Chapter Seven
My dearest Willoughby. I fear Fitzsimmons is quite insane, and it might be catching, given that I’m voluntarily returning to his lair tonight.
The man is a ferocious beast—I’m playing with veritable fire.
I’ll have no one but myself to blame if I get burned.
Yet there are secrets to be unearthed here at Goule, Fitzsimmons the most intriguing of them all.
Only by provoking him will he reveal his true self.
Papa. Lord Lyndon has a riveting interest in archery. And an impressive collection of hand-carved arrows.
SUMMONING EVERY OUNCE of nerve, Rollo once more positioned himself on the settee, with Lord Lyndon slumped in his usual chair opposite.
“Waving the bow at you was poor form,” his host announced, directing this microscopic sliver of insight to the fireplace. Rollo waited for an apology to follow. It did not come.
“Waving?” he prompted. “Or purposefully lining me up in your sights?”
“The latter.” Lord Lyndon sounded as far from apologetic as a man could get. “I do not relish house guests, and I was half-cut.”
“Your explanation is a poor excuse,” replied Rollo coldly. “Though I suppose one must amuse oneself somehow here in Norfolk. What with the never-ending…nothingness. It’s enough to drive one to insanity.”
“At the risk of being a contrarian—” Lord Lyndon took a measured sip of his brandy. “—I find the loneliness and solitude here at Goule clears my mind. Norfolk possesses a soaring majesty. Perhaps you are too much of a simpleton to see it.”
The man was toying with him, Rollo realised.
Needling was a game. If Rollo said black, his host would counter with white.
Lord Lyndon, a rich, bored aristocrat, for reasons unbeknownst, harboured a deep-seated anger towards Rollo, the fireplace, toy pewter soldiers, and possibly anything and anybody else with the temerity to approach him.
The man was lonely, unloved, and unloving.
And with that flash of insight, and the secure knowledge that Rollo was none of those things, his habitual boldness returned.
“Forgive me for being so brash, but I don’t believe you,” he said.
“I believe you tell yourself that story. But the truth of the matter is, like me, you’ve been exiled to this godforsaken place thanks to even poorer form up in the ton.
And whereas I am swallowing my bitter pill with good grace, my lord, you are mightily furious about it. ”
“Exiled?” The man gave a coarse puff of laughter. “Hardly. And Goule Hall is my bloody house! My brother may be the largest landowner in England, pup, but he has no say in the running of these few hundred acres. Our grandfather entailed this particular property to me!”
“Then I stand corrected.” Rollo nodded primly. “But deduce that your grandfather can’t have been terribly fond of you.”
“On the contrary again,” answered Lord Lyndon with a note of triumph.
“Goule was his favourite of all our family residences, and he wanted it to be used. And…and enjoyed.” He made an exasperated grunting noise.
“And I have no idea why I am explaining this when frankly it is none of your concern. And, whilst we’re at it, take it from me—you have not been sent here for deflowering a virginal butler. ”
“A stable boy,” Rollo corrected. “And many years after his flower first came into blossom, I assure you.”
Harrumphing, Lord Lyndon tossed back his brandy. “Exactly. You’re here because Benedict requested that I accept your presence as a favour. In order for you to spy on me. And I’d wager you lack the bodily strength to deflower a dandelion.”
“Attacking my slender physique is a low blow, my lord. My smallness is beyond my control, just as your height and admirable musculature are beyond yours.” As Lord Lyndon’s expression turned to smugness, Rollo clenched his fists.
“Perhaps your vicious tongue is too. As for the accusation of spying, I believe we established, yesterday evening, that I am doing no such thing. Foremost, because you are not interesting enough. But answer me this, my lord. If you aren’t exiled and your brother would welcome you back to society, then why the devil are you still here? ”
That dart hit home. “I could have left months ago,” Lord Lyndon insisted haughtily. In his lap, his hands twitched, no doubt seeking his bow. “I’m here by choice, I assure you.”
“If that is the case, to what purpose?”
“None of your concern.”
The lord stuck out his bottom lip as he examined his nails.
He then poured himself another generous drink, not offering the same to Rollo.
After that, he toyed with the bow and huffed a couple of times.
The whole pantomime reminded Rollo of himself, except when he was much younger, and Pritchard or Papa scolded him for some terribly minor incursion and filled him with impotent frustrat—
“You’re sulking, aren’t you?” Rollo burst out. He nodded rapidly. “Yes, that’s it. That’s why you’re still here. For the last eighteen months or longer, you’ve been sulking. The longest sulk in the history of sulks.”
“I am not!”
“Yes, you are. Even now. Sulking!”
“No, I’m not!” Lord Lyndon gave a withering snort.
“At this precise moment, I’m waiting for violent urges to subside by being quiet and observant.
For instance, I’m quietly observing how you move.
Incessantly.” He waggled a finger at Rollo.
“Seeing as one is in the mood for questions, pup, answer me this. Are you merely a fidget, or are you suffering a dose of the clap?”
That was rich coming from a man famous for his bedchamber exploits.
Or at least he was according to Pritchard’s version of events, which were always subject to embellishment.
But instead of snapping back with a healthy retort, Rollo bit his tongue.
He would not take the bait. He would not allow Lord Lyndon to bring out the worst in him.
Instead, he would rise above, like the air in one of Cook’s light sponges, and in the spirit of a true Duchamps-Avery.
Rollo wasn’t above dangling a little bait himself though.
“In that case, if you are not sulking, as you insist, then I shall have to guess as to why—of your own volition—you have chosen to lay low here in Norfolk.”
Pressing a finger to his lips, Rollo pretended to ponder.
“Did you swive a stable boy too? Is there a law written down somewhere that the correct punishment for swiving a stable boy is a three-month stretch of solitude in Norfolk? It’s perfectly understandable if you did.
There’s something irresistible, don’t you find, about those tight breeches, the close confines of a sweaty dark stall, the…
“Certainly not.”
“Perhaps the groom, then? You prefer your men slightly older?”
“No.” An uncomfortable expression flitted across Lord Lyndon’s handsome features that Rollo hadn’t seen before. “My carnal desires do not lie in that direction. Not at all. And they never have. Not one bit. I am a ladies’ man, through and through.”
Lord Lyndon’s big hand clenched around his brandy glass. His cheeks flamed so brightly they almost matched the vibrant tone of his hair.
Most interesting, Rollo thought.
“My lord doth protest too much,” he goaded.
“Poppycock! And it is only by dint of your papa’s wealth and breeding that you dare make such a boast yourself. You know as well as I that sodomy is illegal, abhorrent, abnormal, and unnatural.”
Rollo grinned at him. “Jolly good fun though.” He received a foul look. “And nothing is illegal until you get caught. My papa taught me that.”
A glimmer of amusement crossed the lord’s lips. If Rollo had blinked, he’d have missed it.
“Perhaps the gardener’s wife, then?” Rollo pressed, wanting to entice it again. “Yes, surely that’s it. You strike one as a man of more…vanilla tastes, yes? Plain, unadventurous.”
“An attraction to the appropriate sex does not make one unadventurous.” Lord Lyndon’s expression returned to its usual glare. “And I do not employ a gardener.”
Rollo answered with a grin. “That’s right. I gather your comely stable boy tends the gardens. He sounds like a chap in possession of several talents. Perhaps I should pop along and introduce myself. Wouldn’t want to step on your toes though.”
“Put your bravado away, pup,” Fitzsimmons’s rich, throaty bass warned. “Your dear papa would tan your hide. And we both know it.”
Lord Lyndon’s eyebrows furrowed into a single line, and Rollo’s loins stirred. Perhaps he’d teased him enough for one evening. Though there was something undeniably attractive about hearing that crabby voice growl ‘tan your hide’.
Rollo moved swiftly on. “The ostler, then? His wife? His mother? His grandmother?”
At Lord Lyndon’s increasingly murderous stare, he clamped a hand over his mouth, as if aghast, and spoke in a hushed whisper. “I’m aware how lonely one can get out here. But—and as you insist you are an adventurer, not—surely…not one of the…the horses?”
Lord Lyndon’s throat generated another rumbling snarl that, frankly, a man had no place making outside of a bedchamber. Not that Rollo was disposed to pointing that out.
“Not all delinquencies in life revolve around damned swiving, pup.”
“Don’t they?” Rollo batted his eyelashes at him. “Oh, righty-ho. In that case, I’ll change tack. How about I run through all the possible—”
The lord made a frustrated moan somewhere between a sigh and a despairing lament. “If only your silence were as voluble as your voice, Duchamps-Avery. Did your dear papa not school you in the benefits of it?”
“He taught me that one should never be afraid to ask questions and have an enquiring mind.”
“And evidently an interrupting one too.” Lord Lyndon frowned again. It was like watching Zeus gathering thunderclouds. “Listen to me carefully, young man, as I am not in the habit of repeating myself.
“I came to stay here at Goule, exiled, as you insist on dramatically referring to it, as the culmination of several misadventures over the preceding few years which served to slight the good Fitzsimmons name. Beginning with a duel in 1821, whereupon I limited myself to removing a slice of gristle from the Marquess of Fording’s left ear.
It was that or end his life. A little later the same year, I ran a curricle into Lord Horsham’s privet hedge.
Behind which Lady Horsham was having an illicit liaison with Sir John Pimperne.
Their amour did not survive his broken foot.
The following winter, I bilked Tuffy Bannister out of one hundred pounds.
In the spring of the same year, I bilked him out of two hundred more and used it during the autumn to drink White’s brandy stores dry.
Furthermore, two years ago, I stole a quantity of Ashington silver, then pawned it to pay off gambling debts.
In addition, I fed my brother’s prize stallion a bucket of sand to ensure it lost at Ascot, but not before placing heavy bets against it winning.
For a hippophile such as Benedict, that was the final nail in my coffin. ”
Rollo, undeniably impressed, was hungry for more.
“Sounds like you came here for a jolly good rest after all that lot.” If his companion would stop pointing his silly little bow at him and treating him like an imbecile, they might get on splendidly.
“So, during your sojourn here, you’ve turned over a new leaf? ”
“Not quite.” Lord Lyndon threw him a threatening smile, dark as a demon. “I’m currently plotting another dastardly act.”
“Ooh! Really?”
“Yes. My most glorious yet.”
Goodness, the man was beautiful when he smiled. Even when it had an evil twist to it.
“Am I to be privy?”
“Most certainly. In fact, you have a starring role.” The lord smiled again, and this time, Rollo’s cock gave a little twitch in response. “I’m going to shoot an annoying young man. With this child’s bow and arrow. Through the heart. Because he won’t. Stop. Pestering.”
A sixth sense whispered to Rollo that he’d poked the devil enough for one night. Uncurling himself from the settee, noting the manner in which Lord Lyndon fleetingly appraised him before looking away, and not sure what to make of it, he performed a mocking bow.
“No mention of swiving though, my lord, amongst your long list of antics. Very interesting. No wonder you’re so damned miserable.”
And on that note, he scarpered before he could receive a sharp arrow in the backside.