Chapter 4
FOUR
Just when Art thought he would end up dragging himself through the dullest summer of his life, without work or fun to distract him, Ryan Hawthorne had come along.
It was perfect in so many ways. He couldn’t believe his luck, not only to have an interesting set of historical ruins to spend his summer uncovering, and possibly to write a book about that would get him out of trouble with his dean, but to have Ryan Hawthorne and Graeme Dallen to fill his days with as well.
He was the luckiest boy in all of London.
It took a few days for him to gather the supplies he would need to excavate the gatekeeper’s house and to hastily throw together a grant application for the university in the hope that he might actually get official approval, not to mention money, for all the summertime enjoyment he was about to have.
The university would take months to review the application’s merits and to find the funds, if they saw a humble gamekeeper’s cottage at Hawthorne House as worthy of their investment, but Art was determined to get started immediately.
He arrived at Hawthorne House in his beat-up old truck, the back seat filled with everything from spades to brushes to cameras, bright and early on a Monday morning about a week after his first visit to the estate.
The sense that something delightful was about to happen grew even more when he noticed Graeme’s truck and trailer were already parked in the public lot.
He pulled up beside them and felt an extra thrill as Graeme stepped out of his truck just as he cut his engine.
It was all Art could do to scramble out of his vehicle fast enough to catch Graeme before he got away.
“Good morning,” he greeted the shy young man with an exuberant smile. Well, Graeme wasn’t super young, probably in his mid-twenties, and he was only shy on the surface, Art was certain. He’d seen the look of interest that had sparked in the man’s eyes when they’d shaken hands the week before.
“Good morning,” Graeme replied, a bit startled, his cheeks flushing sinfully. “Is today the day you start the excavation?”
It was an obvious question, but Art took it as a sign that Graeme wanted to engage in conversation but didn’t really know how.
“It absolutely is,” Art said, reaching into the back seat of his truck to pull out the dusty old rucksack that held his things. “Still toiling away in the gardens, I see,” he said, nodding to Graeme as he walked around to unlock the back of his trailer.
Graeme laughed bashfully. “This is a huge job. I’ll be here all summer, and probably part of the way into the fall. And that’s without considering maintenance.”
Art couldn’t have been happier. “Me, too,” he said, turning up the charm to blazing levels in an attempt to figure out where he stood with Graeme.
Ryan was convinced Graeme was straight, but Art highly doubted it.
He’d been around long enough to know when a man was interested in him.
It was one advantage of the slutty life he’d lived in his twenties.
“Excavations like the one I’m about to undertake could last for years. ”
“They take that long?” Graeme asked, his face growing even pinker as he stepped into the back of his trailer to fetch some sort of gardening implement or another.
Art waited until he emerged with a wheelbarrow filled with everything from shovels to clippers before answering, “It all depends on what I find and the historical significance of it all. And on whether the Hawthornes want to keep me around after I’ve caused a heap of trouble.”
Graeme’s wheelbarrow thumped loudly on the tarmac as it dropped the few inches from the back of the trailer. Graeme himself seemed to swallow his tongue at Art’s cheeky statement. “Are you a troublemaker?” he asked, just a hint of wariness in his voice and expression.
It was delicious. Those words and that look told a definite story. And if there was one thing Art was good at, it was uncovering long-buried truths.
He shrugged and stepped closer to the back of the trailer as Graeme went back in to fetch shovels. Art gestured for Graeme to hand some off to him, and once they both had their arms full, they started away from the parking lot and around to the back of the house together.
“I do tend to enjoy a bit of trouble,” Art said, wickedness stirring in him. “Good trouble, mind you,” he added. “It keeps life spicy and enjoyable.”
Graeme laughed as he pushed his wheelbarrow. “I’m not so sure about that. I’m more of the slow and steady type who doesn’t want any trouble at all.”
“Sure you do,” Art said, swaying closer so he could nudge Graeme’s arm. “Every red-blooded man likes a little spicy, saucy trouble now and then.” He wiggled his eyebrows to make absolutely certain Graeme knew what he meant.
Graeme’s amused expression teetered into something hollow and worried. “I’ve had more than enough trouble to last a lifetime.”
They hadn’t even made it out to the garden yet and already Art was having the time of his life uncovering the past. Like with any fragile artifact, though, he needed to go slowly and chip away at things bit by bit so he didn’t break what he was trying to bring to light.
“That wouldn’t, by any chance, have anything to do with your divorce, would it?” he asked, gentling his tone a bit.
Graeme faced him with suddenly wide eyes. “How did you know about that?”
“Ryan told me,” Art said with a shrug. “How long ago was it?”
Graeme’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment as they entered the kitchen garden through one of the side gates before he said, “Last November. Well, it was all finalized in March.”
Art’s brow shot up. “I didn’t realize it was so recent.”
Graeme wheeled his barrow along the side path to where a few tools and other things had been left out from before. He put it down, fussed with his trowels and claws while taking things out, and generally looked like he was praying for the conversation to rewind to before Art had started to pry.
“It feels like it was yesterday,” he said at last.
Art had put the shovels he carried down and walked from one end of the path to the other, near where the archway leading to the lawn with the ruins stood, but he changed his mind about leaving Graeme in peace when he saw the clear strain in his new friend’s expression.
“Did you love her?” he asked boldly instead.
Graeme looked stricken. “I mean, yes, I did,” he said without much certainty.
It wasn’t at all fair of Art to dig so deep so quickly, but he put his rucksack down and walked back to where Graeme seemed more than a little lost while sorting through the tools and plants beside one of the garden beds.
“Have you had someone to talk to about it?” Art asked.
Graeme glanced up from his busywork to stare at Art, like no one had ever asked the question like that before. “Not really,” he answered with stunned honesty. “The way things happened, the things that led to the divorce, everything afterward…. No.”
Art crossed his arms and leaned against the sturdy trellis that looked like it was designed for runner beans to grow up. “Did she cheat on you?”
Graeme’s eyes went wide with offense. “She did not. Mavis is a lovely person. She would never do that.”
“Ah. You cheated on her, then,” Art said, digging, digging, digging.
“I did not,” Graeme snapped, anger creasing his face. It melted too quickly into guilt. “At least, not really. It wouldn’t have been right.”
Boom. Even though Graeme turned back to his work, grabbing a shovel and slamming it into one of the beds, he had more or less revealed at least half of the story.
For someone like Art, who had gone to university to learn the art of extrapolating a full story from the barest hints of evidence, what Graeme refused to say was as good as telling him everything.
“I think you’re a good person, Graeme Dallen,” he said, stepping up behind Graeme as he dug his shovel into the freshly turned earth a second time. He grabbed Graeme’s shoulders and squeezed to massage them. “I don’t think you have a bad bone in your entire body.”
Graeme tensed and straightened, but didn’t try to shrug Art off. So Art doubled his efforts to knead the guilt out of the man’s shoulders.
“Whatever happened, I think it was just one of those things,” he went on. “You don’t have to tell me, but if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here for you.”
“It was—” Graeme glanced over his shoulder, then turned completely, escaping Art’s hands. “A lot of things happened all at once that sort of blew my entire life to pieces,” he said with a sigh. “I’m still trying to rebuild.”
“You’re a brave man for continuing on in the face of adversity,” Art said, thumping his arm.
“I’m not,” Graeme insisted. “If I was brave, I would have—”
Art waited, leaning forward slightly, brow lifting.
Graeme looked like a hummingbird hovering in front of a flower, about to dart in and drink the nectar. But only for a moment.
He rocked back on his heels and shook his head. “If I was brave, I would have faced reality sooner and never married Mavis to begin with.”
Another piece of the puzzle fell into place.
Graeme was definitely gay. He’d been closeted, for whatever reason, and thought marrying a woman would make him straight.
It was a tale as old as time, and like all those other men before him, marriage had probably only made things worse.
Art still didn’t know the details of what had brought about the divorce, but he was confident that Graeme would confide in him in time.
He needed to. Graeme the gardener was holding onto what he saw as his failure so tightly that he was about to burst, despite how docile and sweet he seemed on the outside. Art just hoped he was there to collect the pieces and put Graeme back together when it happened.
Or maybe he was just making up drama where there was none because he was bored.