Chapter Twenty
Dear Fitzsimmons, I hope this finds you well.
I must express in words my thanks for making my darling son, Rollo, so splendidly at home at Goule.
Tommy Squire also reports that he is in fine fettle.
Rollo’s numerous and voluminous missives home have overspilled with examples of your kind spirit and generosity.
It would be no exaggeration to acknowledge that you and I have not always seen eye to eye.
Nonetheless, I feel I owe you an apology.
From Rollo’s singular praise, you are a much better man than I have given you credit for.
Whatever aberrations occurred when you last stayed in London, you have clearly put all that behind you.
I am determined to do the same. In his turn, and thanks to your guidance, it appears that Rollo, also, has turned over a new leaf.
Willoughby and I miss him dreadfully. To that end, we shall burden you with his company no longer.
Though he has only been with you for half the time we agreed, he is now free to leave Goule and return to Rossingley, whereupon, thanks to you, I daresay he shall continue shaping up to become an excellent young man.
A carriage will be leaving Rossingley forthwith.
Yours etc, Rossingley.
His missives home have overspilled with examples of your kind spirit and generosity.
THE PUP HAD been true to his word. How easily he could have carped on about Lyndon’s peculiar ways and unfriendly manner and begged his papa to retrieve him.
Instead, he’d chosen courage over his own comfort.
He’d painted Lyndon as a beacon of respectability and good sense, because when Rollo had insisted that a man’s business under his roof was no one’s but his own, he had meant every word.
Not knowing that, one day, his father would play his exact words back to Lyndon.
Never had Lyndon’s heart felt so full yet so empty. The thought blindsided him.
“I’m in love,” he informed the letter he grasped in his hand. He said it out loud again, testing the veracity of it, those three simple words sounding even more sure of themselves the second time. “I’m in love,” he declared. “I love him.”
He stared at the foolscap. For a moment, Rossingley’s looped, elegant hand and brute reasoning stared back at him. Then Lyndon crunched up the letter and hurled it across the room.
“Damn your eyes, Rossingley. You can’t have him return yet.
“It’s unfair,” he added, then felt a little foolish. Young boys railed at the unfairness of life; grown men did not.
*
IT WASN’T WRONG to feel sorry for oneself.
Just like it wasn’t wrong to shoot miniature arrows at miniature regiments whilst marinating in far from miniature glasses of French brandy.
But neither pursuit was especially productive, unless one relished fixing all the divots in the mantel the following day with a head like a burst mattress.
So, Lyndon stomped to Will’s cottage to pour out his woes to a sympathetic ear.
“As far as I see it, the earl has simply sped things up a little. Your young man was always going to depart sooner or later.”
“Huh.” Slumped in the chair opposite, Lyndon scowled.
“What?” Will unsubtly nudged his empty teacup across the table in Lyndon’s direction. “Do you disagree? Did you imagine you would use the last month of his stay to persuade him to remain, long after his summer here ended?”
Lyndon glared at him. Will calmly glared in return.
“No,” he lied. “Of course not.”
Making excellent use of one of the few parts of his anatomy that still functioned correctly, Will raised his left eyebrow.
“All right. Yes,” Lyndon bit out. “What I mean is, I don’t know.”
A year and some had elapsed since he’d contemplated ending his life. Things might not have always seemed to be any easier since—he was still himself—but love rang like bells through his ears, and he’d be damned if he’d let it slip through his fingers. “Possibly,” he concluded.
“Glad you’ve cleared that up,” Will remarked. “Tea, please.”
With a lot of unnecessary clashing, Lyndon filled the small kettle then hung it over the hearth to heat. Returning to his chair, he hacked an apple into ragged chunks. He fed a cube, none too gently, into Will’s mouth.
“I have considered not showing him his father’s letter,” Lyndon said. “Or pretending it was somehow delayed or lost. To buy myself some more time.”
Will chewed carefully, swallowed, then waited for Lyndon to feed him another cube.
“But you have decided against it,” he said finally.
“Yes.” Lyndon dabbed at Will’s mouth then popped more apple in it. “See? He’s made a better person of me already.”
“Will you insist he stay longer?”
“Insist?” Lyndon huffed. “You’ve clearly not met Rollo. He’s not a tame tabby cat, and I’m not in a position to insist on anything.”
“Ask him nicely, then?”
“No.” Lyndon shook his head. Of that he was certain. Rollo was homesick, though he put a brave face on it. And because Lyndon loved him, he would set him free. He would send his beloved back to his loving father and adored brother. “If he stays, then it must be his choice.”
*
THE AFTERNOON TURNED into yet another of those late August hazes, when the sun shone hot, and the still air smelled of blackberry wine.
Rollo suggested they venture down to the lake.
Seeing as he appeared to have Lyndon on a bridle, Lyndon agreed.
He discovered that because Rollo’s hand slipped into his, the placid stretch of water didn’t instil any of the terror in him that it usually did.
Not taking any chances, however, they laid the blanket on a patch of grass a good way clear of it.
Rollo nestled in his arms. “I received a letter from Papa this morning. He is sending Dobson and a carriage.”
Whether it was good news or bad, Lyndon couldn’t interpret, though he was thankful he hadn’t tried to conceal the existence of his own correspondence. “Yes. I am aware. I expect they will arrive any day.”
Unsure what to add, he kissed Rollo ardently for at least five minutes.
And then Rollo fell uncharacteristically quiet as if waiting for Lyndon to express his opinion further, which he knew he should but wasn’t entirely certain how.
A great craggy boulder seemed to stand in the middle of the path joining his feelings to his tongue.
Yet, if he didn’t say something, it might be too late, as this Dobson person was already en route, and Rollo’s things were already packed.
“It is a pity our friendship must come to an end sooner than anticipated,” Lyndon ventured at last, which wasn’t what he’d intended to say at all.
“Must it?” The smooth skin of Rollo’s forehead bunched in a puzzled frown. It was absurdly endearing. Was Lyndon really going to let Rollo escape his clutches? Was his heart really too frozen to shape the words consuming his every waking hour?
“You are returning to Rossingley,” Lyndon pointed out uselessly. “It is at least a three-day ride from here.”
“Yes,” Rollo conceded. “Though it feels like double that distance when one only has Dobson for company. But…the thing is, Fitz, I wasn’t aware it was a one-way ticket. Unless…” He frowned again. “…you prefer it that way?”
“I…ah…” Lyndon’s mouth had dried. “No.” He wetted his lips. “I…um…I will be rather…um…disappointed to see our friendship terminated.”
“Disappointed?” Rollo’s face fell.
“Uh. Tremendously.” Stricken. Bereft. Heartbroken. “Yes. Tremendously.”
“But you are prepared to let me sail off willy-nilly into the sunset anyhow?”
“Yes, but—”
Rollo sat up, exhaling audibly. His nostrils flared, and there was an obstinate jut to his chin Lyndon had not seen before.
And even though Lyndon knew he was in for a jolly good shoeing, he found that absurdly endearing too.
It occurred to him that he’d miss it dreadfully, along with the lecture and scolding it undoubtedly heralded.
Rollo threw his hands up despairingly. “Why must the English upper classes always be so damned constipated when it comes to saying what they really mean? Why is this bred in us so ruthlessly, as though civilised democracy would crumble if we dared for one second to lay bare our emotions?”
Sensing these questions to be largely rhetorical, Lyndon kept his counsel. If pressed, the status quo of English nobility suppressing their every sentiment suited him admirably.
“Viking warriors,” Rollo continued, launching into his stride, “were as quick to soak their thick Viking beards with tears as gouge out a man’s entrails.
And were not ashamed of it one tiny bit.
Fancy that! Yet buttoned-up English chaps with their hearts full to bursting, like ours are, seem to have developed a foolish compulsion to conceal their every desire.
Are you going to pat me on the shoulder and wish me a jolly safe trip? ”
Lyndon squirmed. When had the workings of his mind become so transparent? “Um…possibly.”
Rollo made a harrumphing, I-knew-it sort of noise.
“Well, bless your delusional soul for making up that unsatisfactory conclusion to us.” He grabbed Lyndon’s hand and squeezed it tight.
“Just in case I haven’t made myself absolutely clear, you fabulous idiot of a clogged-up lord, I am besotted with you.
” He gave Lyndon’s hand a tug. “I love you, Fitz. I don’t know why, how, or even when it happened.
Only that it did. And you love me too.” He crashed his mouth against Lyndon’s so firmly, his teeth rattled.
“We’re a tribe, you and me. A tribe. And tribesmen love each other hard. ”
I love you. Rollo’s impassioned declaration settled around Lyndon’s heart, melting there like dazzling flakes of snow.
I love you. It had been a good many years since he’d received a declaration of love.
He remembered prising one once from Will, though probably at sword point, and Benedict must have said it too.
But none so fervently. Or to be fair, referencing jammed up bowels.