“I’ll be back in a tic.”
Steph was gone slightly longer than it took to collect a bottle of wine and two glasses, but when she stepped out into the garden again, she was resplendent in a flowing wrap-dress that barely covered the silver bikini. Because why not? George was off home shortly, but one look at her in this and he would be back at Longley Parva Old Hall in no time.
She poured the drinks, enjoying the wide-eyed look on George’s face as he stared at her.
“Here you are—a very expensive Pinot.” Steph wandered back to the poolside. “Which I’m sure someone like you is more than accustomed to drinking. Old Hall has the finest wine cellar in the South Downs.”
George reached up, the water rolling down his tan, toned arm as he took the glass from her. “Cheers, Mrs. Belcher.”
Steph leaned down to the handsome swimmer, chinking her plastic glass against his. She was slow to move away, to ensure that he saw as much of her bikini-clad body at close quarters as was possible.
“Cheers, Captain!”
He took a long drink, a lingering smile on his lips when he lowered the glass and asked, “Do you really want to leave this behind for that old dump of Henry’s?”
“It is a dump, isn’t it!” Steph almost roared with laughter, but realizing that wasn’t exactly alluring, she pressed her fingertips to her lips. She looked down at her glass. “But it’s what Ed wants. And as I’m Mrs. Longley Parva, I should have the manor to go with it. Even if we bulldoze it and replace it with something new.”
“Bulldoze it?” He took another drink. “Good luck on the planning applications, rather Ed than me!”
“Oh, we don’t need to worry about a silly thing like that. I’m sure it’s unsafe. Half of it’s made of medieval cowpats, as Henry was proud of telling everyone who visited. What an embarrassing thing to announce at a dinner party—the man has no social graces whatsoever. Is he Stig of the Dump, living in a hole like that in this day and age?”
“You liked him well enough when he was your first love.” George knocked her bare knee with his knuckle. “I remember it well!”
Steph gazed away, over George’s head, over the garden, over to the rolling hills far off in the distance. Her voice was soft with the nostalgic memories of times past and worlds lost.
“That was then, George.”
“For the sake of then, Steph. For when we were kids and climbing trees and, if you’re me, falling out of them…let the guy keep his house?” He smiled. “Who wants a place made of cowpats anyway?”
Steph sighed. Such pretty words, but television presenters came out with all sorts of nonsense that half the time they didn’t believe. Leave him dangling, though—if George did have some lingering sense of honor for the world of their youth, then he would definitely come back for a second visit.
“Let me think about it, George? I’ll see if I can convince Ed. I can’t promise, though—you realize that, don’t you?”
“Mrs. Longley Parva, you’re still a hell of a girl.” He beamed up at her from the pool.
Steph kissed her fingertips and blew him a kiss.
“That was even better than this amazing wine!”
Oh, you won’t escape my plans now, television’s Captain George.
George put his glass on the edge of the pool and pushed off to swim another length. Steph watched him go with a smile that she knew was beautiful. She could do innocent, she could do sexy and, best of all, she could combine the two to devastating effect. She had ensnared vets, lawyers and millionaires. A TV presenter would be no challenge at all.
Chapter Fourteen
Everyone always went on about Henry’s tweeds. They had become his trademark, which, he knew, meant he had become his own cliché. He was very fond of tweed, but the best thing to do with a stale and predictable wardrobe—so he had read in a magazine left at his surgery by one of the nurses—is mix things up a little.
So Henry decided to wear corduroy trousers and a checked shirt with rolled-up sleeves. He only ever dressed like that to loaf about at home, knowing that no one would see. But this was the new Henry, the Henry who was in love. And this was as casual as he got.
He arrived at the cottage gate to see George cradling Jez’s head, whispering to him, and a surge of love sang through Henry’s blood again. George looked up just as Henry pushed open the gate.
“George! Good evening.”
“Fitz!” George’s face lit up with his smile of welcome. “I’ve missed you, is that silly?”
Henry hurried into the garden and took George’s hand.
“No, not at all—I missed you!”
Jez nuzzled a welcome against Henry’s side as George put his arms around him, his head falling to rest against Henry’s shoulder. George’s embrace was tight, as though they had been parted for weeks.
Henry dropped his bag to the floor and held him. George’s hair was slightly damp, as if he’d just got out of a shower.
How sweet of George to spruce up before our date.
All Henry had had time for was a quick spray of cologne to disguise the lingering smell of farmyards. Still his lover clung to him, George and the horse snuggled tight to Henry.
“I never thought I’d ever feel like this,” Henry whispered into George’s hair.
“I love you.” George lifted his face to look at Henry. “I love you and your tweed and your house made of cowpats and your everything.”
“My house made of—? Oh, yes! It’s quite the conversation starter, that is! We’re going to save my house, aren’t we? I raided the library at home. I’ve got an old almanac that Bad Billy hid some letters in, and an estate diary and the Bible that his will was copied into. There must be something in all that which refers to the bloody cricket match!”
“Nobody’s taking your house, Fitz, no matter what they think. And this morning… I wouldn’t make this village look stupid, I love it here.” He let his head fall again. “It’s been bothering me all day that you think I’d do that.”
Should Henry broach the question he had pondered all day—had they had their first argument? At least, their first since becoming a couple. But it was probably best not to say anything. It might only stir it up again, and it was safer left unremarked on. That seemed the healthiest thing to do.
“Sorry if I said the wrong thing in front of Tabitha. Bit defensive about old Parvy, I’m afraid, old chap.”
“But is that what you think of me, that I’d rock up here, mock the place, mock you and then disappear again?” There was genuine hurt in George’s tone, Henry realized. Had he really been thinking about this all day? “I do have feelings, you know. I’m not just someone on the TV who gets put into a box when they finish filming. Today, some old dear in the post office actually patted my arse, then this girl in the shop offered me fifty quid for my bloody shirt! Is this what it’s like being a woman, do you think?”
“It was just…Tabitha going on about hairy palms. It set me off, I’m afraid. Sorry. There are some bloody weird people around here, but even so, one doesn’t like to actually point it out. And as to your harassment at the hands, hairy of palm or otherwise, of the locals—they’ll get bored of you soon enough. Perhaps!” Henry slid his hand down from George’s waist to his bottom. Adopting a saucy tone, he asked, “Am I allowed to pat it, though?”
“And only you.” He smiled. “You don’t think I’d do that to Longley P., Fitz, do you? Not really?”
“Not you—but what about those media people you know? You would stop them, wouldn’t you, if you thought they were going to mock us? Is there some clause you could put in somewhere? In—in your contract or whatever it is you have.”
“I’m not just a pretty face.” He was teasing now, the hurt gone. “Tab’s exec producer, but I’ve produced all my own TV ever since the gaucho special. Even I got sick of looking at myself topless in that one. Nothing gets made unless I sign it off.”
Henry gave George’s bottom a firm pat. “Good. That’s what I wanted to hear.”
>
“I bet you loved the gaucho show.” George squeezed Henry’s bottom in turn. “Were you having a good old ogle?”
“Gosh, yes! All that horse riding and lassoing, the bit when you went under that waterfall, and your thighs tensing—” Henry stopped before he gave himself and his television viewing habits away. “Yes. I must say, it’s a particular favorite of mine, that series.”
“When they reviewed the tie-in book in The Guardian, do you know what they said? ‘Shameless pin-ups thinly disguised as cultural history—an essential buy’.” He laughed, slapping Henry’s bottom lightly. “Still my favorite review, because it was honest and kind!”
“It does rather sum it up, doesn’t it! I mean, not that I—well, all right I did. The pull-out poster was— Anyway, what’s that delicious smell? Have you cooked us something lovely for dinner?”
“I have indeed! I know you’re a beef and Yorkshires sort of a chap, so I’ve completely ignored that and prepared a Moroccan lamb tagine and couscous. Try it before you decide you don’t like it, Fitz?”
“It certainly smells tasty. And if I can manage Spanish tapas one evening, then why not change continents and go Moroccan the next!”
George nodded with enthusiasm and stepped back, though he kept Henry’s hand in his own. For a long moment they looked at each other, then kissed again, the touch soft and tender. The world was silent save the gentle sounds of the garden, the lap of the pond, Jez softly chewing the grass and, above, cheery birds passing over.
“I’ve been up in the attic, pulled down boxes full of stuff,” George confided as he drew back slightly. “I thought we could snuggle down in the sitting room after supper with a few glasses of something nice and start reading?”
He blinked, his brow furrowing with thought that became a bright smile. “Isn’t it funny? There’s old Georgina, my scandalous grandmother many times removed, hanging over the fireplace with her bosoms on show and here’s me, nearly three hundred years later, and everyone wants me to take my shirt off even when I’m just out buying bread!”
“She’d be proud, I’m sure.”
George dotted a kiss to Henry’s cheek. “Dinner?”
Chapter Fifteen
As the night drew on and the sitting room rug disappeared under receipts and household accounts and ink-blotted sermons, George lit some candles on the mantelpiece and came to sit beside Henry on the sofa, the same one that they had enjoyed so much yesterday. Henry laid his haul out on the blanket box that served as a coffee table and eyed the dusty crate that George had found in the loft.
“Where the heck do we look now, George?”
“What do you reckon, Georgie?” He looked at the painting above the fireplace, Lady Georgina smiling her knowing, ruby-red smile, a slash of color on her fashionably pale face. The same red made a flame of the feather in her powdered hair and for several seconds Henry watched as George stared at his namesake, her painted green eyes meeting his own.
Then he leaned forward and scooped into the box that had lain undisturbed in the cottage’s attic for decades.
“Lady G. says we should have a look in here next.” George handed a bundle of papers to Henry, the pages held tight with a ribbon of deep red. “Jez seemed happy in his stable, didn’t he? He’s settled in, just like his dad.”
“It does look very cozy—I’m surprised you haven’t moved in with him. I’m glad you’ve given him a home.” Henry was very tempted to kiss George at that moment, but pushed the feeling aside. There were still all these documents to get through. “These look like laundry lists—shirts, petticoats, an extra fee for darning someone’s woolen stockings, ironing a lace collar… Hmm, possibly not what we’re looking for.”
“I was thinking, though, it’s funny how things work out.” He pulled at the end of the ribbon, freeing the papers Henry held. “Because I’ve got Jez, and Reverend Tobias Standish, he had Rupert. So we Standy-Bees must have always liked keeping unorthodox pets!”
“Wasn’t Rupert his horse? As far as I know, Bad Billy just had dogs. Very boring! He could at least have had a pet bear like Byron.”
“Rupert was his goat! Ma found a mention of him in a parish meeting note, something to do with Reverend Standish insisted on bringing his goat into the meeting, that sort of thing. Po-faced as ever!”
Henry snorted with laughter, which unfortunately led to a quantity of dust from the untied documents shooting up his nostrils. With one sneeze of alarming velocity, the papers were scattered onto the floor.
“Damn and bloody hell.” Henry got on his hands and knees to collect them up. “Receipt from the market—over two hundred years ago, someone bought pigs and sold sheep at Chipping Stedford. Look at this—household inventory for some poor chap who died—a very old copper pot. Well, that’s jolly interesting. Ooh, a letter—For the execution of the will, my expenses are heretofore attached.” Henry turned the page. “He’s included the cost of pipes and tobacco from when he took some farmers round to price up the cattle! Imagine doing that now. Blimey.”
Among the documents was a folded piece of what looked like vellum, creased and dirty with age, still waxy to the touch. “Oh, hello.”
“Hello back.” George laughed and cracked a sharp smack to Henry’s bottom.
Henry grinned over his shoulder as he winced. “Did that sound a bit camp?”
“I’ll let you decide that.” George peered over his shoulder at the vellum. “What’ve you got?”
“It says Tithe apportionment on it. That’s not going to be any use.”
“Maybe there’s nothing exciting to find.” He yawned, leaning over to root through the box again. Long minutes passed with only the sound of shuffling papers to disturb the silence, George tying ribbons on discarded packets as they went along, keeping everything tidy as was his occasional way. It was toward the bottom of the box that George reached down and drew out a fresh bundle, laughing heartily as he did.
“Fitz, look!” He showed the bundled papers to Henry. A flamboyant hand had written Rupert and, beneath it, sketched an image of a fearsome-looking goat. A solid, black animal with horns dramatic enough to take on any storybook troll. “It’s Rupert Standish, Jez’s ancestor in spirit!”
Henry laughed. “Hope he doesn’t grow horns like that!”
“I bet the Rev. missed old Rupert when he passed away. He raised him from a little goat. You’ve heard all the silly stories about him sitting in the front pew during sermons, eating from the collection plate?” George rested his head on Henry’s shoulder for a second. “Jez is upholding a fine tradition.”
“Indeed so!”
“This is going to be years of observations about a goat, isn’t it? Feed bills, hoof care and—” George fell silent as he untied the deep blue ribbon and something far more solid than paper tumbled down into the cushions between them.
Henry gently plucked it free and held the silver oval on his palm. He carefully opened it, wondering what it could be as it was too large and not dainty enough to be a locket. On the right-hand side was a painted oval depicting two sitters and on the left, beneath glass, a slender plait of jet-black and chestnut hair.
“Isn’t that—that’s my Billy, isn’t it? With—an ecclesiastical gentleman. It’s not—?”
Henry looked from the man of the cloth in the miniature to the television man of action beside him. Apart from the preaching bands and the hair that had been brushed forward around his face, the sitter could have been George. George, in historical costume for his latest program about—about Regency goat husbandry?
“Well, if that’s old Rev. Standish, I’m pleased to see he was quite a looker!” George peered closer. “That’s definitely your Billy, isn’t it?”
He brought his fingertip to touch the surface of the portrait very gently, snuggling against Henry as he did. It could have been the two of them, Henry knew, George and Fitz, Fitz and George, captured for posterity two hundred years ago.
“This really is the most amazing find.” Henry put his arm
around George’s shoulder. “Unless they were very good friends, but… George, they must’ve been a couple.”
There seemed something rather melancholy now about Bad Billy in his portrait above the manor’s mantelpiece. Alone, with a dark, dramatic swirl of storm cloud behind him, eyes flashing—with all the forbidden desire he had for Tobias Standish. He couldn’t share that huge portrait with his lover, they could only share a discreet miniature. But what an exquisite gem it was.
“I wonder how old this is? Is there a date on it?” Henry carefully closed it and turned it over. Engraved on the back was TS—7 Aug. 1812—WF. “Hold this a second—I just need to check something.”
Henry felt like a detective and opened the cover of the Bible. A variety of hands over the decades had added the births, marriages and deaths of numerous Fitzwalters to the inside of the cover. Henry’s birth had been recorded on the following page, in the margin beside a terrifying image of the Red Sea closing over the Egyptians.
“I thought as much—Billy’s wife had died about a year before. When did Tobias lose his wife?”
“Oh, now you’re asking.” George narrowed his eyes and clicked his tongue. “Year before the Prince Re— 1809?”
“So they were both widowers by 1812. I wonder if this miniature was to commemorate them, you know, moving in together. Or whatever they would have called it then?” Henry suddenly had an idea. “Wait, those laundry lists!”
“Look—here we are, just the laundry for some chap living by himself, with some servants.” Henry rifled through the stack of old paper, running his finger over the dates. “And then—this is the first list after the date on the portrait. Bloody hell, look what’s on it, George—a surplice! And look—there’s one on the next list, and a fee for starching preaching bands.”
“Oh, hang on…” George’s lips parted and Henry could almost see him thinking. Then he delved back into the pile of papers. “Have a dig through, I bet you there’s the shopping list from hell in there somewhere. Among those laundry papers and what have you, I suspect they kept it all together, if you get me.”
The Captain and the Cricketer Page 15