The hour was late. Etienne had watched the moon sweep along the horizon, urging on each slow movement of darkness, eager to discover the castle on his own. Bats rustled above him, squeaking as they awakened.
He had done this before. He was a criminal. So much for being reformed. So much for vowing for a more honorable life. The only thing people saw in him was a thief and a whore. That was his value. There was nothing more.
At least he could be good at it. The general desired him to look for a secret passageway, and he would look. His chest ached as he considered the duke and duchess in danger.
He sighed. Once he found a passageway, or found incriminating evidence on the magistrate, he would flee. Away from the magistrate and his large, smoldering eyes. Away from the desire for his embrace. Away from pretending his life could be something better.
The ceiling loomed high above him, and black cast-iron chandeliers dangled above. The candles still sat in them, unlit. Splatters of crimson wax speckled the floor. Polished swords and lengthy lances rested on iron hooks. More weapons hung on the walls, as if Sir Ambrose wanted anybody who caught an intruder to have a means of killing him at hand.
Something sounded, and Etienne scrunched against the wall, focusing on silencing his breath. The noise ceased, and Etienne allowed himself to relax. He counted to twenty and then continued down the hallway. The library door was shut, and he grasped the handle, turning the heavy door slowly.
Thankfully, no lights were lit.
He stepped into the darkened room. The scent of books pervaded. Rows of leather tomes lined mahogany bookcases, and velvet drapes covered the windows. He swung his head around the room. This would be a private place for the lord of the manor, away from the prying eyes of family and servants. There would be no more ideal place for a secret passage.
He surveyed the room. The ladder rested against a bookcase. He frowned, noticing a void of books on the top shelf. He climbed the ladder and crawled into the space. He pressed against the wall and searched for a hidden knob.
The library door creaked open. Etienne froze as a man lumbered into the room. He set his torch on the desk and lit a candle. The lights flickered over the man’s face, and Etienne was lost. Geoffrey.
The man was handsome. Etienne could grant him that. He had noticed it long ago, but Geoffrey’s recent kindness to him made him wonder what it would feel like to nestle against the man’s chest.
He licked his lips, and Geoffrey’s head snapped up.
“What on earth are you doing?”
Merde.
Etienne forced a neutral expression on his face and swung his legs down so they dangled above the books. He glanced at the titles. Chemistry. Who chose these things? He yawned noisily. “You woke me.”
Geoffrey’s eyes narrowed. He stomped toward Etienne, the force of his movement causing Etienne’s chest to tighten. “What are you doing in my library?”
“Sleeping.”
“In my library? When you have a bed all set for that purpose?”
Etienne shrugged, ignoring the fluttering in his chest. “I’m used to sleeping in unusual places.”
Please let there not actually be a passageway here. Or if there is, please let Geoffrey not know about it.
“I see.” Geoffrey neared him, and the hairs on Etienne’s arms rose. Geoffrey growled, “I would prefer if you could refrain from perching on the ledge of my library.”
Etienne swallowed hard and descended the ladder. “Sleeping. I was sleeping.”
The excuse was absurd, yet he grasped onto it.
The air thickened between them. Beads of sweat lined Etienne’s neck. Geoffrey’s eyes darkened, and Etienne would have been happy staring into them. And when was he happy doing anything? The space vanished between them.
And then Geoffrey’s lips were upon him. Kissing him. Lifting him to some heavenly sphere. For a moment, Etienne thought he was levitating. Geoffrey’s hands were upon him, moving from his face to his waist to his arse.
Etienne moaned.
Geoffrey’s eyes blinked open, and he pushed Etienne away. “I’m sorry. I—I can’t.”
Etienne watched the man flee. The door slammed behind him, Geoffrey’s torch still flickering in the room.
His body craved to touch the other man again. He pounded his fist against the books, and a shelf of books collapsed with a roar. He watched as all those beautiful pages toppled on one another, the pages creasing. Harmed because of him. He froze, half dreading, half hoping, Geoffrey would come through the door.
But no one did.
He bit his lip. He needed to keep searching tonight, for tomorrow, the sightless specter would roam the countryside once again.
*
Geoffrey strove not to think about Etienne. The man conjured up thoughts of gleaming, muscled skin that he ached to touch all over. Every time he did, his cock swelled in an even more awkward way. He had taken to hauling books around with him everywhere.
It was the way his heart fluttered that worried him. His knees would shudder when Etienne entered a room, and he suddenly had a deep empathy for debutantes.
He closed his eyes, remembering the pained expression on Etienne’s face when Geoffrey stammered that he couldn’t touch Etienne. He didn’t comprehend why Etienne seemed to display an interest in him, and he abhorred the thought Etienne might believe the interest was not returned. It was more than returned. It was longed for, dreamed about, constantly.
Etienne was ashamed about his past, he knew that. He was sure Patterson was more involved in Etienne’s past than either Patterson or Etienne claimed, and with reluctance he released Patterson and Preston from the cells. Geoffrey wished Etienne would trust him more, but he understood being ashamed as well.
His whole life his feelings for men brought him shame. His desire was improper, illegal, and yet still the sight of a well-formed male figure, or now just the thought of Etienne, sufficed to fling his mind into delightful, forbidden places.
On his sixteenth birthday, his father took him to a brothel, smiling and informing him that he would finally be a man. Geoffrey had been excited, eager to participate in an activity that would form his virility.
He hadn’t considered the actual action. Or rather, he expressed some doubt, and his father laughed and said it would all be wonderful when it actually happened. Clothed women did not lead him to elaborate fantasies, but everyone insisted unclothed women really excelled. Something apparently about the bare bosom.
He had never seen an unclothed woman before, but he swam naked with some of the neighboring boys his age and found that experience rather enticing. So of course, if even that was special, an unclothed woman would be even more special.
Geoffrey hadn’t spent time with many women his age. Whenever he encountered one, she was accompanied by a stern chaperone who scrutinized their every word. Dorothea Carlisle was his closest friend, but he considered her more as a sister and not as somebody to imagine undressed when he lay in bed at night.
Geoffrey’s cheeks still reddened at the memory of the actual event. A heavily painted maid led him to an expensive, sumptuous suite. Gilt stools gleamed against the garnet wallpaper, and elaborate golden mirrors hung on the walls. The sheets were silk, the bedding velvet. Everything radiated luxuriousness, and Geoffrey smiled, knowing his father cared about him, knowing he thought Geoffrey deserved the very best experience into manhood.
The pictures on the wall were the first sign things might not go splendidly. Naked women arched their backs, everything displayed. Geoffrey averted his eyes, embarrassed at the sight of them, surprised somebody had painted them.
And then she strolled in. Her long, curly dark hair swung down her back. She wore an ornate robe, but she soon dropped it into a pile on the floor, grinning as if Geoffrey were supposed to be overwhelmed with lust.
Her olive skin gleamed against flickering candles, their light dancing on her breasts. She was beautiful, he knew that much. Everything about her was ideal. She told him she was a
Persian princess and frowned when he started asking her about Persia.
Finally she placed his hands on her bosom. She smirked, glancing down at his cock, waiting, it seemed, for him to go into spasms of pleasure. The experience was awkward, and she needed to direct his hands into the most pleasing positions for her. The whole experience felt squishy.
She sighed and then dragged him onto the bed and practically mounted him. In fact she would have mounted him, had there been anything to mount. She took him into her mouth, and that was pleasurable for a while, but when she announced he needed to put his cock in a different portion of her to fulfil his father’s request, his cock rather lessened in stiffness.
Technically, she acquired his virginity. She laughed, declared him nothing like his father, and leaned facedown on the bed. She then told him to enter her, making sure to close his eyes once inside.
He could say he had been inside a woman. Technically.
When his father came for him and inquired about the experience, she laughed again and warned his father his son was an unnatural. A man now, but still unnatural. The carriage ride home was unpleasant, and he never entered into an easy conversation with his father again.
His father’s eyes were on him every time a moderately handsome man entered a room, and Geoffrey felt the pressure of his constant scrutiny. And he realized the scrutiny was well-deserved since seeing a moderately attractive man dressed made his heart race more than seeing the extraordinarily attractive Persian princess undressed.
He confided in Dorothea. She listened and seemed to care, revealing she knew somebody who shared his inclinations, but never saying more than that.
Geoffrey raked his hand through his hair. Ever since her brother moved back from India, he hadn’t been able to see very much of her. And now she was married to a man who also mistrusted him.
Geoffrey had called on her a few times now that her brother had left to go visit the former duke, Sebastian Lewis, in Yorkshire. He hadn’t even thought the two men were close. Everyone praised Captain Carlisle, even mentioning his kindness, and Geoffrey hated that the man had never displayed that side of himself to him. Or even considered him worthy of cordiality.
Uncle Ambrose was the only one in the family who took an interest in him, likely because his father did not have a sufficiently close bond with him to warrant slanderous disclosures about one of his sons. Even the less favored one.
By then, Geoffrey had learned of the importance of feigning interest in the fairer sex. He wasn’t a virgin after all, something that brought him less scrutiny than he deserved. He even continued to visit brothels from time to time with other Cambridge students, each time seeking a new woman, and each time ordering the woman on her stomach so he could take her from behind.
Certainly the students devoted too much time to harassing the skinny, studious men who had no such experiences, even though their inclinations mirrored those of the men who teased them.
Guilt filled Geoffrey from his sixteenth birthday and continued to build as he finished his studies, even as he continued to evade suspicion.
Until he was caught. Until Benedict confessed his secrets, and the expression on Geoffrey’s face as he contemplated Benedict’s pain and the similarity to his own disclosed everything. He had never, despite all of that, truly been interested in Benedict, though their explorations together brought more pleasure than any visit to an expert female.
When Geoffrey left Cambridge, the guilt still haunted him. This time for having damaged Benedict’s heart. Most men had many women to choose from, and men like him had far fewer men to choose from. Simple mathematics confirmed he could never have love. But that was fine; he would have a career. He could never announce his inclinations to anyone anyway.
Etienne’s room lay across the hall from his, and Geoffrey swore the man was murmuring to himself. He seemed to be pacing the room, and Geoffrey shut his book. He could not, would not be able to work until he learned why the man was preoccupied.
He regretted fleeing from Etienne. If Etienne asked him again, he would say yes. This might be the one time he might experience such carnal pleasures again. But more than that, he wanted to experience them with Etienne. The door creaked open next door, and his heart froze. He inhaled, sprang off his bed, and opened his door. Etienne stood in the hallway. He was dressed lightly, as if preparing himself for bed, a thought that made Geoffrey’s cock twitch.
“Good evening.” Geoffrey’s voice roughened, and Etienne’s eyes darted at him.
“Hello.” Etienne tucked his satchel behind him. “I—I was just going for a stroll.”
Geoffrey smiled. “I’ll join you.”
Etienne stepped back, lifting his fingers to his chest.
He gazed down at Etienne’s clothes. “I doubt you’ll be sufficiently warm in those.”
“My body is quite warm,” Etienne stammered.
Geoffrey smiled. This is the moment. He inhaled, his cheeks already red from embarrassment, but he was anxious to declare his desires all the same. “It’s good that your body is warm. Better to keep my bed warm.”
Etienne regarded him, his eyes wide.
Geoffrey had a horrible feeling this was not going according to plan. But perhaps Etienne, a man who propositioned him often, was just in disbelief.
So Geoffrey winked.
Twice.
Etienne’s mouth opened, and he pressed his body against the wall. “That’s . . .” He shook his head and then darted his eyes about. “I—I should go on my walk.”
Etienne rushed down the hallway, and Geoffrey’s heart thudded inside him, no longer fluttering, just aching.
*
Etienne tore open his bag and draped the cobalt cloak over him. He had turned down a night of passion with the man he adored so he could instead pretend to be a sightless specter concocted by a deranged criminal mastermind, who in all probability was dead now and couldn’t care how Etienne dressed.
He sighed. Perhaps the general and the duke were correct. Perhaps Geoffrey was involved in everything Sir Ambrose had been doing, and he was fortunate to escape from the castle. But he didn’t believe it. Not even slightly. Though he tried to convince himself he had done the right thing.
It wasn’t as if Etienne could have explained any of this to Geoffrey. He needed to remind himself that Geoffrey was only looking for a little excitement. The encounter would not have meant anything.
Etienne snuck into the castle stable and took Gawain out. He mounted the horse, and then, with a sigh, removed the very last item from his satchel: a very bloody, very wooden head.
I look ridiculous.
From a distance, he managed to frighten people, and screams and pointed fingers followed him.
He avoided coming close to anyone who might notice the inauthenticity of the disguise, preferring to be a silhouette in the distance. He urged Gawain ahead, and the next moment they were flying over the countryside, through the forest and onto the downs. A breeze brushed against his face as he wove Gawain through the terrain. This was the part he enjoyed, using all his skills in knowing the landscape to best surprise people.
Etienne crouched lower over the horse, urging it along.
The wind rustled in his hair as he sped beside the forest, swooping out to scare passengers on coaches and carriages. He moved toward the cliffs, urging Gawain into a gallop over the smooth fields. He spent hours riding, flying over the countryside, with only the screams of occasional people to accompany him. It would be wonderful to actually own a horse, to ride for sheer pleasure, and not to need to scare anyone.
Finally he returned to Ashbury Castle. He should be able to sneak in just as quietly as he snuck out.
As he neared the castle, lights flickered, joined by low voices. Bloody Hell. Men with torches stood along the road, and he wouldn’t be able to put Gawain into the barn. He thought he recognized Geoffrey’s baritone barreling through the silence.
He gritted his teeth, veered right, and headed for Somerset Hall. When he a
rrived, he tied the horse to a tree on the duke’s property, where Geoffrey would be less likely to investigate, annoyed he would now have to trudge all the way back to Ashbury Castle.
Even when he worked for Sir Ambrose, he resisted coming to the castle. The old fortress spoke of centuries past. Of times when battles were commonplace. In its eyes, Etienne was the enemy. And perhaps it was correct.
Even if Etienne was tired of being the enemy. Tired of being looked at with suspicion.
He tore off the cobalt cloak.
Chapter Thirteen
Etienne was missing.
The man never returned from his late stroll, even though the ghost had ridden tonight. As Geoffrey searched outside with his team of men for the sightless specter, he worried for the other man’s safety. Concern and guilt gnawed on Geoffrey, and he paced the corridor, rubbing his hand against his chest as if the gesture might ease the pain in his heart. Had Geoffrey only refrained from propositioning him…Etienne would be here, safe.
Those men…He had released them when Etienne refused again to testify against them. Not that the man’s reluctance stopped Geoffrey from tracking Patterson. If the men ever attempted anything else, harmed anyone else, Geoffrey would punish them. The nights in the cells had shaken them, and he wouldn’t count on their conscious to rectify their lives. He would be there, with all the force of the law, if they ever attempted something like that again.
But maybe Etienne was hurt after all. Maybe depending on laws to guide him was not sufficient.
The floorboards creaked behind him, and Geoffrey swung around. His face brightened, before he remembered their awkward last encounter. He stilled, observing as Etienne leaned his forehead against the door in the hallway. Etienne’s shoulders slumped, and the man wrung his hands through his tousled hair. Dark shadows hung beneath dim eyes. Damp grass clung to his boots, and the man carried a blue cloak in his arm.
Captured At The Castle (Scandal in Sussex Book 2) Page 12