I love you. Gabriel held the sentiment lightly in his heart, careful not to let it be crushed with worry. There was time for him to say it...not an eternity, yes, but perhaps he could wait. He had always, always been worth the wait.
Edward sank onto the bed with a feline arch of his back, pulling Gabriel to him as easily as a cat catches a mouse. Gabriel rested his head against his shoulder, already wishing that they could return to bed in a more serious fashion.
“Do not go near Hartley this morning.” Edward’s voice was a strange mixture of amused and serious. “He’s behaving most unusually.”
“Do you know... I rather think Hartley is partial to me.” Gabriel laughed inwardly as Edward stiffened beside him. “He’s tremendously brazen.”
“He’s a damned scoundrel, and you’re not to get within twenty feet of him.” Edward’s displeased growl spoke volumes. “I’ll chain you to this bed if necessary.”
“Oh, now. I doubt that would stop a skilled gentleman of Hartley’s calibre.” Gabriel bit back a smile as Edward turned, a deep scowl marring his features. “If anything, you’d be making his job considerably easier. Who knows if I’d even put up much of a fight?”
He couldn’t resist a burst of laughter as hands gripped his shoulders. Edward sat astride him, pushing him into the bed, his normally aloof expression the very picture of offended jealousy. “I’d expect you to fight to the death, you damned ingrate. Quite possibly beyond it.”
“Is that so?” Gabriel smiled lazily, very aware of the warm, solid weight of Edward’s body covering his own. “And why would that be?”
“Because...” Edward’s mouth twitched; Gabriel waited, hoping the words would come, dreading that they wouldn’t. “Because the thought of you with Hartley is personally offensive.”
“Oh I see.” Gabriel bit his lip, pretending to ponder, watching the half-enraged glint in Edward’s eye. “Well then. I suppose it will have to be Frakes. No one could possibly take offence to such a decorated hero.”
“You are entirely mistaken on that count.” Edward leaned down, his voice half command, half entreaty. “Stop this game. Stop it now.”
“But why? I’m enjoying myself immensely.” Gabriel shifted his weight a little, raising an eyebrow as a very definite bulge rested against his thigh. “And it appears you are too. Are you sure the idea of me and another man is so terribly offensive?”
“The idea of you and another man is poison, and you damn well know it.” Edward’s lips brushed against his earlobe, followed by his teeth; Gabriel shivered at the pleasure of it. “My excitement comes from you here, under my hands, mine. Mine. Don’t you forget it. Believe me, I don’t.”
“I’m terribly hard of hearing, you know. Perhaps you should say the final part again.” Gabriel let his hands rest against Edward’s hips, delighting in the tension he felt there. “Just once more.”
“Only if you ask nicely.” Edward gave a rakish smile, the wolfish grin that Gabriel was beginning to know intimately. “I’m much more amenable if you beg.”
“I could...” Gabriel found some courage, somewhere, a tiny portion of it, but enough. “Or, you could say something else to me.”
He waited for Edward to avoid his words, or ignore him completely. To pretend he hadn’t understood...even, perhaps, to be cruel as a way to not show fear. What he wasn’t expecting at all—what had his heart floating suddenly, far above the earth—was for Edward to draw him closer, kissing him with slightly trembling lips.
“How odd that you should say that.” His half smile shivered through Gabriel, down to his core. “I have been considering that very thing all morning. Running from it, and fighting it, and...and deciding, or admitting, that it was time to say it.”
He took a deep breath. Gabriel waited, silent, his nerves quivering in exquisite anticipation. Edward’s lips parted—
“What the bloody hell are you doing? Get your hands off of me!”
The shout, the angry male voice, echoed through the house. With little more than significant looks, and quick rearrangements of clothes, Edward and Gabriel ran for the door—it sounded as if it had come from the kitchen, where Hartley had been writing his letters.
“Interruptions.” Edward’s aggrieved tone couldn’t help but make Gabriel laugh. “Interruptions, letters and moulding books—that’s what this damned house is made of.”
Gabriel smiled, sunny despite not knowing what on earth was happening. What he knew for sure—what buoyed his footsteps, giving them wings—were the words that Edward had been going to say.
Chapter Forty-One
As Edward entered the kitchens, Gabriel close behind, he found a most unusual scene. Hartley, struggling and swearing as he was drawn to his feet by Maurice, who was holding the man’s neck in a way that looked nigh on lethal. A letter discarded on the floor, which Edward couldn’t read however much he peered at the strangely written words.
Frakes’s booming step sounded behind him, along with Lambert’s light feet. Lady Ploverdale appeared soon afterwards with her slightly limping gait, clearly out of breath as she held her chest.
“Have you seen Ginger? I haven’t seen him all—” She stopped, wide-eyed, as she looked at the room.
“They’re letters. Letters in code.” Maurice turned to Edward, his face a careful mask of icy correctness. “It appears your Laughing Lion has been sharing our hiding place.” He looked back at Hartley, a brief flash of pure rage escaping from behind the false calm. “Hiding with us, and laughing at us, in contact with Sussex all the while.” He held up an envelope. “Sending it to Greene’s, Hartley? Sussex’s club? That’s barely even attempting to conceal it.”
Edward stared at his brother, not understanding at first. Then, with a shudder that racked him from head to foot, he staggered backwards.
“You told me they were letters to lovers.” He looked at Hartley, stunned beyond measure. “I believed you.”
“You believed me because I was telling the truth, you milksop.” Hartley looked wildly at Edward, as if he had grown an extra head. “How—how the hell can you believe him? London’s Account-Keeper, for Christ’s sake! For all you know, this petty nonsense is all part of some wider scheme he’s running!”
“Keep calm, Hartley.” Frakes’s glare could have melted iron. “If you get angry, I’ll get angry—and I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
“Oh, yes. The eternal bloody soldier. Still half-sure he’s on a battlefield, with no idea how to behave like a normal human being.” Hartley looked angrily at Frakes, his teeth practically bared. Gabriel rushed to Maurice’s side, clearly ready to help hold him; only Maurice’s shake of the head kept him waiting at his side. “Why shouldn’t I be angry? Why shouldn’t I be absolutely bloody raging?”
“Hartley.” Lambert looked at him, the letters in his hands, his voice shaking. “How could you?”
“What are you talking about? I haven’t—this isn’t—damn all of you! Damn all of you to hell.” Hartley spat the words, viciously shaking away Maurice’s warning hand on his shoulder. “If this is how you treat one of your Beasts, Caddonfell, then hell is what you deserve.”
“No.” Edward stepped forward, rage tightening his chest. “Hell is for people who betray those closest to them.”
“Oh, really?” Hartley’s eyes widened; his voice took on the blade-like precision that Edward had only heard for the most cutting of gossip. “Betrayal, Edward?” He quickly looked at Gabriel, his eyes darting back to Edward before anyone else had noticed. “Shall we talk about betrayal?”
“No.” But as Edward stepped forward, his raised voice full of sudden, tearing panic, Hartley was already beginning to speak much more loudly than necessary.
“Do you know what he said about you this morning? About his shameful romps with the simple country vicar?” Hartley turned his head to Gabriel; Edward saw the shock, the embarrassment, flood Gab
riel’s body as vividly as it did his own. “He said you didn’t know how to shave, and were astonished at the sight of a washed face. That he was being foolish, associating with you in any capacity—that he would be bored with you, after indulging in bucolic pleasures.” He paused, an incomparably bitter smile on his face. “I sincerely hope you make yourself scarce as soon as possible, Winters. If Scandal treats his bedfellows the way he treats his friends, you’re going to find yourself in for a very rude awakening—”
“Enough!”
The room fell into stunned silence. Lady Ploverdale’s face was white with shock and hurt; the faces of the watching Beasts, of Bryce, betrayed their surprise. Maurice’s face was carefully, worryingly blank, but rage burned behind his eyes.
Edward couldn’t look at Gabriel. No power on this earth could make him. The depth of the man’s hurt was palpable.
“There are ladies present, Hartley—so you’re going to hold your tongue, and I’m not going to do to you what deserves to be done.” Maurice was using his special, silken voice that meant untold trouble for the listener. “That will come later.” He looked swiftly at Edward; Edward knew that punishment was in his future, too. “I am going to confine you in the smallest, darkest room. I am going to restrain you, so there is no hope of escape. I am going to invite Sussex here, as gracefully as one would invite a guest to tea, and spin a story out of the godforsaken Madingley diamond affair—and when this damned mess is resolved, I am going to make sure that you—”
“Gabriel.” Lady Ploverdale’s voice broke through Maurice’s words. “Gabriel, you can’t—”
Edward turned to Gabriel. Only the grim line of his lover’s mouth was visible, the glimmer of tears in his dark eyes, as he walked stiffly to the door.
Biting his lip, the heat of his own tears pricking his eyes, Edward moved to follow him. He had almost grasped the cuff of Gabriel’s shirtsleeve, arm moving wildly, before his other wrist was caught in Lady Ploverdale’s vice-like grip.
“Sir.” Her voice was colder than Maurice’s had ever been. “You forget yourself.”
“I’m sorry.” The room, the Beasts, the flash of what looked like regret in Hartley’s eyes, the pure anger in Maurice’s face—none of it mattered. The only thing of any importance, any importance at all, was Gabriel’s absence.
“I’m sorry.” He shook his arm from Lady Ploverdale’s grip; she stepped back with a small cry, Frakes and Lambert moving to her side. Their narrow mouths, their judgemental eyes, chilled Edward as he ran from the room.
Chapter Forty-Two
Gabriel ran. Ran farther and faster than he ever believed he could, faster than he’d run in London. Only when his lungs felt as if they were going to shatter did he slow to a walk. He tramped along the rough track to his home, his chest burning. Hardcote House slowly dwindled to nothing behind him, like a dream too vivid for comfort.
Nothing had ever hurt like this. Not discovering how different he was, not losing his parents, or Mr. Welton. All of that felt like nothing, nothing at all, compared to the way his heart felt now.
Damn them all. Damn Maurice, damn the Society. Whatever happened to them, whatever was going to happen—well, he’d bloody well stop caring about it, even if it meant feeling like a limb had been chopped off.
He would go back home, to the simple house that he was proud of, and keep quiet. Keep being the devoted servant to Hardcote village that he’d always been. Clearly, he was never destined to be more. To feel more. To be loved for who he was, rather than for what he could do. The only person he’d ever really wanted—ever really cared for—
I love you. He’d never felt more alive, more hopeful, than when he’d spoken those words. Now he felt them aching savagely in his bones, his nerves, his every heartbeat.
He loved Edward. Loved him madly. And Edward... Edward didn’t care, or was too scared to be seen caring.
He cleared the woods without a backward glance, tracing the familiar pathway. Only a desperate shout from a voice he knew stilled his feet.
He prepared himself to say the worst words, the words that would make Edward turn away from him. Wild-eyed, panting, his hair a sunlight and shadow mixture from where the dye was fading...oh, the man was beautiful, even if he had hurt him beyond all measure.
“Wait.” Edward stopped in front of him, his hands on his thighs as he caught his breath. Gabriel waited, the smell of the green path mixed with the scent he knew was Edward’s: musk, soap, the summery perfume of the dye. “Please.”
“Don’t tell me that you weren’t cruel. I know you were.” Gabriel shook his head, gritting his teeth. “Hartley may be a traitor, but he wasn’t lying. I know it.”
“I wish I could be as cruel to you as I was about you.” Edward stopped, clearing his throat, his voice shaking. “I wish I could. I could say things to you that would make you run from me. Things that you secretly think about yourself, that plague you. Remember my father. I am well-versed in how to ruin a man, especially with the lies he tells himself.”
“Is this...is this your attempt at reconciliation?” Gabriel shook his head, laughing bitterly. “You are deluding yourself.”
“No, you are deluding yourself.” Edward ran his hands through his hair, his face the picture of exhausted misery. “You pretend that you’re an ordinary man, and the men you work with resent you for it. You pretend that all you have to offer the world comes with the sweat off your back, when you could give people more by using less of yourself. You pretend to abhor London, when you’re simply terrified it would reject you. You spend more time pretending than any man I’ve ever met.”
“At least I don’t pretend to love people.” Gabriel said the words without meaning to, tears clouding his vision. “At least I’m not famous for throwing people away. At least I don’t demand loyalty and faith from the man I choose, without giving them any guarantee of—”
“Faith? What faith have you shown me? What faith have I been given, if you can’t even believe that—that—” Edward stopped, pausing for a long, broken moment, before stepping forward.
“I love you, you damned fool.” He spoke slowly, Gabriel shut his eyes tightly, turning away. “I love you, and it burns. Of course I’m not going to tell Hartley about it. There is agony in it, the sweetest, most glorious agony, and I live every moment of every day drunk with it—mad with it. And my God, it doesn’t lessen. It only grows, and deepens, and gives life to things I thought were dead. It makes me better, and stronger, and more grateful than anything I have ever possessed, or encountered, or begged for or stolen or made. And it will never die. This is faith. This is the only faith I’ve ever had that I could feel.” His voice altered; Gabriel could hear the tears in it. “And...and I thought it would mend me, Gabriel, and it did not.”
Gabriel turned back. He forced himself to look into Edward’s eyes, gathering his thoughts, steadying himself. “I thought it would too.” He sighed. “I thought it would. I hoped it would. But...”
He couldn’t say over, or finished, or done. No matter how much he steeled himself, the words wouldn’t leave his lips. They would never be done, he and Edward; they never had been, they never would be...
...or maybe, maybe, they were.
“I am tired.” The words came from his very core. “Tired of fighting. Tired of...of waiting. Just...tired.”
“Come back to the house. Come back to me.” Edward moved to take his arm; Gabriel shrugged him away. “We’re in danger out here.”
“I know.” Gabriel turned away, forcing himself to start walking. “But I’m in more danger with you.”
He walked, waiting for Edward to follow him. Aching to hear the sound of the man’s footsteps, his voice... God, a single phrase, a word, and he would take it back...
But there was silence. Silence, and a yawning gulf that grew greater with each step he took.
Blindly, weakly, Gabriel stumbled back through
the streets of Hardcote. Some curious faces watched him, others raised a surprised hand in greeting...but none followed, or questioned, or insisted on helping him. No one opened the small wrought-iron gate that led to his meagre house, as the morning sun slowly brightened to midday.
Gabriel put a hand out to open the door. To his shock, then deep suspicion, it swung open. He stepped inside, his grief now undercut with a fierce, growing tension.
“Here. Sir.”
Too surprised to think, Gabriel lunged for the cudgel that stood beside the door. Panic sparked along his veins when his fingers clutched empty air—and stopped, abruptly, when he saw the familiar figure of Ginger standing in the hall.
The boy had the cudgel clutched to him, trembling, his cheeks wet and smeared with tear tracks. When he spoke again, his voice barely rose above a whisper.
“Sir. You’ve got to help. Please.”
“Ginger?” Gabriel went to the boy, arms outstretched, pulling him into a hug without thinking. Ginger buried his face in his shoulder, cudgel dropping to the floor, dissolving into noisy sobs. “Ginger. What are you doing here? What’s the matter?”
“It’s Mum. She didn’t write me a letter—I was worried, so I went to her. Don’t tell Lord Maurice.” Ginger gulped, sniffing. “Men came, sir. In the night. Mum said they were big buggers, going through all our stuff, and when Mum tried to stop them, they—they—”
“Ginger? What happened?”
“You’ve got to come, sir.” Fresh tears began to fall down Ginger’s cheeks. “I think she’s dead.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Ginger and his mother lived huddled away in a back street of Hardcote, one Gabriel had visited long ago with baskets of food and poultices for the poor and infirm. The cottage was tiny, low roofed, anonymous in every respect. Ginger beckoned him around the corner of the ivy-choked dwelling, cudgel in hand, where the back path was littered with torn weeds and heavy-booted footprints.
The Vicar and the Rake (Society of Beasts) Page 22