Chapter Thirty
GOULE HALL DIDN’T need a resident ghost spooking its guests, not when a living, breathing Berridge glided about the place like a wraith.
As Rollo pulled the door to Fitz’s bedchamber closed, after having escorted him down from the nursery and left his lover strict instructions to bathe, the servant materialised by his side. Rollo jumped five feet in the air.
“Berridge,” he acknowledged stiffly, crumpled cravat in hand. “I was just…”
“Precisely, sir.”
Rollo didn’t need to look down at himself to know his waistcoat was askew. And he knew for a fact his trousers were sagging because Fitz had ripped the top fastening clean off. “I am…um…I am on my way to change for dinner.”
His guilt hung heavy in the air. The scent of Fitz’s release certainly lingered on his skin.
“Very good, sir.”
Berridge stepped aside to let Rollo pass.
“I was just…” Rollo began again, then faltered. Damn it, he’d rescued a man from near death today. He didn’t need to explain himself to anyone, least of all a servant. And anyhow, Fitz’s household were loyal as the day was long, and today had proved to be very long indeed.
“Tell me, Berridge,” he began instead, waving his ruined cravat around as if leaving his host’s bedchamber in a state of undress was absolutely the done thing in smart circles.
“His lordship has an unexpectedly full house this evening. I trust Cook is able to rustle something up for dinner? And my father and Mr Angel will require rooms, of course. Adjacent, if possible, as they will be sharing a…um…valet. My brother shall bunk with me, seeing as he still requires some assistance. And am I to understand that the duke and his entourage have also arrived?”
“Indeed, they have, sir. All is in hand.”
With a brisk nod, Rollo marched towards the staircase, resisting the urge to run. As he placed a foot on the first tread, Berridge’s quavery voice called after him.
“Shall I assume that his lordship’s venture up onto the roof to…ah…adjust the loose chimney pot was a success, sir?”
Rollo halted. “A-A loose chimney pot?”
“Yes, sir.” Berridge paused a beat. “Such a dreadful east wind today. It’s no surprise something worked loose. I cannot imagine any other reason for him to have climbed up there, sir. Can you?”
“No,” Rollo replied slowly. “I don’t believe I can.”
“Excellent, sir. I shall report his success to the remainder of the staff, if I may. So that they may sleep more easily tonight knowing all is safe and secure. Sir.”
“You do that, Berridge. And you can reassure everyone that they will not be troubled by…ah…loose chimney pots in the future. No matter how severely ill winds blow. From here on, I shall be personally seeing to it myself.”
“Very good, sir.”
His interaction with Berridge, combined with leaving Fitz to complete his toilette alone, trusting him to be alone, sapped the remainder of Rollo’s strength. Thankfully, he’d have a moment or two to rest. He found Willoughby all by himself in the drawing room, his leg propped on a pouffe.
“I’ve been stranded here,” Willoughby announced cheerfully. “After all the excitement, Papa and Kit have retired for a ‘lie down’—we know exactly what that entails—and the duke and Tommy have taken themselves on a tour of the grounds.”
Rollo collapsed onto the settee next to him with a sagging groan, as if he’d never rise again. “I’m fagged to death,” he declared. “Saving lives is such hard work, Willoughby.”
“You were incredibly brave crawling all over that roof. What with you so hating heights and all that.”
“I was, wasn’t I? I didn’t even think about it until I was up there. All I could think of was rescuing and talking some bloody sense into my poor Fitz.”
“So brave,” cooed Willoughby as Rollo nestled against him wearily. “And may I also say, so terribly stupid. One slip, and we’d have been scrubbing bloodied bits of you out of the cracks in the cobblestones for days.”
Rollo shivered as if still up on the roof at the mercy of the winds. “It was nothing,” he lied, “for a courageous sort such as myself.”
Willoughby gave him a sharp prod. “Rolly, I’ve seen you baulk at slightly charred toast. Spill the beans. How on earth did you manage to talk him down?”
Rollo shivered again, recalling how his mind had fumbled for the magic words to make Fitz see sense, how they’d utterly failed him, how he’d seen his future teetering on the edge of a fifty-foot drop and been powerless to prevent it falling.
“Oh, you know how it is.” He waved his arms expansively. “Lashing of charm, mostly, sprinkled with devilish cunning. I find any difficult situation can be handled with grace and dignity if one is equipped with the right tools.”
Willoughby snorted. “You swooned, didn’t you? Go on, admit it.”
“Ugh.” That was the problem with owning a twin brother.
They knew you far too well. “Oh, all right then, yes. It was damned horrific. One second, I was pleading nonsense at him, positive he was about to leap to certain death. The next, I woke up drooling in his lap like a rabid dog and trying to prevent my pent-up fear from dribbling down my thigh. Fitz said he caught me just before I bashed my skull on the lead chimney flashing.”
Willoughby squealed with laughter. “Only you, Rolly, could make a drama such as this all about you. Kit owes me a sovereign.”
Rollo squawked. “You wagered on me? When I was risking my veritable life?”
“No, of course not. Not until after you disappeared back inside. But we had to do something to pass the time whilst you and your old man were swiving the living daylights out of each other in the nursery. Next time, for all our sakes, skip the theatrics and go straight to the reconciliation part. Papa’s poor heart was on the cusp of giving out. ”
A warm feeling came over Rollo. It was all over, thank God. Willoughby was safe, Fitz was safe, Rollo himself was safe. And they were all together, under the same sturdy (if a little high) roof. He yawned widely. “I’m going to take a nap. I’ve earned it.”
“All right.” Willoughby sighed. “Though it’s very dull of you. I’ll wake you at dinner. Unless, of course, anyone else requires heroic rescues before then.” He tutted. “Lashings of charm. Honestly, Rolly. As if you thought I’d ever fall for that.”
*
“ROLLO, MY SWEET.”
As he floated across the drawing room, the Earl of Rossingley’s deceptively light tones roused Rollo from the depths of blessed oblivion.
“It was a loose chimney pot, that was all,” he answered sleepily, getting his defence of Fitz in early. “Rattling in the wind.”
“So Berridge has informed us.” His papa, resplendent in peridot silk, took a seat across from him as Kit helped them both to a small sherry. “The plausibility of his scheme is beyond reproach.”
“Yes,” Rollo agreed, “I thought so too.”
“Then the truth shall forever remain within these four walls.” His father hummed. “Do you believe this afternoon’s activities are likely to reoccur?”
A few of them Rollo planned on repeating later that evening, but he didn’t think that was his father’s question. “No. I believe now that he and his brother are fully reconciled, and I have returned to his side, Fitz will stay quite well.”
“Excellent.” The earl regarded Rollo thoughtfully. “However, you must convey the message from me that if ever he suffers…ah…loose chimney pots again, he has plenty of experienced, supportive friends he may call on.”
A few minutes of silence followed, during which Rollo tried to retrieve snatches of the lovely dream he’d been having. His lover had featured, naked too, though the details were annoyingly vague.
“But what should one do about this Ralph Hart character?” mused the earl too loudly for him to ignore. “Surely some form of chastisement is in order. One can’t go about helping oneself to other people’s personal correspondence. It’s against the law of the land, isn’t it?”
In Rollo’s opinion, Ralph Hart should be strung up by his hairy ballocks. He didn’t say so, of course.
“I suppose it’s entirely up to Fitz how he decides to respond,” answered Kit. “Though I would have thought ploughing one’s way through acres of Rollo’s lovelorn scrawl punishment enough.”
Even Rollo found himself smiling. As Kit and Papa’s idle chatter swung back and forth, with Willoughby adding his own points of view, he could almost imagine he was snoozing back in the library at Rossingley.
For a third time, he contentedly closed his eyes, letting his thoughts drift once again in the happy direction of his beloved. For all of half a minute.
“Rollo, my sweet.”
“Yes, Papa,” he answered tiredly.
“May I make the observation that your taste in men is singularly…unique.”
“You may. Yes.”
His father’s wise sermons all started a little like this.
Rollo braced himself. Papa had had time to come up with a dozen reasons in the name of self-preservation and protection of the Duchamps-Avery’s good standing as to why Rollo should abandon Fitz, and he’d no doubt be correct about every single one of them.
Which was not the same as Rollo agreeing with him.
His head throbbed. The last few days, nay, weeks of fear, not to mention his escapade on the roof, had left him weak-limbed and feeble minded. Yet from his father’s tone, the subject seemed not quite finished.
“Yes, Papa,” he repeated without opening his eyes.
“Fitz is unique. And you yourself taught me that a Duchamps-Avery doesn’t allow unique, extraordinary men to wither away quietly.
Especially when they cherish one’s own peculiarities and forgive one’s mistakes.
And I am trying to think of a more precise way to explain it, but the only words I can find are that I love him.
Without reason and unreasonably. Fitz is not perfect, as today has shown.
Not even close. Yet all that has done is make me love him all the more. ”