Page 20 of Hastings (Brothers in Arms #15)

CHAPTER 20

S tephen stood and stared out the window of his small office. There was barely room for him to stand with his desk and chair and a little three-shelf bookcase filling the space. His desk was piled high with papers and books. Hastings often teased him about it, how untidy it was, so out of character. If only he knew. Most of the time, Stephen felt untidy.

His feelings were certainly out of order, and always had been. He tried so hard to be what people needed. His father said he’d always tried too hard in that respect. And in so doing, he’d never discovered what he needed. Well, he was partly right. Stephen knew what he needed. It was the getting of it that he always failed at.

He loved his life. He loved the village and the parsonage and his garden. He needed those things. Wanted them. But they didn’t fill all the emptiness inside him. How he wished he could fill that space with his faith. Faith was as integral to his being as breathing, but it wasn’t enough. Quite simply, he wanted to be loved.

He was most definitely beloved by most people in Ashton on the Green. Several families in the village considered him one of their own. But he wasn’t. He wanted his own family. The problem was he hadn’t met anyone here that he wanted that with. Local girls had made forays over to see if he might be receptive, but they did nothing for him except bring out his protective feelings, like a shepherd with his flock. And the duchess was always throwing one unlikely lady in his path after another, but those encounters were more awkward than not, and those ladies were not interested in a gardening parson from a small village.

He’d accepted he was destined to be alone among his flock. Then Simon had given him Hastings, and from the minute they’d met it was not the caring love of a shepherd he’d felt for this particular lost lamb. More like lost wolf, actually. He chuckled drily to himself.

He turned to face his desk, arms crossed, lower lip pinched between his fingers. He’d kissed Hastings in the maze the other day. It wasn’t the first time he’d crossed that line with Hastings, of course, but Hastings was clear-headed in the maze. Stephen had never really wanted to cross that line before, despite the large group of friends and acquaintances he knew who did on a regular basis, and with his blessing. But Stephen did not take physical intimacy lightly. He was, after all, a man of God, and he truly believed that when you gave your body to another it should be an act of profound love and commitment. He had done so once without those feelings and had found it a wholly unsatisfying and depressing encounter. But it had been different with Hastings.

Ever since the other night he’d been grappling with his feelings. When he had kissed Hastings in the maze without thinking about the consequences or what it would mean to either of them, had that been an indication of his true feelings? The night they’d been intimate, well, that could be explained away through Hastings’s drunken state and Stephen still being half asleep. Or were both encounters just the sexual desires of a healthy man in his prime, left long unsated? And if he had those kinds of rare, deep feelings for Hastings, then why was he also attracted to Madelyn? For a love-starved parson, it seemed it never rained but it poured.

He honestly wasn’t too surprised that these two appealed to him so strongly. After all, the three of them had a great deal in common, though both Hastings and Madelyn would laugh at the very idea they had something in common with Stephen. Quite annoyingly, they both thought him a saint. But the three of them were achingly, blindingly alone. Abandoned by his mother, Hastings pushed everyone away when given the opportunity, finding solace in the ultimate isolation of killing. And Madelyn, well, she’d been abandoned, too, though in a different way, and then outright rejected by everyone on either side of the equation. She’d yet to open up completely to Stephen, but he knew her life had not been an easy one from what she had told them. Stephen, on the other hand, had had an idyllic childhood, marred only by the death of a sister when she was still a baby. His parents had doted on him, and he’d followed in his father’s footsteps into the church. But they had both died when he was still a young man, and it wasn’t until they were gone that he’d realized how much they had filled his life, so the dearth of any other family was never felt. With no one and nothing, he’d gone to war.

The war had changed Stephen in fundamental ways. He’d found a new family, he’d found purpose, he had taken life, and he had saved it. But it was the quiet, devastating moments he’d spent with the dead and dying that had left him scarred, not bullets or sabers. The horrific injuries, the pain, the anguish, the fear. The final confessions. Stephen had never understood until the war the weight of the burden of confession that ministers must bear.

Like so many veterans, Stephen had retreated to the country. When Freddy had offered him the living—a gift from Freddy’s older brother, Bertie, taking care of all of them from the grave—Stephen had jumped at it. And here, in Ashton on the Green, Stephen had found his place, and his people. And he found his solace in gardening. There was something so holy in bringing forth life, year after year, in tending his flowers and his vegetables, even his trees and shrubs, the same way he did his congregation. He was giving back, giving everything he could to create beauty and abundance in a world in which he’d seen the ugliest a man could bear witness to, a world lacking in the sustenance of the soul.

And so here he’d been just waiting, it seemed, for Hastings’s arrival. And he had opened his home and his life, the beauty and abundance here, to a man who was starving for it. And in the process, it seemed, Stephen had also opened his heart in an unexpected way. He understood Hastings more than Hastings understood himself. Stephen had been as empty as Hastings once, as hollow, and now he wanted to give Hastings everything, fill him up with joy and happiness. And he was beginning to feel the same attraction to Madelyn. He could see how hard she was trying to be good, to turn the page on her old life. When she didn’t know he was looking at her he saw that familiar hunger in her eyes. How she wanted. How she needed. Her hunger cried out to him.

Not just to him, it seemed. He’d seen the new tenderness in Hastings’s face when he looked at Madelyn. Stephen had had to retreat, to regroup and assess his feelings. How did he feel about the possibility of Hastings and Madelyn finding the love Stephen longed for in each other’s arms? Was he prepared to be the outsider again? The counselor, the friend, and not the lover? Of course, the other side of that equation was the question of whether he was prepared to be the lover. A not insignificant question. And if so, with whom?

Lord, help me find the answers I seek , he prayed silently, not truly expecting an answer. He knew very well that God expected men to find their own answers. He had weightier things to worry about than whether Stephen took a lover. Stephen was sure the Church of England cared more about whether he took a lover than God did.

“You don’t seem to be doing much writing.”

He looked up in surprise to see Madelyn at the door. “My dear,” he said with an automatic smile. She smiled back, looking so guileless and happy. He hadn’t seen her look so relaxed before. Without the wary look on her face, she was even more beautiful. “Don’t tell me you’re bored with Prometheus ?” he asked with disbelief. “I thought it a very engrossing tale.”

“Oh, no,” she assured him. “I’m quite enjoying it. The doctor is so arrogant, is he not? No, we just thought you might like to join us for a little while.” She reached out her hand to him. “Come. We are all tired of reading but don’t want to put the story down.”

He laughed. “I see. I’m being recruited for your pleasure rather than my own, is that it?” He reached out and took her hand, because why shouldn’t he? That was the pleasure he sought, after all.

She laughed and looked coquettishly over her shoulder at him as she led him out of his office. “Why, of course,” she said. “You must just trust me that in my pleasure you shall find some of your own.” She seemed to realize how that sounded and blushed as she quickly looked forward. “I mean, I know you shall enjoy reading as much as we will enjoy you doing so.”

He wanted to kiss her so much right then it was a physical ache.

“I will, of course, enjoy anything that pleases you,” he agreed instead, following in her wake.

“That Frankenstein is a right bastard,” Essie commented from the chair in front of the window.

Stephen was sitting on the sofa reading and Hastings had thrown himself down next to him, feet up on the arm, head in Stephen’s lap, when he’d gotten tired. No one had said a thing. Hastings knew from his days at the orphanage, if you wanted to stake a claim on something, you just had to act like it was yours. Everyone in this room understood that—other than Stephen, that is.

Madelyn had come over and sat down on the floor on Stephen’s other side. At first, she’d leaned against the arm of the sofa, but as the poor bugger monster had started murdering people she’d slid closer and now leaned against Stephen’s leg. Hastings found he didn’t mind sharing him. Like she said earlier, it was temporary, for both of them, really. The likes of the two of them ought to be happy they had any time with someone like Stephen.

“It is the monster who is killing the doctor’s family,” Stephen said, but it didn’t sound judgmental.

“With reason,” Essie said, leaning forward in her chair, a frown on her face. “I’d have just killed him, of course, and not innocent people if I could help it, but him being a monster and all, he don’t know any better, does he?”

“I think they are both monstrous,” Madelyn said, resting her head on Stephen’s thigh. “But the fault lies in the doctor for both their actions.”

“Exactly,” Essie said.

“I’m hungry,” Hastings said. He leaned his head back and moved the book out of his way so he could see Stephen’s face. “Where’s Mrs. Tulane?”

“Mrs. Tulane has the evening off,” Stephen informed him. “Her sister was feeling ill, and she went to help feed her brood.”

“What?” Hastings sat up. “What are we supposed to eat?”

“Have you gone so soft you can’t feed yourself?” Essie asked with a snort. “God save us if I ever get so helpless.”

“So you’re going to make dinner?” Hastings asked. “Can you even cook?”

“I can buy food,” Essie retorted.

“I can cook rat over an open flame, but I’m pretty helpless in the kitchen,” Madelyn said.

Hastings had to take a moment or two to process that. “Rat?” he finally settled on.

“It’s stringy,” she said with a face.

“Someday you will tell us more about your life,” Stephen said when Madelyn didn’t say anything else.

“Maybe,” was all she said as she came to her knees. “I’m sure there’s some cold meat and cheese and some bread we can toast.”

“You all do realize we are talking about Mrs. Tulane, correct?” Stephen asked with amusement. “I was told there’s a nice meat pie that should still be warm in the oven, and she’s left some sugar biscuits on the sideboard.”

“Dear sweet Mrs. Tulane!” Madelyn said with a laugh as she started to get up.

“Hear, hear,” Hastings agreed, reaching out a hand to help her. The shock of her warm hand in his made him tighten his grip and Madelyn responded in kind before they both hastily let go. He looked at Stephen who was smiling at them.

“We can all go into the kitchen and get it, then, shall we?” Stephen said. He put the book down on the sofa. “That’s enough murderous monsters for one day.”

Hastings set the table with Essie’s help, using the opportunity to show her where things were kept and to teach her, without letting on that he was doing so, of course, how to lay a place setting. He could hear Stephen and Madelyn in the kitchen laughing as they prepared everyone’s plates.

“Wine?” he yelled into the kitchen.

“Yes, please,” Stephen yelled back, and Hastings went over to choose a bottle. Stephen had excellent wine, thanks to Freddy’s cellars. A box full was sent over every week. Hastings liked that everyone around here seemed to take care of Stephen. He deserved it. And, of course, Hastings benefitted, too.

“What are you about?” Essie asked him quietly as she leaned her back against the sideboard as he opened the wine.

“What do you mean?” he asked, tugging on the reluctant cork of an excellent burgundy.

“First you’re kissing the parson and today you’re kissing Mads,” Essie accused him, her voice still quiet. “I don’t like it.”

“First of all, you have terrible timing,” he corrected her. “And second, where my lips wander is no one’s business but my own.” Especially when he had no explanation for what he was doing.

“You’re like a piece of candy to those two,” Essie told him. “Neither of them has had a lot of sweets. You’re too tempting to resist.”

“Thank you,” he said, surprised. She looked at him in disgust.

“It wasn’t a compliment.” She sighed. “Look, Mads has had it rough, all right? Watch yourself. And the parson? He’s as defenseless as a babe with someone like you. Be careful you don’t ruin him and what he’s got here. That’s all I’m saying. Look before you let your lips wander.”

“Maybe I’ve had it rough,” Hastings said, not looking at her, pretending the bottle of wine was harder to open than it was. “Maybe I’m defenseless.”

“You’re like me,” Essie said. “Born with murder in your eye, and a knife under your swaddling. Don’t try to convince yourself otherwise.”

“Just because we were born that way doesn’t mean we have to die that way,” Hastings said, yanking the cork out. “Maybe I don’t want to be that way.” There was a tightness in his chest he didn’t care for.

“Course it does,” she said. “People ain’t going to let us change, Hastings.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “They need us just the way we are.”

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? He didn’t want to be that way, but he had to be if he was going to protect Madelyn and everyone else.

“Then perhaps you need to stay away from the innocent Miss Marleston,” Hastings said, changing the subject as he grabbed four glasses and moved over to the table.

“I’ll reserve judgement on the innocent part,” Essie said. “But trust me when I say, I’m trying.”

“Here we are,” Madelyn said cheerfully as she came into the room carrying two plates full of steaming, aromatic pie. Stephen was right behind her. “Who’s hungry?”

“Me,” Hastings said. Oh, he was hungry all right, hungry for what he knew he shouldn’t want and couldn’t have, but, by God, he was going to get as much as he could before they dragged him away.