It was absurd to think it.
He’d achieve the damned PhD and then secure the professorship and never mention bloody ghosts to anyone ever again.
“Ainsley? Violet?”
No answer.
Wait, was that a bark? He called out again, and in his excitement, slipped a few feet, but didn’t fall, thank God. The undergrowth was putrid with rot.
Tomorrow night he’d be back home and figure out how he could finish his paper without naming Ainsley. Even though the man was a character study who deserved a full-length dissertation focused on his quirks.
Trixie’s concern that Ainsley would be worse off once Joachim was gone bubbled to the forefront of his mind. But that was ridiculous. Ainsley was using his time with Joachim to enjoy sex. A man like him couldn’t have any real feelings for a man like Joachim.
He slipped again, this time falling on his arse and sliding into a brambly bush. He cursed and pressed off the ground with his hands to stand. Soaking and miserable and now with searing thorns in his backside. What a fright he’d look when he found Ainsley. Maybe enough to make the younger man laugh and Joachim would have the chance to explain.
Graham understood what was at stake for Joachim. He knew the years of intense study and the hunger to have the papers. Prove his mettle at the end of it. He’d make his ginger believe that he’d not do anything to hurt him any further than he’d already hurt himself.
The next time he called for Ainsley and the dog, his voice hitched with desperation.
But Ainsley wasn’t Joachim’s ginger, and had made it clear that he regretted even meeting him.
No. He’d lashed out in anger. Joachim understood that deep down. He was a behaviorist who’d studied Ainsley for days, as intimately as he’d ever been able to study anyone. He knew how to bring Ainsley’s attention back, and how to help him focus. The man craved a strong guiding hand, in bed and outside it.
And bless him, he knew how to make Joachim laugh and enjoy life more than he’d ever done before.
Finally, he reached the bottom of the hillside and congratulated himself for the feat.
“Joe Cockburn?” A Welsh accent called out.
Rain dripped off the brim of Joachim’s cap. In his life, there was only one confidant he’d not been able to talk out of using the nickname he despised. He spun around to find the speaker.
It was now almost too dark to see, and chills rose up Joachim’s neck. He flicked on the torch and swung it in an arc.
“Rhys?” He choked on the name. “Are you there?”
He scanned the trees and saw nothing. Wait. A lump on the ground moved. He shone the light on it and slapped his hand over his mouth. George Rhys, his best mate from the war, lay on the ground just as he had those hours before he died. Joachim raced to his side, but his right ankle tangled in some ropes of ivy and he crashed down, the torch rolling a distance away.
Fuck. His heart hammered. Acidic dismay roiled in his belly. “George?”
“Agh, why’d you follow me, Cockburn? You should have stayed back.”
No no no.
He’d had this conversation long ago. No. It was a spirit. Nothing real. George wasn’t truly here.
Still, Joachim lifted his head and looked over at where his imagination insisted was George. The rain darkened his uniform in rivulets like blood and his leg was bent at an angle suggesting the bone broke in two.
He covered his eyes and reached down to his own leg to dislodge it from the ivy. Bugger. Something sliced his hand and he drew it to his lips, not thinking. Metallic copper flooded his mouth.
“Barbed wire,” said George, his voice faint.
It was ivy. He was in Scotland, near some medieval fortress, not Belgium. But as he struggled to sit up, the binding around his leg appeared exactly as though it was coils of spikes.
Cockburn rolled to the side before he retched. Like that fucking rainy day so many years before.
This couldn’t be happening. Not again.
“Ainsley? Violet?” Joachim yelled loud enough that the words echoed. He felt for his stick but it wasn’t anywhere around.
“Joe? Can you...please...can you hold my hand? I’m scared. I’m so scared. I changed my mind. I don’t want to die.”
All Joachim wished to do was cover his ears with his hands and block it out. But George’s voice moved him the same way it had before and, rolling to his belly, Cockburn scooted as far as he could without breaking off the circulation around his ankle. He slid his wet hand into George’s. It was as cold as death.
And he prayed that Ainsley would come and find him and wake him from this torment before he lost himself in it.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ainsley
Charlie disappeared. He hadn’t forgiven Ainsley, after all. And he was lost. Christ on a stick—how long had he lain in the wet April evening, completely blitzed out of his head?
Bugger bugger bugger.
Violet licked raindrops from his face. How the hell was he going to get out of this mess, and what did Joachim make of it all? Just more proof that Ainsley was barmy and ought to be locked away from the logical and rational people of the bloody world.
Cockburn could go and fuck himself, thank you very much.
But he was probably out of his mind with worry. Last time Ainsley raced off, Joachim came for him. Didn’t reprove him at all. Only suggested that he understood what it was like to need to escape his mind sometimes.
Not even Charlie had understood when Ainsley’d explained as a child.
Fuck.
His options weren’t helpful. No way to navigate using the stars in this shite weather. But he’d come from that way...or was it the other? Bollocks. No clue.
Pick a direction and start moving.
With a sigh, he did. And maybe his luck was changing because after a few minutes, he came to a field. Sheep bellowed in the dark and he quailed at the future state of his shoes. Straight into the bin.
Manure was even less pleasant when it was rained upon. He wrinkled his nose but at least there was a way out of this situation. Through the shadows, he made out an old stone fence that led to the village’s main road. If he could figure out which way to go, he’d end up back at the Austin. And if he was turned around, he’d end up in the village and could get nice and drunk in the pub.
Except Joachim was probably waiting for him at the car.
Let him wait. Ainsley owed him nothing.
Charlie hated him, after all. And Trixie thought he was throwing away his life. And Barley was head over heels for Merson and was going to run off to India most likely and there would be no one left in the world whom he actually wished to spend time with.
He sniffed and then grimaced. He’d have to get the muck off his shoes before he drove because he’d never rid his car of the smell of sheep’s shite if he didn’t.
Clambering over the stone fence, Ainsley was finally back on solid ground, which crunched under his feet. Beer or automobile?
Fuck. It would be unfair to leave Cockburn worried any longer. He’d drive the man home and then lock himself in his study and drink away his sadness.
Probably didn’t even have any cash to go to the pub anyway.
The mile to the car disappeared as he sang That’s My Weakness Now—the actual lyrics, not the rot that Cockburn made up trying to get him to laugh. Blighter. Once Ainsley dried off and stopped his teeth chattering, he’d tell the brute exactly what he thought of him.
Er, not exactly. Just the horrid bits that would make the wretch writhe in shame and self-loathing.
But what if they didn’t? What if Joachim simply didn’t care about Ainsley or his opinion whatsoever?
The Austin sat precisely where he’d parked it however many hours earlier and Ainsley could have sobbed with relief. He opened the door with a flourish.
“Did you miss me?”
But Cockburn wasn’t in the automobile. Ainsley got out and circled it. He wasn’t outside, either.
A scrap of paper sat on the dash and he reached for it, knocking it off with his sleeve. It fluttered down into a puddle and he had to shake it. Fuck, blurry words. All he could make out was “I’ve gone.”
I’ve gone.
Ainsley sat in an increasingly uncomfortable pile of damp wool and mud. Poor creamy leather seats. He exhaled like he’d been kicked in the gut. Joachim had bloody left him? What if Ainsley had been hurt, or trapped?
Bastard.
He’d go for a beer and forget all about the bloody Geordie. It wouldn’t take too long. It’s not as though Joachim Cockburn was someone he cared about.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Joachim
Why why why had he been so insistent that he needed one more ghost to believe they were real? Bullets whizzed overhead. Here, in the mud with George Rhys holding his hand and the two of them weeping in the rain. Joachim had been this bleak in his life only once before, and that was the first time he lived through this ordeal.
He succumbed to the misery for some time, George’s voice fading in and out of coherence. When he quieted, Cockburn pulled his hand from the cold grasp of clutching fingers and went to work to loosen the barbed wire—bloody hell, ivy—from his ankle.
You’ve not been shot. You’re healed. This is all some horrid delusion. A ghost like Maisie.
But it was hard to reconcile a charming specter like Maisie with this situation.
Blessedly, the ivy didn’t cut his palms again, and once he sat up and focused on the dislocation of his tender limb, he was soon free. And he found his stick.
“Watch out, Joe. Keep your head down.” George’s warning cut through the foggy night air.
Joachim ran his tongue over parched lips and squeezed George’s shoulder. It was disturbingly tangible. “I’ll send someone back for you,” he whispered.
“Too late for me, old man. But thanks. For all of it.” The last was full of meaning that only Joachim could understand, and his throat tightened with all the emotions that flooded his head and heart.
He left the ghost to get back to the car. His leg was stiff, but not like it had been in 1917. And it was all traumatic, but George was long dead, and Joachim wasn’t headed back to two years of agonizing convalescence.
Rain streamed down his collar, freezing the back of his already cold neck. He’d lost his cap somewhere and blinked hard and fast to keep his eyes from blurring.
This isn’t the worst thing you’ve lived through, mate. Keep plugging ahead.
Getting back up the ravine was difficult, and he was reduced to hands and knees, clutching at the grasses to pull himself to the top. But soon enough, he was back to the path he and Ainsley had poked along so many hours earlier.
Now, though, the Austin was gone.
It’s just another phantasm. I’m not looking in the right place.
As he followed the gravel drive, he came to the main road. Each step away from George cleared his thoughts until he was nearly convinced it had been a nightmare.
Except the automobile was truly gone.
That little shit.
What the hell was he to do now? He’d left a God damned note saying he went in search of Graham and the bugger hadn’t the decency to wait? His jaw ached from grinding his teeth so hard. And he didn’t even know where he was. He slumped against a tree and focused on the morning’s ride. They’d gone through a village. Perhaps there was a pub still open?
It rained hard enough that Joachim expected an ark to float by when he reached a stone-front building that looked old enough to have been standing before England and Scotland were united under one king. Lights flickered through the greenish haze of old glass windows. He shook off as much wet as he could in the vestibule before moving inside.
“Och, you’re drenched, laddie. Mind your step.” The barkeep, an elderly man draped in a white apron over his wool trousers, pointed to a large fireplace that was more inviting than anything Joachim had seen in ages. He held out his hands to warm them.
“What’ll you have?”
Good Lord. Belatedly, Joachim patted his pocket and exhaled with relief that he had his wallet. “Whiskey. A double, please. And the address of a nearby lodging, if such a thing exists. I can pay.”
The publican poured four fingers into a pint glass foggy with age, and pushed it across the shiny oak bar. “Sounds like you’re a lang way from home.”
He nodded glumly. Bloody hell. And Poppy was to drive him back to England in the morning. How could he alert her to his whereabouts? “You wouldn’t happen to have a telephone, would you?”
“Aye to the second, and you can doss down in front of the fire if you need to.”
Joachim blinked, doing his best to translate the man’s Scots. “You’ve got a telephone?” Not that bloody Ainsley would have made it back home already, but perhaps Trixie was there. Or at least Nelson, the butler.
The publican led Joachim back to the door and pointed down the street where a red phone box stood. “Installed a month back. You’re lucky.”
Lucky. It was hard not to snort in the face of the man’s goodwill.
“Hello, operator? Can you connect me to Rosethorne House in Glenmarchie? The Grahams’ residence.” He scrabbled together some coins from his pocket and inserted them, holding his breath when the long beep of the ringer decided his fate.
Four minutes later, Trixie Graham was on the line, cursing her brother’s name as she heard the abridged version of the day’s drama. Joachim crossed his fingers that there might be a chance that someone would fetch him, but that was a bridge too far. Of course it was—he was over an hour from the place, and it was spitting rain. Still, Trixie promised Nelson would pack up Joachim’s things and Poppy would bring them in the morning.
No chance to explain face-to-face, after all.
His time in Scotland was over, and he’d never set eyes on Dr. Ainsley Graham again.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ainsley
He parked on Queen Street and took Violet for a final walk before letting himself into the Edinburgh house.
Joachim had left him, wandering in the woods.
Bloody inconsiderate after the attention Ainsley had given the Englishman all week. Traitorous sod.
Ainsley hadn’t alerted anyone that he’d arrive, so no lights were on. He and the dog went to the kitchen, where he managed to open a tin of beans, which he prepared to eat cold on un-toasted bread as he was a bit daunted by the oven grate. Joachim would have known how to light the hub, but fuck him and his nob-headed notion that Ainsley was a loony.
He wasn’t.
But God. If Cockburn published his paper certifying that he was, and members of the psychiatric society in Edinburgh read it...
His appetite fled, and he lowered his plate to the floor, where Violet happily lapped it up. Man’s best friend? Harrumph. She didn’t seem put out over the evening’s events at all.
“Darling! Where is your dear Mr. Cockburn?” Mama would arrive then, wouldn’t she?
“He’s gone away. Not my Mr. Cockburn, after all.”
Her voice was mournful, next to his ear. “But Charlie and I were convinced that he was the one.”
“Not tonight, Mama.” He left the kitchen, wincing as the door swung back, probably right into his mother’s face. But she was a ghost, so did it matter? Though Barley and Joachim could touch ghosts, so perhaps it did.
He went back and held it open, in case.
It was much too early for bed, and Ainsley didn’t have the energy to read. He needed company. Tuskers. With luck, Barley would be there, and if not him, surely there might be a man in need of a cock.
Exactly the thing to cheer him up.
May
be.
“I’ll be back, Violet,” he called, lighting on the stone walk out front.
Providentially, a cab waited at the corner and he scratched his arms with abandon.
“All right back there?” asked the driver.
Ainsley ignored him. But he did his best to ignore the itchiness of his too-tight skin.
I hope he catches bloody pneumonia.
He declined to set up a time to be fetched home with the cabbie, and stood outside the pub, inhaling once. Twice. He’d be fine. Absolutely unaffected by any of this. It was merely an extended fuck that had been pleasant for a few days. Nothing more than that. Because, the Lord knew Ainsley Graham didn’t care about any man that way. Never had, never would.
Of all the fucking bad luck.
That worm Barley adored was sitting in Ainsley’s regular spot across from his friend. Neither of them noticed Ainsley come through the door. Over the heads of the other patrons, he saw the Gentleman Boarder chatted with Helle. He should leave. No way for Barley to cheer him up in a crowd.
“Älskling! What a happy surprise.” Helle beckoned him over, pulling down the tap for a dark ale.
Barley’s nemesis shook Ainsley’s hand. His babbling about Saturday’s dinner party was ignored as the Scotsman emptied his glass and asked for another two before he flashed a meaningless smile and squeezed in the booth across from Barley. Next to Merson, or Hubert, or whatever the fuck the blighter was called.
“Er, Ainsley, what are you doing here?” Barley blinked rapidly and forced a smile. “Happy to see you, of course.”
“Yes, yes. Capital to see you again. Ducky.” Barley’s bland love interest squeaked.
Christ on a stick—they didn’t want to spend time with him, either.
Churlish and bitter, Ainsley emptied his pint glasses without speaking. Or listening. Whatever his two booth-mates had to say was dull dull dull.
“Now the tower has got you down, eh, Ainsley?” Barley clasped his hand and flooded his insides with the first genuine warmth of the day.
Best Laid Plaids (Kilty Pleasures) Page 24
