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The Key

Chapter 29

Dear Charlie,

_ _

I received your letter the last day before we were to set out from Loxney. Do not fret, as you are so apt to do. I understand why you wanted my Lily sent away. You could not know that I loved her. And as for Aunt Giselle . . . there is truly no stopping her once she picks her path and charges. Had you stood in her way, I dread to think what may have happened to you. She knows the truth about you Charlie. Unlike the rest of the court, she has more than mere rumor and hearsay - she has evidence. Forged birth certificates, letters addressed to and from your real mother, and false documents written up at Mother's insistence. It's enough evidence to strip you of what wealth Father left you and banish you from Howlester. So you were right to stay out of her way, and for your sake, I can only caution you to continue to do so. Your happiness is more important than anything she can try to do to me!

_ _

All that being said, I am sorry that Aunty is ailing and that Dick is not well. It's sort of like when Uncle Louis died, isn't it? Our Richie locked himself in his room and wouldn't speak to Aunty Giselle for days, and when he finally came out, they argued to hell and back and ruined every holiday since. He still believes that she poisoned Uncle Louis or some nonsense. But we all know Uncle Louis was very old and very sick long before Aunt Giselle ever married him.

_ _

As for Richie never hurting me . . . Must you defend him so? I could imagine your voice as I read your words, so ardent and earnest as you defended your precious cuddle bear. Yes, a part of me knows that Richie would never hurt me. But whenever he drinks like that . . . he terrifies me, Charlie. It terrifies me. When I later accused him of trying to force himself on me, he crumbled into a child and muttered that he did "no such thing." I can believe it was all taunting and groping and that it would have ended there once he had sufficiently frightened me, but it does not excuse his behavior, and I worry for you, keeping that wild beast in check.

_ _

But listen to me. Why do I worry? You always kept him in check when we were children. A swift pop on the mouth always tamed him. And I can't see him stepping out of line now. Not when he's finally got his Charlie on his arm. As he always wanted.

_ _

Take care of each other, will you? And take care of Howlester. It's our home.

_ _

As for my being pregnant, Lily tried to use magic to discern whether or not I was. Unfortunately, it is too early to tell. Perhaps I will find some way to write to you once we are in the wildlands. The escort his majesty sent with us has decided not to abandon us, and since they are not forthwith forever banished from Kingdom Varimore, one of them would be more than happy to run back to the post for me.

_ _

Their names are Eldon, Lenard, Sampson, and Chauncey. They are Danish Mastiffs from his majesty's elite personal bodyguard. Lenard is their leader and expressed a surprising amount of guilt and woe when he realized he could not simply lead us into the forest and abandon us. He pledged himself in my service, never minding whether or not his fellows would fall in line. But they did fall in line. All of them. When I protested that such a thing was treason, they insisted that they served me now, not the king, and that their conscience could not allow them to simply abandon a lady in the middle of no where. They shall stand by my side and protect me until their dying breath, they have said. I suppose chivalry is not dead after all, my brother.

_ _

Tonight is my last night in Loxney. If I am able, I will try to write again. Do take care, Big Brother. Your letters are my crack of sunlight.

_ _

Love always,

_ _

Evie

_ _

P.S. Tell Aunty Giselle I am sorry about the garden key.

_ _

"Sorry about the garden key?" Dick muttered. It was the middle of the night, and he was sitting at Charles' desk, reading the last letter Evelyn had sent him. He glanced over his shoulder at the bed, where Charles was sleeping peacefully in the wake of their lovemaking, his naked body wrapped in a sheet, his glasses still perched on his nose.

Dick was also naked and was wrapped in a sheet from the waist down. He rose and went to the bed, and smiling in amusement, he slipped Charles' glasses off his nose and placed them on the bedside table. Then he stood for a long time and just looked at Charles. There were some moments when he thought his lover utterly beautiful. This was one of them.

"Mm," Charles moaned, white mane tumbling in his closed eyes. His ears pricked forward as he listened to Dick getting dressed. "Where are you going . . .? Come back to bed." He sighed, the muscles of his shoulder and neck flexing naked above the sheet.

"In a little," Dick said, stepping into his pants. "I'm going to check on Mother."

Charles didn't open his eyes. He licked his lips and hugged a nearby pillow. "But you just checked . . ."

"That was an hour ago, love. I'll be right back . . ." Dick leaned over the bed and kissed Charles on the cheek.

Charles smiled. "Alright . . . Hurry back. . . ."

Dick quietly left the room. In truth, he had checked on his mother obsessively in the last hour, Charles just didn't know. She still hadn't woken up. A part of him was relieved. He felt cowardly for it, but he didn't think he could face her. He didn't want to look in her eye and admit that he loved Charles. It was far easier to scream such a thing at her back. But she was not going to believe it until he looked her in the eye and said it, and to do such a thing . . . would fill him with shame.

He was ashamed. All those long nights his mother screamed at his father, called him "queer," and ripped him to shreds with her words had left their mark on him. And indeed, hadn't his mother a right to be angry? Giselle had given Louis her very life in marrying him, and what did she receive in return? Male drawers in her bed, love letters from his trysts, the sounds of deep voices panting and gasping behind closed doors. She received the misery of knowing that her husband fancied males, that he could never fancy her, and that there was no way out of it. That's what she received.

And when the duchess was finished screaming at Duke Louis, she would hold Dick and tell him again and again that it was wrong to kiss other boys and he must swear he never would. And he swore. He swore every time.

But then he kissed Charlie.

It was an accident. Things like that usually are. How many of us actually see love coming? It usually just comes.

Dick and Charles were out at the lake together during a family holiday to Loxney. They were sixteen, bodies slender and tall. Dick had always been taller and had always been more fit. He and Charles had decided to swim at the lake - not because they wanted to, but because Dick and his mother had been arguing and Duke Verneus told them to go off for a while.

They had never been alone together before. And never in a place so utterly beautiful. Loxney was all gorgeous countryside, rolling hills, flowering trees. There were plenty of quaint paintings depicting Loxney with beautiful shepherd girls herding fluffy white sheep, boys playing the flute amidst its green hills, and girls skipping with flowers in their manes.

Loxney was a place of stillness and content and did not know much commotion. Foxes were all but unheard of in Loxney. If they ever appeared, it was to barter for sheep with the local shepherdesses. They would trade beaded necklaces, tools, skins of "magical" water and then disappear entirely. It happened so rarely that the white foxes who inhabited the area had become something of a fairy tale. Mothers in Loxney told their children to leave their teeth under their pillows and the good foxes would take them away, leaving a small vial of magical water in their place.

"It's called LakeBursting," Charles said as they walked along the muddy bank. His voice had been higher back then and had not fully come into pitch. His bathing suit was white with blue trim and covered his thin chest, though Dick could see the nipples poking through.

Young Dick laughed. He was wearing a green bathing suit that he absolutely hated, and his more muscular body flexed behind it. "Lake_Bursting._That's ghastly. Why not call it LakeBunghole or LakeBollocks --" _ _

Charles squeezed his eyes up and snorted with laughter. He slipped in the mud with a cry and nearly fell. Dick managed to catch him by the arms, but they went down together. Dick landed on top of Charles and pulled back to look at him. Mud had splattered Charles' spectacles, and Dick felt it on his cheek.

Charles laughed nervously, his white cheeks slowly blushing. "Heh, heh . . . oops."

Dick knew he should get up, but he didn't. He looked down at Charles with soft eyes and touched his cheek, brushed his white mane from his face. Charles shrugged off his touch and snorted again with nervous laughter. He was always snorting and nervous back then.

"Didn't mean to drag you down with me," Charles said apologetically. "Richard . . . what are you doing?" he whispered.

Dick frowned as he looked at Charles' lips. "I'm going to kiss you."

Charles gulped. "Why?"

"Because I want to . . ." Dick swallowed, then leaned in close. And they kissed, sweetly and slowly. When Dick pulled away, they were both breathless and flushed.

Charles frowned sadly. "We shouldn't."

"I know," Dick whispered, but he kissed him again, deeply, passionately. And as their heads twisted, he pressed Charles' paw to the mud and their fingers tangled.

Present-Day Dick pushed the memories away as he entered the room where his mother lay dying. The magnificent four poster bed was draped with translucent white curtains, and they lifted on the breeze that swept through the open window. The duchess had been feverish the last few weeks, and now the window was always kept open.

A nurse sat at the bedside, half-dozing with her cheek on her paw. She was young, an Airdale Terrier, with a curly brown mane tipped black. Her name was Jessica. Hearing Dick enter, she jolted up and babbled apologies, her dark brown eyes wide with fear. Dick felt a pang of guilt to see her fear. He had spent the last few weeks terrorizing the nurses and physicians and threatening to rip their reputations to shreds if he so much as caught them yawning on the clock. They had worked tirelessly to care for his mother, as if his whip was always lashing their tails.

But Dick had been slightly less of an ass to Jessica. Mostly because Haskell fancied her. And he couldn't blame him: Jessica embodied the word "buxom." She was breasts, hips, and ass, all jutting and high. Her quaint white nurse's uniform did nothing to suppress her charms. Her long mane fell to the stubby tail that twitched from the back of her dress, and her eyes were cloaked in thick black lashes so long, one could still see them when she turned her face. Haskell had begged again and again that Dick hire her on. He was certainly considering it, if not for the eye candy.

"Calm down, Jessica," Dick said wearily. "I just returned to check on Mother. Why don't you go out in the hall for a bit? Or perhaps . . . go see Haskell?"

Jessica's lashes fluttered and she lowered her face: she'd had no idea Dick knew about the two of them. "Very well, m'lord," she whispered and swept out, smelling of rosewater.

Dick swallowed hard as he approached the bed. The Duchess Giselle Evelyn de Lion lay there quietly, clad in a long white nightgown, her red mane loose around her sunken cheeks, her slanted eyes closed. She had the face of a female who had once been quite beautiful, but time, anger, and misery had swept the freshness of youth away far too soon. On her fingers her many rings still gleamed, and hanging around her neck on a long gold chain was a locket. Dick didn't need to open the locket to know what was inside. He had seen the thing many times before, during those long nights when his mother could not sleep. The Duchess Giselle would come to him in his room, and holding him in the rocking chair, she would open the locket and show him the portrait inside: Giselle and her older sister Victoria, little pups clad in little dresses, hugging each other with ribbons in their manes.

"Mother," Dick whispered, taking Jessica's vacated seat beside the bed. He smoothed his paw across the coverlet and took hers. "Mother, I need you to wake. I need to ask you something . . ."

Duchess Giselle moaned, but her brows went up, as if she were listening, searching for the source of that voice. She lifted her chin and turned her face slowly toward Dick. "Edward . . ."

Dick swallowed miserably. "Mother, no. It's Richie. Edward is gone . . . you sent him away."

Giselle frowned sadly but still didn't open her eyes. "Richie . . . did you finish your letters? Like a good boy? Madeline should have baked cookies for you . . . oatmeal. My clever boy's favorite."

Dick sighed. She was not only feverish but delirious. Talking to her usually yielded such babble. For the past week, she seemed to believe that Dick's older brother Edward was still at home, that she was at Glenhowler, and that Dick was five again. He smiled: perhaps those were the best days of her life.

"Mother, listen to me," Dick said and squeezed her fingers. "Evelyn said something about the garden key in her last letter to Charles --"

"That fool girl!" the duchess growled, and Dick couldn't believe it when his mother opened her eyes and immediately came to her senses. Ah. So that's what it took.

Giselle's angry eyes flashed once at Dick and she snatched her paw away. Dick frowned sadly as she started to cough, her sagging breasts heaving with each rattling breath. She struggled to sit up as the coughing bout continued, and with flat ears, he helped her.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded bitterly but allowed Dick to fluff up the pillows behind her. "Where is that Charles boy? He's much gentler - the v-vial! Mmprh! Empty it in my tea and give it to me. Hurry, boy!"

Dick obeyed, stirring the medicine before tipping the teacup to his mother's lips. "You said Charlie was caring for you?"

"Better than those fool nurses you brought in. I never knew the boy was actually useful. Maybe he'd best stick around after all."

"Yes. Because it benefits you," Dick said darkly

The duchess glared. "Why _else_would I want him around?"

"Because he makes me happy?" Dick muttered.

"Why are you here?" the duchess demanded. Breasts still heaving, she snatched a fan off the bedside table and snapped it open, fanning herself. Her red locks fluttered back in the sudden artificial breeze. "They told me you only come when I'm asleep . . . . that you stand over me weeping. Weeping like a bitch."

Dick glared. His mother had always believed tears were for females. One reason she was constantly calling Charles a sniveling bitch. "Yes, how _dare_I show emotion," Dick returned bitterly. "You're lucky I cry for you at all, you murderess."

Giselle's lip curled. "Still on about that, are you? You've no proof I did anything to your father!"

Dick's chest heaved. "No proof!" he practically shouted. "I saw you slip him the poison! It's my last shred of love that keeps me from having you hauled off. You're right lucky you aren't dying in a cell, Mother. There are no four poster beds in prison, I assure you."

Her bitter eyes slid away from his and she snorted contemptuously. "If you are so desperate for the truth, the fool killed himself long before I came along. Caught something nasty from one of his little lovers. I only . . . helped ease his pain." She swallowed hard, and Dick was startled by the tears that sprang to her eyes. "He practically begged me to do it. And in all honesty?" She looked at Dick intently. "I wasn't sorry to."

Dick looked away. The anger in her eyes chilled him to the bone. He stared at the distant clock ticking on the wall and said nothing. He could hear his mother wheezing softly, and the occasional cough made her throat constrict. She was so hot and sweaty, her red mane was hanging like strings around her face. Without a word, he took up a kerchief and dabbed her face dry.

Giselle let the fan drop to her lap, suddenly tired as she closed her eyes and allowed Dick to wipe her face. "What about the garden, boy?"

"Evelyn did something with the key?"

Giselle's lip curled. "The day of your wedding, I spoke to her in the courtyard. It was my intention to lay down the law, let her know who was really duchess of this estate."

"Bet she didn't take that well," Dick muttered under his breath.

"We argued," the duchess went on, "as we have always argued since the moment she could talk. You know she was a brat. Always pinching you and talking back to me. That weakling Verneus refused to tame her. But I told her I wasn't her father: if she opened a mouth to me, I'd close it."

Dick smiled, waiting to hear how Evelyn handled such a threat. His guess was not well.

"The girl," went on Giselle darkly, "then shows me the key to the garden - pulled it out of her breasts like a harlot! She stole the damn thing while I was sleeping, the cow. Then she smiled and dropped it down the well." Giselle's lip trembled miserably. "I came here for that garden, to see it again, and she knew it. She knew just how to hurt me." She looked at Dick angrily. "Are the lot of you happy? You can't allow an old bitch a moment of peace before she dies? You have to take that away from her too?"

"Mother . . ."

"Don't pretend you weren't just smirking! You adore that girl. You think every time she bests me she's utterly brilliant. And of course she is. If she weren't, I wouldn't have given her to you!" The duchess regarded Dick a moment and slowly shook her head. "It's a right shame, isn't it, boy? Her running off like this. You say you love that mongrel, but I know when she left . . ." She touched Dick's face, the strong line of his jaw, and her eyes were sad. "I know how it hurt you."

Dick lowered his eyes, allowing the sympathetic touch of his mother's fingers. "But I love Charlie," he said to the coverlet. He looked his mother in the eye and said with a deep breath, "I do. I love him."

The duchess frowned and nodded. "I know," she whispered sadly.

Dick blinked at her, surprised. "You aren't . . ."

"Of course, I'm angry," she said darkly and her fangs flashed. "Evelyn was everything I wanted for you. Centuries of pure breeding _wasted_because Verneus' little bastard made lovey dovey eyes at you?"

Dick sighed. "Don't say such things, Mother." He crawled up on the bed, and like a pup, dropped his head wretchedly in her lap. He closed his eyes as her wrinkled fingers stroked his mane. He didn't see the loving light in her eyes as she looked down at him.

"But he makes my boy happy . . .?" Giselle whispered. She sounded confused. "Evelyn could have made my boy happy too, you know," she coaxed.

Dick smiled: it was as if she were trying to make him eat his brussel sprouts. "She could have, Mother. But what about her happiness?"

Giselle nodded sadly, and Dick knew she was thinking about her own life and what little happiness an arranged marriage had afforded her. "But . . ." she whispered. "Children. I want grandchildren . . . not that I'll live to meet them."

Dick frowned. "Don't say that, Mother. You're going to live."

"Will my boy t-take me to the garden?" she asked him sadly, hopefully, and her voice was so trembling and small, it was enough to break his heart.

"I can't. The key's down the well."

"Aunty Victoria had a key. There was a s-stone . . ." She began to cough. "Under a t-tree . . ."

Dick sat up and reached for the vial of medicine. He poured it on a spoon and offered it to her. "Here, Mother --"

"L-Listen to me," Giselle begged and closed her paw over his, pushing the medicine away. "Under a stone . . . under a tree . . . a tree with white flowers. Victoria put it there. So no one could enter the garden."

Dick stared at her. "But why?"

"So Richard c-could . . . rest in peace."