Not a time for a man’s mind to wander.
The vision of George, tan, his hair wet, his body glistening, ambled toward the two men who were locked in combat. He was smiling that faintly amused smile, seemingly enjoying every second of Ed’s terrible vengeance.
“I gatecrashed your lake again,” George told Henry. Then he took Ed Belcher’s left ear between his finger and thumb and walked away, threatening to tear off the millionaire’s appendage unless he released his iron fist from Henry’s balls.
“Come on now, Ed, time to go!” George beamed and Ed, spluttering and swearing, released his grip on Henry’s gonads.
Henry exhaled raggedly and clutched the doorjamb to hold himself up. The sight of Ed, puce-faced and swearing in a most creative fashion, almost compensated for the extraordinary pain that he now found himself in.
“You’ll be hearing from me!” Ed wagged his finger. “And, George, you can shag all the princesses you want, I’ll always be richer than you!”
With that he climbed into his Ferrari and raced away, the sound of the engine fading into the distance.
“Lucky I did sneak along for a cheeky swim, or you’d be singing soprano now!” George was making his way back toward the door. “I thought you weren’t at home!”
“What the—?” Henry dearly wanted to find an ice pack for his mangled groin, but now he had a television personality in naught but a pair of swim shorts to deal with. “George, I told you not to swim in my lake, and you’ve blithely carried on! I can’t have near-naked men strutting about my grounds, splashing about in my bloody lake! What will people say? This can’t go on, George—my poor newts will be traumatized!”
“I’m going to put you in my documentary.” George said it as though it was a threat, his hands on his hips once more. “The grumpy old squire who accuses our hero of a crime he didn’t commit!”
“Of course it was you!” In his exasperation, Henry’s voice rose unfortunately high and reedy, as if Ed’s hand was still clamped about his tender appendages. “You’d gone on and on and on about wanting to win the cup, and then I won it, and—it just vanished. How convenient! It must be in your cottage somewhere, hiding in plain sight amongst your mother’s pottery. And don’t for one minute think that just because the rest of Longley Parva hungers after your every glance and crumb of attention and witty joke that I will succumb to your charm. Oh, ha ha, Captain George, for fifteen years you’ve cheated me out of my trophy, but you’ve just winked at me like you do on the telly, all is forgiven, what a lark, you loveable rogue! Sod. That.”
And Britain’s Favorite (and Sexiest!) Hero, as the bloody Daily Mail termed him, blinked. Of course it wasn’t a normal blink, a blink like Henry might have done, but a bat of long eyelashes over his green eyes, the sort that had commissioning editors reaching for their checkbooks.
“Stop being a baby,” George said after a long pause, annoyance winning the battle with that hail fellow, well met façade despite how much he tried to keep a carefree smile on his face. “I’m surprised you had anything down there for Ed to grab, old chap!”
And that, clearly, was supposed to be the final word because George turned and strode away in the direction of the disputed lake.
Wincing with every step, Henry went in pursuit.
“A baby? A baby! I’m not the man who drifts about in a consequence-free bubble, twisting everyone around his finger because he’s famous. For what? For taking your shirt off on telly and driving about in that bloody ridiculous car! You’re an overgrown child, that’s what you are! Me, I’ve got a business to run, employees to pay, animals to care for, an old house to look after, and you? You’re just titting about, swimming in my lake, when I’ve already told you not to! Rules apply to you, Captain George, just as they apply to everyone else. And that includes theft!”
This time, to add insult to injury, it appeared that George’s swim hadn’t been a spur of the moment decision as he was passing, because he had brought a towel. A towel! A towel that the bloody queen’s bloody shampoo and set had probably been bloody dried on too, or the Dalai Lama had blessed when he and George had their much-vaunted, award-winning, ‘now an international bestseller’ Conversations on Peace atop a mountain somewhere.
George stooped to scoop up a T-shirt and pull it on, draping the towel over his shoulders as though he was on the beach in Barbados. Then he looked Henry up and down and said, “I’m not surprised you’re in a grump, wearing pinstripes in such beautiful weather.”
Another final word!
And off he went, humming as only a man without a care in the world could.
“One doesn’t prat about in shorts when one’s home is under threat!” Not that Henry owned any shorts, but that was beside the point. A quick twitch at his gusset to rearrange his bruised fellows and Henry was off again, pursuing his former friend. “You can’t just turn up in the village and—and take over, and swim in my lake, and wander about in the almost altogether, and call me a grump! You have no idea what my life has been like in this place since you sodded off, not a clue!”
“Are you going to chase me all the way home?” George, the former soldier, former fastest bowler on the village green, former thief, broke into a steady jog across the lawn toward the fence that divided Henry’s land from the fields beyond. From there, the colorful garden of George’s family home was visible and Henry knew now that this was the fox’s tunnel, because they had run along this path countless times in boyhood, dashing between houses and games. Through the Standish-Brookes garden gate, into the meadow and it was a short excursion into Henry’s own estate and, without any permission at all, into his lake.
George hopped over the fence and jogged on with a call of, “Keep up if you’re still telling me off!”
Henry panted as he hurried, the pain in his groin not diminishing. On reaching the fence, he very carefully lifted his leg to climb over. He paused, wincing as he straddled the fence, and called across the meadow after the retreating figure of George.
“Well, no one else will do it, so as skipper of the cricket team, churchwarden and Clerk of the Parish Council, it is my responsibility to bring you into line—you louche bloody bastard!”
Henry shook his fist. There was no one to see, besides the Cabbage White butterflies that darted through the golden evening air.
They passed through the gate, the first time Henry had done so in fifteen years. Not the first time he had been in the garden in so long, of course, for call-me-Andie had often invited the village to the house for exotic drinks and an adoring rundown of her son’s many achievements, but it was the first time he had been here with George in nearly half a lifetime. Only now did George cease his gentle barefoot jog and, with not a bead of sweat on his brow, turn to face Henry.
“If you stood up to Belcher the way you’ve persecuted me for the last fifteen years,” he decided, “you might not be in this pickle now.”
“Perhaps if you hadn’t robbed me fifteen years ago, Belcher wouldn’t think he has carte blanche to rob me now! But that’s fine, I apparently have doormat written across my forehead anyway, so what’s one more footprint on my face before I end up living in a cardboard box in a bus stop?”
“Right.” George gave a single firm nod. “This has gone on long enough, Fitz. I’m going to have to ask you anyway for the program, so tell me, Henry Fitzwalter, Poirot, Miss Marple and Columbo all rolled into one, what, according to you, happened on that balmy day back when the world was a lot less bloody pinstriped than it is now?”
Chapter Six
Fifteen years earlier
Henry stood on the veranda of the cricket pavilion, looking out across the pitch. Tom Golding, floppy white sunhat wedged onto his head, was setting up the stumps for the Single Wicket match.
One year into his veterinary surgeon degree, Henry was home for the summer vac. Being the son of a vet, his vacation wasn’t entirely relaxing, as he had to spend his days helping out at the surgery. But at least there was time for cricket.
Henry waved as a familiar face appeared from the other side of the practice nets. What luck, that George’s leave should overlap with Henry’s vac.
“Ready to surrender your crown?” George called and waved his hand in the air. “The Standish-Brookes are coming to whip the throne out from under the bottoms of the Fitzwalters at last!”
Henry folded his arms against the guardrail of the veranda and laughed.
“You’re going to be very disappointed, Standish-Brookes—prepare to lose! That cup is going to be mine! It’ll look jolly nice on the mantelpiece under Bad Billy’s portrait.”
“It’ll look even better snuggled beneath Lady Georgina’s proud, painted bosom!” George broke into a jog as he crossed the grass, no longer the gangly lad who had made his name as the finest bowler the village had seen in many a year. “My bowling arm’s primed and my batting arm’s newly trained—you’re in for a proper walloping, Fitz!”
George suited a cricket jumper, it had to be said. Henry realized he was smiling at George in a manner that he really oughtn’t. But George wouldn’t notice, he was sure.
“You think you’ll beat a Cambridge blue, do you, Standy-Bee? I think not!”
“I think it’s all in the wrist, and I’ve got a hell of a wrist, young shaver!”
Henry bounded down the steps of the pavilion and caught George in a matey headlock, grabbing his thick hair and whirling the pair of them around in a circle. George grasped Henry around the waist. It was as if they were twelve again, laughing and hooting, dust kicking up around their feet. George tripped Henry up, and with their arms still locked around each other, they flew sprawling to the ground.
“Lads, come on, now!” Tom hauled them up by the collars of their shirts. “Neither of you’ll win if you carry on with that caper. You were my two best players in the under-eighteens—you should set an example for the other boys.”
“Your lot have had that trophy for two hundred bloody years, so it’s our turn now!” George slapped his hand against Henry’s back and laughed. “May the best man win, Fitz!”
“I will—so we’ll have it for another two hundred more!”
Steph was sitting nearby with her friends, making a picnic of it by the side of the pavilion. They smiled and giggled at the players. Henry, fielding near George, rolled up his sleeves and flexed his forearm.
“Look at that, George, look at these muscles—large animal work, that is.”
The sound of the girls’ flirtatious laughter drifted toward them. George glanced over his shoulder at the young ladies and asked Henry, “Are you still chasing after Steph, then?”
Henry turned his back on the girls and lowered his voice. “Keep it under your hat, but I rather think she’s chasing after me!”
“Will you let her catch you?”
I’ll have to. Henry avoided George’s eye. In less than a year, his friend had blossomed from lanky youth to handsome young man, and it hurt to look at him, knowing that—
“Dad’s really fond of her. Said she’d suit the manor. I think even Bad Billy likes her—I’m sure his portrait winked at her when she popped round the other day.”
“Well, you know, they say our gorgeous Georgina was no stranger to the bedchambers of LP.” George winked. “And I do bear a striking resemblance to her portrait. Picture me in a powdered wig and rouge!”
What on earth was George implying? Henry stared at him. Surely not. Surely it was a joke. But what if—?
No. Ridiculous.
Henry suddenly felt rather warm. He gestured across to Mr. Dalrymple, who was tapping his bat in readiness, and trotted off to a more advantageous position. “Back to the game, eh? Silly sod always hits this way. I’ll catch him out—just you watch!”
“All in the wrist, Fitz!” George wandered away, hands in pockets, not at all ready to field.
It wasn’t innuendo, it couldn’t be—cricket was all balls and wrists and creases and sticky wickets. That was just the game. But my God, what if—?
Without even turning to see the ball as it arced up, Henry shot out one hand and caught it. He barely registered that he had done it, having merely acted on instinct. Enthusiastic applause rippled from the pavilion and loud cheers whooped from Steph and her friends. Henry turned and executed a courtly bow to his audience, before realizing it was his turn to bat.
George bounded over, leaving the crease to follow his best friend to the wicket. He put his hand in the small of Henry’s back and leaned close to whisper, “Hell of a catch, Fitz. Well played, mate.”
It was astonishing that George could inhabit such a manly frame and yet still have those long lashes and elegant green eyes. There was something pretty about how handsome he was, a delicate edge to—
“Come along, Henry, m’ boy! Stop shilly-shallying about like a girl!” The booming voice of Henry’s father carried across the cricket ground and over half of Longley Parva.
“Thanks, George.” Henry patted him quickly on the shoulder, heart pounding. He looked up at the pavilion and watched his father sink a pint of ale, a cheese sandwich in his other hand. Steph, her head on one side, shielded her eyes with her hand as she smiled at Henry. Gulping, he kicked at the grass with his spiked soles. “Ready?”
George trotted across the grass to take up position, weighing the cricket ball in his hand. He turned and offered Henry a gentlemanly salute, softly brushing the ball against the weave of his jumper. Henry watched him, George’s routine as established as his own, everything about his best friend utterly familiar to him. He watched the movement of the ball, the way George lowered his head slightly and, with his free hand, hitched the leg of his whites just a little.
He lifted his hand and ran it through his black hair, then touched it to his lips. Then, finally, George transferred the ball to his other palm and took his run, bowling with his customary, celebrated speed.
Henry swung his bat and with a smart tock sent the ball soaring over the boundary rope. A six. An easy-peasy six. The first six of the game.
“Got to try harder than that, George!”
It could almost just be the two of them out here, their gazes settled on each other, never shifting away. Someone whistled from the crowd. Henry ignored them and waited for George’s next ball.
“Lulling you, old pal!” George went through his routine again, the polishing on the sweater, the hitch of the whites, the touch to the lips. Then there was the run again and the ball was flying at him.
Those lips, those full, soft lips, that Henry would never—
Again, Henry merely raised his bat a whisper and the ball flew through the summer air, almost out of sight, before coming down to land just outside the boundary. From the crowd Ed could be heard calling, “Another sixer!”
“If not for the sprained ankle, you’d be leaving us in the dust, eh, Ed?” George laughed, shaking his head as he retrieved the ball.
“I bloody would,” Ed replied. “Not every man can claim he sprained his ankle falling out of a chopper after a Moët blowout!”
Henry raised his eyebrow. He wasn’t going to engage Ed and risk losing his concentration. “Come on, George, as hard as you can!”
“That cup’s coming home with me tonight,” George replied cheerily, polishing the ball on his sweater. “I’m not a skinny lad anymore!”
Yes, I’d noticed.
A third six. The crowd roared its approval, none louder than George. He might be bowling, he might be Henry’s closest rival for the cup this year, but he was a friend first and foremost. He leaped into the air, clapping his hands above his head and cried, “Go on, Fitz!”
Henry passed his tongue over his bottom lip and focused, blocking out everything else. His father shouting “Sissy!” when he got a four, a hot air balloon that decided to puff about in his peripheral vision for five minutes, the giggling gang of applauding girls, and Ed hobbling along the boundary until Tom ordered him away.
Once Henry passed his personal best of one-twenty, he at last noticed the sweat dampening
his hair, and soreness in his shoulder and stiffness in his fingers. He was exhausted but exhilarated, and at one-thirty he was bowled out as a Longley Parva legend was born.
He threw aside his bat and he and George jogged toward each other, grinning.
Panting, Henry clapped George on his broad shoulder. “I’d like to see you beat that, Standy-Bee.”
“After lunch, Fitz, I’m going to show you how to play cricket.” George threw his arms around Henry, embracing him in a bear hug. “That was a hell of an innings, you’ve made me a proud pal!”
Henry closed his eyes for two seconds, enjoying the sensation of being in George’s embrace. But he couldn’t, not with everyone watching. He slowly disentangled himself from George’s strong arms.
“Sorry, George—I’m all sweaty! Time for cucumber sandwiches.”
“The lunch of champions.” His arm still around Henry’s shoulders, George steered his friend toward the pavilion and the adoration of his fellow Parvans.
Lunch passed in a blur of Scotch eggs, cucumber sandwiches, pork pies, prawn vol au vents and slices of Battenberg cake. Everyone in Longley Parva, it seemed, wanted to congratulate Henry, and at his side was George assuring all of them that he would easily beat Henry with one hundred and forty runs. Ed promised that next year, as long as he didn’t have any further accidents involving helicopters and champagne, he would beat them both. And Steph lingered by the refreshments table, her mother saying loud enough for everyone to hear, “Well, the skipper’s wife has to help arrange the tea, so it’s good practice for you, darling.”
After lunch, accompanied by the gentle applause of the spectators, the cricketers trotted back onto the pitch.
This time it was George’s turn at the wicket, and though he cut a commanding, broad figure thanks to his time at Sandhurst, he was the first to announce, “I’ve got a fight on my hands. It might’ve been easier to just steal the trophy!”
The Captain and the Cricketer Page 5