Chapter Two #2
“Oh, no.” Berridge ushered Rollo inside, relieving him of his hat and gloves. “That’s just his lordship and his old toy soldiers in the drawing room. You’ll soon get used to him and his ways.”
Not a single part of that response allayed Rollo’s concerns whatsoever. “His ways?”
“Yes, until you work some magic on him, obviously. Begging your pardon, sir, but you’re a bit younger than I was expecting. Your man can bring your things inside the back way.”
Greaves, a younger, fitter footman, showed Rollo up to his bedchamber, along two sets of stairs and various passages.
His valises appeared at about the same time, and Greaves set about unpacking and arranging Rollo’s belongings whilst Rollo drank in the monotonous views from the window.
At least his room was decent and his mattress comfortable.
Though the large oil painting hanging above the bed was atrocious—a bird of some description, or possibly a large-gilled fish.
Either way, the poor creature was half gutted and in its death throes.
Dejected declared the title in the lower left corner.
Personally, if he were being disembowelled, Rollo’s vocabulary would be far riper.
Curious art aside, the household staff seemed to know what they were about. More importantly, if Rollo overlooked the hall’s generally forbidding air, nothing untoward suggested it was haunted.
“His lordship prefers to dine alone,” Greaves explained as if that were a perfectly natural thing to do when one had an expected houseguest. Rollo didn’t have much experience for comparison, although his father wouldn’t have dreamed of it.
“Though hopefully not for much longer, now you’ve arrived.
Dinner will be brought to your chamber, sir, in about half an hour. ”
A little later, alone, washed, and in fresh clothing, Rollo steeled himself to count his blessings.
The alternative was to burst into tears, and that just wouldn’t do at all.
Far too self-pitying. After all, his bedchamber was well-proportioned, and the water in his basin plentiful and warm.
The door had a working lock, and his belly filled with tasty venison stew. He was in good health and much loved.
Regardless, a lonely tear trickled down his cheek.
There was no shame in feeling homesick, he told himself as he wiped it away.
Willoughby, Papa, and Kit would be in the informal cosy drawing room at Rossingley by now, reading, playing cards, or simply chewing over the matters of the day.
And Rollo’s favourite chair would be empty.
Determined to push those thoughts aside, he reflected instead on Berridge and Greaves’s peculiar comments. Work magic? What on earth had Berridge meant by that? What were they expecting from Rollo? And playing with toy soldiers? Was his host wrong in the head?
As it was far too early to turn in for the night, Rollo rang for Greaves. “I’d like to meet my host,” he informed him. “If his lordship is available.”
“Certainly.” Greaves nodded, though Rollo detected hesitation. “Lord Lyndon generally retires to the drawing room after dinner. Allow me to escort you.”
Once more, Rollo traipsed behind the footman along unfamiliar corridors. This time, Greaves pointed out a few useful interior landmarks along the way. When he came to a halt outside a forbidding oak door, he gestured to Rollo.
“You may enter, sir,” he advised, clearly reluctant to do so himself. “I have no requirement to present you. His lordship doesn’t stand on ceremony.”
Nonetheless, after the man gave a small bow then left him loitering there alone, Rollo felt obliged to make some sort of effort.
He couldn’t simply barge in. Instead, he scratched on the half-opened door, a little feebly if he was being honest. Then, annoyed with himself, he scratched again more boldly.
And as no response was forthcoming, he pushed it wide.
In most ways, the drawing room was unremarkable, much in keeping with the interior of the rest of Goule Hall.
It seemed a little dated, perhaps, compared to stylish London drawing rooms, yet the heavy furniture and rich carpets still spoke of centuries of Ashington money.
Uninspiring oils adorned the walls—portraits of ancestors in the main, though he spied another peculiar animal disembowelment hidden amongst them, probably by the same inept artist.
Feeling bold, Rollo took a pace forward.
Though neither hot, cold, nor draughty, the room smelled of stale alcohol and used lamp oil.
In anticipation of the last of the daylight, someone had lit a couple of oil lamps, and the embers of a fire burned in the grate.
In all, it was reassuringly familiar. As a boy, Rollo had whiled away many an interminable hour in similar spaces belonging to his father’s wide circle of acquaintances.
One feature, however, drew his eye and held it: A man, sprawled on a low settee and facing away from the doorway.
His booted feet rested on a worn pouffe, and a tumbler of dark liquor clung precariously to a narrow armrest. Rollo jerked his head around, hoping Greaves might be hovering to perform the introductions, but the servant had vanished.
If the man occupying the settee was aware he had a visitor, he gave no sign. Frozen to the spot, Rollo found himself caught in a dilemma. Did he retreat and postpone presenting himself to his host until tomorrow? Or take another step forward and boldly announce his arrival?
“You’re either in or out. There’s no in between.”
Rollo jumped with a little squeak of shock. He clapped his hand over his mouth so another didn’t escape.
“Make a decision, boy. I don’t care what. Just stop standing there like a bloody simpleton.”
Lord Lyndon Fitzsimmons, Rollo presumed. Pritchard hadn’t been wrong about the ill temper.
“My lord,” he responded, voice quivering.
“Eh?” The man gave a vulgar sniff. “Speak up.”
Rollo dug his fingertips into his palms and gritted his teeth. To beat a retreat now would look rather like cowardice. He was the son of a distinguished earl, for heaven’s sake! A Duchamps-Avery, no less. Time to begin acting like one.
“My lord,” he tried again, a fraction clearer.
In place of acknowledgement, Lord Lyndon brought the tumbler to his mouth and drank deeply.
“My lord,” Rollo repeated. Much better. “Good evening to you. I’m…”
“Rossingley’s pup.” The words spilled over one another, thickened with whatever was in the glass. “Welcome to purgatory, pup.”
Unsteadily, Lord Lyndon replaced the tumbler on the armrest, then lifted a child’s wooden bow from his lap.
Rollo watched, with mounting alarm, as Fitzsimmons plucked a slender arrow from a heap piled next to him.
Fumbling, he notched it in the gut string, raised it vaguely level with his eye, pulled back, and fired.
Thwish! A pewter toy soldier leaped into the air.
Tumbling from the mantelpiece, it clattered to the floor and skidded to an ignoble death against the log basket.
Lord Lyndon emitted a satisfied belch. “And another loyal man fallen.”
“Um…jolly good shot,” remarked Rollo. Because what else could he say?
The next shot went wide, the arrow pinging into the plaster wall of the chimney breast before skittering to the floor. As did the next, issuing the remaining members of the battalion a reprieve, but at the cost of a small glass ornament.
“Oh!” yelped Rollo as a shard landed on his coat. He sprang back. “I say! Are…are you—”
A fourth arrow was clumsily notched. Hurriedly, Rollo retreated a few paces, unfamiliar uncertainty stealing his voice.
That one was on target, as was the fifth.
By the sixth, Rollo’s apprehension had turned to puzzlement with a hint of annoyance.
He didn’t care for wanton destruction. Had Lord Lyndon forgotten he wasn’t alone?
Yes, it seemed, because a second later, he lurched to his feet.
At first, as he staggered over to the fireplace, Rollo assumed it was to pick up the fallen debris.
Instead, Fitzsimmons ignored the crunching underfoot, widened his stance, and, after some rummaging around behind the fall of his breeches, proceeded to release a fountain of piss into the hearth.
Mortified, Rollo stared down at his feet, the sizzling of hot coals filling his ears and discomfort burning his cheeks. He was no angel himself, but this lord behaved like a heathen!
As a puff of black smoke spiralled out of the fireplace, Lord Lyndon turned to study Rollo from over his shoulder. “Care for some brandy, pup?” He waved in the general direction of a collection of decanters. “I take my liquor neat. One needs it, living here.”
God, yes. The entire bottle. “No, but thank you, my lord. Sadly, I was not born into this world with a taste for hard spirits.”
“No man ever was.” Fitzsimmons belched. “But this world drives a man to it. You should persevere. There’s no sound like the plop of brandy in a glass. And no feeling like that first powerful violent impact when it hits the mark below.”
“I’ll…um…take your word for it.”
Rollo’s hot gaze flickered up to where the uncouth lord still merrily voided his bladder into the fireplace.
His linen-shirted back was broader than the duke’s.
He had a coarser shape all round, more muscled, like the form of a man who worked the land.
The shirt clung to him, tighter than it should, as if it used to fit properly, as if he hadn’t always been this way.
Though, as Rollo’s expert eye tracked down to his solid arse and thighs, he wagered the lord would still cut a fine figure in the ton.
He’d have to improve his manners first, obviously, and do something with the wild, unruly mane of hair hanging in long coppery flames down his back. A decent cut would be a start.
Finished at last, the lord shook himself. Thankfully, he was safely tucked away when he turned to examine Rollo properly.
“Cat got your tongue, pup?”
“Well…yes. I’m…yes.”
That Lord Lyndon and the duke were twins was evident, despite the contrasting hair and manners. But where the Duke of Ashington’s dark eyes were warm and kind, verging on timid, his brother held Rollo trapped in two black, arrogant pools.
Fitzsimmons shrugged. “Your father always has enough to say for himself.”
That was true, at least, and those mocking words inspired Rollo to a few of his own.
“He certainly does, my lord. Papa is never afraid to speak in the name of honesty and self-dignity against boorish and ungentlemanly behaviour and…and sheer bad form.”
He raised himself to his full five feet six inches.
“And I’m not a pup. I’m nineteen years of age, and I am Rollo Sebastian Lucien Duchamps-Avery, second son of Henry Orlando Fitzwilliam Albert Duchamps-Avery, the respected, eminent Eleventh Earl of Rossingley.
” He finished with a brusque nod, though his knees quaked.
“And I assure you, my lord, I no more wish to impose upon your hospitality than you wish to have me here. So, on that note, I’ll bid you a good night. ”