Chapter Twenty-Nine
MICKEY DIDN’T ENJOY the voyage by boat across to France one bit.
He didn’t care for how the horizon tilted and swayed in a mischievous, unpredictable rhythm, nor how the world shifted beneath his feet in ways it was never meant to.
Mind you, it had been doing something not too dissimilar when he was still on dry land, from the moment Tommy had given him his marching orders.
Naturally, Rollo had the stomach of an old seadog.
Paris was no less bewildering either. Grand and yet gritty in much the way of London, the French capital beat with an altogether different pulse, making Mickey feel very much the foreigner.
The poverty was reassuringly familiar, of course.
Like London, it sat merely a stone’s throw from society (the Parisian ton were as blinkered to it as people were in London), but here, Mickey detected an undercurrent of revolt.
From the grandeur of the Opéra Garnier to the darker corners of Montmartre, people gathered in ale houses and on the streets, conversing in the rolling, artful, romantic manner of Valentin, but lacking his green gaze and his sure way of making Mickey feel far more than the sum of his very ordinary parts.
Rollo was in his element, and Fitzsimmons renewed many acquaintances.
Though Mickey appreciated their attentiveness and company, when Fitzsimmons muttered about a concert in Vienna, and Rollo shared a yen to visit a distant cousin living in an incomprehensible-sounding town en route, Mickey was rather glad to be moving on.
*
THE SUN HAD dipped low when Mickey rode into Verdille; already it cast a golden hue over the undulating hills.
Clusters of wildflowers dotted land stretching endlessly before him—tiny bursts of colour amidst a sea of soft green.
No signs indicated he’d arrived in the correct place; the track had dwindled to dirt a mile or so back, and his red leatherbound map book had long ceased to be of use.
The air smelled different—fresh and untouched, carrying with it the scent of lavender and damp earth, exactly as Valentin had promised five long months ago.
Five months. That was how long it had taken for the silence of Mickey’s days to turn deafening, for the hours to stretch out in slow, aching regret.
For Mickey to stop pretending to himself that he didn’t have a choice.
A lonely skylark accompanied him the last half mile, flitting from tree to tree as if leading the way. Its sweet song echoed in the stillness.
Beyond the lush meadow, a large, sturdy house fit snugly between two tall oaks, its crumbling stone walls worn by time. Mickey huffed to himself. A tumbledown little old thing? He counted nine mullioned windows across the top floor alone.
Thin plumes of smoke rose from the twin chimneys of a nearby farmhouse, curling lazily into the pale evening sky. The distant murmurings of a stream could be heard, hidden from view by rows of apple trees, their rosy fruits hanging heavy and ripe.
In the distance, Mickey made out a figure, a tall man with his back to him, working the land.
The day still had some heat left in it, and the man had cast aside his coat, toiling only in a white linen shirt and loose trousers.
Once Mickey’s horse stilled, he realised his lover was singing, or at least tunelessly humming along to something.
Perhaps it was the skylark. When Mickey dismounted, the man turned around.
And there he was. Valentin. He didn’t seem surprised. Didn’t appear hurt, or angry, or anything Mickey had spent sleepless nights fearing he might be. He just looked at Mickey as if he had been waiting there for him all along.
“Hello,” Mickey said, breathless.
A slow smile curved Valentin’s lips. “Hello, London.”
Mickey swallowed, unsure what to say next. Valentin wiped the sheen from his brow with the hem of his shirt, exposing a flat belly tanned from labouring under a hot sun. Rossingley would have a conniption.
“You’re going to have to show me how to do that.” Mickey pointed to the ploughed earth beyond Valentin’s shoulder. “I…I have no experience of country matters.”
“No?” Valentin’s eyes creased at the corners. His face was tanned too; Mickey couldn’t imagine his own lily-white skin ever darkening to such a deep, wondrous hue. After an afternoon alongside Valentin, he’d be as pink as one of Rollo’s piglets.
God, he prayed he’d done the right thing. He’d only known the man a few weeks, after all. Perhaps there was a tavern not too far away; Mickey could stay there, become reacquainted with Valentin more slowly.
“I think Tommy Squire’s right-hand man is capable of doing anything if he puts his mind to it. Even leave the safety of his old home and country and travel overseas until he finds his new one.”
“Have I?” Mickey asked, hardly daring to meet Valentin’s eye. “Found a new one?”
A whisper of warmth played at the corners of Valentin’s lips before his mouth settled into an expression of small, unspoken joy—a smile speaking of peace, of shared simple lunches and quiet country evenings, of someone who had learned that contentment was not something you steal but finding someone you love.
“There’s always a home here for the Devil’s Diamond. I believe it’s where he belongs.”
Abandoning his hoe, Valentin walked towards him.
When he reached Mickey, he took his hand and interlaced their fingers naturally, as if they’d held each other this way many times before.
When Valentin kissed him—gently on the mouth—Mickey was glad because his own words wouldn’t come.
Instead, he kissed Valentin back and held his hand tighter, wrapping his fingers around Valentin’s like moss clinging to an ancient, crumbling wall.
When the kiss ended, Valentin glanced down.
“You’re crushing me,” he said softly.
Mickey didn’t loosen his grip. Instead, he breathed in Valentin’s musky scent. The scent of Verdille. “I know,” he whispered. “I just—I need to hold on. Likely forever.”