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The upside of father inviting the ruckus of Christopher's friends to Drunnheim Hall is Peter. From the perfectly polite and graceful greeting given at their entrance to the amicable conversation they share at the dining table, Peter flows through the visit with natural poise and elegance suited to his station.
It blesses Richard with an ease he rarely finds.
Like when they first begun at Christopher's London apartment, they move unseen. They won't seek each other out during daytime, not intentionally. Or not even by intentional happenstance, not in the naive way one pretends to stumble upon another.
No, they meet within careful portions: in the library for a moment shared in silence and on their way to breakfast in the hall that connects the visitors halls to the family's own. They walk past each other in the garden, eyes not lingering any more than they would for a casual acquaintance.
Something the rest of his brother's friends will never learn yet Peter has always had is discretion. Richard likes to think that is something they share. There is none of that clumsy fumbling of an illegitimate affair Christopher is flaunting with that girl of his, or false hopes of romantic fantasies. The common ground between Peter and Richard lingers behind closed doors and drawn curtains, like the unnaturality it is. To know the desire for this sin, Richard thinks, must mean learning to hide.
At night they only meet after he has made sure his father has retired. Peter kisses him in that way of his, slow and deep, like savoring a luxury. Richard allows himself to watch handsome dark skin and black hair, those long lashes and the curve of his jaws. They touch bare skin and explore pleasure.
A solid body weighing him down. A whisper in his ear and a teasing hand reaching around to stroke him. The intoxicating scent of leather and ink and soap and sweat. Arousal. Affection.
His brother must never find out. Painting, however frivolous, is nothing compared to the sin Richard partakes to satisfy this unnatural thirst.
In the most obvious ways, the painting Richard is looking at is unremarkable. The composition, the colour palette, brushwork and the immaturity of technique - all of it apparent to even his eye. No, especially his eye, the son of the most renowned art patron and painter of his time. For all his apparent uninterest in frivolous dabbling like his brother, Richard can't help being the same: his father's son, an artist's son.
And yet.
The emotion choking his throat threatens to rise, as Christopher steps back and leaves the painting to stand alone. The soft warmth of a sunset lit beach, the flowing hair and the sudden elevation of his heart as he looks at the woman his brother loves and is now giving up.
Without a permission the fragile and weak part of him colours in a taller figure, darker skin. Broader shoulders, leaner legs. A glimmer of an earring like a lone star.
A thousand memories flicker through his mind. Peter, seated next to him at the dinner table yet across a vast formless distance of them both knowing their place and his father sitting at the end. Peter, leaning on the windowsill of his brother's city apartment, cigarette smoke slowly drifting up through the cracked frame. Peter, on the steps of the King's College building climbing up up up, and then finally that unmistakable figure of his slipping away from him through the crowd of the exam day.
Peter, at their country house, giving him those eyes of his, holding his gaze as they both work through their separate papers.
Peter, slipping from his rooms late at night.
Peter, pressing an open palm to the bare skin of Richard's chest, pressing into each breath, each second, each heartbeat.
Christopher, no, Kit, is standing silent while he waits for Richard to finish his evaluation. Once again sunken into some world of his own, the distance between them measured in hereditary titles and responsibilities, the expectations of others.
It is unbearable how much they are both losing these days.
And more unbearable still to be the one taking this away from the only family he has left, and still be unable to cross the gulf of the years between them. It is not only Peter he is mourning, but his dad, and mother, and inexplicably he is mourning Kit too, the pain and longing in his chest for his brother to be close and safe so acute it takes away his breath.
"For what it is worth, brother, I know what you are giving up", he finds himself finally saying.
Kit huffs softly, doesn't meet his eyes. The travel tickets in Richard's pocket are only paper but mean so much more. He should just hand them over and leave, even if that is not what he wants at all. Why must it be right now when his little brother wants to become an adult, after all the time playing those games and chasing dreams, why now when he wants nothing more than Kit to give him that stupid petulance and flee from this life to paint and paint and paint and never know war.
He hands Kit the tickets and lets himself out. And so ends the last time they speak before Kit is gone to the sea and war.
Richard ends things with Peter the next week. There can be no distractions.
The day after the news arrive Peter comes to his study on Downing Street. The secretary lets him in without an appointment, for which Richard would berate her on any other day, but today is the first full day of his life being the only living heir to the Churh family.
The plain sorrow on Peter's face is bare. Neither of them speaks any greeting. The look between them stretches time and title between them to threadbare nothing.
Kit is dead.
Richard pushes his chair away from his desk but loses the spirit before he can make it to his feet. All of the world hangs in balance for one minute longer and if Richard was strong enough to carry this too it would never fall over but it's Peter of all people in his study, wartime worn but still whole and the place that Richard has been pushing his emotions to stay has overcrowded to the brim.
So it all crumbles to the useless tears finally falling.
"Peter -", he starts but then his voice breaks and the next thing that comes out is a sob.
A horrible, embarrassing and so out of his control sob that he should be escorted from the room to not cause an incident. But there is no place to be escorted to and anyway it is Peter here who is the only one Richard ever has revealed some painful truths about himself to, the same Peter who cupped his hands with his own, lighting the cigarette from the shared flame between them and looked into him and let him look back.
The same imbalance breaks them into movement from this cursed petrification of property. It means Peter kneeling in front of his chair, it means Richard just falls into his long past lover to be held, it means his face pressed into the collar of Peter's fine quality linen shirt, hands grasping to get closer and bodies fitting together like they always did uncaring of what things other than warmth and solid pressure they might encounter.
Most of all it means Richard cries like he hasn't since he was a child, wet and too hot and ugly so ugly, pressure in his chest acute and still building but easing at the same time while Peter holds him and rocks him in his arms, the security of it allowing him to feel the hurt deeper.
The sun dims behind the window from late afternoon to the early night. Peter's knees must be either screaming or completely numb. There are wet hair plastered to Richard's face, and the nape of Peter's neck has become moist and slimy from all the crying. A man cannot cry for forever, even if he feels like it.
"Come to mine tonight", Peter murmurs in his hair, the idle stroke of his thumb a lifeline on Richard's spine.
To sleep, to be taken? Fuck knows what he means by that. It is the easiest yes he has ever given to a wrong this obvious. The most radical break to the discretion they had sworn each other in. No use in discretion when confronted by the punishment. The military cut of Peter's hair has overgrown to hide the distance between them, and in that same haze Richard will wander to lose himself. For tonight, at the very least.
For tonight he will dishonor his wife, in the name of mourning for his brother.
Southend-on-Sea bustles with loading and unloading cargo ships. The ever present rain has ceased for the hour but the dense clouds allow little sunlight in the grey morning.
Richard leans forward against the railing of the pier, pretending to be immersed in the days paper. He has read the articles twice already but none of them make sense or stick to his mind.
Why now, why only now? Where has he been, and why has he not sent word the moment he got the chance?
If this was a sign, Richard knew not what it meant or how to humble himself to suit the gratitude in response.
Three days since the telegram message. Four and half years since he had only been able to regret not embracing his brother the last time they met. Almost six years since the day they had stood in front of the last painting Kit had ever made.
Half the world had been between them. A war between them. Half the lifetime, it had felt like. And then, the death, separating them for an eternity immeasurable. A death that somehow was not final.
A slip of paper, carrying a single impossible message. A slip of hope, no matter how misguided. A string of fate pulling him, unresisting and all the past wounds bleeding to wait at the pier.
Richi, sailing home with Edward Line. Meet you Tuesday. Kit.
How long must a man wait for his salvation?
The shape of a vessel gliding into view. Moving closer, joining the sea and the sky together with the trail of smoke upwards. His eyes, straining even when there was no hope yet to see anything past a simple silhouette, no matter the finer details.
Slowly. Sounds of engines, shouts from the sailors. Rushing of water, a mountain or a glacier of iron coming to be tamed with ropes and knots to rest at the harbour. And still no sign of a passenger Richard doesn't yet fully allow himself to believe in, not after all that he has already lost or carelessly discarded in favor of what he has thought is his duty.
The bridge lowers. The first of the crew jump to their tasks on the pier. A horn blows. A passenger steps off, an old man with a briefcase and a black coat. No sign of him. A second one, then a long line of busy somebodies.
Until.
Tears blur his vision but it doesn't matter anymore.
There, at the top of the line of dark coats and seablown hair stands a ghost. Blonde hair, their mother's hair, unbound and overgrown in the wind. That same aloofness, too thin frame, sunburned face and his luggage free hand firmly in his pocket. Christopher, his little Kit, walks over and there is no force on this earth that can stop Richard from pulling him into his arms. His brother is back home.
For a moment it does not matter that Richard Church is a sinner, and the Heavens grant him his wish.