Epilogue
O ne Month Later
From the top of the folly, Dominick could see the entire countryside stretching out before them. In the far distance, the sea was a heavy grey under heavier skies that threatened rain. Too hazy to make out the waves themselves, the salt tang on the air warned of the danger for the fishermen as they finished hauling in their nets and turned their boats to the harbour.
Coming in from the sea, the land was spotted with patches of bare rock that showed through the heath like an old coat worn out in the elbows. Here and there he could make out patches of darker green spotted with yellow. The gorse plants seemed to always be in bloom, the flowers kept safe by the sharp thorns surrounding them.
Directly below them, the forest spread out from the crag to meet the gorse. This late in the year, most of the trees were bare, save for a few proud pines that stuck up here and there. In the midst of the tangle, he could just make out the ruins of the chapel. The small glade it stood in was a welcome sanctuary from the forest around it.
Looking down on that forest from above, the twisted branches were an impenetrable thicket. It seemed impossible to believe that there was a way down from their tower or a path through those woods that led them home.
Home .
And there it stood, imposing yet welcoming—Balcarres House. Most of the windows were dark, the rooms within too numerous to all be in use, but a few glowed with light. Dominick wondered who each light could be. Was that the glow of a lamp illuminating the cramped numbers in a ledger as Gil poured over them or was it Mrs. Finley sweeping dust into a burning fireplace when no one was looking? Perhaps it was a candle carried by Mr. Howe as he went about his duties or Jarrett as he got up to mischief.
As Dominick watched, a carriage rolled away from the manor, making its way down the long drive before disappearing into the gradual curve of the trees. There was only one person who could be inside.
“Poor woman,” Alfie murmured beside him.
“Good riddance,” Dominick spat.
“Nick.” But Alfie’s tone held more agreement than rebuke.
Alfie hadn’t told Carnbee she was an escaped convict as he’d threatened. In fact, he’d let Mrs. McConnell stay on to finish the folly, let her be the one to complete her husband’s final work. The last stone had been set in place yesterday. She would never see his gardens in bloom, but it had still been a kindness Dominick wouldn’t have granted after everything her lies had caused, and the worse things that had come so close to happening.
He shuddered just remembering it, the way his heart had stopped as he watched Alfie and Rutherford struggle at the edge of the tower and the deadly drop below. He could almost hear James’ plaintive cries on the wind now, so much fear in such a tiny voice.
He’d run to the base of the tower directly below them, head craned upwards to catch two of the three people above—Alfie’s orders be damned. From where he’d stood, he hadn’t seen the moment Rutherford had stumbled backwards off the edge, a single misplaced step ending a man gone mad with years of obsession and hate.
That was what they’d said had happened when they limped their way back to Balcarres, James tucked inside Dominick’s coat to keep him warm.
There was another story that might have happened.
A story about a choice being made. Not by Rutherford, but by the long line of heat that was now using the privacy of the folly to press up close beside him, letting Dominick’s bulk shield him from the worst of the wind.
Dominick turned his head just enough so that his view was of Alfie, not the far less interesting landscape. His auburn curls had returned to their former glory and, as Alfie had given up on making any attempt to tame them with either hair oil or pomade, the wind was making them dance in celebration of their newfound freedom. Alfie was still looking at where the carriage had disappeared. He absently tucked one of the curls behind his ear, only to have it escape again immediately.
If it had been a choice, it was one Dominick understood. Rutherford was a danger to them all, a rabid animal with thoughts of nothing but revenge against the woman who’d spurned him.
No, he was worse than an animal. An animal only struck mindlessly. Rutherford had planned, calculating his moves to bring terror, his violence targeting not his wife, but those she loved—or those he thought she loved—his blows aimed to cause the greatest pain.
He’d killed Captain McConnell, left his body in the unlit bonfire knowing the chaos and fear it would cause when discovered, not just to his wife but to the entire village. He’d mutilated livestock, spied from the shadows, sent rocks crashing down towards them, and finally snatched an innocent child, prepared to do the unspeakable just because he could.
If it had been Dominick on top of the folly, the choice would have been an easy one.
But it wasn’t. It was Alfie. Alfie, the boy who’d cried when he tripped on workhouse steps, the man who let kittens play with his pocket watch, and the earl who was responsible not only for his lands, but the people within them.
Time and again, Dominick had seen how fiercely Alfie protected those he felt responsible for. If this had been one of those times, if Alfie had made the choice to guarantee the safety of those under his protection rather than risk letting a dangerous man escape punishment once again…
Well. Dominick didn’t see what happened. He couldn’t say which story was true. But he wasn’t an earl. He didn’t have scores of people to protect—only one.
So he’d do just that. Rutherford had fallen of his own accord. James was safe. Alfie was safe. And if the servants now gossiped about working not in the cursed manor, but the one with the heroic earl, and the villagers in the inn told stories of Alfie’s courage instead of his family’s long absence, then all the better. Dominick certainly hadn’t dropped choice tales of Alfie’s previous brave deeds in the ears of some of the new gardeners, knowing they would spread.
Of course, after James’ dramatic rescue, there was no stopping the rumour about him being Alfie’s son, but at least now the villagers seemed pleased that out of all the lying, cheating toffs, theirs was honourable enough to protect his by-blow. Besides, as long as they were all giving wary glances towards their wives when Alfie walked by, they weren’t raising their eyebrows at Dominick walking right beside him.
Or right behind him—the view was better there.
“What are you grinning about?” Alfie asked.
“Nothing, just thinking we should test out that little room again. I’m not sure it was thoroughly christened.”
“Baboon. It’s as christened as it's going to be until you find an inconspicuous way to drag a mattress up here.” Alfie rubbed his leg. “Or at the very least, a good stockpile of blankets. Bare stone is hell on bare knees—bare knees whose bruises have only finally faded, I remind you.”
Dominick snorted but decided against offering any alternate suggestions. Better to remind Alfie of his words that night when they had the use of both a mattress and blankets.
Instead, he caught Alfie’s hand in his and held it between them, rubbing his thumb over his ring on Alfie’s finger. His own hands had mostly healed in the month since the Samhain fire. There were a few new scars, but if Alfie hadn’t minded the way Dominick looked when he’d first found him bleeding and beaten after losing a boxing match, Dominick doubted he would now.
They stood like that in silence, just enjoying the countryside and each other’s company. Far below, through a thinning of the trees, Dominick caught another glimpse of the carriage carrying Mrs. McConnell away.
“I do pity her, you know,” said Alfie. “I can’t forgive her, knowing what her lies and lies by omission nearly caused, but I do pity her. She had a hard life with few options. With a little less luck, either of us could have found ourselves in similar straits.”
Dominick couldn’t argue with that. He’d certainly done things in his short career as a housebreaker to earn himself transportation if he’d ever been caught. If he and Alfie hadn’t met again when they did, or if Alfie had never been adopted by the previous earl at all…
“You didn’t tell the magistrate who she really was when Rutherford’s body was being carted off,” Dominick said. “Most wouldn’t be that kind.”
“You didn’t say anything either,” Alfie pointed out. “Besides, I didn’t want any more bad memories associated with this place now that I’m going to be forced to look at it every day for the rest of my life.”
“You love it as much as I do, admit it. You always wanted to hear stories of knights and castles. Now you have your very own.”
Alfie laughed and waved his free hand towards Balcarres House. “Nick, I’m an earl. That’s far above a knight. And I already own a castle.”
Dominick squinted as if only just noticing the massive stone building below. “That’s not a proper castle. It doesn’t have any towers or… What are these called on top?”
“Crenelations,” Alfie supplied, his eyes bright with mirth. “You’re absolutely right. My life was sorely incomplete until this point. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
The wind chose that moment to pick up, a sharp blast that snuck down Dominick’s collar with the chill of the coming winter. Alfie shivered against him and without needing to say any more, they turned and headed back down the tower stairs and towards the trail home.
As they passed the window in the folly wall, Dominick fondly patted the stone he’d laid and looked up at Alfie’s keystone above it.
“Hold on just a second.”
“What is it?” asked Alfie, but he didn’t resist when Dominick pressed him back against the wall, taking his mouth in a deep kiss.
“Nothing,” Dominick said when they’d finally broken apart. Alfie’s curls were even wilder than they’d been before. “We’re going to have to go back to being discreet again in a minute, so I wanted something to tide me over until tonight.”
Alfie rolled his eyes, but he didn’t call Dominick a baboon again, which was a promising sign.
They didn’t talk as they walked down the crag, the fading sunlight meaning they had to give all their attention to the steep path. Dominick purposefully avoided looking at the pile of rocks that had nearly crushed them, already half-buried in underbrush.
The place near the bottom of the crag where Rutherford had landed was impossible to spot unless you knew to look for the broken branches and churned earth, both of which would be unrecognisable by spring. It wasn’t until after they passed it that Alfie broke the silence.
“What do you think it’s like, Australia? I suppose it must be a dreadful place if they both worked so hard to escape it.”
Dominick shrugged. “I imagine being a convict is dreadful enough wherever you are. Why? Do you want to visit?”
Alfie paused to knock a bit of rotted wood from the path with his cane. “Hardly. I imagine a voyage of nearly a year is unbearable even with the most lavish passenger accommodations. And then you have to make the same trip back. I see why so many choose to stay. And the poor souls who make the journey in chains? I can’t even imagine what kind of horror that is.”
The discussion was becoming a bit too maudlin for Dominick’s tastes.
“No,” he said. “You’re right. Short cruises only. Perhaps between the Greek isles. Or the islands of the West Indies, although we’d still have to cross an ocean first to reach them.”
The path widened there and Alfie took advantage of the privacy to link his arm through Dominick’s. Dominick hesitated, remembering how Rutherford had been spying through the trees. But Rutherford was dead, and he was damned if he was going to let the man’s ghost keep him from such a simple pleasure as his lover’s arm in his.
“It sounds like you’re planning on running off to sea,” Alfie said.
“Only if you are,” replied Dominick. “Now that you’ve gotten your wish of being a knight with a castle, the next childhood dream to fulfil is becoming a pirate. Or would it be better to start at highwayman and work your way up?”
Alfie laughed. “You were the one telling me all those stories! And the castle— folly was your idea!”
“I think you’d make a very dashing pirate,” Dominick offered. “Not as dashing as me, of course, but still. Shall we run away to sea and find out?”
Alfie shook his head but his voice was fond. “I’d ask why I put up with you, but I know all your reasons would be filthy. Yes, I would like to see a bit more of the world someday, but I will do it by entirely legal means and funded by my own purse, thank you.”
When they reached the edge of the garden, they disentangled their arms, but it was hard to feel the lack when Dominick still had the man he loved beside him. Whether it was in a castle, on the deck of a pirate ship, or just with their feet stretched out before the fire, Dominick would be happy as long as he could share the adventure with Alfie.
The garden was still mostly bare earth and chalked out lines from what Dominick could see, but now that the piles of trees had been cleared, he could just about make out what it could be in future. With another year to get things planted and five years to let them grow, there would be something truly beautiful on this stripped ground. In another few decades, no one would even be able to remember this bare earth or the impenetrable tangle that had come before it, just the loveliness that had taken its place.
And Dominick would get to see that. It was strange to have a future to look forward to in his home, or to even have a home at all, but he found he quite liked the feeling. Balcarres would change. He would change. Alfie would change. But change could be for the better.
The gardeners were gathering up their tools as they passed and one of them, a local man Dominick had seen before but whose name he didn’t yet know, paused to tip his cap at Alfie respectfully.
A change for the better already. Alfie nodded back, but just then, the sky delivered what it had been threatening and fat drops of rain began to fall.
A sharp whistle pierced the air, causing Dominick to jump, and Janie came tearing around the corner, two more gardeners with wheelbarrows following behind her, struggling to keep up. She rolled a large piece of paper as she walked—either the McConnells’ original plans or one marked with her own revisions—and tucked it into an oiled leather tube under her arm to keep it safe from the rain.
“Step lively now,” she called out to the men behind her. “One last load and we’ll all be done for the day. Tomorrow though, I’ll want all those roots gone from the north corner. Oh! Your Lordship, I didn’t see you!”
“I won’t stay to chat,” Alfie said to their new head gardener, turning up the collar of his coat as the rain began to fall more heavily. “But things are progressing well?”
“Very well, sir. Better than I’d hoped, considering. And thank you again for this chance. I promise I won’t disappoint.”
“I’m sure you won’t.”
Janie smiled at Alfie’s kind words. A real smile, not the nervous, half-embarrassed one Dominick had seen from her before. She stood straighter now too, more confident amongst the mud and weeds than she’d ever been in her maid’s cap, or even worse, the kitchen. Another change and another good one.
He followed Alfie into the house, handing their damp coats off to one of the new footmen as Mr. Howe supervised. The soberness of his gaunt face couldn’t mask the pleased look in his eyes of a job well done when a spot of mud was noticed on Dominick’s coat and a brush produced without the butler having to direct his new charge to do so.
“A whisky before supper?” Dominick suggested.
But Alfie didn’t get a chance to respond before a subtle throat clearing caught his attention. Mrs. Finley had appeared as if from nowhere.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” the housekeeper said. “But if you could spare just a moment, I wanted to ask what your plans were for some of the newly opened rooms. Some of the furniture is in dire need of repair and I have a list of a few other items to bring to your attention.”
Alfie opened his mouth to speak.
“There you are!” Gil’s voice boomed as he descended the stairs. Jarrett followed along behind him, a few shirts draped over his arm as if he’d actually been working and not just distracting Gil all afternoon.
“Alfie, I heard back from that mining operation I told you about,” Gil continued. “It’s a good investment, but time sensitive. So if you’re going to act, we should discuss it now so I can write them immediately.”
“Not now now,” Jarrett sniffed. “He’s got to dress for supper. I’ve perfected the waterfall knot for his cravat and won’t let my work go to waste.”
Dominick grinned. “Find someone to practise on?”
Jarrett gave him a wink that just tipped the edge into saucy. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Gil’s much more subtle elbow to the gut stopped Jarrett from saying more.
“Oh, you think there’s going to be a supper, do you?”
Dominick barely kept in a sigh at the sound of Mrs. Hirkins’ voice. Had he known they were going to be ambushed, he’d have asked the men with the wheelbarrows to deposit them in some out-of-the-way toolshed for the night. At least then they’d have a little peace and quiet.
Mrs. Hirkins had a hand on one hip and James propped on the other. The child was sucking one tiny fist and looking around at the assembled crowd in wonder. His ordeal didn’t seem to have affected him at all, but he hadn’t been out of the arms of either his mother or great-grandmother since.
Dominick didn’t blame them. James wasn’t even his child and seeing him in danger had made want to swaddle him up and put an armed guard on him day and night. By contrast, the Hirkins women were being very reasonable.
Mrs. Hirkins didn’t sound quite so reasonable when she said, “You think there’s going to be supper set out any time soon, when the butcher had the gall to show up two hours late! Master Alfie, this is the third time this month. I won’t have Agnes be made to look a fool because of some other soul’s laziness. I have half a mind—”
“Enough!” Alfie shouted.
The hall went silent. There was a command in Alfie’s voice that hadn’t been there before and Dominick waited as breathlessly as the rest of them to see what he’d say next.
“Mrs. Hirkins, this isn’t London. If you threaten this butcher, there isn’t another. You may, however, suggest it would be worth his while to deliver to the manor first. After all, an earl used to London prices certainly wouldn’t notice if his beef cost a few pence more.
“Jarrett, we have no guests. I’m not dressing for supper. That said, I do need to go into the village tomorrow and you can bedeck me however you’d like for that, waterfalls and all. Gil, we’ve discussed it enough. ‘Yes’ to the mine. Bring what I need to sign, and only what I need to sign, to the dinner table and I’ll take them to town with me tomorrow.
“Mrs. Finley, I have no current plans for those rooms. Send out anything worth repairing and have the rest broken up for firewood. There’s more furniture stored in the attic. You’re welcome to whatever you think would suit. That, and the rest of your list can be taken care of tomorrow. Mr. Howe?”
The butler had his hands clasped behind his back and gave the most professional of bows. “I have nothing presently that needs your attention, sir.”
“Glad to hear it. Dominick, I’ll join you for that whisky now.”
The servants dispersed on their errands until only Mrs. Hirkins remained. Her eyes narrowed as she gave Alfie a long look, the seriousness of which was marred somewhat by James swinging his spittle-covered fist around as he babbled in delight.
Alfie looked wary as she stepped forward. Then to Dominick’s surprise, she patted Alfie on the cheek and held her hand there.
“Look at you,” she said quietly. Her hands were spotted with age and gnarled by a lifetime of work, but Alfie swayed on his feet as if even the gentle touch was too much.
“You were just a scrap of a thing in London. I don’t mean when you first arrived, of course you were then. I mean after your parents died. You were just hiding in that empty house all alone. But look at you now, all these people you’ve brought together. And you take care of them. You’re more an earl than the last one ever was. More than any of them nobles who had it all handed to them. You earned it. You’re a good man, Master Alfie.”
She patted his cheek again gently. Motherly, Dominick realised, although he had no experience of that himself. One of Alfie’s hands drifted down, landing on James’ head and stroking through his fine hair.
Mrs. Hirkins cleared her throat. “So I’m not letting some ha’penny Scotch butcher think he can take advantage of you. A few pence more . Ha! I’ll show him a few pence and a good bit more than that if he’s late again!”
With that, she hitched James higher on her hip and made her way back towards the kitchen, calling out as she left, “Supper will be ready in two hours!”
Alfie stood frozen on the spot, his eyes suspiciously bright. His throat worked several times before he finally croaked, “Nick?”
Dominick put a hand on his back and steered him towards the library. Whisky. That was what they needed. “Yes, love?”
It took a few pushes before Alfie jerked into motion. “Is it too late to run away to sea?”
Dominick chuckled as they climbed the stairs. Perhaps it wasn’t that ridiculous an idea. Certainly no more ridiculous than Alfie building him a castle just because he wanted one. A folly . That was a good word for it. Such a silly thing was a folly to even think of building.
But it was a folly to be with another man, and a worse folly still to love him. A folly to want to spend a lifetime with him, to make a home together and build it into something greater than it was before.
He pushed Alfie down into his seat in front of the library's crackling fireplace and went to pour them each a drink. On second thought, he grabbed the whole bottle and set it between their chairs with a pair of glasses. Outside, the rain beat against the windows and a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky. For a split second, Dominick could make out their folly on the crag, then it was gone.
“We can run away to sea once the weather clears up. But Alfie, if you’re going to be a sailor, you’re going to need to work on your knot tying skills first. Perhaps tonight? After supper?”
Dominick crossed his wrists to illustrate his point and gave Alfie a wink so lewd it put Jarrett’s to shame.
Alfie gasped, a look of half-arousal, half-astonishment on his face. Dominick laughed and poured them each a glass of whisky, passing one to the man— the earl —he loved. And if loving him was a folly, it was one made of something stronger than stone.
He clinked his glass to Alfie’s in a toast. He’d drink to that.
The End