Indulgence 2: One Glimpse (21 page)

“A hunting lodge?” Sam smirked.

“Close enough for Mosley’s purposes.” John laughed in agreement. “The east wing there was built to house a conservatory, but it’s been shut up for years and half the rooms are in Holland cloths. He keeps a bare minimum of servants and will expect us all to ‘Toughen it out, lads. No dandies here.’”

“That’s a striking impression,” Sam said through his laughter. “Best to not let Mosley hear it, I think.”

“Definitely not,” John said and shot him a conspiratorial wink.

Sam’s throat went dry.
He’s going to be the death of me
.

Their arrival didn’t go unnoticed, and by time the grooms appeared to take charge of the horses, Mosley and a few others descended the front steps.

“Darny, there you are! You’re not the last, though, never fear. We’re still waiting on Sills and old Stone to show their faces.” Mosley laughed. “Will serve either of them right too, for being such poor sports last time.”

Sam shot John a confused look.

“Last man to arrive has to pay a penalty of sorts.” John grinned. “It’s tradition.”

“The stocks? Boiling oil?” Sam ventured, then could have bitten his tongue as he remember that they were no longer alone.

Mosley and the others—Sam recognized Philip Farnsworth and Andrew Colms—laughed.

“Would that it were, eh?” Farnsworth said, smiling. “For myself, I think I’d rather face a pot of boiling oil than what’s in store for one of them.”

“That bad, is it?” Sam said, feeling a little easier under Farnsworth’s friendly smile. He knew the man but little. In truth, most of what he knew of him was from the various humorous stories that abounded, usually featuring him drinking too much and getting caught in some horrible circumstance. Apparently, he had once drunk himself unconscious in the backstage rooms of a theater, only to awake on stage during a performance after the troupe had decided to use him as a corpse for a funeral scene.

John stepped forward and introduced Sam to the others after it was clear Sam already knew Farnsworth and Colms. Leeds, a sober sort with gray eyes and thinning blond hair, nodded kindly. The other, Mathew Fletcher, was a young buck in every sense of the term, and nothing like his socially awkward brother. He was dressed painfully to the height of fashion and was so slim he probably followed the grueling dictates of Mr. Brummell’s famous diet.

“Well, we all have a name for one another. I say we make this drawing room visit short.” John put his hands on his hips and looked every inch the care-nothing Corinthian. “I’m for a bath and an end to these dirty travel clothes for the day.”

Everyone turned and started heading in. Mosley laughed as they entered the modest stone hall, his voice echoing as he said, “A bath after half a day’s ride? Toughen it out, lads. No dandies here!”

It was all Sam could do not to burst out laughing. When he turned to John, his eyes wide in shared humor, John winked again and mouthed the words
Didn’t I tell you?

It was a relief when Sam reached his room and pried off his boots with an iron jack near the fireplace, still smiling over the ease of their arrival. He had feared receiving a cool reception, but they all appeared to be good men.

John had not been exaggerating when he said Mosley kept a minimum of servants, for neither of them had been shown to their rooms and both had carried their own bags. Sam nearly assumed he was meant to fetch his own bathing water until a knock on the door announced a footman carrying a tin can to fill the basin pitcher. After that, he washed as best he could at the washstand, then changed his clothes and fell into the armchair near the cold hearth to relax for a spell.

He had been careful to make no complaints on the road, but he was unaccustomed to so much time in the saddle. His lower back felt ready to break, and his shoulders were so tight that just the act of rolling his head from side to side felt heavenly. As he tilted his head, letting the long muscle from his neck to shoulder unwind, he remembered the last time he had ridden long and gotten himself in such a state. And he could not help laughing when he recalled how he had dealt with it. How many men, after all, went to a brothel and paid a whore for nothing more than a back massage? The gorgeous young man had been so confused.

“What’s so funny?”

Sam twisted around with a start.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” John grinned and took a few steps into the room. He had changed into a pair of well-worn breeches and stockings, topped with a comfortably loose waistcoat that may have matched the breeches at one point but had been so worn and washed as to be almost gray. He wore no coat, and the thin linen of his shirtsleeves pooled beautifully into every curve and valley of his strong arms.

“Not my usual fare, is it?” John looked down at himself.

Sam realized he stared. “No. I was beginning to think I was the only man left under fifty still wearing breeches.”

“My country clothes.” John shrugged, making a face. “I can leave my fashionable kit in town. That is, if you won’t be too ashamed to be seen with me in such a sorry state.”

He was only being facetious, yet Sam felt compelled to contradict him. “Don’t be foolish. Both become you very well.”

John chuckled, but his sun-kissed cheeks took on a pinkish hue.

Is he blushing?

“Farnsworth is keen to show off his new phaeton, unless you want to rest up a bit longer.”

Sam stood. “I’ll come along. If I rest at all, I’ll be dead asleep within the hour.”

They made their way to the stables where the other men had already gathered around an impressive high-perch phaeton. It was black and yellow and polished to near-mirror perfection, a perfect match to the beautiful black mares before it.

John sounded a low whistle. “Farn, she’s a beauty. Planning to drive her out?”

“Just along the drive and around to the gamekeeper’s cottage. Getting too late to go out farther,” Farn said casually, though the man’s suppressed smile showed his pride. The other men examined the carriage from every conceivable angle, their gazes almost hungry.

Sam suppressed a laugh. Horses and carriages, the ultimate male pursuits.

He tilted his head as if to look at the spokes on one wheel, but his curiosity didn’t extend any further than wondering how on earth anyone could dare to ride in the thing. The box, a tiny seat barely able to fit two men, rode so high that the floor cleared the horses’ backs by at least a foot. As if that were not bad enough, the entire equipage was built of parts so thin it looked as if a good breeze would blow it apart.

“What do you think?” John said, nudging his arm.

“I think that thing would collapse under half my weight.”

John belted out a laugh.

“Don’t say you’ve never driven one,” Farnsworth said from his place high in the seat. “She has to be light for the speed.”

Sam ran his gaze over the thumb-thick spokes and the box floor that appeared no thicker than a book cover. He was not convinced. His expression must have conveyed it, for the others exchanged glances of mocking amusement.

It was easy as that, just a few looks, and Sam felt set apart. This had been a bad idea. What had he been thinking, agreeing to spend a week with these men with whom he had nothing in common?

“Nonsense,” John said, waving his hand. “I’ll wager you that seat holds up with barely a creak of the springs.”

Sam met John’s eyes, sad that he would choose to mock him too, but there was no mockery there. John stared back at him in earnest, and the subtle rise of his brow was conspiratorial.

All right.
“That seat is built for two. If you and Farnsworth make it around the lake and back without it falling to pieces, I’ll concede.”

“Ho, a wager, then!” Fletcher crowed. “And what are the stakes?”

Everyone turned to John, and Sam could see that the mention of a wager had already taken the mocking gleam from their eyes. They were far more interested in the sport.

“We’ll save the serious wagers for the tables. Let us say five quid?” That conspiratorial look was in John’s eyes again.

“Agreed,” Sam said at once.

“‘Tis a good thing you are skilled in business, Shaw. I can’t imagine your purse would stay full very long with wagers like that.”

Sam turned, only just managing not to scowl as Sills walked toward them across the yard. He was still dressed in riding clothes, and a groom guided his horse only a few paces behind.

“Michael,” John said.

There was a smattering of greetings as Sills brushed past Sam and began looking over the phaeton.

“Agreed, but,” Farnsworth said, returning to the issue, “if Sir Samuel thinks my phaeton is too spindly to hold him up, I insist
he
be the one to take her for a turn.”

Sam shook his head. “No, no. I have little cause to leave town and haven’t driven a pair in far too long.”

“What a surprise,” Sills quipped.

“No matter. I’ll drive.” John approached the phaeton and clapped his hands together, like a cuisine connoisseur gazing over a new dish. “Up with you, Sam. I have a mind to collect my five pounds.”

“Perhaps this is not the best idea,” Sills said lazily. “If Shaw has so little experience with anything more sporting than a dog cart, he might get himself hurt.”

Sam had been ready to give other excuses to refuse the ride, but Sills’s words jarred him like cutlery scraping over a plate, and he would have liked nothing more than to pick up that plate and smash it over Sills’s head.

“Never mind that,” Sam said as he came forward. “Unlike some, I think I am able to adapt to pursuits outside my norm.”

Sam did not turn to see Sills’s reaction, though if the narrowing of John’s eyes was any indication, it was not good. Farnsworth came down on the other side of the phaeton, and John bounded up in two easy steps as if he had been dancing on such contraptions since childhood. Sam set his foot awkwardly in the wheel spokes as John had done but was not tall enough to make anything graceful out of the next step. He fell into the box more than stepped.

“Around the lake bend and back along the carriage way?” John called, taking up the reins.

“That’ll do,” Farnsworth agreed. “She isn’t creaking, is she, Shaw? Ha!”

Sam made a show of wiggling the seat. “No. Damn my luck, eh? I think I’ve lost already.”

“All right, then,” John said for Sam’s ears. “Let’s see how well she holds up under some strain.”

“I think maybe not too much—Argh!” Sam barely got the words out before John snapped the reins and they were off.

The phaeton sailed onto the gravel drive with hardly a bump, but the smoothness did nothing to temper the blood pounding in Sam’s ears. He dug his fingers into the arm of the seat, which was so low it barely rose past his hip. On the other side, there was nothing to hold, as the seat was so small there was not even space between them to get a good grip on the cushion edge.

“Ha!” John crowed, his eyes wide with delight. “Do you feel the response of the springs? Smooth as glass.”

Oh, Sam could not help but agree. The springs were certainly doing their job, for every bump in the road translated into a swishing countersway of the box seat. Unfortunately, that sway was pronounced and high. Very high. With each rut the massive wheels struck, Sam felt as if the seat would roll like a foundering ship and spill him to the ground below. Far,
far
below.

Oh God.
He gripped the seat tighter. Ever since that disastrous day at Harrow, men he had gone to school with had joked about his supposed fear of the dark, but Sam had never feared the dark. Heights were another matter.

“Why would any man wish to ride higher than the back of a horse!” Sam shouted over the deafening crunch of gravel. “This is madness!”

“What?” John laughed. “You don’t find this exhilarating? Imagine flying one of these on the road all the way to Brighton.”

“It’s so loud, how can you even think!” Sam gripped the seat so fiercely he feared for the stitching.

“No need to think.” John’s smile grew bigger. “Up here, you can’t be focused on anything but the horses and the road. Everything else is gone. No worries, no distracting thoughts. You’re free up here.”

“Free?” Sam shook his head. He was having no trouble at all focusing on worries. Namely, the imminent loss of life or limb. But the look on John’s face, so enthralled and open as the wind blew his chestnut locks across his forehead, made Sam stop and stare. This was John’s element, the place where he found his happiness, and it showed through every beautiful inch of his smile.

“I can see why you enjoy it. You seem to love it as much as it loves you.”

John turned his eyes on Sam, and for a moment, he appeared unable to speak. He moved his lips finally, but a sudden lurch in the carriage jerked his attention back to the road. The turn onto the lake path up ahead was too sharp to be taken at high speed, and John had not slowed them soon enough. By the time he had even returned his gaze to the road, it was already too late.

The carriage swung into the turn, the left two wheels rising inches off the gravel. The jolt translated into a whipping sway of the box seat. John, for all his years of horsemanship, kept his footing, while Sam grasped futilely for the back of the seat. He clutched until his fingertips screamed, but there was no holding the slick leather. He slid back against the low seat arm and felt it dig into his backside as he teetered over the edge and fell.

“Sam!”

It’s amazing how quickly a man’s mind can work in terrible situations. In a mere fraction of a second, Sam wondered how hard the fall would be, how likely it would be that he would break his hip or back. Would he even clear the carriage, or would he be trampled under the thin, slicing wheels? Because he was able to wonder all of this, he was also able to feel surprised when his landing was soft. And wet.

“Sam! Sam! God!”

He barely heard John over his own coughing as he struggled to expel water from his nose. The pond—
Lake, creek, whatever the hell?
— he was lying in had a steep incline to its depths. His feet faced the bank while his arms bracing in the muck behind him just barely kept his chin above water.