The Price of Temptation

by M. J. Pearson

  “Shh, love, it will pass. We’ll give you a moment to adjust,” Stephen said, mistaking the reason for the tears. “I’m in—you’ve taken all of me now, sweetheart. Oh, God, Mouse, you are so sweet, so sweet, so tight.” He ground his hips against Jamie’s arse. “Better now, love? I can’t hold back much longer.”

  Jamie nodded wordlessly, and Stephen kissed him briefly, then buried his face against the other man’s neck with a deep moan and began to move.

  Start gently. The earl followed his own advice, at first stroking slowly in and out of Jamie. A slow, gentle rhythm that built steadily. He reached once between their bodies to caress Jamie’s cock, but his hand was pushed away.

  “No—I don’t need—that’s too much. I’m too—too close.”

  Stephen took that information as a definite sign that he could increase the pace, thrusting harder into Jamie’s heat.

  Finish vigorously. Jamie was moaning steadily now, crying out with each powerful thrust. Stephen trusted that the cries were of passion, not pain, but it was impossible for him to stop now anyway. He had to grit his teeth to hold back until Jamie suddenly threw his head back and convulsed against him, hot liquid shooting out between their tightly joined bodies. With an answering shout, Stephen let himself go, waves of pleasure contracting through him as he came deep inside Jamie. The contractions seemed to go on forever, suspending him in a state of ecstasy that had no beginning and no end, and no reality outside that of Jamie’s sweet, yielding body.

  When it was over, Stephen slumped onto his lover’s body. “Mmm. Sorry, Mouse,” he said, when he realized that Jamie was supporting his full weight. Rolling off him, he groped on the floor for something to tidy them up with, and came up with a shirt. He cleaned Jamie’s ejaculate from their stomachs, then wiped his cock, finally pressing the white cloth between Jamie’s still-spread legs and examining it in the moonlight.

  “No blood,” he said with relief. “Still, we’ll take it slowly for the next few days, Mouse.”

  Jamie shuddered. No going back now.

  Stephen tossed the soiled shirt back to the floor, but Jamie caught it by one sleeve. “Oh, hell, it was mine.”

  The earl laughed. “No worries, Jamie. I’ll buy you a dozen shirts. A hundred.”

  “I don’t want a hundred shirts, Stephen,” Jamie said, fear shooting through him.

  “Oh, come on Mouse, you have to let me spoil you a little.” The earl licked Jamie on his nose. “I have a feeling you haven’t been spoiled much in your life.”

  “Please, don’t.”

  “Don’t what, this?” The earl laughed and lapped at Jamie’s nose again.

  “Don’t spoil me. Don’t give me anything, please. It would ruin it.”

  “Oh, Mouse, Mouse... let’s argue about it in the morning, all right?” He spooned up behind Jamie and pulled him close. “Definitely a bigger bed...” he murmured.

  Within a few minutes, the earl was asleep, but Jamie lay staring into the moonlight for a long time. ‘A hundred shirts, a bigger bed, let me spoil you.’ Stupid fool. Jamie cursed himself. Not only wasn’t Stephen in love with him, the earl was already trying to adapt their relationship into the form he was most familiar with. Commerce. Jamie shuddered again in the darkness. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe the older man had spoken without thinking.

  Stephen had called him ‘love.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jamie awoke, cold and alone. His room was bright, too bright, he realized. What time was it? His clothing and Stephen’s still lay on the floor where they had been discarded last night, but the earl was gone. Jamie huddled back beneath the quilts, feeling empty. Soon he would have to get up and face the household, everyone aware by now that the earl hadn’t slept in his own bed, and snickering over the fact that Jamie himself was still abed so late into the morning. Rebecca and Charles, at least, would be pleased, and encouraging. ‘Don’t worry, poppet,’ Rebecca would say, ‘he’ll come around.’

  “But why should he, Rebecca?” Jamie wondered aloud. “Now that he’s got what he wanted. My father never came around, did he?”

  Charles, ever the optimist, would beam happily. Jamie wasn’t sure he could take that today, nor Betsy’s giggles.

  And the Symmonses, who openly disdained the earl’s preference for men. What would they think of Jamie now? It would be hard to face their stares of cold disapproval, or worse — disappointment. Jamie’s stomach felt like he had swallowed lead. What had he done?

  Without warning, the door opened, and the earl entered, wearing Jamie’s own dressing gown. He sat on the bed and smiled cheerfully.

  “Well, good morning, sweetheart.” He leaned down for a brief kiss of greeting.

  Jamie sat up to meet him, and winced involuntarily.

  “Sore?” the earl said. He reached under the covers and slid an exploratory hand between Jamie’s buttocks.

  Jamie slapped the hand away. “You might ask first,” he said, drawing his quilts tight around his nakedness.

  “What is it? Regrets?” Stephen’s rich voice was still sympathetic, but his eyes now looked wary.

  Indeed: lots. But Jamie couldn’t say that, so he said instead, “I’m just not used to being touched, that’s all.”

  Stephen grinned. “That’s easily remedied.” He pulled Jamie, quilts and all, onto his lap, wrapping his arms firmly around him. It was hard not to feel better, being held like that, and Jamie couldn’t help relaxing a bit.

  “Where were you?” he grumbled, while Stephen stroked his hair.

  “I had to piss, sweetheart. Did you think I left you alone?”

  Jamie didn’t answer, but he flushed beet red.

  “You did, didn’t you? Oh, Mouse.” Stephen kissed the top of his head.

  “What time is it?”

  “Oh, early. It can’t be much past ten.”

  “Ten o’clock?” Jamie sat bolt upright. “Oh, blast.”

  The earl was amused. “Well, it’s early for me.” He pulled Jamie back into his arms. “What time do you usually get up?”

  “Six thirty. Even if I linger over tea with Charles or Rebecca, I’m usually working by eight.” Jamie stirred restlessly.

  “Good heavens. There’ll have to be some sort of compromise from now on.”

  Jamie was sure he knew which of them would be expected to compromise.

  “Well, come on then,” Stephen said. “If you’re determined to get up, come down to my room and keep me company while Charles shaves me. He can shave you, too, while he’s at it.”

  “God no.” Jamie disentangled himself from the earl and rose, wrapping the quilt around him. “I can shave myself.”

  “Of course you can,” the earl said. “But the thing is, you don’t have to. Charles won’t mind.”

  Jamie shook his head, mutely but emphatically.

  Stephen glanced at Jamie’s ruined shirt on the floor. “I’ll have him send for the tailor—we need to get you some shirts.”

  “No! Stop that! Stop trying to give me things.” There was a note of desperation in Jamie’s voice.

  “Be reasonable, sweetheart. I owe you a shirt,” the earl said, rising to put a hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “And I can hardly ask him to come here for just one, can I? You could use a few extras, and you have to admit your coat’s a bit shabby. Suppose we felt like going to the theater? You’d want something a little nicer to wear.”

  “Please,” Jamie said. “If you have to, couldn’t Charles just remake some of your old things for me? He’s done it before, and he’s very good at—”

  “For Christ’s sake, Jamie!” The earl sighed with impatience. “It’s good of you to want to save the household money, but I can hardly take you out in public wearing my own castoffs. I’d be the laughingstock of London. For heaven’s sake,” he said in softer tones, “don’t be so stubborn. Besides, you let me give you the book.”

  Jamie shook off Stephen’s hand and crossed to touch the flat package on his desk. “You said it was a bonus. But it was part of yo
ur plan, wasn’t it?”

  “Well, you might not have agreed to play me for kisses without some incentive.”

  “I suppose I can admire your economy. That is, providing you got at least ten shillings worth of entertainment for your investment.”

  The earl laughed. “You’re worth much more to me than that.”

  Jamie looked him in the eyes, serious, pulling the quilt more tightly about him. “Why last night?”

  Stephen met his gaze. “Too much was uncertain. Some things had to be made clear between us.”

  “I don’t understand. What things?”

  “You’re mine. Mine.” The earl’s voice softened, and he pulled Jamie close.

  This time, Jamie failed to relax into the other man’s arms. What did Stephen mean by mine? His love, or his possession? “Let me go. I have to get dressed.”

  “I won’t have anyone else touching you, is that clear?”

  How absurd. Who else, in all of Creation, did Stephen think might touch him?

  “Jamie?” The tone was grave. “Is that clear?”

  “Yes, of course it is, Stephen.”

  “Good.” The earl nipped Jamie gently on the ear. “I’m going downstairs. Have a wash and a shave, then join me in my room for breakfast. And sweetheart—” he licked Jamie’s neck. “About getting dressed? Don’t bother.”

  The earl kissed Jamie on the lips, twice, and was gone.

  When Jamie was alone, he sat on the edge of his bed, with his head in his hands, stomach knotted with a combination of fury and despair. Well, what did he expect Stephen to say? “Oh, darling, be mine, and I’ll love you forever, live with you in perfect harmony.” Not when the two of them didn’t even keep remotely similar hours. Or that Stephen would be embarrassed to be seen in public with him because the only coat Jamie could afford was shabby-but-respectable, when the earl himself flaunted that hideously— but expensively—dressed whore Julian Jeffries all over town. They were from different worlds.

  Jamie shook his head impatiently. He’d made this bed, but he was damned if he could lie in it. What was he going to do? Unable to think of anything, he rose and picked up the wrapped book from his desk. At least the new Byron would prove a distraction. Jamie unknotted the string that held the paper together, and stared in blank horror at what was revealed. Acid bile rose in his throat.

  “Some things had to be made clear between us,” Stephen had told him.

  Oh, they were clear, all right. Jamie barely made it to his wash basin before his stomach emptied.

  Charles was indeed beaming as he shaved the earl.

  “Have some breakfast sent up—something hearty,” Stephen said. “Jamie’s going to need his strength. And then make sure we’re not disturbed.”

  The valet grinned. “If I have to guard the door myself.”

  “No eavesdropping, Charles.” The earl laughed. “I doubt Jamie would appreciate it. Although if things go anything like they did last night, you’re likely to hear him no matter where you—”

  He was interrupted by a knock on the door.

  “Oh good, that must be Jamie now.” The earl made to rise, but Charles pushed him firmly by the shoulder.

  “You’re covered in lather, Stephen. Let me get it.”

  It was Mr. Symmons. “Another package from Hatchards, my lord.”

  Charles took it. “Oh, it must be the new Byron, for Jamie. Thank you, Mr. Symmons.” The butler bowed and left.

  The earl frowned. “There must be a mix-up. They sent one yesterday as well.”

  “Can’t have. It wasn’t out until today.”

  “I know it wasn’t supposed to be. I thought getting one early was just a benefit of rank.”

  Charles hooted. “Prinny himself couldn’t get an advance copy. And I know for sure the Duchess of Devonshire didn’t get one yesterday, because her kitchen girl was talking about it when she picked up an order at Sam’s this morning.”

  “Open it, just to be sure.”

  The book was revealed indeed to be the new Prisoner of Chillon.

  “Then what the deuce did they send me yesterday?” puzzled the earl.

  Charles’ face cleared. “Oh, I know,” he said, picking up his razor and resuming shaving his employer. “It must have been that book you had me send out to be rebound. I did send it to Hatchards, now that I think of it.”

  “What book?”

  “Oh, you remember. That Book of Hours.”

  The earl blinked. “The one I had you offer to Jamie if he’d sleep with me? Oh, hell. He wouldn’t think I still—would he? I’d better go explain.”

  But Jamie was already gone. So were all his things, barring the clothing Charles had made over for him. The Book of Hours, with its exquisite new binding, lay on its wrappings on the desk, next to a note.

  My lord,

  I can’t stay. I know you don’t understand, but I can never be yours on these terms. The price is too high.

  James Riley.

  Chapter Sixteen

  On the evening of the day that Jamie left him, the Earl of St. Joseph sat at the huge mahogany desk in his library, staring at the stacks of paper lined up in an orderly fashion. Here were his own engagements for the next two weeks, there a stack of incoming mail that had yet to be sorted. A ledger containing the schedule Jamie had worked out to pay off his creditors, a growing stack of receipts marked ‘paid’ in a folder in the back. The household account book. Stephen rifled through the pages, covered in Jamie’s careful script: Item, to six quarts dried pease for soup 18p…to three pounds of wax candles 6 shillings 6d…to twelve pounds of tallow candles 7 shillings 4d.

  His first impulse when he had found Jamie gone had been to bolt out the front door and search for him, but even a few minutes lead into the warren of London streets was enough to make pursuit impossible, especially if one had no idea which direction one’s quarry might flee. Stephen had never felt so foolish in his life, standing blinking in the street, turning this way and that on his heel, trying to decide which way to go. Charles had retrieved him, leading him gently back into the house.

  He’d then thought to visit Aunt Matilda, for advice, for the blunt to bribe watchmen or hire thieftakers to find Jamie, for a little family sympathy. The latter two were sadly lacking, and the advice unpalatable.

  “You want him to come home to you?” his great-aunt had raised a formidable brow. “Be the sort of man he’d want to come home to.”

  “Oh, God,” he said out loud now, hand hovering over one of his secretary’s neat stacks of paper. “Jamie, I don’t know where to start.”

  There was a soft knock on the library door. “My lord?” It was Rebecca. “I thought you might like some tea.”

  Stephen’s back stiffened. “You thought wrong.”

  “Could I —”

  “No. Leave me alone.” He knew he sounded churlish, but really, it was all her fault. If the lovely young cook hadn’t been pursuing Jamie herself, he wouldn’t have been forced to move so quickly to secure the lad. And the blasted mix-up over the books would never have happened.

  She withdrew, and almost instantly Charles appeared, bearing the good brandy from the morning room.

  “Is there anything I can do?” his valet asked quietly, pouring them both a glass.

  Stephen drained his and rose to pace the room. “Help me figure out where Jamie could have gone. Back to Yorkshire? He probably knows someone there who would take him in. That vicar?”

  Charles shook his head. “I think the vicar died before his mother did. And even if there’s anyone else, he hasn’t the money to get there. As far as I know, he hasn’t any money at all.”

  “Oh God.” Stephen knew all too well the dangers abounding in London for penniless young men — after all, he’d spent years being one of them. Not that Jamie, unlike many a cheerful country lad on his first visit to the big city, would be glad to trade a few hours of his time for a warm meal and a place to stay for the night. But what would he do when he was desperate? Or if he didn’t
recognize the peril in some respectable-looking man’s seemingly kind-hearted offer of assistance? Stephen suddenly recalled titillating stories that had circulated some years before, of a rich eastern potentate whose procurer had dressed like a clergyman, and had lured dozens of young girls and boys alike off to their fate. Not that his Mouse was likely to end up in a harem, but still —

  “Charles, we have to find him. Now.”

  The valet hesitated. “Bow Street Runners? They found Lady Ashby’s son, when he ran away.”

  “Unlike the Ashby twit, Jamie’s of age. Unless I tell them he absconded with the silver, they have no reason to help me find him. And I certainly can’t afford to pay them privately.” Stephen paced some more, biting his fingernails.

  “Let me get Rebecca. She’ll have some ideas.”

  “Rebecca!” The earl’s head snapped up, eyes blazing. “If it weren’t for that bitch, I wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  Charles gaped, stupefied. “Stephen? What in blazes are you talking about?”

  “She and Jamie. Betsy saw them kissing. That’s why I had to seduce him last night.”

  “Rebecca and Jamie? That’s absurd,” Charles protested. “They’re like brother and sister. Betsy was wrong, or misinterpreted something.”

  “Ha!” Stephen turned to face Charles, lips in an ugly twist. “Did you know she’d pretend to need his spectacles, just so she could look at his eyes? But you did know, didn’t you? Wasn’t it you that she told he had the prettiest eyes she ever saw?”

  Charles blinked. “We all admire Jamie’s eyes. But the spectacles, she borrowed them so that you could see his eyes.”

  “Me? Why the hell would she do that?” demanded the earl.

  Slow color crept up Charles’ neck, suffusing his face. “Um. We thought if you just got interested in Jamie, you might get rid of Julian that much faster. That’s why I made him the blue waistcoat, and Rebecca cut his hair. And got him to lend her his spectacles.”