Blue Steel Chain (Trowchester Blues Book 3)

by Alex Beecroft

  “How are you doing this morning?” James smiled at him, concerned and curious. “Big day today.”

  “I’m . . . not scared. I’m excited. I can’t wait.”

  James nodded, and he looked proud too, if that was possible. He dropped his gaze to the paper. “Oh look, here’s a good omen for you.” Folding it to frame the text, he passed it over, and Aidan read a gossip column article about the very public engagement of James’s ex-partner and his lead guitarist.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, though James’s posture hadn’t sharpened out of its indolent slouch and his eyes still twinkled. He looked like he was all right, but there was no harm in asking.

  “Oh Lord, yes. It’s a relief to have that all over with. They didn’t mention me in the article once, and that’s the way I like it. I . . . um . . .”

  Aidan’s heart sank a little.

  “Any chance of lazy celebratory Saturday-morning sex?”

  It wasn’t a problem exactly, but it remained the only thing that seriously troubled the effortless contentment in which they lived. Aidan supposed they were lucky in that too—to only have one problem in a partnership. But his mood still fell, and he sighed, trying to balance the complicated factors inherent in James’s request.

  There was something to be said about just not having the power to say no. It got the decision out of the way with minimal trouble. Without it, Aidan had to think his way through a minefield of pros and cons.

  He didn’t want to have sex right now while he was in the middle of enjoying a lovely morning, and he rather resented the fact that sex couldn’t be kept in its proper place at night. Did he really have to be braced for it to turn up at any time?

  But he was pleased that James wanted him, because if James didn’t want him, James would probably not love him either. So it was good that James wanted sex with him.

  Aidan didn’t want it.

  But Aidan didn’t like saying no either. It didn’t feel fair to James to say no too often. And frankly he never again wanted to let James get to the point where he was so worked up he was trembling in a cold sweat like he had been that first night. That had looked painful, and it had also been kind of disgusting. For his own sake, he needed to keep James from experiencing that level of sexual frustration ever again.

  On the other hand, the right to say no was a right he ought to exercise if he wanted his yes to mean something. If he wanted to retain the freedom he had achieved as an independent person, he at least occasionally ought to say no when he meant it.

  But the morning had already been ruined by the question being raised. If he didn’t do it, he would only sit here feeling guilty. It might be better to just do it and get it over with.

  He sighed again.

  James reached out and closed a hand reassuringly around his wrist, as he had done when they first met. “I’m guessing from your response that what you want to say is no. That’s fine, Aidan. You can say that, and I’ll go upstairs and deal with it on my own.”

  James was so good to him. He was a bad person for saying no.

  He caught the thought and stamped on it. He’d been to six weeks of therapy, after his nightmares had begun waking James at night, and the therapist had told him to forgive himself for being what he was. It was difficult.

  “Could we put it off until this evening?” he asked instead. “It helps if I know it’s coming. Then I can get myself mentally prepared. You took me by surprise, and I . . .”

  “It’s absolutely fine.” James was still smiling, reassuring and gentle. “This evening would be great. Another thing to look forward to. But I’ll just pop upstairs anyway, if that’s okay?”

  “Of course.” Aidan was now faintly repulsed and wishing James would just drop the subject. “Go on.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief when James was out of the room. Took a sip of coffee and dug into his neglected muesli. When the shower came on, he turned the radio on to block the noise and gradually, in the sunlight, with Chopin sweet in his ears and his mouth full of goodness, he relaxed back into happiness.

  This evening, knowing sex was on the cards, he would spend half an hour beforehand putting himself into the mood, arousing himself with his own hands, and then he would be prepared, and—because James was a gentle and considerate lover—he would probably even enjoy it. He just really didn’t like the damn thing looming at him unexpectedly out of the blue. Mostly James remembered that, just as Aidan mostly remembered that James was driven up the wall if he put the milk in the fridge in the wrong order, or ran the dishwasher before it was completely full.

  He smiled over his croissant, closing his eyes in the flood of sunlight, soaking it up through his pores and feeling blessed. All couples had little niggles they had to deal with. People who squeezed the toothpaste tube in the middle, and people who were oddly obsessed with rubbing their groins together. It wasn’t a big deal, not really, considering how lucky they were in every other way.

  So when James came back down, looking flushed and a little guilty, he got up and hugged the man tight for a good five minutes just to make sure James knew how much he loved him. James gave a huff of laughter and hugged back, so he thought the message was received.

  “Are you coming with me to the studio, to help me set up?”

  “Lord, yes. Your moment of triumph, you couldn’t keep me away.”

  “No one’s going to come.” Aidan checked his watch again, and true, it was still only five minutes to eight, and perhaps too early to despair, but the little gallery was empty and he was convinced it was going to stay that way.

  “Oh, they always arrive late,” the gallery owner reassured him. “It wouldn’t do to appear too eager. You have another ten minutes at least to alter the position of everything by another millimetre.”

  James laughed, and Aidan glared halfheartedly, making a point of gently angling the huge platter by the door to catch the overhead light better. He had spent all year on this, studying the Etruscan and Minoan art James liked so much, bringing it up-to-date with sleeker lines and deeper colours, and creating bowls and plates, goblets and vases that evoked the warmth and vivacity of the Mediterranean with a little added dash of chic.

  He’d made Lalima a cake plate for a thank-you-for-employing-me-for-a-year present. Rather than put cakes on it, she’d hung it on the wall over the cash register in the tea shop, and there it had attracted the eye of Mr. Chotzinoff, who owned a small gallery in the Lanes, Trowchester’s old town where all the high-class jewellers hung out.

  Mr. Chotzinoff had expressed a desire for something similar of his own and had offered what seemed an outrageous price for it. When Aidan had finished it, blue on the outside and inside decorated with duelling mermen fighting with tridents, Mr. Chotzinoff had insisted on meeting the artist. The exhibition idea had flowered out of that. And yes, the place was tiny, with three white rooms, only enough pedestals to support three large pieces in each room, though the walls were covered with murals and mirrors and slogans about wine, but still.

  Still, the channel through which Aidan’s soul spoke had been unblocked, and someone believed in him enough to give houseroom to the things he had created, and to believe that other people would like them if they saw them too. That was . . .

  The bell over the door jangled. Finn came in, looking bright-eyed and impudent. The room attempted to arrange itself around him, but Aidan’s veiled centrepiece held it back. “I told you we’d be too early,” Finn said over his shoulder, and there was Michael. In a suit.

  “We’re bang on time.”

  “Exactly.” Finn tilted his head at James and then at Aidan. “Well, the pair of you seem to have successfully ignored every last scrap of my advice.” He grinned. “Which shows commendable backbone. What’s under the cloth?”

  The central pedestal of the gallery held Aidan’s largest piece yet. He’d worked at getting his hands and eyes back into practice before attempting it, worked on refining his technique, introducing a skeleton of wrapped metal bars be
neath the clay so that it could hold its own weight, stronger and more flexible than pottery alone.

  “I’d like to know that too,” James admitted, handing them a glass of wine each. “But apparently it’s a surprise.”

  The door shuddered and jangled again, as Molly and Zara came in, dressed up to the nines in cocktail dresses, Zara’s hijab wound through with silver threads to match her gown. Idris and Lalima came after them, and then Carol, accompanied by a distinguished-looking, grey-haired gentleman with a beard.

  Aidan shook the man’s hand and felt sure he was given a name, but he didn’t quite catch it because his nerves had switched over to a feeling of disbelief and exaltation and with the addition of Chablis, he was having a hard time concentrating on anything but delight.

  People kept coming in. At first they were people he recognised—Billy and Martin from the book club, for example. Michael’s niece Sarah with her friend Tai. But soon passersby began to notice the stir in the lit windows of the gallery, began to slow to a stop and run their eyes covetously over the goblets and the amphorae, the little octopuses and the Tritons he had made to swim among the plates and provide something inexpensive for an impulse buy.

  Several hours passed in outward small talk and an inward conviction of victory, until at last even joy became tiring and he was happy to see them all go.

  James sighed with relief as they shut the door on the last guest. Mr. Chotzinoff disappeared into the back room to put away what seemed an unreasonable amount of profit. They were finally alone again, and though it had been wonderful to see everyone, it was even better when it was just them.

  “You never unveiled this.” James rested his hand on the dust sheet in the centre of the room, looking exhausted but happy.

  “That’s because it’s for you.” Aidan’s teeth met in his lower lip as he worked to suppress nerves and embarrassment and hope. “Go on, open it.”

  “Really?” James grinned, easing the sheet over the spiky bits so that he could lift it off all at once. “You didn’t need—”

  The sheet fell to the floor. James’s words died in his throat as his mouth fell open. For what seemed years, he stood frozen in front of the statue as Aidan tried to work out if he liked it or not. Too long. And then he reached out and touched two fingers, reverently, to the bull’s shoulder, where the glaze was chestnut red and smoother than ice. He drew his hand up the animal’s muscular neck and to the tips of its golden horns.

  His other hand rose to his mouth and closed over it as he looked up at the acrobat standing on his hands on the back of death, grinning.

  “Oh, Aidan.”

  And Aidan was hugging him for all he was worth, feeling James weep into his shoulder, feeling too fiery, too exalted himself ever to weep again.

  “They broke it. I’m so sorry. I loved it so much and they broke it.”

  Aidan had seen the sad pieces, cherished in the glass-fronted display cabinet in James’s office, and he’d wanted to find a way to say it was all right, he didn’t mind.

  “My fingers were hurt when I made it, that old one. I was a slave, so it had bits of Piers in it. I’m glad it was broken. This one’s all you. That’s why it’s better.”

  James laughed in his arms. “I love you, Aidan Swift. So much.”

  With skill and daring, Aidan too had leaped over the monster’s back and come down safe. He patted the leaper’s long foot, braced in midair over his head, and felt at ease with himself and the whole universe, thanks to James.

  “I love you too. Let’s go home.”

  Explore more of the Trowchester Blues series at: www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/universe/trowchester-blues

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for reading Alex Beecroft’s Blue Steel Chain!

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  With thanks to AVEN in particular for providing almost all the information on asexuality that was not drawn from experience.

  Trowchester Blues series:

  Trowchester Blues

  Blue Eyed Stranger

  Historical:

  Blessed Isle

  The Crimson Outlaw

  Captain’s Surrender

  False Colors

  His Heart’s Obsession

  All at Sea

  By Honor Betrayed

  The Reluctant Berserker

  Fantasy:

  Under the Hill: Bomber’s Moon

  Under the Hill: Dogfighters

  Too Many Fairy Princes

  The Wages of Sin

  The Witch’s Boy

  Contemporary:

  Shining in the Sun

  Alex Beecroft was born in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and grew up in the wild countryside of the English Peak District. She studied English and philosophy before accepting employment with the Crown Court where she worked for a number of years. Now a stay-at-home mum and full-time author, Alex lives with her husband and two children in a little village near Cambridge and tries to avoid being mistaken for a tourist.

  Alex is only intermittently present in the real world. She has spent many years as an Anglo-Saxon and eighteenth-century reenactor. She has led a Saxon shield wall into battle, and toiled as a Georgian kitchen maid. For the past five years she has been taken up with the serious business of morris dancing, which has been going on in the UK for at least 500 years. But she still hasn’t learned to operate a mobile phone.

  In order of where you’re most likely to find her to where she barely hangs out at all, you can get in contact on:

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