CHAPTER ONE

I was only slightly late. Taking the stairs two at a time, I reached the great hall and was ready to break into a mad dash for the car. Miss Murray was waiting for me, however – just as she always had when I was a young lad and had done something wrong. Standing before the study. I slowed down and approached her. At least, she wasn’t tapping her foot at me.

"Sir, Lord Molloy is telephoning from London," the housekeeper told me, concern covering her face like a mask. "He’s holding for you."

I glanced towards the study, half-expecting to see my old school chum standing in the doorway and grinning at me.

I wondered what Molloy could want. I'd not seen him since his marriage almost five years ago. I knew he'd gone with the Foreign Office. I'd wondered several times recently what he might know since the Anschluß mess in Vienna had got the Government upset.

"Thank you, Miss Murray," I told her and entered the study. "Max, how are you, old lad?" I asked as I brought the instrument to my ear, forcing the meeting with my managers from my mind for the moment.

"Fair, Petersholme." There was a short pause that threatened to become uncomfortable. "Robbie, how do you feel about helping His Majesty's Government?" he asked finally.

I stared at the instrument in my hand. I had no clue what the man could possibly be talking about. Molloy had always had the cheeky knack of coming out of the blue on a man. "Crown and country, that's always been the Petersholme motto. It still is," I told him. "Are you asking me to join the Army?"

Molloy chuckled in London. "Nothing so drastic. We here at the Foreign Office may, however, have need to call upon you come autumn. We'll chat then."

"Max, what is this about?" I demanded. My old school chum very obviously was playing games with me, and I did not like it.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss it at present, Petersholme. We're making contingency plans, that’s all. I'll write to you when things are a bit more settled and we can talk about this. Enjoy your summer, Robbie."

"Max!" I yelped.

"You're so impatient, old lad. I have a meeting with the Minister – the fate of the Empire, you know…" I sensed his chuckle, though there was no sound. "We'll have a nice long chat in the autumn, I promise." He rang off then and I was left staring at the telephone in my hand.

I was damned late as I reached the doors.

I saw the Bentley standing in the drive as I stepped outside and smiled as I started for it. More and more, I was coming to think that Miss Murray thought of everything, even having her employer's car brought up even before he had left his rooms.

"Morning, my Lord," a young voice greeted me as I neared the car – a young American voice. The incongruity of an American on the grounds of Bellingham Hall stopped me instantly.

I spotted the barrow parked beside the topiary that edged the drive to the roadway. My gaze followed a line of spilt straw and muck from the barrow and was staring at the spread buttocks of a lad I didn't know. He was kneeling before the hedge and watching me from over his shoulder. His blue trousers seemed unnaturally tight across his backside.

My eyes widened as I recognised the things. These were those denim fabrications from America. Levi – something, I remembered then, from San Francisco in California. The American company's agent who had come by the tractor factory last month called them blue jeans. Trousers designed by an American Jew for American cowboys. They fitted the lad like a second skin across the backside.

Such things would never become popular in England, I knew. They were simply impractical – and the English had always proved to be a sensible, practical people. The Italians with their bald Duce, however – and half the males thinking themselves gigolos-in-waiting...

I placed the lad then. Miss Murray's nephew. Barry was his name. From America. He was enrolled at university in London for the autumn term.

Miss Murray had requested that I take him on for the summer whilst most of the regular estate workers would be involved in farming and the grounds keeper had been quite pleased at having a helper. Petersholme's interests may well have become predominantly industrial in father's hands but this lingering economic depression had taught me the value of my agricultural roots.

I was supposed to be at the tractor factory in Coventry at this very moment, hearing my managers' reports. I was thirty minutes late already, assuming I drove like the wind and didn't find myself stuck behind some lorry. Of course, I understood that my managers would wait patiently. After all, I was Petersholme. But that sort of thinking had allowed both the Germans and the Americans to develop their industrial base well beyond England's. Either we English learnt to do business by the clock or we would continue to fall behind.

"It looks good, Barry," I told him and pivoted to resume my rush to the motorcar.

* * *

Damn these monthly meetings with my managers! Finances, profits and losses, sales figures, costs – they had all come to dominate my days and far too many of my nights. I had become more than simply overworked. I had become a blasted automaton. I allowed myself to wonder what it would be like not to think of tractors, fertilisers, and farm production every waking moment. I was twenty-six years of age, still a young man, and I had not looked once to my own pleasure since father's death.

I switched on the car wireless. The Teddy Wilson orchestra was playing Melancholy Baby and I felt myself relaxing as Ella Fitzgerald began to sing as I neared Bellingham Hall that afternoon on my return from the factory. It was an indulgence, my having a wireless in the car; but it was one I had allowed myself when I bought the Bentley.

The white foam of May bushes in bloom separated my pastures from the narrow paved roadway up from the village. I even slowed down to a comfortable speed now that I had no need to rush. I thought that I loved England most in the late spring when everything was so green and alive. Even the depression that had held the civilised world the past nine years could be forgotten, when I was here at what was the heart of all that  Petersholme had become. The depression and that damned mad Austrian who ruled in Berlin – why couldn't things be sensible in the world as they were on my estate?

I pulled to the side of the roadway and stepped up to the stile between the May bushes. Only the day before, my farm manager had told me five of my best cows had recently calved and that they were in this field. I wanted to see the wee things with my own eyes, now that I knew the Petersholme factories continued to thrive.

As I stepped up to the stile, a cock pheasant ran from the May bush, raising his wings as he did so. I stood still and watched as he puffed up his breast in challenge. When I still did nothing, he began to hobble as if he were crippled, trying to pull me after him. I knew then that his mate and her nest were nearby and smiled at his effort to perform his duty.

Across the field, a spindly-legged bullock wobbled to its mother and began to suckle. I saw instantly that he was a sturdy little thing. Yes, the spring had definitely been a good one. Bellingham Hall would win several blue ribbons come autumn.

Back in the car, my mind eased back to what I had learned from my managers' reports. The Petersholme factories were still solvent, and I had yet to lay off one employee in my two years at the helm.

Only last week, another of Josef Stalin's commissars had placed an order for a thousand tractors and paid in advance – in pounds sterling. A nice cash sum – the plants would be operating in the black at least into next year. That had been the best piece of news to come out of our meeting.

I thought that, to celebrate, Cook might well serve up something a bit special and wondered idly what had been slaughtered recently.

I smiled. Aunt Alice would know. The old girl, however, loathed it when I didn't like her menus. She absolutely hated it if I changed one for any reason. Still – I thought that being successfully solvent required a bit of celebration. I nodded and was quite sure Cousin Elizabeth would be happy with my intention. Perhaps if I suggested a party Aunt Alice might not fuss too much about changing the evening's menu.

Of course, I knew what the Russians intended with their purchase. Their lads out on those endless steppes would steal the design and, next year, the Bolshie would be making another line of tractors that looked just like Petersholmes. They had done it twice now with our designs.

But, to my mind, duty to one's dependants overrode even solid business considerations – and there was still a depression strangling Britain. I was responsible for paying my lads, for keeping them from the dole queues. They were good men. If it took Bolshie orders to keep them employed ... Petersholme managers be damned; I didn’t care if the Russians duplicated our old designs. Not enough to lay off good men. Not for a principle I had no way of defending.

The War Office had also visited. My man at the factory said it appeared to be only a routine inspection – to see what we could do.

Of course.

Chamberlain with all his great promises early in the spring – "the Germans will behave themselves now," he'd promised us only two months ago in Parliament after His Majesty's Government acquiesced to the German Anschluß with Austria. The German eagle gobbling up the Austrian bird in one bite was a more fitting description of what had happened. And there were still only the six divisions in the Local Defence Force that Stanley Baldwin had left us last year. His Majesty's Government had not yet asked for a larger military budget.

The Premier thought Hitler would take England seriously? Neville Chamberlain's concept of foreign policy was to give whole countries away if we didn't trade with them. Appease always. Tory thinking appeared to be spend nothing and we won't have to tax highly. Low taxes would start business right back up.

Of course.

It had been two years now since I had given my maiden speech in the Lords, we still were in a damned depression, and the war clouds over the continent were even more threatening.

Perhaps, though, the Premier was finally perking up. Hitler goose-stepping through Vienna and beginning to threaten the Sudetenland were enough to wake even the dead.

Petersholme could convert to war materials fast enough and there were so many young chaps out of work in Coventry alone that we could be up to speed in no time. His Majesty's cheques would always be honoured at Petersholme. Definitely. Even lovingly.

I turned the Bentley into the estate at almost three o'clock and pulled to a stop on the gravelled drive. The pale ochre, three-storey facade of Bellingham Hall spread out in the distance before me. It felt good to be home again.

Young Barry was on top of the ladder fiercely cleaning the heraldic wrought iron above the gateway. His shirt lay on the ground beneath him.

Those ghastly blue jeans of the lad's! He may as well have been jutting his naked arse out as he leant to scrub the topmost bar. There was not one damned thing left to the imagination!

Miss Murray's nephew or not, this lad needed to learn to behave as a civilised Englishman if he wanted to work in this country. He definitely did not need to appear to be some rentboy selling his bottom on a side street in King's Cross. Even those cheeky sods didn't advertise themselves like this.

"I say, Barry!" I called up to him through the open roof of the car.

He started and lost his footing. My eyes widened and I was opening the door to get to him as he sought to regain his balance, though I knew he would have already toppled before I could reach him.

The lad proved to be agile, however. He grabbed the wrought iron to steady himself. I heard metal grate against metal as the wrought iron took more of his weight and cringed. He reached down to the top of the ladder and, as soon as his grip was secure, released the top of the gateway. I breathed a sigh of relief.

He had gained the ground and was wiping sweat from his face with a bare arm as I rounded the boot of the car. "Are you all right, lad?" I demanded as I reached him. "You gave me quite a fright."

He grinned, looking for all the world like an imp. "I think so, Lord Petersholme." He looked down his body and chuckled. "No bones broken at least."

"You need to be more careful."

"I thought I was being." He grinned. "But you caught me by surprise there." He glanced back at the gateway and its top border. "Then I almost fell."

I stared at him. I slowly decided he wasn't forgetting his place or even being rude. He simply didn't know how to speak to a gentleman. I wondered how I had been so blind as to have allowed his aunt to convince me to take this American lad on as summer labour.

I looked him up and down, inspecting for harm – as any gentleman would feel the need to do.

The American was medium height, the top of his head perhaps coming up to my chin. His ginger hair accentuated a pale creamy complexion and Irish freckles and made for an exceptionally handsome lad. His chest was wide and smooth, his stomach was tight and slim. A thin, dark red line of hair marched from his navel to inside his denim trousers.

My cheeks flushing, I looked back into his face.

"You really must wear more sensible trousers to work in, lad," I stammered. "And a shirt. Englishmen do not go about exposing themselves like that."

I circled the bonnet of the motorcar quickly and collapsed into the driver's seat, forcing myself to become calm again. "Do a good job, lad," I called to him as I turned on the ignition.

* * *

Aunt Alice sat at the other end of the table from me with Cousin Elizabeth between us. The roast pork was perfect and I intended to tell Cook that as soon as I left the table. Aunt Alice was frowning. We’d been due for cottage pie, and my aunt was such a creature of habit.

"Robert."

I forced myself away from the simple pleasure of enjoying good food and met my aunt’s gaze. I sipped at my wine, brought my napkin up to wipe my lips, and gave her my undivided attention. Alice Adshead was a horse-faced woman – what a gentleman in public would call strong-featured. Her black hair had developed threads of grey and was pulled back in a severe bun. She was not a totally unattractive woman, however, and, for the life of me, I couldn't understand why she insisted on being so funereal even twenty years after my uncle died in the influenza epidemic that presaged the end of the Great War.

"Yes, Aunt Alice." She appeared even grimmer than usual. The mouthful of pork I had just swallowed seemed to want to hang at the very back of my throat.

She smiled tightly. "I heard from the Viscountess D'Archer in today's post."

I immediately thought of the Viscount, remembering he’d got into a bit of a pickle recently, chasing that young vice girl through several blocks of King's Cross trying to retrieve his trousers from her. As I'd heard it, he did regain his trousers but the girl absconded with his wallet. As he was nearly fifty, I would have thought the Viscount would have learned to select the place of his trysts so that he could control the action. But, then, some men were more than a bit stupid.

"I say, how are the D'Archers these days?" I asked, deciding it would probably not be a good idea to repeat my gossip about the Viscount.

Alice's lip trembled. "The Countess mentioned that her youngest brother-in-law is back from India – on rotation or something military."

"Louis? What rank is he these days, Aunt? Captain?"

"He is a Major with His Majesty's Nineth Lancastershire Brigade, Robert." She gazed at me almost pityingly. To Alice Adshead, her nephew was abysmally ignorant of gossip and remained that way despite her best efforts. "I'm sure the Viscount would have mentioned it to you at one of the meetings of the Lords you've attended this past year."

"My goodness, time does fly," I offered breezily in my defence. "What is Louis now, thirty or so?"

"Thirty-five. He's in England to find himself a wife."

I knew then exactly where this conversation was going. Aunt Alice had been on a two-year quest through our sort to find Elizabeth a husband. It surprised me a bit to realise she wasn't still insisting on a hereditary title. Louis wasn't a bad sort at all from what I remembered of him, and he was younger than most that Aunt Alice had offered up as possible matches for Eliza.

I glanced towards Elizabeth. She was vainly attempting to ignore us by keeping her attention attached to the piece of pork that had been on her plate since Alice started in on the d'Archers. I wondered if that meant her interest had finally been piqued.

My cousin was more than slightly strange about the idea of marriage. She was eighteen now and quite pretty. A lovely girl all in all – nice figure, English complexion, and quite clever. Yet, she'd shown no interest in any of the potential suitors Aunt Alice had found. What else was a young girl supposed to do, if not become married and establish her own household? I had Aunt Alice's insistence on that fact of life.

I drank the rest of the wine in my glass, making no pretence at sipping it. I poured more from the carafe beside my plate and took a deep breath. There were definitely times I wished that father were still alive and making decisions, especially the family ones. "What do you think, Eliza? Should Aunt Alice reply to the Viscountess?"

"Robert, I wish…" My favourite cousin sighed then and forced a smile to her lips as she faced me. I took note that there was no smile to her eyes at all. "I think I would prefer not to marry a military man, Robert."

"Fiddlesticks!" Aunt Alice growled, firmly placing her napkin beside her plate. "Louis D'Archer attended Sandhurst, girl. His future is assured. A good life defending King and country, a good stipend, and a sizeable income the man receives from his holdings here in England. A future, good bloodlines for your children, an income – what else can any woman ask for?"

"There's going to be war, Aunt Alice. A very bad war from what I see in the papers. I'd quite like to grow to love my husband before I lose him on a battlefield."

"Dash!" Aunt Alice groaned, rolling her eyes and pushing from the table. Standing up, she fixed me with her gaze. "Robert, are you going to do your duty for this family?" she demanded, ignoring poor Elizabeth. It was as if the girl weren't even at table with us. "You have supported this child's resistance continuously. It is because of you that she has rejected every title that has been in the offing. Your father would have given her to a proper gentleman two years ago."

She sighed, I thought a bit too melodramatically. "I'm forced to go to younger brothers and sons to stay within our sort. If Elizabeth continues to reject perfectly good men, she'll end up like her mother – with a man in the trades, or worse!" Alice Adshead rose, pushing back her chair, and marched from the dining room.

Tears were in Eliza's eyes when I turned to look at her again. "Dear Cousin, explain to me why our Aunt insists on starting these little skirmishes when I'm trying to enjoy my dinner?" I asked in hopes of causing Eliza to laugh, rather than cry. I grabbed my glass again.

She giggled. "She does that, doesn't she, Robert? This always comes up at dinner."

I smiled back. "But never when cottage pie is on the menu. It's only when it's something I like to eat." I chuckled and Eliza giggled again. "If I take you down to London next month will you at least consider Louis D'Archer?"

"London? When, Robert?"

"After this bash Aunt Alice has us putting on – what? – three weeks from now?"

"Not really." Her face flushed ever so slightly as she smiled. "But I would love to go to London – even in the summer. I'll find what's playing at all the theatres for us."

"You'll at least put your thinking cap on, Cousin," I told her, forcing myself to sound cross. "I shan't appease you and get nothing in return. I'm not Chamberlain, you know."

"I'll think about it, Robert. Perhaps…" She glanced down at her hands. "Perhaps, I'll just surrender and accept a woman's duty." She looked back at me then, defiantly. "And when, Robert, are you going to think of your duty to Petersholme?" I stared at her in surprise. "That's when I'll think seriously about it, Robert – when you do."

"Eliza, I'm not sure…" I paused, unsure of myself suddenly. That damned American this morning bent over and stretching the blue denim covering his arse came to mind.

Fortunately for my presence of mind, my cousin did not pick up the level of doubt that I was sure had been in my voice. Perhaps she suspected a feint on my part similar to those of Aunt Alice and merely avoided allowing me to open up.

"Will it be horrible and ghastly, Robert?" she asked, changing the subject entirely. "This war, when it comes?"

I gazed at her and smiled. Such sweet, innocent naïveté so artfully blended with a steely resolution. "We'll take a thrashing, Eliza. A hard one, I suspect. Chamberlain's nearly assured us of that – holding the local defence down to nothing after Baldwin took it there and denying us a real air force. Letting our factories go idle whilst Germany built up. But we have the empire to fall back on; Germany only has itself. Strength and right will win out in the end."

"We'll win then?"

"How can we not?" I growled, staring at her in surprise at her doubt. "England is, Eliza. We simply are, no matter how abnormal things become around us." I sat up straighter. "The world needs England to keep things sane when it goes insane. It simply would be impossible for us to go under."

"You think I'm right to hold out against Louis D'Archer then, Robert?"

I shut my eyes and counted to five. Aunt Alice had better be in her rooms. "Probably. It could become a bit nasty before we can pull the empire in and set up properly."

She nodded. "Then, we must dance away the night at this party of Aunt Alice's. And we must go up to London. I won't hear of an excuse, Robert. We're going to enjoy what's left of this peace before it's gone and Chaos roams the world as if there were no England."

Eliza studied me in silence for the longest time. She brought her hand from her lap and placed it on mine. "Robert, you're young and quite handsome."

"Me?" I blushed.

"You. Blond, tall, quite well-built. A nice smile, a beautiful, intelligent mind, gentle and loving – yes, what any intelligent woman would want in a man. Quite handsome. But, if England must go to war?"

I understood immediately where she was leading us. "Dear Cousin, we are not going to bleed ourselves white again. The French can stop the Germans with their Maginot Line there at the Rhine. There will be no Somme where England lost a generation of young men. I'll still be alive and well when it's over."

"But if you're not? What about Aunt Alice? What about Petersholme?"

I grinned. I didn't feel light-hearted but I knew I needed to appear to be so to Eliza. "Are you suggesting I adopt some bright, handsome lad whom you could then marry? Should I dip down into the trades so that you would have a lad you could lead around by the…" I managed to stop before I actually said the word 'bollocks'. I could not imagine having nearly committed such a faux paux. "By the nose," I finished, blushing fiercely.

Damn! It was time I remembered Elizabeth was a woman and a lady of my household at that. She was not Molloy or one of my friends from university, and I was no longer a carefree student, able to excuse boorish behaviour. There was a distance that had to be maintained – or I lessened her as a woman.

Her fingers gripped mine tightly. Her eyes held mine. "Robert, promise me that you shall be here for me when this thing with Germany is over. I don't think I could survive if I didn't have you to pick me up when I fall."

CHAPTER TWO

After leaving Elizabeth, I climbed the stairs to my rooms. Molloy's call had been tucked away in the back of my mind since the morning, but it was now centred in my thoughts.

What could he have meant with his damned telephone call? It had been so strange and uninformative. Lewis Carroll would have been hard-pressed to have confused his poor Alice more than my oldest friend had confounded me this morning. But, then, Molloy had always had a touch of the Mad Hatter in him – every since our first year at Rugby.

All I was certain about was that whatever he was planning concerned Germany. But he had said that nothing would happen until the autumn. The lad did like to plan ahead, but this was ridiculous. What did he expect me to do – become a spy?

I could speak German, of course. I had studied the language since I was twelve and had been the friend of both German boys at Rugby and had spent portions of several holidays with each of them. At Oxford, Janus von Kys and I seldom spoke English, unless Molloy was with us. Von Kys had been a victim of the Angst that the Germans have about getting back in touch with the soul of the land. I had spent the summer of 1932 tramping along the Rhine with von Kys. Molloy had rightly stayed in England and let me go off searching for elusive Rhine maidens and even more elusive dwarves with von Kys. Damn Wagner anyway!

I had to admit, though, that it had been an enjoyable summer. The hike from Holland down to Switzerland had proved to have more outstanding vistas than the wild coast of Cornwall. The people of each region had been friendly and welcoming.

Yet, I could not see how my fluency could figure into a plan that the Foreign Office would hatch. It was my understanding that spying was the domain of the War Office – with some sort of overlap with the Home Office, brought about by the Irish revolt at the end of the Great War. The Foreign Office seemed well out of it.

So, what could Molloy be planning that involved me? I reached my apartments and had no better idea of his intentions than I had when I was speaking with the man. I could only wait until Molloy sprang his plan on me. I forced curiosity from my mind as I made my way to my bedroom. I was resolute about not fretting with something I could do nothing about. I was much too young to begin developing ulcers.

My thoughts turned to Aunt Alice. She was becoming damnably insistent about Elizabeth's matrimonial state. But lurking not far behind that was her growing interest in mine. The woman seemed hell-bent on marrying both my cousin and me off at the soonest possible moment.

I smiled as I slipped my trousers over my legs and moved into the bathroom to draw a bath. If my dear old aunt had shown even a little artifice in her manoeuvring during the last year I suspected she could have trapped me into demanding Eliza marry one of the men she'd picked for her. But she hadn't, fortunately for me. I still had an ally in my cousin.

It was Elizabeth one week and me the next – without fail and without alteration. It was impossible not to see through her stratagems. Supporting Eliza had become instinctive for me; otherwise, I would have to face the full force of Aunt Alice's attempts to have me producing the next Petersholme. And I was not ready to marry. I supposed I would eventually, of course. It was my duty, after all. I simply saw no need to rush it.

Molloy had married; but he had had his father arranging it for him whilst practically threatening his life. He had been given the choice of being disinherited or marrying. Max, quite logically, had taken the path of least resistance. He had, however, always been a bit too open about his Socratic tendencies, and the Earl had most firmly put a damper on them as soon as his son graduated Oxford.

Fortunately, Aunt Alice did not hold the power over me that Earl Molloy held over his eldest son. She also had no cause to suspect of me what the Earl had of his son.

I settled into my bath and soaped up my flannel.

Of course, Max was constantly up for a buggering. The lad could drop his trousers and bend over faster than even von Kys could; and I had accommodated both of them often in my rooms at university. Though not privy to the machinations that led to his sudden marriage, I had always suspected Molloy bent over for one of the Earl's farmhands and learnt the hard way why gentlemen should leave servants alone.

Aunt Alice could not use something like that on me; for one reason, I gave her no opportunity to do so. I did nothing at Bellingham Hall, not even in Northamptonshire. Even in London, I ensured there was never a boy in my Mayfair house, word of which would quickly have got back to her.

* * *

The next evening, I’d stepped out onto the terrace and was leaning over the railing. The sun was just setting and I breathed deeply as I watched the sky slide from white to gold. It was a visage I could never see in London. Not even in Coventry. It belonged to Bellingham Hall as singularly as did my soul, no matter where my body might be at that moment.

"Beautiful, isn’t it, Lord Petersholme?" Barry asked, his American-accented voice breaking through my contemplation. I looked down the stairs and found him sitting on the bottom step, leaning against the house, and looking up at me.

"It is that," I allowed, irritated that my solitude had been interrupted. And even more irritated that the boy looked so damnably enticing. "Are evenings as beautiful in America?"

"Every bit as beautiful, sir." I noticed that he spread his legs and arranged himself so as to expose his groin. I glanced quickly back at the house and saw that the ballroom was dark. No one was about between the manor and its outbuildings. Young Barry and I were alone. I felt decidedly uncomfortable and wondered if I should be so rude as to retreat into the house immediately.

"Thank you for wearing your vest this evening, lad," I told him, looking for a way to reprimand him for his sexy display without seeming to do so.

He stood and brushed off the seat of his trousers, his gaze remaining on me. He climbed the steps leading up to me until his left foot was on the terrace. "I took it off hoping you’d notice, Lord Petersholme." He hung his head. "I didn’t think of anyone else seeing me that way."

"Barry!" I gasped and stared at him.

He remained where he was. His eyes didn’t meet mine. "You’re one of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen, my Lord. I hope you’re like me and that you’re interested in me the same way I am in you."

"Barry!" I cried.

"I haven’t been with anyone in more than three weeks and when I saw you yesterday morning…"

"That is more than enough, young man," I growled.

"We could go to your rooms … No-one will know."

"I said that was more than enough."

He looked up at me then. Even in the growing dusk I could tell that he was blushing deeply. There was almost a haunted look about his eyes. "Jesus! I’ve blown it good now," he groaned.

I took a deep breath, wishing my erection would disappear. "We’ll just forget this conversation ever took place."

He looked up again, his eyes wide and watching me closely. "You mean it, sir? You aren’t going to fire me?"

"I said we’d forget this meeting."

"And you won’t hold my intent against me?"

I chuckled, beginning to relax. "There are enough examples of Wildean behaviour in public school, Barry. I knew a few lads like you. Just don’t become involved with any of the lads here at Bellingham Hall, mind you. That would have Alice Adshead and my farm manager both demanding your immediate dismissal."

He nodded. "That’s not going to happen. I want you, not some dumb yokel."

"Barry, even those sentiments can’t be expressed again. You can’t have me. I would not take advantage of anyone who worked for me. And I definitely would never become involved with anyone here at Bellingham Hall – it just isn’t done."

He slowly nodded his understanding and gazed out at the copse of trees behind the outbuildings. I wondered if I could yet gracefully excuse myself, "Could I use your library when I’m not working, sir?" he asked suddenly. "I need something to occupy my mind."

I frowned. I’d never had a retainer ask to use my library – not among the house servants or even the brightest students at the village school. But I couldn't see why he shouldn't use it. After all, he wasn't really a servant. He came from a good family in America and would be going up to university in the autumn.

"Of course, you can," I told him. "I have my texts from university there – I also stock the latest releases from British authors."

He faced me and I could see the white of his teeth. "Thank you, sir."

"Good night, Barry," I told him and entered the house.

* * *

Elizabeth took Marx’s Das Kapital from the shelf and crossed the room to the chair facing the two windows. She wrinkled her nose in disgust as she made herself comfortable. She was going to understand this man’s socialism, even if doing so burnt away every shred of her desire to learn. It almost had done just that this past fortnight as she forced herself to read about communist utopias.

"Yes!" Barry growled softly as he stood in the doorway of the library and looked from one wall to the next.

Elizabeth heard the unfamiliar young male voice and looked around the side of the chair. Pools of sunlight spread across the carpet on either side of her. A warm, gentle breeze billowed the curtains until they almost touched her. It took her a moment to recognise the handsome red-haired youth standing there and staring open-mouthed at the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. She frowned slightly as she remembered he was the new under-gardener.

"Why are you here?" she asked and watched him look towards her, surprise showing on his face.

He stepped back and said: "I'm sorry, Elizabeth. I was just looking, seeing what was here."

"And why are you inside the house? Estate workers seldom are invited inside."

His gaze had become puzzled. "I live here."

Now, she felt confused. A under-gardener living in the servant quarters? That certainly made no sense.

"I'm Barry Alexander. I'm staying upstairs with my Aunt Jane while I'm here this summer."

"Your Aunt Jane? Is that Jane Murray, our housekeeper?" The youth nodded and Elizabeth had the mystery of the boy's presence in Bellingham Hall solved. But she now had two more that were not explained. She knew very well that Robert rarely employed temporary labour for one thing – especially with this nasty depression that continued to linger over England. The other was that this boy was obviously an American and that simply made no sense at all.

She stood and crossed the room to stand before the youth. "Jane Murray has family in America?"

Barry grinned. "My mother, her sister, married an American after the war. Father's with the government now."

"I see," Elizabeth said and didn't at all. "And now you're here in England and employed at Bellingham Hall?"

"Right." His face brightened. "But only for the summer. I wanted to get to know Aunt Jane and see something of the England that Mother's always talking about before I entered the university this fall. Aunt Jane talked his Lordship into letting me work on the estate here until I start school."

Elizabeth nodded. This Barry Alexander's presence now made enough sense that she could relax. "Servants don't normally explore their masters' houses," she said gently.

He blushed. "I've just never seen a baronial manor except in books. And this one, it's so old."

"It's quite well preserved," she answered defensively.

His face turned even redder. "I said that wrong, Miss. I'm interested in architecture and – well – Bellingham Hall is really interesting to me. How old is it, anyway?"

She smiled then. "Henry VII created the first Baron Petersholme for his support in the War of the Roses. Bellingham Hall was built then."

His eyes widened and he shook his head slowly. "Almost four hundred years old," he mumbled.

"You seem awfully interested in the library, Mr. Alexander."

"Oh, yes." He looked past her, and Elizabeth was sure she saw longing in his eyes as his gaze move across a wall of books. "Father has a pretty good collection of books but this…" He shook his head as if to clear it. "One large room – the whole thing – full of books. It's like the public library back home in Rye. I could get lost in here and never find the door." He realised she had a book in her hand. "What’re you reading, Miss?"

She looked down at book. "This? Karl Marx’s Das Kapital."

His eyes widened. "You’re a communist?"

For a moment, she stared at him in shock. "A communist?" she finally managed.

"You did say you were reading Karl Marx, didn’t you?"

"Oh!" She looked down at the book and blushed. "I’m sorry. No, I’m not. I’m trying to understand how he would have the world operate in his utopia. But it is so absurd."

Barry grinned. "I thought so too. And dry? When I was reading it, I’d have to get up every half-hour to get a glass of water or I'd fall asleep."

Elizabeth chuckled. "Would you like me to ask Lord Petersholme if you may use it during your summer here?" She wasn't sure why she was making such an offer. She didn't see where it would cause any harm but knew Aunt Alice would be against it. She had never heard of anyone giving a servant access to one's library, and that would be enough to have the older woman against it.

Barry smiled. "His Lordship gave me permission to use the library, ma’am."

* * *

I was tired as I walked up from the stables on Saturday afternoon. I had ridden most of the morning but I now had what I felt was the best sense of Bellingham Hall and the farm that I could have. I was well-prepared for Monday morning’s conference with my farm manager.

My heart sank instantly when I saw Aunt Alice open the door and stand there to wait for me. All thought of the farm, the beautiful weather, and the multitude of other things that had made the day such a pleasure to me disappeared as I approached her.

"Robert, I must speak with you now!" she informed me as I came upon her.

I forced a smile to my face. "Of course, Aunt Alice," I offered, keeping my tone light. "We're already speaking, aren't we?"

She glowered at me. "In your study, Robert – or in your rooms." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "I certainly would not want any of the servants to overhear us – not with this matter."

"The study then." She marched through the house with me following behind her. Aunt Alice was fuming, and I could not imagine what could have possibly set her off so.

I held the door for her and, stepping in behind Aunt Alice, shut it behind us. "What's the matter?" I asked.

"That girl!"

"Elizabeth?"

"Not more than an hour ago, I found her in the library with a man, Robert! A young man. The nephew of our housekeeper, Jane Murray!"

"In the library you say?"

"There was a servant boy in your library, Robert. I've never heard of such a thing! And chatting away with your ward as if they were dear friends – or…" She rolled her eyes. "Or lovers."

"I gave him permission to use the library, Aunt. He appeared to be interested in the latest Huxley and Waugh…"

"Robert!"

"Yes, Aunt Alice?"

"That servant boy was alone with your cousin. Whatever would people think of her if they knew? What would they think of us?"

"Were they doing anything untowards?"

"No. But that means nothing; they could have heard me approaching. This simply cannot happen again, Robert!"

I stepped up to her and took her hands in mine. "Aunt Alice, young Barry was authorised to use the library. Eliza is a member of the family and, thus, has the right to visit any part of the estate of her own free will – as you or I do. Apparently, both of them chose to use the library at the same time." I smiled down at her. "That shouldn't imply to anyone that they're having an affair or that Eliza's virtue has been compromised."

"Why were they talking – even laughing?"

"What do you do with Miss Murray or Cook?"

"That's different." Her jaw seemed to set.

"How?"

"They're women, Robert. We can talk about female things. And, as you are aware, I'm the first one any of the women on the estate will come to if there is illness."

"You don't talk to the farm manager, Aunt? A man if I remember correctly."

She glared at me. "To decide what is to be slaughtered – so I can make up the menus."

"And you never pass the time of day with him? Neither of you ever smiles at the feel of the warm sun on your face?"

She frowned. "Robert, I'm an old woman. None of the men here are going to look at me and think wicked thoughts."

"And Eliza has grown up here. She was a girl of – what? – nine when she and her mother came to Bellingham Hall. We have become her home and family. She's even come to go with you on some of your sick calls this past year – that Hays boy with the mumps last month, remember?"

Alice Adshead frowned. "You think me horribly old-fashioned, don't you, Robert?"

I hugged my aunt to me and she permitted it, laying her head against my jacket. "I think that you are concerned about Eliza and me – and Bellingham Hall."

"And old-fashioned."

"Aunt Alice!"

"A nasty old busybody with her nose always in your business."

"Not really," I told her and pushed her from me so I could see her face. "But this is 1938, dear old aunt of mine," I chuckled, hoping to strike just the right tone with her. "Things have changed a bit since you married Uncle Alfred, and we all need to relax a bit."

"God rest Alfie's soul," she mumbled and tears welled in her eyes.

"I wish I had known him better, Aunt Alice," I told her and pulled her back to my chest. She sniffed and I could feel her pain at his loss, even after twenty years. "I'll talk with young Barry, Aunt. I'll remind him to ensure doors are open and that nothing untowards happens if he's alone with Eliza."

"You do that, Robert," she mumbled and sniffed again.

"He's a good lad. In America, he's much like our sort, Aunt Alice. I'm sure that he understands proper respect for a lady." She continued to lean against me, the resolve gone from her.

I grinned as a thought suddenly popped into my head. It was sure to distract her from her memories of my uncle and their too short marriage. "Who have you got me escorting at this party of ours next week?"

I felt her stiffen before she pulled away from me and gazed directly up at me. "I had thought to mention that to you. I thought you might lead out the dance with Lady Allyson Molloy. You went to school with her older brother."

"Max's little sister?" Aunt Alice nodded. "Is she even old enough to have been presented at Court?"

"She's Eliza's age."

"Max will be coming too then?"

"I think not. Lady Allyson's sister-in-law, Lord Molloy's wife, will escort her. But I believe Lord Molloy is in America for the month."

I nodded even as I wondered what Molloy was doing in America and if it had anything to do with his plans for me in the autumn. "Just don't push her on me, Aunt. I'm nowhere close to wanting to hear wedding bells."

"Why do I even bother?" Alice Adshead groaned.

I grinned. "Because you so enjoy playing matchmaker."

* * *

I sent for Barry Alexander. I had no intention of belittling the American for chatting with Eliza in the library. He had done nothing wrong, and I was quite comfortable that Elizabeth was as innocent as the boy. Still, I could see where it might well be a good idea that he ensure that doors were open if he found himself alone with a female member of my family in the future. A word to the wise and all that; it would at least keep Aunt Alice's mind on the household instead of our personal lives.

There was a rap at the study’s door as I sat in my favourite chair facing the sofa. "Come," I called.

The American entered and shut the door behind him before turning to face me. "You sent for me, Lord Petersholme?" he asked and I sensed a hesitancy about him.

"Do come in and sit on the sofa there," I told him and hoped I had dispelled his suspicion.

He sat up straight, his hands on his knees, and watched me. His red hair caught the sunlight from the windows behind me and flamed. I smiled. "Is there anything wrong, sir?"

"Wrong?"

"Have I messed up again? I've been wearing my undershirt like you told me to do."

"I've heard no complaints, Barry." I took a deep breath and started in. "I hear that you've met my cousin Elizabeth."

He smiled at the memory of their meeting earlier. "She is a really interesting woman – smart, witty, attractive. It seemed that we had known each other forever; we talk about just about everything."

"That certainly sounds like an endorsement," I chuckled. "You wouldn't be becoming interested in Eliza, would you?"

Awareness grew in his eyes and his jaw hardened as I watched him clamp his teeth together. "Lord Petersholme," he said stiffly. "I am sexually attracted only to men; I've told you that. But Elizabeth is a fun person to be around, one I'd like to get to know and enjoy as a friend." I stiffened at the thought of my cousin simply associating with this lad, as two men would – the idea of it seemed discomforting in a way I could not put my finger on. "You have no reason to doubt my intentions towards her."

"But you would want to engage in  friendly exchanges with her?" I mumbled, seeking to grasp this concept that was uncomfortable to me. "As two chums from the same school would?"

He gazed at me until I began to become uncomfortable. "Lord Petersholme, do you have even one female friend – just one – that you let your hair down with?"

"Let my hair down with?" I growled, trying to divine the meaning of something as illogical as doing that. My hair was no more than an inch long, even at its longest point.

"A woman you can completely relax with – like you do with your best friend?" I thought immediately of Molloy at the Foreign Office – when he was fully dressed.

"I suppose that would be Eliza," I offered slowly.

"I'd say she doesn't think that you consider her a friend – at least, not an equal."

I stared at the American sitting before me and tried to comprehend how he had so suddenly become my judge.

"Did you know that cousin of yours is one of the smartest people I've ever met? She seems to have a pretty complete idea of what's going on in Europe right now – and is scared to death of how England will survive it. She's also got one of the best senses of humour I've ever seen in anybody, regardless of their sex. She may be scared of what those storm clouds over Germany will bring, but she can joke about it still – just as she does about your aunt's old-fashioned attitudes."

I could not believe he was describing the same woman I had known since she was a girl of only nine. "I've never seen that," I mumbled and wondered why.

"Maybe it's because you've got used to her being a woman, one whom you're going to marry off to one of your friends – like you’d sell a horse. You've never seen her as just another human being and judged her abilities on that basis."

"I…" I stared at him in shock.

"She's read every one of your textbooks from university. She understands chemistry a whole lot better than I do and Keynes' concepts of economics too." He paused and leaned forward.

"What was she reading when my aunt found you two?" I asked hesitantly, desperately holding on to the image of Elizabeth engrossed in some frothy French romance.

"Nothing that time. But, when I first met her, she was reading Das Kapital."

"Marx?" I yelped. Not only was I beginning to realise that I’d behaved boorishly towards Elizabeth, I now had to wonder if she’d become a damned boshie as well.

"She was trying to understand the basics of socialism so she could see how Keynes had worked Hobbes and Marx together." He paused and I slowly realised he was staring at me. "Why can't she go to university, Sir?"

"Go to university?" I mumbled, shocked even further at the new thought.

"She said she couldn't – even though she's smart enough to. But she wouldn't say why she couldn't." He shook his head slowly. "Losing those kind of brains is such a damned waste!" he grumbled softly.

Eliza attend university? It was inconceivable. Women had no need for an education, except to read and do simple maths so they could run their husbands' households.

I shuddered and shut my eyes as realisation crashed over me. I was being as fuddleminded with Eliza's life as Chamberlain was with England's. As blind as the Whigs had been at the end of the last century when they opposed the Tories on universal male education.

No bloody wonder that Eliza resisted my aunt's every effort to put her into a marriage! The girl was not just some ornament for her future husband to show off. She was my cousin and quite an intelligent enough human being at that.

I had slipped into ignoring her, at least her human side of her. What this American was saying about her was true, however. I had taken her to enough plays in London to know her keenness. It was I who had given her Eliza as a nickname – because we had both loved George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion.

Eliza would never bring herself to ask me to send her to university, though. If there was anyone in England as frugal as a Scotsman, it was my cousin. She remembered well losing her father in the crash of 29 and arriving at Bellingham Hall penniless, fatherless, and hat in hand. Losing her mother then, she had had no barrier against knowing her dependency on, first, Father and then, myself. Rather than beg a financial favour, Eliza would have quietly surrendered to Aunt Alice's stratagems, were I ever to have shown more than token agreement with them.

I forced myself to face Barry Alexander and swallowed my pride. "Will you be Eliza's friend, Barry? Protect her when I’m not there?" He nodded, a smile tugging at his lips. "What subject would she study?" I mused. "The London School of Economics does not have an arts department."

"Economics, history – those seemed to be her primary interests every time we’ve met, sir."

"Will you look after her if I enrol her at this same university you're to attend?"

"You can't get her in this late – it's almost June!" he yelped.

I smiled. "I suspect I can. Will you do it then, lad?"

He studied me carefully for a moment and smiled. "Of course I will, Lord Petersholme."

"Good. Don't tell her what I'm doing." I smiled. "I would like the letter of acceptance to come as a surprise."

I rose and watched as he stood. "As to your meetings in future, try to leave a door open so that poor Aunt Alice doesn't have a coronary the next time she finds you two together."

He grinned. "We'll be careful of her virtue, Lord Petersholme."

As soon as the door was closed behind the American boy, I called my solicitor in London at home and told him what I wanted him to do on Monday. If Eliza wanted a university degree, she was going to have the opportunity to earn one.
 

CHAPTER THREE

Soaking in the bath on Friday night, Barry still couldn't believe what he’d been seeing. There had to be over forty guests staying at Bellingham Hall. All of them staying through the weekend, too.

He was used to parties; his father had been throwing them ever since he could remember. But they were always small affairs and usually in the afternoon so that most of the guests could get home by dark. They never had more than a few overnight guests at the house in Rye, New York – the rest of the revellers were neighbours or, at least, people who lived in one of the upper crust townships nearby.

"Call everybody Lord or Lady – unless you're told they're a Duke or Duchess," Aunt Jane had told him Wednesday when he’d stopped by her room to say good night.

"What do I call a Duke?" he groaned, rolling his eyes.

"Your Grace, Barry."

"I thought you told me to keep out of their way?"

"Oh, fiddlesticks, lad! It's impossible to stay out of everyone's way the whole weekend – you're a house servant, after all."

"I'm what?" he yelped.

"You're a servant attached to the house, of course."

"Aunt Jane," he groaned, "the Alexanders are hardly anybody's servants."

"Perhaps in America, lad; but you're in England now. And you're attached to Lord Petersholme's service until you enter that university up in London in October. So, that makes you a servant."

"All of these people coming to this thing – they're nobles?"

She looked at him as if he'd lost his senses. "Do you expect them to invite servants? Or, God forbid, tradesmen? The Petersholmes have been gentlefolk for more than four hundred years now."

The Hall had begun to fill up on Thursday, the rooms on the whole first floor of the house and half of the second had guests in them by Friday evening when Barry made his way up the back steps to the servants quarters and the room next to his aunt's room. It felt as if he'd picked up half of them from the railway station in the village.

This being a servant definitely did not look like it was going to be fun, Barry Alexander decided as he rinsed the soap from his arms and stood. Pulling his towel to him, he began to dry off. While no-one in their right mind would consider inviting his gardener to a ball, if that gardener's son had become the local state assemblyman or worked his way up in one of the brokerage houses as his father had, an invitation would definitely be in the post. Even the local sheriff got invited to a party in America – it was just plain good politics.

Only, it didn't look as if people ever got a chance to better themselves here in England. It appeared that even succeeding generations got labelled and stigmatised. He sure as hell had – because of his mother and aunt.

He was horny after a week on the ship and more than four weeks here at Bellingham Hall. So horny it even hurt sometimes. That damned Petersholme was as queer as a three dollar bill – or whatever they had that was just as queer here in England. Only, the good-looking bastard had most firmly made it clear that he wasn't going to do anything with Barry – because he was a goddamned servant and the grandson of a servant. His Lordship had been polite about it, of course – but it still boiled down to class prejudice and Barry being on the wrong side of it.

The bitch of the thing was that he really wanted to get Petersholme into bed. The man was a real looker, that was sure. And, Barry had to admit it, he really got off on the man's manners as well as his damned looks. How could anybody be perfect all the time? Knowing just the right thing to say, even to make an insulting put down sound pleasant?

* * *

Saturday morning, he watched from his window as Lord Petersholme and a good two dozen other men tramped off towards the copse of trees behind the house. Each of the men was carrying a shotgun; they were all chatting and laughing. A small group of kids from the farm led the men, most of those were carrying bags slung over their shoulders.

"What the hell?" Barry Alexander growled under his breath and unconsciously scratched his bare chest. The old grounds keeper had given him the day off, and he had slept late. So, this was an English hunting party! he said to himself. He had read about them, of course – in every book that chronicled the leisure class of the empire upon which the sun never set. The men in their tweeds, the farm boys ready to flush out pheasants for those men to shoot.

Barry had never seen where the sport was in that. Boys rousting the birds and an army of men with guns waiting for them to take wing. The bird never had a chance. And he couldn't see that it took any skill for twenty or more men to kill a poor bird. It was nothing more than a shooting gallery, a damned turkey shoot. Enough buckshot peppering the area where the bird was flying meant the bird went down.

The men chatting and laughing with each other as they trekked into the woods made it look as if going out to kill birds was the most natural thing in the world for men to do on a Saturday morning.

Barry washed his face and combed his hair before dressing. He took the servant's stairs down to the main floor and made his way directly to the kitchen. And stopped as he stepped through the threshold. The kitchen was a hive of activity.

"What are you doing here, Barry?" Jane Murray demanded as she approached him, her hands covered with flour.

"Thought I'd grab some breakfast, Aunt Jane," he answered as he pushed a loose hair from her forehead.

She frowned. "A bit late for the likes of that, lad." Barry's stomach growled and she grinned. "Stay here and let me see what I can find."

Moments later, she was back with a bowl of thick porridge. "Stay out of the way today, lad," she warned him and returned to the table where she was making pies.

He left the kitchen as soon as he had finished eating. Moving from room to room and staying out of the way, he watched the house staff prepare Bellingham Hall for the Petersholme party. The young American entered a part of the Hall that he had not seen before and his interest instantly perked up. He was exploring the unfamiliar rooms by the time he found the ballroom.

The French doors stood open onto the stone terrace when he entered the sunlighted room, and Barry moved across the parquetted floor to step out into the sun and fresh air. He grasped the railing, shut his eyes, and took a deep breath. It was almost like being on the back deck of his home in Rye. He smiled and took another deep breath. He could get used to this England quite easily, even if the locals were barely understandable and his Lordship was intent on hiding deep in his closet.

He spent the afternoon trying to read. When that became too boring, he strolled out past the outbuildings. Barry noticed two young farm labourers lounging beside a tractor and waved as he passed them, his thoughts already returned to trying to understand his boredom.

He'd been four weeks in England, and he'd not seen a damned thing like he had wanted to see. There were all those cathedrals and castles, the Tower of London, and Buckingham Palace. All of the things his friends from high school were seeing in England and France and Italy.

Instead, his grandfather had met him at the dock in Southampton and put him on the train to the village of Bellingham so fast it was like he was ashamed of him.

His Gramps was a queer old duck. Stiff, like a damned corpse. No wonder Mom had jumped on Dad's proposal back at the end of the war. Barry doubted old Roger Murray even knew how to move his face muscles to make a grin – or a frown even. Gramps hadn't even offered to feed him anything – just rushed him across town to the train station.

And now this. Barry Alexander hadn't been away from Bellingham Hall since he arrived. Aunt Jane didn't want him associating with any of the farm hands – it was like they were Negroes or something, not exactly real people and thus well below him and who he was. He snorted. From what he'd seen of the labourers, he probably wouldn't have anything to talk about with one of the yokels anyway.

But he'd still like to see something of the England he'd learned about in history. He'd like to see some of the fun-loving people Mom was always remembering. He was bored enough almost to pitch a drunk even with some of the locals.

He had hopes for Elizabeth, though, now that he'd met her. She had a sense of all that English history he'd got in school. Maybe she could show him some of the local colour on some of the weekends. Even if that was out of the question, she was interesting to be with. They could talk at least. Nobody – not Aunt Jane or that nosy old busybody Alice Adshead who seemed to run everything around the house with an iron hand – could get upset about two young people just talking about things.

He smiled. Maybe she could get him close to that Lord Petersholme. That would be nice. Barry was willing to bet his Lordship could be fun, if he'd ever let his hair down. Not just in bed, either. He shook his head and turned back the way he'd walked. It was like he had a fixation on the guy. He had wanted him in bed the moment he saw him, and the bastard totally turned that one down. The worst part of it was that he still wanted him.

Only, now, he wanted more than just what getting between the sheets with the nobleman would mean. He wanted to go places and do things with him. Like they were lovers or something.

He was sure that having Lord Petersholme regularly between his legs would make the years of university go by a lot faster. He nodded. More pleasurably too. Theatre and even the symphony like he'd known back in New York. He'd like that – the guy would look great in a tux. That wide chest, those narrow hips – yeah, he'd look great. He'd look as good as Barry did in one.

He kicked at a rock that was in his path. They might look good together all right, but there was no chance of that happening. He'd get to escort Elizabeth around the university and have to watch the guys like a hawk while he was doing it. She was one nice looking woman; and too many guys didn't have any class at all, no matter how much money was in their bank accounts. Yeah. He'd be watching over Elizabeth while Petersholme went stamping over the hills and dales of Bellingham Hall with a covey of cuties in his wake – all going to shoot some poor damned birds!

"Hello there, lad!"

The words pulled Barry from his thoughts and he turned towards the voice. A blond guy was grinning at him from the tractor seat and motioning him over. His fists clenched but he quickly forced them back to normal. He wasn’t afraid of these English boys. With his blackbelt, he’d beat them within an inch of their lives if he ever had to defend himself.

"You'd be Miss Murray's nephew from America, aintcha?" the blond asked as Barry started towards him and his companion. He nodded. "Me name's Clive," the blond continued. "This here is Nevie, me best mate since we was in nappies."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Barry," he offered, struggling through the young man's accent. "Do you work here at Bellingham Hall?"

"Me and Nevie do at that, Yank. When we ain't taking our leisure, you know?" He lifted a jar from beside the seat. "Like a taste of home-made, would you?"

"Home-made?" Barry asked suspiciously.

"Plum brandy, lad," the brunet called Nevie answered between a bad case of what the American thought were drunken giggles. "The best way to spend a Saturday afternoon when you ain't got nothing better to do – like having a firm, wide arse bouncing in your lap."

"Me and Nevie here were just talking about that and what a pleasure it would be," Clive offered and Barry noticed the blond seemed to be growing an erection beneath his trousers. "So, will you be having a swallow with us then?"

Barry was relatively certain he was picking up on the blond's interest and had already guessed that the brunet would go along with anything this Clive started. He was tempted. He'd been too long without any sex.

Only, Clive and Nevie didn't strike him as the nicest sort of guys to get into something with. The sex might be fun all right, but he doubted it would stay just between the three of them if it happened. No matter what he might like – or even put up with – he had to think of Aunt Jane too. She might be a stick-in-the-mud, but she was family – the only family he had here in Northamptonshire. And she was nice to him too. Screwing around with these two and it then being spread around the estate would kill the old lady.

Then, too, there was his Lordship’s admonition to stay away from the locals. If he ever wanted a chance at scoring the Baron, Barry’d better not get into something that would get back to him. He suspected that would get him fired fast.

"I should be getting back up to the Hall," he told them, making sure he sounded apologetic. "Aunt Jane wants me to be available if they need help serving the food."

Clive nodded. "You know where you can be finding us – when you decide you want to have a bit of fun. Nevie and me’ll be happy to help out."

Barry waved and started back towards the house.

* * *

Barry couldn't read that evening. The music coming through his window kept drawing him.

He guessed the band was a local one but it was good. They sounded a little like Tommy Dorsey, but there was a jazzier undertone there too – like Ellington or even Basie. Hell! They were almost as good as Glenn Miller. He grinned at that as, still in his chair, he swayed slowly to the music. It was probably the highest compliment he could give any band. Miller was absolutely the very best.

Barry took a deep breath. When he had been little, he would have gone and sat on the stairs to listen to the music coming from his parents' parties. They'd let him mingle with the grown-ups when he was older. He'd quickly become the unofficial record changer for the Alexander house.

But here he couldn't sit on the steps and listen. And Aunt Jane would be scandalised if he actually got close enough to his Lordship's party to be seen by any of the guests. He figured Petersholme would probably fire him on the spot too. The man was that strange a duck. A good man but strange ...

He groaned as he pushed himself from the chair and stripped out of his shirt and trousers. "I might as well go to sleep," he told himself aloud. "I can't go down there. I can't go any damned where. Either I'm the wrong class or it's too far to walk." He groaned. "There's not one damned place I can go, not stuck out here in Podunk!" He threw himself on the bed, taking satisfaction in the squeaking of the springs under him.

It was impossible to doze off. He lay in his underpants and vest on top of the sheets, the cool, rain-soaked breeze from his windows caressing his legs. The music touched him, cuddling him so that he couldn't get away from it. He tossed and turned, trying to find the relief that he knew sleep would be but losing the sense of it, even as it stayed just ahead of him. The music kept drawing him.

He climbed to the terrace and glanced back down the steps to the grounds. He was alone. The French doors of the ballroom were open to the night and the cooling, gentle rain. Barry's hair matted damply against his head as he moved towards the nearest set of open doors to look in.

He hadn't meant to get this close to the party when he'd been dressing in his room. He'd just wanted to get closer to the music. But, with the rain, the terrace was the only safe place from which to do that. Anyone wanting to catch a moment of privacy from the party stayed in the house. Besides, this way, he'd be able to watch the revellers as well – without them knowing he was there. Especially Lord Petersholme.

He couldn't remember ever having a crush on anyone like he had for his Lordship. It was almost embarrassing. It definitely was stupid. And it had him by the balls.

The man had certainly made it plain that nothing was going to happen between them. That he wasn't going to let it. So, why did he keep hoping? That was the stupid part.

If he wanted sex, Barry was certain that he could get something going with the two farmhands from the afternoon. He would have all the sex he wanted from those two the rest of his time at Bellingham Hall – them and their friends.

He snarled at the thought of the two men. He'd have them – and most of the rest of the farm boys too. It wouldn't be the kind of sex he wanted, though. There wouldn't be anything mutual about it. He'd just be the instrument of relief that the boys would use – when they got horny. He was willing to bet they wouldn't care if he was interested or not – as long as he was getting them off. Well, let them try. Even with just his feet, he could take on four men.

Petersholme was dancing with a pretty girl in the centre of the ballroom floor, and Barry smiled as the man gave her a twirl. He was so dashing in his tux. Perfect. Barry made sure he wasn't standing where he could be seen in the light coming from the room and began to study the party-goers inside.

Petersholme smiled at something the girl said to him and Barry felt a pang of jealousy. He loved the way the light caught the man’s hair and made it as gold as the sun. He wondered what it would be like to have Petersholme hold him as he was the girl dancing with him.

Everyone was good-looking he thought as he forced himself to take in one person and then another person in the room. Even that old hen who had tried to get him and