Band Sinister

by KJ Charles

  His voice had risen. He bit the words off, distantly surprised to realise he was shaking.

  “Yes,” Guy said. “I see why you’re angry. I, uh. I didn’t really think you would do something cruel—”

  “You seemed to think exactly that.”

  “Not you. Not the man I know but—but in my head, it seemed— I couldn’t stop fearing it anyway. I’m sorry, I know it doesn’t make sense. It’s as if the more I don’t want something to happen, the more it seems like it will. Because it always does. People do dreadful things, and they don’t care, and they lie, and I can’t have anything else happen to Amanda. That’s all.”

  Philip breathed in and out. “It’s a beginning. If that. Would you perhaps tell me what you are actually afraid of? Not some nonsense about this accursed book, but what has made you so suspicious? Because I’m finding it a little hard to understand you when you don’t ever speak to me!”

  He didn’t think he’d get an answer, and the silence stretched out for long enough that he began to question whether he had the right to demand one, but after what felt like some hours, Guy leaned forward, forearms on knees, back hunched, staring straight ahead. “I don’t know where to start. I suppose when Mother ran away with your brother, except I remember my parents shouting a great deal, from long before. They weren’t happy. I don’t remember an evening where there wasn’t something said. Whenever I was brought down and we were together as a family, I’d wait for one or the other of them to begin, and they’d shout, and I or we would be sent away, or just run. I used to make up games with Amanda to be out of the house, or ones where we had to keep our hands over our ears or put a blanket round her head so she wouldn’t hear. And then, finally, Mother left. And Father raged, and swore, and went away after her for months on end, and he, uh, he forgot to send money quite often. Nurse wasn’t paid. And she wrote to Aunt Beatrice after a while but it was difficult. Amanda was only five or six. She didn’t really understand where our parents had gone or why we didn’t have anything nice to eat. And Nurse used to say to me every day, ‘You have to look after Amanda, Master Guy. It’s your job now.’”

  “How old were you?”

  “Nine, by then. Then, well, Father started gambling. And he spent all the money, you see. We weren’t rich, but we were comfortable, before, but quite soon we had nothing left at all except the house, and he mortgaged that to the hilt. He couldn’t pay the interest, and that was when he went to Aunt Beatrice—my mother’s sister, Lady Paul Cavendish. She had been utterly ashamed of my mother, and my father’s career made it all worse, so she bought the mortgages. She held them, so he couldn’t borrow against the house any more, and she paid for my schooling, and Amanda’s tutors. She wouldn’t give us any money directly in case Father spent it, which was quite right. I think he tried to put her name to debts, and she was forced to put a notice in the papers. She is awfully proper and the whole thing was unspeakable for her. And then he had the stroke. He collapsed and never really recovered, though he lived for another six months.”

  “It sounds as though that was not before time.”

  “It wasn’t. One isn’t supposed to say one was glad that one’s father died, but it was like living under the Sword of Damocles, never knowing when he’d find a way to bring disaster on us. It was so wonderfully quiet when he’d gone. Aunt Beatrice certainly thought so, she was most relieved, and in due course she very kindly offered to give Amanda a Season.”

  He didn’t say it in the tones of a man recalling a wonderful gift. His eyes were still on the horizon. Philip glanced down to his hands and saw the fingers were knotted.

  “It was kind,” Guy said again, insisting although Philip hadn’t argued. “We didn’t expect a great deal; Amanda had no marriage portion any more. But she’s wonderful. I think she might have found a man who didn’t need money—it wouldn’t have had to be in London, she didn’t have great ambitions of snaring a title or any nonsense. She would have been very well if she’d stayed here, probably. But Aunt Beatrice gave her the Season, and—and she met Mr. Peyton.”

  Philip riffled mentally through men of that name and pulled out a joker. “Please tell me you don’t mean Hugh Peyton.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “We’re acquainted, in that I once kicked him in the balls.”

  Guy looked round at that. “Really?”

  “Not hard enough, I suspect. I take it this will not be a story with a happy ending.”

  “No. He persuaded Amanda— She was only seventeen. She said he made wonderful promises, that he was charming and handsome.”

  “Not any more. Someone paid several men with cudgels to see to that last year. He’ll never walk again without a cane, either.”

  “Good,” Guy said. “Well. So Amanda was in London, and Aunt Beatrice had been quite sure that her credit would carry Amanda off, because she’s very respectable and her brother-in-law is a marquess, but she was wrong. There were a lot of people who said sneering things, young ladies who didn’t choose to associate with her, and a lot of men who spoke in a disrespectful way because they assumed she would be like Mother. A lot of them. She was lonely, and very unhappy and angry. She said that was why she liked Peyton, because he was always respectful. Until he had her alone, and then it was too late.”

  “The shit. Do I understand he needs his other leg broken?”

  Guy grimaced. “He, uh, he didn’t attempt anything to which she objected. She’s impulsive, especially when she’s upset, and she was very upset, and he was kind to her, and—well.”

  “We’re all fools at seventeen.”

  “Yes, perhaps. In any case they were at a ball and they were caught together and—and she obviously wasn’t protesting, and then it was all over. Aunt Beatrice was so angry. She ordered Peyton to offer Amanda his hand at once and he laughed in her face and said he didn’t buy soiled goods.”

  “Whatever ending this story has, it could have been worse,” Philip said. “If your aunt seriously considered tying her to that creeping thing—”

  “She just wanted Amanda to go away,” Guy said. “She has three daughters of her own, younger ones, who—who Amanda might have tainted, you see, with her reputation.”

  “Christ.”

  “So Amanda was sent back here in disgrace. We were rather afraid Aunt Beatrice would wash her hands of us, but she didn’t. She still gives us an allowance, which is very generous of her, on the condition that we stay in Yarlcote.”

  “What? But—”

  “Our family have been nothing but a humiliation to her and she wants the world to forget that we exist.” Guy tried a smile. “It’s not unreasonable.”

  “Perhaps not, but she can’t forbid you to leave a village.”

  “Well, yes, she can,” Guy said. “Or at least she can make it practically impossible for us to do so. She can keep us here because we don’t have anything to live on except what she gives us. Father pawned everything of value in the house, and she holds the mortgages. That’s why she wouldn’t help me to a profession, afterwards, to keep me here. And she isn’t obliged to support us at all so she’s entirely within her rights to put conditions on the help she offers us, but—but it leaves us without any choice, you see. I’m not qualified to do anything except teach Classics, and I have tried but there aren’t many people around here who want their sons to have that sort of education at home, and if I went away to become a tutor or a schoolmaster I’d have to leave Amanda, and Aunt Beatrice would be angry. And Amanda would never be employed as an upper servant, and she really couldn’t be a governess. She can’t draw, and she isn’t good at being an uncomplaining drudge, and if anyone found out about her past—”

  “No.” Philip knew very well what he meant, and he knew the precarious position of impoverished gentrywomen in particular, too well-bred to earn, too poor to live.

  “No. So we’re stuck, you see, she and I. Because Amanda has never, not once, had a single person who cared for her but me, and I’m not very good at looking afte
r her but I have to do my best. So I realise I wasn’t fair to you, earlier, and I’m sorry, but to be honest, I wasn’t thinking about you at all.”

  Naturally he hadn’t been. Amanda would always come first in Guy’s life, and she would have to. She was a vibrant, fierce, determined woman, but that didn’t make her any the less vulnerable, or improve her chances of safe employment one jot, and Philip was a swine to take that I wasn’t thinking about you as a little jab to the heart. “Thank you for explaining. Of course I see. Of course you worry for her. I should have thought harder.”

  “No. You were right to be angry. I’m sorry.”

  Philip slid his hand over Guy’s, interlacing their fingers. “So you’ve said. Do you know what I’d rather have than another apology?”

  Guy’s eyes widened wonderfully. Philip smiled into them. “I wanted quite desperately to kiss you in that tree. This seems to me a very practical alternative.”

  “Out here?”

  “Nobody can see us but the birds, and nobody in the house knows the way to the roof or has any reason to come up,. And if they did, none of them would care.”

  “I think some of them might!”

  “No, none,” Philip said. “Trust me.”

  “Consider myself shielded?”

  “Precisely. So if you would like to be kissed on a rooftop—”

  Guy nodded frantically. Philip twisted round, leaning in, and met his mouth with a deep sense of something wrong coming right.

  They kissed long and gently. Guy felt tremulous under his hands, and Philip took it slowly, soothing his own ruffled feathers, relaxing into the touch as they explored one another. He wrapped an arm around Guy just to ensure he knew he was held, and they ended up some uncertain time later lying on their sides, entangled on the roof, with Guy looking dizzily into Philip’s eyes, and Philip’s trapped arm slowly losing all sensation. He would probably have to have it amputated, he thought, and decided that would be a small sacrifice.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Much.” Guy snuggled into his side. “I think I let myself get so overwrought, not just because I was afraid of what might happen, but because I felt so guilty about lying to you. You’ve been—”

  “Please don’t say kind,” Philip said.

  “But you have.”

  “I have not. I wanted you, beloved. I have not sacrificed my comfort in any way, except for my arm which does feel just a little as though I will never use it again.”

  Guy moved hastily. Philip winced at the fiery rush of returning blood. “Ouch. Come over here, the other one still works. What was I saying?”

  “That you haven’t been kind, which is nonsense. Look at Amanda. I’m not trying to burden you with thanks. Only, you say so many lovely things to me, and... Well, I’m not going to tell you how handsome you are because I’m sure everybody does, but you should know that you’re—you’re the best person I’ve ever met.”

  “I can’t be,” Philip said. “That’s patently untrue. I’m nothing of the sort.”

  “Of course it’s true. And—well, you said we live and learn, and I’ve lived and learned more in the past week or so than in my whole life, thanks to you. So it doesn’t really matter what happens, does it?”

  Philip felt he’d missed something. “What doesn’t matter? What’s going to happen?”

  “Well, nothing really. That’s the point, isn’t it? I spend so long worrying about what might happen because I’m afraid of the worst, but fearing one will be unhappy later shouldn’t stop one being happy now, should it? You’re right about that: a time to weep and a time to laugh. And, as you said, I’ll get better. Sorry. I’m just rambling.”

  “You are a little.” Philip was trying to place that phrase. Guy was definitely referring to something he’d said, and he couldn’t for the life of him think what it might be. Get better from what?

  You talk too damned much, Rookwood, he told himself with annoyance, but then Guy tugged him closer, and he forgot all about it for the moment.

  One couldn’t stay on a roof forever, unfortunately. All too soon the sound of church bells drifted through the clear air, and Guy sat up. “Blast. I must go.”

  “Where?”

  “To church. It’s Sunday.”

  “Ah. Well, enjoy yourself.”

  Guy gave him an examining look. “You really are an atheist? It isn’t just a pose to shock people?”

  “I really am. So are most of us. George is”—Philip bit back conventional—“a man of faith, so you might let him know if you’re attending. Take horses, or the carriage if you like.”

  “Thanks. I must tidy myself up. How do we get down?”

  Philip led the way, and watched Guy hurry off, cursing the day. He hoped the vicar wasn’t one of the hellfire and brimstone type; the last thing he needed was an attack of conscience, not when Guy was becoming so delightfully comfortable with himself in Philip’s arms.

  He went along to the improvised artist’s studio. John and Corvin were there, sitting close, because John was concentrating on painting Corvin’s hands, the one extended, the other holding the back of a chair.

  “Everyone will think you got that wrong, you know,” Philip told him, after observing for a few moments. “In a century’s time people will come to see this picture and point and laugh.”

  “I’m going to put it in the title,” John said, without looking round. “On a plaque on the frame. ‘Portrait of a Six-Fingered Art Critic.’”

  Corvin did indeed have six fingers on his left hand. All of them were equally spaced and of similar proportions, so people didn’t immediately notice: Guy hadn’t yet, and Amanda clearly hadn’t known or that detail would surely have made it into the book. Philip was glad it hadn’t; Corvin was impervious to slights on his character or intellect, but jeers about his physical peculiarity were resented, and avenged.

  Other artists would have adjusted the pose to conceal the problem altogether. John had composed his picture with Corvin’s left hand at the very centre, fingers entirely countable. Philip was only surprised he didn’t have two of them raised in an obscene gesture.

  “‘Still Life with Three Birdwits and Six Fingers’,” he suggested.

  “It’s not a still life, you crackbrain. What was all the slamming and shouting about?”

  “Ah, yes,” Philip said. “Well. You know The Secret of Darkdown? You’ll never guess who wrote it.”

  Corvin turned. John put down his brush. “Go on.”

  Philip gave it a dramatic pause. “Amanda Frisby.”

  The reaction was precisely as he’d predicted. Corvin was crying with laughter by the end of his account; John had doubled over and was making urgent gestures with his hands that indicated he couldn’t breathe. Philip, who had had to sit down himself, felt slightly disloyal to find the business so funny given Guy’s earlier distress, but his friends’ hilarity was always irresistible.

  “Marvellous,” John said at last. “Bloody hell, Phil. So that’s why she was on your land?”

  “Seeking ideas for her next book, yes.”

  “That’s a devil of a woman. Well, they kept that titbit quiet.”

  “You might find it awkward to be immobile in the house of one of your victims.”

  “Just a little.”

  “I absolutely insist on meeting her,” Corvin said. “I really cannot be denied further.”

  “With Guy there, and Sheridan,” Philip said. “At a minimum. And her woman. And a bishop of the church of England, preferably, you know how people talk. And you are not to flirt with her.”

  “I thought you were pursuing the brother,” Corvin said. “You can’t have both. Or can you?”

  It was obvious bait, and Philip rose to it anyway. “Leave her alone, Corvin. She doesn’t need your maledictory influence on her reputation.”

  “My what?”

  “Anyway, David will have your hide if you try.”

  Corvin’s brows shot up. “The wind’s in that quarter, is it?”

&n
bsp; “Let’s say, I don’t think she needs nearly as much medical attention as she’s getting.”

  John grimaced. “I hope he knows what he’s about.”

  “I doubt he’s about anything. I just think it would be ill advised to flirt.”

  Corvin sighed. “Well, I shall restrain my natural charm.”

  “Restrain the jokes too,” Philip told him. “Absurd it may be, but Guy was deeply distressed at the thought of having caused offence.”

  “You told him it was the best thing that’s ever happened to Corvin, right?”

  Corvin raised a brow. “I’m not sure why he cared about causing me offence. Fear of retaliation I understand.”

  “He felt it as a betrayal of hospitality, I think, or friendship, although it was nothing of the sort given we’d never met when the blasted thing was written. And he worried he ought to have admitted the truth earlier, though I entirely sympathise with the difficulty of doing that.”

  “I’m sure you do. And he was afraid this business would upset you,” Corvin said. “May we conclude from this and your notable disappearances that matters are progressing?”

  “If you must.”

  John picked up his brush. “Hands where I can see them, V. Fingers wider—no, a bit more. Right, Phil. You were going to tell us about how and why you’ve talked a strait-laced bundle of rustic nerves into bed.”

  Corvin’s brows shot up. “A little harsh?”

  “Not really,” John said. “We talked about this. When was the last time Phil had an amour that involved crying and slamming doors?”

  “That was about the book,” Philip objected.

  “You just told us what it was about. That’s a boy who takes things seriously, Phil.”

  “He’s not a boy, and I know him rather better than you do. I don’t see why there’s anything to criticise in taking things seriously.”

  “Because the last time you took an affair seriously, it was him.” John pointed his brush at Corvin. “Which I don’t remember you much enjoying, and you weren’t a countryside innocent with nobody to talk to, either. You don’t want to do that to someone else.”