Throw His Heart Over

by Sebastian Nothwell

  Halloway appeared intrigued. “If you’re offering, then I’d be delighted to accept.”

  “Accept what?” Graves grumbled, shoving his hair out of his eyes as he shuffled through the doorway.

  “An invitation to a country holiday in Wiltshire,” Lindsey summarised for him, his own ebullient demeanour unchanged by his friend’s sour entrance. “Halloway’s going to paint Aubrey. You’re welcome to join us.”

  “In the middle of the season?” Graves asked as if he couldn’t quite believe his ears. “I’m afraid I’ll have to decline. I’ve far too many engagements yet in town. Can’t get away to the country until the first hunt, at the earliest.”

  All the better from Aubrey’s perspective. Though he and Graves maintained a politeness between them, for Lindsey’s sake, it wasn’t an easy one. Graves hadn’t thought much of workhouse brats before Aubrey came along, and Aubrey got the impression he didn’t think much better of them now, despite Lindsey’s partiality.

  Halloway cast an indulgent look at Graves. “In that case, I’m afraid you’ll have to do without me until then. I simply cannot pass up such an opportunity.”

  Graves sniffed, which Halloway seemed to understand as a concession, as he patted Graves’s hand in sympathy.

  “The ballroom is probably best suited to your needs,” Lindsey went on, peering into the middle distance as if he saw his country house before him in his mind. He added in an apologetic tone, “Not that I know much about art.”

  “All I need is space and light,” Halloway reassured him. “And Warren’s assistance. I’ll provide the rest.”

  “Do you have a composition in mind?” asked Lindsey. Aubrey, too, felt no small measure of curiosity.

  “Several,” Halloway replied. “I believe my sketch-book is in the guest room…”

  Lindsey dispatched Charles to retrieve the sketch-book. When Halloway had it in his hands, he wasted no time in flipping it open to a blank page and demonstrating his idea.

  “We’ll have you stretched out like this,” Halloway said to Aubrey, his pencil dashing across the page to bring his vision to life. “And the wings will fold over here, like so…”

  Aubrey watched, amazed, as before his very eyes emerged, from nothing, the image of a nude man, reclining on his side, with one arm above his head and another lying limp before him, and his hips canted towards the viewer, with anything objectionable covered by a broken wing strapped to his shoulder—the other wing spread beneath him.

  “Think you can do it?” Halloway asked.

  “Do I have to wear the wings?” Aubrey replied.

  Halloway chuckled. “I might need to tie a few belts to your arms, but no—the wings will remain mere fantasy.”

  Aubrey, who hadn’t realised the painting would involve wings at all until Halloway had begun sketching, tried to look as though he’d known all along that, of course, there would be wings. “Seems doable to me.”

  Lindsey, meanwhile, had come around to peer over their shoulders at the sketch. “By Jove, that’s grand!”

  Aubrey glanced towards him only to have his own attention arrested by the evident joy writ across Lindsey’s handsome features. Lindsey’s enthusiasm proved infectious as ever, and Aubrey found himself smiling down at the sketch in turn.

  ~

  Aubrey hadn’t returned to the Wiltshire house since the boiler explosion at Rook Mill. He and Lindsey had spent the bulk of their time in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, just outside of Manchester. They preferred it for proximity to the mill whilst Aubrey oversaw its reconstruction and future conversion to electrical power, as well as for the excitement of life in the thrumming mechanical heart of England. Every week or so they stayed overnight at the London house for one of Rowena’s dinner parties or a more casual gathering at Lord Graves’s rooms in Pont Street.

  But Aubrey had seen nothing of the country since his accident. Nor had the country seen anything of him.

  They set out from the London townhouse after breakfast—Halloway returning to Manchester for his painting supplies, and Graves retreating to his own rooms in Pont Street. Lindsey and Aubrey went straight to the train station and arrived in Wiltshire in the evening, just in time for dinner—a very late one, by the standards of country hours. The family carriage, painted gleaming black with the Althorp crest rendered in silver upon its door, awaited them at the train station. If the coachman and groom who attended the horses had any forewarning of what’d become of Aubrey’s face, it evidently hadn’t been enough. Even by the glow of gaslight, Aubrey saw their eyes widen and their cheeks drain of colour—though, of course, neither one said anything aloud about it. And both, to their credit, recovered quick enough to perform their duties as expected.

  When last Aubrey had passed between the pair of enormous marble lions flanking the front steps into the Wiltshire house, he’d had a far more symmetrical face. Now, as he and Lindsey disembarked from the carriage, Aubrey wore the scaly scars from his steam burns over his right cheek, stretching from chin to ear.

  The grooms, already inured to the sight of Aubrey’s face, showed no further discomfort as they held the carriage door open. Likewise, when the enormous pair of oaken doors to the house swung inward to reveal the butler, Mr Hudson, he too maintained his stone-faced expression as he bowed them in.

  But as Aubrey followed Lindsey further into the house, he couldn’t help noticing it seemed busier than it had before. Every corner turned, every threshold crossed, every corridor passed down contained at least one footman or maid scurrying out of sight. Aubrey told himself he and Lindsey had caught the staff in the midst of readying the house for their unexpected arrival. This comforting lie didn’t survive the sight of one maid gawking in horror as he passed an open doorway to the room she dusted.

  Lindsey appeared to notice nothing of the sort, and Aubrey didn’t want to bring the mood down by mentioning it while they changed clothes and went down to dinner.

  In the dining room, a splendid meal was laid out on the sideboard a la Française, though Aubrey knew Lindsey probably considered it simple fare. Charles, Lindsey’s omnipresent valet, stood ready by the sideboard. Since Charles went wherever Lindsey led, Aubrey had grown used to his presence in the Chorlton-cum-Hardy house. But here in Wiltshire, a footman stood by the sideboard as well, and Aubrey thought he caught him staring at his half-melted face before Charles dismissed him and, at a nod from Lindsey, followed him out.

  Lindsey remained oblivious as he carved the roast and served it to Aubrey. He kept up a constant lighthearted chatter, talking of what fun Rowena must be having in Paris with the freedom to choose all Emmeline’s trousseau, and what sport might be had in the countryside whilst Aubrey sat for Halloway’s painting. Aubrey kept up with him well enough, though not without a twinge of guilt for his own inattention. He felt all too preoccupied with the staff’s reaction to his new face.

  “…and of course, I’ll need your opinion in the matter,” Lindsey concluded.

  Aubrey, caught out at last, felt a shameful blush flare in his cheeks. “Forgive me, what matter?”

  Lindsey appeared somewhat surprised but by no means offended by the question. “The matter of selecting staff to join our household in Manchester.”

  Aubrey stared at him. He considered the lack of servants a major point of advantage to living in the house at Chorlton-cum-Hardy. Though it hardly seemed prudent to say as much now. Particularly with listening ears around every corner.

  “At the very least,” Lindsey continued, as if sensing Aubrey needed more information to work with, “we require a cook and a housemaid.”

  “I like Charles’s cooking,” said Aubrey. The simple fare Charles threw together every day for the two supposed bachelors settled in Aubrey’s stomach far easier than the fancier entrees presented at Rowena’s feasts or Graves’s soirées.

  “As do I,” said Lindsey, interrupting Aubrey’s musing on whether or not Lindsey missed the taste of finer food. “But he does have rather a lot to do as the only staff in the house
and well deserves the assistance other servants might provide.”

  Aubrey couldn’t deny the point. When he’d first shacked up with Lindsey, he’d spent rather too much time wondering when in the blazes Charles found a minute to sleep. The man did everything—at least, everything outside of the master bedroom, where Aubrey had gradually taken over the business of keeping things in order.

  “To that end,” Lindsey continued, “Rowena thought we might recruit some of the maids here to join us in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. And so I’m asking your opinion on which maids will come along to Manchester.”

  Aubrey’s sole experience with household staff thus far had consisted of brief stays in Lindsey’s larger establishments—the Wiltshire house, in which tonight marked only his third visit, and the London townhouse, which he saw with greater frequency and yet which remained more Rowena’s household than her brother’s—and his former landlady at the boarding house in Manchester, who insisted she was not a housekeeper at every opportunity, despite fulfilling all the duties of the position. And Charles, of course. But Charles aside, Aubrey found he hadn’t yet grown accustomed to life with servants. Even the word—servants—felt odd rattling around his brain; it seemed to bespeak an earlier age, without the benefit of electricity or even gaslight. Downright feudal. It didn’t sit well with him.

  Yet explaining as much to Lindsey felt impossible.

  So instead of explaining, Aubrey said, “Fair enough. Though I still don’t think I’d be much help in the matter of selection. I didn’t grow up with staff; I haven’t the first idea how to choose them.”

  To Aubrey’s relief, Lindsey seemed to accept this point, and the conversation returned to the more comfortable themes of Paris and painting.

  ~

  Chapter Two

  After dinner they retired to Lindsey’s bedroom, now called the master bedroom by the staff, though it was the same one Lindsey had through all the years since his departure from Eton.

  It was also the same one in which Aubrey had introduced Lindsey to the delights of sodomy. Twice over.

  At present, whilst Lindsey began undressing to change into his nightclothes, Aubrey found himself staring at the four-post bed. Thick golden ropes held back the heavy velvet curtains in deep crimson, and monstrous lion’s paws as big as a man’s skull formed the feet of the cherry-wood frame. Aubrey hadn’t slept in this bed since...

  Lindsey glanced over at him with curiosity.

  “I was just thinking,” Aubrey said, “of the last time we were here.”

  Lindsey looked around the room. As he did so, his bemused expression became a canny one, and by the time he returned to Aubrey, his eyes held a glint of mischief. “And what we did then?”

  What they’d done, indeed. Aubrey had debauched Lindsey. Thoroughly.

  “Shall we do it again?” Lindsey continued, echoing Aubrey’s own want.

  He stepped closer, and Aubrey took advantage of his proximity to pull him down by his cravat for a kiss. Lindsey laughed into his mouth. It took mere moments for Aubrey to steer him onto the bed, to divest them both of their garments, and to grab a jar of Vaseline from the washstand.

  Some time afterward, Aubrey collapsed beside Lindsey, half on top of him as well as within him. Their legs tangled together as Aubrey wrapped his arms around Lindsey’s chest and pulled himself flush with his spine, feeling Lindsey’s shaking breaths rumble through his own ribcage. He kissed the nape of his neck, the hollow of his throat, the slope of his shoulder, tasting the salt of his sweat upon his tongue. Purest bliss flowed through his veins. Then Lindsey turned over in his arms to kiss him properly, and they lay entwined for who knew how many moments, utterly content.

  “Lindsey,” Aubrey murmured, not sure if his lover had fallen asleep.

  “Yes?” came the whispered answer, along with Lindsey blindly stroking Aubrey’s hair.

  “What,” Aubrey asked, grateful Lindsey couldn’t see his scarlet cheeks in the dark, “is Icarus?”

  It troubled Aubrey not to know something everyone else around him seemed to understand by instinct. Never mind that he knew more engineering than the lot of them put together. He hadn’t dined with engineers. He’d dined with aristocrats and artists and found himself locked out of their cultural camaraderie. Not intentionally on their part, of course—except perhaps for Graves. But locked out nonetheless. Set apart and grasping at conversational straws in his efforts to keep up. He half-expected Lindsey to laugh at him for asking questions about something so apparently simple.

  “Oh!” said Lindsey. “Greek myth. It’s part of the tale of Theseus…”

  Aubrey relaxed. He needn’t have worried in the first place; Lindsey never objected to telling stories. Nor, for that matter, had Lindsey ever once teased Aubrey for not knowing something.

  Lindsey’s storytelling soon drowned out Aubrey’s self-reproach. He listened as Lindsey spoke of a man who failed to sacrifice a bull to a god, a god who punished the man by making his wife fall in love with the bull, of the half-man, half-bull monster that resulted, the labyrinth built to contain it, the youths and maidens sacrificed to it, the champion who rose to end the sacrifice, the maiden who helped him navigate the labyrinth with a ball of string, the labyrinth-builder punished for the failure of his invention—which seemed to Aubrey rather unfair—and the labyrinth-builder’s flight alongside his son. His literal flight, because the labyrinth-builder engineered feather-and-wax wings for himself and his son, Icarus.

  “And if they flew too close to the sun,” Lindsey explained, “the heat of the sun would melt the wax and the wings would break apart. So Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly so high. But then, of course, Icarus flew too high regardless, because it wouldn’t be Greek if it weren’t about punishing hubris, and his wings melted, and he fell down to earth and died.”

  “So Halloway wishes me to model as a boy who failed to follow simple instruction?” asked Aubrey.

  Lindsey laughed. “I think it’s more of an excuse to have a beautiful man covered only by half-melted wings.”

  Half-melted. Like Aubrey’s face.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d been compared to a figure from Greek mythology. Ganymede, they used to call him. But Ganymede had been so beautiful that the lord of all gods had snatched him up to be his cup-bearer in the heavens.

  Whereas half-melted Icarus had only himself to blame for his own destruction.

  Lindsey put an arm around him, jolting him out of his self-pitying spiral. His long, elegant fingers traced Aubrey’s cheek—the unburnt side—as he pressed a kiss to his lips.

  Aubrey, relieved, kissed him back.

  ~

  The next morning, Aubrey awoke first. Years of daily labour, first in the workhouse, then as a telegraph boy, then as a clerk, had altered his internal clock to rouse him before daybreak. He blinked blearily into the darkness for several confused moments before he recalled where he was and why. The presence of Lindsey, still sleeping beside him, precluded anything approaching unease.

  Aubrey pressed a kiss to Lindsey’s forehead, smoothed a few of his golden slumber-mussed curls, and quietly got out of bed to dress. Over the course of the months since the Rook Mill explosion, Aubrey and Charles had come to something of a silent understanding: Aubrey allowed Charles to continue looking after Lindsey in a more limited capacity, while Charles permitted Aubrey to look after himself as he’d always done.

  He no longer had office hours to keep, but that was no reason to give in to sloth. The electrical conversion of the Rook Mill was still in the planning stages. Aubrey had those very plans in his possession and had brought them to the country house for opportunities such as this one. With no more noise than the slight shuffling of papers, he retrieved the plans and spread them over Lindsey’s desk. He turned the gas lamp up just enough to see by, then sat down and settled in to the familiar work. Minutes ticked past, unheeded, into hours, and the bedroom gradually brightened with the growing dawn.

  “What a marvellous day for riding!”
<
br />   The sound of Lindsey’s voice—so sudden and so clear—startled Aubrey out of his engineering reverie. He glanced up to find Lindsey had not only awoken, but risen from his bed, donned a robe, and crossed to the window to peer out at this unusually cloudless day.

  More resplendent than the weather, to Aubrey at least, was the view of Lindsey himself. The silk robe hung off one shoulder, allowing a tantalising glimpse of his sweeping collarbone, his lean yet muscular chest, and his trim waist, with one jutting hipbone just visible before the robe’s belt tucked everything else out of sight. The morning sunshine glowed through his golden curls, his blue eyes sparkled like the sea, and his winning smile beamed right back at the sky.

  “Don’t you think so?”

  Aubrey, startled yet again out of a different yet no less compelling reverie, struggled to answer Lindsey’s question. “I wouldn’t know.”

  Lindsey turned his head to regard him with a quizzical expression.

  “I don’t ride,” Aubrey reminded him.

  “Oh,” said Lindsey, colouring.

  Aubrey hadn’t meant to chide him, merely to state a practical fact. Born in an East London workhouse and having never spent more than a few days outside of a city, Aubrey hadn’t possessed the means nor opportunity to learn how to ride a horse. Men of his station walked wherever they needed to go or took a train or omnibus if the distance were considerable. Horses pulled the omnibuses, as well as carts and hackney-cabs and any other wheeled conveyance in the street, but the only people Aubrey had ever seen on horseback were mounted police officers or the horse-guards. Even the wealthy typically rode within carriages rather than astride a saddle, at least in the city.

  In the country, however, riding was a matter of course. Aubrey knew that much, despite his urban upbringing. The toffs he’d serviced in his earlier career had spoken freely, to each other if not to him, of the horses they kept and the horses they bought and the horses they rode in steeplechasing or fox-hunting. Little lordlings were often put in the saddle from the moment they could toddle along on foot, if not before. And Lindsey, Aubrey knew, had been no exception to that rule. A ripping sportsman, so his friends called him. He could ride neck-and-neck with the best of them.