Edward’s mouth was unaccountably dry. When had Gabriel got so big? He resembled a fallen Greek bronze, all outsize muscles and broad, powerful limbs. “I’ll take him inside. We’ll set him up somewhere, then you can run for a doctor. The village is close. If you take one of the nags we saw near the gate, you’ll be quicker.”
“A man in this house, and someone knowing that both you and a man are in this house, would be a disastrous state of affairs.”
Edward winced at the sound of Bryce’s slow, maddening voice of reason. He was right of course. Edward closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Someone would notice Gabriel’s absence—a friend, or a wife. God, a wife. And this wife would ask questions, perhaps ask someone who had seen from a distance a seemingly injured man being carried into Hardcote House.
Carried by someone who closely resembled Scandal himself.
Without Maurice to hush things up, things would get very ugly indeed. Especially if someone were to inform Sussex that his nemesis was not, in fact, fleeing for France.
All he had to do was have Gabriel heaved over the gate. Easy. Problem solved.
“I used to know this man. He’s a gentleman, despite appearances. I’ll bring him inside while you fetch a doctor, and I’ll hide somewhere while you talk to the man.” Edward felt a sudden rush of real anger when Bryce began to shake his head. “Don’t make me tell you again.”
Bryce stiffened, clearly reluctant, before nodding. He hurried to the front door, fumbling with the key, as Edward knelt by Gabriel’s body in a mass of flowers.
Dear Lord. His boyhood friend looked like one of those oil paintings of saints, all black curls and tawny skin and darting, unseeing eyes.
Sir Gabriel Winters. The last remaining link to his childhood pain, his fleeting innocence.
Edward felt anything but innocent, watching the man twist and writhe. He was boiling over with savage, keen awareness of Gabriel, of the size and shape and colour he’d become.
A small, pathetic sound alerted him to a scrap of muddy ginger fur curled in a nearby bed of primroses. Tearing his eyes away from Gabriel, fighting a growing sense of having stepped into a dream, Edward realised that it was a kitten.
“Did he just make that sound?” Bryce ran over, kneeling down as he placed two fingers to Gabriel’s throat. “That isn’t promising.”
“No. I...” Edward pointed at the mewling, mud-splattered creature. “I rather think it was that.”
“What the—oh, for goodness’ sake.” Bryce grabbed the kitten by the scruff of the neck, holding it aloft. “I suppose you’re going to tell me to take this inside, too?”
Edward looked into the kitten’s enormous brown eyes, noting the rapid pitter-patter of its chest. Apart from the difference in size, there didn’t seem to be much separating the two bodies at all.
“If not, I’ll find a water barrel.” Bryce eyed Gabriel’s splayed limbs. “Big enough for both of them.”
“You take that. I’ll take him.” Edward heaved Gabriel onto his back before Bryce could protest, and briefly staggered under the man’s weight. “Let’s get inside. And if there’s any more talk of water barrels, I’ll find one the right size for you.”
Bryce ran back to the door, kitten swinging from his fist like a lady’s reticule. Edward’s thighs ached from the weight of Gabriel across his shoulders.
The Reverend Sir Gabriel Winters, wrapped around him. Of all the outcomes he’d imagined as he’d set off from London that morning, this was definitely the most unexpected.
It was also, quite surprisingly, not the worst outcome. Not by far. It was curiously exhilarating, having him this close...almost as if the intervening years hadn’t happened. But whenever the curious spark of excitement rose in him, painful memories followed shortly after.
Gabriel gave a ragged gasp. Edward imagined those wide, coffee-coloured eyes closing forever, and the idea of that was almost worse than the noose.
“Bryce.” Good Lord, was he snapping? He never normally raised his voice above a languid purr. “Get on with it. Open the door.”
Chapter Four
Darkness...darkness...and light, of a kind.
If this was heaven, Gabriel reasoned, his previous meditations on the place had been somewhat wide of the mark. Instead of soothing harp and cloud arrangements, heaven resembled, to a quite astonishing extent, the study of Hardcote House—a room he vaguely remembered seeing as a boy.
Dark wood panelling stretched around him, covered by stacks of dusty books. The bank of cloud he lay on had the exact feel of an overstuffed chaise longue, complete with a loose spring.
Small tendrils of doubt began curling at the base of his spine before burning away in a shivering rush of heat. This wasn’t heaven, then. This was purgatory, where his soul would be cleansed.
Were there horses in purgatory? He was sure he could hear thundering hooves, somewhere. Or were they footsteps, hurrying to where he lay helpless?
Light shone on his face, harsh and unrelenting. He winced as a hand gripped his wrist, his heartbeat pattering rapidly against his skin.
How odd, that souls had heartbeats. How odd, too, that the heavenly choir he’d read about sounded like worried conversation.
“Pyrexia, and extreme exhaustion...possibly rheumatic fever. The insensibility will most likely continue for... Willow bark, vinegar, and rest. Cool water on the head... No, absolutely not. He cannot be moved in any circumstances, and he must be closely watched. I can provide my services, if—or... Yes, of course, you can watch him yourselves... Sir, your name? Forgive me, I’ve only recently begun my practice here... Williams? And when will the other staff be arriving? They must be informed.”
Rheumatic fever? Gabriel pitied the poor devil who had it. A fortnight ago he’d visited a family struck down by it, and had ended up burying the father. The effects of such a disease had been heartbreaking to witness.
Oh.
Oh, no.
He shifted, trying to see who was speaking, but a lance of pain through his chest forced him to lie still.
Oh, no.
A door closed, followed by a conversation that was, for the most part, too low to hear. “Your Grace, I... No, I can’t allow you to... Good lord, Caddonfell, have some sense!”
Caddonfell. Gabriel’s stomach dropped. A familiar, arrogant drawl filled the room, breaking through his feverish haze with the expert coolness of a surgeon’s blade.
“Bryce, we are not discussing this. Given that I lifted him bodily from the flowerbed, whatever vicious atomy coursing through that man’s veins is already on me. Quite possibly in me. And given that I am meant to be fleeing for the Continent, it makes little sense for me to suddenly pop up in Hardcote village demanding willow bark and vinegar. The only one of us who can stay with him is me.”
That man. Gabriel’s heart filled with deep, unconscionable disappointment.
Did Edward really not recognise him? Had he changed so very much?
More muffled conversation, and a closed door one step away from a slam. Gabriel tried to turn his head, summoning up just enough energy for a small tilt. When he finally managed the movement, he couldn’t repress a small, pained sigh.
A life of sin had been good to Edward. The skinny, fine-boned adolescent he remembered had grown into a tall, lithely muscled man who whispered dangerous elegance from head to foot. A crackle of charisma shone in every movement of Edward’s linen-covered arms, every forceful jerk of his thighs as he paced up and down, seemingly unaware of Gabriel’s presence.
Any other man, on any other day, would inspire nothing but renewed self-control. But this was no ordinary day. No ordinary man.
Gabriel’s normally rigid mastery of his own body was impossible, racked as he was by fever. And Edward’s face, complete with sculpted cheekbones and ice-blue eyes that glittered with cynical, reckless mischief, was designed to undo
the strongest of men.
God, he ached for him. Ached to do things that he couldn’t name, and couldn’t dare to imagine.
The fever burned away years of denial as he watched Edward pace and mutter. Desire flooded him, as pleasurable as the illness was painful, working in tandem to tingle and swell and stiffen him in ways that would have been unbearable in perfect health, let alone in his current condition.
If only he could touch him. It would be so easy, if only he weren’t dying. Just reach out and grip a handful of that flaxen hair by its roots, pull Edward to him, and see just how much the man had changed. See if, deep down, he was the same youth he’d known all those years ago.
But he couldn’t lift a finger.
Perhaps, then, this was hell.
Oh, Lord, he was coming over. The air filled with the scent of saddle leather and soap. Gabriel tried in vain to shift away as Edward knelt; the musk that clung to the man was stiffening the very opposite of his resolve.
Who knew that—that that could happen in the midst of a fever? He hoped against hope that some sort of blanket was covering him as Edward leaned closer, his full, insolent lips mere inches from his own.
How beautiful he was. He could think that now, as the fever burned away his shame. Beautiful, and damned.
A cool, smooth hand pressed tight against his forehead, sending delicious chills radiating through his body. Edward’s voice washed over him like winter rain, so cold it burned in all the right places.
“You can’t die, Gabriel.” So he did remember him. “You can’t. And not just because it would be damned inconvenient.” Edward’s lips curled into a wry smile, and Gabriel shivered with more than just fever. “Don’t die. Please.”
Edward, pleading. If Gabriel had any control over his own survival, that would have tipped the balance. Given the freewheeling carnival colours exploding across his vision, however, it was already too late to fight.
Darkness beckoned...but something else beckoned first.
With a superhuman burst of last-ditch strength, he brought his hand up to Edward’s neck. His fingers dove deep into the linen knot at the top of the man’s shirt, pulling him down to where he lay.
Hell, purgatory, heaven? Who knew? Maybe he was just a man on earth, freeing the part of him he’d kept caged all his life.
He took a deep, shuddering breath—and kissed Edward as if he were drowning.
Chapter Five
At least five years had passed since Edward had enjoyed a kiss. In the last year, he’d given them up entirely. What was the sense of kissing, when the mouth could be used for far more pleasurable activities? They were distressingly impossible to enjoy with men he barely knew.
As soon as Gabriel’s lips closed over his, however, Edward knew he would have to reconsider his policy. Burn it to ashes, in fact.
God, the strength of the man! Even as Gabriel’s fingers trembled with fever, his hand held Edward fast in place. Edward, accustomed to taking the lead without thinking, found himself caught tight in Gabriel’s grip. He vaguely wondered why he’d never tried it, why he’d never allowed himself to slip away, however briefly, swept up in a tidal wave of another man’s hunger.
Another man’s surprising, shocking, completely unexpected hunger.
Sir Gabriel Winters? Really? He’d always thought... Well, there was no point in raking over the past. Memories he’d buried deep, so deep...but oh, they lived still, he knew that now.
Urgent. Needy. Gabriel kissed like he’d never learned how—but it didn’t matter to Edward. The man’s ardent, clumsy passion had his body thrilling with an intensity he hadn’t experienced in years. A moan rose unbidden to his throat, humming huskily through his lips as the pads of Gabriel’s fingers brushed against his neck, leaving burning trails against his skin.
He couldn’t help moving closer, succumbing to Gabriel’s mouth as the kiss grew deeper. The man’s tongue touched lightly against his own, once, twice; on the third time Edward moaned again, helpless as lust overtook surprise. Yes, this was kissing, a thirsty, needful exchange of something much more precious than breath.
His hands began to move of their own accord, tangling themselves in Gabriel’s thick curls. This wasn’t a clash for dominance, this was exploration, a slow enmeshing of hands and hair, mouths and moans.
Edward felt his own growing hardness with a dim surprise. Was he really this aroused, after a night of terror and a day of exhausted fleeing?
His breeches had tightened to the point of pain. Yes. Yes, he was most certainly aroused. He could feel the want beating through the both of them.
He took one hand from Gabriel’s head, stroking a finger over the rough linen of his shirt. With a delicious shiver of anticipation, he gently began to pull the fabric away from the man’s bare skin...
...and stopped.
And pulled away, perplexed.
Gabriel’s head slumped back against the chaise longue. Apart from brief twitches of his eyelids, the only thing showing he was alive was his shallow, rapid breathing.
The man had fainted dead away.
Edward pulled his hand away from Gabriel as if he’d been stung. He shuffled backward, forgetting even to stand.
What, in the name of God and all his singing bloody angels, did he think he was doing? Had every gentleman’s club, theatre box and stable-yard in London not been enough? Was he going to begin prowling hospital wards, as soon as his exile ended?
The man was seriously ill. For all Edward knew, he’d been mistaken for the local milkmaid. Or Gabriel’s wife. He had no business, absolutely no business at all, being carnal with a man who needed nothing more than willow bark and vinegar.
It had to be nervousness. The adrenaline of the previous night, mixed with an undercurrent of terror—and surprise, sheer surprise, at seeing Gabriel after so many years. And something else, something more than surprise, but he was damned, absolutely damned, if he was going to think about that now.
He should stay the hell away from the man. A difficult state of affairs, given that he’d just told Bryce he alone was responsible for him.
He would have to take care of Gabriel with all the smooth, dispassionate care of a London nurse. That sounded logical—he just had to convince his own body, which was rejecting the word dispassionate about as stiffly as it could.
God, this day! He hadn’t even eaten. It was ridiculous that he could even think about food. Lust, fear, the spectre of hanging twinned with the possibility of contagion...all his chickens, every last mangy one of them, were coming home to roost.
He rose shakily to his feet, backing away from where Gabriel lay. An indeterminate stretch of watching, waiting, spoon-feeding and pillow-turning and caring lay before him.
Oh, for the gleaming stillness of his Mayfair townhouse. A place where sickness and decay were not allowed. A place where no man, even one at death’s door, was allowed to stay the night.
Chapter Six
Gabriel lay at the bottom of a well, or under a snowdrift. Somewhere cold and dark, where his own painful body was little more than a distraction.
How much time had passed? A day? A week? How long had he been here, unable to move, weighed down under such deep exhaustion?
He could barely feel the clothes on his body. What he could feel, with an intensity akin to torture, were Edward’s hands as they cupped his face with awkward gentleness. A spoon was thrust against his tongue, full of a bitter liquid that made him cough and splutter.
After another nameless stretch of time, an icy cloth was pressed against his forehead. Waves of awareness rippled over his body, making him twist and writhe, and he heard Edward’s surprised intake of breath as if from a thousand miles away.
Thinking was far too painful. Feeling, even more so. All he could do was drift, the cool cloth acting as an anchor for sleep.
* * *
Waking up
was like having a bucket of water thrown over him. Every muscle in his body jumped to alertness; he cried out, fists clenched, briefly lost in confusion.
Facts fell on him like blows. Fever. Rheumatic fever, which meant it was a miracle he was even alive. A flowerbed...
Edward.
He had to get out. Via the window, if necessary.
The idea of spending time in close quarters with Edward was a trial not to be borne. He couldn’t see Edward, not in this condition. Being in front of that man required anyone to be at the height of their powers, and he could barely lift his head.
Something was nagging at him. Shock?
No. Guilt. He’d done something, something that he shouldn’t have done.
He couldn’t remember exactly what sin he’d committed, but the knowledge of having done something was more than enough. Enough to make him try to rise from the chaise longue, sweating, and fall with a thump to his hands and knees.
Holding back curses, kicking away the thin blanket that had tangled itself around his legs, he crawled to the window. Moving the desk aside with an impatient thrust, he put a tense, splayed palm to the glass.
This was Hardcote House. The gardens lay before him, bathed in early morning light, the tips of the trees slowly warming to gold as the sun rose.
This was the study he remembered from childhood, complete with the towering bookshelves he and Edward had climbed on in the heady days of their youth. Nothing appeared to have changed at all, even though ten years had passed.
Why didn’t Edward ever stay here? It was a beautiful house.
He turned around, startled, as a sigh came from the corner of the room.
Speak of the devil.
Edward lay sleeping on a low sofa. The lean, hungry look he’d had in childhood remained, every muscle quivering with unspoken tension even in unconsciousness.
His face had barely changed either. There were those slanting, sharp cheekbones, that straight nose, those full lips that were nearly always curled into a sarcastic smile. There was that blond hair coiffed to near perfection, apart from a small curl at the base of his ear that had apparently escaped the hairbrush...
The Vicar and the Rake (Society of Beasts) Page 2