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"Careful," Caspian rasped, as Benedict put his arms around him. "Ribs."
Benedict pulled back. He looked at him: at that grey, exhausted face, and the stubborn irony still in it, entirely intact.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"Just be careful."
Benedict turned to the men in livery.
"Thank you," he said. "I'll take it from here."
They nodded and withdrew.
Benedict took Caspian's hand and drew it over his own shoulder. He put his arm around his waist.
"I can walk," said Caspian.
"I know."
"Benedict "
"I hear you." He tightened his hold. "You're walking yourself. I'm just here."
Caspian did not argue.
They went up the stairs slowly. Benedict could feel that he was breathing shallowly, the way a person breathes when full breath costs too much. He could feel the ribs beneath his hands, too prominent through the fabric. In profile, from the corner of his eye, he could see the hollowed face, the dark shadows beneath the closed lashes.
Alive.
Nothing else mattered yet.
***
He brought him to his own room: warm, with a fire already lit, the bed already made up. Benedict did not ask when anyone had found the time. He was simply grateful.
He helped Caspian sit on the edge of the bed. He took off his coat, one sleeve at a time. Caspian sat quietly, eyes closed, breathing.
"A doctor," said Benedict, without turning.
"One has been sent for," Violet answered from the doorway. Her voice was steady and practical. She stood in the frame, looking at Caspian. "Hot water in a few minutes."
"Thank you."
She left. Benedict stayed.
He removed Caspian's coat. Beneath the shirt: bandages, darkened in several places. Benedict did not ask where they had come from. He would ask later, when there was room for it.
"Lie down," he said.
"I am not an invalid."
"I know."
"Then stop looking at me as though "
"Caspian."
He went quiet.
"Lie down," Benedict said again.
Caspian lay back. Slowly, holding on to his hand. He sank against the pillow, closed his eyes, and exhaled.
Benedict sat beside him on the edge of the bed and took his hand. Simply held it.
Beyond the window London went on as it always did, loud and indifferent. Somewhere below, the footsteps of servants, voices, the clink of crockery. An ordinary evening in an ordinary house.
Caspian was not asleep. Benedict could tell by the uneven rise and fall of his chest, the barely perceptible tension in his fingers.
"You thought I was dead," Caspian said. "I'm sorry."
"Don't. Don't apologise for something you didn't do."
Caspian turned his head slightly and looked at him with exhausted eyes. But living ones.
"They told me the same thing," he said. "That you had given up. That you were gone." He swallowed. "I didn't believe it."
"Good."
"It was irrational. The probability "
"Caspian."
"What?"
"Be quiet," Benedict said, gently.
Caspian was quiet. He closed his eyes again.
The doctor came shortly after: elderly, unhurried, the kind of physician who has seen everything and is surprised by nothing. He examined with brisk efficiency and few questions. Two cracked ribs. A cut above the brow, already closing. Bruising. Marks on the wrists from rope.
Benedict looked at those marks and said nothing.
"Bed rest," said the doctor, closing his bag. "A week at minimum. Breathe as deeply as you can manage, despite the pain: otherwise there will be complications with the lungs. Fluids. Light food." He glanced at Benedict. "And don't tire him with conversation."
"Understood."
"You might also consider sleeping yourself, sir. You look no better than the patient."
He left. Benedict returned to the bed.
Caspian was still awake.
"You heard the doctor," Benedict said.
"I have a cracked rib, not a cracked ear."
"Then don't tire yourself with conversation."
"You are the one talking." The faintest movement at the corner of his mouth: not quite a smile, only the beginning of one. "I am perfectly silent."
Benedict looked at him. At that drawn face with its trace of irony, which had not disappeared even now.
"I'll bring you something to eat. And a book, if you'd like."
"Which book?"
"Whichever you want."
Caspian considered for a moment.
"Dante. If there is one."
***
The book was found: the very volume Penelope had brought. Benedict came back with a tray, a bowl of broth and bread, and the worn copy.
"I can manage myself," Caspian said.
"I know."
But he helped him sit up anyway, and added another pillow behind him. Caspian ate slowly, without appetite, simply because it was necessary, and they both understood that.
Then Benedict opened the book.
"Where shall I start?"
"The beginning. The first canto."
Benedict read quietly and evenly, without particular expression: he was a painter, not a reader, and words came to him differently. But Caspian lay with his eyes closed and listened, and his breathing gradually steadied, and the tension went out of his fingers, out of his shoulders, out of the line between his brows.
Benedict went on reading. Somewhere around the third page Caspian fell asleep. Benedict did not realise it at first, thinking he was simply lying still. Then he saw how the face had softened, how the breathing had levelled: slow, deep, finally deep. He read the paragraph to its end. Then he closed the book.
He sat there. He looked at him in the light of a single candle.
He thought about how, only a few days ago, he had been certain he would never see this face again. How Penelope had brought him Dante and he had not been able to open it.
Now he could.
He pulled the armchair closer to the bed, drew a blanket over himself. He took Caspian's hand and pressed it briefly to his lips.
*Alive. Here. Close.*
He closed his eyes.
He woke when the first pale light was just beginning to appear outside. Caspian was sleeping. Benedict sat in the quiet of early morning for a little while longer. Then he rose, straightened the blanket, and crept out.
In the corridor he nearly walked into his mother.
Violet was standing by the door with a cup of tea, in her morning cap, as though she had been awake for some time. She looked at him. Then at the armchair visible through the open door.
She said nothing.
She simply held out the cup.
***
A week passed like that.
The days were made of small things. Benedict brought food: at first only broth and bread, then, once the doctor permitted it, proper meals. Caspian ate without argument, though he had little appetite. Then they would talk, or not talk. Silence had become natural between them, almost easy. Sometimes Benedict drew in the armchair by the window while Caspian read. In the evenings Benedict read aloud: Dante first, then Virgil, and once, at Caspian's request, something in French. He stumbled over words; Caspian corrected him; it was funny. They laughed carefully, because laughter cost Caspian something in his ribs, but they laughed all the same.
On the third day Caspian sat up by the window on his own.
He asked for a pen and paper. "I want to write to my mother. I know she is gone. But I want to, all the same. May I?"
"Of course," said Benedict.
He wrote for a long time without explaining what. Then he folded the sheet and slid it under his pillow. He lay back. Closed his eyes.
"Thank you for everything," he said quietly. "For your patience. For listening when I was silent. For not letting me go, even when I wanted to give up."
Benedict only shook his head.
Late that evening Benedict reached for the armchair, intending not to disturb Caspian's sleep. But Caspian caught his hand.
Not firmly. Only fingers around his wrist, the lightest possible pressure.
"Stay a little longer," he said quietly, into the darkness.
Benedict stayed. He lay down beside him. Said nothing, only waited.
For a long time there was silence. London made its distant night sounds beyond the window, as though in another world entirely. In the room, only the fire and the breathing of two people.
"That evening," Caspian began, "I heard footsteps on the stairs. I thought it was you. You always walk the same way: I had learned your step."
He stopped.
"I got up. Went to open the door."
Benedict did not move.
"I opened it. And then I remember nothing. A blow from behind, and then darkness."
Caspian's voice was level, almost without inflection. The voice of someone who has lived through this inside themselves too many times already.
"I came to in a cellar. I don't know where. Cold, dark, the smell of damp earth." He swallowed. "My father was standing over me."
Benedict felt something contract in his chest.
"He said I would never see you again, or daylight. That he was tired of my existence."
The voice did not waver. But the fingers around Benedict's wrist tightened, fractionally.
"Then his men came. They were not in any hurry."
Caspian did not describe the details. Benedict was grateful: the marks on his body had already said everything.
"They brought food only once, perhaps. Water once a day, or perhaps I lost track of time." Caspian swallowed. "I thought about you the whole time. I told myself: Benedict will not stop. I knew it. I knew you well enough to know that." His voice shifted slightly. "But after a day or two I was no longer certain I would last long enough for you to find me."
The room was very quiet.
"I was saying goodbye to you," he said softly. "Already. I thought it was the end. And I regretted all the things I hadn't yet said to you. How much I regretted it."
Benedict's throat tightened; the words wouldn't come.
"Wait," said Caspian. "Let me finish."
He paused for a moment.
"And then I heard a commotion above me. Voices, a great many, none of them familiar. The cellar door came down. I didn't understand what was happening at first. They lifted me, carried me somewhere, then I was in a carriage..." He pressed his lips together. "I could barely take any of it in. I only kept thinking: where are they taking me. I was afraid of ending up back with him."
"But they brought you to me," said Benedict.
"Yes. To you."
The room settled into silence. It was long and warm and close, as though it had wrapped itself around them both.
Then Caspian's breathing hitched, slightly uneven.
"It's all right," he said, in a steady voice. A single tear ran along his temple. He did not appear to notice it.
Benedict said nothing. He simply drew Caspian closer, held him. Caspian closed his eyes and breathed in, slowly.
"I didn't say it then," he said, barely above a whisper. "When I was saying goodbye. I wanted to say it."
"I know," said Benedict.
"You don't know what exactly."
"I do."
A long silence.
"Of course you do," Caspian said.
He fell asleep a few minutes later. Just like that, with Benedict's hand in his. He breathed slowly, deeply.
Benedict lay beside him. He looked into the darkness. He thought about Caspian saying goodbye to him, lying in that cellar, saying aloud the things he had never said. He did not move to the armchair that night.
The days that followed were quiet. Caspian slept a great deal, spoke little. Benedict did not press.
On the seventh day the doctor returned. He examined Caspian, listened to his breathing, and nodded.
"He may get up. Gradually, but he may."
***
On the eighth morning Caspian came downstairs for breakfast.
Benedict walked beside him on the stairs: not holding him, only there, in case he was needed. Caspian kept one hand on the banister, moving slowly, straight-backed. Every step cost him something, but he went steadily, because Benedict was beside him.
In the dining room doorway he stopped.
The entire Bridgerton family was at the table. He knew their names but not their faces. All of them were looking at him. He felt it on his skin, every gaze at once.
With his free hand he found the seam on his cuff and pressed his fingers hard against it.
"Good morning," said Caspian.
Benedict stepped forward and turned to face him.
"Allow me to introduce you," he began. "My mother, Lady Violet Bridgerton. My eldest brother, Viscount Anthony Bridgerton, and his wife, Lady Bridgerton. My brother Colin and his wife Penelope. My sister Eloise."
Then he turned to his family.
"Caspian Blackwood."
Violet rose first. She came toward him. She took his hands in hers.
His hands were cold; he knew it. She gave no sign of it.
"You are very welcome here," she said. Simply, without preamble. "Sit down. You need to eat."
Caspian looked at her for a moment. Something in that simple gesture, her palms around his hands, warm and steady, kept him from answering immediately.
"Thank you," he said, at last.
Eloise was already on her feet, pointing to the chair beside her. Penelope quietly poured coffee and pushed the bread toward him, without a word. Colin looked at him openly, with curiosity and without judgment.
Caspian sat. He glanced around quickly, almost imperceptibly. He picked up his cup in both hands and held it, warming his palms.
An ordinary table. Voices, laughter, the clink of cutlery.
He set down the cup and looked at Benedict, who stood a little to one side and was smiling, barely, almost invisibly, only for him.
Something in Caspian's chest grew warmer.
He took a piece of bread. For the first time in a very long while, his hands were not shaking.
"I have read that Oxford had a magnificent library," Eloise said, before he had finished his coffee. "Did you make use of it?"
"Eloise," said Violet, gently.
"What? I am merely asking."
"Let the man drink his coffee first."
Colin laughed. Penelope smiled.
"I did make use of it," said Caspian. "The Italian poetry collection would have been the envy of many institutions."
Eloise lit up.
"There, you see. I knew we would get on."
"Benedict mentioned that you play," said Colin.
"I do."
"Well?"
"Colin " Benedict began.
"No, genuinely. Our pianoforte in the music room is gathering dust because no one "
"When the rib stops hurting," said Caspian, "I will play you something. If you'd like."
Colin nodded with the expression of a man who has just concluded a satisfactory transaction.
Anthony said nothing. He sat by the window and ate, occasionally answering Kate. He did not once look at Caspian. He did not once look at Benedict.
Breakfast was drawing to a close. The servants were clearing the plates. Violet rose.
Anthony rose after her. He crossed the room toward the door. He drew level with Caspian. He stopped.
Caspian looked up and swallowed.
They looked at each other: one second, two. Anthony studied his face with an expression Benedict knew well: an older brother making a decision, and the decision costing him something.
"Mr Blackwood," Anthony said at last. Brief and dry.
"My lord," Caspian answered, calmly.
Anthony nodded: once, barely perceptibly. And left.
Benedict exhaled.
***
Afterwards they were alone in the library.
Caspian sat in the armchair by the fire, no longer that grey figure of a week ago, though still careful in his movements. Benedict stood at the window.
"There is something I need to say to you," Caspian began.
"I'm listening."
"I have been thinking about it all week." He paused. "Waverley will not stop, Benedict. The Queen may protect us for a time. Lady Danbury knows where to apply pressure. But it will not last forever. We both know that."
Benedict turned.
"I know."
"Rome," said Caspian.
"Rome," Benedict agreed.
Caspian looked at him.
"You understand what that means." His voice was steady, but there was something in it that did not come easily. "You will be leaving everything behind. Your family. The Academy. All of this "
"The Academy rejected me."
"Benedict."
"My family will not disappear." He came and sat on the arm of Caspian's chair. "Mama will write to us. Eloise will send three letters a week and expect replies to each. Colin will appear in Rome in a year's time and say he happened to be passing through."
"Aren't you afraid?" Caspian asked.
"Yes," said Benedict, without looking away. "Afraid of being without you. Those are different things."
Silence.
"Rome has musical evenings," Caspian said after a pause. Carefully, as though trying the idea for size. "In private palazzos, in houses where people understand music."
"So you will play."
"Perhaps."
"Not perhaps. You will."
For the first time in all of this, Caspian felt the tension in his chest ease slightly. His hands, which had been clenched for so long, loosened. His heart stopped its relentless hammering.
"You are very certain," he said.
"I have heard you play," Benedict replied, quietly. "I know what you are."
Caspian nodded, and for the first time in a long while he allowed himself to breathe without bracing against what might come next. The fear receded, and in the space it left something rare and quiet took up residence.
***
The letters arrived after midday.
Two envelopes, one after the other. Both bearing the royal seal: dark wax and the royal arms. Mary brought them in on a tray with the expression of someone holding something that burned.
The first was addressed to Caspian.
He took the envelope in both hands. He looked at the seal for a long time. Then he broke it and unfolded the letter.
Benedict turned to the window to give him time. He heard only the silence behind him, the rustle of paper, and then silence again: long enough that he turned around.
Caspian sat without moving. In his hands, two sheets: one thick and official, covered in text and bearing formal stamps; the other thin, personal. He was looking at the second.
"What does it say?" Benedict asked.
Caspian did not answer immediately.
He read the lines again, as though verifying that they were truly there.
He exhaled slowly.
"Documents," he said at last. "Official ones. In the name of "
The words caught.
He looked at the sheet again, as though he still did not quite believe what was written on it.
A slow breath out.
"The Queen has given me my mother's name."
Caspian raised his eyes to Benedict.
"Caspian Reyne."
He said it with great care, the way one tries on something one cannot yet fully believe belongs to oneself.
"Caspian Reyne," Benedict repeated.
"Yes."
A silence. Outside, a carriage passed. Somewhere below, Eloise was laughing.
"And the second sheet?"
Caspian looked at the thin paper in his hand.
"From her personally." His voice had changed: quieter, almost wondering. "She writes that she knew my mother. That Anna Reyne was a woman of great worth. That she is glad her son carries her name."
Benedict looked at him. His face remained composed, but beneath the composure something else was there, and Caspian was not managing to conceal it quite in time.
He folded both sheets carefully. He placed them where the letter to his mother already lay: under the pillow, against his heart, in the place one keeps what matters most.
Then he looked up at Benedict.
"The second envelope is for you."
Benedict broke the seal. The letter was brief.
Only a few lines, written in a firm hand: not a secretary's, but her own.
The Queen thanked him for his loyalty to his friend, and for his letter of gratitude. She wrote that she had been glad to assist.
The final line was wrapped in courtesy so artfully that it would have been easy to miss, if one did not know how to read between the lines.
*London is beautiful in spring. Rome is beautiful at any time of year.*
He read it twice. Then he folded it and put it in his pocket.
"What did Her Majesty write?"
"She told me to take care of you."
"You wrote to her?" Caspian said, startled.
"Yes. While you were unconscious. I " He paused for a moment, as though hearing himself clearly for the first time. "I took the liberty of writing to Her Majesty. To thank her for what she had done for you."
Caspian looked at him in silence.
"You wrote the Queen a letter?"
"I did."
"Yourself?"
"Myself."
A pause: awkward, almost funny.
Caspian passed his hand slowly over his face, then gave a short, quiet laugh and stepped forward.
"You are an impossible man," he said.
But there was not a trace of reproach in his voice.
He came closer. Stopped very near. For a moment he simply looked at Benedict, attentively, almost searchingly.
Then he raised his hands and took Benedict's face in his palms.
Benedict did not pull back.
Caspian leaned in and kissed him: carefully at first, almost as a question. But Benedict caught the lapels of his coat and drew him in, and the kiss ceased to be careful. It became more urgent, deeper, with the desperate tenderness of two people who had spent too long being afraid this would never happen again.
When they finally drew apart, Caspian was still holding his face. He looked at him from very close, close enough that there was nothing between them but breath.
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***
A few days later Benedict asked everyone to gather in the drawing room.
They all came: Violet, Eloise, Colin and Penelope, Anthony and Kate. They settled as they always did, in their habitual places, almost exactly as always.
Caspian sat a little apart: not outside the circle, but not at its centre either, still uncertain of his place in this room. Benedict stood in the middle of it.
"I want to tell you something," he began. "Caspian and I are leaving." He paused for a moment. "For Rome. In ten days."
Silence.
Colin set his cup slowly in its saucer. Kate exhaled quietly. Anthony remained still at the fireplace.
"The documents are in order. The passages can be booked in two days." He looked at his mother. "This is the right thing to do. We all know it."
Violet was quiet. She looked at him for a long time, carefully. Then she nodded: once, barely perceptibly.
"It is not fair," said Eloise. "You should not have to leave. This is your city."
"Eloise," said Anthony.
"No. I want to say it." She raised her eyes to her brother. "It is not fair, and everyone in this room knows it. One can choose to say nothing or to say it aloud: neither changes what it is."
Anthony did not answer. He stood at the fireplace, looking away. Then he said:
"Rome is a fine city." Abruptly, without looking at anyone. "I have been. Good sky. Good food." A pause. "The galleries there will buy your work. You are a good painter, Benedict, whatever the Academy may have thought."
The room went very quiet.
Benedict stood. He crossed to his brother. Anthony looked at him with that same closed, difficult expression. Then something in him shifted, almost imperceptibly.
Benedict put his arms around him.
Anthony stood without moving for a moment. Then he gave one brief, heavy pat on the back. He stepped away.
"Write to Mama," he said, his voice slightly rough. "Every month."
"I will."
"And to me," Kate added, pressing her fingers to her eyes in the manner of someone who was absolutely not pressing her eyes. "I shall become attached and suffer in silence, which is worse."
"Kate," said Anthony.
"What? It is perfectly true."
Colin laughed. Then he stood, came to Benedict, and embraced him the way brothers do: firmly, briefly, without words. Penelope dabbed at her eyes with a napkin and gave every appearance of having done no such thing.
Eloise took Benedict's hand, hard, the way she had when they were children.
"I will come," she said. "Within a year. Perhaps sooner."
"Alone?"
"Perhaps alone. Perhaps with someone. That remains to be seen." She lifted her chin. "I will miss you," she said. Her voice did not waver, but her eyes were too bright.
Then she turned to Caspian. She looked at him steadily, without her usual speed and restlessness.
"Take care of him," she said. "You will tell him when he is working too hard? He doesn't know how to stop."
Caspian looked at her with the expression of a man who has just been incorporated into a family without prior notice.
"I will," he said.
"Good." Eloise nodded, with the air of someone who has settled an important matter.
Violet came last.
She took Benedict's hand. She held it for a long moment, looking at his face with the look of someone who is trying to memorise it. Then she turned to Caspian.
He rose.
She looked at him in silence. At that young face which was too old for its years. At the composure that did not come cheaply.
"Anna Reyne was a woman of great worth," she said. "You are like her, I think."
Something passed across his face, quickly, almost imperceptibly.
"Thank you," he said, at last.
Violet released his hands. She straightened. She looked at them both: at her son, and at the man beside him.
She said nothing more.
Sometimes words are not needed.
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