Work Text:
Brighton is not the place that Bathsheba had expected William to choose when she suggested they have a break from the farms at the coast. Someplace nearby, like Poole or Bournemouth, or perhaps even into Devon if he was feeling adventurous. Yes, they were likely. But Brighton? So far away, even by the fast coach. It was an odd choice for her anxious husband.
“I do hope you are not volunteering Sussex to please me, darling,” she said one morning, curled up against the pillows of their grand bed. “I know well how you prefer to stay closer to home, and I do not mind where we go as long as I am with you.”
He paused in donning his robe, glanced at her from under his thick eyelashes, then continued to pull the belt tight around himself. She knew that look well.
“I-”
He looked at the door through which Gabriel had just disappeared, not to be caught sharing the marriage bed of Mr and Mrs Boldwood. He would be back, to join them for breakfast, when the time was a decent one. It was a deception that had held for the past year, but Bathsheba knew one day they were likely to be caught out. She tried not to think of that day.
“Gabriel seemed sad, did he not? When we told him we were to go away.”
“Yes. But what can we do about it? Surely it will seem very strange for the manager to leave the farms unattended when the master and mistress are also from their posts?”
“Well.” William sat down on the bed, grasped her hand. “I had considered that if we were to go to Brighton, far from where any person knows us, perhaps we could engineer some falsehood that will take Gabriel away for a few days and he can join us. I do -”
William bit at his lip, traced a finger delicately over her knuckles. “My dear, I desire you and your company always. But Gabriel -”
“Is a part of us,” Bathsheba said. “It is madness that we should even think about leaving him here.”
William smiled, that gentle, gentle smile, and Bathsheba kissed the corner of it. William was so thoughtful, the most thoughtful of them all, with his years of experience being alone with his own mind. He tolerated so much giddy energy from her and Gabriel, when she knew he would prefer for everything to be so much slower. Some time away had been her idea, but she of course had not thought it through, not imagined the pained look on Gabriel’s face when she announced their going. But William, dear William, had once again come to her rescue.
“We will tell him this evening,” she said. “And come up with a reason for him to leave the farm. Andrew can manage well enough for a few days. And we will all be together.”
The day was long and wet. Gabriel came for breakfast, as was his habit, but he was quiet despite Bathsheba’s attempts to engage him. She could say nothing of their plan with Liddy flitting in and out of the room. William said little either, and when Gabriel finally headed out into the rain, William donned his sturdy boots and coat and followed him.
Bathsheba did not allow herself to mind it. Gabriel would know soon enough. She instead spent the day going over the accounts, and planning an extended trip away. There was much to be done.
Then the day was over, for the most part. William came back to her first, and kissed her as she helped him from his coat.
“Gabriel will come after supper,” he murmured. “All will be well.”
When Gabriel finally appeared, an hour after his usual time, Bathsheba was almost beside herself with guilt and worry. The moment he came in the door, she rose and embraced him, kissed his cheeks, his bared throat.
“My darling Gabriel” she said, glad when his hands rose to clutch at her. “How thoughtless I was to you. Of course you shall come with us. William has an excellent solution to the problem.”
A log cracked in the fire. Gabriel smiled, his fingers trailing over her back. His eyes shone in the glow.
“Thank you. I should - very much like to accompany you. If I may.”
“You will,” William said, getting to his feet, his hand pressing over Gabriel’s on Bathsheba’s back. “A minor falsehood, and you will be with us. I know none in Brighton, and neither do you, or Bathsheba.”
“Liddy? Turner?”
“Will not be coming with us. I told them that they can take a holiday of their own, if they wish.”
Gabriel’s eyes widened, and Bathsheba traced his lips with her fingertip. Standing between them, warm in their heat, she felt the electric of anticipation. Theirs and hers.
“Just the three of us, with no one to watch. No one who cares a whit who we are or what we do.”
**
Bathsheba had been to Brighton before, once, when she was very young. It had grown rather since then as people discovered the benefits of going to the sea and taking the air. Compared to Bridport, even to Poole, it was bustling. As they alighted from the coach, Bathsheba reached out to grip William’s hand. He held tightly, but smiled when she glanced at him, taking a deep breath of good salty air.
“It is worth the discomfort to be together,” he said, sunlight catching on the silver in his hair.
Their hotel was very grand, the best they could afford, with a modern, bright guest area and charming suite with a large four poster bed. There was a smaller room reserved for Gabriel, when he finally arrived. William took possession of the key for that room too.
Then, finally, they were alone in their rooms. Bathsheba washed in the hot water that had been left for them, used to looking after herself. William sat on the edge of the bed and watched her. When finally she had swept her hair atop her head, she held out a hand.
“Come, husband. Let me help you.”
“I am quite capable, my darling,” he said, shrugging off his coat, then his jacket. “I am not completely helpless without Turner.”
“I did not suggest you were,” Bathsheba said, reaching out to his shirt front and pulling him closer. “But I would like very much to help you, all the same.”
These last words she whispered in his ear, fingers already working on unfastening his shirt buttons. William went still beneath her hands, then a warm kiss was pressed to her ear.
“Well then, it would be churlish to complain.”
His broad hands covered hers as she reached the last of his buttons, helping in removing the shirt. Teasingly, Bathsheba ran the back of her hand over his bared chest, scraping with a fingernail.
“My dear,” William trembled. “We will see nothing of town today if you insist on assisting me in such a way.”
Despite his words, he looked disappointed when she stepped away and handed him the damp cloth to wash with.
“By all means then,” she smiled. “I will await you downstairs.”
She closed the door to the sound of his chuckle.
Later that evening, she returned to her administrations on his person with renewed vigour. And later still they lay close together.
“I already miss him,” Bathsheba said. “I do hope he caught the overnight coach.”
“I have no doubt of it,” William mumbled into her breast. “We will be together soon.”
**
Early the next morning, Bathsheba woke to the sound of the sea, and of horses down in the street below. She shuffled out of William’s tender embrace and went to peer out of the window.
There he was. She knew that blond hair, those shoulders, the faded jacket. As though he could feel her eyes, Gabriel glanced up to her window. His smile upon finding her waiting for him was like the sun already shining fierce and bright upon the sparkling water.
“Darling, wake up!” she exclaimed, throwing herself upon the bed and upon her husband, like a naughty child. “Gabriel is here!”
“Did I not tell you all would be well?” he mumbled, fixing one dark eye on her face. “Well, run along then. I know you wish to go.”
She was already pulling on her skirt before he spoke, retrieving her blouse from where he had neatly folded it for her the night before. It was early and she did not expect to see many people, so she did not even rebraid her hair before she tripped out of the door.
“We will return presently!”
Gabriel was already in the reception area of the hotel when Bathsheba found him. He was clutching his cap in one hand, the other resting on the overstuffed satchel on his shoulder. He towered over most of his fellow travellers, and the hotel staff, but his shoulders were hunched, his head low. Bathsheba could not blame him for that; others looked at him as though he were there to rob them in their beds.
“Mister Oak,” she said, sailing through the crowd. “I am so very pleased to see you. What news of the farm? Come, Mister Boldwood wishes to see you immediately before his breakfast.”
Gabriel turned grateful eyes to her, lifted the cap in his hand and touched his brow with it. Just a loyal worker, come to communicate some emergency or business with his master and mistress. Undesirable during a holiday, but understandable.
“Mrs Boldwood,” he said. “I brought the books for the master to check.”
Her ruse and confident manner worked. By the time Gabriel began talking, the other occupants of the reception had stopped their eavesdropping and turned from them. The anonymity of Brighton would be an even more generous gift than she had considered.
Giddy with excitement, she bade Gabriel follow her and they climbed the grand staircase. Their suite was only on the first floor, and William was waiting at the door, a smile lighting up his dear face.
“Look, my love,” Bathsheba skipped, like a schoolgirl on her way to church. “Look who I came across downstairs.”
The long hallway was deserted of all life save for the three of them, which perhaps explained why William boldly greeted Gabriel with a kiss to his mouth. Or perhaps her husband was simply as excited as she was, and could not contain himself.
“It has been only a day,” Gabriel said mildly. “You’d hardly left before I had to pack up some things and follow you.”
“Was our story accepted?” Bathsheba asked, pulling Gabriel into the room. “It is not the most charming suite?”
“No one but Liddy knows anything of the accounts besides us. It was easy enough to convince them of some small emergency. And yes. It is a very beautiful place.”
“Give him space to collect himself, darling,” William said gently, hooking his fingers around Gabriel’s satchel and easing it from his shoulder. “I am sure the overnight carriage was far from a pleasurable experience.”
“Nonsense.” Bathsheba went to the window and threw it open so the cool air crept in. Gabriel would appreciate the freshness. “You know, my love, our Gabriel could sleep through the end of the world. A trifling carriage journey is nothing!”
She turned to find them watching her, twin adoring looks upon their faces, and she blushed. Their love could be so intense. Sometimes she felt as though it would suffocate her, and she would die a most willing death that way. A better end she could not imagine. But that was morbid and not a thought for a holiday. Or for any day really, but she had always entertained such thoughts her whole life, whenever she was so happy she thought she’d die for it.
**
In the evening, they walked to the beach.
There was a chill in the air and many people had turned in for the night, but Bathsheba wrapped her thickest shawl around her shoulders and held William’s arm as they picked their way across the sand. His heat was more than enough to keep her warm against the bite of the coastal breeze. It had been a lovely day, with a walk along the promenade and some shopping for things she could not buy in Bridport. Dinner in the restaurant of the hotel, and now this, another walk. This time in the darkness with only the moon and the stars for company.
As she had known, Gabriel was no worse the wear for his long night in the overnight coach, and had been eager to spend the day out in Brighton once he had washed and been fed a generous breakfast.
Now he loped beside them, easily outpacing them both, before he suddenly drew up to a halt and gazed pensively out at the moonlit water.
“What’s wrong, dearest?” Bathsheba asked, reaching out to touch his elbow at the sound of his sharp, drawn in breath.
“Just a sudden thought,” he said. “The last time I was at the sea in the dark of night was the evening I watched -”
He paused and ducked his head, then eyed William.
“The evening I watched him die. Funny how I am only thinking of it now.”
Bathsheba felt a slight tremor go up William’s arm, and she brought her hand down to clasp his. At the same time, Gabriel glanced around and reached out, took William’s other hand in his. Frank’s death - his sudden reappearance, William’s reaction, Gabriel’s tale of his eventual demise - was an ugly thing that they had little discussed in the year and a half since it happened. It always seemed to upset William so, to think of how he had acted so rashly and emotionally, even though all he had done was to protect Bathsheba from the vile man. And they had never truly spoken of Gabriel’s part, dragging the body from the water and leaving it on the beach, although perhaps they should have, for clearly it was enough to haunt him the moment he stood near the night time sea once more.
“Oh my brave boys,” Bathsheba said, slipping her arm around William’s stout waist, grasping Gabriel’s shirt cuff with the fingers of that same hand. “Perhaps I was wrong to suggest we come to the sea. I’ve been so happy, I did not even think of what the water would conjure for you both.”
She felt a roll of guilt in her stomach, her chest. How carefree she had been, when Frank’s presence in their lives had been her fault all along. But now Gabriel and William were the ones to be suffering, when she had seemingly recovered with little damage to herself. She had not allowed herself to dwell on her mistakes, not when she had been given a second chance at such delirious happiness.
“Let us not speak of it now,” William said, and turned his head to look at Gabriel, some exchange passing between them that Bathsheba could not see, and did not deserve to. “We cannot - we will not allow him to take from us what we have now.”
“I agree,” Gabriel said. Then there was a flurry of movement, as he knocked Bathsheba’s arm free and wrapped his own around William, wrestling him to the ground. William made a noise of surprise as his back hit the soft sand, and Gabriel laughed, falling to the sand beside him. From habit, Bathsheba looked around them, but the night was dark and they had chosen a spot far from the closest beachfront hotel to have their walk.
They were as safe as they could possibly be.
Which was a very lovely thought, as Gabriel was kneeling over William, his legs either side of his prone frame, and kissing his face, his ears, his neck.
“Gabriel,” William said breathlessly, his hands flexing uselessly where Gabriel had pinned his wrists down. “My dear.”
“My love,” Gabriel rumbled, his lips close to William’s ear. “I am so pleased to be on holiday with you. Both of you.”
Bathsheba felt a familiar warmth in her gut at the sight of the two of them together, and sank to her knees beside them. She would be quite content to watch, but Gabriel released one of William’s wrists and drew her in, kissing her squarely on the lips. She laughed into his mouth and took over pinning William’s hand as he tried to slide it up her leg. Her husband’s little groan of frustration was like music, and she made sure he could see as she licked into Gabriel’s mouth. He tasted of salt, the sea air in his mouth and his lungs.
She wanted to see if William tasted of the same, so she made herself prone at his side and gave him what he desired. Aside from a gritty spray of sand in his beard that Gabriel had managed to kick up as he wrestled him onto his back, he also bore the taste of the sea. There was a rumble that was a familiar sound of Gabriel’s approval at the sight of them, and then they finally all three broke apart. Wrestling in the sand was one thing, but they could not get too carried away with it. Not here. They had a perfectly good bed back in the hotel for such things, as much as the thought still made Bathsheba blush.
Instead, she flopped down between them onto her back. Gabriel took her cue and lay down too, till the three of them were gazing up at the clear night sky, their breaths misting in the air.
“I do not mean to be such a spoilsport,” she said airily. “But I always know when it is best to separate the two of you to spare your own blushes, let alone those of another innocent late night walker!”
Gabriel laughed, and squeezed her hand. His earlier melancholy, if she could even call it such a thing, would be easily forgotten - even if she had scuppered his plans for some beachfront wrestling. He was not a man to dwell, and she should not forget that. If he were in genuine distress, he would tell her. Or he would tell William, and she would not be jealous of that. They had their own hearts and minds, their own conversations she was not privy to, and she did not wish to be. When it mattered, it was always the three of them. Together.
“You are a very sensible wife,” William said, his beard brushing against her ear. “We are lucky to have you.”
“As long as you do not forget that,” she replied, with good nature.
As though either of them ever would.