Androshorts: Lords and the Lady

"Daines, I err... I understand that while you were staying at Hestonwood you... shall we say you undertook some special duties for the lady of the house?"

"Mam?" he said tone that he didn't know what she was talking about.

"Oh come on Daines, you can tell me?"

"I'm really not sure what you mean Mam."

She walked across to him,

"I've heard that Mrs. Frankton asked you to do something special for her."

The young man's bottom jaw flapped momentarily.

"I... err... I'm not really at liberty to discuss what might have taken place during the visit to..."

"I then heard from Mrs. Frankton's sister that you fucked her three of the four days that you were there?"

Even given his youth, a mere eighteen years, Daines realised what was his best option and simply kept his mouth shut.

"Well Daines, the only way for you to keep out of trouble is to extend me the same favour."

The tall, dark and handsome young footman grinned and nodded towards the marble domed building fifty yards away...

"Apparently he was hung like a Derby winner and screwed Tilly senseless, she was quite heartbroken when he left your brother's house to join up," Josephine sipped her tea and grimaced, "What a waste of such fine stock!"

We both grinned and drank more tea, Josephine ringing the bell for more and to order lunch for us.

As we ate the most perfect sandwiches I enquired more about the apparently late Private Daines. The half-brother of my husband, good looking and extremely well endowed, just like the man recovering in my guest room.

"Quote the lothario by all accounts," said Lady Josephine dabbing her mouth with a napkin, "rumour has it he had one or both of the Ingrams sisters."

"Not at the same time surely!" I spluttered.

"Katie!" screeched my old school friend, but neither confirmed or denied it, "Tilly said that while he screwed her senseless, he was such a great lover and was very nice about that she even kissed and cuddled him; but then Daines was a NICE MAN, whatever his station..."

Two days later with bandages only lightly applied George was up and in a tall chair brought in especially for him to sit in during the day. Another chair mounted on wheels was arranged so Clements or one of the footmen could wheel him from room to room.

Within another few days, he was starting to dress himself and under the strictest instruction from Clements was talking more, using crutches to walk a few steps, testing out a right leg not used since being so awfully damaged all those weeks before.

I was in my dressing room preparing for the day when the door swung open and there was George in his long nightshirt, no bandages on his damaged face and by using his crutches had walked in from his room. The triumphant smile on his face was such a delight that I stood, walked towards him and kissed his cheek, my face almost as lit up as his was.

"Well done Darling George!" I said, as I would have done to the real George.

"Thank you Katie!" he said, "Thank you for everything!"

"Oh George, you're so very welcome!"

"Said he was going to walk to your room today Lady C," said Clements, "Been saying it for three days, wanted to walk here on the day of your anniversary." It was indeed the day of our anniversary and I hadn't remembered it! But then we'd never celebrated it before today, "and the next bit George?" said the Nurse.

"I'd like to move back into our room Katie," he said, "if you'll have me?"

Again that charming smile, deformed by his bullet wound but streaming through the pain and scars and I walked across and gently hugged him.

I thought for a moment,

"Yes George," I said, "Please."

"...and nothing but sleeping for a few weeks yet please!" said Clements with an admonishing look and folded arms, "You, Lieutenant Chalonier are not fit enough for quite everything yet!"

"Of course Mam!" said George with a gentle bow.

George was moved back into our room and I shared my bed for the first time in nearly a year. The last time had been with a drunken, snoring, farting, half-dressed yob -- this one was a kind and gentle man that took my hand and kissed it before we slept, holding it gently through the night, with the occasional moment when he would hiss or cry out quietly when some movement in the night had caused him pain. At those times I would gently squeeze his hand and turn my face to his,

"It's OK George..." I would hiss back to him, unsure of whether it was a waking pain or a sleeping nightmare, either way, I tried to help this new George.

I woke to a noise in the street and headed for the WC but on my return, I saw that something was definitely different with George. He'd had a bit of a temperature that day which he'd fought with the necessary medicaments and getting plenty of rest, hearing Clements talking on the phone to the Doctor and fearing that he might be sent back to the sick room.

He had improved much in the day though but was still quite warm and I could see that he had removed his nightshirt and thrown aside his covers. I stepped around to replace them when I saw in the faint glimmer of light from the gas lamps in the street, the single largest erect penis I had ever seen outside of a farmyard. I had only ever seen one before half this size and it had been in this room and apparently attached to this man.

I gave George time to recover from his fever and three mornings later I decided to spring my plan. Not just because I was worried about his health but because I had started to wake in his arms, sometimes with my head on his chest, sometimes with my bottom pushing into his groin and his hands on my breasts and while I had my doubts I also really liked his attention.

It was a bright, brisk early winter morning and we awoke almost together and as George had always requested tea was served to use in our bedroom. My 'husband' took his cup from the tray and sipped, conscious that it might run out of his damaged lip.

We had chatted some normal husband and wife inconsequentialities when I stopped and picked up The Times that had been brought in with the tea tray, "Err... Daines?" I said in my lady of the house voice and turning to him.

"Yes Ma..." he stopped himself, "I'm sorry Darling, what did you say?"

I smiled at him, "I'm sorry but you aren't my husband George," I said, "I think you are his orderly and my Grandmother's groom and my brother's one-time footman George Daines."

"What rubbish are you talking about Katie!" he snapped back, but not with the amount of vehemence that my real husband would have given it.

"I overheard the Dowager Baroness telling my Grandmother how you were my husband's half-brother," I took my calculated pause, "how my father-in-law had once taken advantage of your Mother when she was a housemaid..." I couldn't hold back the involuntary shiver that thought still gave me.

He finished his tea,

"He didn't 'take advantage' of my mother, that bastard raped her," said George, who was obviously George Daines and not George Chalonier, "After he raped her your precious society ganged up against her and shipped her off to the country so I could be born in secret. She had a choice of course, oh yes! She could leave and have me out of wedlock and we could both die in the workhouse. She decided against that so was quickly married off to a man that I considered was my father until your husband told me that we were half-brothers!"

"He told you?" I said in astonishment.

"Yes," he said, "after him and his friend took my stripe from me for wanting to do my job, he got extremely drunk one night and I had to get him out of his uniform and into bed and try to get his vomit and piss-stained uniform clean and pressed for the next day. Being your husband, he had to rub in his superiority didn't he." He closed his eyes and regained some calm, "I went home on my last leave before heading back to France and asked Ma, and she admitted it, told me the whole sordid story."

"I'm sorry," I said, the revelation harder than I thought it might be.

"Full of jolly news like that was your husband," he opened his eyes and looked at me, but while I saw anger in his eyes I believed that none of it was aimed at me, "If you've heard one story about me, then I guess you've heard the rest?"

I didn't want to speak and increase Daines' misery,

"It depends," I said sharing some of the embarrassment he must have been feeling.

He saw my embarrassment, and smiled kindly,

"He... he also said that he knew I was considered a bed warmer for quite a few society ladies and that many of them boasted that they had been to Godwingham Park and had 'seen' young Daines doing 'Tilly in the Folly'. He said that he was pretty sure that I had done the Ingrams sisters.

He said that I was basically a whore and he wasn't sure whether he was going to tell the rest of the Battalion that their favourite boy, the young soldiers' hero was no better than a male streetwalker, laughed himself almost comatose with that one." He shook his head, "I stood up straight and looked him in the eye, told him to do just that, and matched him smug smile for smug smile, dared him to tell eight hundred common soldiers, many of which were my good friends, tell them that I was paid by some of the richest and most attractive society ladies to fuck them..." George smiled, "and how that story, how Daines the Military Medal Winner from 'A' Company, the pride of the Battalion had screwed half of London Society's finest and most eligible ladies, even throw the names in... he didn't like that one bit," Daines lost his smile, "he was so indignant that we nearly came to blows on that one, Bastard."

That sounded like George Chalonier to a tee.

"So..."

"So yes Katie, I am George Daines, half-brother of that spineless bastard of a dead husband of yours." I sat up straight at that insult.

"W... What?" I spluttered, "He won a medal for bravery!"

"No, he didn't, I did! He was dead by the time 'B' Company came forward and found ME shooting Jerries who were advancing on my shell hole one-handed." he said and closed his eyes.

I felt a sudden wave of emotion, not remorse but something akin to it - for me not my husband. I was in bed with a man I didn't really know who had been terribly wounded, but I had started to have real feelings for. What next?

"Tell me..." I said, "tell me how my husband died."

"We were given the order to hold at all costs and fight to the last man and the last round and were being shelled to buggery by the Jerries. Your husband was sitting in a shell cratered forward trench drinking from his hip flask and smoking a big cigar telling me and three of my mates what medal he was going to get from the Company Commander who was his old friend.

The shells were getting closer and closer and he was getting twitchy and I was sure he was just about to run, but I grabbed him and pulled him down below the firestep just as the next shell hit, saved his bloody life." Daines rubbed his chin and the still red scar tissue, "Then one dropped to our right and killed two of the three lads left alive but all he was worried about was that when I pulled him down I ruined his cigar. Threatened to shoot me for it."

"That sounds like George," I said hoping to show that I believed him.

"We could hear the Jerries coming forward behind the barrage and by now he was looking up and down the trench trembling and shouting, 'Get up on the parapet Collins!' he said to my last surviving mate a young boy barely 17 let alone 18, dairyman from the Somerset Levels, hadn't even started to shave." Daines looked sadder than I had ever seen him before. "Your husband had really started to flap now and was shouting more at the kid, 'you heard me Collins, up on the step... Daines and I are right behind you!' and once Collins got up on the parapet your husband drew his revolver and shot him in the back of the head,"

Daines seemed lost for words and I was sure I could detect a hint of tears,

"If it's too hard..." I began to say not wanting to tire this almost healed man, but he waved his hand a couple of times and carried on.

"I tried to get my rifle up at him but he beat me to it, aiming his pistol at me,

"Leave it where it is Daines, now take off your tunic,' he said with panic in his voice.

"What?"

"Your damned tunic Daines," he spat at me, "Collins is too bloody small!" I refused of course, "give me your blasted tunic Daines, at least I know it'll fit seeing as you're my backstairs, guttersnipe whore of a half-brother!"

"What the fuck do you want with my tunic for Mr. Chalonier? You've already had the stripes off if it."

He had that snide look of his and laughed about that particular victory of his, but still keeping his shaking gun pointing at my head, I'd been shot before and to be honest after the reports of this offensive I had a feeling I wasn't going to get home from it anyway.

He quickly looked over the fire step seeing that the Jerries were still some distance away, his talking had speeded up,

"I... I have a very important message to deliver and no one ever looks twice at a messenger going past," he pulled two blue and white signaller armbands from his pocket, "Knew these would come in handy! I've even gone with boots and puttees on this muddy morning!" he chirped full of his own good humour, "When I get far enough away from all of this I'll put on my nice tunic that you kept so nicely for me, pull on my Wellington boots, and check in with an old friend of mine at Brigade HQ."

That seemed to calm him down a bit and he took out another cigar and lit it, I could see his hands were shaking with each crump of shells landing around us, "Major Berwick at RHQ? Well he owes me quite a lot of money -- he's quite the most terrible card player AND I've slept with his wife, and unless he wants the entire brigade to know that he's penniless and whoring out his wife, he'll find me a tidy little office job with a better than average outlook on survival and at least ten miles from the front line. War is all hell I tell you, Daines," he said taking a long drag on his cigar, "and I'm not spending the rest of this one up to my eyeballs in shit and bullets! Suits nasty little peasants like you of course; I suppose some people think that action on a single day is equal to 400 years of breeding... fucking Military Medal! What the fuck is THAT!?!"

Daines looked cross again, but I smiled an understanding smile and nodded that he should carry on.

I was keen to hear the end of the story, I knew that the Daines hero status would have rankled my husband; his brother Charles had been posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Order, Edmund the Military Cross, while even Henry had been 'mentioned in dispatches' in the few days he'd fought in the mincer that was Ypres. Then, the final nail in the coffin would have been the back-stairs illegitimate half-brother with a bravery medal.

I didn't want to believe what this man was telling me, but everything he said had all the hallmarks of George Chalonier.

Daines took his cup and sipped from it, a faint suggestion of a tremble in his strong hands and continued.

"I told him to point his gun forward and shoot at the Germans that were getting closer and closer with each shell that dropped.

But he just grinned that stupid grin of his and said "No! Sorry about this Daines -- what the hell, no I'm not", and shot me - he was aiming for my forehead of course but I turned my head and he hit me in the cheek because he was such a terrible shot and was shaking so much.

As I lay wounded and out cold for a moment he took off his jacket then took off mine and then my equipment and put it on. I came round face down in the mud on the duckboards just as he picked up his pack that held his other uniform jacket and said "goodbye whore" with a big smile then turned and walked away with such a terrible swagger, suddenly there's an almighty explosion, a big splash of red and I get thrown across the trench and half covered in mud. I understand from the stretcher-bearers that they found a private soldier, or most of one at least, ten yards from where they found me thrown up on the parapet."

He took a long drink of his tea, putting his cup down on the saucer with an indicative clatter. "I was cut to pieces and in agony, well you've seen all of the damage, but I was cold so I pulled on his tunic ready to explain what had happened."

"But the Military Cross, the bravery?"

"Still me Mam; wearing his jacket I was shooting my rifle towards the advancing Germans. I had been shot in the face then ripped up by the blast, but I saw no point in surviving all that only to be bayoneted by some square-headed bastard in grey. The short magazine Lee Enfield rifle can be operated with one hand you see Mam."

"Good God!" I hissed, "How... awful for you."

"When 'B' Company reached me they found no one else, only Collins but the blast had hidden the shot in the back of his head.

With the bullet wound and the shrapnel pitting on my face, I was taken back wrapped in your husband's tunic and looking so much like him in other ways, they assumed I was Lieutenant Chalonier and I had officer treatment all of the ways back. I was waiting for the right moment to tell them honestly I was; to tell everyone, to tell Ma... to say that I was shell shocked and only just remembered who I was but it all just kind of got away from me." He looked slightly embarrassed, "I have a feeling that if I tell the world who I am it would not end well for me, whatever I said about shell-shock..."

I was still in two minds about what to do next.

"What are your plans now?"

"I don't know, part of me wants to go back to France and get taken prisoner and just reappear as Private Daines when this is all over, but I'm not sure with all of this damage they'll let Lieutenant Chalonier back into the front line." He sniffed, "More importantly, what are YOUR plans?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Mam... Ka... Mrs. Chalonier," It seemed that all of the closeness we had built up in the last weeks had disappeared and we were strangers, strangers in the same bed and naked under our nightwear, but still strangers none the less. George carried on, "your father-in-law..." he paused, "He is MY father I suppose -- he doesn't seem concerned just who I am and hasn't looked me in the eye since I came home. George's three brothers went the same way as him, hopefully with more gallantry and dignity, and I think Lord Charles is seeing what, or rather who, he wants to see," he said with raised eyebrows.

I nodded, "I'm sure that if you agree, I could get away with this." He smiled, "Rather WE could get away with this."

"We?" I said.

Daines went straight to my first fear when I'd read the 'missing in action' report.

"I can't do this on my own Mrs. Chalonier, and this way you don't have to be the lonely widow needing to spend your life dressed in black. I'll go with whatever you decide to do, whatever domestic arrangements you see fit. I'll never make any kind of advance to you - I swear."

My face must have shown something, perhaps a slightly disappointed anticipation at that thought; after all my old school friend had told me what a fantastic lover this heavily scarred but still very attractive man was not five weeks ago. His expression changed minutely.

"But know this Lady C, your husband died a coward's death running for his life after murdering one of his own men and then trying it on me, so he could run... run away pretending to be a Private soldier. If the Chalonier family turns on me, I'll tell the whole story to the court martial and make sure that before I get dragged to the firing squad the world will know what a coward their hero son was and see to it that his Military Cross is withdrawn. I might even add that his father was a rapist, Ma would go with that."