Author's usual notes and disclaimer: I don't own any of the original characters nor the original Inspector Lynley Mysteries – they belong to Elizabeth George and the BBC. I have borrowed the characters from the TV-Show and solely own the ideas of my stories and the developments I've let them go through.
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Summary: This is a loose collection of independent short stories as the result of the mutual challenge Cats already has mentioned. A photo is the origin. Here's what I make of it. This is for our amusement but hopefully also yours.
A/N: Gosh, I know I should be working on Psycho, but since Cats had started (and I had wasted my first picture on a sportif story) here's my first answer to that challenge. Probably I also still have HIM in cricket dress (first photo) on my mind ;-)
Enjoy...
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The Ashes (Framed Memories 1)
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"Hey, Dad! I've seen Mom's locker today." A juicily grinning fourteen year old boy in white clothes came to the man who was serving at the bar in the club house of the Casual Cricketer Club. "She's got a pin-up picture in it."
Tommy Lynley, the 8th Earl of Asherton, drying some wine glasses, looked at his son with a quizzical expression.
"Give me a beer and I'll tell you." the boy laughed and, knowing he would not get one, disappeared in the locker room to shower and change.
"No way, son." Tommy called after him and put away the last clear glass before he gave over the shift to Judy, the headmistress of Nanrunnel Primary School.
His Lordship's wife had had the idea to incorporate a Cricket Club for everybody on one of the unused meadows of their estate near Nanrunnel many years ago and they still played quite regularly and of course fulfilled the rotating duties in the club house. At the moment said wife entered the bar room with rosy cheeks and the shin pads still on.
"Barbara!" Tommy greeted her with a kiss. "You enjoyed yourself?"
The man at her side, William, a young local butcher with whom she had practised some bowls and catches, nodded at Tommy and greeted him with a short "Tom!"
"Wills!" always was Tommy's brief answer. Australians might understand that. And perhaps cricket and footy lovers. The men grinned at each other while he put an arm around her shoulders. "Wills, you haven't chased her too much, have you?"
"Tommy! I'm not even 55!" Barbara chastised him with a soft slap onto his chest with the heavy wicket-keeping gloves and waved good bye to Wills who left laughing.
Unashamed of publicity the Earl snaked his arms around his wife's waist and gave her another kiss on the lips. "Terry has told me you have pin-ups in your locker...?"
"I what?"
"You have a pin-up photo on the inner side of your locker."
"Oh, yes, yes... indeed..." Barbara laughed out loud while they went onto the veranda. Tommy pulled out a chair for her and then waited until she had settled down before he took his own seat.
"Barbara, you've got me intrigued, what's with that photo?" Tommy asked after he had ordered some still water and an orange juice. "Do you have a secret?" he conspiratorially added with a grin. "Or a secret lover?"
Before Barbara could answer a young girl with a little boy at her hand came at the table.
"What? A secret lover? Ma? Oh, bien sure, Pa..." After two years of French lessons at school she was giving the French words a go at the moment. She rolled her eyes. "As if..."
"But she has a pin-up in her locker, your brother has said." Tommy insisted.
"Ah, bollocks, Tommy! Hello you two. How was football?" Barbara smiled at their twelve year old daughter Katharine and their little accidental six year old baby boy Benjamin who climbed a chair on his own after rejecting his sister's help. Ignoring the other conversation and his mother's question he started to manly talk to Tommy about the things he had done on the football ground today. He was not much in cricket like the rest of the family though his father really hoped that one day he would join them in their team.
"A pin-up?" the girl asked with disbelief.
"Oh, Kats, don't believe everything men tell you." Her mother laughed and told her that there of course was no pin-up but a nice picture of an Earl lying on the bed, looking concentrated and slightly frowning. "Just a picture of Dad I've taken quite a while ago."
"What was he frowning at?"
"The Ashes. England was, well, not really good at that day."
Here Tommy, who was admiring his son's stories with the required attention, had to interject the women's conversation, saying that if someone said 'not really good' it usually was extremely understated.
"And why did you take a picture and above all why do you pin it into your locker door, Ma?"
"It's a nice picture, Kats. He's showing his bare chest." Barbara grinned openly in her husband's direction. "And though one can see that he's covered I do know that he's naked under the sheets. It had been a hot summer night. And after-"
"Urgh! Mom, stop! I don't want to hear that!" Now Kats jumped up and quickly left. No, she did not want to hear anything that had something to do with her parents in bed. She waved back at her parents over her shoulder. "I'll drive to the beach café. See you at ten."
"You'll be home at eight, young lady!" Tommy called after her. Rocking his tired little son in his lap he asked Barbara where her little rascal had gone to after cricket training.
"Your son has his orchestra rehearsal this evening. My little rascal would be playing bass or drums and not the clarinet." Answering Tommy's grin she added "I only hope Benji will do some proper stuff with his musical skills."
"Well, until now, and if he's not sleeping peacefully, he's playing the pot and pan drums quite good."
Tommy, carrying the meanwhile sleeping boy, and Barbara went to their family car and then drove home.
After dinner and after they finally had put every child at least behind its room's doors upstairs Lord and Lady Asherton went into the cosy study to watch some telly and have a quiet night cap.
Barbara cuddled under his arm and pulled her legs under herself and let Tommy zap through the channels. It had been an exhausting Sunday with the children being on summer holidays and today they had spent the entire day on the cricket ground and in the club house. Now she looked a bit forward to go to bed. She did not care at all what was on the box.
"Say, pet" Tommy broke the companionable silence. "I absolutely don't remember any photo of me watching cricket. And I can't recall that night properly."
"You refer to that pin-up again?" his wife sleepily mumbled into his chest.
He gave her a kiss onto her head. "I'm still curious."
Barbara sat up and put her arms around his chest. "If you promise you won't leave that spot here, I'll show you." she whispered into his ear. Smugly grinning she saw the hairs stand on his arms when she had nibbled at his earlobe. She stood and went out of the study. Returning into her husband's arms she held up her mobile.
"So it's not as old as I had thought?" he asked.
"Yes, it is, but every time I've got a new phone this... picture..." she tapped and wiped a bit on the screen. "...is the first... thing... I... transfer. Here!"
Tommy took the offered mobile and held it a bit away from his eyes. The picture shown was of him, the wall behind him looked like the wall in their former London house had for many years but it was painted long ago. His face was lit from the side, probably a bedside lamp, his hands were linked behind his head. His naked chest was barely covered with a white sheet and he was intensely watching something at the foot of his bed. There once stood a TV. Slowly he remembered that evening.
"Oh, I think I recall." he smiled. "We were newlyweds and in the afternoon, when we finally had some spare time throughout that... what was it? Anyway, some case... We had tried to make love." Tommy chuckled. "Three times we've become romantically involved but always got interrupted by our mobiles."
"Mhm." Barbara snuggled closer into his side. "Until a messenger had brought me some files. He almost had died seeing me in my nightgown."
"Yah, brilliant. He hadn't. I could have killed him."
"You bet. I clearly remember that at that point you finally had given up making love to me and turned on the telly to watch that poor appearance of the English cricket team."
"You've had curled up into a ball on that huge armchair." Tommy smiled and squeezed her shoulders. "With your heels on its edge and your chin on your knees, reading those files and making notes in a very funny position."
"In fact I was secretly watching you. You were totally engrossed and that frowning valley on your forehead was slowly deepening. I simply had to take that picture."
"They had one of their worst days."
"Anyway. I didn't care. I was beginning to feel very inappropriate things. You needed to be cheered up." Barbara grinned and tenderly scratched his thigh with her manicured nails. Her hair fell down when Tommy opened the clasp that had held it up during the day.
"Mh, I vaguely remember you were suddenly getting up, leaving your stuff on the ground where it had fallen to, and then crawled under the sheets too. You hadn't put on anything but that thin nightgown which you had discarded before slipping your skin onto mine." Tommy's hand went under Barbara's polo shirt tracing its way up to her chest with just his fingertips. "I almost hadn't noticed you had stripped for me."
"Oh, yes. And I vaguely remember that first you even had grumbled at me." Barbara tenderly bit his neck.
"I'm still sorry for that." Her husband gave her a soft kiss onto her lips.
"You've paid enough for it." she chuckled. "And the way your body had responded immediately was almost enough reward for the fact that your mind was not yet fully focussed on me."
Barbara's hand covered a certain area underneath his navel.
"Not immediately." he whispered with his lips behind her ear. "But your hands had made it quite clear what you've wanted."
"And what I've received." They exchanged a deep kiss.
"Unlike the score for England Benji was a wonderful result." They exchanged another long kiss melting into each other. "Barbara..." he whispered and pulled himself free.
"What are you up to?" she asked still lying defeated in the corner of the sofa where his kiss gently had pushed her.
"If you promise you won't leave that spot, I'll show you." he whispered into her ear, got up and locked the door of his study.
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A/N: The TBC dots only indicate that the challenge continues. This story is over, this picture is described.