Page 51 of It Takes Two to Tumble
Phillip moved his hand so it rested on top of Ben’s. “You must have thought me a thoroughgoing bastard to leave my children the way I did.”
Honestly, yes. He had, at first. But not anymore. “I think you’re a fine father and a fine man. And I’m very glad you’re not leaving.”
Phillip laced his fingers through Ben’s. “Will you stay? Here, with me? With us?”
“In what capacity? A tutor?” That wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life. Ben couldn’t sit idly in a comfortable house while there was work do be done, people to be helped.
“In any capacity you want.”
“I can’t do that. I can’t live off your money and not have any vocation or purpose. Don’t you see? That’s almost exactly how I grew up. Only even my father has a purpose.”
“Youhavea purpose. Money doesn’t need to enter into it. I’m suggesting that you live here, or in one of the cottages nearby, because you very shortly will have no income and no house and I have a bit of extra space and the means to help. And I want to keep you near.”
Ben wanted to say yes. It would be so easy to say yes. “It’s not that simple.”
“It’s exactly that simple. My God, how often in life do you actually get what you want? Not bloody often. And don’t even try to tell me that you don’t want to stay with me. I can tell you do.”
“I do. Of course I do,” Ben said quickly. But over the last few weeks he had let go of everything he had set store by: vocation, marriage, family. The ability to stand on his own two feet was the only thing he had left. All these years he had thought he was earning his own living, but it turned out he only had that living because of Hartley. He couldn’t erase that, but he could make sure that in the future he only took what he had earned. “But I can’t.”
“I want to be with you, and I don’t care how. The details don’t matter to me.”
“They matter to me, Phillip. All I’ve ever wanted is something like a normal life. A house. A family. A way to put food on the table and clothes on my back.”
“I’m offering you a house and a family. Don’t you see?”
Ben didn’t know how to go about explaining to Phillip, a man who had always had a place that was his, even if he chose to stay far away from it. “You’re offering to let me be a permanent guest in your house. That’s different.”
“That’s not—” Phillip broke off in a sigh.
“If I married Mrs. Howard, you wouldn’t look down on her for moving into my house and eating my bread and cheese. If you had married Miss Crawford, you would have provided for her as a matter of course. Why can’t you let me do the same for you? It’s the only way I can think of for us to be together.”
Ben buried his head in his hands. “I don’t know.”
“I love you, damn it, and why can’t that be reason enough to let me do this for you?”
Ben turned his head to face Phillip, his cheek resting on his knee. “I love you. Of course I do.” Phillip brushed a strand of hair off Ben’s forehead.
They sat in silence. There had long since stopped being any sounds from the nursery. The children were out, and the summer sun was finally setting.
“What are you going to do, then?” Phillip asked.
“The bishop will have gotten my letter of resignation by now. So, I suppose I’ll pack my trunk and... Well, I suppose I will have to stay here a while.” He hadn’t anywhere else to go. Drifting. Coasting. Hanging on the coattails of wealthier people who had taken a fancy to him. He was no better than his father, and all his work to secure his place in the world had come to naught.
“As long as you like. As long as you need.”
They went to Phillip’s room by unspoken agreement.
“I wake at first light,” Ben said as he stripped off his shirt. “I’ll be gone before the servants come.” His skin was warm under Phillip’s touch, as if he still carried the day’s sunlight with him.
Phillip murmured something that was meant to be thanks. But he had a niggling sense of disquiet at having Ben skulk through the corridors. Surely Ben deserved better. He deserved love as honest and open as he was himself. Was that part of why Ben wouldn’t stay? The fact that he’d be keeping a secret from the world? Was he ashamed?
But looking at Ben standing naked before him, tugging Phillip’s shirt off as they tumbled into bed, it was hard to see any sense of shame. No, there wasn’t a trace of it.
“Come here,” Ben said, pulling Phillip on top of him.
They came together almost languidly, kissing and whispering and stroking. Phillip hadn’t known lovemaking could be like this, hadn’t known he wanted it to be. Their erections rubbing together, Ben’s hands everywhere, Ben’s mouth on his own—it was quiet and gentle, and when he came it was almost peaceful.
Later, they slept tangled together. Phillip, for whom the experience of sharing a bed was startlingly unfamiliar, woke so often he could have charted the moon’s progress against the sky. Finally, the first light of dawn crept into the sky and Ben opened a sleepy eye.
