by KJ Charles
I squirmed a bit, for the look of the thing, and then quite sincerely, as his hand ran over my thigh, down, up, delving between my legs, cupping my balls with a pressure that declared him in charge. I whimpered. Simon shifted me bodily so my rapidly hardening cock was trapped against his powerful thigh, and continued his work, rubbing at me through the fabric of my clothing, until I was writhing in earnest, aroused and imprisoned.
I thought he might throw me on the bed to have his way (which was also very much my way, needless to say). He did not. I felt his other hand move to unfasten my trousers, drag them and my drawers down, push my shirttails out of the way. He paused, while I lay quivering, waiting, and then I felt his fingers brush my skin, the very lightest stroke. Over a buttock, down a thigh, up again, a gentle fingertip exploration, taking his time, while all I could do was wait upon his pleasure.
“Simon,” I gasped.
“Sssh.”
I moved against him, an inelegant thrust driven by the need for friction against my prick, and he slapped my arse, light but firm. “Stay still.”
“I don’t want to stay still,” I complained.
“Then turn over.” Simon hoisted me up bodily, turning me over, so I lay across his lap, face up, his legs wide to support me. I stared up at him, his dark, intent eyes fixed on my body with utter absorption, his little frown of concentration as he went about pleasuring me with all the dedication he put into ridding the world of roaming spirits, and I felt my heart contract.
“Robert.” One hand was playing between my legs, stroking and pressing in the way he knew I liked, his fingers probing just enough to tantalise. The other palm skimmed over the skin of my prick, and I gasped and jerked like a landed fish. Entirely caught. He repeated the movement, pressing and pleasing me, rhythmic and steady. “My Robert.”
“All yours,” I whispered.
His hand closed round my cock, thumbing the top. “I will not let you fall.”
I made a faint sort of noise, and he smiled down at me then with such a look in his eyes. Such a fond affection.
Such love.
“My own,” he said softly, and I came in his hand with a soft cry, pulsing and straining upwards towards him, wanting nothing more than his touch.
I gasped for breath after, feeling the tremors of pleasure running through me. Simon mopped the mess with a pocket handkerchief, scooped me up in his strong arms and kissed me. I dropped my arms round his shoulders and opened my mouth to his, weak with pleasure, and with the trembling sensation of the naked truth that lay between us.
The Victorian age was known for its sentiment, but Simon was not sentimental. Deeply passionate, under the granite exterior, and profoundly compassionate too, but he kept those fires concealed. Expressing his feelings was a matter of torture for him, and he had no idea what to do with such expressions from others. I would have told him I loved him a dozen times a day, if he had wished to hear it; I should have showered him with love tokens, if he would have taken them with anything but discomfort.
He did not, he never would. That was not his way. But I pulled my mouth from his, and smiled, and he nodded and kissed me again, and I was entirely content.
I should have preferred to spend the evening wrapped around him in that narrow bed, but there was work to be done. We made our way downstairs, and had an excellent meal of mutton pie followed by a kind of crumbly cheese with a rind made of nettle leaves, the whole washed down with good local ale. I was in a very positive frame of mind as we came into the crowded public saloon.
Simon led the way through the door. Heads turned. Weather-beaten, watchful faces stilled. All talk ceased. There was a long still moment and then a purposeful scrape of wood against stone as a burly man pushed back his chair and stood.
I supposed it was too much to hope that this was mere rustic shyness.
“So,” said the man, speaking to the landlord, as he sidled behind the bar, rather than to us. I shall not attempt a full reproduction of his Cornish burr on the page, for fear of becoming incomprehensible. “E be ghost-hunter, do ee?”
“Aye,” the landlord muttered. “Now, Jem—”
“Another one of ’em? Well.” Jem took a step forward. Simon took a step to meet him, consciously or unconsciously taking a pugilistic stance.
I had no doubt of who would win a fair fight, or even a reasonably unfair one, but there were twenty men in the room. I stepped round Simon and said, “When you say another, sir, who do you mean? What other ghost-hunter?”
A few glances, a little hesitation, then one of them muttered, almost reluctantly, “Doctor.”
“Dr. Silence? Oh good heavens, not Dr. Berry?” I asked with, I hoped, suitable dismay.
More looks exchanged. “Aye.” Jem hooked his thumbs behind his braces. “Know ’e, do you, zur?”
“We are—acquainted with him,” I said carefully. “But not associates. I am surprised to learn this. Had you any inkling he was here?” I asked Simon, who gave me a look that suggested he had no inclination to play-act. This was as well, since he was incapable of it, but the disgust in his expression did good service. I could see the men settling, a few pint-pots picked up. “My name is Robert Caldwell and this is Mr. Simon Feximal,” I added, addressing myself to the room at large. “We would be most interested to learn anything about the recent events, if anyone should be willing to talk to us. Ah, landlord?” I motioned meaningfully to the bar, and within a very few minutes we were comfortably settled with no fewer than four eyewitnesses to the apparition at the market, and one man who had seen the abduction of the atheist Mathew Tregow.
It was all very much as the Fat Man had told us. A single huntsman on a great black steed, and the hounds of hell following after.
“Dressed in the old way,” one man assured us, “and a fine fat fellow, too. I’d say bright-coloured clothes and red in the face, but ’e were…” He groped for a word. “Shadowy.”
“Aye,” his fellow agreed. “As if ’e were covered in cobweb. Grey, like.”
They agreed that the horse was huge and black. Suggestions of flaming eyes and nostrils were raised by the crowd around us, but discounted by the eyewitnesses. Nor did they agree on the dogs.
“Pack o’smoke,” said one of the market witnesses. “Grey dogs, all flowing into each other. Couldn’t count ’em. And the eyes.”
“Fiery!” said someone from the crowd.
“Black as the pit,” retorted the witness, with some irritation. “No light. No white. No flames either, Bill Penney.” The previous speaker looked abashed. “Just great black—”
“Holes,” said a second eyewitness flatly. “They was holes, not eyes.”
“Yes,” Simon said. “I expect they were.”
His tone was heavy. The men around us glanced nervously at one another.
Simon asked a few further questions, then moved on to the abduction of Mathew Tregow.
“Yelling, the dogs were, full throat.” The witness was eager to speak, but not from a desire for attention, as I gathered. He wanted to rid himself of what he had seen, expel it in words. I knew that desire. “Horse hooves beating on the turf and the cry of dogs, then the horn sounding.”
“Did the huntsman raise a cry?”
“No. Just the horn and the dogs and the hooves, and that were enough. That and Mathew screaming.”
“And the horse rose into the air.” Simon’s deep voice made anything sound reasonable.
“Aye, it did, with Mathew calling for help and struggling. We ran after ee, zur, but—”
“Be glad you did not catch him. You would have done no good.” Simon sat back, brows knitting in thought.
“Tregow and the parson,” I said, since his part of the proceedings seemed to be over. “Had they anything in common?”
The answer to that was a comprehensive no. Parson Adams had been an ascetic, profoundly religious man, morally upright and unbending, but charitable to the point that he gave away most of his church stipend to needy parishioners, and made himse
lf loathsome to his less generous neighbours by demanding they did the same. The rich man and the eye of the needle had come up frequently in his sermons.
Tregow, on the other hand, was a miner of little education, a drunkard, a womaniser with three children outside the benefit of marriage. He ranted about politics in his cups, cried for revolution, and was an open atheist who refused to attend Sunday service.
These were the two men that Dando and his dogs had hunted, and nobody had an inkling why they had been chosen.
Simon had retreated into thought, which left me to pursue our other unwanted duty. “Dr. Berry. I trust he is not staying here?”
“Thank the Lord, no, zur,” a sunbrowned young fellow said. “No, he be at Penmadown this time.”
“Staying with Lord Westerbury?”
“Aye, sir, and welcome to bide there.” There was a mutter of agreement. Dr. Berry’s personal charisma had clearly not improved. It made one wonder why Lord Westerbury had accepted such a guest at such a time; I could only conclude that the general, who boasted such a magnificent fighting pedigree, was afraid.
We went to Penmadown House the next day to seek audience with Lord Westerbury. It was a great grey stone mansion on a rise of bleak, scrubby ground. The wind was knifelike, spattering us with rain that came in horizontal drifts. I am informed that Cornwall is lovely in the summer.
Lord Westerbury had evidently been advised to expect us. We were shown into his study, which was adorned by souvenirs of the wars: regimental photographs, flags, rifles and the like. No Afghan rugs or artefacts, though. One might conclude he did not wish to recall his time there.
He was a compact man of medium height, in his sixties, hair clipped short around the dome of his bare scalp. I could imagine him barking orders on the ramparts of some sunbaked fortress as easily as I could picture him in a smoke-wreathed room, manoeuvring the pieces on the political chessboard. A formidable man, but undoubtedly a frightened one.
At least part of what frightened him was evident from the fact that a footman discreetly followed us to the study door, and I glimpsed him taking station outside before Lord Westerbury closed it.
“So, Dr. Berry is staying here,” I observed, to see his reaction.
He glanced at the door. “Yes. I understand you do not generally work together.”
“No. Our methods are not his.”
Lord Westerbury’s straight-backed posture did not relax, precisely, but I had no doubt he was relieved. “I have not encountered the supernatural before. I do not know what methods an occultist might use.”
“That depends on the manifestation,” Simon said. “Have you seen the Hunt?”
Lord Westerbury shook his head. “I have heard it, I believe, though it might of course be merely—”
“—wild geese—” Simon and I murmured along with him.
“—but I cannot ignore the reports of my neighbours, or the man Tregow’s fate.”
“Yet you do not cancel your house party, though it starts tomorrow,” Simon observed.
“My guests are my business. That is not your concern.” Lord Westerbury spoke with instant authority.
“Indeed not,” Simon said. “It may be the concern of any of your guests who ride the moors, though. Tell me, do you know of any link between Tregow and Parson Adams?”
“You cannot imagine I was personally acquainted with Tregow,” Westerbury said stiffly. “I am told he was an atheistical radical of the worst kind. Adams was a man of great, indeed excessive rectitude. I am not aware of any link between them except that both were fanatics of their causes.” He snorted. “One might almost say, their shared cause. The parson insisted that every man of more than moderate means should open his purse for the feckless to help themselves at will. Tregow went a step further. He proposed to steal my possessions and have me dynamited, the blackguard.”
“Was this a practical proposal or merely a theoretical aim?” I asked.
Lord Westbury waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, wild talk and drink. The man was a wastrel. Does it matter now?”
“The question is whether the hunter chose his targets at random or for a reason,” Simon said. “It seems to me you disliked both men, Lord Westerbury.”
“I did, but Dando would hardly have shared my reasons, would he? Who knows why a hunting parson three centuries dead would take a grudge, hey?”
“Mmm,” I said. “You believe it is Dando, then, the old legend returned to earth?”
“Is there any doubt? Dr. Berry speaks of the phantom as Dando.”
“When did he come?” I asked. “Dr. Berry, I mean. How long has he stayed with you?”
“Three days now.” It sounded as if that were quite long enough.
“And he came down at your request?”
“Well, he contacted me,” Lord Westerbury said. “He offered his services. Had I known that Whitehall would send its own man, I should have waited. If you feel that, now you are here, it might be a case of too many cooks…” He let that trail off invitingly, evidently hoping that Simon would recommend the doctor’s dismissal.
“I will speak to him.” Simon glanced at me. “Perhaps I could do that while my colleague asks you for the further information we require.”
It would have been foolish for me to argue. Simon was more than capable of dealing with Berry by himself, after all. Still, I felt a twinge of shame at my relief.
Lord Westerbury had a servant take Simon to Dr. Berry, then turned back to me. “You have further questions, sir?”
“I do. Please accept my assurance that nothing said will go further than the walls of this room—”
“Can I accept that?” Lord Westerbury’s voice had a ring of command. “You are a journalist, Mr. Caldwell. That is not a breed known for discretion.”
“I was a journalist; now I am Mr. Feximal’s colleague, and he would not thank me for betraying a confidence or letting down a client. Talking of letting down clients, sir, why do you not postpone your party?”
It was a gamble, which had a very real risk of ending with my unceremonious exit from the house, and for a moment I thought that would be the result. Then Lord Westerbury glanced at the door once more and said, “I suppose if you are to deal with this business…”
“In strictest confidence, your lordship,” I assured him.
“Then I shall tell you this much: some of my guests need an opportunity to discuss matters of importance away from the bustle of London. Where nobody can interfere with the conversation or apply pressure to the participants. I pride myself on…facilitating such discussions. I learned a great deal about negotiation in the Army, Mr. Caldwell. Location and isolation, that’s the trick.”
Sending cavalry into an unarmed crowd had been highly effective too. I did not mention that. “And I assume these discussions are urgent. Can you not find another location?”
“This house is very well suited,” Lord Westerbury said with a frown.
“Do you have another property, at all?”
“I do not.”
In other words, he wanted to hold on to the glory. A different location would mean a different host. Lord Westerbury was not a man who let go of what he had.
“Tell me, sir,” I said. “Who else wants you to give your money away?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Parson Adams made speeches from the pulpit, exhorting you to give what you have to the poor. Tregow was the loudest voice for redistribution of wealth. You clearly felt a personal attack in both cases, and now they are both dead. I must wonder, sir, about the link between the two.”
I thought he might have an apoplexy. His face went slowly red, he swelled with fury as he took in my meaning, and I found myself on the doorstep in the rain some five minutes afterwards.
“I see you have made yourself unpopular,” Simon observed when he joined me, a very wet and cold quarter hour later.
“I did, but it was worth it.”
“Tell me as we walk.”
“Where are we g
oing?”
“The moor, of course.”
“Of course,” I said with resignation, glad I had worn good boots. We set off along a path that was both muddy and stony, the chill wind pushing at my hat and flapping my coattails. “What a charming day for exercise. Well, what seems clear is that Dando killed the two locals most disliked by Lord Westerbury, and that this fact had not occurred to him. He didn’t notice when you made the implication, and his reaction when I spelled it out was of genuine outrage. It had not occurred to him that he was a beneficiary of their deaths.”
“Someone else might have been also,” Simon observed.
“Perhaps, but as we learned last night—as I learned, you weren’t listening—there are no other very wealthy men in the area. No. It strikes me that Dando’s acts might be in the nature of…how can I put it…a carrot used as a stick.”
“That would be an ineffective weapon.”
“You know perfectly well what I mean. A threat: I can kill. But an inducement: I can kill your enemies.”
Simon scowled, hunching his shoulders against a flurry of rain. “You have something in mind.”
“Politics. I don’t believe that Dando’s return just happened to coincide with a conspiracy to overthrow the Prime Minister. Or that he just happened to target two people who irritated a power broker of immense standing. Or that Dr. Berry just happened to offer his services.”
“He claims he did,” Simon said. “He insists he heard about the haunting through the usual channels, and was moved to give his aid.”
“What a charitable man he is. Did you ask him if Mr. Parker sent him?”
“No. He would have asked why, and I felt sure you would think it best not to mention the Fat Man. I am acquiring cunning from you,” Simon added, with an air of mild self-satisfaction.
“Well done. So, assuming the Fat Man is correct—”
“He has yet to be wrong, in my experience.”
“—Mr. Parker sent Dr. Berry here and Dr. Berry wishes to conceal that. Did he say when he came down?”
“Three days ago.”
“Isn’t that odd,” I remarked. “Because the men at the George and Dragon spoke of ‘this time’. Dr. Berry was here before.”