt the description is. Especially after yesterday."

Grace smirks. "Oh dear," she drawls, clearly getting into the spirit of the conversation now. "You're not still traumatised, are you?"

"Traumatised?" he asks, incredulous. "Jesus Christ, Grace. A fucking rat invaded our office! She sat there for that entire meeting with her bag wriggling and moving on the table right next to me, without even batting an eyelid. And then the bloody thing crawled out!"

"Oh, come on," sighs Grace, rolling her eyes in a manner that makes him vaguely contemplate strangling her. "It only just managed to poke its head out before Kat screamed bloody murder. It hardly crawled out of her bag and invaded the meeting."

"It was present, wasn't it?"

Clearly there is little sympathy from her. "It's just a rat."

"'Just a rat'…" he echoes, nettled. "Who was it who ran into the office and shut the door between her and Hannibal when he got loose?" he demands.

"Who was right behind me as I shut that door?" she retorts.

Muffled laughter makes them both turn in their seats and look at Iris.

"What?" Grace asks.

The older woman grins and shakes her head. "Nothing," she smirks, waving a hand dismissively. "I'm just enjoying the show. All the bickering and the sparks… No wonder the two of you never made it down to the sea." She looks at Grace, still smirking. "If your bedroom antics are anything like as intense as your verbal sparring, then I'm not surprised you're worn out every time you come to visit."

Grace groans yet again, but Boyd just laughs.

Iris turns to glare at him. "And you, young man, can watch your language! I'll not have those filthy words spoken under this roof."

"Sorry," he replies, meekly helping himself to some more salad.

"You'd better be! I had a swear jar when my children were young and I've still got it – don't think I won't fetch it out again if needs be. Or that the fines won't be much higher now that I can take more than just pocket money off you."

Boyd nods, holding up his hands, though he's not sure if the gesture is meant in apology, or self-defence.

"Anyway," continues Iris. "As I was saying, the rat girl called me last night."

Startled, Boyd nearly drops his fork, fumbling it as he stares at her.

Iris raises an eyebrow. "What?"

"Nothing, I…" he begins, unsure of what to say. He swallows. "Eve called you?"

"Why shouldn't she?" demands Iris, a hint of irritation in her tone. "I like her. She's interesting. We have a lot to talk about."

"How," grumbles Grace, "can you not object to what Eve does for a living, yet moan and groan like nobody's business about my job?"

Iris shrugs. "Do I need a reason?"

Sensing another squabble brewing, Boyd interjects. "How do you know Eve?"

"I met her while Grace was ill. We talked."

"Oh, right." It's unoriginal, but there's not a lot else he can think of to say.

"I stayed here for a while," Grace explains, reaching for the water jug. "Eve came to visit."

"I see," replies Boyd, suddenly feeling as though he's been thrown into a parallel universe where things and people and actions exist that are incredibly unsettling in their sudden revelation.

"Yes. Well, Eve is inheriting an iguana and she wanted to know what I thought, what I might be able to tell her about them and their care."

Completely wrong-footed by the bizarre turn of the conversation Boyd simply decides to say nothing. To sit back and listen and let the conversation continue around him. It proves to be a good choice, an enlightening choice. Gives him the opportunity to watch and observe, to see the energy, the vibrancy in Grace's face as she interacts with her mother, to take in a side of her he's never seen before.

She talks with her hands a lot, her face taking on an array of expressions and emotions, and damn if it's not utterly, completely, entirely bewitching. He's falling more and more in love with her, just sitting watching her, listening to her, and he knows it. Simple, relaxed clothing to fit with a simple, relaxed occasion, and the kind of pure, happy, open animation he's rarely seen in her before; it's an unbelievably alluring combination.

The brightness in her, the spark in her… it lights a fire in his heart that blazes with a multitude of things; protection, devotion, gratitude, contentment, love, desire… She's gorgeous. To him, she is beautiful, perfect; so complementary to all his many sides, his many faults and flaws and corners and edges, and maybe that's what makes it work between them. There are strengths and weaknesses in them both, but somehow they balance each other out in exactly the right places, exactly the right ways. Maybe that is what is responsible for the breathtakingly powerful chemistry that they somehow generate between them. All he has to do is look at her and –

"Earth to Peter…" Startled, he looks up at the sharp tone. "Oh good," says Iris, her lips twitching, "you're back with us. For a moment there I thought you were going to leap across the table and pounce."

Unwilling to let that one slide past unchallenged, Boyd gazes sedately the elderly woman. "Mrs Foley, you wound me," he tells her gravely. "I'm far too well-mannered for that sort of behaviour."

The look he receives in return is considering, acquiescent. "Yes, I do believe you are," she agrees at last.

He smiles innocently at her, then adds, "At least, I am in someone else's house."

That startles a bark of laughter out of her, one that makes him grin and laugh in return. "God, you're like randy teenagers, the pair of you. Honestly! It's almost as bad as having three boys in the house again. Grace, go and check the last of the blackberries – see if there are enough to make a crumble. Boyd, you can help me clear up."

Raising his eyebrows a touch at the order, Boyd does as he's told, watching with amusement as Grace automatically does the same, gathering a small basket from the back of the kitchen door and heading outside with nothing more than a serene nod of her head and an easy smile as she goes.

"She loves crumble," Iris offers by way of explanation, handing Boyd a tea towel and prodding him in the direction of the sink.