(Midwinter Manor)Poacher's Fall (6 page)

“Sir?”

“Please don’t call me that! Philip. My name is Philip.” He took a deep breath. He was making such a fool of himself here, getting so worked up. “I’d like you to call me Philip. Please.”

“Philip,” Danny said slowly, as if he were tasting the word. And Lord, if that didn’t conjure up some images in Philip’s brain. “You weren’t offended, then? By me taking liberties?”

“No! No, absolutely not. It was just… so very unexpected.” Philip managed a timorous smile. “But not unwelcome. Far from it.” His breath caught in a throat gone suddenly dry.

Danny closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, the lines of tension around them had eased, and they sparkled once more with the animation Philip had so admired, tempered with gentleness. “I’m right glad to hear that. Philip,” he added with a kind of wonder. “Right glad indeed. Would your friend’s name have been Robert, by any chance?”

“Yes. We were at Balliol together.” Philip fell silent, for a moment, remembering. “We graduated in 1914, just as war was breaking out. So of course, we both enlisted straight away.” Philip had insisted on following Robert’s example, although Robert had tried to dissuade him. Philip had become quite cross, he recalled. But truth be told, life as a soldier hadn’t been at all like he’d expected. “And then I went and got myself shot in the stomach and was invalided out the following year.” He’d utterly loathed the months in hospital, hating himself for his cowardice in feeling an overwhelming sense of relief for an honorable escape from the trenches. But then had come Robert’s letters, telling him how thankful Robert was that Phillip was no longer in the thick of things.

“Robert did well, of course. He always did. He’d write to me every week, even if there wasn’t much he could tell me.” Phillip had felt like he’d aged a year between each of Robert’s letters, not knowing if he would ever receive another. “When the Armistice finally came, I believe I wept half the night from sheer bloody gratitude that Robert had survived the whole beastly business.”

Danny nodded. “Ah.” He paused. “Was it the flu that took him, then?” he asked softly.

Philip swallowed. “Yes. Barely a month after he’d got back to me. I insisted he come here straight from the front; he didn’t even visit his family first. His mother has never forgiven me for that, for preventing her from seeing her only son one last time. We sent for her, of course, as soon as we knew he was in danger, but that wretched illness—it killed him so very quickly.”

“I remember that winter,” Danny said softly. “Not many folk ’round here as didn’t lose someone to that Spanish flu. Thought we’d lose our Toby, but he pulled through in the end.”

Once more, Philip found his hand enfolded by Danny’s larger, work-roughened one. This time, he didn’t pull away. His heart started to beat wildly as Danny raised Philip’s hand to his lips, dark eyes watching him intently. Philip found himself unable to look away. His whole hand felt galvanized by the attentions it was receiving, but it wasn’t enough. The rest of him yearned for contact. For love. Scarcely knowing that he did so, Philip leaned forward and pressed his lips to Danny’s.

Strong hands came up to hold him in a gentle grip, and the lips beneath his own sprang to life, pressing back forcefully and then parting to release a tongue that darted eagerly in search of its quarry. It was wonderful, and terrifying, and Philip’s breath came quickly as he broke the kiss to gaze at Danny’s face.

He’d been wrong, Philip realized. All this time he’d thought Danny’s eyes were black as jet, but now he could see they were a deep, rich brown that glowed in the firelight with the promise of warmth and comfort.

Philip’s pulse gained speed as Danny’s hands began to move, first rubbing gently along his back and then, growing more daring, circling round to his chest, feeling every inch of him through the cotton of his shirt
.
Philip opened his lips for another kiss—and then started at the knock on the door. Good Lord, they hadn’t locked it. Thank heavens whoever it was hadn’t just walked straight in, as was the usual practice. Why
hadn’t
they just walked straight in?

Danny was grinning at him. “Going to answer that? I’d open the door myself, but….” He gestured toward his broken leg, and Philip felt like an idiot.

He scrambled back off the bed quickly, straightening his clothing. “Come in,” he called irritably, hoping his face would not betray him to the intruder.

It was Standish. His face seemed paler than its wont, and there was tension about his eyes and jaw. “I regret to disturb you, sir, but there has been a most unfortunate accident.”

“Damn it all, what now?” Philip asked shakily. He wasn’t sure he could take any more surprises.

“Mr. Drayton, sir. It appears he was cleaning his gun when it went off unexpectedly.” Standish paused. “With fatal results, I regret to say.”

No need to worry about blushes now. Philip could feel the color draining from his face. “Dead?” He took a deep breath. Damn it, Drayton was nothing to him; he shouldn’t let the man’s passing affect him so. “But the gun—I can’t imagine he could be so careless.”

Standish coughed. “It appears he had imbibed a great deal of whisky prior to the incident, sir.”

“Who found him?” Danny’s voice broke in, sounding unusually harsh.

“Young Betty. The scullery maid,” Standish elaborated, presumably for Philip’s benefit as Danny was already nodding as if he knew her. “She’d been sent to inquire if he was well, as he hadn’t appeared at the staff Christmas lunch.”

“Christ! Poor lass!”

Standish nodded. “Mrs. Standish is comforting her now.” He turned back to Philip. “Shall I make the necessary arrangements, sir?”

“Yes! Yes, of course,” Philip told him, feeling dazed.

“Very good, sir,” Standish murmured and withdrew, shutting the door firmly behind him.

“I can’t believe it,” Philip said shakily. “Do you suppose he did it on purpose? I didn’t even know the man drank.”

“Reckon there’d be a lot you don’t know about what goes on ’round here,” Danny said softly, without censure. “You didn’t even know it was Drayton as killed my da, did you?”

Philip had the queerest feeling he was either going to faint or be sick. “What? I thought—I thought it was an injury that went gangrenous?”

“Aye, that it was. A shotgun injury. He went out poaching one night, and that bastard Drayton shot him. He managed to drag himself home, but then the wound went bad.”

“But the police. Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“Wouldn’t have done my da no good, now would it? Like as not it’d have been him hauled off to jail for trespass and poaching, and the rest of us turned off the estate.”

Philip stared at him, appalled. “Do you really think me so, so callous, so uncaring…?”

“Shh.” Strong fingers laced themselves in Philip’s, steadying him. “You weren’t here, remember? And even if you had been, well, I didn’t know you then, did I?”

“And now?” Philip asked, his voice unwontedly hoarse. “What do you think of me now?”

Danny’s other hand came up to stroke Philip’s hair, as one might soothe a frightened animal. “Now? I’d trust you to do what was right.”

“But it’s my fault,” Philip whispered. “I knew Drayton took his duties more seriously than he should, that he hated poachers with a vengeance. If I’d given him notice—”

“Aye, and if I’d gone with my da that night, instead of telling him I was too tired from helping Uncle Bert on the farm….”

Philip looked up. Danny’s eyes showed regret, but also acceptance. His voice was gentle. “You can’t change what’s past, and there’s only so much guilt a man can bear before it starts to eat him up from inside, like it did Drayton, I reckon.”

“You think he killed himself out of remorse?” Lord, Philip was beginning to feel sorry for the man. What a burden to be under.

Danny gave a wry smile. “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as that. Although it’s true his drinking started after Da died, from what I hear. But I reckon he’d have to have been worrying just what I might be saying to you about the whole business. It’ll not have gone unnoticed, how much time you’ve been spending with me since my fall.”

Oh. That, then, was why Standish hadn’t walked in without knocking. Philip felt a sudden surge of affection for his household staff and their quiet acceptance of his ways, mingled with a touch of mortification that he’d apparently been so obvious. Not that he’d ever flaunted anything, God forbid. “I suppose now you’ll tell me the whole village knows I’m a—well, you know.”

“No. Leastways, I never heard a whisper of it.” Suddenly Danny laughed. “Word in the village is you’re not quite right in the head!”

Philip’s feelings must have shown upon his face, and Danny quickly sobered, his hand once more making comforting passes over Philip’s hair. “Word in the village is wrong,” he said firmly. “Anyone’d turn a mite strange, shut up in this big house alone for so long.”

“Such a wretched business, living,” Philip murmured. “Sometimes I wonder how any of us manages to survive it. So many pains, and so many ways it can end.”

“That’s why you’ve got to live your life while you have it, like Mr. Dickens says. No sense wasting your days worrying about what’s past and what might yet be. I don’t reckon the good Lord put us on this earth as a punishment. He meant us to live our lives to the full.” Danny’s voice, so soft and calm, could make Philip believe that anything was possible.

“You know, you’re a lot like Robert, in some ways,” Philip found himself saying, and then he cursed himself. God, what an awful thing to say, comparing a present… friend to a former one.

But Danny smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Can’t say you’re much like any lover I’ve ever had, but then, I don’t reckon I’ve ever been so quickly drawn to another man. Nor never really loved another, neither,” he added, his voice soft.

Philip marveled at the way he could speak so easily of such things. “Have you had many lovers?” he asked before he could stop himself.

Danny shook his head slowly. “I wouldn’t say so. And as I said, none like you.” He laughed again suddenly, a wry expression on his face. “And here’s me with my leg in plaster and my ribs all cracked, not able to do a damned thing about it now I’ve found you.”

Philip felt his insides shiver. “You could let me do everything,” he suggested hesitantly. Instead of scaring him, the surprised, hungry look upon Danny’s face seemed to inflame Philip’s own desire. Slowly, he leaned forward for another kiss. Conscious of Danny’s ribs, Philip tried to shift so that none of his weight would fall on the injured man, but it proved tricky while sitting by his side.
Propriety be damned, indeed
, he thought, and carefully scrambled further onto the bed so that he straddled Danny’s hips.

The look of shocked delight upon Danny’s features at this maneuver was ample compensation for the slightly sick feeling his own daring occasioned Philip.

Leaning forward and resting his weight upon his hands at either side of Danny’s face, Philip bent down to kiss him once more.

It was as if he had unleashed a tiger. Heedless of his own hurts, Danny pulled him closer and ground their hips together fiercely. Philip felt his body respond “at every pore with instant fires.” He bit back a laugh, or perhaps a sob, at the notion.
Robert, oh Robert, I think you’re going to have to leave me on my own for this
, he thought, and fancied he saw Robert smiling at him in that fond, mocking way of his. His heart singing, Philip renewed the kiss, but lips, he found, were not enough. He needed to taste Danny all over, to know him intimately. To feel him, flesh to flesh, soul to soul. Angrily he tore at his clothing, stubborn fingers refusing to work as directed to free himself of these wretched encumbrances.

“Shh,” Danny breathed, his hands and voice once more working their soothing magic. “Let me.”

He made short work of Philip’s clothing, casting it carelessly to the floor. Philip felt he wouldn’t have cared had it been thrown into the fire. Danny’s own pajamas were easily pushed aside, and Philip almost wept as their lengths touched at last.

“Gently, now,” Danny calmed him. As his capable, callused hand closed about them both, Philip knew he wouldn’t last long, and he almost wept again. “World enough, and time,” the voice in his head seemed to say, except that now it sounded more like Danny’s country tones than Robert’s Eton drawl. As Danny’s hand moved in an age-old rhythm, it was almost too much—and then it
was
too much, and Philip felt himself pulse out a climax so strong he thought for a moment he could not survive it. But Danny was convulsing too, a hoarse groan escaping him, so Philip thought he might hang on to this life for Danny’s sake.

Philip collapsed, panting, remembering at the last moment to fall to Danny’s side instead of upon his broad chest where he really wanted to be.

“Bloody hell, that’s buggered my ribs good and proper,” Danny groaned, but there was a broad smile upon his lips when Philip looked up, concerned.

Shyly, he raised himself upon his elbow so that he might kiss the offending ribs better, as his mother had used to do for him as a child, when the only hurts were such as might be easily soothed with a loving kiss. When he raised his head once more, there was a look of such tenderness on Danny’s face that Philip froze for a moment, confused as to what he might have done to earn it.

“You’re a strange animal, Philip Luccombe,” Danny said, smiling fondly. “But I reckon I’ll keep you, all the same.”

“Good,” Philip said drowsily, curling against Danny’s side. “I could use a new gamekeeper.”

Had we but world enough, and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day;

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the Flood;

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires, and more slow.

An hundred years should go to praise