“Whatever happens, I promise you that you’ll see home again.” Thorne kissed him with a fierce intensity. “I swear it, Jack.”
“But this is home. This. When your arms are around me. It’s the only home I want.” Jack, who had once asked the captain to make love to him, now made love to his captain. As Thorne lay on his back, Jack kissed him across his shoulders, nibbling each nipple. Down that strong chest, to the muscled stomach, sliding over the hips to the firm insides of Thorne’s thighs. Stroking softly with his tongue, he licked the length of Thorne’s erection. Holding Thorne steady at his hips, with tender fierceness he took him in his mouth as far as he possibly could.
Thorne caught his hands gently in Jack’s hair and surrendered to his ministrations. Soft gasps escaped his parted lips, deep moans catching in his throat as he lay there in the grass. His hips rose but Jack’s hands stayed him, as firm as his touch was delicate.
Jack lifted his head, his eyes fixed on the sparkling depths of Thorne’s gaze. Between them stood Thorne’s erection, glistening with Jack’s saliva.
“Keep still,” Jack whispered.
There had been many intimate moments between them since that first night in Thorne’s bed. But Jack, as was his way, always submitted with joy, his captain above him, beside him. Never below him, until now. He knelt over Thorne, his hands planted on his lover’s waist, and slowly he lowered his hips.
He only stopped once the entire length of his lover was inside him, and there he waited, his eyes still locked onto Thorne’s, his whole body tensing as he readied himself to pleasure the man who had so skillfully, passionately, pleasured him.
And his captain obeyed, his whole body held still other than his taut, muscled chest, which rose and fell with each hoarse, heated breath. He held Jack’s gaze with his own just as surely as his hands now rested on Jack’s thighs, his lips parting very slightly to allow him to murmur, “I love you so bloody much.”
“I know you do…”
Never losing eye contact, Jack let his hips lead. He felt only intense sensation, alive to the movement of Thorne’s body. As Jack’s thrusts grew more powerful, Thorne’s hips rose up to meet his, their contact all the deeper. Thorne’s strong hand caught Jack’s erection, his wrist moving in just the way that Jack needed. The look in his eyes told Jack so, a reminder of what Thorne had breathed against Jack’s neck, on the night they had spent in the summerhouse. ‘I know your body, I know its secrets, I know each and every one of your desires.’
Together they approached the pinnacle of pleasure, moving as one, and Thorne seized Jack’s hand, entwining their fingers together.
Jack’s fringe had tumbled into his face, the long strands sticking to his skin. But his eyes never left his captain’s until the moment that his bliss claimed him, and he tipped back his head and moaned his pleasure into the tall branches of the trees, into the stars and the nighttime. And as he did, his lover bucked one final time below him, his own cry of pleasure blending perfectly with Jack’s.
Chapter Nineteen
The Army chaplain was very young. Barely a curate. Straight out of theological college and into a theater of war. He had blond hair and a kind face, but a certain twitch in his hands gave him away as a man who had been to the front. His black shirt and dog-collar peered out from his khaki.
Why would a man choose to become a preacher, Queenie wondered, especially a man who was far from ugly? It seemed such a waste, all that piety and false modesty, when one could be having fun. When one could be singing.
He stood now in front of the grooms and the officers and staff of Chateau de Desgravier, his hands folded neatly in the ecclesiastical way. He bowed his head, his eyes closed, his mouth moving silently. Then he looked up.
“As you will no doubt have heard, there is intense fighting not far from here, outside Ypres. Several battalions of our regiment are there and yesterday our regiment suffered severe losses.”
He swallowed, looking across at all the eyes that met his, looking more intently still at the ones that looked away. Queenie met his gaze, smiling that serene, choirboy smile of his, thinking only of his packed belongings and the car that would be there soon to take him to Daddy.
“Some of you will have known these men. Some of you will have been their friends. Your general wants you to take comfort in the knowledge that they all died as heroes. Each and every one of them, dying or wounded in the service of King and Country.”
There was something hollow in his voice as he relayed the general’s sentiments. But he went on.
“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
His hands twitched and he took a deep breath.
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Someone coughed. A horse whinnied in the paddock. As the chaplain told them a sermon, a light rain began to fall. The sun cast its rays through the drops and a pale rainbow appeared for a moment over the chateau.
Lay down his life for his friends. Queenie sniffed and rolled his eyes heavenward. The man who lays down his life for anything is a fool. You lay down your friends for your own life first.
The chaplain smiled gently at his congregation. “I am told that there is a poet among you. A reluctant chap. He wouldn’t come up in front of you to read, so Captain Thorne…if you would.”
Oh, it would be.
As Captain Thorne, still the most handsome chap at the big house, stepped up to take his place beside the preacher, Queenie did his best to catch Jack’s eye, but little Jacky wasn’t playing. He had eyes only for his hero, the captain who had saved him from Queenie’s blade.
And Queenie knew exactly who the poet was as soon as Thorne began to speak, each word perfectly enunciated, his diction clear as Daddy’s crystal. The poetry seemed to settle in the yard like a snowfall, resting gently on each man who stood there, but not on Quentin Charles. He listened, of course, but he didn’t really see what good sweet words were to those crawling belly-deep through the inferno. What could words do when the artillery came raining down, when shards of shrapnel went flying?
What good was poetry to the likes of Wilf—
Queenie swallowed and returned his gaze to the captain, wondering when he would be in the inferno. The day was coming, the day when Queenie would wake up in Daddy’s bed and hear that Captain R. B. Thorne and Trooper Jack Woodvine had fallen to the guns or gas.
And when that day came, he would throw his head back and laugh.
“Thank you, Captain Thorne.”
Thorne acknowledged with a nod and took his place beside Marsh, who had looked at nothing but Queenie all day. All day, every day, in fact, since the news of his new detail had been announced.
Pathetic old bugger.
“And now… I would like to close on a hymn. It is my pleasure to tell you that we will be led by one of your number who is a choirmaster at home. Trooper Pritchard will sing the first verse and then the rest of us shall join in.”
Bryn, blushing slightly, came to the front. He folded his hands neatly behind his back, his feet planted just so, and began to sing, his voice filling the stable yard.
“Guide me, O thou great redeemer….”
Oh God, for a gas attack right now. Queenie sighed a theatrical sigh. Take out the bloody Welsh Caruso before he hits the high notes.
He drifted his gaze to Marsh and blessed him with a smile in anticipation of whatever going-away gift his pathetic not-quite-lover had bought for his Queenie. It was worth suffering through this caterwaul for that.
At the beginning of the second verse everyone in the stable yard, except for Queenie, joined in. Even the ones who didn’t know the words made a game attempt at singing, picking up the tune even if the lyrics were utterly alien to them. It started to sound very much like a chant from the stands at a sports match, and the chaplain caught the glance of one of the officers and started to laugh, conducting the rabble in their song. His laughter was infectious, and soon even Bryn, the onl
y person in the yard to know all the words, was smiling.
“Thank you, Trooper Pritchard.” The chaplain gave Bryn a pat on the shoulder and the groom rejoined the ranks.
“Well, that brings our service of remembrance to a close, but should any of you ever feel the need to pray with…”
The chaplain’s words were lost as the stable yard was filled with conversation, laughs and shouts, the man in the dog-collar too nice to bellow at them for silence.
“Fall in, you bloody shower! Show the man some respect!” Captain Thorne cracked his whip against his boot and the hubbub in the yard fell instantly silent as discipline descended once more. He nodded his approval, tucking his whip beneath his arm as he waited for absolute order. Only then did Thorne address the chaplain. “Thank you for taking the time to visit us.”
He turned back to the ranks and bellowed, “Company, attention!”
Every man snapped into line and the captain dismissed the chaplain with a nod that Queenie thought was almost friendly. Perhaps some of Jacky’s disgusting, cloying sentiment was rubbing off on him.
The chaplain’s hands twitched again before they were still.
“If any of you feel the need to speak to someone…about…about…” The chaplain’s hands wafted ineffectually at the air. “All this…then, you know where I am. Thank you, chaps.”
He turned on his heel, his shoulders sagging as he walked away.
“Dismissed!”
As soon as the word left Thorne’s lips, Queenie was moving on light feet toward Marsh, smiling his most pretty smile. In less than an hour he would be gone, off to see the lie of the land, to see how many other pretty boys must be deposed on his way to the throne, but for now he had his goodbyes to say.
“Captain Marsh, sir, I just wanted to say thank you.” Queenie gave a dismissive salute. “And au revoir, sir!”
Marsh returned the salute, a sharpness in his manner.
“Thank you, Trooper Charles. For making my time at Chateau de Desgravier…most memorable. Off to the general, what?”
Lowering his voice, his face damp with perspiration, he remarked, “How clever you are, my little Queenie, eh? Won’t get sent to the front now, will you? No mud in your trousers, what? Don’t suppose you’d put in a good word for your old Uncle Edmund, would you?”
Queenie settled his face into its most cherubic expression and nodded understandingly, letting one pale palm come to rest on Marsh’s forearm as he whispered his reply. “I wouldn’t let you fuck me, so I’m not about to save your worthless bacon, sweetie.”
Marsh’s face turned gray, the same color that men of a certain age and paunch turn as their heart switches off in the middle of a family party and they collapse helpless into the blancmange. But then he rallied. Marsh put his wet mouth close to Queenie’s ear.
“You do know what they say about old Bowes-Fitzgerald, don’t you, boy? He’s riddled. So I’m actually bloody glad I never fucked you, for I shouldn’t have wanted to go back to Blighty with twenty-seven different strains of the clap.”
“I hear you’re marked for Ypres, love, so you probably won’t be going back to Blighty at all.” Queenie’s rage didn’t show in his measured, merry tone, or when he pressed his fingers to his lips and blew Marsh a faint kiss. He turned and wandered through the yard one last time, blowing kisses this way and that to his former comrades, to men and boys who would be dead by Christmas, to the flea-bitten horses and the so-called stallions and—
One last goodbye to say.
Past the stables he strolled, around the mud at the pump and down the lane between the trees. Toward the fence and the paddock where even now he could hear that ludicrous gray of Thorne’s making all manner of fuss at his approach.
“Fairy horse!” Queenie stooped to pick up a fallen branch just as he had on that fateful evening with Jack, then he climbed over the fence and stopped, bowing low to Apollo. The horse’s eyes rolled. It pawed its hoof against the earth and flared its nostrils. Slowly Queenie approached, wondering why the horse wasn’t taking fright as he usually did, but glad for it. In fact, Apollo stood there, pawing and snorting, watching his approach. Watching until he was close enough to reach out and touch that snow-white coat should he wish.
“I’m going, horse.” He bowed again. “You shall never see me again and I shall never see you, unless I’m feeding you to my gentleman’s hounds. The trenches await you, Apollo Thorne, and I shall give you something to remember me by before I go on to a bigger and better castle.”
With a smile, Queenie drew back the branch and slashed it against Apollo’s rump. The sound of the impact split the air wide open and a moment later Apollo planted his forelegs firmly on the ground and bucked his rear hooves up hard, kicking Quentin Charles in the face with all his might. The impact sent Queenie’s body flying into the fence, where he slid down the rough wood into the nettles, his neck twisted like a broken doll’s and the grass around him growing dark with blood.
Chapter Twenty
Two days later Jack was in the paddock, brushing Apollo while trying not to acknowledge the bloodied grass. Someone had been out, after the dead boy had been taken away, showering the grass with a watering can to dislodge the clots and what one groom had helpfully pointed out to be brain matter. It hadn’t worked.
Perhaps Jack should have felt pity on seeing Queenie’s fate, but try as he might, it wouldn’t come. Here, too, in the paddock, Jack had endured a savage attack. And here, too, had Apollo—again and again.
Nothing had been said. A terrible accident. Marsh had taken himself to bed with a headache. He’d certainly had once he’d finished all the Scotch in the chateau. It happened with horses, of course. And no one—no one—had pointed the finger of blame. There were six horses in the paddock that day. Perhaps all that singing had unsettled them. Bryn had said that, laughing. And Jack had nodded, not wanting to believe that his friend Apollo was a murderer.
How ridiculous.
But what about Sherlock Holmes and ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’? A horse had been a murderer then. If Queenie had goaded Apollo, then Apollo was a killer.
Not one person had wept for Queenie. No special service of remembrance in the stable yard for him.
“Come along, Apollo!”
Jack didn’t want to see the waste of blood anymore. A horrible end for a rotten boy. He made a soft clicking noise in his throat and Apollo, without reins, followed Jack as loyally as if he were his dog.
While Apollo drank from the stream, Jack sat with his back against a tree, sunlight falling on his upturned face. It was peaceful now. And nothing in his heart rebuked him for it. The rot at Chateau de Desgravier had gone.
Almost.
“You’ve got some bloody nerve, boy, haven’t you? Sitting here having a picnic in your comrade’s blood?” Marsh was picking his way down toward the stream. His uniform was unkempt, his cheeks red with drink and his eyes swimming with sleepless desperation. “Did you train Thorne’s old nag to do it, did you? Point him at little Queenie and say, have at it?”
Jack got to his feet. He eyed Apollo, whose ears were warily flattened at Marsh’s approach.
“Captain Marsh, sir. Good morning, sir.” He saluted as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
“Oh, don’t worry about all that silly old protocol, we’re all chums here.” Marsh approached, drawing closer. “What do you think about our Queenie then, missing him? Bloody rotten luck, what?”
Jack looked ahead, standing to attention, his voice a monotone. “It’s a terrible shame, sir.”
“It does mean, however, that a vacancy has opened for the prettiest lad in the palace.” He smiled, showing yellowing, tobacco-stained teeth. “And that lad is you, young sir.”
Jack remembered the discarded glove in the stable. That horrible, stinking leather thing. The proof that Queenie had no scruples at all. How on earth could that compare with what Jack and his captain had? With love?
Ignorance seemed the best policy.
�
��I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“There are some ladies in the village who will do anything, you know, but I’ve a wife!” He finally stopped walking just a few feet from Jack. “And I could hardly look to another lady when I have one of my own at home, but a chap must take his comfort somewhere, mustn’t he? What about you, girl, where do you take yours?”
“Excuse me, sir, but I am not a girl.” Jack began to move away. He knew Marsh wouldn’t come near Apollo, so he stepped subtly toward the horse. “And I take my comfort in my duties.”
“I’m not a girl either. You’ll find I won’t disappoint, lass.” Marsh reached out and caught Jack’s hand in his own sweaty palm. He dragged Jack toward him and held his captured hand against his own groin, nodding as though he were offering the finest prize in France. “What do you say to that, eh? And I’m a generous sort of uncle too. I won’t see my girl struggling for her smokes and brandy.”
For a moment Jack was no longer in the paddock at Chateau de Desgravier. He was standing at a urinal in a public convenience, the sharp smell of disinfectant in his nostrils. A white-haired man with lonely eyes was touching his pale hand to Jack’s elbow. Looking for something? And Jack had said no, and the man had nodded and walked away.
“No.” Now all Jack could smell was stale sweat and tobacco and the reek of booze. He said “No” again, but Marsh did not relinquish his hand.
“Let my hand go, Captain Marsh, or you’ll be sorry for it.”
“I’ve seen you making eyes at old Thorney. He doesn’t with anybody, girl or boy, lass. You’d be better off fucking the bloody horse.” He thrust his hips toward Jack’s hand. “Or your Uncle Edmund.”
Jack’s mouth was awash with bile. He turned to spit it onto the ground. Marsh was distracted by it, as if he found it alluring. Then Jack remembered something. A game the bullies used to play at school when a fellow’s voice was breaking.
The Captain and the Cavalry Trooper Page 18
