Lionheart

by Kate Roman

  And with those pleasant, domestic sounds washing over him, Ash found himself drowsy and, despite the throbbing pain of his injuries, somehow content. He lay back on the cot, giving in to a deep and dreamless slumber.

  * * * *

  Ash sat up slowly, wincing at a sharp pain in his side. He touched the place delicately. Another cracked rib. Thank you, Father.

  The skin over the rib was broken, and Ash’s fingers came away sticky, not with blood but with some type of salve. His wounds had been thoroughly and efficiently cared for, and the sensation was foreign but not unwelcome. His shirt hung in bloodstained ribbons on the edge of the washstand, and between it and the wide cuts across his back and ribs, Ash knew his intuition out on the veldt had been right: his father had meant to kill him, heir or no. Not for the first time, Ash wondered what secret grudge Sir Roland held against him. Surely his father’s anger had some root cause.

  The leather curtain was roughly thrust aside, and Roy strode into the room, brow furrowed.

  Ash panicked. The events of the morning and the strange surroundings overwhelmed him. He jumped to his feet, heedless of the stabbing pain in his ribs and knee, and cowered back against the wall. He knew better than to speak, to cry—all he could do was wait for the expected blows to fall.

  Roy slammed to a halt in the middle of the room as if running into a wall, his expression softening instantly, sadness written across his face. “I’m so sorry.” He reached out a hand. “You’re safe here; I promise.”

  Ash was suddenly overcome by weakness and exhaustion. And shame. What must his rescuer think of a grown man who cowered in corners? Every insult his father had ever thrown at him came streaming back to him. Taking a deep, cautious breath against the ache in his side, Ash reached for Roy’s hand.

  “I’m sorry. For a minute there, I didn’t really know… I just thought…” Ash’s voice cracked.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for,” Roy said softly, guiding Ash back to the cot. “You’ve had a rough day.”

  Ash sank onto the bed gratefully, leaning away from his cracked rib. He was too tired to pretend anymore. Roy sat behind him on the edge of the bed, and Ash gave in to the touch of Roy’s hands on his skin. Roy’s palm slid gently up his back, avoiding all the places Sir Roland’s whip had bit and stung.

  “You didn’t do anything to deserve this.” Ash felt Roy’s breath on the bare skin of his shoulder blades. “And no one’s ever going to do this to you again, you hear me?”

  Ash nodded, consumed more by the pain of his injuries than by the concern in Roy’s voice. Now that the shock had worn off, he was party to the full extent of his father’s rage. He made to get up off the cot, but the swell of agony knocked him back down and forced his breath out in a hiss.

  “Let me take a look at that cut. I’m worried about infection.” Roy frowned at the wound, his hands probing deftly. The throb crescendoed, and Ash took a sharp breath. Roy looked up. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t sure how bad it was, earlier, when you were out.” Roy stood and took a pot of ointment off the washstand, uncapped it, and returned to the cot.

  “I’ll try to be gentle,” Roy said, meeting Ash’s gaze, “but this is a pretty bad cut.” He spread the salve thickly across the wound, sealing it up with gentle circles. “It looks like it was made—” He paused, his fingers leaving Ash’s side for a second. “Ash, do you want to tell me what happened?”

  Ash looked away. He wasn’t sure how to explain Sir Roland’s anger. He’d never had to before, had never tried. It was simply the way things were. “My father…when I make a mistake…” Ash hesitated, then finished in a rush. “Roy, I didn’t want to shoot the lions. But they made me take the gun. I was going to try and scare them with a warning shot, but one roared, and I dropped the gun. It went off…”

  “And?”

  Ash looked at him. There was a grim set to Roy’s mouth, but his eyes were all gentleness. “The lions ran off. And my bullet hit Uncle Gerald. He gave my father his bullwhip.” Ash stopped.

  The grimness around Roy’s mouth was unmistakable now. “It wasn’t the first time,” he said quietly.

  Ash shook his head.

  “So Gerald Haywood’s wounded. Do you know where you hit him?”

  “He said it was a flesh wound. I think they were going to continue the hunt. I hit him about…there.” Ash indicated his right buttock.

  Roy stared for a minute, then gave a crack of laughter. “You shot him in the ass? Ash, that’s a bag you can be proud of.”

  Despite himself, Ash found laughter bubbling up in his chest. “You’re right,” he said, grinning at Roy. “I hadn’t thought of that.” After a few moments, he sobered. “The thing is, Roy, I don’t think…that is, I don’t want to go back. Even if it would be safe.”

  “I don’t think for a moment it would be safe. Gerald Haywood’s a vengeful man, and it sounds as if his brother’s cut from the same cloth. You can’t go back there, Ash.”

  Ash glanced around the tiny room.

  “No, no, I won’t keep you here in a hut,” Roy said. “As soon as you’re well enough, I can take you up to Victoria Falls to the district commissioner. You can settle out here, if you wish, or take passage back to England.”

  Ash looked at Roy uncertainly. He wanted to be safe, free from Sir Roland’s rage, his disappointment and violence, the whole stifling atmosphere of Thornside and its way of life, so alien from Ash’s true nature. He wanted to be free. The last thing he wanted was to be brought to anyone’s attention. Except possibly the handsome doctor who’d rescued him.

  “Sorry. I’m throwing way too much at you right now, hey? For now, all that matters is you’re not going back to Thornside, and anyone who thinks differently has to come through me. You got that?” For a moment, Roy looked as if he would say more, his fierce blue eyes flashing with heat. Ash took a deep breath, wincing against the pain in his side, but Roy looked away and rose, heading for the door. “You’ve had a long day. Stay here and I’ll bring you some soup.”

  With that, he was gone, back out to the fire.

  Ash stared at the space where Roy had just been, lingering in the warmth. He’d thought for an instant of protesting, but just drawing a breath reminded him sharply of his injuries. He maneuvered himself to a sitting position, leaning back against the wall, but even that simple movement was excruciating. Ash was extremely glad of the rude comfort of the cot, the light blanket covering his legs.

  Roy returned and squatted beside the cot. “How are you feeling?”

  “A little dizzy.”

  “Maybe a touch of sunstroke.” Roy placed a steaming tin mug in Ash’s hands. “Here. Try a little soup.”

  The mug gave off an enticing aroma, something like chicken combined with a mouthwatering scent Ash couldn’t name. He hesitated, then took an experimental sip.

  It was good. Very good. Ash swallowed one mouthful, then another. He finished the soup quickly, finding his appetite returning.

  “Feeling better?”

  Ash opened his mouth to reply and yawned instead. He blushed.

  Roy grinned. “You won’t need your company manners on the veldt. But what you do need is sleep. Take a nap. The soup’ll still be here when you wake.”

  Hopefully, you will too. A little shaky and still aching from Sir Roland’s beating, Ash stretched full length on the cot. As his eyes closed, he was aware of Roy covering him with the blanket. A feeling of safety enveloped him, and he slid over the edge of sleep.

  Chapter Four

  Roy went back outside to the fire ring and stirred the soup pot thoughtfully, then took a mugful for himself. It was good, but he had little appetite.

  Ash Haywood. A lost white man on the veldt in need of help and an abused, frightened boy with nowhere to turn. Both those descriptions were true, and in good conscience, Roy could have done no less than to take Ash in and help him. Even without what had passed between them the previous night.

  But Roy’s feelings for the young man went far be
yond those of a simple rescuer. He’d known it from the moment he’d looked into Ash’s eyes on the veranda at Thornside. There was something about Ash that touched Roy’s heart.

  Mechanically, Roy took the soup off the fire and set about his evening tasks. He penned and fed his goats and the pig, then cleared away the medical supplies he’d used to treat Ash’s injuries. He left the healing ointment close to hand and hesitated before taking the bottle of fever-drink from his medicine chest. Ash’s wounds seemed clean and infection-free, but it was better to be prepared.

  All the while, he listened for sounds from the cot.

  Roy lit the lantern and placed it on the floor near the hut door so the light didn’t fall on the cot. Ash slept on peacefully. Roy went to check on him and stood for a few moments, simply looking down at the slumbering boy.

  Man, Roy corrected himself, staring hungrily at the planes of Ash’s face. In the low light, he appeared younger than ever. But Roy wasn’t fooled. Ash was no child; Roy guessed him to be in his early twenties, much the same age Roy had been when he’d gone off to war.

  “You may not be a soldier, but you know what it is to fight.” Roy touched Ash’s shoulder lightly, feeling the truth of the words even as he spoke.

  Ash murmured something and his eyelids fluttered.

  Roy held his breath, waiting, and Ash resettled, drifting back to sleep. Roy resolutely turned from his patient’s bedside and marched out of the hut. Ash needed to sleep.

  When Ash next woke, around midnight, Roy helped him up, marveling at how much stronger he seemed already. Roy lifted the lantern to its accustomed hook, then returned to the fire and fetched another full mug of soup. Ash drank it more slowly than the first.

  Roy watched Ash hungrily, unapologetically. The young man sat shirtless on the cot, blanket pooled around his waist. His long, shapely torso was golden in the lamplight, lean muscles curved and kissed by the shadows. A strong chin, generous thin-lipped mouth, large, watchful blue eyes under a shock of tawny hair—not a conventional description of beauty, but Roy couldn’t stop looking.

  Ash was compelling, especially when he turned his half-shy, half-hopeful smile on Roy. Especially when he leaned so trustingly against Roy’s shoulder, so warm, so near, so real.

  When at last Ash lay back down, Roy nearly ran from the hut.

  “It’s over, finished,” he said out loud, pacing the compound. He wanted nothing more than to leave its safe confines and run out across the veldt, but he knew better than to give in to the compulsion. This was Africa, not Missouri, where unnatural urges could be suppressed with long, solitary hikes in the woods.

  In the end, even the long hikes had not been enough, and Roy had left America for the battlefields of Europe. Until yesterday, he had believed he’d left his strange, unwanted inclinations behind him as well.

  But last night Ash had somehow awakened needs Roy had buried beneath two years of war and four of solitude. Needs Roy had prayed were dead and gone. And now Ash was here, in Roy’s home, everything Roy had ever wanted. A sweet temptation Roy had no idea if he would be able to resist.

  “Why?” Roy sank to his knees before the fire, bowing his head over his clenched fists.

  A Bateleur eagle’s screech sounded high above, echoing crazily in the vast African night. Roy raised his head, staring upward, but there was no sign of the bird. “Why?” he repeated, louder, and the eagle called again, as though in answer.

  But the answer Roy wanted did not lie out on the veldt. Tell himself what he may, what he wanted was Ash. Ash was flesh and blood, more real, more to Roy than Roy had ever dared to dream. And this on a bare day’s acquaintance.

  Unable to hold back any longer, Roy dropped his hand to his waist and, with a few hurried movements, freed his cock. He was hard already; the thought of Ash consumed him. Ash was beautiful, not just in looks but also in the quiet, confiding way he had.

  He’d come to Roy so willingly, so easily, that first night—his own needs echoing Roy’s.

  Roy’s calloused palm was a poor substitute for the heat and sweetness of Ash’s mouth, but as he pictured Ash stretched on the cot, lithe and pale and completely desirable, his cock jumped in his hand. Stifling his cries, Roy bucked into his fist, all his senses filled with Ash.

  As he came, he had to bite his tongue to stop himself from saying Ash’s name. Roy stood, head low, drained yet unsated, then raised his gaze to the heavens again. This time there was no need to ask why.

  “Ash. If I could only believe you want me too.”

  Roy returned to the hut no easier in his mind.

  He laid his traveling bedroll across the threshold. It was less comfortable than the cot, but Roy knew it was not the bed to blame for his restless, sleepless night.

  Ash stirred only once, muttering and tossing as though in the grip of a nightmare, and Roy went to him. Ash soothed easily, responding at once to Roy’s soft reassurances. Once Ash was still again, breathing deep and easy, Roy sank to the ground beside the cot and leaned his back against the steamer trunk. One hand resting on Ash’s arm, he fell at last into an uneasy doze.

  * * * *

  The insistent bleat of a goat outside the window woke them both.

  Roy jolted back to awareness, staring around wildly, forcing back the battlefield memories that stalked his sleep.

  Africa, not France. Morning light brightening the small room, highlighting his own untidy bedroll in the doorway and Ash, looking flushed, confused, and sleepy, propping himself up on an elbow in the cot.

  Roy took a couple of deep breaths, getting his racing heart under control. Ash was no less beautiful this morning than he’d been by firelight. He was slender and pale where his clothes had kept off the sun, with an innocent, almost ethereal beauty, marred by mottled bruises and the livid welts left by his father’s bullwhip. Roy’s anger rose in him, drowning out all other emotions. Anger at Sir Roland for such cruelty to one so young and beautiful.

  Stop it, Roy told himself firmly. No more of that. All the fantasies he’d indulged in the previous night rushed at him full force, battering at his self-control. He mastered his voice with difficulty. “How do you feel this morning?”

  Ash sat up slowly, blond locks falling down over his forehead. “Stiff, but better, I think.” He rolled his shoulders. “Except for taking your bed.”

  “I’m glad of it. And besides, old soldiers can sleep anywhere.”

  “Funny,” Ash said softly, “I don’t think of you as old.” His expression was unreadable.

  The goat bleated again, louder this time, and Roy realized he was late letting the animals out of their pens to graze. He rose. “She wants her breakfast,” he said apologetically. “When I come back, I’ll uh, attend to your wounds.”

  Ash grinned, and Roy felt that grin all the way down to his toes, with a few interesting stops in between. “Take all the time you need. I don’t want to upset your day.”

  Not my day, Ash. My whole life. Roy headed out before he said something he’d regret.

  Outside, he unfastened the gate of the nearest pen, letting a pair of goats trot out to the open area in the middle of the compound. They followed on his heels to the main gate, then filed out as soon as it was opened, headed for the pale, straggly grass and attacked it with gusto. Roy hung over the gate for a moment, watching them. They weren’t much, it was true, but they were something. His something. He turned back in the direction of the hut, intending to draw fresh water from the well.

  Ash was standing in the doorway, and as Roy stared, he limped outside, bare-chested in the sun. “Can I be of any help?”

  Roy swallowed hard, his earlier resolutions forgotten. “Sure,” he said thickly. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I mean, if you feel well enough. Let the pig out while I draw water.”

  Ash went where Roy pointed and released the large bristly gray and black pig from its pen. With a cheerful squeal, the animal cantered across the compound and out through the gate, joining the goats on the veldt.

>   “Won’t the lions get them?” Ash asked.

  “The big cats don’t hunt during the day, mostly,” Roy said, carrying a bucket of water toward the hut. “Not unless it’s a time of famine. Dusk and dawn are the dangers.”

  “It’s so different here,” Ash said, falling in step with Roy. They stopped in front of the hut, and Ash’s gaze shifted from the pointed wooden stakes of the stockade fencing the compound to the mud-brick hut to rest on the veldt itself.

  Roy’s heart sank. This young man was an aristocrat, born to a life of privilege Roy knew only from stories, probably used to mansions and manicured parks and tennis.

  “It’s amazing. It’s beautiful. It’s so—so real.” Ash turned again, to face Roy this time, eyes alight with happiness and wonder.

  “It is, Ash. You’re right, it is.” Roy took a deep, relieved breath of the hard African air and grinned. “Are you hungry?”

  * * * *

  After breakfast, Roy checked Ash’s wounds again. All looked to be healing save a gash across Ash’s side, wider than the others. The lips of the wound were red and a little puffy. “This one worries me a little,” Roy said, applying ointment liberally to it. “Tell me at once if it hurts more, or if you start to feel very hot.”

  “Of course.” Ash was sitting sideways on the edge of the cot, braced on his arms while Roy examined the injuries on his back. “For now, it hardly hurts at all.”

  All morning, Roy had watched the way Ash moved, seeing the lie. Ash was hurting, all right, and no wonder: the cuts he’d sustained were mostly superficial, but they were combined with deep bruising and at least two broken ribs.