"A Round for everyone on me. It's a healthy boy. Touch and go, but both are doing fine."
The young man at the pub bar in Little Stoke, a pocket village northwest of Exeter, Devon, raised his glass of ale and everyone cheered him—or the declaration of the free refill. A few came over and pounded the not-much-more-than-a lad on the back, congratulating him on the good news.
All was mirth in the pub, not only because of the free round, nor for happiness for this newly minted father not more than eight months invested in the tight little smallholding farm area, having come up from the wilds of Cornwall. Much of the laughter was from the general knowing that Mary Finch's baby wasn't his, but Tim Kennel's, who was holding court at one of the large tables of rowdies near the big window onto the street and celebrating with the best of them for what he had avoided.
As quickly as they had converged on him to pat him with one hand and to hold out their mugs for the free refill, the roughly dressed and mannered men in the pub at the conclusion of a hard working day drifted away from the well-formed young man with tussled blond curls; a face more pretty than handsome, as finely and sensitively chiseled as it was; and with bedroom eyes and full, sensuous lips. Six months was not enough to make him one of theirs—not by a long shot. He would remain what he had arrived in Devon as—the second son of a small farm holder in the wilds of Cornwall, bought for an appearances-sake white wash job with the promise of a smallholding farmer's claim in the rolling hills between Little Stoke and Higher Stoke.
James Hardesty looked up, almost glassy eyed at the rapidity with which an empty circle opened up around him in a crowded, smoky room of boisterous laughter and glad handing. This immediate withdrawal of camaraderie came with the exception of the table almost in the shadows at the far wall, where, his eyes following Jamie's every movement, sat the lord of what passed for a manor in Little Stokes.
Catching Jamie's eye, Thomas Owencraft, the village's major landholder, gestured with his hand, and looking for a connection, any connection, Jamie walked over to the table and took the proffered chair next to Thomas.
"Let me congratulate you on fatherhood, James Hardesty," Thomas said, as Jamie sat down at the table. The young man glowed a bit at the local high landowner knowing his name. "Sit and let me stand you one. You be drinking Black Jack if my eyes didn't deceive me."
"Yes, thanks, but I haven't finished the one I have."
"Well, you will, I'm sure, by the time Old Peter hobbles over here with another, and this is no occasion to be dry," Thomas said, raising Jamie's glass and signaling to the barman for another like it. "I wouldn't be neighborly if I didn't stand a new father a drink. Your first, is it?"
"I did have an ale before this."
"No, lad, I mean the first child." Owencraft laughed companionably as if the young man had made a purposeful joke—and successfully so.
Jamie nodded his head in the affirmative, blushing at his mistake.
"Ah, and a son. Both a comfort and a blessing in the long run, but a vexing burden now and again between. I must confess that I regret Edith and I never having had a child."
"Thank you," was all Jamie could think of saying. Having come into the pub for the company in a time that should be a celebration—an instant family and a promise of his own small farm if he kept to that family. It was more than he could have expected back in Cornwall, where, on top of being a second son in a land-poor family certain discomforting conditions had been building up so he was pleased for what he thought of as an escape.
"Ah, the Black Jack has arrived," Thomas said, with a little laugh. "Drink up the one you have lad so that you can tuck into the other."
"I really shouldn't drink too many of these," Jamie said. "I must confess that I can get lightheaded from the hard ale and lose myself." Nonetheless, he downed the last of his second glass of Black Jack so that Old Peter could take the empty away and pulled the fresh glass toward him.
"Tonight doesn't count on that; tonight is for celebrating," Thomas responded. "It's only once that a man celebrates the birth of a first son."
Jamie frowned at this. How well he knew the greater celebration that was had for a first son over a second.
Owencraft reached over and patted Jamie on the back and then squeezed his shoulder. "Uh, sorry," he said, as Jamie flinched at the touch. "Didn't mean to press. Some can be really sensitive. Some suffer from pain, although you're much too young for the arthritis, or, as some say, some are sensitive to the turn-on zones." He gave Jamie a wink.
"Turn-on zones?"
"Yes, what they call erogenous zones in fancier terms. We all have them, they say." But then he backed off a bit. "A bit too easily into the cups, you confess? I must confess that I shouldn't even be here tonight. Edith thinks I'm at a town counsel planning meeting. But I need to stop in here now and again—just to survive Edith—and to have my smokes. Edith thinks I've given them up, but I confess that I haven't been able to, not completely. Yet another deadly sin to confess. But we all have our sins to confess, do we not, James? Thank god she's gone to London to shop for the weekend. Your Mary birthed at home, on your farm, did she?"
"No. There were complications. She's at Doctor Granger's infirmary—with the baby—for a few days."
"Is she now?" A pause and then, "I also have to confess that I don't like ale all that much. I'm a wine man, myself. But I can hardly order that in this pub, can I? I like to mix with the working man now and again, but it wouldn't do for the lord of the manor to take on airs in this kind of pub, now would it? That's what they call me around the village—the lord of the manor—and don't I know they don't always keep a straight face when they say it?"
Jamie hadn't thought about this pub being a working man's pub, but as he looked around, he could see that that was what it was. Well, he was a working man now himself—hardly making do. Still not being accepted as one of them here, though. "Ah, I see what you mean. I really should be comfortable here then, but . . ." here he paused, as Thomas had signaled Old Peter again and another Black Jack appeared at Jamie's elbow ". . . I don't fit in here as yet. These men are making do. I must confess that if it wasn't for Mary's father adding to our take, I couldn't even be raising up to the working man level around here. The farm is so small and there is so much I have to learn about making a living off the land."
"So, you might be interested in some extra work here and there, are you saying? Like maybe with some light jobs around the manor house now and again for a bit extra? For a bit of give and take?"
"Yes, that would be very good of you," Jamie answered, taking a deep swig of his forth mug of Black Jack.
"I could be quite good for you," Thomas said in a distant voice. "It's hard to make friends in an isolated, close-knit village such as we have here. Especially if you're a bit different. With my position in the village, I'll always be a bit different, I confess. Do you feel a bit different, James?"
"Yes, a bit, I too confess."
"Still a man needs friends, doesn't he, James? I could be a good friend to you. the different people should hold together, don't you think?" A hand went to Jamie's knee and squeezed gently. Jamie jerked and looked up into Thomas' eyes with a somewhat glassy gaze.
"Oh, sorry, Is that one of those zones for you? I confess I have one myself. On my inner thighs. Have you none to confess? We all do."
"Uh, a hand on my lower belly can do it," Jamie answered, somewhat reluctantly.
"Yes, that's the right of it that I heard."
Jamie's head lifted up. He gave Thomas a look that seemed to convey that something had been said that was both significant and surprising, but that, after more than three glasses of Black Jack ale, he couldn't quite put his finger on.
Thomas became more explicit. "I confess too, James, that I became curious about you when you moved here—just appeared. And I checked with some friends down in Cornwall. As I said, we different people need to stick together."
"Oh." Jamie couldn't think of much else to say. He still wasn't fully catching on.
"But look at you, sitting in front of an empty glass. What sort of friend lets that happen for another friend." He was signaling to Old Peter.
"No, really, I've had more than enough. But thanks."
Another full mug of Black Jack hit the table top, and Old Peter scooped up the empty. Jamie nervously reached for the full glass, which was only half full when it came away from his lips. His hand was shaking. He sensed that he was missing something in the conversation—something important. Thomas moved his hand up from where it had been gripping Jamie's knee to Jamie's waist, where he gently pulled Jamie's T-shirt from the waistband of the young man's jeans and laid his palm on Jamie's lower belly. With a whimper and a sigh, Jamie noticeably relaxed his body into his chair and let his arms go limp beside him.
"I have an even darker confession to make, James," Thomas whispered. "I'm what they call bisexual. I fuck men as easily as I fuck women. Don't you have an equally dark confession to make, as well?"
"A dark confession? I've sold my soul for a few measly acres of farmland and a rundown stone cottage and barn," Jamie murmured. "The baby isn't even mine. It wouldn't be."
