“Tarquin.” Petunia was standing before him, her car keys clutched in her hand. “We have to pop off.”
“Righty-ho.” Tarquin shook hands with the stragglers who were left and, shoulders hunched, followed Petunia to the car park. She unlocked her shining silver Range Rover, the one that Tarquin had watched her pay cash for just a few months earlier, and waited for him to climb in. Once she was in the driving seat she hit the central locking and turned on the engine.
“We’re going down to the river,” she told him in businesslike tones. “And you’re going to tell Christopher that it’s over between you two.”
Tarquin lost the protective glass layer he’d shielded himself behind since being dragged from Chris’ bed. A shudder ran through him as he shook his head. “I—no. You can’t make me. I don’t want to!”
“We all have to do things we might not like,” was her reply. “You’ve had your fling. God knows why you didn’t choose a woman but your family always were a bit odd, weren’t they? I think the best thing will be to pretend this never happened. I blame that filthy collection of yours. We can look into getting it valued and listed. Let’s just be sexually normal, shall we? Well, not we, you.”
Even as Petunia attempted to crush him, Tarquin folded his arms like a truculent teen and spat, “Any sex at all might be nice.”
“Well, there’ll be none of that until you’ve been checked over,” she replied. “You never know what someone with his lifestyle might be carrying. You could be riddled.”
“Don’t do this to me, Petunia, please,” Tarquin begged. “We can work something out. I know we can. Erm…remember the three little words? Centre Court tickets?”
“Work something out?” She giggled, but it was hollow. “Do you want me to pimp you out to Christopher for Centre Court tickets, Tarquin? You’re lucky I still want you at all since you’ve been— I don’t even want to think about what’s been where. You should thank me for forgiving you, not bleat at me.”
“I’m sorry, all right. I’m sorry.” Tarquin twisted his hands in his lap, then forced himself to grip his knees and stop fidgeting.
If I don’t make Petunia happy, she’ll tell everyone in Bough Bottoms. She’ll tell the world she found me in bed with a man.
Finally, Tarquin’s words flooded out. “I shouldn’t have gone behind your back. I should have told you about my…my urges. And I didn’t, and I should have, but no one can know. I’ve kept it hidden for so long, and I never thought I’d end up engaged, I thought I’d be a confirmed bachelor for life, but…but…. Please don’t tell anyone, Tuney! I’m sorry. All right? I’m sorry.”
“Here we are,” she said, as though he hadn’t spoken at all. Before them the river glittered and the Bough Bottom Blues toiled, carrying their boat from the shed toward the pontoon as Shobna bellowed into her megaphone on the riverbank. There was no sign of Chris, and for a moment Tarquin dared hope that he was being given a reprieve, that Chris wasn’t here and Petunia might change her mind.
“Shobna!” Petunia rolled down her window with an electric hum. “Sweetie, where’s Christopher hiding? Isn’t he here?”
“Boat shed!” Shobna announced through the megaphone, disturbing a family of ducks. She lowered it and added, “He’s on the phone.”
“Off you go,” Petunia instructed. “Like ripping off a plaster.”
Tarquin got out of the car and took a huge lungful of riverside air. He’d throw up if he wasn’t careful.
He headed over to the boathouse, aware of how ridiculous and out of place he looked there in his pinks. He would have to tell Chris it was over, but one solitary voice pestered him, telling him he could be with Chris, that it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
Maybe.
The door was ajar, and Tarquin was about to push it open, but he could hear Chris talking.
A chap can’t barge in on another chap when he’s on the phone.
Tarquin glanced back to Petunia’s car. He couldn’t run off and hide either. But he’d be a gentleman and give Chris a minute.
“It’s a lifesaver, if I’m honest,” he heard Chris say. “And I think Great-Uncle Beardsley would approve, don’t you? Working in the family firm at last, or something like it!”
The family firm.
Hardacre Books, with its glittering London headquarters.
Chris was leaving, then. Back to the champagne and the exchange, away from Bough Bottoms and the tattered remains of their failed affair.
“No, thank you,” he went on. “I can’t wait to get started. Have a lovely Sunday, bye-bye.”
Tarquin tried to swallow the bile that was rising up his throat. He knocked on the door.
“Christopher?” His voice was high-pitched, as if someone was standing on his foot in hobnailed boots. “It’s Tarquin. I need to have a word.”
“Tarks?” Chris sounded so full of hope. He pulled the door open. “Oh God, Tarks, I thought—”
He was silenced by a sharp toot from the horn of Petunia’s Range Rover. She gestured to Tarquin as though to say, hurry up.
“Goodbye, then.” Tarquin held his hand out to Chris to shake.
“What?” He looked down at Tarquin’s hand, as though he had no idea what was expected of him. “You can’t tell me— Didn’t it mean anything? It did to me, didn’t you feel— Do you mean it, really? Goodbye?”
“We can’t… I’m a dreadful bounder, Christopher, can’t you see that?” Tarquin dropped his hand and plunged it into his pocket. “I went behind Petunia’s back, and us two—we shouldn’t have, but we had an affair, and I’ve behaved awfully. To both of you. I’m a bloody cad!”
“Please don’t do this,” he whispered, shaking his head. “It’s not just— Please.”
The horn sounded again and Petunia called through her open window, “Tarquin, come along now, it’s time you let Christopher get on with his rowing!”
Tarquin took a step away from Chris. He forced himself to stare at Chris’ knees, because it was easier than looking into those wonderful blue eyes and reminding himself of everything he had lost. “You’ve got a life to live, Christopher. You’ll leave Bough Bottoms and…and I have to stay here, Chris, don’t you see? I can’t be the local village gay chap. I have to marry Petunia. And you’re…you’re a Hardacre, for God’s sake! We should never have—it would never have worked, never!”
“I was falling in love with you,” Chris admitted, the words landing like a stone in Tarquin’s gut, a rock of despair that he already knew he’d never shift. And Petunia tooted that damn horn again. “Petunia’s waiting, you’d better go.”
Tarquin glanced outside, then back at Chris. “I couldn’t have given you what you needed, Christopher. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t give you what you deserve. You would never have been happy living in secret—all you Hardacres, you’re hedonists. And I’m just a sad chap with other people’s perversions hidden in his attic.”
“A perverted hedonist,” Chris murmured. “Well, that’s a hell of a comeback to I was falling in love with you. Go home, Tarquin. I won’t make your life difficult, don’t worry. Hardacre’s just a name. We’re not the devil incarnate, whatever you may think of us.”
I was falling in love with you too.
Tarquin’s mouth was dry. He wanted to speak, but no words came. He nodded, then, without saying another thing, he walked back to the car.
“All done,” Petunia announced with a look of amusement. “Let’s go home and I’ll throw a salad together. We want you trim for the wedding, don’t we?”
Bloody wedding.
“Whatever you say, dear,” Tarquin said.
Chapter Seventeen
Animals always know when you’re sad. Better than people do.
The Oracle had nudged her snout against Tarquin’s knee as he had stood in the orchard with brandy in his hip flask. He shouldn’t be drinking, not before the wedding, not if he was to be trim, not if he was to do as Petunia wished.
But how else would he get to sleep?
Petunia thought he was dirty. That was why he was lying there, banned from his own bedroom. And she’d reminded him, before sending him to the guest room, of everything she had done for him.
And that played on his mind as he lay there in the dark. As soon as news of his father’s ludicrous death had spread around the village and the surrounding countryside, Petunia had arrived, armed with a casserole and homemade bread.
Hadn’t she been kind?
Helped feed him up. Get him back on his feet. Then one day, she was holding his hand, and saying, What a shame, such a lovely house, it needs a family in it! And she had kissed him, and Tarquin had been taken by surprise, and she’d said she loved him, and before Tarquin knew it, they were engaged and Petunia had moved in.
He’d felt so raw after his father’s death. Mourning hadn’t been easy when he’d kept thinking of that giant cock and bursting out laughing. He’d been vulnerable, going about with a layer of skin missing, like a barely healed wound.
And Petunia…
Tarquin opened his eyes wide. He saw it now, clear as if the noon sun were pouring in.
Petunia had taken advantage of him.
She didn’t love him now, and she had never loved him to start with. Tarquin was an eligible bachelor, and with his family gone as if by a finger-snap, she had swept in with her Nigella Lawson cookery books and presented herself as the perfect wife.
But she wasn’t. She didn’t really know him, didn’t appear to like him very much, certainly didn’t love him, and hadn’t given him time to grieve.
Tarquin threw aside the twisted, sweaty bed sheets and announced to no one in particular, “I can’t marry her.”
Perhaps it had been the brandy, but as Tarquin scrubbed at his pillow-flattened hair, the squire revived inside him.
“I want my captain. And I shall have him. And I’ll bloody well bring him ice cream.”
* * * *
Tarquin stood by Chris’ French windows, the tub of ice cream softening in the warm summer night. He rapped his knuckles against the frame again, hoping Chris didn’t sleep too deeply.
If he can sleep at all.
His heart began to hammer against his ribs as he saw an oblong of light spill under the closed door into the sitting room. A moment later the door was opened and he saw Chris framed there, looking at him across the length of the moonlit room.
Tarquin held up his melting offering. Through the glass, he called, “Can I—would you like some ice cream, old boy? It’s so very hot tonight, I cannot for the life of me get to sleep.”
Chris stood unmoving and Tarquin wondered what he’d do if he turned away and disappeared back into the house. But as the thought of it entered his head Chris crossed toward the French windows and turned the key.
“Promise me,” he was saying as he opened the door, “that you’re not here to say goodbye.”
“I promise.” Tarquin hovered on the threshold, not sure if Chris would want him in the house. “I’m so sorry for what happened earlier. I’m not sure I can make it up to you, but…it’s luxury vanilla, by the way. With caramel swirls.”
“You’d better come in.” Chris stepped back, scrubbing his hand through his tousled hair. “Sorry about the paint smell. I couldn’t sleep so… The hallway needed a last coat.”
“You…you do look a little painty.” Tarquin realized he was smiling and stopped himself. But it was hard not to look happy, seeing Chris barefoot in jeans, his shirt fastened with only a couple of buttons. Tarquin stepped into the house. “Got a bowl, or shall we just attack it with spoons?”
“I’ll grab some spoons,” Chris replied, offering the ghost of a smile of his own. “Make yourself at home.”
He turned toward the hallway and flicked a switch as he went. Soft lamplight illuminated the room, bathing Tarquin in its glow. At the doorway Chris glanced back before disappearing into the hallway. Tarquin wondered where to sit and plumped for the sofa. Claiming an armchair seemed presumptuous, somehow. Sofa—that seemed friendly. He put the tub down on the coffee table and hoped the melting ice wouldn’t leave a noticeable ring.
“So, how are you?” Chris padded into the sitting room, two spoons in his fist. He held one out as he sat beside Tarquin. “I look a sight, but let’s pretend I don’t.”
Tarquin took the spoon. “I thought…” Tarquin wrestled with his words, but in the end decided it was high time to be tell the truth. “I thought you looked quite rumpled and lovely.”
Chris smiled. He leaned forward and picked up the ice cream, giving a jokey tut of disapproval. “Not homemade, Mr. Bough? I’d expect that from a Hardacre, but never from you!”
“It takes a while, that homemade stuff! Days, if you want to do it properly.” Tarquin wagged his spoon as he imparted his hard-won knowledge. “Much easier just to nip to the shop!”
“The ice cream I served you with my scrumped-apple-crumble was handmade.” Chris dipped his spoon into the tub and popped it between his lips. “By me.”
“It was, by jingo?” Tarquin grinned. “It was bloody good.”
“In the interests of honesty,” Chris said, filling his spoon again, “the affair… If you’re here to ask if we can pick up where we were, I can’t. I’m too selfish to share you, Tarks.”
“Ahh, that.” Tarquin blinked rapidly, before saying, “I don’t want to rekindle the affair. That wasn’t why I came round.”
Chris nodded toward the tub, indicating that Tarquin should take his share. He said nothing though, but skittered his gaze away. Tarquin took a spoonful. He was regretting his choice of ice cream now, as he wobbled the soft mound to his mouth. He swallowed it, then said, “I was thinking. About…things. And I… Christopher, I can’t imagine being without you. But I can’t…this whole affair business, I can’t do it.”
And you’ve got a job in the family firm. In London.
He nodded again, then said, “We’re not doing it, Tarks, so it’s fine. And whatever I said down at the river… I was emotional, shook up from the fall.”
“Oh.” Tarquin took another spoonful of the ice cream. So you don’t actually love me. “That’s all right, we were very emotional. I…erm…” So Tarquin decided to make conversation. “When are you off then, or will you commute?”
“You’re keen to pack me off!” Chris dug his spoon into the ice cream again. “I might still win the old girl over, but if you’d rather— Look, I care about you. If you want me to move on I’ll talk to Driscoll, see if there’s any leeway in the will. I don’t want to make things rotten for you by hanging around.”
Tarquin’s hand shot out and clutched Chris’ knee. “But I like you hanging around. I really do! And I’ve made a decision. Not that it matters now so much, but… I’m not going to marry Petunia. I lay awake thinking, and I realized something—she’s never loved me, Chris. She appeared on my doorstep almost as soon as my father died, and you see, everyone in my family, and all my friends, have only been ever so nice, and… I had no idea that someone would even dream of turning up at one’s house, after one’s father—well, has met his untimely end under a large phallus, and would take advantage of one being a shambles. And I thought she really liked me, but she didn’t. And I can’t live a lie. I can’t have an affair. I need you, Chris. It’s in here.” Tarquin took his hand from Chris’ knee and pressed his palm against his chest.
“I want to be with you.” Chris blinked his large eyes, then took his spoon out of the ice cream and gently dabbed a blob of the cold dessert onto Tarquin’s nose. “You’ve got ice cream on your nose.”
Tarquin smiled as he stroked Chris’ cheek. “Oh dear, will you wipe it off?”
“Maybe.” Chris leaned forward and very gently kissed the ice cream from Tarquin’s nose
. “How’s that?”
“I liked that.” Tarquin retaliated with a blob of ice cream for Chris. He aimed for his nose but only succeeded in getting it on Chris’ lips. “Oh.”
“Are you going to kiss me?” Chris ghosted his fingertips over Tarquin’s jaw. “Or just cover me in ice cream?”
Tarquin leaned closer and brushed his lips over Chris’ ear. “I’d love to cover you in ice cream, but first things first—I want to kiss you.”
When he touched his lips against Chris’, a rush of memories hurried through him. Every heated embrace and husky sigh, and when he thought of every laugh they’d shared he realized he couldn’t go through his life without Chris.
With one kiss, Chris’ lips were clean of ice cream, then Tarquin held him and kissed him deeply. For a second Chris didn’t respond, then Tarquin was in his arms and Chris’ fingers were clutching at his shoulder as if he feared Tarquin might be swept away on the tide, their kisses breathless with passion and need.
And love, he realized.
Tarquin stroked Chris’ hair, desperate to feel it against his hand one more, trailing his fingers through it as if counting every strand. The smell of paint vanished and in its place was the scent of Chris’ skin, heady and exciting, but comforting too, like coming home. Familiar and thrilling all at once.
And he tastes like ice cream.
“I’ve never had a home, not really. Boarding school, traveling, trading floors… I want this to be home.” Chris pressed his cheek to Tarquin’s, clinging to him. “I’ve fallen in love with this village just like I’ve fallen in love with you.”
“Oh, Chris!” Tarquin gave him a squeeze. “I’m so glad you said that. When you told me that earlier, I…I love you, too, you darling man. I can’t—I don’t bloody want to imagine being without you!”
“And not only am I one pig away from getting a home… I got a job,” he admitted, relief and excitement mingling in his tone. Somehow Tarquin knew then that he had been wrong, that whatever this new job was, it wasn’t going to snatch the man he loved away. “One of Great-Uncle B’s animal charities is based in Brighton… He was pretty hands-on with it right to the end apparently, chief exec on the sly. Turns out they rather like us Hardacres for some unknown reason and they’d like yours truly to take his place! Continuity, they reckon. So it’ll be a little bit of a commute now and then—maybe an hour on a bad day—but I’ve always rather liked the idea of working from home.”
The Captain and the Squire Page 17
