Page 34 of It Takes Two to Tumble
Ben wordlessly passed him a flask, and Phillip cautiously sniffed its contents. “Cider,” Sedgwick explained.
Phillip took a long drink before recoiling at the taste. “You call that cider?”
“It might be a bit stronger than what you’re used to.” Phillip could hear the wicked smile in the other man’s voice, and he smiled back. For a moment it felt like the sun that always seemed to shine on Ben was shining a bit on Phillip too.
“Right. Because in His Majesty’s Navy we only drink weak tea.” He took another, much shorter, pull from the flask before passing it back.
Ben drank. “It’s a local specialty. They make it every fall and by the next summer it’s a potent brew.” Unsaid went the fact that Phillip would know this if he had spent more time here. “My father used to have it brought up from the inn in a dogcart. I grew up right over there.” He gestured with his chin to the far side of the hill in the opposite direction from where they had come from. “My father still lives there.”
Phillip already knew that, but he could tell that Ben had something on his mind. “Did you want to call on him?”
“I never want to call on him.” Ben scrubbed a hand through his messy hair. “No, that’s not fair. He doesn’t mean any harm, but we don’t see eye to eye about anything, really. He thinks that by being a clergyman, I’m serving my oppressors. He’d rather I live with a pair of lovers on borrowed funds while writing tracts about free love.” Another long drink.
“A pair of lovers?” Phillip echoed.
“Or three. He doesn’t believe in monogamy, which is all well and good. He believes in beauty and truth and while I’d like to think there’s some overlap there with my faith, the fact is that he doesn’t see the point in what I do. He thinks taking jam to invalids isn’t something a grown man ought to devote his life to.”
“You do much more than take jam to invalids. You’re a very good vicar.”
“What do you know of good vicars or poor ones?” There was more heat in Ben’s voice than Phillip was accustomed to.
“I know that my children adore you.”And so do I, he wanted to add. “And so does everyone else,” he said instead. “They speak of you as if you hung the moon. That has to count for something.”
Ben still looked out over the lake, across the water to the houses in the village. “Well, I hope so. I know this likely sounds half-baked to someone like you, but I think that by helping people—sometimes in small ways and sometimes in larger ways—I’m doing what’s right. That... that I’m serving God. But it’s hard to explain that to people who don’t believe.”
“I don’t need to believe in God to see the value of what you’re doing.” Phillip didn’t know how to talk about this in a way that didn’t insult either Ben’s beliefs or his own.
When the silence dragged out perilously long, Phillip feared he had bungled things. But then Ben finally turned to him and took hold of his hand. “You’re a lovely man, aren’t you?”
Phillip felt that he was being condescended to, and bristled despite himself. He made a dismissive noise, hoping to change the topic.
“I’ll miss you when you’re gone,” Ben continued.
“I’ll miss you too,” Phillip said, his voice gruff.
“There’s nothing to be done about it.” Ben rose to his feet and dusted off his breeches.
“You really are in a foul temper.”
“It happens so seldom I think I lack practice on how to best shake it off,” the vicar said wryly, and flashed Phillip a smile only slightly dimmer than his usual one.
Phillip suddenly felt like he had stolen that smile, stolen this moment and this entire summer. He was only a temporary presence in Ben’s life, and he didn’t have any right to intimacy like this. Phillip meant nothing. He had once again become a convenient friend.
“Let’s go back to the house where I can try to help with that mood of yours.” He wanted to push this conversation away from the future, away from the things that divided them, and to the familiar ground of kisses and touches.
Maybe his effort worked, because Ben laughed. “You really are lovely.” He pulled Phillip behind the rock, safe from view. And right there, on the summit of a mountain, he took hold of Phillip’s lapels and kissed him. And the kiss felt stolen too.
Ben left Phillip at the place where the lane diverged, one path snaking over to Barton Hall and the other leading further down the hill to the village.
“We’ll see you at dinner?” Phillip asked, and Ben could have wept at the frank hope in his voice.
Ben ought to spend the night at the vicarage instead of getting even more tangled up with Phillip. If he were even halfway prudent he’d head straight to the village, send for his valise, and not go back to Barton Hall until its master was away at sea. He ought to do whatever he could to protect his heart, to protect Phillip’s heart, and try to save some remnants of the stable life he had worked so hard for.
“I’ll be there,” he said instead. He wasn’t strong enough to say no. Or maybe he just knew that whatever he was feeling was worth more than mere prudence.
As if to fully commit to this path of guaranteed ruin, he reached out and took Phillip’s hand. It was a handshake, nothing overly intimate, but when he looked in Phillip’s eyes he thought the other man could see everything in his heart. Oh, blast it. They were both going to be miserable at the end of this, even without Easterbrook’s machinations.
“I’ll be there,” he repeated, Phillip’s hand rough and warm against his own.
