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Philip woke early. He wasn’t a slugabed, but neither did he have any communion with the lark as a general rule, and he lay irritably awake, wondering what to do.
He’d missed the point where something had happened to disturb Guy. Everything had been going so well. He’d felt a flush of real pride to see the pallid, nervous plank of a few days back joking with his friends over that absurd conversation. Guy had found his feet, and that wasn’t the only part of himself he’d found.
Christ, he’d been lovely in Philip’s arms. Philip had never seen the point of seducing virgins; he liked people to know what they were about, and it had always seemed to him that those who prized virginity were actually seeking ignorance, or chalking up points in a game where their win was someone else’s loss. Whereas helping Guy to discover what he wanted, and teaching him to ask for it...oh, he could see the point of that.
Debauching, indeed. Philip was uncaging Guy, tearing down the bars that held him stiff and trapped, setting him free from the misery of a life that could barely be lived because so much of it was denied.
Or, he’d thought that was what he was doing, and then Guy had gone a truly bad shade of green and fled the evening.
Maybe he was sick. Except he wouldn’t have gone to his recuperating sister then for fear of contagion. No; something had happened, someone had said something, and Philip was going to find out what the devil it was, because he wasn’t going to watch that vibrant, open, responsive loveliness retreat back into a shell of conventional opinion.
He dressed himself rather than ring for Sinclair early and suffer the inevitable consequences when Corvin’s Cornelius voiced his objections. Some might consider that refusing to disturb one’s valet because he was in bed with someone else’s valet was taking considerate employment too far; Philip preferred to tell himself it was an investment for his future comfort.
He went downstairs. Breakfast would not be served for another hour, but there was bustle in the kitchen, and he stuck his head in to request a cup of tea. It occurred to him he might drop in on Miss Frisby. He felt an urge to talk about Guy with someone who wasn’t John or Corvin, someone who might actually understand, even if she didn’t understand what it was she was discussing.
He strolled along the corridor, therefore, cup and saucer in hand, approached the door, and heard muffled shouting. It was Amanda Frisby. Her voice was high and shrill and tearful, and if someone was bothering her, Guy’s sister, in Philip’s house—
He reached for the doorhandle, ready to dispense brimstone, and only just stopped himself as another voice rose in angry, distressed protest and he recognised it as Guy’s.
Philip stepped back, unsure of what to do. He had heard that siblings argued fiercely as a matter of routine, but even if that were the case, Guy was not an argumentative man, and Amanda hadn’t struck him as either hectoring or lachrymose. Something was badly wrong if the Frisbys were going at each other this way.
And it was not his business and if he stood here any longer, it would indubitably qualify as eavesdropping. Philip made himself step away, into his study, where he drank his tea in a worried frame of mind. He felt restless and unnerved. He did not at all like the idea that, having deflowered the man, he’d left him in a state of nervous tension, shouting at his sister. He hadn’t meant to do harm.
There had once been a picture of Sir James, his half brother, on the wall. Philip glared at the empty space from which he’d removed it. “Christ, have we not done enough damage to that family?” he muttered aloud. “Did I have to do more?”
No: he wasn’t tolerating this. He was going to—actually, he was going to do some work until breakfast, let the Frisbys calm down, and then he would have it out with Guy, find out what had distressed him, and deal with it. Preferably by taking him back upstairs and giving him something else to think about, starting with those gloriously sensitive earlobes.
But Guy wasn’t used to soothing his nerves with pleasure, and Philip couldn’t root the convention out of his soul overnight. If he had to apologise and promise their dalliance would go unmentioned and unrepeated, he’d bloody do it. He told himself that firmly, and wondered why he should feel so bleak at the idea that Guy would cut himself off from joy.
“Do some work, Rookwood,” he said aloud.
There were papers about the beet crops on his desk. That made him think about Guy again, so certain Philip could persuade his men to believe in this sugar-beet castle in the air.
Philip had never talked to his labourers. The fact was, they weren’t his. They doubtless all knew him to be a bastard, and even if they didn’t, he was always conscious of it. The house was not his, the lands were illicitly borrowed. If he’d been a gentleman he would have resigned the property, and the title if he could, to the cousin who would inherit both on his death. That would have left him without a penny, and he was disinclined to embrace poverty for a point of principle. So he held the house, and reminded himself that the only difference between the Rookwoods and half England’s other families was that his illegitimacy was famed rather than concealed or only suspected.
Still, he could never quite rid himself of the fraudulent feeling when it came to men whose fathers had worked this land, and whose sweat had tilled it. Or whatever the word might be; he wasn’t a countryman. His true father was a cold-hearted swine with exquisite lace ruffles pinned to dirty sleeves: a man who never paid his tailor, lied to women he wanted, and had probably never left London in his life. Philip had encountered him a few times in the sort of hells no decent man would visit. He’d bowed the first time, and received a chilly stare and the amused curl of a lip; they had ignored each other ever since. Even so, it was probably better than a father like Guy’s, who knew one intimately yet still didn’t care.
And his thoughts were on Guy again. Philip picked up some papers, purely so he could throw them down in disgust, shoved his chair back, and went for an irritable and solitary walk.
***
HE RETURNED TO THE house for breakfast. Guy was at the table. He’d taken a single bite from a piece of toast, and was making monosyllabic responses to John’s efforts at conversation. John shot Philip a look composed of concern and accusation. Philip glowered at him.
Guy lingered at the table like Banquo’s ghost until Philip had cleared his plate, then said, with determination, “Sir Philip. May I have a moment of your time?”
Sir Philip? “Of course,” Philip said, with equal courtesy, and a sense of impending doom. “Please come to my study.”
He led the way, ushered Guy in, shut the door, turned, and said, “What the bloody hell?”
Guy looked sick as a dog. “I need to make you an apology.”
“Guy, for God’s sake. There is absolutely no need for this distress. If you’re concerned about yesterday—”
“Can you just listen?” Guy’s fists were clenched, knuckles white. “I need to tell you, I have lied to you and—and betrayed your hospitality, and you will have every right to be furious with me. I want you to know it’s all my fault, nobody else’s, and I hope that—”
“Wait, wait, stop.” This was sounding bad. If Guy had complained to a magistrate or some such in a fit of prudery, they could be in deep trouble. “What exactly have you done?”
Guy licked his lips. “I wrote the book.”
Philip stared at him blankly. His mind was so entirely turned to the possibility of denunciation for unnatural offences that he couldn’t make any sense of a book. A letter, yes, but— “What book?”
“The Secret of Darkdown.”
“You did what?” Philip yelped.
Guy flinched, and opened his mouth, but at that point there was a thunderous hammering on the door, which was unceremoniously flung open, and David Martelo strode in. “You. Both in the sickroom, now. Amanda is saying she will get up if you don’t come in, I’ve her woman holding her down, and if she damages that leg I’ll throttle the pair of you. Move!”
“Oh no,” Guy said. “No, she can’t—”
David grabbed him by the collar and physically dragged him out. Philip shouted an enraged, “Hoi!”, sprinting after, and the three of them crashed through the sickroom door, where Amanda Frisby sat up very straight, face red, all flags flying.
“Well, I never!” the attendant woman yelped.
“Please leave us, Jane,” Amanda said, and waited for the door to shut. “Guy Frisby, I will murder you. I told you—”
“Manda!” Guy shouted.
“No! Don’t you dare— I wrote it, Sir Philip. Not Guy. I wrote the book, and I’m very sorry, but he is not going to take the blame, and I dare say it was very foolish of me and you’re furious, but it’s me you should be furious with and I can prove it because the manuscript is in my hand and—”
Guy was trying to talk over her, voice anguished. Philip lifted his hands. “Stop. Stop,” he begged. “In the name of sanity. Miss Frisby, are you saying you wrote Darkdown? Not Guy?”
“Yes. Me. He always tries to take the blame for me, even though I’m twenty-three, and I won’t have it.” Amanda spoke emphatically. David hovered behind her, with a distinctly protective look. “And if you do choose to throw me out I shall understand, and I’ll write a letter of apology if you like, but please don’t blame Guy. I didn’t even let him read it till a few weeks ago.”
“Guy didn’t write it and it’s not his fault. I grasp that. Why are you both so appalled at making this admission? What on earth is this panic about?”
“Lord Corvin said he’d pursue the publisher,” Guy said. His lips were pale. “And we can’t afford it if they sue or ask us to bear the cost of withdrawing the book, or any of the other things that might happen. I realise he’s deeply offended, but truly, we never intended it to seem an insult.”
“I. Not you,” Amanda snapped.
“But who the devil says he’s offended?” Philip almost shouted. “Nobody’s offended!”
“That is absolutely true,” David said. “We’ve all been laughing over the book for days. Not, uh, disrespectfully,” he added quickly. “It’s a marvellous read. Everyone’s fighting over who’ll have it next, and Phil’s ordered copies for us all.”
Guy gaped. “But Corvin kills you, Philip. In the book. He said it was a gross slander!”
“No, he— Oh God, he did. All right, yes, but he didn’t mean his portrayal as a villain. He will have been speaking about the description of his hair. Or perhaps the part where Darkdown feels remorse about shoving me off a roof instead of saying, ‘Whoops,’ and trotting on with his day,” Philip said, brutally sacrificing his best friend on Guy’s altar.
“It was just Corvin being Corvin,” David added. “You mustn’t listen to him. Nobody does.”
“He and Mr. Raven were talking about horsewhipping the author or pursuing the publisher!”
“Oh, hell and the devil. Guy, I promise you, none of that was out of a desire for revenge. It was—”
“A desire to be further talked about,” David said over him. “To turn a minor scandal into a major one by whatever means necessary, to provoke a month’s chatter over teacups from the pages of a book. The Three Birdwits can’t see a fire without throwing fuel on it.”
Amanda gave a squeak of laughter and clapped her hand to her mouth at once. David smiled down at her. She looked up, eyes bright.
“Harsh. But not unjust. We didn’t consider the feelings of the author in the matter, but no harm has been done, or will be. I will speak to Corvin,” Philip said. “He will tell you himself that you have nothing to fear, and nothing for which to apologise other than describing his hair as red instead of russet, for which you will never be forgiven, but I shouldn’t worry because we all know he’s deluding himself. For heaven’s sake, don’t give it another thought.”
Guy’s mouth worked. He looked utterly sick, and Philip didn’t even think. He strode over and put his hands to Guy’s shoulders. “It’s all right. I promise you. It is all right.”
Guy was rigid under his hands for a second more, then Philip felt him shudder. He pulled the man close, just about remembering to make it a comforting embrace rather than anything more, and glanced over at Amanda Frisby with what he hoped was a suitable expression of wry amusement. She was regarding him with something uncomfortably like assessment, but that expression fled on the instant, replaced by a smile of relief.
“Thank you, Sir Philip. I did try to say to Guy you wouldn’t throw us out. And I truly am sorry. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known you.”
“That would have been a great pity, because I’m impatiently waiting my turn to read it. There is nothing for which to apologise, and my friends will be delighted beyond words by this development, particularly Sherry. He adores Gothic novels.” Philip realised he was rubbing Guy’s shoulder in a soothing manner, and stopped.
“He’s right,” David said. “And I’m sure John will want to discuss the finer points of caricature with you, expert to expert.”
“And with that, if you’ll excuse me, Miss Frisby, I think I might take your brother to recover himself,” Philip said. “He’s a little overwrought.”
“That’s a good idea,” Amanda agreed. “I’ll speak to you later, Guy Frisby.”
Philip dragged Guy up the stairs, through the house. Guy didn’t resist, but Philip felt his arm tense as they approached the little room where they’d made love yesterday.
“We’re not going there,” he said shortly. “Come on.”
He led the way up into the attics and out onto the roof. The sun was blindingly bright now. Guy put his free hand over his eyes. “Why are we on the roof?”
“It’s the best I can do for a view without a four-mile walk. Sit.”
There was a convenient sitting-place he’d found on previous expeditions, a flat rectangle raised sufficiently high that one could see over the parapet and across the fields and trees. Gazing out over the landscape had worked very well yesterday. He sat next to Guy, stone warm through his breeches, not touching. “Right. Now, will you please tell me what that was about? Not the book, be damned to the book. But what on earth did you think I was going to do, and why did you think telling me you’d written the thing would help?”
Guy’s shoulders were heaving. “I— I’m sorry. I panicked. I thought— You’ve been so kind, and I’ve lied to you since I got here.”
“Trivially.”
“It’s not trivial! The damned book slanders you in the worst way. It insults Lord Corvin and has him killing you—”
“It’s a Gothic novel,” Philip said. “A particularly ridiculous one. Anyone who looks at Sir Peter Hawkwood and sees me is a bloody fool.”
“Falconwood.”
“Whatever bird you like. I don’t care.”
“I do,” Guy said. “I know what it feels like to be talked about, and you probably know it worse than me.”
“Being talked about because one is a notorious bastard is a very different thing to being talked about because one is painted in ludicrous colours for popular entertainment. If I found that an unacceptable way to go on, I should hardly be friends with John. Very well, I understand that you were afraid you’d caused me harm.”
“And lied about it,” Guy said, stifled. “I let you—let you say things, yesterday—”
“Your eyes are no less lovely because your sister wrote a book,” Philip said. “I grant that you should have told me earlier, though I can entirely see that there may never have seemed a good opportunity, and you have had a lot on your mind. What I actually want to know is why you were so afraid of telling me the truth that you named yourself the author, evidently against your sister’s will, to protect her. What did you think I was going to do to her, Guy?”
Guy made a choking noise. There was a long silence. Philip didn’t break it.
“It wasn’t just you,” he said finally. “I was afraid— You know all Corvin would have to do is mention her name—”
“He doesn’t ruin women except by request,” Philip said. “I told you that. Did you think I should have thrown her out of her sickroom bed to get my vengeance? Were you truly afraid that I would respond to ridicule with cruelty? Can I possibly, at all, make you see that I don’t give two fucks for being caricatured in some literary farrago, but to realise you believe me so callous and malicious and selfish—”
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 after 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?”
“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.”
Philip found himself speechless for a moment. “I am not ‘doing that’, whatever you mean by ‘that’. I’ve no intention of lying to him—”
“I never lied to you,” Corvin said gently.
“No, I know that, but John seems to think I’m playing the London rake with the country boy and that’s not fair.”
“Lots of things aren’t fair,” John said. “All I’m saying is, you don’t normally do slamming doors, or seducing innocents, or amours. When was the last time you fucked anyone who wasn’t us?”
“Yesterday,” Philip snapped.
“Before that.”
“It was— I don’t know, why does it matter? A few months, I suppose. A year, at most.”
“Oh yes? Who?”
“God, I don’t know. Obviously I know, I’ve just misplaced the name. His father was a Cit, cotton manufacturer.” John was looking at him sardonically. Philip cudgelled his brain, and came up with, “Maudsley, that’s it. Happy now?”
“If you mean Mabersley, and you do, it was more like two years,” Corvin said. “I remember, even if you don’t. He cried on my shoulder about you.”
If Philip had ever known that, he’d entirely forgotten. He felt a mild twinge of guilt. “Over me? Why?”
“Don’t worry about it. I cheered him up.”
Philip glared. “I bet you did. Would you mind—”
“The point is,” John said loudly, “it’s two years since you fucked anyone else, and longer since you fucked anyone you cared to remember the name of. But now you have to have the country boy who doesn’t know what he’s doing and has nowhere to go with it. That’s not seeming fair to me either.”
Nowhere to go.
That was truer than John knew. Guy was tied to Yarlcote and to Amanda, and that was a problem. Philip had no desire to spend more time than necessary here in this house whose every room reminded him of his ill-starred birth. He far preferred London’s excitements and comforts, and even if he had harboured an urge for rural simplicity, he’d burned his bridges very thoroughly indeed with the neighbours. He could probably increase the frequency of his visits to a few times a year, but he could never set foot in the Frisbys’ house for fear of endangering Amanda’s reputation, and of course every visit Guy made to him without the excuse of her convalescence would be spoken about with shock and disapproval because of the Frisbys’ runaway mother and Philip’s sodding prick of a half-brother.
“Shit,” he said.
“If I may make a contrary point?” Corvin suggested. “I agree our beloved bastard baronet is not known for heartfelt affairs. Or even for putting in more than the very minimum of effort, come to that. Yet you’re bothering now. Is he special, Phil?”
Philip thought about Guy’s sunlit eyes, his steadfast heart, his stammering, unfurling desires. “Yes. Yes, he is. Which doesn’t make John wrong.”
“Yes and no,” Corvin said. “Love is no less because it doesn’t last forever, or even for long. You may be the only man who ever makes him feel wanted, after all. I trust you to do a good job of it, and to leave him with pleasant memories in the end.”
“You always say things like that, and I’ve never known it help at all,” John said. “‘Heart broken, crying your eyes out? Don’t worry about it. This will just seem like an amusing diversion when you’re fifty.’”
“I don’t see any advantage in reaching the age of fifty without pain if you’ve also reached it without pleasure,” Corvin said. “And really, a broken heart is a great deal less than a broken leg. ‘Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.’ We get better. Phil? What is it?”
“We get better,” Philip repeated. “Oh God. Oh shit.”
“What on earth—” Corvin began, but Philip was already heading out of the room. He needed to think.