Awash with terror, Rollo repeated his name more gently, stifling the urge to scream it.“Fitz.It’s me.I’m here.”
Fitz tossed him a glance from over his shoulder, casually, as if Rollo had called his name in greeting across the packed lounge of White’s.Even from six feet away, Rollo swore he could smell stale brandy on his breath.His lover had clearly abandoned all attempts at a rugged respectability several days ago.Straggly, matted clumps of red hair danced around his haggard, unshaven face.His untucked linens billowed like a kite.
And he swayed, God how he swayed, freely, with an apparent lack of fear, almost joyfully.Like an escaped beast let loose inside an empty ballroom, wild, untamed, and undaunted.As if the fires of hell lived in him.
Fitz lifted his hand from the chimney pot to wave a greeting, and Rollo’s heart stopped.“A simple letter would have sufficed, pup.Would have saved you the trouble of coming all this way.Or are you come in person so that you may gloat?Do you wish to give me a helping push over the parapet?”
“Step away from the edge, Fitz.”On shaky legs, Rollo stood, shuddering as a sharp gust of wind blasted through him.Bravely, he took a step forward, his eyes fixed straight ahead at his lover, whilst behind him, he heard his father cursing.“Why don’t you come over here, Fitz, so that you don’t have to shout?”
“No.”Fitz turned away from him.“The view’s much finer from here.I can see all the way to the ocean, beyond Beccles Ridge.”
Rollo took two more paces forward.His belly roiled.Only three more baby steps and he’d be able to grab and hug the solid chimney stack paired with the one Fitz embraced so indifferently.
“Eight weeks I waited for you, pup—” Fitz sniffed the air like a hound picking up the scent of a fox.“—for news of your return.Waited and waited and waited.As if I were a damned virginal chit.”He twisted, sneering at Rollo’s pathetic attempts to shuffle closer.“You made a convincing show of love.I’ll grant you that.Did dear Papa put you up to it?Or did he talk you out of it?”
“If only,” grumbled the earl from the safety of the skylight.“Rollo, darling, please—”
“I wrote a thousand times, you ass!My…my brother’s circumstances kept me at Rossingley, and the first thing I did was write to you.Willoughby had a dreadful fall from his horse.For days, weeks even, we believed he might not live.I penned letters to you every chance I got.We believe the first got caught up in an accident near Winchester.Papa and Kit think—and there is no other credible explanation—that Ralph Hart prevented the rest of my correspondence from reaching you.Out of spite.”
Reaching the blessed chimney stack, Rollo sagged against it, seizing it around the middle.“So, you see, all this is for nought, nothing but a misunderstanding, thanks to the vagaries of the weather and the malevolence of a slighted wastrel.And now I’ve cleared that up, you should come down.”
An empty brandy glass hung from Lyndon’s fingers.He held it up to his face, the crystal catching the light as he studied it, then offhandedly tossed it over the edge.With a squeal of terror, Rollo squeezed his chimney stack even tighter.
Lyndon heaved a long-drawn-out sigh and rubbed at his bristly chin.“Or perhaps it is God’s justice catching up with me at last.Everything I deserve.”
“In the form of a slighted sodomite?That’s nothing but self-pitying balderdash, Fitz!And you know it.”
Fitz sighed again, stretching his neck from side to side.He sniffed at the air once more, pushing up his fluttering shirt cuffs.Then he turned away from Rollo, looking this way and that in the manner of someone about to step down onto a busy street.
Fear flooded Rollo anew.He broke out into a cold sweat.One stumble was all it would take.Just one small stumble.
“Please, Fitz,” he begged, dropping to a crouch, not trusting his limbs to hold him up.“At least sit down.Here, next to me.Rest your legs.Surely, they must be weary by now.”
Fitz shook his head sadly, looking out in the distance over Rollo’s head.Then he turned back to contemplate the drop.“The devil fishes in my troubled waters, Rollo.There’s nothing for you up here.”
“Only my entire bloody future, you damned fool!Will I have to come over there and wrestle you down?I box, you know.And fence.”
Fitz tossed his head back, letting out a bark of laughter.“Wrestle me?You weigh less than a stuffed goose.I could break your spine with one hand tied behind my back.”
“Come over and give it a try, then.But be warned, I would kick and scream and never surrender.You can be sure of that.I would be a worthy foe.”
“I daresay.But never have I encountered a foe more deadly than my own soul.”
“Then you have never wrestled a determined Duchamps-Avery.Would you have me tumble over the edge with you?I shall follow you down, you know.”
From somewhere behind, Rollo’s father yelped.
A look of anguish crossed Fitz’s features.“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Yes, I would.Please,” Rollo begged again.“Come and sit with me, over here.You do not wish to do this.”
“You are dismissive of my desires?You know my head better than I?”Lyndon licked a finger and held it up.“There’s a biting easterly setting in.Brisk enough to send a man flying.”
“Please don’t,” Rollo whimpered.Tears streamed down his cheeks.A couple of loose roof tiles rattled as another sharp gust weaved around the chimney pots.“Please don’t say that.”
His clammy hands gripping the chimney stack shook as he made an aborted attempt to rise to his feet.
Fitz smirked.“Is it the wind keeping you stuck over there, pup?”
