by Lily Maxton
Ian, who’d always thought Townsend’s eyes were the color of coffee, was a little taken aback to realize they were several shades of brown.
“Why should you?” Ian asked.
“Because they’re my guests.”
“Bothersome guests. Leave it alone.”
Townsend’s eyes widened. “Leave it alone?”
“Aye. Hale will either stand up to his uncle or he won’t. Ye don’t have to be there, meddling.”
“I don’t meddle.”
Ian snorted. “Ye’ll do it just because you want one more person to admire you. Not even that, ye want people to depend on you.”
“That isn’t—”
“Ye told me yourself. You wished you were the one who saved your sister’s reputation. It’s not enough to be liked—you want to be needed.” Ian knew he was being a little cruel, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Not when Townsend was falling over himself worrying about quiet, bookish, brooding Mr. Hale, and not when Ian had just realized Townsend’s eyes weren’t only one color, but a myriad of colors—light brown and dark and gold and amber.
Instead of looking hurt, Townsend’s face smoothed into something obstinate. “Fine. I admit it. I want to be needed. I’m a selfish bastard. But we’ve discussed this before.” His brow lifted. “What I don’t understand is why you’re angry with me.”
Angry? To be angry he would have to care, and he didn’t. “I’m not.”
“Truly? That’s not why you stopped to argue with me in the middle of the gallery?”
Ian opened his mouth, closed it again. Frustration roiled inside him.
Robert watched him for a moment, then gave a curt nod as if he’d decided something and turned quickly to walk back down the length of the corridor.
“Where are you going?” Ian asked, unable to stop himself.
“We might not have found anything, but the stolen goods have to be somewhere. I thought I’d start in the cellar.”
“We weren’t done,” Ian snapped. He didn’t know why he was being like this. He felt like an ass, and he still couldn’t stop himself.
“Yes, we were.” Robert glanced back at him briefly but didn’t stop moving. “I’m not inclined to stand around while you hurl verbal abuse at me. If I did something that bothered you, find those words you keep buried in the depths of your prickly soul and tell me. Until then, we have more important matters at hand.”
Ian stared. No, he gaped. Never in his life had he been spoken to the way Townsend had just spoken to him.
Against all reason, his feet began to move. To follow him.
Like a dog called to heel.
He gritted his teeth, but Townsend was right—they did have more important matters at hand. Ian had accused Mr. Hale of being childish, but arguing with Townsend because he was jealous was also childish, particularly when whoever had tried to pin the thefts on him was still out there, free to plot Ian’s demise.
He stared at the back of Townsend’s head, at the unyielding angle of his shoulders. A sudden, unwanted question emerged—what would Townsend be like as a lover? Ian had assumed he’d be carefree, easygoing, generous. Now, with this new side of the man he saw emerging more and more often, he wondered if he might be demanding, greedy, if he might take more than he gave.
Ian didn’t think he would mind.
Robert glanced over his shoulder, saw Ian following, and smiled.
Ian’s pulse quickened at the sight of Robert’s smile. But he should have realized he wasn’t actually upset—Townsend wasn’t the sort to take offense for very long. This would have bothered him just a few days ago. He would have assumed it was because Townsend didn’t like anything getting in the way of his idleness. Now he simply assumed that Townsend wasn’t the sort to hold grudges, which didn’t necessarily seem like a bad trait.
He was incredibly irritated by this shift in perception.
Ever since they’d gotten stuck under the Worthingtons’ bed, ever since Robert had pressed against him, shaking with laughter, he’d been less inclined to think harshly of him. That moment had drawn a line in the sand—before, they were apart, separate, a huge wall between them. After, somehow, they were in it together.
It was a damned nuisance.
Just because Ian was less inclined to think of Townsend harshly didn’t mean it wasn’t deserved. Townsend still crawled out of bed each morning as if he’d been drinking until dawn. He was still a lazy aristocrat.
And it would be a mistake to think of him as anything else.
“I’m glad you decided to come,” Townsend said as Ian drew alongside him.
“Why?”
“Have you ever been down to the cellars? One of the rooms was used as a prison when Llynmore was first built, and I’m quite positive there’s a bloodstain on the floor.”
“Couldn’t it be wine, from later?”
“It could be,” he allowed, but he sounded unconvinced.
“So…ye want me there because you’re frightened to go alone?”
Townsend tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “I’m not frightened,” he said. “I like to hedge my bets.”
“Meaning?”
“If there would happen to be something down there—a deranged murderer who’s been hiding there for years unbeknownst to any of us, or, God forbid, a rampaging unicorn—I might have a chance to escape if they’re occupied with you first.”
Ian didn’t even know where to begin. “So ye would use me as a human shield?”
“Don’t take it personally, Cameron. I would be tempted to use anyone as a shield against murderers and unicorns.”
“I don’t think it likely that there’s anything down there. Someone would have noticed.”
“You obviously haven’t read as many gothic novels as I have.”
They made a detour so Robert could stop in his bedchamber and retrieve an oil lamp. “This will be brighter than a candle,” he muttered to himself, checking the amount of oil in the reservoir.
Ian took a moment to study the room. It was fairly well kept—a large bed was neatly made, across from which rested a tall wardrobe and a washstand. There weren’t any personal belongings left out. Looking at just those things, Ian might have assumed he was in a freshly cleaned guest room.
And then he got a good look at the desk by the window, which was illuminated by the sunlight angling across the surface.
It was a battlefield…of parchment and quills and books.
Ian couldn’t even see the actual desk. Everywhere, sheets of foolscap covered in a slanted scrawl were stacked or strewn about. Books, both open and closed, took up any space the foolscap had left. And teetering precariously close to a corner was an intricate silver-topped inkwell and an open cedarwood box that contained no fewer than ten quills.
Most had the grayish tinge of goose quills, but there were some larger white ones that were probably swan. Ian had no idea why one person would need so many quills.
But he moved closer as Robert fumbled with the lamp and saw that, based on the ink stains, all of them had been used.
He stared down at the stack of parchment and was just reaching a hand out to draw it closer to him when Townsend practically flung himself between Ian and the desk. Ian blinked.
“I’m finished,” Robert said brightly, holding the lit oil lamp between them.
They were close. Too close. Townsend’s breath fanned across Ian’s mouth, and at that light touch, hunger roared to life inside him—too strong, too fast, too hot. He stepped back, shaken.
He turned quickly, wondering why he hadn’t stayed in the hallway in the first place. And how Townsend could affect him so strongly without even touching him.
The walk to the central tower house and then down the spiral stairway to the ground level was silent, and it was a more tense silence than Ian was used to with Townsend. He wondered if Townsend suspected— No…there was no reason for him to suspect anything. Ian had turned away too quickly for him to see even the smallest spark of desire.
Would he return it?
Ian tamped down on that line of questioning. Even if he did, Ian was not foolish enough to think it was a good idea to start a physical relationship with his employer’s brother. There were too many ways it could go wrong.
And the suspicion that his desire might encompass something more than a hasty fuck or two was warning enough.
Ian did not get jealous. He did not care. He did not hang around someone simply because he liked to hear them talk. Except…he’d done all of those things with Townsend.
In light of that, lust was the last thing he needed to succumb to. It would only cement all of those things, only make them stronger.
But Ian knew how to deny himself—he knew he could deny himself. They just had to find the other stolen goods, resolve the issue, and Ian could get to work on building a new cottage.
And forget all about Robert Townsend.
Chapter Ten
Robert bumped into the unyielding wall that was Ian Cameron’s chest as he tried to avoid the dark stain that covered the stone floor. He moved back when the other man glared at him.
Still, he couldn’t resist. He let the glow of the oil lamp spill over the stain. “Wine?” he asked skeptically.
Cameron looked down at it, frowning. “Aye. It could be blood.”
Robert didn’t think Cameron sounded as disturbed as he should have been.
He wasn’t sure if the room had once had individual cells, but now it was simply an open room with a low, curved ceiling and no windows to let in light. The doorway was about half the size of a normal human being, and they’d both had to crouch to enter. Robert wasn’t sure if this had been a way to further degrade medieval prisoners—making them crawl to their imprisonment—or if the masons simply hadn’t cared how big the doors were in the lower levels, since they’d mostly be used by servants and prisoners and not the resident family.
Either way, Robert didn’t like it. It was too dark, the stone ceiling too close. It made him feel like he might never feel the sun again. The idea of someone being thrown down here for a crime seemed more like torture than justice. He could joke as much as he wanted about using Cameron as a shield, but he was, in truth, simply relieved at another human presence.
Unfortunately, this was used as a storage room now, and there were about a dozen wooden crates where someone could have hidden things, so they silently set to work.
When he heard the door slam, Robert jumped, startled.
He should have propped it open, probably. It was an old door, heavy and wooden, and this castle had so many drafts that it wasn’t uncommon for doors or windows to shift. He went to the door to do just that, and panic sliced through him when he pushed and nothing happened.
He tried again. It wouldn’t even budge.
“Ian,” he said. His voice came out wrong. Too soft.
The other man immediately stopped what he was doing.
“The door is stuck.”
Cameron appeared at his side, and together they both pushed on the door. And nothing happened. Cameron frowned. “It must be jammed.”
“Jammed?” Robert repeated, like it was a foreign word.
“It will be fine,” Ian said. “Your sister will look for ye, won’t she? If she comes back and can’t find you?”
Robert nodded. Yes, of course she would. She knew why he and Ian had stayed behind. She would look for him if he didn’t appear once she returned. Though he didn’t know how long that would take.
“We probably just need more people to move it.”
Robert stared at the oil lamp sitting in the corner. He wondered how much light they had left—it was an Argand lamp, which burned much brighter than a candle, but it burned out faster than a candle, too.
His mind, as was its habit, jumped to the worst possible outcome—if Georgina didn’t search for them, or if she searched for them too late, and it took too long to find them, and the door couldn’t be unjammed and she had to go somewhere to get an ax to break it down…how long would that take? How long could someone survive without water—three days? Four?
Ian followed his gaze. “Robert.”
“What?”
“Help me look through the crates. We might as well, as long as we’re here.”
Robert nodded and took a deep breath. Something about Ian’s calmness helped calm him in return. And he was right, of course. There was no point being stuck down there if they didn’t finish looking through the crates. For the next few minutes they searched in silence, and they found plenty of things in the boxes—druggets to cover the carpets, old porcelain, damaged paintings, a rug that looked like it could use a good sweeping—but no bracelets or gloves or handkerchiefs.
Robert sighed, sinking to the floor with his back against one of the crates. That had taken all of twenty minutes. And this time, with the darkness and the stone surrounding him, he felt more defeated than he had before. Maybe he should just give up. He was about as good at this crime-solving business as the bumbling Constable Whitley.
And maybe Worthington was bluffing. Maybe if Robert said, “Go to the sheriff and be damned,” he wouldn’t actually do a thing.
But still, it was the principle of the matter. Worthington had accused their servants, and Robert knew none of them were thieves, and he felt a little guilty for letting doubt creep into his mind for even an instant. He wanted to prove Worthington wrong.
More than that, he wanted to prove him wrong and be able to point to Worthington’s family, because if one of them hadn’t caused this mischief on purpose, Robert would eat his hat. And maybe Ian was right about him—he did want to feel needed. He wanted to feel like his family and his brother’s servants could depend on him in Theo’s absence and not have their faith misplaced.
He shrugged off his coat and tugged at his cravat to loosen it. The air down here was damp and cool, but he felt overheated. It was the low ceiling, he thought. It felt like it might crush him at any moment.
“I think it was growing up with such extraordinary siblings,” he said as Ian sat down a few feet away. He was talking just to talk, because he didn’t want to focus on the tight, fearful feeling in his chest. His voice wasn’t entirely steady. “Even when we were children, Theo was the glue that held us together, determined and headstrong. Eleanor was calm and scientific and brilliant. Georgina…well, she could adapt anywhere and still somehow be true to herself. And there I was, with no special talents to recommend me, so I…filled a niche, I suppose. I was the one who made quips and was helpful, and I suppose I did like that I was needed for that if for nothing else.”
Ian was silent. Robert stared down at his boots instead of looking at the other man.
“But I worry that they don’t even need me for that anymore. Which is selfish. Because they’re happy. And I want their happiness, too.”
“You worry a lot, don’t ye?”
Ian’s voice was soft but strong, and Robert’s head shot up.
“You just don’t let it show.”
“No one wants to be around someone who worries about every little thing, do they?”
“I don’t mind.”
Something in Robert’s heart lifted. And he suddenly laughed. “That’s because you have nerves of steel. We’re more or less in a coffin, and you don’t seem bothered at all.”
In the dim light, Ian’s mouth twitched. “It’s slightly bigger than a coffin.”
“Only just.”
“I’m fine as long as there aren’t…” He suddenly trailed off, gaze darting around the shadowy corners of the stone floor.
Robert leaned forward, interested. “As long as there aren’t…”
Suddenly—more quickly than Robert had thought Cameron capable—the man shot to his feet. He moved closer to Robert but didn’t sit down.
Robert stared up at him. “What is it?”
“Spider,” Ian said gruffly.
This was in
teresting. “You’re scared of spiders?”
“I’m not scared,” he snapped. “I just don’t like them.”
“Stay away from the corners and you’ll probably be fine. I assume they don’t like you, either.”
Ian glared down at him.
Robert was, against his will, charmed. He was scared of them. Of all the fears Ian Cameron could have, he shied away from something as inconsequential as spiders. “My sister would be extremely disappointed in you. She would have no qualms about picking up a spider with her bare hands if it wasn’t venomous.”
“Your sister is a madwoman,” Ian said.
“She’s a scientist,” Robert said loftily.
“Is there much difference?” Ian asked, which made Robert laugh in spite of himself.
“Sit down. I’ll stomp any that come close.”
Ian hesitated. One beat. Two. Finally, he sat, and now their shoulders were nearly brushing. Robert tried to ignore the heat. Tried to ignore the scents that clung subtly to Ian’s clothes, or maybe it was his skin—peat smoke and brine from the sea—as though he were a part of the moor and not a separate entity.
Robert wondered what he smelled like. He didn’t usually wear scents like some other men did, preferring to bathe every day instead, even if it was just at the washstand—but he wished he had now. Cool sweat still touched his skin from when he’d realized they were trapped.
“Do you swim in the sea?” Robert asked suddenly, still thinking about the smell of salt. The incredulous way Ian stared at him made him wish he hadn’t asked at all.
“It’s too cold for that.” An awkward pause threatened to descend until Cameron spoke again. “If it’s a really hot day—which doesna happen often, anyway—I might jump in the sea loch, but only for a minute.”