Chapter Twenty-Six
DECLARING HIMSELF WEARY of the unchanging view from his bedchamber, Willoughby decamped to the drawing room, whereupon he regally dictated proceedings from an ornate recliner, which their father had always grandly referred to as the gondola chaise.
When they were small, Rollo and Willoughby would dress up as sailors and pretend to paddle it.
Willoughby had grown weary of being a patient, too, and though he’d never admit, Rollo had wearied of pandering to his every whim.
With his brother’s strength returning by the day, he’d become less a nursemaid and more a punchbag for every one of his brother’s understandable frustrations.
Yesterday, with the aid of a crutch and some colourful language worthy of a sailor, Willoughby had walked five paces.
The effort had exhausted him, though afterwards, he ate like a soldier returned from battle.
Moreover, he’d beaten Rollo twice at dominoes already this morning, as sure a sign as any that he was thoroughly on the mend.
“Tonight, at dinner, I’m going to announce my amour for Fitz,” Rollo confided as he shuffled the dominoes face down. “And that I would like to return to Goule, if you are able to manage without me. I’ve already sent a letter proclaiming the good news to my darling man this morning.”
“I suppose I shall do my very best to cope,” answered Willoughby magnanimously. “Though you must write daily. Stuck here, limping about, I shall be living vicariously through you.” He frowned. “Why haven’t you heard from him? Do they not have quill and ink out in the wilds of Norfolk?”
“He’s an artist, not a writer,” Rollo informed him. “If one can call it art. And Fitz’s feelings towards me are too…fulsome…to put to paper.”
“Too vulgar, more like,” huffed Willoughby.
With a smirk, Rollo served them each seven dominoes. Just imagining running into Fitz’s open arms warmed his nether regions. He’d drag the man to bed and not let him leave for a week. “When I write to you, I shall be sure to include every detail.”
“Please don’t,” Willoughby said hastily. “A rough outline will be fine, thank you. I’ve been very ill, you know.”
Smiling, Willoughby examined the tiles in his hand and cursed. “I suppose I should be grateful that at least one of us will have some…intimacy to look forward to. How the devil am I going to seduce a blasted girl in the ton this season if I’m hobbling around on a crutch?”
Rollo heaved a sigh as Willoughby placed a double, and Rollo picked up from the stock.
“Listen to me, Willoughby. You are Lord Cavendish, heir to Rossingley. You will be shaking them off. And as for, you know, the rest of it—” He pointedly flicked his gaze down to the fall of his brother’s trousers and then back up again.
“‘To him that will, ways are not wanting’.”
Willoughby snorted. “Why are you quoting ancient poetry at me? What does it mean? How can I swive a woman when I can scarcely move one of my wretched limbs?”
An image of himself sitting tall and proud and naked above Fitz, pleasuring both himself and his lover, flashed through Rollo’s head. Soon, my love, he silently promised them both. Soon.
“It means,” Rollo said, “that there is more than one method of satisfying a man’s needs if one is determined to try.
Flat on your back and thinking of England, whilst a chit does all the hard work, would be a jolly good place to start.
” He grinned at his exasperated, innocent treasure of a brother.
“Though I suspect with your increasing desperation, her work wouldn’t be very taxing at all.
And I imagine the view looking up is delightful, if one is of that persuasion. ”
His unworldly twin blushed adorably. Teasing Willoughby was one of Rollo’s favourite ways to pass the time.
“Frankly, I don’t understand how a chap could be of any other. Hidden under those demure layers of taffeta, Lavinia has a bosom I’d give my inheritance to get my hands on.”
“You very nearly did, you clot. And I don’t know whether it has escaped your notice, but dear Lavinia and her divine bosom haven’t paid you a single call since you nearly died. And how come you have had the double-six in your hand every single game?”
Willoughby placed his final winning domino then clasped his hands together with satisfaction. “Because I’m not as beastly as you.”
“Master Rollo?” Inglis, the head butler, appeared. They’d been bickering so happily neither heard him approach. “You have unexpected callers. Two gentlemen and a lady.”
Inglis’s contemptuous tone conveyed his belief that Rollo’s visitors were neither. “I informed them of the need to make an appointment, but one of the gentlemen is adamant that his message is urgent.”
Rollo and Willoughby exchanged puzzled looks.
“I took the liberty of putting them in the tradesmen’s parlour. I…ah…decided they weren’t suitable for the library.” Waspishly, Inglis wrung his gloved hands. “The gentleman making demands is…ah…confined to a Bath chair. It is my impression that the other two are assisting him.”
“I am not acquainted with anybody needing a Bath chair,” Rollo stated.
“Aside from me,” groused Willoughby.
“Precisely,” said Inglis with a bow of his head. “But they were insistent, and they appear to have travelled some distance.”
“Did you take the gentleman’s name?”
“A Mr William Elliot,” Inglis said sniffily.
Rollo pursed his lips. He knew that name. Elliot. Elliot. Elm trees. Mossy grass. The tiny chapel at Goule. William Elliot. Will!
His blood ran cold. “Inglis? Bring them in here at once.”
“Master Rollo, I am not entirely sure your brother’s sick bed is a place for—”
“Willoughby is fine. I’d like you to do it, please, Inglis.
Now.” He pushed himself away from the card table, not caring that Inglis would go telling tales on him to Papa within the minute.
Sometimes in the household pecking order, he had the impression he ranked several rungs below his father’s senior servants.
“There must be something wrong with Fitz,” he gasped after Inglis flounced out.
“Oh God.” A surge of panic threatened to overcome him.
He clapped a hand over his mouth. “William Elliot is Fitz’s childhood best friend.
He’s…he’s…he nearly drowned. Years ago. He never fully recovered.
I believed him to be incapacitated, feeble in the mind.
Perhaps he is, but—” He clutched at his hair.
“He’s here, Willoughby, and I have heard nothing for weeks, and so there must be something wrong with F—”
“Shush, Rolly. Calm yourself. Only minutes ago, you explained Fitz wouldn’t write.
You didn’t expect to hear news. Why don’t we find out what this Elliot man wants before we jump to conclusions?
Perchance he’s simply on route somewhere else and decided to pay a call?
He might be passing on a message from Fitz. Or a gift.”
The drawing room door opened, and Papa wafted in as serene and impeccably attired as ever, with a bemused Kit in tow. Rollo was hardly surprised. Nothing occurred at Rossingley that Papa didn’t already know about.
“I hear we have a deputation arrived from Goule.” He composed himself elegantly in the most prominent seat in the room and then threw Rollo a searching look. “Inglis informs me one of them is a woman. A young housemaid in the employ of Lord Lyndon. Am I about to receive an unwanted surprise?”
Rollo’s heart stalled. Lucy. It must be. Will Elliot and Lucy. It could only herald awful news.
“Of the womanly variety?” he managed to croak. “I think you know me better than that, Papa.”
“Marvellous. Then this impromptu visit will be no cause for concern, will it?” He offered Rollo a dangerous smile. Papa did not appreciate being the last to know something, especially where his sons were concerned.
Inglis ushered the three guests into the drawing room, introducing them almost as reluctantly as if they were three beggars hauled in from the street.
If his father wouldn’t deem it improper, Rollo would have grabbed Lucy, hugged her, then demanded to know what the hell was wrong with Fitz.
As it was, he anxiously stood next to his papa’s chair as the earl accepted her shy curtsey and Jack’s awkward bow.
Twisting his hands together and his face red as a beetroot, the stableboy looked as if he’d rather be anywhere else.
William Elliot was nothing like Rollo had imagined.
Even with his face cruelly slackened down one side, it was easy to see how he’d once been handsome.
Rollo had assumed him feeble-minded, but the man’s eyes were as sharp and clear as two bright sapphires.
And, though ordinarily dressed and at a lower height by virtue of being hunched in a Bath chair, he somehow managed to rival even Papa’s command of the room.
A feat Rollo doubted Willoughby or himself could ever achieve.
If this lame son of a tenant farmer felt over-awed by the grandeur of his surroundings or, indeed, the slight but imposing figure of the Earl of Rossingley himself, he didn’t show it.
But then, Rollo recalled, he’d been managing Fitz and his varying moods for nigh on a quarter century. The man was due a sainthood.
“My lord,” Mr Elliot began, his enunciation slow and slurred. “I am an old friend of Lord Lyndon. I come on his behalf, though he is not aware of it.” He paused whilst Lucy darted forward to mop at his mouth. “Forgive the intrusion.”
“Forgiven,” responded Rollo’s papa, clearly intrigued. “I only hope your trip proves worthwhile.”
“I am r-requesting that Mr D-Duchamps-Avery”—he stumbled over the longer words, his lower lip struggling to mould the shapes—“consider returning to Goule. Lord L-Lyndon needs him.”
“Oh God.” Rollo clapped a hand over his mouth.
The earl frowned. “Whatever for?”
At this, Will Elliot craned his neck up to Rollo. “He needs him,” he repeated. “He’s not right.”