"As I'm not?"
"No rest at all, I fear." Nick stopped his mouth with a kiss, and Philip's throaty chuckle broke off short. His hands were sliding across Nick's back, reaching through the very skin to hold Nick's heart. Nick lifted himself up, cock against cock and skin on skin jolting them both with the feel of each other; then lowered his head until their lips touched.
Philip laced his fingers in Nick's hair, pulling the two of them together as if he would have mingled more than breath, more than air, more than the warm slide of their mouths together. His body twisted and braced under Nick; his hands parted, and one slid downward beyond the small of Nick's back.
Not here. Not now. But … Nick said, "One night. Soon." He might be younger, but he was no less of a man for that. They would do this together.
The sun through the window shone on the face beneath him. "I love you," Philip said. "I want you to."
"I will."
"What?" Philip asked, half-teasing, breathing short and sharp, on the brink.
"I'll take you," Nick said, and Philip gasped, and came.
Home.
Ll
Glossary
acquent - acquainted (Scots)
bodkin - large needle
chapman - pedlar, seller of cheap goods
ellynge - uncanny (Sussex)
fain - glad
ferlie - strange thing (Scots)
flue - weak, feeble (Sussex)
haywain - hay wagon
hippocras - spiced wine, originally medicinal, drunk hot or cold
inglenook - recess in a large fireplace, suitable for use as a seat
jennet - fast riding-horse of a type originally imported from Spain
latchets - laces or thongs for fastening shoes
lead cames - strips of lead holding together diamond-shaped pieces of glass to make a window pane
lutenist - lute player
mammet - puppet or doll
mattins - service of morning prayer in the Protestant church of England
mazeling - simpleton, dimwit
midden - dung-heap
missal - book with the texts of the Catholic Mass throughout the year
partlet - fine material worn by men as a shirt collar and by women to cover a low neck-line, with or without an accompanying ruff
plaister - plaster
points - pieces of ribbon or cord for lacing hose and doublet together
posset - hot, milky drink, spiced and with ale or wine added
pricket - spike for holding a candle
raree show - equivalent to the nineteenth-century fairground freak show
redd up - freshly prepared (Scots)
rush-lights - cheap substitute for candles; reed pith dipped in melted mutton fat.
sherris-sack - fortified wine from Jerez in Spain: sherry
simples - herbal remedies
stot - young ox
sumptuary laws - legislation to prevent people from wearing clothes unsuited to their class status
sweir - reluctant (Scots)
tiring-room - equivalent of the modern theatre's dressing-room
truckle-bed - small bed stored by day under the main bed; for servants and children to sleep on
virgers - vergers, church officials. Spelt with an 'i' in St Paul's Cathedral and a few other major churches
wanhope - despair
wynd - a narrow street or alley (Scots)
About the Author
Despite having spent most of my life in Surrey and Oxfordshire, I now live in Somerset, within an hour’s drive of the villages where two of my great-great-great-grandparents were born. Although I work as a rare-books librarian in an abstruse area of medical history, I am in fact a thwarted medievalist with a strong arts background.
I have been writing fiction for over thirty years, exploring the lives of people who are on the margins in one way or another, and how the power of love and language can break down the walls that we build round ourselves.
Ll
The Peacock's Eye Page 27