The Folly
By Vanessa Mulberry
Text Copyright © Vanessa Mulberry 2016
All Rights Reserved
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The Folly
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Easter, 1924
George Montfort is a lonely man, hiding away on his estate after being sent down from Oxford for impropriety. When he finds Freddy King in his folly he sees a chance for friendship, if only for a short while, and welcomes Freddy into his life.
Playful, romantic, and handsome, Freddy is too tempting to be just a friend, and George soon finds himself smitten. But after all that’s happened to him, can George let go and allow himself to be happy with the man he loves?
The Folly is a 15,000 word historical MM romance.
England, 1924
Hate is such a strong word, that’s what people say, isn’t it?
I was never sure about that until I ruined my life, and came to hate myself, and the world, and the bastard who sold me out. Now I know it’s true. Hate can destroy you.
George dropped his pad and pencil onto the cold stone floor and pushed them aside. He hadn’t the energy for this sort of morbid introspection at ten in the morning. Far better to wait twelve hours and confront it later, in the dark of night, when such thoughts could not be chased away.
It was spring and a mild, sunny day. Walking the estate had become part of his daily ritual, come rain or shine, over the past ten months and was his exercise and sweet relief from the confines of the manor. He had no friends and since the influenza virus had visited at Christmas, no family. Whether that was a blessing or a curse, he could not say.
He pushed the pad a little further away and laid himself down on the flagstones to stare up at the blue sky as it peeked through the holes in the roof of the folly. The structure had been designed to mimic the crumbling ruins of a medieval castle and was far too small to ever fool anyone but the simplest of children. It was once an excellent play space but that’s all it had ever been, and it would never be that again.
A white cloud passed above, blocking the bright blue sky and dimming the light in the room. It darkened further, and George caught the figure of a man in the doorway from the corner of his eye.
“I’m ever so sorry to interrupt you,” the man said. “I didn’t think anyone ever came here but me.”
George sat up and looked at him. He was a handsome sort of chap, golden haired but with dark eyes, cheeks pink, perhaps from exercise or embarrassment. He smiled; a little awkward, but very pleasant.
He was exactly the sort of man George had a weakness for and therefore the sort of man whose company it was best not to keep. The meeting must be brief, but it was also to be savoured. Even two minutes of friendly conversation would be a feast for a starving man such as George.
“Quite alright.” George stood and brushed himself down. “I was just resting a while. You’ve not interrupted anything.”
The visitor approached and held out his hand for George to shake. “I’m Alfred King, but everyone calls me Freddy. I’m staying at the rectory in the village. My brother is the vicar.”
“I know him,” George said, though they had only met twice—at mass on Christmas day, then at his parents shared funeral a week later. “Walter King. He’s a good chap.”
“Yes.”
There wasn’t much else to say. Freddy smiled at him, turning a little pinker as he withdrew his hand. George realised he hadn’t shook it.
“Sorry,” he said, grabbing Freddy and giving his hand a hearty wringing. “It’s been a while since I introduced myself to anyone. I’m a bit out of practice.”
“Don’t forget, you must give me your name too.”
“Of course, of course. I’m George.”
Freddy’s darling, awkward smile faltered. “Lord George Montfort? I’m ever so sorry to have trespassed. My brother told me the estate was available for walking but coming into the folly here was my own doing and damned cheeky.” Sheepishly he held up a book. “The vicarage has a lot of comings and goings. I’ve been retreating here for a bit of peace and quiet these last few days.”
“Well, you may come and go from here as you please. I’ve plenty of privacy up in the house. I won’t begrudge you this place.”
“Thank you.”
Freddy stepped inside. George noticed for the first time the pack Freddy shrugged off his back. He knelt down as he opened it and removed a field chair, blanket, vacuum flask and what looked like a packet of sandwiches. He was here for the day, apparently.
“A campaign chair,” George said. “It’s been a few years since I’ve seen one of those.”
“It’s my brother’s. I was too young to fight.”
Freddy’s eyes strayed to the notepad and George remembered he’d left it on the floor. He watched in silent horror as Freddy picked it up, giving it what he must have assumed would be a quick glance, but his eyes lingered, reading every word as his cheeks changed from pink to ruddy red.
“Here,” he said, thrusting it at George. “This is yours, right.”
George nodded and took it, bending to scoop his discarded pencil off the floor as well. There was an awkward silence between them now.
“Well,” Freddy began.
“So you’re King Alfred are you? Do you burn cakes?”
Freddy mustered a weak smile. “I’ve never tried to cook one but I expect I would.”
Another pause, this one more uncomfortable than the last. George decided not to fill it. He couldn’t think of anything more to say.
But Freddy could. “It was nice to have met you George. Goodbye.”
Moments later he had snatched up his things and was gone.
George wandered to the door and watched Freddy march up the path, back towards the village. He moved quickly, not bothering to stop to repack his bag or do up the buckles. He was obviously desperate to get away from George, who thought him a sensible man.
“Goodbye,” George murmured, quiet enough that Freddy couldn’t have heard, but as he walked he turned and looked around at the folly, face troubled. He held up a hand in parting and George waved back.
That evening, George ate his solitary Lenten supper of baked sole with a few boiled potatoes and peas. It was a miserable meal, although Cook was cheery when she brought it up.
“You’re looking a bit down in the dumps today, sir,” she said, bustling around the table with the plate. Since his parents had died, she’d taken it upon herself to step into the role of caregiver, and he’d let her do so despite the presumption and familiarity that came with it. She’d spoilt him in his childhood, baking him treats he hadn’t fully appreciated at the time, and now gave him kind words and a little conversation instead.
“I’m alright,” he sighed, doing a poor imitation of someone who genuinely was.
She gave him a sympathetic smile. “You can come eat your supper in the kitchen with me and the girls if you want. Sometimes a bit of company is all you need.”
“Thank you Cook, but I don’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable.”
She nodded and left him be.
He had a book next to him and he glanced through it while he ate. It was boring. Perhaps he should get a copy of whatever Freddy was reading. The dust jacket had been missing, and he could have asked about it. Now it was just a wasted opportunity.
Freddy had occupied him more than he cared to admit that afternoon. Those few minutes of conversation were bittersweet, having ended with such shame and embarrassment on George’s part that he could take no joy in them now. But the smile Freddy had gifted him before
he realised who George was... that was something special.
George pushed the book away as it was providing no distraction. He focused instead on the sole, which was dry and overcooked, but the sweetness of the spring peas almost seemed a treat during lent. He may have abandoned God, but George still went through the motion of a fast. He might even attend church on Easter Sunday. Perhaps Freddy would be there.
Now he pushed the plate away. Freddy hated him. Everyone hated him, though they were polite enough to his face, kind even, when his parents died. But they must hate him, because that’s how society treated men like him. It’s just the way things were.
His natural desires had seen him sent down from Oxford with no degree five days before graduation. Humiliated before all his peers, many of whom were no different than he, cut off from society and forced to return in ignominy to the family pile, only to find the little family he had were ashamed of him.
Father had laid things out in no uncertain terms. He said—the bastard actually said—that he was glad the war had killed half their staff. He was glad there were no young men there for him to— for him to— And Mother had just wept in the corner and let him say it. George was the one who was wild, out of control apparently. And the injustice of it had made him furious. But now his parents were dead, and he was alone, and he had begun to think that maybe he was in the wrong after all. His intellectual side could hardly countenance it, but his spirit... that was gone.
All his crimes had been enumerated but one. No one could bring themselves to speak the word. Instead he was reminded that he was an only child, the sole hope for the future of the blood line, expected to sire the brood of children they could not. To live a good life. To one day do good work in the Lords as his father did.
George hadn’t wanted to do any of that anyway, but now he would always be nothing but a recluse. Had he really survived the war for this, to waste it on a foolish dalliance with a renter?
George rose from the table abruptly, abandoning his food, and left the room.
When he next saw Freddy, George was surprised. Two days had passed, and it was Sunday morning. A vicar’s brother should have been at church, not tramping down the wooded path toward the folly. He didn’t stop when he saw George loitering by the building and waved to him merrily.
“George! I’m glad I found you.”
George was glad too. Although he had not truly expected to see Freddy again, George had returned to the folly over the last two mornings in the hope he would be there. Saturday had passed without event, and he had expected more of the same today, but he had little else to do.
“Freddy wasn’t it?” he asked, affecting an air of calm he didn’t feel.
“That’s right, King Freddy of the not so burnt cakes. Mrs Moyes—she’s Walter’s housekeeper, do you know her?—was making Simnel cakes so I offered to help. They turned out jolly nice so I thought I’d bring you a slice.”
It was a simple act of kindness and generosity but George found himself quite speechless. He shifted out of the way of the door and watched as Freddy spread a blanket from his bag on the steps and invited him to sit down. Soon they were nibbling the cake, which was truly delicious, and sipping on sweet tea from the two vacuum flasks Freddy had brought along.
“Thank you,” George said, finally finding his words. “This is, well, it’s wonderful.”
Freddy shrugged, licking a speck of marzipan from his lips. “She let me stir the batter and watch the Marzipan under the grill to make sure it didn’t burn. I don’t think I did too badly at all.”
“You did marvellously. It was kind of you to bring me some.”
“I thought I ought to after the other day. You must have thought me terribly rude, running away like that.”
“Not at all. You needn’t care what I think anyway. I don’t suppose anyone else does.”
The comment brought the conversation to a halt again and George realised for the first time how he must sound when he said things like that. He felt a twinge of embarrassment, but at the same time a relief that he spoke to anyone so rarely these days that he could not make such mistakes often.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “As I said the other day, I’m a bit out of the habit of talking with other people. I’ll try to sound a touch less dreary.”
Freddy swallowed his mouthful. “You may sound as dreary as you like. And you needn’t tell me what’s wrong. I know when things are none of my business.”
They finished the cake and tea quite companionably. Freddy took the lead in the conversation, explaining that he’d come for this walk because he couldn’t stand to hear his brother’s sermon for the fifth time after all the practice readings he’d sat through. He also revealed that he would be staying in the village for the foreseeable future while he wrote a play set in a vicarage.
“It’s a farce,” he explained. “My last book was a little heavy and I need something lighter to focus on. The rectory provides plenty of material for that. I’m sure that after what you went through during the war you’d find a flap over scones and jam at a village fete as ridiculous as I do.”
The politics of afternoon tea did strike George as ridiculous, but Freddy’s mention of the war threw him for a moment.
“I went through very little, you know. I was only at the front for ten days before the armistice. I never even saw battle.”
Freddy hesitated and George realised that, while he wouldn’t have asked what was wrong with him, Freddy wasn’t above making assumptions. So many young men were troubled these days, and with good reason—far better reason than his, which only served to make George hate his situation all the more. It was understandable Freddy might think that way.
And it meant that he didn’t know George’s past.
“Well, that’s ten days more than I was there,” Freddy said eventually. “I suppose we’re both lucky men.”
“I suppose we are.”
When every drop was drunk and crumb devoured, Freddy collected his things into his bag. There was no hurry this time and they smiled at each other as he worked.
“Will you be walking again tomorrow?” George asked. He felt strange, his stomach a mixture of nerves and excitement. They might be friends, just for a short while at least. Their association would have to be secret, because George believed the villagers would soon tell Freddy if they thought he was in danger, but the grounds were big enough to walk in together without becoming bored and they’d always have the folly to hide in if it rained.
“I certainly will be if you’d like to join me.”
“I would like that very much. And I’ll bring the picnic this time, though I’m afraid there won’t be anything as good as your cake.”
“I will give Mrs Moyes your compliments.”
“Please don’t,” George said hastily, “I’ll be embarrassed when I see her next. I’ve not said two words to her since Christmas and now I’m eating her cake as if I have every right.”
“You needn’t worry about that. I told her I was taking it to you and she cut us the largest slices. She’ll be happy to hear how much you enjoyed it.”
Unsure what to make of that, George stood silent while Freddy hoisted his pack onto his back. He grinned at George, unselfconscious about the pleasure he seemed to take in their new acquaintance, and patted him on the arm. George fought the urge to draw back from the touch, which seemed a strange reaction as he had spent his adult life leaning in to men’s embraces.
“Shall we meet here tomorrow then?” Freddy asked. “Eleven hundred hours?”
“That would be perfect.”
They said their goodbyes and Freddy disappeared up the path at a more leisurely pace than previously. He looked over his shoulder several times as he went, waving merrily at George.
It seemed a short walk back to the manor that afternoon. George had trudged home wearily too often to not notice the difference in himself now. When he arrived, he found his journal in the library and wrote:
I have made a friend.
George arrived early the next morning, but Freddy was already waiting for him, sitting on the steps of the folly much as they had done together the day before. He stepped up smiling, hands in the slouched pockets of his tweed trousers, pack ever present on his back. His collar was undone, sleeves rolled up, as if he had been working on some secret project, though whatever it was hadn’t caused him to break a sweat. He seemed sweetly boyish in countenance and disposition, but George was all too aware that he was a full grown, very attractive man. He wouldn’t allow that to destroy their burgeoning friendship.
“Do you need a hand with that?” Freddy asked, indicating the large picnic hamper that George was lugging along.
“It’s quite alright. I’m a beast of burden.”
“I imagine you so,” Freddy said, taking one handle of the basket from him. “But it will be easier if we share the load.”
They headed off down the path back towards the manor. Cook had packed the large picnic without questioning who he’d be sharing it with, and George didn’t want his staff to find out. He led Freddy around the building and away, down to a copse of trees about half a mile from the house. There was a small clearing in the centre that had been cut back and sewn with grass by a romantically minded ancestor.
As the sun approached its peak, they stopped and laid out the blanket on the grass. Freddy lounged on it on his side, head propped up by one elbow, while George unpacked cucumber sandwiches, a rhubarb tart and two large slices of pork pie onto the fine china plates of the set. Freddy chuckled as he watched him set the food out, and snorted with laughter when he brought out two crystal flutes and a bottle of champagne.
“No wonder that basket was so damned heavy. You know, I’ve wrapped today’s cake up in a hanky. You’re making me feel very uncivilised.”
That was a treat for George’s ears. He felt more civilised, more human, right now, than he had in almost a year. He popped the cork and poured two frothy glasses. Handing one to Freddy he asked, “Shall we say a toast?”
“To new friends.” Their glasses clinked together and they each took a shallow sip. “Very nice,” Freddy murmured as he set down his flute and reached for a sandwich.
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