Andrew tipped his head back, Darius’s words adding a shot of anger to stiffen his spine. “I doubt I would enjoy being a novelty. I have never regarded my life as an amusement for others.” He paused, working out what he could say to this madman. “My family was not rich. They are still not rich. I live comfortably, but I earn everything I live on. I have no inherited wealth. There are no dukes in my ancestry.”
“That isn’t important, even to my peers. They put an emphasis on family, but even that is false. Most of us are the result of nefarious activity and sheer luck. Being in the right place at the right time, and conversely, avoiding the wrong places. Half the dukes of England are the result of Charles the Second’s many liaisons. He sprinkled titles around like a Catholic priest dispenses holy water. My ancestors on my father’s side include City merchants. We are not so different, Andrew.”
That was the last thing Andrew wanted to hear. He needed to put distance between them, not bring them closer. In this position he could not push back his chair and leave. That would be to admit weakness. “We are very different, sir.”
Darius shook his head slowly. “Not so much.”
Andrew’s heart beat a little faster. He couldn’t speak.
“We are the same in many ways that matter. The only way that matters.” His expression hardened, deepened. “Do you think I didn’t notice your response to my kiss? You welcomed it.” Warmth entered the cold blue of Darius’s eyes, adding animation to the handsome features that could seem so expressionless. “You opened to me in a way I rarely know.”
“Not from your reputation.” It was a weak response, but Andrew was lost in a wash of emotions. To hear that forbidden embrace articulated added a new dimension to it, an open admission of what they had done and how he had felt.
“My reputation?” Darius’s face twisted with emotion, as unlike the proud, arrogant lord as Andrew could imagine. Shoving back his chair, Andrew sprang from the table and strode about the room, staring out of the window at the rain-drenched garden. When had it rained? He hadn’t noticed. The change in the weather reflected his mood.
The rain echoed Darius’s mood too, it seemed, when Andrew caught sight of his expression when he turned around.
Darius spoke bitterly. “For years my brother Valentinian behaved outrageously, merely to mask what I was doing. Do you think I was proud of that? He nearly missed his chance at happiness because of me.”
Andrew knew something about that. He’d seen Lord Valentinian Shaw and his bride together. They were devoted to one another, but they’d had an unconscionably long engagement before they finally got to the altar. The match had been arranged in an attempt to make his rackety lordship respectable. Events had turned out very differently.
He had not known Valentinian’s outrageous behavior had begun in an effort to mask his brother’s habits. Now that he thought about it, the theory made sense. He had not known Darius’s anguish, for anguish it must be from the expression on his face.
Striding up and down, his feet striking the polished boards, his coat swinging, Darius appeared as nothing so much as a warrior facing battle. Andrew watched him in silence, dumbfounded. “Do you think I chose this, to be the way I am?” He gestured to himself and outside. “People believe I did. One of my aunts told my mother I was only doing it for attention. Do you know how that feels?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I count myself lucky in my family. So many would reject me outright. Men in my position have been locked away in asylums ‘for their own good.’”
He said the last with a disdainful curl of his lip, but Andrew, used to observing people closely, saw something else. He saw fear. “Did anyone threaten to do that to you?”
Darius bit his lip, returning to his place next to Andrew, leaning against the table. It was fortunate the piece of furniture was a solid oak example rather than the spindly mahogany or walnut favored by the fashionable world. “Yes.” He folded his arms, meeting Andrew’s gaze.
What Andrew saw astonished him.
Darius was hiding nothing. His eyes gleamed brightly, as if tears lurked there, but he allowed none to fall. His mouth was a straight, hard line and his strong jaw tense. He heaved a sigh. “My grandfather, the Duke of Kirkburton, suggested it. He is long gone, but before he died he planted that idea in my mother’s head. I showed no interest in women, even when my brother was charging around London rutting with every woman who said yes. He started early, and there were many. In every fashionable ballroom, Val has had at least a third of the females there. But I was the person the old duke reprimanded. I needed only to look at a man, and he started to drop his poison into my parents’ ears. I know my mother talked to my father about it. He would have none of it. He said he did not think I had a mental disease or that I wanted to be as I am. He was right. I tried, Andrew. But every effort ended in failure. Every single one.” He shook his head. “I come from one of the wealthiest, most influential families in the country. Women would hurl themselves at me. I’ve had them faint at me, cry at me, offer themselves openly to me. Ladies of fortune and family. Not one stirred more than disgust or amusement or pity.”
He swallowed. “I took a mistress once. After the first night I gave her the house I’d bought and sent her on her way.” He gave a grim smile. “She wanted more, threatened to spread stories about me. I told her to do it. She did. My family responded to the hate and the accusations until I told them not to. Until I told them plainly what I was.”
Andrew felt deep in his bones that Darius had never related his story to anyone before, not like this. Why Darius had dropped his carefully cultivated shell for him, Andrew did not know. He had no similar confession. He had never given way to the impulses that even now shamed him.
But, like Darius, he didn’t seem to be able to help himself.
Darius’s self-disparagement annoyed Andrew. “You are not a thing, Darius. You are a person, and as valuable as anyone else.”
The polish had not returned. At any other time Andrew felt sure Darius would have responded with a quip or a careless comment, but not now.
When Darius held out his hand, Andrew took it. He let Darius draw him to his feet.
“I felt like a thing, rather than a person. Honesty saved me,” Darius murmured, so close his warm breath swept over Andrew’s cheek. “I can never be honest with society, if only for my family’s sake. But I can be honest with myself. I know what I am and who I am. I have made peace with that.” A smile quirked the corner of his mouth, a wry one, but his expression gentled. “I’m telling you, my friend, because I like you. More than that, I confess. I desire you.”
Andrew forced himself to remain where he was and listen to what Darius had to say. Every instinct told him to move forward, to let himself go for once in his life. His strong sense of self-preservation and his responsibilities, as always, held him back.
Darius smiled. “I see in you what I was a few years ago. Of course, I did not have my living to make as you do, but my loyalties and my inner desires were tearing me apart. I have reached a kind of peace. I do not seek for a lifetime’s partner, as I yearned for once. I do not believe I will ever find that person, but I make the most of what I have, and I will not apologize for it.”
The men stared at one another for what seemed like a lifetime. Andrew had never been this close to another man, ever. The encounter fascinated him, his throat tightened with tension and nerves.
He could not abide to see Darius suffer like this. “I thought the struggle hard, but you have seen much worse.” To be a member of such a prominent family, to be pointed at, derided, despised. “How can you bear it?”
Before Darius could answer, Andrew cupped his cheek and drew closer. Darius’s eyes remained open, as did Andrew’s, as he brought their mouths together and kissed him.
This time he knew what he was doing. This was not pity, or defiance, or a taunt. This was affection and comfort, an assurance they were not alone.
Emotion surged as Andrew’s body responded to the proximity of
the man who had fascinated him from the first time he’d set eyes on Darius last year.
He pressed closer when Darius responded, opening his mouth to explore and be explored in his turn. Andrew thrust his tongue into Darius’s mouth, forgetting everything in his need to taste and touch. He held Darius’s upper arm, gripping it tightly, feeling the hardness of muscle beneath, the sensation turning his mood into fiery need.
A low groan startled him until he realized he’d made the sound. He had never known such desire. Heat surged through him. When Darius circled him with his free arm, he went willingly, stepping between Darius’s open legs to bring their shafts into alignment. Darius was as hard as he, his cock pressing against his breeches. Desperate for release, Andrew pressed against him.
Then Darius moved, grinding his member against Andrew, and Andrew knew sheer delight. He had denied himself this for so long.
Until Darius pushed him away with a shove that nearly unbalanced him. Bewilderment and loss swept over Andrew. Darius’s rejection was too harsh, too sudden for Andrew to take in.
A sharp rap sounded on the door. Andrew spun around to face the window, urging his tumescence to subside. “Come!” His voice sounded too loud, too sharp, but it was the best he could do.
What had he been thinking? Any of the servants could have come in. While he had been lost in the kiss, the house could have fallen down around him and he wouldn’t have noticed. But the door was unlocked, and as far as his household knew, he was having a private business meeting, which was not unusual enough for note.
He’d been locked in a forbidden, passionate embrace with a man he desired more than any man or woman he’d known before. He’d been on the verge of coming. While he should feel shame, he felt nothing but exhilaration. Until the knock. They would never have broken apart in time, if Darius had not pushed him.
He glanced at his guest. Darius sat at the table as if he’d never left it, not a hair out of place, long legs sprawled underneath in an attitude of perfect repose. Andrew hadn’t reached his hair, which was still tied back in its tidy queue. Andrew had a strong suspicion his wig was askew and his neckcloth no longer tied in the neat knot he’d put it into before he’d gone down to his study.
But his embarrassment flew out of his head when he saw the distress on the face of the maid standing in the doorway. “Please, sir, it’s Miss Elizabeth.”
“What’s wrong?” He had reached the door before he remembered moving.
“She has a fever.”
“Send for the doctor.” He would not risk Elizabeth. He left the room without saying anything to his guest. Some things were far more important.
Chapter 5
His body still throbbing from the unexpected encounter, his heart delighting in Andrew’s kiss, Darius leaped to his feet and followed his host from the room. What had caused such agitation? He felt it, the rise in tension of a completely different kind that had lain between them a moment before.
Miss Elizabeth? His sister, perhaps? He had not mentioned a sister, but then, why should he?
Upstairs, he followed Andrew into a bedroom. The curtains were closed and a single candle burned in a stand by the bed, a small one canopied in pink silk. The room was tastefully furnished, but in a simple way he liked.
A child lay in the bed, tossing in the sheets, churning the linen into creased rags.
He’d seen similar sights before. It didn’t matter who this child was, just that the girl was ill. A pretty blond girl, her cheeks flushed red and her cries little more than moans turned to the door as it opened.
“Papa!”
Well, that answered one of his questions. He’d had no idea Andrew was a father. That small fact did not matter now. Not with a sick child suffering.
Andrew strode to the bed and swept his arms around the girl. She reached out her hand and touched him, her eyes red-rimmed but a trembling smile on her lips. “I wanted you.”
Andrew touched the girl’s forehead. “You’re burning up, child.” He turned, pausing for the fraction of a second as his gaze met Darius’s. “We have a doctor nearby. He works as a physician at one of the hospitals. Elizabeth knows him.”
“I’ll ensure someone is sent for him,” Darius said. “If he is absent, I can find someone else.”
“I would be deeply grateful to you.”
The maid, or nursemaid as she must have been, handed Andrew a cool cloth. She had a few cloths resting in a bowl of cold water that lay on a washstand near the door. That was good.
Ten minutes later, Darius returned with the doctor. He turned out to be a young man, but one who seemed reassuringly calm. He carried a black bag. “I have lately returned home, and I’m glad I was here. Elizabeth knows me, so I am less likely to agitate her.”
The doctor sat on the bed and smiled reassuringly at the little girl. “If you lean back, I could find out what is wrong with you.” He did not allow the expression of calm to leave his features.
Darius was impressed. The doctor examined the child thoroughly, but without alarming her, a skill Darius knew to be invaluable.
Darius removed his coat and draped it over a nearby chair. He was in for a long night, for he had no intention of leaving if there was something he could do.
The doctor touched Elizabeth’s neck and nodded. “Open your mouth, my dear.”
Without being asked, the maid brought another lit candle closer, so the medical man could see what he was doing.
It did not take long. The man restored Elizabeth to her father’s arms and sighed. “Her throat is a little swollen, but I can see the problem. It is a tooth, right at the back. Elizabeth is five, is she not?”
“Nearly,” Andrew said. “Her birthday is in December.”
“Ah, yes.” The doctor nodded and addressed the child. “Did you not tell anyone your tooth hurt?”
The child, whimpering, shook her head. “I thought it would get better.”
“Sadly not, my dear.” The doctor shook his head. “I fear that tooth is done for. It has set up a fever, but once it has gone, I feel sure you will recover quickly. You will grow another in due course.”
Darius’s heart sank. The doctor would have to pull the tooth. That would hurt. He felt for the girl, for he’d had two teeth pulled when he was a little older than this child. He winced in sympathy but ensured the child would not see it.
He glanced at the nursemaid, who had turned an interesting shade of green. “Go and boil water,” he told her. “Do you know how to make barley water?”
The nursemaid dropped a curtsy. “I should remain here.” She swallowed. “She is my charge. I should have noticed the tooth before.”
“Not if the child did not want you to know. Do as I say. She will need cold drinks. You did well with the cloths. Bring more when you come.”
Although he had spoken quietly, Andrew had noticed. He turned his head. “I am sorry the evening has ended in this way. But my daughter must come first in my attention, particularly when she is ill.” He spoke with a slight tremor in his voice, which Darius did not miss.
“I will stay, if Elizabeth has no objection.”
The girl stared at him. Her eyes were the same gray as her father’s, but bigger in her flushed face. Tears sheened her eyes, and she whimpered.
Darius smiled. “I have sisters and nieces. I have a little experience with small children.”
As he had expected, the child stiffened. “I am not small!”
“Indeed you are to me, but you will grow soon enough. Do you like stories?”
The child nodded slightly and then winced.
“If you are good, I’ll tell you one that my niece Caro loves. She is older than you, but not by much. I’ll wager you’ve not heard it before.”
While he was speaking, the doctor was making his preparations out of sight of the girl. He placed a cloth on a nearby table and laid out a small dish, a pair of pliers, and some soft rags. Darius quelled his shudder and kept his attention on the girl.
Elizabeth lay in
her father’s arms. Andrew spoke to her in a soothing voice, one Darius had not heard before. He’d experienced the crisp, sharp tones of the lawyer in court, pitched louder than Andrew’s normal speaking voice, which was nearly as precise. This was something else, calming and sweet, the tone softer and loving. Evidently Andrew adored his daughter.
“The tooth is bad,” the doctor said. “It must come out. Otherwise, it will affect what lies beneath.” As he turned, he smiled reassuringly at Elizabeth. “A mere twinge, my dear. You won’t hurt anymore.”
Visibly trembling, Elizabeth nodded.
Darius took her for the brief time it took Andrew to remove his coat and tuck a cloth over his waistcoat. The child’s body was soft and warm. Too warm, for her fever, while not yet at a critical stage, could not be comfortable.
He began the story. “On an estate in the country called Haxby Hall, there lived a dragon.” He recalled the lake at his childhood home and the hours he and his siblings had spent sailing boats and playing in the shallows. When they were old enough they swam there, although the girls’ nursemaid called them in if they caught them, telling them they were scandalous hussies. Elizabeth liked that part. Darius felt oddly proud when he drew a smile from her.
She kept her eyes on him as he told the tale of the baby dragon that appeared one day to astonish and delight the children. The child opened her mouth in an O of delight as he described the green scales, the way the dragon had scared him and his brothers when it had roared and fire shot out of its mouth.
The doctor was quick and efficient. He had the tooth pulled in half a minute.
Darius kept going with the story. That way, if Elizabeth wanted to hear more, she would have to curtail her screams. After one shriek and a series of sobs, she did so. Darius told her how the dragon saved his older brother from drowning, heading for the end of the tale, when the dragon disappeared, but promised he would always be there to watch over them and keep them safe.
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