Table of Contents
Books by Catherine Curzon and Eleanor Harkstead
Title Page
Legal Page
Book Description
Dedication
Trademark Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
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About the Authors
Pride Publishing books by Catherine Curzon and Eleanor Harkstead
Single Books
An Actor’s Guide to Romance
A Late Summer Night’s Dream
The Captain’s Ghostly Gamble
The Captain’s Cornish Christmas
The Captain’s Flirty Fireworks
Captivating Captains
The Captain and the Cavalry Trooper
The Captain and the Cricketer
The Captain and the Theatrical
The Captain and the Best Man
Pride Publishing books by Catherine Curzon
Anthology
I Need a Hero: The Angel on the Northern Line
Pride Publishing books by Eleanor Harkstead
Single Books
The Low Road
Captivating Captains
THE CAPTAIN
AND THE SQUIRE
CATHERINE CURZON & ELEANOR HARKSTEAD
The Captain and the Squire
ISBN # 978-1-913186-61-6
©Copyright Catherine Curzon and Eleanor Harkstead 2020
Cover Art by Cherith Vaughan ©Copyright January 2020
Interior text design by Claire Siemaszkiewicz
Pride Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Pride Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Pride Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2020 by Pride Publishing, United Kingdom.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorised copies.
Pride Publishing is an imprint of Totally Entwined Group Limited.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book”.
Book five in the
Captivating Captains series
A sexy city boy and a country squire will set the countryside alight!
Tarquin Bough is a tweedy squire with an ambitious fiancée who controls his every move. He’s also the owner of the finest collection of saucy artifacts in the world. From Christine Keeler’s eyelash to the Virgin Queen’s dildo, they’re all safe in Tarquin’s care.
Christopher Hardacre is a city slicker with the tightest jodhpurs and the most smackable bottom in London. He’s given up the rat race for a country life as captain of the village rowing team. The only trouble is, he’s lost his money to a ruthless scam and Bough Bottoms is his last hope of a home.
But Chris hasn’t reckoned on his uncle’s will. The house comes with a sitting porcine tenant and if Chris can’t look after his newly acquired pet pig, he’ll lose his inheritance and his last chance at happiness.
When Tarquin sees Chris it’s lust at first sight, but dare he be honest about his feelings in a village where being gay is bound to be a hot topic? As soon as Chris and Tarquin get together, it’s the hottest summer this little corner of England has ever known.
With a scheming local hotshot out to turn the beloved pig into sausages, can the captain and the squire save everybody’s bacon?
Dedication
CC – to EH. How is it 2am already?!?
EH – to CC. Marzipan balls!
Trademark Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Strictly Come Dancing: BBC One
Ray-Bans: Luxottica Group
The Wind in the Willows: Kenneth Grahame
Beamer: Bayerische Motoren Werke AG
Aston: Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings pk
Oh What a Beautiful Mornin’: Oscar Hammerstein II
Louboutin: Christian Louboutin Ltd
In the Still of the Night: Cole Porter
Godfather: Paramount Pictures
Daimler: Daimler AG
Bonio: Nestle Purina PetCare
Disneyland: Disney Enterprises Inc
Classic FM: Global
The Proms: BBC
Wimbledon: Nufurn Pty Limited
Pimms: Diageo
Grease: Barry Gib
Badtemeez Dil: Saurabh Tewari Films
Range Rover: Land Rover
Jackanory: BBC1
Over the Rainbow: Yip Harburg
Scrooge: Charles Dickens
Land Rover: Land Rover
Porsche: Dr.-Ing h.c.F. Porsche AG
YouTube: Google LLC
Guys and Dolls: Frank Loesser, Jo Swerling, Abe Burrows
The Wizard of Oz: L. Frank Baum
The New Statesman: Yorkshire Television
Scoob: Warner Bros. Animation
Anything Goes: Cole Porter
Dalek: The British Broadcasting Company
Chapter One
Tarquin yawned and stretched in his deckchair. Although most of the blossom had gone from the orchard, blown away by the storms in late spring, it was still a beautiful place to sit in the evening. He took a mouthful of brandy and scratched the head of the pig who was snuffling at the grass beside his chair.
“Now look here, Oracle!” Tarquin held up the length of carved wood that he had been nursing on his lap. “The craftsmanship is second to none.”
The Oracle seemed to be listening, even if she was still busy hunting for truffles. But over the contented snorts of the pig, Tarquin heard the music from next door rise in volume and yet another car revved in the private lane outside his house.
His new neighbor had arrived.
The bastard.
The car doors slammed and the sound of braying laughter carried on the breeze as yet more visitors arrived to greet—who? Who was it who was
moving into the Hardacre house anyway? Who was it who’d had removal vans and tradespeople coming and going for weeks to the empty house? Who was responsible for the smell of fresh paint and the sound of hammering and drilling from that tottering, crumbling pile where the late Beardsley Hardacre had lived for his one hundred and three years? Who had landscaped that wild garden?
Who was it who had arrived by nightfall not quite twenty-four hours earlier and was apparently already throwing a party?
And why had this interloper made no effort to claim the Oracle of Delphi?
“Your new mummy and daddy have arrived, my friend,” Tarquin told the pig, his voice soft. But as another toot and another bray of laughter reached him in his formerly tranquil orchard, he rose from the chair, fire in his tone as he declared, “And I’m going to have words!”
Tarquin ran across the orchard and, his brandy in one hand and the carved wooden length in the other, took the fence in a single bound like a steeplechaser.
The evening air was torn by that most dreadful of sounds—the cry of ripped corduroy trousers.
Now in the Hardacre garden, Tarquin cast a glance back at the fence, where a ragged square of golden-colored corduroy waved back at him like a tiny flag. It must’ve caught on a nail, but instead of going home to change, Tarquin was too inflamed with rage to turn back, and instead plunged on through the garden.
And what an improvement it is!
And whoever was now in his house seemed to be of similar appetites, Tarquin realized, as he rounded the corner and froze on the edge of the patio.
Everyone appeared to be in swimwear, or something resembling it. Tall, elegant women wearing sarongs and high heels with their jewelry chatted with handsome young men in shorts and little more, each of them holding a fizzing glass of champagne, each of them exuding money and confidence and…the city.
A huge hot tub that bubbled on the patio contained yet more of the incomers, tan and braying and so bloody loud and one of them, he knew, must be the new master of Hardacre Grange.
It had to be the man whose braying laughter was louder than anyone else’s. The man who seemed to be holding court in that absurdly overstated hot tub.
The only one wearing sunglasses on an evening that required no such thing.
Tarquin strode straight up to the hot tub and bellowed, “Which of you ruddy coves is in charge here?”
The chatter fell silent but the thump of the music, of course, did not. The man in sunglasses took a leisurely sip from his glass of champagne and said, “That would be me, squire. Why don’t you grab a glass and hop on in?”
Tarquin shook with fury, the brandy slopping up against the brim of his glass. “Hop in? Hop bloody in? The bally cheek of it—I don’t bathe in public with strangers!”
“Oh, you’ve brought your own booze, I like it!” He lowered his sunglasses just a little and peered closely at Tarquin’s other hand. “And you appear to have also brought a large wooden penis. Is that a traditional welcome in Bough Bottoms? Hello, old man, here’s a penis from all of us on the parish council!”
The partygoers guffawed that braying laugh, every eye now focused on Tarquin’s hand.
“Penis?” Tarquin thundered. Then he recalled the antique object in his hand. “This? This is a Tudor dildo! It belonged to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I herself!” Tarquin wagged it under the nose of the man in sunglasses, because surely the man couldn’t see properly wearing Ray-Bans in the dusk.
Although Tarquin could see his new neighbor very well, smarmily grinning at Tarquin from under his arrogant flop of blond hair. Tarquin wasn’t going to admit it, but the fellow was in exquisite form, with swimmer’s shoulders and toned arms that Tarquin would have happily spent hours squeezing like a shopper deciding on a grapefruit. And that angular jaw was worthy of a statue, finished off with a square chin that Tarquin would never tire of nibbling on.
Not that he would. Tarquin threw a furious glance at the woman chortling at his new neighbor’s side.
Married. Has to be. Bugger it.
Or sadly not.
“A Tudor dil— oh, just a minute!” The man pushed his sunglasses up into his hair, his welcoming smile evaporating. “You’re Bough! You’re the man who did Great-Uncle Beardsley out of Prince Albert’s ceremonial Prince Albert!”
“No, I bloody didn’t! It’s mine!” Tarquin stamped his foot. Oh, my dander’s most definitely getting up! “And besides which, you could at least extend the courtesy of pronouncing my surname properly. It’s Boff, to rhyme with cough, not Bow as in bough as in part of a tree! It’s bloody Anglo-Saxon and if my ancestors weren’t conquered by the Normans, I won’t be conquered by a bloody blow-in Yuppie like you, accusing me of theft, who’s got a bath on his patio like a peasant!”
A collective intake of breath sounded around the patio. And where had the patio come from anyway? The last time Tarquin had glimpsed the back of the neighboring house before the brambles had claimed it, this had been a mud pit.
An eyesore.
But the man who now rose from the water of the hot tub was certainly not an eyesore.
Bloody hell, he’s no old Uncle Beardsley.
“Uncle Bea said you were a Bow,” he said in a plummy sneer. Then he grinned and held out his hand, as though Tarquin weren’t juggling a glass of French brandy and Queen Elizabeth’s favorite dildo. “Christopher Hardacre. You can only be my new next-door neighbor. You’re exactly like Bea said you were in his letters. I feel like I already know you!”
Tarquin shoved the dildo into his pocket, its curved end poking out like a rhino horn. He held out his hand. “Your Uncle Beardsley was a dreadful old git—never got on with him, and he always pronounced my name wrong just to rile me. I’m Tarquin Bough, as in cough, and that’s the end of it. Christopher Hardacre, eh? My new neighbor!”
As Tarquin shook Christopher’s square hand, his gaze wandered down the planes of Christopher’s dripping chest, down to his muscular stomach and those wet shorts that clung to his every contour.
My other dander’s up now, blast it.
Tarquin cleared his throat and forced himself to look Christopher in the eye. Why did he have to have such cloudless blue eyes? So large, so beguiling, so—oh, there was a sarcastic glint, Tarquin could see that all too clearly. Another Beardsley, although this one was younger and therefore could be infinitely more annoying.
“He was a great old bird!” Christopher released Tarquin’s hand and climbed out of the tub, a drizzle of water falling onto the patio around him. Then he put his arm around Tarquin’s shoulders, soaking his tweed jacket through to his skin. “I’ve heard all about you from Bea. Do you know what his dying wish was, Tarkers?”
Gritting his teeth, Tarquin managed to hiss, “It’s bloody Tarquin! And no, I don’t know what that grumpy old bastard’s last wish was. If it concerned me, he was wasting his breath.”
“Well, this comes second-hand via his lawyer, but according to his last lady friend—he got through several, as you probably know—with his dying breath he said”—he tightened his arm around Tarquin’s shoulders, tensing his muscle just enough for it to be deliberate—“‘I wanted to give you Prince Albert’s Prince Albert.’”
Tarquin forced himself to relax his grasp on his glass or the stem would’ve shattered. “It was never his. I bought it at auction, and I beat him. I don’t even think the old devil wanted it—he bid against me to force up the pri
ce, and all because I very politely asked him if he wouldn’t mind clipping back his trees that were overhanging my land. I would even have done the clipping myself, but he threatened to sue me for damaging his property if I even laid a finger on his trees, the litigious, wrinkly old gonad!”
“Oh, I’ve heard all about that too. About you making his poor old life a misery, putting the squeeze on a defenseless little old man!”
A defenseless little old man? A monstrous, portly nightmare, more like, with more girlfriends than you could shake a stick at. And none of them older than thirty-five.
“He couldn’t manage a place this big on his own, poor old fellow, and to make matters worse, you storm in and start telling him to hack down his trees! I was all for giving you what for, but he was always the peacekeeper. Lucky for you I’m not the sort to carry a grudge.”
“He was never on his own—he had a parade of women tripping in and out of his house! It’s amazing he’s left the place to you and not one of them!”
“I think you should leave,” Christopher decided, steering Tarquin toward the fence once more. Only then, as he heard a collective whoop of amused cheers from the partygoers, did he remember the tear in his trousers.
“I can see your arse,” a woman called in a voice so high-pitched it was a wonder that the champagne glasses didn’t break.
Tarquin’s hand shot to his bottom. He could feel the hem of his paisley boxer shorts through the hole and just beneath it the firm, fleshy curve of his buttock.
“Lucky old you!” Tarquin quipped, with rather more of a camp purr than he intended. Returning to his usual timbre, Tarquin told Christopher, “We need to talk. There’s unfinished business.”
But his neighbor didn’t seem to be listening. He had taken the slightest hint of a step back and was peering down at Tarquin’s bottom. His gaze glittered with mischief, but he made no comment.