“Damn it, Ben, but I nearly had to break into a run and I do not have on the boots for that. I’m sitting on the rock right here until I stop sweating. Revolting.” Hartley fanned himself with his hand. “You’ve done a fine job avoiding me.”
“I haven’t been—”
“Don’t lie. It doesn’t suit you. Alice told me to fetch you for supper, and I, being more good than sensible, agreed. I might collapse.”
“I doubt I’d be welcome at the Crawfords’,” Ben said.
“Our Alice is cleverer than that. She and Mrs. Howard have planned a picnic, and I’m to deliver you.”
Ben raised his eyebrows. “Where is this picnic?”
“Barton Hall,” Hartley said, flicking dust off his breeches. “Before you come up with a transparently false excuse not to attend, let me remind you that Alice is your oldest friend and has gone to some trouble to arrange an outing so that she might see you without your having to endure her parents’ disapproval.”
“I take it Captain Dacre will be there,” Ben said, narrowing his eyes.
“Naturally.”
“Can’t I just lick my wounds privately?” Ben grumbled. But he was already turning back down the path, heading towards Barton Hall.
Hartley had something up his sleeve; it was the only thing one could be certain of where his brother was concerned. But he couldn’t abandon Alice, he couldn’t resist Phillip, and he had nothing tempting him in the other direction except one last lonely walk around the lake.
Phillip emerged from the house to find Mrs. Howard directing the servants to put hampers of food on a flat spot near the lake. Miss Crawford was already sitting in a basket chair with an easel arranged before her while Walsh appeared to be holding her paints. Mr. Hartley Sedgwick was reading a book on one of the blankets that had been spread across the lawn.
“I’ll burn it if I don’t care for the way I look, Alice,” Hartley said without looking up.
“You always like the way you look,” she retorted, and Walsh laughed.
It was Mrs. Howard who caught sight of him. “There you are, Captain. Have you come to admire Miss Crawford’s painting?”
“Mr. Walsh brought me a new easel and figured out how to set it up so I don’t have to balance myself in the chair so awkwardly.” Alice gestured to the easel, which seemed to be pitched forward so she could reach it while still reclining. Phillip knew the lady had been ill, and nobody spoke precisely about the nature of her illness, likely because nobody knew what it was, including Miss Crawford herself. But he had seen her have difficulty walking, and how tired she got after even so much as sitting at the dinner table. She did not, however, have the look of a woman whose hopes had been shattered by a broken engagement.
“Hartley, I changed my coat. I hope this meets your specifications.” Phillip spun to see Ben, shrugging into what Phillip recognized as his second-best coat. “Oh, hullo, everybody’s here already.”
It had only been a day since he had last laid eyes on Ben, but seeing him now felt somehow like a relief.
“Mr. Sedgwick,” he said, his voice thick and awkward. “Thank you for coming.”
“Hartley very nearly abducted me,” Ben said, but he was smiling broadly, as if he couldn’t help but show how pleased he was to see Phillip.
“We’re going to let rumor spread that we’re quite cordial, Ben,” Alice said. “So come sit by me. No, get me sandwiches first.”
Ben flicked Phillip an amused glance before complying. Before long, the children arrived with a ball and the dog. The afternoon passed in a haze of sandwiches and easy conversation. Walsh stationed himself by Miss Crawford and Phillip noticed a handful of blushes pass between them, which he decided was very interesting indeed. Phillip seldom rose from the blanket, and couldn’t remember the last time he had been so idle. He watched the sun make its progress across the sky. He watched his children laugh and play, and tried to store up the memory against future times when they’d be far from his sight. He watched Ben, and knew there was no way that his heart could be fuller or readier to break.
The sun had set and the party ready to break up when somebody first noticed that Jamie was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was Peggy who noticed her twin’s absence, and it was Peggy who seemed the most distressed. If it hadn’t been for the anxiety that was writ across her face, Ben would have assumed that Jamie had gone on one of his escapades.
“We always tell one another where we are going. Mr. Sedgwick tells us never to wander off alone without someone knowing exactly where we are. Jamie wouldn’t have gone off without telling me,” she insisted to the party at large.
“The dog is gone too,” Ned whispered.
Scanning the small crowd, Ben sought out Phillip, who had the rigid posture of a man in shock. Ben crossed the lawn in three strides to reach him. “He’s likely in one of the barns with a jar of greengage jam that he didn’t feel like sharing with the rest of us,” he said, trying to sound reassuring. “But we’ll organize a search party.”
Ben caught Hartley’s eye. Years ago—it had to be more than ten years since—Will had disappeared on a November evening. It had been cold and pitch-black when Ben and Hartley had combed the hills, armed with torches and shouting Will’s name. They had found him in the gamekeeper’s lodge at Lindley Priory. It had been terrifying at the time, and Ben’s fear had only been increased by the lack of alarm displayed by any of the adults at Fellside Grange, who seemed to think it completely reasonable for an eight-year-old child to wander off for reasons of his own. Children are meant to be free, their father had always said.
That event had brought home to Ben the fact that if anybody was going to look after his younger brothers, it had to be him. He had scrimped and saved from the housekeeping money and pinched his father’s pawnable belongings to make sure his brothers were safe and fed, at least.
Now he realized that it hadn’t been his own doing, but rather Hartley’s sacrifice, that had kept the family provided for. He tried to dislodge those thoughts from his head and come back to the present.
“I’m going to go look for him,” Phillip said, his voice heavy with distress.
Ben put a steadying hand on his arm. “Yes. Of course. But we need to plan this out, otherwise we’ll cross one another’s paths.” He turned to Hartley, because Hartley, for all his London clothes and polished manners, knew this countryside as well as Ben did himself. “Can you search the hills between here and Lindley Priory? The dog once ran off to the wood between here and the Priory, and Martin didn’t take kindly to the trespass.”
Hartley nodded in understanding. “I can help,” said Ned.
“Yes, you and Hartley go west. On your way, ask the stable hands and, really, any strong person you see to come here and we’ll tell them where to look.”
“Wait, Ben,” Alice said, “you go look by the crag. I’ll stay here because I know the countryside well enough to know where to send people. Mrs. Howard has already gone to fetch lanterns.”
It was scarcely past midsummer, so the light would last for several more hours, but lanterns were a good idea. That way the search could continue into the night if need be. God, he hoped it wouldn’t be necessary. Mrs. Howard returned with the lanterns and a pair of manservants, and soon Ben had sent people in pairs to search the areas he thought Jamie most likely to have gone.
Ben’s most pressing fear was that the boy might have fallen or gotten wedged between rocks. He glanced at Phillip and nodded, and they headed off together towards the crag. As they walked, Ben said a silent prayer—that Jamie was safe, that they’d have the skill to find him.
“Jamie knows these hills,” he said to Phillip, “and he’s a clever child. He’s fine. I know in my heart that he’s fine.”
“I don’t,” Phillip said, and Ben squeezed his hand. “I mean, I know it’s overwhelmingly likely that he’s safe, but I don’t know it, and I don’t know how the hell I’m going to get onto that blasted ship and put myself month
s away from any reassurance that they’re well. They could be dead and buried and I wouldn’t even know. I don’t know how I managed not to think about it.”
“That was why it was easy for you to stay away,” Ben said, the truth suddenly obvious. “You let yourself believe that since your children were out of sight, they must be fine and well.”
“Stupid.” Phillip’s hand was closed tight around Ben’s as they walked.
“And now you can’t.”
“People leave their families all the time.”
“True. But maybe not if they don’t have to.” Ben’s heart soared at the thought that Phillip might not leave, that he might stay with his children and put together some kind of family, even though Ben wouldn’t be around to see it.
“Maybe not,” Phillip echoed.
When they reached the summit of the crag they called Jamie’s name but got no response. There was no sign of the child anywhere.
“Damn it,” Phillip said, sitting on a rock and putting his head in his hands.
“One of the others surely found him. But let’s go around to the other side of the hill and check over there.”
Before they got far, they heard a dog barking. Ben, used to the barking of sheepdogs, hardly noticed, but Phillip went still.
“I think that’s Jamie’s dog,” Phillip said.
“Let’s see.” Ben was mainly humoring Phillip, trying to play for time so that Jamie would be more likely to have reappeared or been found by the time they went back to the hall.
They heard the barking again. “This way,” Ben said, taking Phillip by the hand again and leading him towards the sound. He didn’t know if it was a trick of the echoing hills, but that bark did sound familiar.
It was Phillip who first noticed where they were.
“Ben. Isn’t this your father’s house?”
It was. And that was definitely Jamie’s dog barking outside Alton Sedgwick’s door.
At the sight of Jamie eating jam and bread at the table of a gray-bearded man who must be Ben’s father, Phillip nearly collapsed from relief.
Ben all but pushed him into a chair and pressed a mug of cider into his hand.
“I’m furious,” Phillip said, his fingers clenched white against the mug. “Don’t ever do that again.”
“I’m not going back,” Jamie said, his chin tilted up.
“Why the devil not? I thought we were having a fine time this summer. I thought we were getting on well.” He scrubbed his hand across his jaw and glanced at Ben, who was leaning against the wall beside his father.
“We were.” Jamie’s eyes were damp. “But you’ll be leaving soon and sending me to school and I can’t go.” He swallowed hard. “I can’t.”
“No, you can’t. You mustn’t. I know that.” Phillip reached across the table and took his son’s hand. “I should have told you sooner. But why did you get the idea that I was sending you off to school? Why now?”
“Mrs. Howard was trying to convince me school would be fun.”
Phillip groaned. “She was likely trying to do you a kindness. Her own children enjoy school terribly, she was telling me.”
“But when you marry her, you’ll want to send us all to school.”
“Why the devil would I want to marry her?” Phillip asked.
“Everyone says you will.”
“Who is everyone?”
“Cook. Mrs. Winston. Ned.” He ticked the names off on his fingers.
“Well, I’m not marrying her or anyone else. And even if I were, you’re not going to school. I’m hiring a tutor. And . . .” He took a breath, knowing that he shouldn’t make hasty decisions while emotional, but if he was honest, this was a decision he had all but made days ago. “I’m not returning to my ship.”
“What?” Ben and Jamie spoke as one.
“You heard me.”
The old man was watching this entire exchange with evident interest and Phillip heartily wished he’d go away and let them have some privacy, even if this was his house. With the sense of things slotting into place, Phillip realized that his notion of familial privacy most definitely included Ben.
“But . . .” Jamie shook his head in confusion. “You’re a sea captain. That’s what you are.”
Phillip had thought so too. “Over the past few weeks I’ve learned to be a good many things.” He steadfastly did not look at Ben, but he knew Ben would understand that those words were partly meant for him. “Chief among those is being your father.” He hoped Ben would hear the unspoken words, that Phillip had also learned to be something else, something to Ben. A lover, a friend. He didn’t think there was a word, and he dearly wished for one, even if it was only whispered between them.
“Oh,” Jamie said.
“I see.” That was Ben, and if Phillip knew the man—and heaven help him, but Phillip thought he did—he really did see. He could see what was in Phillip’s heart. Later on, Phillip would hope for a chance to tell him in words, in deeds, in any way he could.
“This is all very interesting,” Alton Sedgwick said, stroking his beard. “Very interesting indeed.”
“No it isn’t, Father,” Ben said firmly. “Commonplace domestic drama, absolutely not something I’m going to find in one of your poems next year.”
“Do you read my poetry?” the older man asked.
“Of course I do, if only to see what slander you’ve committed. And I will not find anything titled ‘The Reluctant Sailor’ or something to that effect.”
Alton Sedgwick shook his head disapprovingly. “That’s a very poor title, Benedict.”
“That’s not the point. How did you come by Jamie in the first place?”
“I came here,” Jamie said.
“Why?” Ben asked the question Phillip had been wondering.
“I didn’t mean to. But then I ran into that man, and he asked where I was going, and I told him I didn’t know. He told me to come here. Then I remembered you said your father always had sweets and never made you do lessons.” Through the open windows, they heard the dog barking plaintively. “And that he was fond of animals,” he added reprovingly.
“All true,” Ben said faintly, looking like he had been hit in the head.
Before Phillip could ask who the man was who had directed Jamie to Fellside Grange, he found himself laughing. He couldn’t help it. The situation was absurd. His son was safe. Phillip’s own future was uncertain, Ben’s even more so, but Phillip felt idiotically confident that they could find a way to at least be uncertain in reasonable proximity to one another.
The door to the outside swung open, letting in a soft warm breeze and a woman with a basket of greengages on one arm and Jamie’s dog in the other.
“This poor rascal was half-frantic out there,” she said, setting the dog on the ground. Then, noticing Ben and Phillip, her eyes opened wide. It took a moment for Phillip to place her, because he had only seen her wearing a large white cap and apron. Now, her salt-and-pepper hair was plaited over one shoulder and her clothing was decidedly disordered.
“Mrs. Winston?” Ben said, plainly astonished.
“Somebody has to look after your father,” Mrs. Winston said, her hands on her hips.
“Looking after? Is that what we’re calling it?”
“None of your business is what I’m calling it,” she said.
“Diana,” the older Mr. Sedgwick said. “They’re all very testy today. This young scapegrace,” he said, indicating Jamie, “ran off and gave everyone a fright.”
“I step out for a quarter of an hour,” Mrs. Winston lamented, shaking her head.
“This is good jam,” Jamie said. “Are you going to make more with those plums?” He gestured at the basket on the housekeeper’s arm.
“Yes, but not for the likes of you.” But she put one of the greengages on the table before him.
“Quite right that it’s none of my business,” Ben said in measured tones. “Quite right. I wish you happy.”
“Benedict,” the older man sai
d, “would you arrange for a license?”
“A license for what?”
“Marriage, of course.”
For a moment the room fell silent except for the sound of the dog’s wagging tail slapping the leg of the table.
Finally Ben spoke. “You and Mrs. Winston are getting married. The butcher’s boy and the baker’s daughter,” Ben murmured cryptically.
“We fell in love,” the older Mr. Sedgwick said with a shrug. “It happens.”
Ben bit his lip. “It dashed well does. Well. I can’t object. You’re both certainly of age. If you come to the church tomorrow morning, we’ll sort out the common license and perform the ceremony. No,” he added, “let’s say the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow I’m doing absolutely nothing.”
Phillip thought it was high time to leave the lovebirds alone. “Thank you so much for taking care of my son, Mr. Sedgwick,” he said, striving for solemnity. “I’ll always be grateful.” He grasped the older man’s hand and shook it firmly. At this close distance, he could see the resemblance between father and son: the same warm brown eyes and firm jaw. Phillip was struck by a pang at the idea that he wouldn’t get to see Ben’s hair fade to this dusty gray, his face become creased with lines.
Bollocks on that. He was going to do whatever it took to create a future where he and Ben could stay here together and could make some kind of life side by side.
He took Jamie’s hand, whistled for the dog, and looked directly at Ben when he said, “Gentlemen, let’s go home.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ben knew it was a mistake to go back to Barton Hall. He knew he’d catch another of Phillip’s glances that seemed to say too much, that seemed to make promises that could never be kept. A part of Ben wanted to pretend, even just for a night, that the cold reality of their future didn’t exist; he wanted to shut his eyes to grim facts and only see the joy and beauty of things that never could be. Perhaps this was how his father lived, cultivating an almost honest blindness to the things he did not want to acknowledge. For the first time, Ben sympathized.
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