The Captain and the Cavalry Trooper

by Catherine Curzon

  “My darling Roberto! If your gypsy does not hate you, then…do they love you? It is never too late.”

  She took her son’s chin in her hand.

  “And do not fear any scandal. The viscount’s son and the gypsy… I nearly lost your father, you know… He came to me backstage with his flowers and his love, and I pushed him away—because I loved him too much for him to risk the approbation of his class. But he was determined… Love does that to the Thornes. Apart from your brother, but then…” Antonia winked, laughter trilling from her scarlet-painted mouth. “He is a crashing bore!”

  “I’m never going to have a wife, Ma.” That was true, no matter what happened. “Although that old reprobate Marsh has asked if I’ll buy his bloody horse and get him a title too! The horse— Well, that part goes without saying.”

  Antonia drifted to the grass to sit beside her son, her sharp chin resting on his shoulder.

  “A horse? You will need your own stables!” She mused for a moment, staring out across the lawn to the hill that had been moved from left to right across the vista by Capability Brown.

  “But…the gypsy. I want to know. Was this in France? You can tell your mother. What color were their eyes, their hair—so that I can picture them. Did you kiss them, Roberto? Was it a grand affaire?”

  “Don’t, Ma, please.” He heart skipped a beat, the familiar stone of regret in his gut once more. “Apollo and I are better alone—” Thorne looked down at the letter he still held and told the horse, “But you won’t be, will you? Because you’ll have Miss Tsarina Marsh to contend with, boy!”

  Apollo lifted his head and blinked as though considering that. He turned his head to look at Thorne then went back to chewing the grass, as gentle now as he once had been unpredictable.

  “They say gypsies have a magic way with horses—is that who it was, Roberto, who calmed Apollo?”

  “A magical sort.” He nodded, patting Apollo’s leg gently. “And my gypsy thought you were the most splendid woman ever to tread the boards.”

  “This magical gypsy of yours has excellent taste.” Antonia tickled the tassel on the end of her scarf against her son’s nose. “You have love in your voice, Roberto—I can hear it.”

  “Amor, Ma?” Could he, though? Could he at least say I’m sorry? “Should I slope off to Shropshire and throw myself down at the feet of the gypsy who used to love me? I couldn’t bear to see the hurt—”

  Antonia dragged her long scarf about her son’s neck and pulled him down to lie in her lap as he had when he was a boy. She passed her long fingers through his pomaded hair and looked down at him with eyes that flashed as darkly as his own.

  “Throw yourself down before your gypsy! If they are hurt and if they hate you, then you come away having lived and learned. And if they still love you…meu querido! How can you bear to stay another minute here, and not know?”

  “Because I’m frightened, Ma. I’m more frightened of that than I was of any trench, any bloody bullet.” Thorne closed his eyes, assailed by the memories once more. “I’m frightened to stay, frightened to go— More than anything, I’m frightened of waking up in fifty years and wondering, what if?”

  Because what if is the worst thing.

  And what if is all I’ve got left.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Summer began in Venbrook with a wedding. Although war still raged, it was somewhere else, on the other side of the rolling hills. The village square was decked with blooms, and the locals perched along the churchyard wall to sneak a view of the blushing bride and her even more blushing beau.

  Jack had pomaded his hair, had bought a new suit and a hat. He’d found his grandfather’s walking cane under the stairs and polished it to a shine. Beside him in the church his father looked radiant, and as Mrs. Byatt began to walk up the aisle, her arms full of flowers, Jack had to dash a tear from his eye.

  His father was doing the right thing, marrying the woman he loved. At bloody last.

  The newlyweds were gone by the afternoon, off for a week in Llandudno. Woodvine senior had spent the past month moving his belongings, bit by bit, the two miles to Mrs. Byatt’s cottage. Day by day, familiar objects vanished from the farmhouse. But as each object went, Jack replaced it with something of his own.

  He had put Thorne’s drawing in a frame and hung it over the desk in the study. Almost all the creases had come out. Those that remained reminded Jack that, whatever should happen in the years ahead, he should never let anger overrule his heart.

  Jack had moved the gramophone into the study. He liked to sit there on warmer days, the window open, serenading the sheep and the donkey and the farm cat that stretched along the wall, with a song that took him back to a fairy-tale chateau. To a time before the enchantment had snapped.

  But he didn’t want to play it this evening.

  Seeing the newlyweds hand in hand, seeing them so happy, Jack had inevitably thought of Robert. Would it really be so ridiculous to write to him? Just as a friend. He had letters from Bryn, who had a managed to get a desk job away from the front line. He had letters from Wilfred, who had been invalided out after the loss of an eye.

  I look bloody amazing in an eye patch, mate—the girls love it!

  But what could Jack possibly say to Robert Thorne, the viscount’s son?

  He could always ask about Apollo.

  Jack primed his pen. He took out his letter paper. He cut some blotting paper to size. He rummaged for an envelope. Wondered where he’d put the stamps.

  He was prevaricating.

  Time, then, to make a pot of tea.

  Jack saw his reflection in the kettle as he waited for the water to boil. He’d keep the suit on a bit longer, the rose in his buttonhole. He’d lounge about and drink brandy, like a grown-up. Maybe assume a manly habit and take up an evening cigarette. He was now the owner of Woodvine Farm, his father officially retiring on his marriage. He would do well to look smart at market. ‘A good, firm hand at the market and you’ll never have your prices beaten down,’ his father always said. And now he would find out.

  He hummed to himself as he carried the tea tray along the flagstone corridor. He suddenly felt very lonely.

  But then, as if attempting to write the letter had somehow summoned Thorne into being, like a specter at a séance, Jack had the distinct impression that he was not, in truth, alone. He could feel the presence of the man he had dreamed of and lost. Some tautness to the air, and the very scent of him—so out of place in the humble stone corridor with its worn scarlet runner on the floor.

  And that song.

  Jack’s heart had melted away like snow.

  No. No, it must be the wine Jack had drunk earlier. Thorne wasn’t here. He couldn’t be. Unless—was he still out there somewhere? In some trench, had Thorne at that moment passed over? And was this his final goodbye?

  Jack left the tea tray on windowsill. The very thought that Captain Thorne was no longer in this world left him weak. He held his breath as he went back to the study, slowly nudging the door open, not knowing what he would find.

  “Somehow, and I have no idea how, I have managed to acquire Captain Marsh’s mare.”

  The Honorable Captain Robert Brereton Thorne made his announcement as though it was the most natural greeting on earth for former lovers meeting after what seemed like a lifetime apart. He was perched on the edge of the desk, a faint tan on his skin made all the more noticeable by the bright white cricket sweater and flannels that he wore. The tip of one shoe rested on the chair and he reached up to run a hand over his carefully pomaded hair, as though such care was ever necessary.

  “And I thought, perhaps, you might like to join me for a canter through the Shropshire Hills. If you’ve nothing else planned, of course.”

  “I-I’ve just made a pot of tea.” Jack fidgeted with his tie, his heart leaping in his chest. “Are…are you real? Or have I well and truly lost my mind?”

  “I’m real, Jack, and I—” Thorne shook his head, his dark eyes glitteri
ng with a thousand stars. His voice, initially light and confident, faltered. “I’m so very sorry for what I said to you. And I never for one moment stopped loving you, but I would’ve said anything to make you go home.”

  Jack’s hand involuntarily moved to his shoulder. He dropped his arm to his side.

  “That wasn’t much of a salute, was it, Captain Thorne? Sorry. I was a bloody terrible soldier!”

  “Your hair was too long, your boots were never polished but you kept the horses immaculate.” Thorne smiled, a spring sun dawning over a frost-shrouded world. Then he slipped down from the table and snapped a perfect salute for his soldier. “You were the finest bloody fellow ever to serve, Trooper Woodvine.”

  “You never found it, then. In…in my pocket? I hoped you’d understand. I regretted it so much—you only wanted to keep me safe. I know that now. I had such a silly idea that love could exist among all that blood and thunder—and then I nearly killed the pair of us for some boy’s idea of romance. I wish to goodness I’d gone home when you told me to, but then… I sometimes wonder if that wasn’t what kept us both alive. Because you didn’t go over the top.”

  “He walks in beauty.” Thorne drew in a deep breath and nodded. “I found it that day and I knew then that we— I asked to see you in the hospital but a nurse told me in no uncertain terms that you didn’t want to see me ever again.”

  “But no one asked me! If they had told me you were waiting for me, I would’ve smashed down the door myself to let you in!”

  “I found out this bloody week that she managed to ask the wrong fellow.” Thorne reached into his pocket for a folded letter, which he held out. Jack realized then that the captain’s hand was trembling, just a little. “She asked Captain Marsh if he’d see me, rather than Trooper Woodvine.”

  Jack laughed, because it was the only possible reaction to have.

  He came a step nearer to Thorne, his fingers twitching.

  “I’m not a vain chap, but I find myself wondering how on earth anyone could muddle up me with that repellant old twit!”

  “You look so well, Jack.” The captain withdrew the letter and placed it on the desk. Was that a smile that twitched those full lips? A light sparking in those dark eyes that shone once again with undisguised affection? “So full of life.”

  “Unlike the last time you saw me.”

  Jack wasn’t going to hold back anymore. He strode straight up to Robert Thorne and put his arms around him, resting his forehead against his cheek.

  “I thought I’d dreamt it, that you carried me on your back, on all fours, through no man’s land, with shrapnel in your leg. And then I came home and it had been in the newspapers!”

  Thorne laughed softly and admitted, “It gave me a new appreciation for what life must be like for Apollo!”

  “You didn’t even have a saddle.” Jack took Thorne’s face in his hands. “I bloody well love you, Captain Thorne. Every handsome, stern, adoring inch of you. Now…whenever are you going to kiss me?”

  “Before I do, I have to tell you something.” He blinked, fixing Jack with a mischievous look. “I’m not a captain anymore. I’m afraid I’m just a plain old Honorable these days.”

  Then he pressed his lips to Jack’s for a kiss that pushed away all the months apart, the tears and the longing, his strong arms encircling Jack’s waist so tightly that he might never let go. “And I love you, Mr. Woodvine, with all that I am.”

  Jack trembled in Thorne’s arms, touching his fingertips to his face.

  “Tell me that you forgive me.” Thorne searched Jack’s gaze. “I felt as though my heart had been torn out. Every day, every hour, I could think only of you. If they had told me to walk out into no man’s land on the promise of one more night with you, I would have gone gladly. Please, Jack, say you forgive me.”

  “I forgave you in no man’s land, when you called my name.”

  Jack took the rose out of his buttonhole and touched its petals to Thorne’s face.

  “I never hated you. I knew, deep down I knew, you only did it to save me. To push me away, push me home where I’d be safe. And how did I thank you? With a slap across the face, and a broken record on the floor. Do you have any idea how I lay there in hospital, playing it through in my mind again and again—hating not you, but myself.”

  “But you survived, we’re here.” Thorne let his forehead rest against Jack’s and clenched his fist tight over the lines in his palm. “We made our own fate, Jack. That’s why the poem was never finished, because our poem goes on.”

  “I love you, Captain… I mean, Mr.—”

  “As of midnight, plain old mister.” There was another kiss and another, every tear, every moment of lonely despair ebbing like the ride. “But always Robert to you.”

  Jack swept his hands across Robert’s broad back. The strong, protecting presence of him, that wonderful scent, exotic and masculine—it was as if they had never been parted.

  Desire hitched in Jack’s voice.

  “So there’s still a few hours left then—you’re still my captain?”

  “I’ll always be your captain.” With his arms around Jack, Thorne sidestepped as neatly as though he were squiring a blushing deb at a village dance. In one elegant movement he dropped down to sit in the desk chair and pulled Jack into his lap, whispering, “Always.”

  Passion surged through Jack’s veins and he kissed Thorne with all the power that was left to his damaged body. He twined their fingers together and brought them to rest over his heart.

  “Can you feel it? Can you feel how hard it beats for you? And it never stopped, not once.”

  “I’m yours, Jack, if you’ll have me.” They kissed again, the answer already told. “Say you will, gypsy, please.”

  “Do you even need to ask?”

  “My Jack, my beautiful gypsy—” And he had no more words, lost in their kisses.

  Jack delighted in ruffling Thorne’s perfect hair, knowing that it was he who had peeled away the stern captain, knowing that it was he who had made him smile. Right from the very first time that their paths had crossed in this world.

  “Will you stay here? Will you live with me on the farm? Just as I promised you… It was just a dream then, but now I’ve got you back, I’m not going to lose you again.”

  “Apollo is in the paddock already, I don’t think he wants to move again.” Thorne smiled tenderly into the kiss. “And Tsarina is but a day away. Am I home, Jack?”

  “You’ve brought my friend Apollo? Well, you do know how to please a chap! And Tsarina’s coming too? Yes—you’re home—both of you—we all are home.”

  “Come and see your boy?”

  “Our boy.”

  Jack let Thorne lead the way, back along the corridor, past the forgotten pot of tea.

  “You’ve settled in fast, Robert.”

  “Getting Apollo and my bags here was a bloody nightmare, darling. We’re here to stay.”

  “I should bloody well hope so! Oh, now wait…there’s some cake left over from the wedding breakfast—yes, my dad married Mrs. Byatt, and they’ll be in Llandudno by now. I’ll get the cake…and some bread and butter. Shall I bring it out on a tray, and we can have a sort of picnic? I bet you’re starving. And—”

  Thorne saw it at once, as soon as they were through the low door into the kitchen. The shawl from the chateau, draped haphazardly over the back of a chair by the stove.

  “You have my drawing, I have your poems.” Thorne scoped up the shawl. “We have our shawl.”

  Jack kissed Thorne’s cheek as he went past him into the pantry. He clattered about, loading a tray, regaling Thorne about the wedding. And Thorne sat in the large wooden chair and smiled as Jack told him about the flowers, Mrs. Byatt’s new hat, the granddaughter of one of the farmhands who had been flower girl.

  “There’s elderflower wine here, as well,” Jack announced.

  “Don’t even begin to imagine I’m going to let you lug that tray.” Thorne stood in the doorway, the shawl slung ov
er one shoulder. “That’s my job.”

  “Captain Thorne, ever the consummate gent.” Jack winked at him, and they went out into the sunshine.

  There in the paddock, as though he had always lived in a peaceful corner of Shropshire, Apollo grazed. At the sound of his approaching masters he raised his head, and let out a joyful snort at the sight of Thorne. Apollo’s dark gaze moved over the captain and settled on Jack then, with a whinny of sheer delighted welcome, he cantered across the pasture toward the couple. With the tray held safe in his hands, Thorne told his horse, “Here’s your other pa, boy, he’s missed you!”

  Jack rubbed his cheek against Apollo’s, whispering to the horse who he had nearly died to save.

  “We’re all safe now, Apollo—we’re all home!”

  In reply, Apollo snorted softly, his face snuggled close to Jack, and Thorne told his steed, “And the answer is yes, Master Thorne, you can bring your lady friend to stay.”

  “But no hanky-panky, Apollo—I’m far too young to be a granddad.”

  Jack’s hair was defeating his pomade. His fringe caught in his eyes as he grinned across to his lover.

  “How do you get your hair to stay so neat, Robert?”

  “I shouted it into submission.” He laughed. “You’re perfect as you are!”

  “I propose a toast.” Jack poured the elderflower wine into teacups. “To us, and to home…and to peace.”

  Thorne went down on one knee to place the tray on the grass, no doubt so he could join Jack in the toast. Yet he didn’t stand, didn’t take the cup, didn’t do anything but simply meet his gaze. Then he slipped his hand into the pocket of his trousers and withdrew it, something cupped in his palm.

  “Jack, my beautiful gypsy.” Jack saw him swallow, his lips caught in a hopeful smile. Then he opened his palm and the sun glinted off the gold band that he held, the same gleam shining in the darkest depths of Robert Thorne’s eyes. “Although we can’t have the ceremony your father and the new Mrs. Woodvine did, would you do me the honor of being my husband or wife or whatever you would rather call yourself, as witnessed by the fine Mr. Apollo Thorne? Soon to be Apollo Woodvine-Thorne, I hope.”