“Yes,” Rollo conceded.“Though it feels like double that distance when one only has Dobson for company.But…the thing is, Fitz, I wasn’t aware it was a one-way ticket.Unless…” He frowned again.“…you prefer it that way?”
“I…ah…” Lyndon’s mouth had dried.“No.”He wetted his lips.“I…um…I will be rather…um…disappointed to see our friendship terminated.”
“Disappointed?”Rollo’s face fell.
“Uh.Tremendously.”Stricken.Bereft.Heartbroken.“Yes.Tremendously.”
“But you are prepared to let me sail off willy-nilly into the sunset anyhow?”
“Yes, but—”
Rollo sat up, exhaling audibly.His nostrils flared, and there was an obstinate jut to his chin Lyndon had not seen before.And even though Lyndon knew he was in for a jolly good shoeing, he found that absurdly endearing too.It occurred to him that he’d miss it dreadfully, along with the lecture and scolding it undoubtedly heralded.
Rollo threw his hands up despairingly.“Why must the English upper classes always be so damned constipated when it comes to saying what they really mean?Why is this bred in us so ruthlessly, as though civilised democracy would crumble if we dared for one second to lay bare our emotions?”
Sensing these questions to be largely rhetorical, Lyndon kept his counsel.If pressed, the status quo of English nobility suppressing their every sentiment suited him admirably.
“Viking warriors,” Rollo continued, launching into his stride, “were as quick to soak their thick Viking beards with tears as gouge out a man’s entrails.And were not ashamed of it one tiny bit.Fancy that!Yet buttoned-up English chaps with their hearts full to bursting, like ours are, seem to have developed a foolish compulsion to conceal their every desire.Are you going to pat me on the shoulder and wish me a jolly safe trip?”
Lyndon squirmed.When had the workings of his mind become so transparent?“Um…possibly.”
Rollo made a harrumphing, I-knew-it sort of noise.“Well, bless your delusional soul for making up that unsatisfactory conclusion to us.”He grabbed Lyndon’s hand and squeezed it tight.“Just in case I haven’t made myself absolutely clear, you fabulous idiot of a clogged-up lord, I am besotted with you.”He gave Lyndon’s hand a tug.“I love you, Fitz.I don’t know why, how, or even when it happened.Only that it did.And you love me too.”He crashed his mouth against Lyndon’s so firmly, his teeth rattled.“We’re a tribe, you and me.A tribe.And tribesmen love each other hard.”
I love you.Rollo’s impassioned declaration settled around Lyndon’s heart, melting there like dazzling flakes of snow.I love you.It had been a good many years since he’d received a declaration of love.He remembered prising one once from Will, though probably at sword point, and Benedict must have said it too.But none so fervently.Or to be fair, referencing jammed up bowels.
He committed his lover’s heartfelt sentiment to the walls of his memory, hanging it amongst his most treasured possessions to savour later when his lover departed.
“This is the moment when you tell me my love is returned, by the way,” Rollo prodded.He smiled at him tentatively.“Otherwise, I’ve made a complete clot of myself.”
Lyndon huffed a soft laugh and ran his fingers through Rollo’s fine hair.“This picnic blanket is far too small for two complete clots.”
He shook his head wonderingly.How hard he’d tried and failed to make sense of things over the last decade.He’d searched for it in a bottle, at the card tables, the racetrack, in the beds of bawds.And after all that, he’d found the answer here at Goule, in the shape of a beautiful young man, who, bizarrely and against all the odds, wanted and loved him.
“Your love is returned,” he replied, the words slipping from him easily.So easily, he wanted to repeat them, over and over, even as a tiny corner of his happiness whispered the conversation wasn’t truly finished.
And so, he did, in between hauling Rollo into his lap, grabbing his face, and kissing him as if his entire existence depended on the success of it.
“I’m not your only tribe though.Am I?”He cupped Rollo’s chin, needing the truth.“You have people waiting for you at Rossingley who miss you very much.”
“I do, and I shall return to them gladly.”
Lyndon nodded as if he expected as much, ice already snaking through his veins despite the heat of the day.But he would not stoop to begging.He would keep his self-respect intact.In front of Rollo, at least.
“Except then, I shall come back here.”
Lyndon’s heart thieved a beat.“You will?”God, he sounded desperate.
“Of course!I shall return to Rossingley, ensure Willoughby breaks off whatever is brewing between himself and Miss Lavinia Higgins, give everyone a hug, then inform my father I’m passionately in love with you, and return here.”
“When you put it like that, you make it sound very straightforward.”
Lyndon remained unconvinced.There were many a slip twixt cup and lip.In Lyndon’s mind, Rossingley had taken on mythical proportions, like a palace from a children’s fable.And the way Rollo told it, his family were enthroned there in a perpetual state of nirvana.How on earth could Lyndon, with his gloomy old hall, his jealousies, and his crosspatch tendencies, ever measure up to that?Why on earth would his pup ever trek back to dull, dreary Goule?
“It is,” Rollo exclaimed.“Three weeks’ work at the most.I shall join you here in plenty of time to prepare for the duke’s visit in the autumn, and afterwards we shall all travel up to London together.”
“We shall?”said Lyndon faintly.This part of the plan sounded even less likely.It assumed Benedict would overlook Lyndon’s less favourable traits, for a start, and invite Lyndon to lodge in his London home, seeing as Lyndon no longer owned one.
“Of course.”Rollo wormed his way in closer.“I mean, obviously, only for the season.Papa says nobody with any sense stays in town longer than that.And we would have to be terribly discreet, although Papa and Kit always seem to manage things.But I’d like to…” He coloured a little.“I’ve never done the full season.All the routs and soirées and all that nonsense.Willoughby and I were too young until now.Would you come with me?”
