Midwinter Manor 2 -Keeper's Pledge (4 page)

Millicent looked sidelong at her sister, as if uncertain whether she were being mocked.

“I’ll, ah, get Mrs. Standish to see you to your rooms,” Philip said and fled. Lord, he hadn’t a clue how to speak to women. Never had.

There hadn’t been time for cocktails before dinner—not if the ladies were to be allowed leisure to dress, which of course they must be—so they all met for the first time in the dining room.

It seemed odd to have such color around the dining table. Philip found himself almost wishing for his old gas lamps again, to mute the tones a little. Millicent had dressed in a delicate gold Poiret gown that actually rather suited her, while Lucy, who was seated on his left, had thrown on an over-long creation patterned garishly in orange and purple. Philip hoped she didn’t take offense at him spending most of his time in conversation with Millicent, who was on his right; he found it impossible to look at Lucy’s dress without suffering a dramatic loss of appetite.

However, as it was soon determined they had absolutely nothing in common, Millicent and Philip’s conversation eventually flagged. What they lacked was more than made up for by Matthew. Some of his stories about the Cambridge theater troupe he belonged to were really quite entertaining, but not all of them, Philip felt, were suitable for mixed company. Particularly those which involved the misappropriation of female costumes for “humorous” purposes. Frederick seemed to agree, telling his brother more than once to “Steady on.”

Matthew’s full lips curled. “Oh, don’t be such a stick-inthe-mud, Frederick. The ladies don’t mind, do they?” A bravura gesture, wine glass in hand, resulted in several drops staining the tablecloth. Philip thought he saw Standish wince.

“Well….” Millicent, whom Matthew had addressed, very clearly
did
mind, but was distressed at the prospect of having to say so.

“Do you punt at Cambridge?” Philip asked desperately. “I’ve got rather fond memories of floating along the Isis on a summer’s day.”

Matthew fixed him with a speculative eye. “Yes, you look like the sort of man who knows how to handle a pole.”
Frederick cleared his throat loudly. “Millie, dearest, don’t you think it’s time…?”
“Oh! Oh, yes, of course. Lucy, shall we?” Millicent rose.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to accompany us, Frederick?” Lucy asked archly, as she followed her sister out of the dining room.

“We’ll be along directly,” Philip assured her, as Frederick merely glowered.

The gentlemen reseated themselves, and Standish served brandy and cigars. The decanter was noticeably lighter upon leaving Matthew’s hands, and Philip decided it might be wise not to pass it in his direction again.

Frederick was still scowling. “Perhaps, Matthew, when we rejoin the ladies you’ll choose a more suitable subject for conversation.”

“You know,
Frederick
, Queen Victoria has been dead for a considerable number of years now.” Matthew leaned back in his chair and blew a perfect smoke ring, just as Philip, who rarely smoked, drew on his own cigar with a regrettable lack of caution and was seized with a fit of coughing. “Oh, very well. What shall we talk about, then? Cousin Philip, why don’t you choose a subject?”

“I, ah.” Philip cleared his throat, willing his eyes to stop watering. There was nothing he liked less than being put on the spot like that. “Perhaps we should join the ladies sooner rather than later? They must be tired after their long drive,” he added with sudden inspiration.

“I shouldn’t worry about Lucy at least,” Matthew drawled. “She’s got the constitution of a shire horse.”

Frederick ignored him, turning pointedly to Philip. “You’re quite right. I’m sure Millie will want to turn in early tonight. Why don’t we join them now?”

“But I haven’t finished my brandy. Or my cigar.” Matthew’s protest went unheeded by Frederick, who had already risen, and Philip was only too happy to follow his lead.

The ladies seemed, in any event, glad enough to see them when they entered the drawing room. Millicent was sipping her tea as if she’d been ordered to do so, while Lucy lolled in a chair, leafing through a book with very little appearance of interest.

She looked up as they came in. “That was quick. Is Philip’s brandy not up to snuff?”

“Lucy!” Millicent looked scandalized, but Philip was rather amused. It was on the tip of his tongue to offer her the chance to pass her own judgment on the matter, but Matthew beat him to it.

“Philip’s brandy is magnificent, Lucy dear,” he said grandly. “I could compose an ode to Philip’s brandy. That is, had I an ear for composition, which sadly I have not. My talents lie in the declamation of others’ verse: ‘I could not stay behind you: my desire, more sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth.’” On finishing this disconcerting speech, made more so by the emphasis he chose to give certain words, Matthew gazed around the room as if inviting applause; finding none, he sighed dramatically.

Frederick was apparently not entertained. “Isn’t it about time you stopped this ridiculous showing off?”
“Is it a world to hide virtues in?” Matthew asked with passionate rhetoric, flinging his arms wide. Brandy sloshed in his glass without spilling, but Philip feared for his furnishings with that cigar still lit in Matthew’s hand.

“For heaven’s sake, Matthew, sit down before you cause an accident with all that silly hand waving,” Frederick snapped.

Matthew looked at him sulkily, but sat.

“And that’s enough of that sort of talk. If you can’t think of a decent subject to converse about, then don’t speak at all. You’re embarrassing your host, your family, and yourself.”

There was an awkward silence. “Wasn’t it a strange thing about Agatha Christie?” Millie burst in brightly. “Still, she’s been found safe and well, so no harm done, I suppose. What do you think of her novels, Philip? Have you read them?”

Philip hastened to join in. “I, ah, I liked
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
very much. I wasn’t so keen on
Roger Ackroyd
.”

“Oh, go, hang yourselves all! You are idle shallow things: I am not of your element.” Matthew rose, his chair scraping noisily on the floor, and flounced out of the room.

Philip frowned. Matthew’s words had seemed oddly familiar. “Is he quoting something?”
Lucy laughed and tapped her cigarette upon the table before putting it between her unrouged lips. “
Twelfth Night
, I believe. Could be worse.”
“Could it?” Frederick muttered into his brandy. Philip had a sudden image of Matthew clad as Viola and was inclined to agree with his cousin’s sentiments on the matter.
“Would you prefer he move on to the sonnets?” Lucy persisted. “What do you think, Philip? Would you care to be compared to a summer’s day?”

Philip froze. Surely she wasn’t asking him outright if he…. “I, ah—please excuse me.” Tossing his cigar with shaky aim into the fire, he fled.

Attempting to take refuge in the billiard room, he found it already occupied by Matthew. “Care to indulge in a little ball play with me?” Matthew drawled.

“No, thank you,” Philip managed. “But you carry on, don’t mind me.” Damn it, he wanted nothing more than to leave and find solitude, but he could hardly run out on another of his guests, could he? Leaning against the paneled wall, he attempted to take calming breaths as he watched Matthew. Really, the boy played appallingly badly. He didn’t even seem to know what angle to take his shots from. Philip had half a mind to go over and correct him, until it dawned on him with mild horror that Matthew had a very clear strategy of his own, and that was to take as many shots as even remotely possible from a position bent over Philip’s side of the table.

Presumably Matthew felt he displayed to best advantage this way, but Philip rather thought he’d seen enough. “Excuse me,” he said for the second time that evening, determining this time to go where he was sure of solitude.

A few minutes’ fresh air outside on the terrace went some way to restoring his composure. Really, he was being ridiculous. What must Frederick think of him? Squaring his shoulders, he went back into the drawing room.

Lucy cornered him at once. “Philip, old thing, there you are. I must apologize for teasing you earlier. I keep forgetting you’re not one of Frederick’s set and therefore don’t deserve it.”

“Frederick has a set?”

“Lord, yes. Beastly bores, the lot of them. I make it my business to stir them up a bit, but you’re not like that, are you?”

“I—ah, I wouldn’t know,” Philip said cautiously.

“A load of stodgy men of business, old before their time. All they can talk about is industrial improvements and town planning. Now don’t get me wrong—those are all fearfully important subjects, the meat and drink of a changing society—but one doesn’t always want mutton stew, does one? Sometimes a clear consommé is what’s called for.”

Philip smiled at her imagery. “What would you rather talk of?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You, perhaps. You’re something of a dark horse, from what Frederick’s told me, hiding away all these years in your dusty old mansion, which turns out to be a thoroughly nice house with all modern conveniences.”

“I, ah, had some work done recently. Well, in the last few years, I should say. Put in the electric lights.” Philip fiddled with his brandy glass. “To tell the truth, if you’d come here five years ago, you’d have had a very different impression of the place. Although it was never dusty,” he added hurriedly, feeling he ought to defend his staff from the implication of slovenliness.

“Is that so?” Lucy asked, cocking her head to one side. “I wonder what caused the change?”
Philip almost choked on his brandy under the weight of her intent gaze. “Really, I, ah—” Inspiration struck. “There was an accident on the estate. Young Costessey—the gamekeeper, you know, although he wasn’t then, of course— and then old Drayton, ah, dying rather suddenly.” Lucy was smiling at him, but Philip had the horrible feeling he was making a dreadful hash of explaining this, and heartily wished he’d never started. To make matters worse, he realized Millicent had come over and was listening to their conversation. “It got one thinking,” he finished. “About… about one’s mortality.”

Lucy nodded as if he’d been perfectly clear. Philip could have kissed her. “I know just what you mean. When Mummy died—you won’t remember, dear, you were far too young,” she added to her sister, “but I’d been trying so desperately to be a proper daughter for her all the time she was ill. But after she’d gone, I just thought it was time to stop living her life and start living mine.”

“I do remember,” Millicent protested. “That’s when you broke your engagement. Daddy was fearfully cross.”

“Oh, I don’t see why,” Lucy said carelessly, taking out another cigarette and tapping it on the mantelpiece. “Rupert and I are much better as friends. Every time we see each other these days, we have a jolly good laugh about what a frightfully lucky escape we both had.” She laughed suddenly. “Poor old Victoria, though. She’s on her sixth pregnancy now, did you hear? I don’t think I should have much liked being Rupert’s brood mare.”

“Lucy!” Millicent darted a scandalized glance in Philip’s direction.

“Would you excuse me? I see Frederick’s been left all alone.” With a sense of relief, Philip escaped to the other side of the room, mopping his brow as he went. Perhaps he should instruct Standish to let the fire die down a bit; it really was awfully hot in here now.

He fervently hoped they’d all go to bed soon.
Chapter 4

T
HE
evening of the seventeenth of December found Danny in a somber mood. Philip’s time belonged to his guests now, until they left sometime in the New Year. No firm date had been set as yet, but Philip had talked of them staying a full month. Danny had hardly seen him these last few weeks, and though he’d been the one to argue for caution, he was good and tired of it now. They’d met this morning to talk business, him and Philip, but that’d been all they’d had the chance for, save for a snatched kiss in the game larder before they parted. It wasn’t Danny’s favorite trysting place, with dead birds and rabbits hung all around them, and he doubted it was Philip’s either.

Now all up at the house would be bustle and laughter, for the guests any road, Danny reckoned. He wondered how Philip was coping with so much society. Danny could imagine it now: Philip fretting himself ill over the constant need to talk, to be a host, to keep up the society mask.

Or was he? Philip Luccombe now wasn’t the same frightened, solitary creature Danny had first known four years ago. He’d blossomed since then, in his own way; had become a little more used to the sound of his own voice and of others. Maybe he was finding all this easier than he’d thought he would. Enjoying it even. After all, his guests were family, weren’t they? And they’d be educated men, those cousins of his. Able to talk to Philip about all manner of things Danny knew nowt about.

Danny’s mood blackened further as he thought of Philip comparing a countryman’s rough company to his present society and finding it wanting.

Was Philip missing Danny at all?

He got his answer sooner than he’d looked for as a knock came upon his cottage door, its rhythm unmistakably Philip’s.

“I’m so glad to see you,” Philip breathed, barely waiting until the door had shut behind him before he fell into Danny’s arms. Danny had all but forgotten how well he fit there, how right it felt to touch him. They held each other for a good long while, reassuring one another of their presence, relearning each other’s scent, until Philip broke away with a faint laugh. “You don’t know how much I’m already missing our quiet evenings together.”

“Oh, aye?” Danny asked with a grin. “And what about the not-so-quiet ones? Reckon I’m missing those most of all.” He pressed his groin into Philip’s hip in evidence. Philip colored, but Danny felt answering stirrings from him. “Reckon you’re missing ’em too.”

“Oh Lord, when you do that, I can’t even think straight. I only meant to snatch a few minutes….” Philip’s words wavered to a halt as Danny bent his head to kiss his lover’s neck. “Oh Lord,” he breathed again.

“Reckon I might have to take you right here, on the parlor floor,” Danny murmured in his ear. His cock was like a shotgun in his drawers, loaded and ready to shoot. “Don’t reckon I can wait to get you into bed proper like.”