As Berridge sought a tactful response, Lyndon waved him away.“You can’t comment, blah-blah.I know.But this little scheme has clever Rossingley’s fingerprints all over it.”
“Yes, my lord.”
If he were still a gambling man, Lyndon would wager the only person who hadn’t pieced the scheme together was Rossingley’s boy himself.Well, true to form, Lyndon wouldn’t make it easy for them.
He waited a few minutes, but the boy didn’t reappear.
Lyndon turned from the window.“I can take things from here, Berridge.Thank you.”
“Will you be requiring Fury saddled up to visit Mr Elliot?”
“Certainly.Thank you.”
*
BY THE SUMMERof his second year sequestered in Norfolk—latterly being of his own volition—Lord Lyndon Fitzsimmons’s daily routines had been well established.Ablute, breakfast, pay a visit to Will, take a constitutional through the grounds in the company of his sketch pad, then dinner in his bedchamber.Followed by brandy-induced oblivion.Sometimes, he deviated and supped port wine, yielding the same result.
For the first few weeks after Lyndon’s expulsion from society, Benedict had sent a man to keep tabs on him, to check he hadn’t turned Goule into a den of iniquity, or that he wasn’t, as many would have wished, stone-cold dead in a ditch.Given Lyndon’s reputation as a former rakehell of the highest order, no doubt Benedict expected his spy to return laden with tales of prodigal womanizing, lavish debts, and stories of Lyndon selling off the family heirlooms to settle them.
Though it pained Lyndon to admit, his brother’s punishment had been a wise one.Enforced solitude and the bracing Norfolk air, coupled with the sick humiliation of admitting all his failings to his oldest friend, Will Elliot, underlined what Lyndon already knew and had desperately tried to fight.That causing merry hell wasn’t for him.Depraved vices and scheming to bring Benedict down didn’t banish his demons any more successfully than pious prayers and abstinence.Whatever peace and absolution he craved were not to be found in the gambling houses, racetracks, and ballrooms of London.Nor had he found them in bawdy house beds or with his nose between the breasts of buxom ladies.Much to his chagrin.
Thus, after a series of dull reports, Benedict’s man ceased coming.
*
FOR A SHAMEFULperiod immediately after the lake accident, Lyndon had struggled to look Will square in the eye.His breathing would become unbearable, as if by merely looking at what had befallen Will had shattered every single one of his ribs.
Because, all too freshly, Lyndon remembered his beloved farm boy as he was before the accident, when Will’s long, thin face and direct gaze used to sit atop a firm and active body.A boy who thought nothing of tossing a dozen bales of hay into a cart without pause for breath, or ploughing four furlongs in between supper and nightfall.He remembered when Will’s lips would smother Lyndon’s own with deep, desperate kisses.
These days, Will’s fine body was ugly and twisted.A lifeless arm hung loosely across his lap.Spit dribbled down his sagging chin.The physician surmised he’d banged his head and bled into his cranium, whilst the village healer insisted he’dupset the balance of the veil, whatever that meant.Yet despite all that, Lyndon now had no trouble looking at him at all.The other, more finely made man was still inside, of course, his clever mind miraculously intact.But with a heart as broken as Lyndon’s.Though they never spoke of it.
“Hot weather’s coming,” Will slurred, by way of greeting.Will’s speech had markedly improved over the decade or more since the accident, or maybe Lyndon had become more adept at deciphering his liquid vowels.“There was a heavy dag at dawn.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it,” answered Lyndon with a smile.“At that godforsaken hour, I was still examining my eyelids.”
Crossing the simple room, he laid a hand on Will’s thin shoulder then bent and kissed him, once on each cheek, and then, as fondly, on his smooth forehead.Straightening, he arranged his offerings on a tray, poured a mug of ale, and brought both closer to where Will was propped awkwardly against a heap of cushions.
“Some of Cook’s leek soup,” Lyndon declared, setting the tray down.He eased Will into a better position.“And an excellent cheese.”
Messily, Will began feeding himself.Knowing better than to offer assistance, Lyndon prodded the fire, then set about arranging candles for later, for when the light grew dim.
“I hear you’ve got a visitor up at the house.”
For a person never receiving his own, Will was mightily well informed.Lyndon paid his housemaid’s sister a few shillings to keep a daily eye on him.He might as well put a full-page advert in the Norfolk Chronicle.
“Yes.The Earl of Rossingley’s youngest son,” Lyndon confirmed.“Sent by Benedict to spy on me.”Tocure me.Cheer me.Save me.Or something like that.“Got himself in a scrape at home; he thinks he’s been sent away as punishment.But I know his father and my brother better than that.”
“Kind-hearted,” managed Will, stumbling over the words.“Your brother.”
“Yes,” Lyndon said shortly.“Yes, you’re right.”
Will slurped and chomped through his food.The sound didn’t bother Lyndon.In fact, he scarcely registered it.Saliva pooled at the corner of his old friend’s mouth, and every few minutes Lyndon dabbed at it with a cloth.That didn’t revolt him either, though guilt rolled through him that he’d once recoiled from it.A more agonising way to pass the meal would have been remembering how a once-perfect Will would nibble on strawberries, the sweet juice coating his lips.And how he’d once shared a handful of them with Lyndon.And how his grey eyes had fixed intently on Lyndon’s mouth as he took the soft fruit, then kissed him around it.
Ah, God.Lyndon dabbed again, wiping a dribble of soup from Will’s shirt.Going over that mawkish, fustian nonsense was of use to neither man nor beast.In a moment, he’d clear away the dishes, help Will use the pot, then settle him into bed for a rest.Some afternoons, Lyndon read aloud to him.Will struggled to turn the pages and had an insatiable desire for gothic novels.Lyndon regularly replenished his library accordingly.Today, however, Will was too weary.His turnips needed a hoe—Lyndon would get on with that for an hour or so instead.The sun shone, he had an afternoon to kill, and for all he was a lord, Lyndon had two arms and two legs in full working order.He’d put them to good use.
And so the afternoon trudged onward, much like the last, with manual labour keeping the circling blue devils at bay.Perhaps Lyndon didn’t need to be saved.Didn’t need to be rehabilitated in polite company.Perhaps this was his role in life, his penance for evermore.To be the mad, bad brother, living out in the wilds.Drinking alone, surrounded by fine gardens and amateur sketches, with no one to show them off to because nobody cared.Cleaning spit from an invalid’s mouth.Shooting at pewter soldiers.Who on earth imagined a lad barely out of short trousers could alter any of that?
Chapter Five
