Chapter Twenty-Eight
ROLLO KNEW FITZ had climbed this roof many times over.
And lived to climb down again. Fitz had confessed as much to Rollo himself.
But surely, he’d never done it on a day as blustery as today.
Hurtling up the back stairs, Rollo tripped over a second smashed decanter, the fumes racing him to the top of the house.
The vibrations of his booted feet and those of his father hammered along the dark passages, beating time with the furious pumping of his heart.
As Rollo careened into the nursery, a sharp draught of air from the open skylight slammed into him. Better lit than the rest of the house, one wall of the room had been taken over by a large canvas propped against it, all grey stripes and tawny splodges. Hopeless Last Dawn.
Rollo gritted his teeth. No. Not if he had any say in the matter.
“Rollo,” panted his father behind him. “The weather. The wind. Listen to it. It’s too dangerous. Listen to sense, darling. You’ll get yourself killed.”
“No.” Grasping the stepladder in both hands, Rollo scaled it, three rungs at a time. “I need to do this, Papa. I love him. Fitz needs to know that.”
He shimmied through the narrow gap and swung onto a blessedly flat section of roof.
His father’s anguished cries followed him up. “But you’re petrified of heights.”
As the skylight slammed down behind him like a gunshot, Rollo dropped to his knees clutching at roof tiles. Bugger, he’d forgotten that part. The skylight popped open again, and his father’s blond head poked through.
“You’re scared of heights,” he repeated breathlessly. “You’ve always been scared of heights.” A note of panic crept into his voice. “This is a high roof.”
“Yes, I am,” Rollo answered weakly. “And it is. Three storeys, in fact. But losing him terrifies me more.”
“As losing you terrifies me,” his papa begged. “Let me talk to him in your stead, darling. At least until he’s in a safer spot.”
“What? Do you want him to jump?” Keep calm, and don’t look down, Rollo told himself. Keep calm. “Stay there, Papa. I’ll be fine. I’m a grown man now. I can do this.”
When Willoughby and he were small, their father had taken them to visit St Paul’s Cathedral.
Rollo remembered the trip well. They’d scaled the five hundred spiralling stone steps all the way up to the Golden Gallery to peer out across the whole of London.
He’d squealed with delight, insisting he could see right to the ends of the earth.
He remembered feeling as if he’d climbed the inside of a magical tiered cake, as if he could raise his hand and touch the sky.
And then he’d made the fatal error of leaning over the edge, dropping his gaze to the streets far below.
Whereupon, his legs had promptly dissolved from underneath him, and Pritchard and two grooms had been summoned to lug him back down all those dizzily spiralling steps to the safety of Papa’s waiting carriage.
Once ensconced, he’d redecorated both the carriage upholstery and Pritchard’s coat with his earlier eggy breakfast.
St Paul’s stood over three hundred and fifty feet tall.
Goule Hall was a mere three storeys. A nothing height really, or so Rollo told himself.
In a second, when he’d caught his breath and pulled himself together, he’d hop across the slippery tiles, explain everything to his darling confused man, and they’d both be back down in the nursery before his papa had even rung for tea.
Daring to look up, Rollo spied his lover, one hand carelessly wrapped around a chimney stack. Fitz swayed lightly from side to side as he peered over the edge. Hot bile filled Rollo’s mouth.
“Fitz!”
Awash with terror, Rollo repeated his name more gently, stifling the urge to scream it. “Fitz. It’s me. I’m here.”
Fitz tossed him a glance from over his shoulder, casually, as if Rollo had called his name in greeting across the packed lounge of White’s.
Even from six feet away, Rollo swore he could smell stale brandy on his breath.
His lover had clearly abandoned all attempts at a rugged respectability several days ago.
Straggly, matted clumps of red hair danced around his haggard, unshaven face.
His untucked linens billowed like a kite.
And he swayed, God how he swayed, freely, with an apparent lack of fear, almost joyfully. Like an escaped beast let loose inside an empty ballroom, wild, untamed, and undaunted. As if the fires of hell lived in him.
Fitz lifted his hand from the chimney pot to wave a greeting, and Rollo’s heart stopped. “A simple letter would have sufficed, pup. Would have saved you the trouble of coming all this way. Or are you come in person so that you may gloat? Do you wish to give me a helping push over the parapet?”
“Step away from the edge, Fitz.” On shaky legs, Rollo stood, shuddering as a sharp gust of wind blasted through him.
Bravely, he took a step forward, his eyes fixed straight ahead at his lover, whilst behind him, he heard his father cursing.
“Why don’t you come over here, Fitz, so that you don’t have to shout? ”
“No.” Fitz turned away from him. “The view’s much finer from here. I can see all the way to the ocean, beyond Beccles Ridge.”
Rollo took two more paces forward. His belly roiled. Only three more baby steps and he’d be able to grab and hug the solid chimney stack paired with the one Fitz embraced so indifferently.
“Eight weeks I waited for you, pup—” Fitz sniffed the air like a hound picking up the scent of a fox.
“—for news of your return. Waited and waited and waited. As if I were a damned virginal chit.” He twisted, sneering at Rollo’s pathetic attempts to shuffle closer.
“You made a convincing show of love. I’ll grant you that.
Did dear Papa put you up to it? Or did he talk you out of it? ”
“If only,” grumbled the earl from the safety of the skylight. “Rollo, darling, please—”
“I wrote a thousand times, you ass! My…my brother’s circumstances kept me at Rossingley, and the first thing I did was write to you.
Willoughby had a dreadful fall from his horse.
For days, weeks even, we believed he might not live.
I penned letters to you every chance I got.
We believe the first got caught up in an accident near Winchester.
Papa and Kit think—and there is no other credible explanation—that Ralph Hart prevented the rest of my correspondence from reaching you. Out of spite.”
Reaching the blessed chimney stack, Rollo sagged against it, seizing it around the middle. “So, you see, all this is for nought, nothing but a misunderstanding, thanks to the vagaries of the weather and the malevolence of a slighted wastrel. And now I’ve cleared that up, you should come down.”
An empty brandy glass hung from Lyndon’s fingers. He held it up to his face, the crystal catching the light as he studied it, then offhandedly tossed it over the edge. With a squeal of terror, Rollo squeezed his chimney stack even tighter.
Lyndon heaved a long-drawn-out sigh and rubbed at his bristly chin. “Or perhaps it is God’s justice catching up with me at last. Everything I deserve.”
“In the form of a slighted sodomite? That’s nothing but self-pitying balderdash, Fitz! And you know it.”
Fitz sighed again, stretching his neck from side to side. He sniffed at the air once more, pushing up his fluttering shirt cuffs. Then he turned away from Rollo, looking this way and that in the manner of someone about to step down onto a busy street.
Fear flooded Rollo anew. He broke out into a cold sweat. One stumble was all it would take. Just one small stumble.
“Please, Fitz,” he begged, dropping to a crouch, not trusting his limbs to hold him up. “At least sit down. Here, next to me. Rest your legs. Surely, they must be weary by now.”
Fitz shook his head sadly, looking out in the distance over Rollo’s head. Then he turned back to contemplate the drop. “The devil fishes in my troubled waters, Rollo. There’s nothing for you up here.”
“Only my entire bloody future, you damned fool! Will I have to come over there and wrestle you down? I box, you know. And fence.”
Fitz tossed his head back, letting out a bark of laughter. “Wrestle me? You weigh less than a stuffed goose. I could break your spine with one hand tied behind my back.”
“Come over and give it a try, then. But be warned, I would kick and scream and never surrender. You can be sure of that. I would be a worthy foe.”
“I daresay. But never have I encountered a foe more deadly than my own soul.”
“Then you have never wrestled a determined Duchamps-Avery. Would you have me tumble over the edge with you? I shall follow you down, you know.”
From somewhere behind, Rollo’s father yelped.
A look of anguish crossed Fitz’s features. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Yes, I would. Please,” Rollo begged again. “Come and sit with me, over here. You do not wish to do this.”
“You are dismissive of my desires? You know my head better than I?” Lyndon licked a finger and held it up. “There’s a biting easterly setting in. Brisk enough to send a man flying.”
“Please don’t,” Rollo whimpered. Tears streamed down his cheeks. A couple of loose roof tiles rattled as another sharp gust weaved around the chimney pots. “Please don’t say that.”
His clammy hands gripping the chimney stack shook as he made an aborted attempt to rise to his feet.
Fitz smirked. “Is it the wind keeping you stuck over there, pup?”
Grinding his teeth, Rollo got one foot underneath him. “It is not the wind as you damn well know. It is my fear of heights.”
“Ah, yes.” Lyndon nodded. “I had forgotten. When you visited me in the nursery, you always sat on the window seat looking across at the gardens, but never directly down.”
“Actually, I spent most of the time looking at you.”
For a second, Fitz’s features softened. Then his mouth twisted into a sneer. “Fear of heights is irrational, pup. Are you afraid of widths too? And depths?”