Throughout the ages, the image of the stern, unyielding captain, resplendent in his immaculate uniform, has been a staple of fiction. He instills loyalty, devotion and sometimes fear in the hearts of his men, and they’ll follow him anywhere.
It’s time to meet a new generation of captains, who still make their men tremble, but for very different reasons. From the oh-so-proper ballrooms of the Regency to the hellish trenches of World War One, the flashing cutlasses of the Golden Age of pirates to the chilly bunkers of the Cold War, these captains will have you hungry to join their ranks.
Summary:
As the Great War tears Europe apart, two men from different worlds find sanctuary in each other’s arms.
Captain Robert Thorne is the fiercest officer in the regiment. Awaiting the command to go to the front, he has no time for simpering, comely lads. That’s until one summer day in 1917, when his dark, flashing eye falls upon the newest recruit at Chateau de Desgravier, a fresh-faced farmer’s boy with little experience of life and a wealth of poetry in his heart.
Trooper Jack Woodvine has a way with strong, difficult stallions, and whispers them to his gentle will. Yet even he has never tamed a creature like Captain Thorne.
With the shadow of the Great War and the scheming of enemies closer to home threatening their fleeting chance at happiness, can the captain and the cavalry trooper make it home safely? More importantly, will they see peacetime together?
Reader advisory: This book contains scenes of violence, some of which is homophobic, and a brief scene of sexual assault.
Summary:
A sexy city boy and a country squire will set the countryside alight!
Tarquin Bough is a tweedy squire with an ambitious fiancée who controls his every move. He’s also the owner of the finest collection of saucy artefacts in the world. From Christine Keeler’s eyelash to the Virgin Queen’s dildo, they’re all safe in Tarquin’s care.
Christopher Hardacre is a city-slicker with the tighest jodhpurs and the most smackable bottom in London. He’s given up the ratrace for a country life as captain of the village rowing team. The only trouble is, he’s lost his money to a ruthless scam and Bough Bottoms is his last hope of a home.
But Chris hasn’t reckoned on his late uncle’s will. The house comes with a sitting porcine tenant and if Chris can’t look after his newly-acquired pet pig, he’ll lose his inheritance and his last chance at happiness.
When Tarquin sees Chris it’s lust at first sight, but dare he be honest about his feelings in a village where being gay is bound to be a hot topic? As soon as Chris and Tarquin get together, it’s the hottest summer this little corner of England has ever known.
With a scheming local hotshot out to turn the beloved pig into sausages, can the captain and the squire save everybody’s bacon?
Summary:
When a devoted prime minster has a second chance at romance, he discovers that love is love on Downing Street.
Captain Tom Southwell has swapped bullets for babies and works as a manny at one of the world’s most famous addresses. Behind the doors of Downing Street, he cooks dinner, puts the children to bed and is the prime minister’s best friend.
Alex Hart is the prime minister Great Britain’s been dreaming of. He’s dedicated, caring and has a conscience. He’s also a widower with two small children. The last thing he can let himself do is fall in love with the manny who has held his family together.
When an old flame from Tom’s past gets in touch, Tom’s first instinct is to keep him at arm’s length, but hell hath no fury like a yoga teacher scorned. As Alex fights to push a life-changing bill through Parliament, the tabloid vultures are circling. With rumors swirling about the prime minister and his gorgeous manny, every shark in Westminster senses blood.
Will Alex put love ahead of duty, or will the most important man in the country be the loneliest, too?
Reader advisory: This book contains references to homophobia, infidelity and death from terminal cancer.
Re-Read Review August 2020:
I thought I'd give Jack and Robert's story another read when I recently read two of the contemporary entries in Curzon & Harkstead's Captivating Captains series. I love them just as much now as I did 2 years ago. Truth is there isn't anything more I can add to the original review, there still isn't nearly enough WW1 era stories out there so when you find one as brilliant as The Captain and the Cavalry Trooper it is a true pleasure to reread the journey and experience it all over again. When the authors obviously have a healthy respect for history it makes the story all the more beautiful.
Original Review April 2018:
When Trooper Jack Woodvine arrives at Chateau de Desgravier, he takes a liking to Apollo, a horse that frightens most of the other grooms. When Jack meets Apollo's rider, Captain Robert Thorne, he's not sure which is more in need of tempered care. Their love of Apollo brings together these two soldiers in a time when the end could be just over the next hill but is it enough when Jack is given his orders to return home and Robert is sent to the front?
I love World War 1 era stories and there just isn't enough in the M/M genre, so when I come across one I jump at the chance to read it. I may be a bit of a history buff but I will be the first to admit that as much as I am fascinated by the era, WW1 is a time that I have limited knowledge of so I can't speak to all the accuracy of The Captain and the Cavalry Trooper however I do think the emotions of the time are pretty spot on.
Jack's desire to care for Apollo and Robert, Robert's desire to see Jack safe, Apollo's devotion to both men. Some might say its a little over the top in regards to love and sweetness in a time of war but I don't see it as OTT, I see it as living while you can. Tales like Jack and Robert may not be commonplace in regards to the Great War but its not entirely unheard of either. Afterall, this is work of fiction in a historical setting so there is definitely room for creative tampering and I think the authors balance accuracy with said tampering very well.
The Captain and the Cavalry Trooper is a well written tale of historical love with intriguing characters, both main and secondary, filled to the brim with romance, drama, lust, desire, and enemies. Talking about enemies, I won't give anything away but let me just say that there is a couple of secondary characters in here that I longed to see them get what was coming to them but you'll have to read for yourself if they do😉. This is a lovely addition to my historical shelf.
The Captain and the Squire #5
Original Review August 2020:
This is the 3rd book(plus 2 novellas) in the Captivating Captains series by Catherine Curzon and Eleanor Harkstead that I read but it's actually the 5th book in the series. I know, for a series fan who loves to read even standalones in order, I'm reading Captains all mishy-mashy. That's okay because this truly is a standalone series, no cameos of friends or family that often let standalone series flow better, these are all 150% standalones. I LOVE IT!
Again, as I've only read a few I hesitate to make comparisons to previous entries as to drama or humor, lust or kink, insta-love or slow burn. What I will make note of is that they all are filled to the brim and overflowing with heart and romance. The rest I mentioned are blended perfectly to make for another great can't-put-it-down-but-wished-I-savored read.
Are Tarquin and Christopher enemies? No. Are they friends? No. Is there chemistry between our two stars? Oh yeah! Farmer and city-slicker, may not be enemies but they are opposites, until they get to know each other and maybe they aren't quite so opposite as they think. Who am I kidding? That's as close to spoilers as you are going to get from me, if you want to know what the guys are like together then you have to read The Captain and the Squire, trust me, you won't regret it: wit, mystery, chemistry, kink, fun - it's all here.
The Captain and the Prime Minister #6
Original Review July 2020:
I want to start by saying that despite my love of all things UK, I'm not overly familiar with the workings of their government. Personally, I would think a widowed prime minister falling for his manny would be frowned upon at least in terms of public relations and I think we all know that public relations plays a big part(too big IMO but it's just the way it is) in country leadership. I say all this because with The Captain and the Prime Minister, I wasn't lost in the "social norms" area of the story nor was being taught a school lesson. In my reading radar, that balance is a huge plus.
Tom and Alex have an established working relationship when the story starts that is obviously a friendship, could it be more? You know it will be, that isn't a spoiler, the story is in the journey getting from point A to point Z, and what a journey it is. I can't fault either of them considering the professional roles they have but there are times I wanted to smack them a little bit but not often, mostly I just wanted to wrap them in bubblewrap and tell them to make the move, take the chance, happiness is worth the PR/political hurdles they may face.
The Captain and the Prime Minister is the 6th book of Curzon & Harkstead's Captivating Captains series but it's only the 2nd novel I've read, though I have also read 2 of the novellas. This is definitely a standalone series that can be read in any order. Since I've read so few of them I don't really want to speak to the level of drama/angst in this compared to the others, I will say it was less angsty and fun than The Captain and the Cavalry Trooper(book #1, the other novel I read) as that was set in WW1 with a very different setting and set of acceptance in the love is love department. Extremely well written with characters I wanted to know. Truth is, I wanted to know how the story ended so NOW! that I just couldn't put it down but when I got there I kicked myself for not savoring the journey more.
The Captain and the Cavalry Trooper #1
Northern France
1917
The wagon carrying Jack Woodvine bumped and jerked along the poplar-lined lanes, a fine spray of mud rising up each time the huge wooden wheels splashed through a puddle.
He had given up checking the time and, even though the journey was far from comfortable, tried to doze as he passed along under the iron-gray sky. A chateau, they’d said. Different from the barracks he’d been in when he was first deployed. Doubtless it would be a dismal old fortress, but was it silly of him to hope for bright pennants fluttering from a turret?
Finally, the wagon drew up at a gatehouse of pale stone. As Jack climbed out, dragging his kitbag behind him, sunlight nudged back the clouds and turned the gray slate of the roofs to blue.
“You the new groom?” A soldier appeared from the gatehouse. His cap was so low over his eyes that Jack couldn’t make out his expression.
“Yes—Trooper Woodvine. Jack Woodvine.” He took a letter from his pocket and held it out to the man. “I’ve been transferred from another battalion. This is the Chateau de Desgravier?”
“Yes, Trooper! Turn left at the bottom of the drive for the stables. Quick march!”
The last thing Jack wanted to do was march, quickly or otherwise, but he shouldered his kitbag, jammed his cap onto his head and marched down the tree-lined avenue.
It was thickly leaved, but through the branches he could see the white stone of the chateau ahead. He rounded a bend in the driveway and he saw it—Chateau de Desgravier.
An enormous tower rose up in front of him, its roof reaching into a delicate point. Jack sighed, the spots of mud on his face cracking as he smiled. It might not have had pennants floating from it, but it was exactly like something from a fairytale. Beside the tower were the stone and brick and filigreed windows of what looked to Jack like a palace. Who would ever think that the front was only a few miles to the east?
Quick march!
Jack continued on his way, turning to his left just as he’d been ordered. The path here bore evidence of horses—straw, manure, the marks of horseshoes. Ahead, an archway, figures at work. A lad of Jack’s age maneuvering a wheelbarrow, another leading a horse out to the paddock.
This wouldn’t be so bad. It seemed to be a peaceful place, and easy work for a lad like Jack. He raised his hand and grinned at the grooms as he headed under the archway and into the vast stable yard.
Then he heard singing. In French.
Jack dropped his kitbag and looked round. The voice was that of a man, yet heightened slightly, giving it a teasing, effeminate edge, and Jack couldn’t help but follow it like a sailor lured by a siren, pulled along the row of open stables toward that lilting chanson. Inside those stables young men labored and sweated, brooms swept and spades shoveled, yet one of the boxes at the far corner of the yard seemed to have been transformed into an impromptu theater.
Jack hardly dared glance through that open door, yet he couldn’t help himself, blinking at the hazy darkness of the interior where half a dozen grooms lounged in the straw, watching the chanteur in rapt silence.
Right in front of Jack, his back to the door, was the figure of a young man, clad in jodhpurs, polished riding boots and nothing else. No, that wasn’t quite true, because he was wearing something, the sort of something Jack didn’t really see much of in Shropshire. It was some sort of silken scarf, a shawl, perhaps, that was looped around his neck twice, the wide, dazzling red fabric decorated with intricate yellow flowers. They were bright against the pale skin of his naked back, as bright as the tip of the cigarette that glowed in the end of a long ebony cigarette holder that the singer held in his elegant right hand. He gestured with it like a painter with his brush, making intricate movements with his wrist as he sang, his voice a low purr, then a high, tuneful trill, then a comically deep bass that drew laughter from his audience.
He moved with the confidence of a dancer, hips swinging seductively, head cocked to one side, free hand resting on his narrow hip and here, in this strange fairytale place, he was bewitching.
The singer executed a near-perfect pirouette yet quite suddenly, when he was facing Jack, stopped. He put the cigarette holder to his pink lips, drew in a long, deep breath and blew out a smoke ring, his full lips forming a perfect O.
“Well, now.” He sucked in his pale cheeks and asked, “Who on earth have we here?”
Jack blinked as the smoke ring drifted into his face.
“Tr-trooper Woodvine, reporting for Captain Thorne. I’ve been transferred—I’m his new groom. I don’t suppose—”
The words dried in Jack’s throat. As enthralling as this otherworldly figure was, with his slim face and high cheekbones, there was an unsettling glint of mockery in his narrow blue eyes.
“Sorry.” Jack took a half-step backward. “I interrupted your song. I should…”
The singer moved a little, just enough that he could dart his head forward on its slender neck and draw his nose from Jack’s shoulder to his ear, breathing deeply all the way. They didn’t touch but the invasion, the authority, was clear. However lowly their station, Jack had wandered innocently into someone else’s domain.
When the young man’s nose reached Jack’s ear he threw his head back and let out a loud sigh through his parted lips, arms extended to either side. Then he finally spoke again, declaring to the heavens, “I smell new blood!”
Behind him, his small audience tittered nervously and his head dropped once more, those glittering blue eyes focused on Jack.
“Trooper Charles, sir!” He executed a courtly bow, the hand that held the cigarette twirling elaborately. “But you’re so darling and green that you may address me as Queenie. Aren’t you the lucky one?”
Jack reached for the doorframe to casually prop himself against it and essay the appearance of calm. Queenie?
“You may call me Jack.”
He extended his free hand to shake. A handshake showed the mettle of a man, his father was always telling him so. A good, firm hand at the market and a fellow would never have his prices beaten down.
Queenie’s narrow gaze slid down Jack like a snake and settled on his hand. He didn’t take it, didn’t move at all for a few seconds as the silence between them grew thicker. Then, in one quick movement, he placed his cigarette holder between Jack’s fingers and said, “Have a treat on me. Welcome to Cinderella’s doss house!”
Jack brought it hesitantly to his lips, smiling gamely at the grooms who made up Queenie’s audience. He pouted his lips against the carved ebony and inhaled.
The cough was so violent that Jack nearly dropped the holder, but an instinct in him born of a lifetime on a farm of tinder-dry hay meant he clamped it between his fingers. As he heaved for breath, he stamped on the nearby straw, suffocating any sparks that might have fallen.
The other grooms laughed and Queenie’s head tipped back to emit a bray of hilarity as a strong hand walloped Jack’s back.
A friendly Cockney burr chirruped, “Cough up, chicken—there’s a good lad!”
“We have a new little chicky in our nest,” Queenie told his audience, turning to address them. “I want you all to make him terribly welcome, or he might burn down our stables and then where would your Queenie sing?”
The stocky lad who had rescued Jack from his coughing fit was a head shorter than him. He pulled a face that could have been a smile or a sneer and took the cigarette holder from his fingers. He passed it to Queenie, all the while fixing his stare on the new arrival.
“Trooper Cole. Wilfred, that’s me. You’re Captain Thorne’s new boy, aren’t you?”
He laughed, then turned his head to spit on the floor, pulling a skinny roll-up from behind his ear.
“I’m Jack Woodvine. I mean…Trooper Woodvine.”
“I s’pose me and Queenie better take you to your quarters?”
“That would— But…oughtn’t I to introduce myself to Captain Thorne?”
“I’d say that’s a bit difficult, seeing as he’s not here at the moment.” Wilfred picked up Jack’s kitbag as easily as if it were spun from a feather. “Come on, soldier. Your palace awaits!”
“Captain T is an angel.” Queenie draped one arm sinuously around Jack’s shoulders and walked him back across the stable yard, his naked torso pressed to Jack’s rough tunic. “You’re going to have a bloody easy war, he’s soft as my mother’s newborn kitten.”
He glanced back at Wilfred and asked, “Wouldn’t you say so, Wilf?”
“Not half!” Wilfred laughed, striking a match to light his cigarette. “You couldn’t find a nicer bloke in the entire regiment.”
Jack grinned as they headed up the creaking wooden stairs above the stables. New quarters and new friends, and he wouldn’t have to rough it in a tent. Maybe there’d even be warm water for a bath.
“Well, that’s good to know. The officers were a bit…brusque at my last place.”
“Brusque?” Wilfred raised an amused eyebrow. “That’s a fancy word for a groom!”
“Ignore our lovely Wilf. Strong as an ox, bright as a coal shed.” At the top of the stairs Queenie turned to address Wilfred and Jack, his pale hand resting on the crooked handrail. “Thorny is adorable, not brusque at all. Welcome to our little slice of heaven!”
With that he lifted the latch and threw the door open, directing Jack to enter with another low bow.
The Captain and the Squire #5
Tarquin yawned and stretched in his deckchair. Although most of the blossom had gone from the orchard, blown away by the storms in late spring, it was still a beautiful place to sit in the evening. He took a mouthful of brandy and scratched the head of the pig who was snuffling at the grass beside his chair.
“Now look here, Oracle!” Tarquin held up the length of carved wood that he had been nursing on his lap. “The craftsmanship is second to none.”
The Oracle seemed to be listening, even if she was still busy hunting for truffles. But over the contented snorts of the pig, Tarquin heard the music from next door rise in volume and yet another car revved in the private lane outside his house.
His new neighbor had arrived.
The bastard.
The car doors slammed and the sound of braying laughter carried on the breeze as yet more visitors arrived to greet—who? Who was it who was moving into the Hardacre house anyway? Who was it who’d had removal vans and tradespeople coming and going for weeks to the empty house? Who was responsible for the smell of fresh paint and the sound of hammering and drilling from that tottering, crumbling pile where the late Beardsley Hardacre had lived for his one hundred and three years? Who had landscaped that wild garden?
Who was it who had arrived by nightfall not quite twenty-four hours earlier and was apparently already throwing a party?
And why had this interloper made no effort to claim the Oracle of Delphi?
“Your new mummy and daddy have arrived, my friend,” Tarquin told the pig, his voice soft. But as another toot and another bray of laughter reached him in his formerly tranquil orchard, he rose from the chair, fire in his tone as he declared, “And I’m going to have words!”
Tarquin ran across the orchard and, his brandy in one hand and the carved wooden length in the other, took the fence in a single bound like a steeplechaser.
The evening air was torn by that most dreadful of sounds—the cry of ripped corduroy trousers.
Now in the Hardacre garden, Tarquin cast a glance back at the fence, where a ragged square of golden-colored corduroy waved back at him like a tiny flag. It must’ve caught on a nail, but instead of going home to change, Tarquin was too inflamed with rage to turn back, and instead plunged on through the garden.
And what an improvement it is!
What had once been a tangle of brambles amid a sea of grass that would have hidden an army was now a manicured lawn so flat that it could have been a golf course. Bright bursts of color sprang from well-tended borders and for the first time in years Tarquin could actually see the banks of the river that ran along the bottom of their neighboring gardens. How strange it was to think that such a beautiful view had been hidden all these years, but the cantankerous old gentleman who had lived here far longer than Tarquin had even been alive’d had little time for gardening. He had been too busy with wine, women and song for that.
And whoever was now in his house seemed to be of similar appetites, Tarquin realized, as he rounded the corner and froze on the edge of the patio.
Everyone appeared to be in swimwear, or something resembling it. Tall, elegant women wearing sarongs and high heels with their jewelry chatted with handsome young men in shorts and little more, each of them holding a fizzing glass of champagne, each of them exuding money and confidence and…the city.
A huge hot tub that bubbled on the patio contained yet more of the incomers, tan and braying and so bloody loud and one of them, he knew, must be the new master of Hardacre Grange.
It had to be the man whose braying laughter was louder than anyone else’s. The man who seemed to be holding court in that absurdly overstated hot tub.
The only one wearing sunglasses on an evening that required no such thing.
Tarquin strode straight up to the hot tub and bellowed, “Which of you ruddy coves is in charge here?”
The chatter fell silent but the thump of the music, of course, did not. The man in sunglasses took a leisurely sip from his glass of champagne and said, “That would be me, squire. Why don’t you grab a glass and hop on in?”
Tarquin shook with fury, the brandy slopping up against the brim of his glass. “Hop in? Hop bloody in? The bally cheek of it—I don’t bathe in public with strangers!”
“Oh, you’ve brought your own booze, I like it!” He lowered his sunglasses just a little and peered closely at Tarquin’s other hand. “And you appear to have also brought a large wooden penis. Is that a traditional welcome in Bough Bottoms? Hello, old man, here’s a penis from all of us on the parish council!”
The partygoers guffawed that braying laugh, every eye now focused on Tarquin’s hand.
“Penis?” Tarquin thundered. Then he recalled the antique object in his hand. “This? This is a Tudor dildo! It belonged to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I herself!” Tarquin wagged it under the nose of the man in sunglasses, because surely the man couldn’t see properly wearing Ray-Bans in the dusk.
Although Tarquin could see his new neighbor very well, smarmily grinning at Tarquin from under his arrogant flop of blond hair. Tarquin wasn’t going to admit it, but the fellow was in exquisite form, with swimmer’s shoulders and toned arms that Tarquin would have happily spent hours squeezing like a shopper deciding on a grapefruit. And that angular jaw was worthy of a statue, finished off with a square chin that Tarquin would never tire of nibbling on.
Not that he would. Tarquin threw a furious glance at the woman chortling at his new neighbor’s side.
Married. Has to be. Bugger it.
Or sadly not.
“A Tudor dil— oh, just a minute!” The man pushed his sunglasses up into his hair, his welcoming smile evaporating. “You’re Bough! You’re the man who did Great-Uncle Beardsley out of Prince Albert’s ceremonial Prince Albert!”
“No, I bloody didn’t! It’s mine!” Tarquin stamped his foot. Oh, my dander’s most definitely getting up! “And besides which, you could at least extend the courtesy of pronouncing my surname properly. It’s Boff, to rhyme with cough, not Bow as in bough as in part of a tree! It’s bloody Anglo-Saxon and if my ancestors weren’t conquered by the Normans, I won’t be conquered by a bloody blow-in Yuppie like you, accusing me of theft, who’s got a bath on his patio like a peasant!”
A collective intake of breath sounded around the patio. And where had the patio come from anyway? The last time Tarquin had glimpsed the back of the neighboring house before the brambles had claimed it, this had been a mud pit.
An eyesore.
But the man who now rose from the water of the hot tub was certainly not an eyesore.
Bloody hell, he’s no old Uncle Beardsley.
“Uncle Bea said you were a Bow,” he said in a plummy sneer. Then he grinned and held out his hand, as though Tarquin weren’t juggling a glass of French brandy and Queen Elizabeth’s favorite dildo. “Christopher Hardacre. You can only be my new next-door neighbor. You’re exactly like Bea said you were in his letters. I feel like I already know you!”
Tarquin shoved the dildo into his pocket, its curved end poking out like a rhino horn. He held out his hand. “Your Uncle Beardsley was a dreadful old git—never got on with him, and he always pronounced my name wrong just to rile me. I’m Tarquin Bough, as in cough, and that’s the end of it. Christopher Hardacre, eh? My new neighbor!”
As Tarquin shook Christopher’s square hand, his gaze wandered down the planes of Christopher’s dripping chest, down to his muscular stomach and those wet shorts that clung to his every contour.
My other dander’s up now, blast it.
The Captain and the Prime Minister #6
Tom lay sprawled on the beanbag between the two small beds—one shaped like a car, the other shaped like a boat. He’d almost sent himself to sleep with the twins’ bedtime story, but it finally seemed, from the sound of their gentle breathing, that they’d dropped off. He sat in the quiet, dimly lit room, the elephant nightlight casting its gentle glow. And in that glow, he re-read the text from Stuart.
Hey good lookin’, ya miss me? Through with Barca and heading home—you shud SEE my tan lines babe. Get ready Laaahndaaaan! x
Stuart wasn’t high on the list of people who Tom wanted to talk to. Their break-up had been acrimonious, Stuart furious at one too many dates being canceled at the last minute because Tom had to look after the twins. ‘You love that family more than you love me!’ And off Stuart had gone to Barcelona.
Except, apparently, Stuart was back.
And that list of Tom’s was rather brief.
It’d be rude not to reply, wouldn’t it?
Tom lifted his head and glanced at the children. They were both sound asleep, so Tom carefully got up from the beanbag and tapped his reply.
Hey Stuart yeah I’m still in London. Maybe I’ll see you sometime? T.
They’d been through a lot—both ex-army, both gay, although Tom’s career had taken an unusual turn when he’d decided to become a nanny. Or manny, as the press had christened him. But it worked. Captain Southwell had transformed into Tom, but he still dealt with crises before breakfast, and marshaling small children was just as challenging as directing a company in a warzone.
The reply took seconds.
Believe it manny Tom. I’ll be knocking on door of no 10 and sayin’ where’s my man ;) xx
Tom worked on the principle that being hostile to exes wasn’t the mark of a gentleman, but, equally, dealing with someone who thought Tom was his man after all this time wasn’t a task that filled him with joy.
I thought your man’s in Barcelona? T.
And his phone rang, vibrating silently in his hand as Tom heard the flat’s front door opening and closing softly, so as not to disturb the sleeping children. The prime minister was home.
Tom stuffed the phone into his pocket. He wasn’t going to answer it—he had a family to look after.
Before Alex had reached the kitchen doorway, Tom had poured him a glass of wine. It sat there on the worktop when Alex appeared in the doorway, his hand already loosening the knot of his tie.
“All the way from the House I was thinking about diving into a huge glass of red wine.” Alex chuckled, widening his eyes at the sight of it. “And there it is!”
“You look like you could do with one!” Tom said.
“The thought of cuddling Al and Mad and a little sniff of red is what’s kept me going through the last two hours of paperwork,” Alex told him, slapping a matey hand to Tom’s shoulder and letting it linger there. “As soon as I hit the bottom of the despatch box, I made for home. I don’t suppose there happens to be any supper left over, or am I raiding the fridge again?”
Tom passed him the glass across the marble worktop. “There’s a shepherd’s pie waiting for you if you’d like it?”
“If anyone finds out about this, they’ll be tempting you away with a pay rise,” Alex teased. “I already have to tell them you’re like the anti-Mary Poppins to throw them off the scent.”
Tom checked the pie in the oven then turned it on to warm.
“I don’t have a magic carpet bag, and I’m not into chimney sweepers,” he said. “I have no intention of leaving, tempt me all they like!”
“If any chimney sweeps do come along, I want to know about it,” Alex told him. Then he raised his glass to his lips and took a grateful drink. “I can’t lose my shepherd’s pie whisperer.”
“Do you want to eat in here, or in the lounge?” Tom hoped he’d say the lounge, because if Alex put the television on in the kitchen and discovered that the last channel Tom had watched was BBC Parliament, it might be rather awkward.
It’s because the children wanted to see you when they came home from preschool. Honest.
“Lounge, sofa, general couch potato of a night?” He nodded, apparently satisfied with his own suggestion. “Did you eat with the kids?”
“Well, I tried! We had sit-down dinnertime together but Madeleine wanted to draw at the same time, so I had my hands full.” Tom dragged his hand back through his hair. “I think I got all the sweetcorn out of my hair, but I’m not sure!”
“I’m going to nip in and see them before I eat,” Alex decided. “I hate that I missed them tonight and I know they’re asleep, but it’s really for me, not them. But you know that.”
“I know.” Tom patted his arm. “They’ll know you’re there. You’ll suddenly pop up in their dreams.”
“Oh, God help them! Then you have to be off the clock, Tom, you know that. Much as I love coming home to you and your shepherd’s pie, you must be cursing my name?” He assumed a grumbling mutter to say, “Bloody Alex keeping me bloody working all bloody hours.”
“It’s not really work, though,” Tom assured him as he got a tray ready for Alex. “We’re like housemates!”
“I couldn’t ask for a better fellow to share with.” Alex laughed and brushed Tom’s shoulder as he headed for the door. “I’ll be back, Captain!”
Tom leaned against the kitchen cupboard, flicking through a recipe book. He heard Alex’s footsteps through the baby monitor and saw the night-vision version of the prime minister on the screen. Tom should have gone back to his book to give Alex his privacy, but he couldn’t resist a glance at Alex crouched beside his child’s bed. He was such a kind father and it brought a lump to Tom’s throat. Thank God Stuart hadn’t rung again and shattered their peace. He didn’t need it tonight, and Alex certainly didn’t.
Tom heard Alex’s voice, as gentle now as it had been commanding in the Chamber earlier, wishing his sleeping children sweet dreams. Then, as he always did on the rare nights that he didn’t make it home in time for supper and bedtime with the twins he adored, Alex remained in the room for a while. He settled onto the beanbag where Tom had sat just a few minutes earlier and became part of the peaceful scene, soaking up the calm in that sometimes rather busy room that his son and daughter shared. And though the two children slept on, surely they sensed that protective presence watching over them until, with a whisper of, “I love you,” Alex rose to his feet and made his careful way toward the door.
Alex was such a lonely figure sometimes, and during those moments Alex shared with his children, Tom wondered if he was thinking of his late wife.
He shouldn’t ever be lonely. Gill wouldn’t have wanted it, and Tom certainly didn’t. Alex deserved to be loved.
“I see the permanent marker has almost washed off of Alastair’s cheek,” Alex observed cheerfully as he padded back into the kitchen. He returned to the serious business of unknotting his tie and added, “You must have magical skills that I lack!”
The sound of the silk rasping against Alex’s hand very nearly sent a tremor through Tom, but he pushed it down.
You can’t think those things about your straight boss.
“We had a game at bathtime—I made them beards and mustaches out of bubbles, then rubbed them off. Al didn’t notice a thing—he was too busy laughing.”
“See, I learned the hard way that saying don’t scribble on your face is the guaranteed way to get a little monster like my son to scribble on his face.” Alex threw his tie onto the worktop. Then he unfastened his silver cufflinks and tossed them with only a little more care atop his discarded tie. Tom knew what was coming next even before Alex rolled first one immaculate sleeve to his elbow then the other, because he knew Alex’s routine as well as his own. And his arms are to die for. “He’s joining a long line of Hart boys who never did as they were told!”
Tom chuckled. “Were you naughty, then?”
You wish he still was naughty, Tom.
“I was a terror.” Alex leaned forward to peer through the glass door of the oven, his hands braced against his knees. “But I went one better—I drew on my sister’s face while she was asleep. Gave her a mustache to be proud of!”
“And having met your sister—!” Tom tried not to notice how the fabric of Alex’s suit trousers strained pleasingly across his bottom as he leaned down. He was a fine figure of a man—Tom would be an idiot not to notice. “Bet she was pleased!”
“Oh, she loved it, you can imagine how thrilled she was!” Alex stood straight again and turned to face Tom. “You don’t have to hang around if you don’t want to, you know. Honestly, I can’t imagine this is how you want to spend your off time.”
“If I worked in an office all day, I’d be chilling at home just like I’m doing now, so… It’s fine, honest.” Tom slipped the recipe book back on the shelf. He liked being part of a family, too. In some ways it made up for the lack of his own. “I should apologize for these jogging bottoms, though. I don’t think I’ve even jogged in them. But then…you wouldn’t want to see me in my pajamas, would you?”
Although I wouldn’t mind seeing Alex in his again.
“This is your home, Captain Southwell. If you have to see me bleary-eyed in my bath towel now and again, I wouldn’t complain if you wanted to wear your pajamas after a long day trying to keep my children in line!”
Alex in a bath towel. That’s a thought to ponder.
“I say pajamas, I actually sleep in—” My boxer shorts. Oh, God, he doesn’t want to know that. “Do you want to see what the twins got up to at preschool today?”
Tom was already delving into the satchels that Alastair and Madeleine carried about as proudly as the chancellor wielded his briefcase on Budget Day. Alex gave an impromptu drumroll, pounding his hands on the worktop, and asked, “Go on, show me.”
“Ta-da!” Tom produced a sheet of paper from Madeleine’s bag and handed it over. “They had to draw their families, so she’s done you in the House of Commons. She’s even got the green seats right, although she’s only given you three strands of hair.”
“But what excellent strands they are.” Alex laughed, brushing his hand back through his rather more generous head of real hair. “But who’s the terrible threesome watching from the benches? Alastair’s hair’s looking rather bluer than I remember, but she’s got Gill’s curls right, and as for you… How is it that I look like a balding headteacher and you look like a film star?”
With a deliberately camp flourish, Tom said, “Oh, just my fabulous good looks! I suppose I’m the minister of tidying up the toy box?”
“A deserved gold star for Mads.” Alex beamed proudly. He took the picture and placed it on the fridge, where it joined a gallery of his children’s artistic efforts. “At least she drew it on paper, not on her brother’s face.”
“And that’s why I suggested wipe-clean paint on the walls in this house!” Tom said. “You never know when a pen or a crayon’ll go rogue. Face, walls, clothing—if it’s a surface, it can and will be drawn on.”
“The question is will Tom’s shepherd’s pie win a gold star of its own?” Alex peered at his reflection in the silver fridge door. “And will my hair survive the last year of its first Downing Street term?”
“You’re not doing too badly. Not like some former PMs I can think of who start off with a full head of dark hair and end up with hair as white as Father Christmas.” Tom peered into the oven. “That smells good, doesn’t it? It’s bubbling like a lava flow.”
“I don’t know what we’d do without you,” Alex admitted, swirling the wine in his glass. “Honestly, Tom, I really don’t.”
Tom put on the crocodile oven gloves and brought the shepherd’s pie out of the oven. So many confused feelings swirled through him at that moment, clashing with the resolutely homely image of the pie in his hands. Because he wasn’t sure what he’d do without them either. Sometimes he had to remind himself that they weren’t his children, and when Maddy put him in her family drawings, it made it even harder.
And that was before Tom addressed the fact that Alex was gorgeous. He shouldn’t have a crush on his boss, but he did. He hadn’t to begin with—Alex was handsome, yes, but he had been Gill’s husband. And after Gill’s death, Tom had seen him as the twins’ father.
But something had changed.
One day, for no reason that Tom could identify, he’d seen Alex in a different light, and he’d realized then that he’d developed a crush on him.
Even though, in more ways than Tom could count, his crush was utterly hopeless.
“I suppose you’d eat more takeaway without me!” Tom laughed.
“That’d be the least of our worries.” Alex smiled, raising his glass to his lips. He leaned back against the worktop and closed his eyes, transformed into a picture of relaxation. Switching off was a skill, Tom had to admit, and one that Alex had done well to learn.
‘I don’t know what we’d do without you.’
As Tom dished up, he tried his best to drive away the demon on his shoulder who wanted to read far more into Alex’s words than the man must’ve meant.
He’s straight and he’s the prime minister. Dream on, Manny.
Northern France
1917
The wagon carrying Jack Woodvine bumped and jerked along the poplar-lined lanes, a fine spray of mud rising up each time the huge wooden wheels splashed through a puddle.
He had given up checking the time and, even though the journey was far from comfortable, tried to doze as he passed along under the iron-gray sky. A chateau, they’d said. Different from the barracks he’d been in when he was first deployed. Doubtless it would be a dismal old fortress, but was it silly of him to hope for bright pennants fluttering from a turret?
Finally, the wagon drew up at a gatehouse of pale stone. As Jack climbed out, dragging his kitbag behind him, sunlight nudged back the clouds and turned the gray slate of the roofs to blue.
“You the new groom?” A soldier appeared from the gatehouse. His cap was so low over his eyes that Jack couldn’t make out his expression.
“Yes—Trooper Woodvine. Jack Woodvine.” He took a letter from his pocket and held it out to the man. “I’ve been transferred from another battalion. This is the Chateau de Desgravier?”
“Yes, Trooper! Turn left at the bottom of the drive for the stables. Quick march!”
The last thing Jack wanted to do was march, quickly or otherwise, but he shouldered his kitbag, jammed his cap onto his head and marched down the tree-lined avenue.
It was thickly leaved, but through the branches he could see the white stone of the chateau ahead. He rounded a bend in the driveway and he saw it—Chateau de Desgravier.
An enormous tower rose up in front of him, its roof reaching into a delicate point. Jack sighed, the spots of mud on his face cracking as he smiled. It might not have had pennants floating from it, but it was exactly like something from a fairytale. Beside the tower were the stone and brick and filigreed windows of what looked to Jack like a palace. Who would ever think that the front was only a few miles to the east?
Quick march!
Jack continued on his way, turning to his left just as he’d been ordered. The path here bore evidence of horses—straw, manure, the marks of horseshoes. Ahead, an archway, figures at work. A lad of Jack’s age maneuvering a wheelbarrow, another leading a horse out to the paddock.
This wouldn’t be so bad. It seemed to be a peaceful place, and easy work for a lad like Jack. He raised his hand and grinned at the grooms as he headed under the archway and into the vast stable yard.
Then he heard singing. In French.
Jack dropped his kitbag and looked round. The voice was that of a man, yet heightened slightly, giving it a teasing, effeminate edge, and Jack couldn’t help but follow it like a sailor lured by a siren, pulled along the row of open stables toward that lilting chanson. Inside those stables young men labored and sweated, brooms swept and spades shoveled, yet one of the boxes at the far corner of the yard seemed to have been transformed into an impromptu theater.
Jack hardly dared glance through that open door, yet he couldn’t help himself, blinking at the hazy darkness of the interior where half a dozen grooms lounged in the straw, watching the chanteur in rapt silence.
Right in front of Jack, his back to the door, was the figure of a young man, clad in jodhpurs, polished riding boots and nothing else. No, that wasn’t quite true, because he was wearing something, the sort of something Jack didn’t really see much of in Shropshire. It was some sort of silken scarf, a shawl, perhaps, that was looped around his neck twice, the wide, dazzling red fabric decorated with intricate yellow flowers. They were bright against the pale skin of his naked back, as bright as the tip of the cigarette that glowed in the end of a long ebony cigarette holder that the singer held in his elegant right hand. He gestured with it like a painter with his brush, making intricate movements with his wrist as he sang, his voice a low purr, then a high, tuneful trill, then a comically deep bass that drew laughter from his audience.
He moved with the confidence of a dancer, hips swinging seductively, head cocked to one side, free hand resting on his narrow hip and here, in this strange fairytale place, he was bewitching.
The singer executed a near-perfect pirouette yet quite suddenly, when he was facing Jack, stopped. He put the cigarette holder to his pink lips, drew in a long, deep breath and blew out a smoke ring, his full lips forming a perfect O.
“Well, now.” He sucked in his pale cheeks and asked, “Who on earth have we here?”
Jack blinked as the smoke ring drifted into his face.
“Tr-trooper Woodvine, reporting for Captain Thorne. I’ve been transferred—I’m his new groom. I don’t suppose—”
The words dried in Jack’s throat. As enthralling as this otherworldly figure was, with his slim face and high cheekbones, there was an unsettling glint of mockery in his narrow blue eyes.
“Sorry.” Jack took a half-step backward. “I interrupted your song. I should…”
The singer moved a little, just enough that he could dart his head forward on its slender neck and draw his nose from Jack’s shoulder to his ear, breathing deeply all the way. They didn’t touch but the invasion, the authority, was clear. However lowly their station, Jack had wandered innocently into someone else’s domain.
When the young man’s nose reached Jack’s ear he threw his head back and let out a loud sigh through his parted lips, arms extended to either side. Then he finally spoke again, declaring to the heavens, “I smell new blood!”
Behind him, his small audience tittered nervously and his head dropped once more, those glittering blue eyes focused on Jack.
“Trooper Charles, sir!” He executed a courtly bow, the hand that held the cigarette twirling elaborately. “But you’re so darling and green that you may address me as Queenie. Aren’t you the lucky one?”
Jack reached for the doorframe to casually prop himself against it and essay the appearance of calm. Queenie?
“You may call me Jack.”
He extended his free hand to shake. A handshake showed the mettle of a man, his father was always telling him so. A good, firm hand at the market and a fellow would never have his prices beaten down.
Queenie’s narrow gaze slid down Jack like a snake and settled on his hand. He didn’t take it, didn’t move at all for a few seconds as the silence between them grew thicker. Then, in one quick movement, he placed his cigarette holder between Jack’s fingers and said, “Have a treat on me. Welcome to Cinderella’s doss house!”
Jack brought it hesitantly to his lips, smiling gamely at the grooms who made up Queenie’s audience. He pouted his lips against the carved ebony and inhaled.
The cough was so violent that Jack nearly dropped the holder, but an instinct in him born of a lifetime on a farm of tinder-dry hay meant he clamped it between his fingers. As he heaved for breath, he stamped on the nearby straw, suffocating any sparks that might have fallen.
The other grooms laughed and Queenie’s head tipped back to emit a bray of hilarity as a strong hand walloped Jack’s back.
A friendly Cockney burr chirruped, “Cough up, chicken—there’s a good lad!”
“We have a new little chicky in our nest,” Queenie told his audience, turning to address them. “I want you all to make him terribly welcome, or he might burn down our stables and then where would your Queenie sing?”
The stocky lad who had rescued Jack from his coughing fit was a head shorter than him. He pulled a face that could have been a smile or a sneer and took the cigarette holder from his fingers. He passed it to Queenie, all the while fixing his stare on the new arrival.
“Trooper Cole. Wilfred, that’s me. You’re Captain Thorne’s new boy, aren’t you?”
He laughed, then turned his head to spit on the floor, pulling a skinny roll-up from behind his ear.
“I’m Jack Woodvine. I mean…Trooper Woodvine.”
“I s’pose me and Queenie better take you to your quarters?”
“That would— But…oughtn’t I to introduce myself to Captain Thorne?”
“I’d say that’s a bit difficult, seeing as he’s not here at the moment.” Wilfred picked up Jack’s kitbag as easily as if it were spun from a feather. “Come on, soldier. Your palace awaits!”
“Captain T is an angel.” Queenie draped one arm sinuously around Jack’s shoulders and walked him back across the stable yard, his naked torso pressed to Jack’s rough tunic. “You’re going to have a bloody easy war, he’s soft as my mother’s newborn kitten.”
He glanced back at Wilfred and asked, “Wouldn’t you say so, Wilf?”
“Not half!” Wilfred laughed, striking a match to light his cigarette. “You couldn’t find a nicer bloke in the entire regiment.”
Jack grinned as they headed up the creaking wooden stairs above the stables. New quarters and new friends, and he wouldn’t have to rough it in a tent. Maybe there’d even be warm water for a bath.
“Well, that’s good to know. The officers were a bit…brusque at my last place.”
“Brusque?” Wilfred raised an amused eyebrow. “That’s a fancy word for a groom!”
“Ignore our lovely Wilf. Strong as an ox, bright as a coal shed.” At the top of the stairs Queenie turned to address Wilfred and Jack, his pale hand resting on the crooked handrail. “Thorny is adorable, not brusque at all. Welcome to our little slice of heaven!”
With that he lifted the latch and threw the door open, directing Jack to enter with another low bow.
The Captain and the Squire #5
Tarquin yawned and stretched in his deckchair. Although most of the blossom had gone from the orchard, blown away by the storms in late spring, it was still a beautiful place to sit in the evening. He took a mouthful of brandy and scratched the head of the pig who was snuffling at the grass beside his chair.
“Now look here, Oracle!” Tarquin held up the length of carved wood that he had been nursing on his lap. “The craftsmanship is second to none.”
The Oracle seemed to be listening, even if she was still busy hunting for truffles. But over the contented snorts of the pig, Tarquin heard the music from next door rise in volume and yet another car revved in the private lane outside his house.
His new neighbor had arrived.
The bastard.
The car doors slammed and the sound of braying laughter carried on the breeze as yet more visitors arrived to greet—who? Who was it who was moving into the Hardacre house anyway? Who was it who’d had removal vans and tradespeople coming and going for weeks to the empty house? Who was responsible for the smell of fresh paint and the sound of hammering and drilling from that tottering, crumbling pile where the late Beardsley Hardacre had lived for his one hundred and three years? Who had landscaped that wild garden?
Who was it who had arrived by nightfall not quite twenty-four hours earlier and was apparently already throwing a party?
And why had this interloper made no effort to claim the Oracle of Delphi?
“Your new mummy and daddy have arrived, my friend,” Tarquin told the pig, his voice soft. But as another toot and another bray of laughter reached him in his formerly tranquil orchard, he rose from the chair, fire in his tone as he declared, “And I’m going to have words!”
Tarquin ran across the orchard and, his brandy in one hand and the carved wooden length in the other, took the fence in a single bound like a steeplechaser.
The evening air was torn by that most dreadful of sounds—the cry of ripped corduroy trousers.
Now in the Hardacre garden, Tarquin cast a glance back at the fence, where a ragged square of golden-colored corduroy waved back at him like a tiny flag. It must’ve caught on a nail, but instead of going home to change, Tarquin was too inflamed with rage to turn back, and instead plunged on through the garden.
And what an improvement it is!
What had once been a tangle of brambles amid a sea of grass that would have hidden an army was now a manicured lawn so flat that it could have been a golf course. Bright bursts of color sprang from well-tended borders and for the first time in years Tarquin could actually see the banks of the river that ran along the bottom of their neighboring gardens. How strange it was to think that such a beautiful view had been hidden all these years, but the cantankerous old gentleman who had lived here far longer than Tarquin had even been alive’d had little time for gardening. He had been too busy with wine, women and song for that.
And whoever was now in his house seemed to be of similar appetites, Tarquin realized, as he rounded the corner and froze on the edge of the patio.
Everyone appeared to be in swimwear, or something resembling it. Tall, elegant women wearing sarongs and high heels with their jewelry chatted with handsome young men in shorts and little more, each of them holding a fizzing glass of champagne, each of them exuding money and confidence and…the city.
A huge hot tub that bubbled on the patio contained yet more of the incomers, tan and braying and so bloody loud and one of them, he knew, must be the new master of Hardacre Grange.
It had to be the man whose braying laughter was louder than anyone else’s. The man who seemed to be holding court in that absurdly overstated hot tub.
The only one wearing sunglasses on an evening that required no such thing.
Tarquin strode straight up to the hot tub and bellowed, “Which of you ruddy coves is in charge here?”
The chatter fell silent but the thump of the music, of course, did not. The man in sunglasses took a leisurely sip from his glass of champagne and said, “That would be me, squire. Why don’t you grab a glass and hop on in?”
Tarquin shook with fury, the brandy slopping up against the brim of his glass. “Hop in? Hop bloody in? The bally cheek of it—I don’t bathe in public with strangers!”
“Oh, you’ve brought your own booze, I like it!” He lowered his sunglasses just a little and peered closely at Tarquin’s other hand. “And you appear to have also brought a large wooden penis. Is that a traditional welcome in Bough Bottoms? Hello, old man, here’s a penis from all of us on the parish council!”
The partygoers guffawed that braying laugh, every eye now focused on Tarquin’s hand.
“Penis?” Tarquin thundered. Then he recalled the antique object in his hand. “This? This is a Tudor dildo! It belonged to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I herself!” Tarquin wagged it under the nose of the man in sunglasses, because surely the man couldn’t see properly wearing Ray-Bans in the dusk.
Although Tarquin could see his new neighbor very well, smarmily grinning at Tarquin from under his arrogant flop of blond hair. Tarquin wasn’t going to admit it, but the fellow was in exquisite form, with swimmer’s shoulders and toned arms that Tarquin would have happily spent hours squeezing like a shopper deciding on a grapefruit. And that angular jaw was worthy of a statue, finished off with a square chin that Tarquin would never tire of nibbling on.
Not that he would. Tarquin threw a furious glance at the woman chortling at his new neighbor’s side.
Married. Has to be. Bugger it.
Or sadly not.
“A Tudor dil— oh, just a minute!” The man pushed his sunglasses up into his hair, his welcoming smile evaporating. “You’re Bough! You’re the man who did Great-Uncle Beardsley out of Prince Albert’s ceremonial Prince Albert!”
“No, I bloody didn’t! It’s mine!” Tarquin stamped his foot. Oh, my dander’s most definitely getting up! “And besides which, you could at least extend the courtesy of pronouncing my surname properly. It’s Boff, to rhyme with cough, not Bow as in bough as in part of a tree! It’s bloody Anglo-Saxon and if my ancestors weren’t conquered by the Normans, I won’t be conquered by a bloody blow-in Yuppie like you, accusing me of theft, who’s got a bath on his patio like a peasant!”
A collective intake of breath sounded around the patio. And where had the patio come from anyway? The last time Tarquin had glimpsed the back of the neighboring house before the brambles had claimed it, this had been a mud pit.
An eyesore.
But the man who now rose from the water of the hot tub was certainly not an eyesore.
Bloody hell, he’s no old Uncle Beardsley.
“Uncle Bea said you were a Bow,” he said in a plummy sneer. Then he grinned and held out his hand, as though Tarquin weren’t juggling a glass of French brandy and Queen Elizabeth’s favorite dildo. “Christopher Hardacre. You can only be my new next-door neighbor. You’re exactly like Bea said you were in his letters. I feel like I already know you!”
Tarquin shoved the dildo into his pocket, its curved end poking out like a rhino horn. He held out his hand. “Your Uncle Beardsley was a dreadful old git—never got on with him, and he always pronounced my name wrong just to rile me. I’m Tarquin Bough, as in cough, and that’s the end of it. Christopher Hardacre, eh? My new neighbor!”
As Tarquin shook Christopher’s square hand, his gaze wandered down the planes of Christopher’s dripping chest, down to his muscular stomach and those wet shorts that clung to his every contour.
My other dander’s up now, blast it.
The Captain and the Prime Minister #6
Tom lay sprawled on the beanbag between the two small beds—one shaped like a car, the other shaped like a boat. He’d almost sent himself to sleep with the twins’ bedtime story, but it finally seemed, from the sound of their gentle breathing, that they’d dropped off. He sat in the quiet, dimly lit room, the elephant nightlight casting its gentle glow. And in that glow, he re-read the text from Stuart.
Hey good lookin’, ya miss me? Through with Barca and heading home—you shud SEE my tan lines babe. Get ready Laaahndaaaan! x
Stuart wasn’t high on the list of people who Tom wanted to talk to. Their break-up had been acrimonious, Stuart furious at one too many dates being canceled at the last minute because Tom had to look after the twins. ‘You love that family more than you love me!’ And off Stuart had gone to Barcelona.
Except, apparently, Stuart was back.
And that list of Tom’s was rather brief.
It’d be rude not to reply, wouldn’t it?
Tom lifted his head and glanced at the children. They were both sound asleep, so Tom carefully got up from the beanbag and tapped his reply.
Hey Stuart yeah I’m still in London. Maybe I’ll see you sometime? T.
They’d been through a lot—both ex-army, both gay, although Tom’s career had taken an unusual turn when he’d decided to become a nanny. Or manny, as the press had christened him. But it worked. Captain Southwell had transformed into Tom, but he still dealt with crises before breakfast, and marshaling small children was just as challenging as directing a company in a warzone.
The reply took seconds.
Believe it manny Tom. I’ll be knocking on door of no 10 and sayin’ where’s my man ;) xx
Tom worked on the principle that being hostile to exes wasn’t the mark of a gentleman, but, equally, dealing with someone who thought Tom was his man after all this time wasn’t a task that filled him with joy.
I thought your man’s in Barcelona? T.
And his phone rang, vibrating silently in his hand as Tom heard the flat’s front door opening and closing softly, so as not to disturb the sleeping children. The prime minister was home.
Tom stuffed the phone into his pocket. He wasn’t going to answer it—he had a family to look after.
Before Alex had reached the kitchen doorway, Tom had poured him a glass of wine. It sat there on the worktop when Alex appeared in the doorway, his hand already loosening the knot of his tie.
“All the way from the House I was thinking about diving into a huge glass of red wine.” Alex chuckled, widening his eyes at the sight of it. “And there it is!”
“You look like you could do with one!” Tom said.
“The thought of cuddling Al and Mad and a little sniff of red is what’s kept me going through the last two hours of paperwork,” Alex told him, slapping a matey hand to Tom’s shoulder and letting it linger there. “As soon as I hit the bottom of the despatch box, I made for home. I don’t suppose there happens to be any supper left over, or am I raiding the fridge again?”
Tom passed him the glass across the marble worktop. “There’s a shepherd’s pie waiting for you if you’d like it?”
“If anyone finds out about this, they’ll be tempting you away with a pay rise,” Alex teased. “I already have to tell them you’re like the anti-Mary Poppins to throw them off the scent.”
Tom checked the pie in the oven then turned it on to warm.
“I don’t have a magic carpet bag, and I’m not into chimney sweepers,” he said. “I have no intention of leaving, tempt me all they like!”
“If any chimney sweeps do come along, I want to know about it,” Alex told him. Then he raised his glass to his lips and took a grateful drink. “I can’t lose my shepherd’s pie whisperer.”
“Do you want to eat in here, or in the lounge?” Tom hoped he’d say the lounge, because if Alex put the television on in the kitchen and discovered that the last channel Tom had watched was BBC Parliament, it might be rather awkward.
It’s because the children wanted to see you when they came home from preschool. Honest.
“Lounge, sofa, general couch potato of a night?” He nodded, apparently satisfied with his own suggestion. “Did you eat with the kids?”
“Well, I tried! We had sit-down dinnertime together but Madeleine wanted to draw at the same time, so I had my hands full.” Tom dragged his hand back through his hair. “I think I got all the sweetcorn out of my hair, but I’m not sure!”
“I’m going to nip in and see them before I eat,” Alex decided. “I hate that I missed them tonight and I know they’re asleep, but it’s really for me, not them. But you know that.”
“I know.” Tom patted his arm. “They’ll know you’re there. You’ll suddenly pop up in their dreams.”
“Oh, God help them! Then you have to be off the clock, Tom, you know that. Much as I love coming home to you and your shepherd’s pie, you must be cursing my name?” He assumed a grumbling mutter to say, “Bloody Alex keeping me bloody working all bloody hours.”
“It’s not really work, though,” Tom assured him as he got a tray ready for Alex. “We’re like housemates!”
“I couldn’t ask for a better fellow to share with.” Alex laughed and brushed Tom’s shoulder as he headed for the door. “I’ll be back, Captain!”
Tom leaned against the kitchen cupboard, flicking through a recipe book. He heard Alex’s footsteps through the baby monitor and saw the night-vision version of the prime minister on the screen. Tom should have gone back to his book to give Alex his privacy, but he couldn’t resist a glance at Alex crouched beside his child’s bed. He was such a kind father and it brought a lump to Tom’s throat. Thank God Stuart hadn’t rung again and shattered their peace. He didn’t need it tonight, and Alex certainly didn’t.
Tom heard Alex’s voice, as gentle now as it had been commanding in the Chamber earlier, wishing his sleeping children sweet dreams. Then, as he always did on the rare nights that he didn’t make it home in time for supper and bedtime with the twins he adored, Alex remained in the room for a while. He settled onto the beanbag where Tom had sat just a few minutes earlier and became part of the peaceful scene, soaking up the calm in that sometimes rather busy room that his son and daughter shared. And though the two children slept on, surely they sensed that protective presence watching over them until, with a whisper of, “I love you,” Alex rose to his feet and made his careful way toward the door.
Alex was such a lonely figure sometimes, and during those moments Alex shared with his children, Tom wondered if he was thinking of his late wife.
He shouldn’t ever be lonely. Gill wouldn’t have wanted it, and Tom certainly didn’t. Alex deserved to be loved.
“I see the permanent marker has almost washed off of Alastair’s cheek,” Alex observed cheerfully as he padded back into the kitchen. He returned to the serious business of unknotting his tie and added, “You must have magical skills that I lack!”
The sound of the silk rasping against Alex’s hand very nearly sent a tremor through Tom, but he pushed it down.
You can’t think those things about your straight boss.
“We had a game at bathtime—I made them beards and mustaches out of bubbles, then rubbed them off. Al didn’t notice a thing—he was too busy laughing.”
“See, I learned the hard way that saying don’t scribble on your face is the guaranteed way to get a little monster like my son to scribble on his face.” Alex threw his tie onto the worktop. Then he unfastened his silver cufflinks and tossed them with only a little more care atop his discarded tie. Tom knew what was coming next even before Alex rolled first one immaculate sleeve to his elbow then the other, because he knew Alex’s routine as well as his own. And his arms are to die for. “He’s joining a long line of Hart boys who never did as they were told!”
Tom chuckled. “Were you naughty, then?”
You wish he still was naughty, Tom.
“I was a terror.” Alex leaned forward to peer through the glass door of the oven, his hands braced against his knees. “But I went one better—I drew on my sister’s face while she was asleep. Gave her a mustache to be proud of!”
“And having met your sister—!” Tom tried not to notice how the fabric of Alex’s suit trousers strained pleasingly across his bottom as he leaned down. He was a fine figure of a man—Tom would be an idiot not to notice. “Bet she was pleased!”
“Oh, she loved it, you can imagine how thrilled she was!” Alex stood straight again and turned to face Tom. “You don’t have to hang around if you don’t want to, you know. Honestly, I can’t imagine this is how you want to spend your off time.”
“If I worked in an office all day, I’d be chilling at home just like I’m doing now, so… It’s fine, honest.” Tom slipped the recipe book back on the shelf. He liked being part of a family, too. In some ways it made up for the lack of his own. “I should apologize for these jogging bottoms, though. I don’t think I’ve even jogged in them. But then…you wouldn’t want to see me in my pajamas, would you?”
Although I wouldn’t mind seeing Alex in his again.
“This is your home, Captain Southwell. If you have to see me bleary-eyed in my bath towel now and again, I wouldn’t complain if you wanted to wear your pajamas after a long day trying to keep my children in line!”
Alex in a bath towel. That’s a thought to ponder.
“I say pajamas, I actually sleep in—” My boxer shorts. Oh, God, he doesn’t want to know that. “Do you want to see what the twins got up to at preschool today?”
Tom was already delving into the satchels that Alastair and Madeleine carried about as proudly as the chancellor wielded his briefcase on Budget Day. Alex gave an impromptu drumroll, pounding his hands on the worktop, and asked, “Go on, show me.”
“Ta-da!” Tom produced a sheet of paper from Madeleine’s bag and handed it over. “They had to draw their families, so she’s done you in the House of Commons. She’s even got the green seats right, although she’s only given you three strands of hair.”
“But what excellent strands they are.” Alex laughed, brushing his hand back through his rather more generous head of real hair. “But who’s the terrible threesome watching from the benches? Alastair’s hair’s looking rather bluer than I remember, but she’s got Gill’s curls right, and as for you… How is it that I look like a balding headteacher and you look like a film star?”
With a deliberately camp flourish, Tom said, “Oh, just my fabulous good looks! I suppose I’m the minister of tidying up the toy box?”
“A deserved gold star for Mads.” Alex beamed proudly. He took the picture and placed it on the fridge, where it joined a gallery of his children’s artistic efforts. “At least she drew it on paper, not on her brother’s face.”
“And that’s why I suggested wipe-clean paint on the walls in this house!” Tom said. “You never know when a pen or a crayon’ll go rogue. Face, walls, clothing—if it’s a surface, it can and will be drawn on.”
“The question is will Tom’s shepherd’s pie win a gold star of its own?” Alex peered at his reflection in the silver fridge door. “And will my hair survive the last year of its first Downing Street term?”
“You’re not doing too badly. Not like some former PMs I can think of who start off with a full head of dark hair and end up with hair as white as Father Christmas.” Tom peered into the oven. “That smells good, doesn’t it? It’s bubbling like a lava flow.”
“I don’t know what we’d do without you,” Alex admitted, swirling the wine in his glass. “Honestly, Tom, I really don’t.”
Tom put on the crocodile oven gloves and brought the shepherd’s pie out of the oven. So many confused feelings swirled through him at that moment, clashing with the resolutely homely image of the pie in his hands. Because he wasn’t sure what he’d do without them either. Sometimes he had to remind himself that they weren’t his children, and when Maddy put him in her family drawings, it made it even harder.
And that was before Tom addressed the fact that Alex was gorgeous. He shouldn’t have a crush on his boss, but he did. He hadn’t to begin with—Alex was handsome, yes, but he had been Gill’s husband. And after Gill’s death, Tom had seen him as the twins’ father.
But something had changed.
One day, for no reason that Tom could identify, he’d seen Alex in a different light, and he’d realized then that he’d developed a crush on him.
Even though, in more ways than Tom could count, his crush was utterly hopeless.
“I suppose you’d eat more takeaway without me!” Tom laughed.
“That’d be the least of our worries.” Alex smiled, raising his glass to his lips. He leaned back against the worktop and closed his eyes, transformed into a picture of relaxation. Switching off was a skill, Tom had to admit, and one that Alex had done well to learn.
‘I don’t know what we’d do without you.’
As Tom dished up, he tried his best to drive away the demon on his shoulder who wanted to read far more into Alex’s words than the man must’ve meant.
He’s straight and he’s the prime minister. Dream on, Manny.
Catherine Curzon is an author and royal historian of the 18th century.
In addition to several non-fiction books on Georgian royalty, available from Pen & Sword, she has written extensively for a number of internationally-published publications, and has spoken at venues and events across the United Kingdom. Her first play, Being Mr Wickham, premiered to sell-out audiences in September 2019.
Catherine holds a Master’s degree in Film and when not dodging the furies of the guillotine can often be found cheering for the mighty Huddersfield Town. She lives in Yorkshire atop a ludicrously steep hill with a rakish colonial gentleman, a long-suffering cat and a lively dog.
Eleanor Harkstead likes to dash about in nineteenth-century costume, in bonnet or cravat as the mood takes her. She knows rather a lot about poisons, and can occasionally be found wandering old graveyards. Eleanor is very fond of chocolate, wine, tweed waistcoats and nice pens, and has a huge collection of vintage hats. She is the winner of the Best Dressed Sixth Former award and came third in the under-11s race at the Colchester Fire Swim.
Originally from the south-east of England, Eleanor now lives somewhere in the Midlands with a large ginger cat who resembles a Viking.
Catherine Curzon
Eleanor Harkstead
EMAIL: contact@eleanorharkstead.co.uk
The Captain and the Cavalry Trooper #1
The Captain and the Squire #5
The Captain and the Prime Minister #6
AMAZON US / AMAZON UK
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Series
AMAZON US / AMAZON UK
B&N / KOBO / PRIDE PUBLISHING
WEBSITE / GOODREADS TBR
B&N / KOBO / PRIDE PUBLISHING
WEBSITE / GOODREADS TBR
Series
AMAZON US / AMAZON UK
B&N / KOBO / PRIDE PUBLISHING
WEBSITE / GOODREADS TBR
