Charles by Con Riley

Epilogue

Casterley in late August

The day Hugo was due to leave him, Charles woke extremely early.

Even the doves still slept, their cote quiet below his window, and only the faintest streaks of sunrise found the gap in his drawn curtains.

The doves or light hadn’t woken him, Charles decided, but something had.

He rolled over, finding the other half of his bed empty.

That was how he used to like it—being free to starfish a limb to each of its far corners with no one to hog his space, or covers. Now though, that emptiness had him sitting up in a hurry.

“I thought we agreed,” he said to the empty room. “No more leaving without taking the time to say a proper goodbye to each other.”

“Sorry.” Hugo pulled the curtain back from where he’d been hidden from view, notebook and letters spread on the window seat beside him. “But at least I didn’t go far.”

Not yet.

Charles got out of bed and crossed the room to him, bollock naked. “Notebook,” he ordered, one hand held out.

Hugo passed it over.

“Letters.”

He gave them up too, taking care with their fragile edges, half of a smile hovering as Charles set them aside and climbed onto his lap.

Charles curled into him, held snug by arms he knew he’d miss having wrapped around him like this soon—arms that had opened to him here at Casterley since the start of the summer break. Now that the end of August rushed up, he wished they’d had longer than these few months.

“I like the view from here,” Hugo murmured into his hair. “I can see the lake. The folly wall too, in the distance. My close-up view isn’t bad either.” He smoothed back a fall of Heppel bone-straight hair so Charles couldn’t avoid his eyes. “It’s going to be a busy morning before I have to leave,” Hugo said. “I didn’t want to waste a minute of it.”

Charles nodded, pensive, which Hugo noticed.

“A busy day for you too, Charles. Your new trust’s first guests arriving at the folly is a big deal. It’s okay to be nervous.”

“I’m not worried about the first guests.” He really wasn’t. George and Keir and Dev had all fielded the trust paperwork for him. Setting up the folly as a refuge hadn’t been half as bad as he’d dreaded. He sat up straighter, craning his neck to see the wall that, once again, hid a welcoming shelter. One that would offer security and comfort for those in need of healing. “And the rehabilitation organisation we partnered with will manage it when we’re back at Glynn Harber.”

Charles met Hugo’s gaze, which was as warm as the sunshine had been all summer. It was also tinged with something else that Charles guessed at.

“You really don’t have to worry about me.”

Hugo dropped a kiss on his bare shoulder. “I know that.”

“You’re going away with Nathan for a week, not for forever. I’ll be fine without you for seven days.” Maybe fine was too strong a word for it. Hugo nodded as if he agreed, but his hold tightened. “Honestly,” Charles insisted, “I’ll be fine.”

No. That wasn’t the entire truth.

Charles clambered out of Hugo’s lap and grabbed the curtain, pulling it between them to make his real confession. “Listen. I can’t lie—”

“Can’t you?” Hugo’s disbelief came with a hint of laughter. “Are you quite sure, Charles? Only I’m almost certain that I heard you deny all knowledge of what Dev found in the attics yesterday.”

Charles grinned, trying but probably failing to keep that smile out of his voice. “I have no idea what you mean.” He peeked through a gap to see Hugo’s half smile spread into a full one.

“I mean that box of filthy magazines he found. The hairy ones from the 1980s.” Hugo tapped a final nail in that lie’s coffin. “Dev said there were an awful lot of pages missing.”

“Okay, okay. Here’s the real truth.” Charles held the curtain tighter, not wanting to see Hugo’s smile fade, especially after the summer they’d spent together here, which had made it blossom. “I am a teeny tiny bit worried you’re going to get blown up again.”

“Charles—”

“I mean, it would be bloody unlucky, but—”

“You mean, like catching crabs twice?” Hugo asked.

Charles let go of the curtain, indignant, facing Hugo with nothing between them. “That’s not even close to the same kind of unlucky that I’m worried about.”

Hugo watched him like he had on that first day in the chapel, compassion right there on his scarred surface. “How do you know you won’t catch crabs a second time, Charles?”

“Well I’m hardly likely to, am I? Not now we’re….” A hundred different words could end that sentence.

Charles chose the ones that meant the most to him.

“Now that we’re committed to each other.”

Now?

He’d been caught hook, line, and sinker from the first moment their eyes had met. Maybe even from before that, snared by this man who’d listened but who hadn’t judged him. Who still did, and might forever if….

Hugo saw him falter.

He reached for Charles, pulling him back onto his lap, his hold firm and strong and exactly what Charles needed. “Who could have guessed,” Hugo murmured, “that adjusting your behaviour might improve your chances of dodging a repeat of the same itchy outcome?” He pressed another kiss to the same spot as his first. “You don’t shag everything with a pulse now you’ve got me, and I’m not going to get blown up because I’ve made some changes too.”

His next kiss lingered, his voice low, stroking across Charles with velvet softness. “Nathan and I aren’t going anywhere near the city, this time. We’re only going as far as the border to get the last of the children from a neutral zone well away from any targets.”

“Yes,” Charles admitted. “I do know that. It’s just….” He wriggled, twisting to find Hugo’s mouth, kissing him before saying, “I’d rather be there with you.” Be a shield for Hugo somehow; form a stronghold wall around him; do anything, if that meant him coming home uninjured, this time.

“Listen,” Hugo ordered, reaching for the notebook Charles had set to one side. “I transcribed this from one of Huw’s letters to the first Charles while you were sleeping.” He flipped the notebook open. “It starts—”

“I can read it.” Charles laid his head on Hugo’s shoulder, reading slowly, Hugo’s handwriting so much clearer than Huw’s had been. “When the smoke clears, sometimes I can see stars. Do you steer by them, Charles, when you fly? Keep those lovely blue eyes on them? Or do you look down when you fly over the trenches? Don’t—”

He stopped. Cleared his throat. Started again.

“Don’t, darling. Keep your eyes on heaven.” He stopped again. “I can’t read the bit in Latin.”

“What we started together we will finish.” Hugo shifted then, getting to his feet with Charles in his arms, notebook abandoned, and all of the hidden strength that Charles had noticed on that first day coming into play until he dropped him onto their mattress. Hugo slipped off his sleep shorts and climbed over Charles, bearing weight on a knee that had fully recovered.

He kissed Charles again—his lips, his navel, each one of his nipples—marking a cross with his mouth that he swore over. “I’m going to finish what I started too, so we can move on with our lives together.”

Charles squirmed as Hugo dropped more kisses onto the skin of his belly that came alive, nerves singing as Hugo’s lips moved lower.

“I have to believe that,” Hugo said, lifting his mouth from the fine trail of hair he nuzzled. “I have to have faith in that outcome for us both.”

He settled on his stomach between legs that Charles had spread. One hand found balls that he cupped and rolled while saying, “I can’t guess at what’s already been written in the stars for us—planned before we even took our first breaths—but I can live in hope.”

“Hope?” Charles reached down to touch a face he’d wake up to every morning for the rest of his life, given the option. Would give up this house, or his name, if that made a difference, no title worth more than keeping Hugo with him.

“Yes,” Hugo said. “Hope that you and I are part of a bigger story. A longer one.”

“One with a happy ending?” Charles asked, head tipping back as Hugo stroked him to hardness, his grip perfect now instead of awkward, the twist of his wrist reason alone to give praise.

“Yes.” Hugo’s touch was so good. “The happiest ending ever.” His lips were light—too light—on the crown of his cock. “And for more people than me.”

“But I don’t want anyone else—”

Hugo lifted his head, his eyes clear and unshadowed. “I mean the happy endings that you and George have made possible with your gift of the folly. So many people will benefit, Charles. Not just to the first guests arriving today, or to the children I bring home with Nathan next week.”

Hugo lowered his head again, taking him into his mouth, and Charles stopped thinking.

Stopped worrying.

Let go, and gave up everything he couldn’t control.

He dropped that weight like a stone into the lake, ripples of worry replaced by the slow and sure ascension brought on by Hugo’s lips around him. By his hand stroking in a counterpoint where his lips met with his fingers. By Hugo bobbing his head faster, the spit-wet pad of a thumb finding where Charles opened, pressing there in a way Hugo hadn’t known how to until Charles had taught him. He hadn’t known how much Charles got off on his fingers deep inside him either. Now all of that felt easy—natural—only a few steps from heaven.

Charles let go of more than his worries then.

He let go of everything that tied him, giving it all up to this man who mattered so much to him. Who loved him, with his mouth and hands and body. Who was his own shield and shelter, and who knelt above him, slicking his cock with lube until it glistened.

“Love you,” Charles said. Would do forever, and he prayed he’d get to.

Hugo pressed inside him, unrelenting, pressure that Charles welcomed even as his eyes blurred with pain-tipped pleasure.

“Love you too,” Hugo promised.

They kissed until he adjusted, then Hugo did everything else he’d learned, taking Charles slowly at first, building to the kind of fucking that shunted him up the bed with one leg held against Hugo’s shoulder. Charles scrabbled to grab an extra pillow. He shoved it between his head and the headboard. “I’d love you even more if you didn’t give me a concussion,” he panted. “I mean, I like role play, but I’m going to be too busy today to play doctors with you.”

Hugo laughed, his face flushed and sweating as he laboured, grinning until his thrusts slowed and stuttered. He wrapped a hand around Charles again then, stroking him off as he got close. His face, which Charles only ever saw as perfect, twisted as he tried to rein in his orgasm.

“Don’t hold back. We’ll get to have more,” Charles promised. “So many more when you get home.”

And until then, Charles would hold onto this sublime moment—Hugo above him, transported with bliss that looked almost painful, which hastened his own climax. Charles spilled over his belly, shuddering, and Hugo’s tight hold on his leg loosened.

Charles let it slip down from Hugo’s shoulder, feeling boneless, not caring if the grip marks left on his knee turned into bruises later. They’d match Hugo’s own scars, so could act as a reminder. Just until he gets back safely, he thought, catching Hugo as he slumped forwards.

That was a prayer Charles wouldn’t cease until Hugo came home to him, leaving the past behind, he hoped, ready to do something positive with both of their futures.

* * *

The restof the morning was busy with arrivals.

The folly’s first guest arrived at ten. Charles made him welcome, then left him talking with Hugo.

A few hours later, the minibus Hugo would leave in arrived from Glynn Harber.

Charles stood with his brother watching its approach up the last half mile of the drive, deer scattering as it drew closer.

“How’s Felicity?” Charles asked while they waited.

“Still puking.” Delight was a good look on George. “It’s a promising sign.” He crossed his fingers.

Charles mirrored that action. “And the check-up yesterday went okay?” They talked openly now, all of them agreed that good news or bad, it would be easier on both George and Felicity to have more people to lean on.

“It went better than okay.” If George had a tail, he would have wagged it, like Agatha, who stood sentry beside her master. “I saw them. Saw their heartbeats. Their sacs. Even their little jaw bones. Wriggling away like—”

“The best ever maggots?” Charles suggested. It took a moment for everything George said to register. “Wait, did you say, ‘them’?” Charles forgot about the minibus then, catching his brother by the shoulders. “You mean—”

“You might be off the hook.” George wore an expression close to wonder. “Twin Heppels.” A shadow of worry flitted across his face. “Double trouble. I have no idea what to do with one child let alone two.”

“Don’t worry.” Hugo joined them. “Charles will teach you.” His voice carried the same surety it did when he spoke of the faith that shaped him. “He’s brilliant with children. You could learn a lot from him. Starting right now.”

The minibus pulled up. Nathan got out to open its sliding side door, letting out his passengers. A woman alighted first, quickly followed by a small boy with white-blond hair, who shouted.

“Charles Heppel! There are deer in your front garden! Is this really your house?” Tor shot out more questions. “Is that your dog? And how did the padre get here?” Then he said, “Is that your daddy?”

Charles grinned. Couldn’t help it. Couldn’t stop from jogging down the steps to meet him either.

“No, that’s my big brother. His name is George Heppel.” Charles took Tor’s hand. “Come and meet him.”

He made introductions, George talking quietly with Tor’s mother before taking her inside while Tor stayed on the steps with them, playing a game of what’s in Padre’s pocket.

“Is it a tape measure?” Tor wondered, poking a bulge.

“No. Not this time.” Hugo took out what he’d hidden. What Charles and he had shopped for. A small part of a surprise that was a true pleasure to give him.

“A bell?” Tor dinged it. “For a bicycle?”

“Yes.” Charles said. He saw his brother signalling him to come in. “It’s for a big-boy bike, Tor. For you to ding to let people know you’re coming when you ride fast all on your own.”

“But I can’t ride on my own yet.” Tor squared his chin. “I’ll save the bell for when my daddy gets back.”

How many times had he watched Tor do that? Witnessed him take immense weight on too narrow shoulders? Charles led him through Casterley’s tall front doors, under a Latin word spelling service, and asked Tor a question that he hoped would ease his burden.

“Do you remember the big-boy bicycle you coloured? The one you said you wanted?”

“Yes.” Tor gazed around, awestruck at the suits of armour. He darted away to run around a marble pillar, his little voice echoing. “My big-boy bike will zoom like this. It will be red and silver!”

“Like this one?” a man’s voice asked. He came out from behind another pillar, one arm in a sling and a crutch under his other shoulder. His wife wheeled a shiny cycle.

Tor dropped his new bell.

Its ding echoed in the silence.

Tor came back to Charles then, returning to his place of safety. He clutched his hand, looking up to him as if for permission, his eyes huge. “Is that my daddy?” he whispered. “It sounds like my daddy. But he looks different.”

“Like I did?” Hugo asked him. He held out a hand that Tor grabbed. “I looked different once, but now I’m much better, aren’t I? Your daddy will be too.”

A tear fell then, streaking a cheek that Charles had seen the same milk-white shade under mud once. He’d also seen it spattered with paint and glue and glitter, with cotton wool and with sand. Seen it glow with wonder at stories, and squint while learning. All moments the man who now waited had missed out on.

That time was a gift Charles now had a chance to return.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s your daddy.” And together, they took Tor to meet him.

* * *

They leftthe family to their reunion.

He and Hugo joined Nathan unloading the minibus, carrying their bags to the folly while the family were busy.

It was more than the shell of a house now. Each room was comfortably furnished, equipped by the organisation they’d partnered with for both adult and child rehabilitation.

“The children’s team are prepared for when you get back next week,” Charles told Nathan. “They’ll be here, waiting.” All of them play professionals who knew it was a gateway to healing.

Nathan left them alone then, and Charles found Hugo outside on a bench beside raised flower beds, rubbing a mint leaf between his fingers, the scent clear and fresh and pungent. “And you’ll be waiting here too?” he asked Charles.

“Of course.” Charles straddled his lap, hugging him in the shadow of a wall built for another man who’d been injured. Every stone had been placed to hide him. To protect him. To keep someone safe who another Charles had loved once.

Charles let Hugo go instead, trusting it was the best way to help him heal too, but not before he asked a question.

“It will be September soon, won’t it?”

“Yes, Charles,” Hugo said, a smile playing at the edges of a mouth he loved. “A new school year at Glynn Harber. Not sure if Luke’s got work for me, but I know a play assistant he’s fond of who might put in a good word for me.”

“But September’s also when you formally step off the ordination pathway, isn’t it?”

The smile that Charles loved slowly faded. “Yes. That too,” Hugo agreed.

Charles stood, feet planted as firmly as the foundations Casterley and this folly were built on. “What if you didn’t? Come off the ordination track, I mean.”

Hugo blinked, so Charles continued.

“You said you wanted to be a real husband to someone. A real father to children, however you got to have them.”

“But—”

“But you also said you couldn’t ask that of someone. Not if it meant you’d have to”—he didn’t know the right way to phrase it— “lie about your marriage being a full one?” Charles saw Hugo flinch, and guessed his phrasing must have been right. “You said you couldn’t impose that on another person. On a partner.”

On me, Charles thought, his heart swelling.

“You also said the church said all the right things about marrying same-sex couples, but its actions hadn’t caught up yet. Not when it came to clergy. Hugo… we talked about changing behaviour this morning. Remember?”

Hugo nodded. “About not catching crabs twice?”

“Exactly.” Charles ignored a phantom itch in his boxers. “Do you know what I do when a child needs to change their behaviour?”

“Sit with them in the thinking corner?”

Charles beamed. Couldn’t help it. “Sometimes. But most of the time, I model the behaviour I want to see more of. Like sharing. I share, so they can see what it looks like. And I take turns, so the children know how to do it. Then I give them the words to go with the actions.”

And after a lifetime of struggle with them, weren’t words the most powerful tool in his playful arsenal?

“Hugo, I can’t think of a better person than you to show any church what a good shepherd looks like.” No one could do it better. “Maybe not the church you grew up loving, but there must be others. We could find a different one that will let you make a wholehearted promise, not one that only pays lip service.”

“Charles—”

“No. Please listen.” This was too important. “You deserve a flock of your own.” He did. So much. “It doesn’t matter where. At Glynn Harber, or somewhere different. I’d come with you, if you wanted to finish the ordination process.”

Charles swallowed down nerves, because this was a next step his namesake couldn’t have dreamed of. He owed it to him to take it, and break down walls instead of build them.

He got down on one knee.

“You said you couldn’t ask that of someone you loved. But what if someone who loved you asked you instead?”

He watched emotion cross Hugo’s face.

Love came first.

Hope followed, a raw look that might bruise, but that might also flourish, if Hugo would let it.

“Will you?” Charles asked. “Marry me, and find out?”

“Charles….”

For one heart-stopping moment, Charles stood at the edge of what felt like another quarry, facing a long drop to its bottom, while waiting for his answer.

Hugo replied with a question. “Do you know what a sacrament is?”

“A… a promise?”

“Yes. That’s what marriage is to me.” Hugo drew Charles to his feet, not letting go of the hand he clasped. He pressed it to his chest, covering it with his own. “A promise to love and to cherish. Do you feel cherished, Charles?”

“Every day.” It was the truth, no reason for his voice to shake. He was cherished and loved so much that his soul brimmed over with it.

“In sickness and in health, Charles. You modelled that from our first day together. Turned those words into actions, over and over and over. You make every day richer rather than poorer. I’m so much better with you, not worse.”

“You mean…?”

“Charles, in my heart, you’re already my husband.”

Hugo kissed him while bees buzzed between lavender bushes, and a lone goose honked from the lake.

The minibus horn honked too.

“So, yes,” Hugo said. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you. But—”

“You have to go right now?”

Hugo nodded, his eyes damp, his smile only slightly fractured. “Be here when I get back?”

Charles firmed his jaw like every Heppel knew how to, past, present, and future.

Be here?

Wild horses couldn’t stop him.

The End.

Thank you for reading! The second book in the Learning to Love series can be found HERE.

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