Page 33 of It Takes Two to Tumble
Hartley’s eyes widened briefly. Ben knew he didn’t need to fill in the details for Hartley, who would understand that this was the sort of knowledge that Ben would only learn the hard way—by falling for somebody else.
And he had fallen for Phillip. He had always thought the expressionfalling in loveto be a mere idiom. He knew how to love—he loved his brothers, he loved Alice, he loved the Dacre children, and he loved many other people besides. God commanded him to love, and he did it with his heart and with his actions.
He hadn’t realized that this other kind of love, the kind he felt for Phillip, had so much in common with falling off a cliff. He couldn’t stop loving Phillip any more than he could stop gravity.
Phillip found Ben tramping up the hill in his shirtsleeves—did he ever wear a coat?—instead of returning to the hall.
“We missed you at luncheon,” he said, conscious that he sounded peevish. Ben was under no obligation to attend luncheon, or any meal, or any other damned thing at Barton Hall. He was his own man with his own life, and Phillip would do well to remember that.
“I missed being there. But I had to call on some parishioners and make sure the church was ready for tomorrow.”
Ah, that was right. Tomorrow was Sunday. “Where are you heading now, though?”
“I’m climbing to the top of the fell.”
Phillip opened his eyes wide in surprise. “Why?”
Ben frowned. “Restless.”
Phillip was all too familiar with the need to exorcise his demons by pacing the ship’s deck or taking ill-advised swims. “Can you stand some company? I can keep quiet.”
Ben appeared to take a moment to consider. “Come along. I’m only in a foul mood. It’s not catching. I usually take pains to avoid people when I’m cranky but...” He shrugged as his voice trailed off.
Phillip felt perversely pleased that Ben had sought him out last night at the height of his ill temper and that he was comfortable sharing his mood today with Phillip. It felt companionable; it felt... it felt like something Phillip wasn’t going to want to leave behind at the end of the summer.
The trees were heavy with leaves and the sun reflected off the lake. He had never properly appreciated how pretty this part of the world was. He had always measured out his time here in drips and drabs—a few weeks of leave here, a month between ships there. It wasn’t enough to build a life, and maybe that had been his secret goal all along. Maybe he had been content to envision his family safe and sound, far away. Maybe that distance made it easier to assume all was well. It certainly made it easier to keep leaving.
This time he wasn’t going to be able to leave with the same equanimity. His children weren’t vaguely anonymous beings in the care of a loving mother. When he was back on thePatroclus, he’d wonder if Peggy was following the ship’s travels on her globe. He’d wonder if Jamie had calculated the cubic footage of the new barn and whether Ned was going to go to university in a few years or stay here and tend to the estate. He’d wonder if they thought about him or if he had faded out of their memory.
Phillip determined that this time he’d write. He’d dictate letters and have his lieutenant or one of the younger officers write them out, and he’d figure out an excuse to ask someone to read the letters he hoped he would receive in return. It was always awkward, but he couldn’t go another year or more with no contact with his own children.
That didn’t solve the problem of Ben, though. He glanced over at the man. His freckles were out in force, and Phillip thought his hair had bleached from flax to nearly white over the past two weeks. His strong jaw was still clenched a bit more rigidly than usual, but it looked like most of his anger had burnt off during their walk.
Phillip didn’t know how he would get by without seeing Ben every day, without his fearless honesty and unrestrained affection. Even if letters had been an option—and given that Phillip needed intermediaries to both write and receive letters, they most definitely were not—they wouldn’t be enough. He needed Ben near him, with him. As if to underscore the point, he glanced over his shoulder and took Ben’s hand. They were alone, safe.
Ben didn’t hesitate before squeezing back. Of course he didn’t. That was what Phillip valued about him, this frankness and openness.
“Come here,” Phillip said, tugging Ben off the path and towards a copse of trees that would shelter them if anyone passed by. There was frank and open and there was utterly suicidal, and Phillip was—well, Phillip was none of those things. And he’d protect Ben.
He pushed Ben against a tree and kissed him. He meant the kiss to say the things he couldn’t put into words. Affection, fondness, gratitude. Whatever the word was for when you knew you would miss somebody and hated thinking about it, even though the person was still right there before you, in the flesh. He meant the kiss to be gentle, tender, all the things he usually wasn’t.
But Ben reversed their positions so it was Phillip with his back against the tree. The kiss turned insistent, almost rough, a clash of lips and tongues and teeth. Ben’s hands pressed Phillip’s shoulders, his body somehow seeming larger and more imposing against his own.
“Benedict,” Phillip breathed. “I want you.”
“When we get back,” Ben murmured against Phillip’s lips. “Whatever you like.”
Phillip shuddered against Ben’s chest. Did the man even know what he was saying? “We don’t have to...”
“Please. I’m a grown man and I’m not likely to ever again meet someone I feel this way about. So, let’s just agree to have everything together. While we can.”
Those words shouldn’t have sounded so melancholy.
Chapter Sixteen
They managed to get to the summit of the crag with their clothing on, because as much as Phillip wanted Ben, there were some things he was not willing to do, and fucking the vicaren plein airwas one of them.
Phillip sat on a rock that formed a sort of bench overlooking the lake, and Ben sat beside him without waiting for an invitation. Their shoulders touched, and the familiarity of the contact warmed Phillip in a way he hadn’t thought possible. Touching Ben, even being near him, felt like being joined with a half he hadn’t known was missing. He felt newly complete, but couldn’t quite enjoy it because that other half would shortly be wrenched away from him, and he didn’t know how he was going to get on with his life knowing that there was a vital piece of him in Cumberland.
