Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 30

by eds. Kelly Link

  “Ah, but there’s more.”

  “Of course there is.” He feels his stomach drop.

  Bern laughs and pours Morgan more scotch. “You, my friend, have a very sensible attitude. Unlike that last fellow. He was rather unpleasant to my better half. And to me.”

  “And lost his head for it.” Remembering the smell around the gate, Morgan nearly loses his dinner.

  “He didn’t follow the rules, you see. He didn’t give up all that he won. And there’s a price for not following the rules.” Bern scowls. He takes a long drink of his beer. They both fall quiet and contemplative.

  Breaking the silence, Morgan says, “If I follow the rules of the Game, I win—and I get to leave. And if I don’t, my head will be hanging in the gate next.”

  Bern nods, solemn. “You’re a clever man, Morgan. I wish you all the luck.”

  Pausing a moment, Morgan asks a question that’s been scratching at his brain. “Who made up this Game, Bern? You? What the fuck for?”

  “Never you think it, my friend,” Bern says, deadly serious. “This is the house’s Game, be sure of it. Took us a long time to figure out the rules.”

  Morgan swallows, his throat thick, and his pulse quickens. “What happens if I refuse to play?”

  “A refusal to play is a forfeit, Morgan. That means you lose.”

  Morgan’s heart pounds a little harder. No way out then but to play the Game. “If I win, what happens to you and Vivian?”

  “Perhaps we’ll die. Perhaps you’ll save us. To be honest, I don’t know,” he says, draining the last of the beer. “No one’s ever won before.”

  Bern at last escorts his guest through several more rooms, down a long hall to an ornately carved door, and leaves him with a hearty clap on the shoulder, a “Good hunting tomorrow,” and heads back down the hall, weaving slightly and singing softly to himself.

  Morgan enters the room, now unsurprised by the lavishness of the décor. Funny how quickly one adjusts to opulence, he thinks, and, for that matter, to strangeness. He sits on a chair next to the bed, its tapestry curtains pulled back to reveal a pile of pillows, filled with down, and the softest sheets he’s ever felt.

  “So, tomorrow it starts,” he says aloud. “The trick is not to lose my head.” He laughs at his own pun, then laughs harder because he’s laughing at something so stupid when he should be scared the hell out of his head. Which he is. The rules of the Game seem so easy that recognizing the catch should be easy enough, too, when it comes. But there’s this nagging itch at the base of his skull, and he rubs the back of his neck. Can he do this?

  He thinks of Penelope and Dave. Wouldn’t they love this Game, he thinks. No running away for me now. No way out but to win. He pulls off his clothes and leaves them lying on the floor, then crawls in between those sheets, soft as kisses. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, he thinks, and then I’m free, one way or the other.

  When he opens his eyes, the room is filled with morning light, bright and cheerful. He doesn’t know how long he’s slept, but he feels sure it must be much later than morning. Time doesn’t matter here. His tongue feels a bit thick, and there’s a dull ring of ache encircling his head, pushing from the inside out.

  “Serves me right,” he says to the sunlight.

  He sits up and notices that his clothes have been neatly hung in the open wardrobe across from the bed. On the chair where he sat last night are fresh clothes: a pair of gold silk pants, a crisp white shirt, socks, expensive leather shoes. His family has money, but he’s never spent anything like what those clothes must have cost. An extravagant gesture for a man who might be a headless corpse in a few days, but nothing in this house makes sense, does it? Morgan gets out of bed and heads to the toilet. He relieves himself in the white marble commode, smirks at the bidet, and then takes a long, hot shower, enjoying the ten different showerheads.

  After he’s dressed, Morgan walks down the long hall, hoping he’ll figure out where he’s supposed to go. When he reaches the first room of doors, he sees one is open, and sunlight is coming through. Why not? He steps out into a garden, lush and full of green and blanketed with colorful blossoms. Shielded from the sun by a large white umbrella, a table set for two sits in the middle of the patio, arrayed with bowls of fresh fruit, a tray of croissants, a carafe of orange juice, a silver coffee pot, a rectangular tray full of several different pots of jams and marmalades, another tray of sliced ham and cheese. Morgan picks up a banana from the table, peels it, bites, chews. He pulls back one of the chairs, scraping its legs against the concrete patio.

  “Oh. I hadn’t realized you were awake.”

  Vivian stands up amid a bed of ridiculously diverse flowers—lilies, roses, poppies, orchids, daisies, chrysanthemums—and takes off her pale yellow gardening gloves. She is dressed in that same pale yellow, another sheath dress embroidered with dark gold vines and flowers, and as she steps down from the raised garden bed, he sees her bare feet are dirty. He smiles. Several strands of her dark hair escape a loose ponytail, and she looks rather unprepared for his arrival. A familiar stirring of desire strains against Morgan’s silk pants.

  She sits and asks if he’d like something to drink, and pours him a glass of orange juice. As he drinks, she says, “I trust you enjoyed yourself last night?”

  “You mean a kind of last hurrah before the Game begins?” He reaches over and takes a croissant, splits it, and spreads some apricot jam in the center, none too delicately. Vivian looks amused. “Yes, ma’am. It was brilliant.”

  “And my husband?”

  “He was there, yeah.”

  She frowns and Morgan relents. “I like him. He tells great stories, and he might know the bawdiest jokes I’ve ever heard. He reminds me of all my best mates, rolled up into one big, boisterous, bear of a guy.”

  “Good. I am glad to hear it.” Vivian spreads a linen napkin across her lap, takes up a knife and a deep red apple and proceeds to slice the fruit into equally sized, perfectly elegant eighths. “Did you sleep well?”

  He tells her he’s never slept more soundly. “And you?” he asks. “How was your evening?”

  “I retired early.”

  “I see.” Morgan takes another bite of croissant. “So. What’s your part in the Game?”

  Vivian sets the slice of apple she’d been nibbling on her plate. “The Game is between you and Bern.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Coarseness, Mr. Askmore,” but he can tell her heart isn’t in the correction.

  “The least you could do is call me ‘Morgan,’ considering I’ve only three days left.”

  “Don’t say that, Mr. Ask—Morgan.” For a moment, she looks distressed. But then she says seriously, “Perhaps you can best this Game.”

  “What makes you say that, Vivian?” He pauses. “If I may call you Vivian?”

  She nods and offers him a small, secret smile, and suddenly he feels as if anything is possible, as if he can do anything. “You are different from the others, I think. You have not panicked, nor have you responded with anger or violence, nor have you despaired your cause. The rules are simple and clear, but not so easily followed.”

  “Are you giving me insider information?” A flutter of hope stirs against his heart.

  Her smile turns a little sad—no, not her smile, her eyes. “I do not tell you anything I have not said to hundreds of others.”

  He nods, the flutter dissipating a little, but not entirely. “I see. How long has this Game been going on?”

  “I’m not sure. Time, as you’ve undoubtedly deciphered on your own, does not run the same in this house.”

  “But the house—it’s Edwardian, at least on the outside. So a hundred years or so?”

  “Oh. No. The house changes every so often. It was a castle when the Game began.”

  They eat in silence for a little while, taking spare glances at one another. Morgan feels himself blushing. “Will you tell me about yourself?” Vivian asks. “About what you do in the world outside?”
>
  “Sure. What would you like to know?”

  “Oh. I don’t know. What should you like me to know?”

  Morgan sits back, fingering the knife next to his plate. “Basic facts: I’m twenty-one, didn’t go to university, which almost gave my dad a coronary. But he was too busy to do more than bluster at me, since his second wife was pregnant with my younger sister, Kirsty. She’s a poppet, she is. Right now I’m just having a time in the big city, though my dad wants me to come back to the family place. I like to drink, and I only smoke when I drink, which lately has been quite a lot. Don’t have a lover. At the moment.” Vivian looks down at her hands folded in her lap. “That about covers it. So, then. What about you?”

  “Me?” She looks up, startled.

  “Yes, you. Is that not done?”

  “Oh. It’s only. . . .You’d be surprised at how few men are interested in knowing anything about me.”

  “Tell me something at least, something personal.”

  She looks past the garden, to the thick line of trees and bushes. “I—when I was young, maybe nine years old, I went into the forest to pick flowers, though my mother had told me only wicked girls went into the forest. But I thought she was only trying to scare me into being good. For a change.” A small smile. “I could never be the child my parents wanted me to be. I didn’t know how. And then I lost myself in the forest where the wicked girls go, you see, and I didn’t know how to get home again. I was terrified at first. I walked for hours and hours, until I lay down and cried myself to sleep.”

  “And then your family found you?”

  “Oh. No. No one ever found me.” She closes her eyes, and something like a cloud passes over her face.

  “But—you were so young. What did you do?”

  “I had to make my own way. As you can imagine, that time was difficult. But in the forest, in the dark, you learn who you are. And then I found the house. Or, rather, the house found me.”

  Nodding, Morgan says, “I’m sorry. To live through that kind of experience . . .”

  “It’s not so very terrible, Morgan, my story. And I have Bern. We are a pair. Where I end, he begins.” Standing abruptly, Vivian says, “Would you like to take a walk through the garden?”

  And so they do. She talks about the different flowers, how the soil here will grow anything she wants, pointing to a section of Birds of Paradise and purple orchids, but Morgan’s only half-listening. He’s watching her, the nape of her neck, the curve of her jaw, those lovely lips. He doesn’t realize for long moments that she’s stopped speaking.

  “Oh,” he says.

  “Oh.” She looks into his face, as if issuing him a challenge, then closes her eyes slowly.

  He leans down, brushes his lips against hers, softly at first, as delicate as a butterfly’s wings, then a little more insistent. Her mouth opens to his, and her tongue rises to meet his. And for Morgan there is only the warmth of the sun on their faces, the faint hum of bees far away, and their mouths, speaking to one another in an ancient and beautiful language, the sweetest words he might ever imagine. And for this moment, he thinks, distantly, for this, yes. . . .

  Morgan is nervous that night before dinner. He understands the rules of the Game, that he must give to Bern what he has won, but it’s not the idea of kissing Bern that has made him nervous, it’s this: Bern knows there is no one else in the house from whom Morgan might have won a kiss but from his wife, and that fact makes Morgan feel ashamed. Part of him thinks he shouldn’t be ashamed—the man he’s betrayed will behead him if he loses this Game—but for all that, most of him thinks of Bern as his friend. He hopes, however, that his betrayal doesn’t mean a loss of the Game and an automatic beheading.

  Finally and at last, Bern enters the room, carrying a small package wrapped in brocade cloth. He wears only a T-shirt and jeans and looks conspicuous among the gilded glory of the room, as if he is the interloper and Morgan, in his fine silk pants and crisp white shirt, is the lord of the manor. He apologizes for being late, murmurs something about “took longer than planned,” but doesn’t explain himself. “You look,” Bern says as he sits down, “like you belong here.” They begin to eat.

  Later, after some confection of banana cream and lighter-than-air chocolate, and a couple of brandies, Bern reaches down and places the brocade-wrapped package on the table between them.

  “Here then,” he says quietly, “is what I won today in the wilds.”

  Morgan eyes the package warily. But he reaches over and picks it up; it’s heavier than he thought, and so he carefully unfolds the fabric away to reveal a carving of a stag, its head reared back and its fourteen-point rack fierce. Morgan lets out the breath he’s holding and marvels at the statue, no more than nine inches high, if that. The detail is incredible, from the bunching of muscles to the fine pattern of fur. The tines of the antlers are so sharp that his fingers barely pass over them but leave tiny drops of blood on the points.

  “This is—this is amazing, Bern.”

  Bern smiles and his face lights up, as if he’s been afraid of what Morgan would say. “The forests outside the house used to be filled with animals, you know. And I would go out and hunt them and bring their carcasses back. But eventually all the animals were gone, and yet the Game continued. So I had to come up with alternatives.”

  “You carved this? Today?”

  A light laugh. “Time doesn’t run the same everywhere on the grounds. I worked a long time at this piece. The most noble of creatures. I wanted it to be perfect.”

  “It is. I just—I can’t believe you made this, for me.” Morgan places the stag back on the table and bends down to study it more, his face near the edge of the table. “It’s brilliant.” He looks up at Bern. “Thank you.”

  “Ah, my pleasure, Morgan. But now,” the larger man says, “I must ask you for what you won today.”

  Morgan sits up and nods, swallowing hard. He stands, and Bern stands, and he places his hands on Bern’s shoulders. “Here then,” Morgan says, following his host’s formality, “is what I won today in the house.”

  And he leans in, brings his lips to Bern’s lips, which are unexpectedly supple, and Morgan is surprised at how the other man’s beard tickles his mouth and cheeks. And when Bern opens his lips a little wider, Morgan slips his tongue inside.

  Bern pulls his mouth away first, but he doesn’t move his body. They stand there, face to face, the scent of brandy heady between them. “That was well done, Morgan. I thank you.” Still, neither of them move, and Morgan admittedly feels a little stunned; it was a better kiss than he expected. Much better. And that—coupled with remembering his betrayal—makes his cheeks flush red. Bern smiles. “Ah, my friend, don’t be embarrassed. There have been few men with honor as such to offer even less than that for their first day’s winnings.”

  “It’s from where I won it . . .”

  Shaking his head curtly, dismissing Morgan’s qualms, Bern says, “We’re all part of the Game, Morgan. We all play our part.” He begins walking towards the door opposite from the direction of Morgan’s bedroom. “The Game only becomes more difficult from here.”

  It’s the second day of the Game, and Morgan’s in love. Bern was right, he thinks, time does move differently here. He feels as if he’s been with Vivian and Bern for months rather than hours. And now, in the lazy gold of late afternoon, he wishes to be nowhere but where he is, on a lawn of soft, dark green grass, his body tightly pressed against Vivian’s, their mouths wet and tired from kissing. He licks and nibbles her neck, running his fingers down her body, then up the inside of her silver dress again. The tips of his fingers renew their congress with the sweetness between her thighs, and he prowls further, more insistently, and she gasps and sighs and shudders.

  “Oh, enough,” she says, “enough. Please. I can take no more.”

  He stops, brings his fingers up to his lips to taste. She looks away, embarrassed or pleased, he isn’t sure.

  Once her breathing slows again, he starts kissing
her neck, moving down the length of her body with his fingers and lips, until he pulls up her silver dress and presses his face against her, and his mouth makes promises he intends to keep.

  “It’s a boar.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. It’s a little abstract, but it’s definitely a boar.”

  “Hm. I would’ve sworn it was a cow.”

  “No, it’s a boar. The boar is a strong animal, fierce, powerful. It’s not a bloody cow.”

  Morgan smiles broadly as he props the painting against the back of the sideboard. “It’s really impressive.”

  “Bah, you’re trying to be nice,” Bern says sourly, pouring himself another whisky. “Doing a damned terrible job of it, but you’re trying.”

  Morgan tries to stifle a laugh, but some of it escapes anyway. Bern stares at him, eyebrow cocked, and eventually he too is laughing. “Oh, it is bloody awful, isn’t it?” This sets Morgan off into gales of laughter.

  “I just—I just,” Morgan sputters, “I just want to say thank you.”

  “Because it’s the thought that counts?” They both laugh harder, and they laugh for a long time, and eventually they’re both wiping their eyes, which makes them laugh again.

  Slowly, the laughter dies away.

  “So,” Morgan says. He breathes deeply. “There’s the matter of what I’ve won today.”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  The kissing goes easier this time, and Morgan is surprised that Bern is quicker to respond tonight. For his part, Morgan feels more comfortable, perhaps too comfortable, in the heat that rushes under his skin. After some time, Morgan pulls away, his hands on Bern’s shoulders, as if he’s holding Bern at bay—or himself.

  “That was a fine day’s winnings,” Bern says, smiling.

  “Yes, it was,” Morgan says.

  “I thank you for it.”

  “But that’s not all of it.”

  “No?” Bern says, then, “Oh,” when Morgan drops to his knees, and then “Oh” again and again and again.