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Chapter Thirteen

As the road opened out in to a village square, and the light turned amber and gold, Richard saw the inn.

He dismounted at the block and handed his reigns to the stable hand, who flashed a grin up at him. The boy had an open, pretty face, rather marked with freckles, and there was something knowing in his look, a moment of inquiry, of meaning. 

And with a sudden, sickening lurch, Richard felt how long, how very long, it had been. He stumbled, one foot scuffing on the stone of the mounting block, the other only barely catching himself on the muddy ground, and that old, terrible longing swept through him. 

His skin ached for the press of another body against it, his lips were numb for want of kissing, his body was too entirely, too cruelly alone. 
He had been lonely before, had been lonely for all those years, and he had never minded it much, but all at once, it felt an intolerable burden for any man to bear. 

Almost, almost, he reached after the young groom, gave some signal, some word to show he understood the offer, that he was desperate for the comfort of it, but the moment passed, and the boy sauntered away. Richard tried not to see the strength of his legs, the broadness of his shoulders. 

It was for the best. He must control himself, remember who he was, and what.

But it was harder to keep any discipline of mind when he had no company about him, no guidance of propriety or habit. In his office at the Treasury, or before that, at the bank, he had always had the next task before him. He had always, of an evening, the company of his mother and unmarried sister to keep him from despair, and his ambitions to keep him from going astray.

At the bank, the other clerks had ribbed him for it, had, from impossible sources, resurrected that old school taunt – Upright. Oh, don’t try talking to Upright, he has no time for distractions. Yes, Upright Thornton with his ‘varsity voice, believing he was too good for the rest of them. There goes old Upright, running home to his mama.

Richard had ignored them. Instead, he had applied himself, and risen through the ranks until the only taunts were the kind that were whispered behind his back, or caught in conversations he had not been meant to hear. He had kept his habits clean, mannerly, fastidious. 

Not since Valance had been packed off to the continent had he let himself surrender to thoughts of sweet flesh in his arms, about his teeth biting the plump of someone’s lips, about the press of a body moving beneath him, desperate and lithe. 

Or not much. No, not much at all. 

That night, though, he could scarcely think of anything else. 

He sat in the common room of the inn and, beneath his clothes, his skin prickled with heat. It was as though his every sense had become so sharp it pained him: the salt savour of the mutton, the sourness of hops; the chafe of the collar against his neck, rough friction of sleeves against his skin; the hard weight of the gun where he had hidden it inside his shirt. 

All of it, all of it was almost too sensual to endure.

Breathing carefully, Richard sipped at his beer, trying not to let his eyes draw him back, and back again, to all the things he should not see: the bosoms of the pot girls spilling out of their stays, the muscles moving in the tanned arms of the laborers, the tendons in the neck of the young drunk dozing by the fire. The curve of a lip above a chin tilted upwards by a stock. 

He looked down at his plate, swallowing the spit that filled his mouth. He could not bear it. It was too much. 

“You finished with that, my love?” A hand, plump fingered with pretty, pink nails was touching the plate. A woman’s hand. A hand like Serafina’s, with curd-white skin. 

Richard looked away. “Thank you, yes.”

He had drunk rather more than he had meant to. 

He needed air.

Outside, under the sky, he drew in great lungfuls of the crisp air, inhaled the scent of courtyard and stable, the green wash of the countryside. Above him, stars flickered in and out of the clouds in half-remembered patterns. Stars, the same stars he had watched in his uncorrupted boyhood, the ones that even now would be shining down on Serafina, impassive as they watched her grief, dejection and pain. 

The same stars.

If only he could use their light to reach out to her, send a message of his loneliness, his love, his promise that he would rescue her from the toils in which she found herself. 

He would forgive her. Of course he would. 

He knew too well the pressures of the world to have expected her to stand against a man like Valance. She would have done all that she safely could, and surely, surely, when he came to her, she would leave her sham of a marriage, and go with him. 

Richard drew the night air in to his lungs, filling himself with it, and when he let it go, he sent it on its way with every thought of his devotion, his love. Let it reach her. Let her know that he kept the faith, that he was waiting.

He closed his eyes and thought of watching her in her dress of cream muslin, seated by the piano about to play something, thought of the sweet, soft flesh of her shoulders, her brown-auburn hair tucked up off her neck, the flush her skin would take on when she realised how closely he was watching...

A low whistle across the yard.  

Richard started, turned.

The stable boy. He was standing there, a silhouette caught in the light from windows of the inn, lean and strong, half slouching on the air. “You well there, eh, mister?”

Yes, Richard meant to say, but instead managed only a nod. 

“Thought maybe it were you, there.” And there it was again, that shade of extra meaning, just as it had flickered in his glance. “Thought maybe I knew you.”

Something in Richard wanted to bridle at the familiarity, but instead, he felt only relief. 

No.

Richard closed his hands to fists. He did not breathe. He tried to think of Serafina, his Serafina.

“Nought you need, is there? That I could be doing for you?”

It had been so long. Oh, it had been far, far too long. 

Hating himself, helpless, Richard turned and his eyes, adapted to the darkness, made out the shape of the lad’s face. His voice, not quite his own, said, “There is one thing.”

“Thought maybe there was.”

“Is there somewhere we can go?”

A pause, measuring, then a nod, a gesture to follow.