(Midwinter Manor)Poacher's Fall (5 page)

“Oh, absolutely.” Luccombe’s hearty, relieved tone told Danny he’d not wanted to sour the mood with melancholy reminiscences either. “There’s
The
Pickwick Papers
, but you really ought to read the rest of the Christmas books, too, while you’re laid up here. They’re not quite the same, read on a hot summer’s day, I’ve found.”

“What’s the next one about? More ghosts?”

“
The Chimes
? No, it has goblins, as I recall. But they bring visions, just like the ghosts from
A Christmas
Carol
, and there’s a similar sort of message.”

“Oh, aye? About being charitable to them as aren’t so well off?”

“Well, yes, and that one shouldn’t let life—or love, for that matter—slip away, or put it off until later, because later may be too late.” He took a sip of wine, and fell silent, staring into his glass.

“That an’t a bad message,” Danny said gently. “And Lord knows, you’ve been charity itself to me this Christmas. I hope you know I’m proper grateful.”

“I’m not at all sure I deserve gratitude for something that’s been anything but a hardship to me,” Luccombe protested. “I’ve enjoyed your company, these last couple of days. Very much,” he added, looking up with a shy expression that fair melted Danny’s heart.

“Well, as they say, it’s an ill wind. Now we’d best eat up, or Mrs. Standish will think we’re not grateful for her efforts in the kitchen.”

To follow the goose, there was plum pudding steeped in brandy and smothered in cream. “She’s a grand cook, Mrs. Standish. If she weren’t spoken for, I’d marry her myself,” Danny said with a grin, pushing his well-cleaned pudding bowl aside.

“Best not let Standish hear you saying that sort of thing,” Luccombe commented teasingly. There was a brightness in his eyes Danny didn’t reckon he’d seen before, and the good food and wine had brought a touch of color to his cheeks that did a man good to behold. How old must he be? Not yet thirty, by Danny’s reckoning. Right now, with the firelight from the room’s small grate casting a warm glow upon his delicate features, he looked more like twenty.

“You’ve never thought of marrying, then?” Danny asked. “Must be right lonely here, all on your own.” He didn’t reckon Luccombe would think of the servants as company; he hadn’t been brought up to it.

Luccombe looked down, his color deepening just a touch. “I’m afraid I’m not really one for company, these days. And I’ve never really thought of myself as the marrying kind. But I confess—” He broke off, and stared out of the window.

“Sometimes,” Danny encouraged him, “you wish you had someone to share all this with?” He slid his hand across the blanket until it was resting on Luccombe’s and began to rub gently along that pale, soft hand with his thumb. Emboldened by the lack of any outrage on Luccombe’s part, Danny brought the hand up to his mouth and kissed it softly. For a moment, it was bliss—and then Luccombe reared up like a startled horse and wrenched his hand away as if Danny had tried to trap it in one of his snares.

“What—what the devil do you think you’re doing, Costessey? This is not—this is not—” With a look of horror, he turned and fairly ran out of the room.

Danny stared after him as his heart smashed into a million pieces and his stomach tore itself to shreds. He’d been wrong about Luccombe. He wasn’t queer at all. He’d been disgusted by Danny’s touch, and like as not he’d have Danny thrown out of his house before the hour was out, broken leg or no. Danny could only hope Luccombe wouldn’t set the law on him. Christ, what about Mam and the young’uns? They’d be turned out for sure, if the shame didn’t kill them first. “Aye, you fell on your head right enough, Daniel Costessey,” he snarled bitterly. “Shame you didn’t fall a bit harder. You’d have saved a heap of trouble if you’d died out there!” He punched the headboard, but the pain it caused wasn’t near enough to distract him from the greater pain of knowing what a fool he’d been.

He had to do something. Talk to Luccombe, explain—lie—and beg him not to take this any further. Flinging off the bedclothes, Danny lowered himself out of bed, his ribs protesting all the way. His left leg was heavy and unwieldy in its splints, and as Danny’s foot hit the floor, it seemed like a bolt of lightning shot up his leg and grounded itself in his teeth. Panting and fighting the urge to whimper from the pain, Danny pushed himself up to standing and took a hesitant hop forward.

It was sheer, blinding agony. Danny’s leg was on fire, and his ribs felt like they were constricting around his heart and lungs, squeezing the life out of him. Holding onto the wall as best he could, Danny took another hop, and another. He felt sick with the pain, and for a moment honestly thought he could go no further, but angrily he reminded himself what was at stake and, gritting his teeth, managed to open the door.

He was in a long, narrow corridor with doors to either side and at the far end, a staircase. Right. That was what he’d aim for. Unable now to stop the whimpers that forced their way between his clenched teeth, Danny set off on his halting way. By the time he reached the stairs, sweat was dripping into his eyes, although he couldn’t have said if he was hot or cold. Felt like both, or neither. But there was a banister to hold onto, which helped. Slowly, so slowly, Danny started down the stairs.

Halfway down, he knew he wasn’t going to make it. The nausea was worse now, and when he looked at things, there seemed to be bits missing. But he couldn’t stop now.
Can’t
go back
, he thought, and he took one more step before the blackness overwhelmed his vision.

P
HILIP
scarcely knew what he was doing as he fled from Costessey’s room. The man had… made advances toward him. And God help him, Philip had let him. Had welcomed it, even. It had felt like a drink of cool water on a burning summer’s day, like a cigarette after a month’s abstinence—it had been heaven. And then the guilt had flooded in.

How could he do this to Robert? No wonder they called this a perverted, unnatural kind of love.

But it had been four years, an insistent voice reminded him. It sounded oddly like an echo of Robert’s well-loved, mocking tones. And many a widow marries before her year is out. Would Robert have wanted this for him? This half-life, spent lurking inside with the curtains drawn, mourning now for almost as long as he had known the man?

Philip stood still in the middle of the hallway, arrested by an almost painfully clear memory of his lover. It had been the end of Trinity term, his second year up at Oxford. They’d been punting on the Cherwell in the late afternoon sunshine, and Robert had lain back upon the cushions looking positively decadent as he feasted upon a dish of ripe strawberries, a glass of champagne in his hand. Philip had said something to that effect, and Robert had laughed. “Too many bloody awful things in this world of ours, my dear. I say we should ‘sport us while we may’!”

Philip smiled, despite himself. Robert had loved to quote Marvell’s poems at him, and that one in particular. Philip supposed he
had
been rather coy, at the start. It had been a full year before their friendship had turned to anything more… physical, and that it had done so at all was due, strangely enough, to Jack Costessey, Daniel’s father.

Philip smiled again at the image of his younger self, clueless as to the true reason for his fascination with the dark, roguish laborer and totally unaware that his love for his lively college friend was anything but platonic. Then, right at the end of the summer holidays after his first year at Oxford, Philip had been strolling through the grounds of the estate and had come upon Costessey and the scullery maid
in flagrante delicto
. They hadn’t seen him, thank God, being entirely too preoccupied with each other. He’d run back to the house and shut himself in his room, weeping bitter tears of sudden self-knowledge. Returning to Oxford a day early, he’d got roaring drunk in Robert’s rooms and confessed his unnaturalness. Whereupon Robert had put an arm around him, said “Well, then, my dear, we’ll just have to be unnatural together,” and kissed him.

It had been one revelation upon another, and to be perfectly honest, Philip had been more stunned than aroused by the kiss. Robert had soon persuaded him to thaw a little, though. Robert could have persuaded an ascetic to unbend and enjoy himself, had he put his mind to it. He’d been so full of life. Neither the tallest, nor the most classically handsome of men, he’d nonetheless been well loved by men and women alike, with his quick wit and ready smile.

Philip could hear Robert’s voice, clear as day, as he recited a verse from his favorite poem:

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

God, he’d been such a fool. Robert would have been appalled to see Philip immured within the manor, going slowly mad for want of company. He’d have been the first to tell him to find another.

Realizing abruptly that he probably looked a trifle odd, standing stock still in the hallway and smiling to himself, Philip shook his head and spun slowly on his heel, uncertain whether to return to Costessey’s—Danny’s—room at once, or seek a little Dutch courage first. He still wasn’t entirely certain what he was going to say to the man. Possibly something along the lines of them having “world enough, and time”?

And then Philip heard a great dull clattering sound, as if the roof had fallen in, or someone had toppled a wardrobe down the stairs.

The stairs. Philip raced back to the staircase he had so recently descended. There, upon the first landing, in a crumpled, pajama-clad heap, lay Danny. His face was grey and had an unhealthy sheen, and he didn’t respond to Philip’s frantic cries.

D
R
. N
EWTON
was looking more disapproving than ever as he exited Costessey’s room, shoving the last of his instruments in his bag with perhaps a touch more force than was good for them. “He’s not taken any dreadful hurt, although that little stroll has cost him all the ground he’d made in the last few days. Fortunately it was a faint that caused him to lose consciousness rather than another blow to the head, or I shouldn’t have liked to speak for the consequences.”

“Did you have to reset the leg?” Philip asked anxiously.

“I did not, the plaster of Paris having done
its
duty in protecting the patient. To ascertain this, however, I was forced to remove the splint and then reapply a fresh one.” He fixed Philip with a glare that seemed to see right through him. “I shall look to you, Mr. Luccombe, to see that whatever circumstances caused this young man to make such a disastrous attempt to remove himself from your care are
not
repeated.”

Philip was uneasily aware that his face must have reddened, despite Newton clearly having caught hold of
exactly
the wrong end of the stick. “Oh, absolutely, Dr. Newton. It was all a misunderstanding….” He trailed off, not wishing in the least to be questioned as to the nature of said misunderstanding. “Really, I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done.”

Newton harrumphed, his moustache quivering in barely mollified disapprobation. “The bill, Mr. Luccombe, will be with you at the end of the week. Normally I should present my account for payment upon the following day, but I believe my wife was hoping I might take something of a break from business to mark the season.”

Philip didn’t think it would be possible for Newton to make him feel guiltier about recent events if he tried. But then, he reflected, Newton probably
was
trying. “So terribly sorry, Dr. Newton, to drag you out here on Christmas Day. Perhaps Mrs. Newton might be appeased with a bottle of my late father’s claret?” he added hopefully. “Standish?” he queried the reassuring dark presence hovering discreetly by his side.

“I’ll see to it, sir.”

“Thank you. And please, wish your wife the compliments of the season, Dr. Newton.”

Philip had never been so relieved to see the doctor’s tweed-suited back disappearing down the hall. Gathering his courage, he entered Danny’s room.

Danny didn’t look up. He was paler than ever, and the flickering candlelight cast deep shadows upon his face. Really, Philip thought irrelevantly, with Father five years in his grave there was no earthly reason why he shouldn’t have electric lighting installed. Just one of the many things he’d let slide in recent years.

Carefully, Philip sat down upon the edge of the bed, as he had so many times in the last few days. “Damn it, man,” he said softly, “what the hell did you think you were doing?”

Danny’s eyes were fixed upon a patch of wallpaper opposite his bed. “Please don’t turn my mam out, sir.”

It was so wholly unexpected that Philip didn’t answer immediately, just stared at Danny in confusion. It hit him like a blow to the stomach, just how young Danny was. Talking with him over the last day or so, Philip had sometimes felt as though
he
were the younger one. But right now Danny looked even less than the eighteen years which were all he could lay claim to.

Evidently Danny mistook Philip’s silence for a refusal of his plea, as he suddenly grasped Philip’s arm with a strong, callused hand that threatened to leave bruises in its desperate wake. “I’m begging you, sir, please don’t throw them out of their house on account of me.”

Philip was acutely conscious of Danny’s touch. With an effort of will, he found his voice, although it sounded a little strained in his ears. “Why on earth should I do that?” Did the man think him some kind of monster?

Finally, Danny looked up at him, a mute question in those haunted black eyes as he relinquished his hold on Philip’s arm. Philip found himself mourning the loss of contact.

“You—you misunderstood my reaction,” Philip forced himself to say. “I wasn’t… disgusted by your approaches. I just….” He trailed off. It seemed it was his turn to find the wallpaper fascinating. “I had a friend,” he said at last. “After he died, I thought I’d never feel that way about anyone else. It was… a bit of a shock for me, that’s all.”