by Cooper Davis
“Enjoying the libations, Finley?” Sam drawled at him, but those dark eyes weren’t mirthful. They studied him, keen as a raptor’s. “The family vintage is quite fine, hmm?”
Alistair made a startled grunt, and merely lifted his glass once more. He nearly drained the bloody goblet dry, plunking it too loudly onto the table as he glanced toward the footman for yet another refill.
Marcus reached and gently touched his gloved hand. “Darling, you might wish . . . well, it’s an eight course this evening.”
Alistair nodded, and forced his hand briefly away from the goblet. Feeling self-conscious and shy and positively enormous, he leaned back in his chair as everyone was served. And that was the precise moment the bloody button picked to pop off his purloined waistcoat. It danced across the table, ricocheting smartly off his wine goblet, and kept on rolling.
“Well done, Finley. Expert shot there, man,” Samuel snickered, right as the blasted button had the gall to slowly, endlessly roll toward his cousin before stopping. “Much better than your performance during the hunting party yesterday.”
Arend made a sound of disapproval from the table head. “Alistair’s never enjoyed killing anything. He’s too kind-hearted and makes himself a poor shot on purpose. You know that, Sam.”
Samuel snatched up the gold button, examining it. “Perhaps next time we should fill your rifle with shiny buttons, and you’ll prove an excellent shot.” Samuel narrowed his gaze on the button’s detailing. “I’ll be damned but I believe that’s the royal crest imprinted on this thing. Small lettering, but”—Samuel extended the button to Lucy—“that’s the family crest. Isn’t it, Luce?”
Lucy gave her husband a sharp, corrective glance and he merely shrugged, dropping the button beside his goblet of wine. He gave it a neat little pat, as if ensuring that he and that button were going to remain on very familiar terms. Casting a pointed look across the table at Alistair, the man drawled, “I think this item belongs in the family coffers.” Then Sam glanced tetchily at Colchester, who had merely averted his gaze, appearing dismayed; if not by Sam’s behavior, then surely by his cruelty.
Beside him, Marcus tensed visibly. “Your Grace . . .” But Marcus never finished, clearly lacking experience with correcting such rudeness. Much less at the king’s own table.
“I’m so sorry, Alistair,” Lucy told him gently. “Sam’s been in a mood all day.” She glanced at Marcus next. “Lord Marcus, truly, apologies. My husband isn’t normally such a lout, but he’s been cross all day.”
Alistair could have sworn he heard Colchester mutter, “All week.” But his ears were ringing with the sound of his own blood. His hands turned clammy within his gloves.
“I’m not in a mood, either of you.” Sam glanced between Thomas and Lucy, and as with last evening, already appeared foxed. He surely was to so clearly turn from his wife to their lover and speak with such naked familiarity. But Alistair could hardly register the other man’s slip; he was too cast about by the exchange.
Marcus slid a palm to his thigh, giving it a reassuring squeeze, then leaving that hand there as a soothing presence.
“Too bad about the button, old man,” Sam said to him. “The waistcoat looks fine upon your person, in truth.” It was clear Sam intended that remark to land him in better standing with both his lovers, as he glanced subtly between them, clearly hoping to make amends for his poor behavior. Alistair nearly relaxed, hopeful that the matter was finally finished. But then Sam added, “Wherever did the waistcoat come from, Finley? You should speak to your tailor, to be sure, as it simply isn’t done to shed buttons willy-nilly about society.”
“This waistcoat was from King Norman’s trunks, as you well know,” Alistair offered numbly. Not wanting to betray his larger issues with attire, nor the valet disaster. “I wanted to wear something special tonight.” At my own engagement party, with my fiancé at my side.
Arend scowled at Samuel. “Sam, I’ve given Fin leave to wear any of my late father’s garments that might suit.”
Samuel made an appalled sound in the back of his throat. “Well, at least you can’t claim we were pillaged on my watch, Arend.”
Arend eyed Samuel with no small amount of disapprobation. “Can you honestly imagine Alistair—our Alistair—with his protectiveness of me, and his watchful eye and those endless cross-examinations of my ledgers . . . allowing even an ounce of gold out of this palace, without his or my own express permission? Sam, you needn’t bother yourself with the family jewels and goods.”
Arend’s light-eyed gaze landed on Alistair, and there was something very kind and reassuring in that glance. “I never worry about security where Fin is concerned. No gentleman could ever be more loyal or fair to me. I count myself lucky to have him as a foster brother.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Alistair stared down at the open plié of his waistcoat and grimaced, and oh, how his face flamed. It seemed that every eye at the table had observed his symbolic and social downfall—that damned button’s flight across the king’s linen-dressed table.
Marcus, naturally, intuited Alistair’s distress and inclined his mouth to Alistair’s ear. “You look smart as ever, darling,” Marcus murmured, low enough that only Alistair would hear. Marcus reached beneath the table and again squeezed his thigh encouragingly.
Alistair should have covered that strong hand with his own; instead, he took a frantic gulp of champagne, draining half the flute in a single draw. Marcus gave his leg a gentle pat, then leaned forward to address their host.
“King Arend,” Marcus ventured brightly, clearly endeavoring to redirect the conversation to safer ground. “Prince Julian and I were talking of making a bit of music later, after dinner, if that would please His Majesty? I brought my best violin, and your husband has dared consent to sing with me.”
“That would be astoundingly nice.” Arend turned to Julian, who rarely sang in public, and radiated his enthusiasm.
“It is settled, then.” Marcus beamed up at Alistair in turn. “The prince and I shall perform after dinner tonight.”
There was a sweet hopefulness in Marcus’s expression, and it occurred to Alistair roughly ten seconds too late that Marcus meant to please him—that he knew how Alistair loved to hear him play and had tried to arrange a special gift tonight. The gift of his enrapturing talent, mingled with dear Julian’s own.
“A performance, lovely,” Alistair murmured numbly, imagining himself being forced to converse further with Samuel—being confronted in the conservatory, perhaps.
“You should like that, yes? That the prince and I make a bit of music?” Marcus asked him quietly, his auburn brows quirking together. His smile slipping.
Alistair tried to nod, tried to think straight, but his brain was sodden with alcohol, his thoughts were muddled beyond repair—a murkiness that had less to do with the port and the whiskey and all that champagne, and much more with Samuel’s unspoken accusations about Alistair’s bloodline.
Arend turned to Marcus and asked, “Have you yet heard Alistair play the violin? I wish he’d do so more often. He’s so talented, Marcus.”
Marcus’s jaw actually dropped; his freckled face blanched. “Whyever would you not have told me that?” he blurted, a bit too loudly as he gaped at Alistair.
“I . . . I don’t play. Not anymore.” Alistair took another draw of champagne. “It’s been years. It didn’t signify.”
Under his breath, Marcus whispered, “It signifies to me. Or did you not wish me to know?”
And what else might you wish to keep secret from me? Those unspoken words were louder than any other passing across the table.
If only his Marcus knew the full truth of what Alistair was; if only any of them suspected his ignoble pedigree. Never again would he be Mr. Finley, respected society gentleman. Never again would he be received politely anywhere—especially by Marcus or his noble family—should any of them learn t
he truth. And Dryden would reign victorious, just as he’d threatened and predicted.
But Samuel already knew; the scheming gleam in his dark eyes attested to that awareness. When he’d discovered Alistair rummaging in that trunk earlier, something had clicked in the man’s brain, some further proof of what Alistair had nearly revealed last night.
Once more, his palm drifted across his belly, as if somehow in hiding that missing button, he might hide the dirty nature of his indelicate siring.
Samuel picked up the button again, making a great show of examining it. “Yes, I’m sure Alistair watches after the family valuables and heirlooms most adroitly, Arend. He’s quite . . . the motivated gentleman.”
His cousin was grinning at him wolfishly, true arse that he was. Enjoying having his go at him, watching him tumble in the slowest, most agonizing disgrace any gentleman might experience. That’s what finally sparked Alistair’s rage, like a match to dry kindling.
Alistair lurched forward in his chair drunkenly, and met that stare dead-on. “What?” he demanded hotly, not giving a fig as to propriety.
Samuel shrugged vaguely and glanced away, perhaps nearly as foxed as Alistair.
“What do you truly wish to say, Samuel?” Alistair pressed, pushing nearly out of his seat with fury. His inebriation had him livid and ready to brawl, all restraint cast off by liquor.
Samuel shifted in his chair, turning to the table head. “Arend, you did hear me when I said I found your secretary plundering your sire’s trunks earlier? You take no umbrage at his ferreting all about in King Norman’s things?”
Oh, God. Oh, dearest God. Sam wasn’t going to let it go. He knew it, then and there, by the drunken gleam in the man’s eyes when he cast a glance in Alistair’s direction.
Alistair brushed a hand through his hair, beginning to quake. He’d have sworn his bloody trousers grew even snugger, the waistcoat cinching horribly about his middle until he could not breathe for the tightness in his chest. He never should have made that dangerous slip with Sam last night, for now his cousin would make him pay. Sam would ruin him.
Everyone shall know, and before I can so much as cough, Marcus will learn that I’m an illegitimate by-blow. That I’m nothing.
Arend only smiled. “Alistair knows he may have anything that is mine or my late father’s.”
“Thank you, my king.” Alistair blotted his mouth with the linen napkin, then rose unsteadily to his feet.
Alistair was done for. Finished. Ruined. He tossed the napkin onto the table, resigned. “It seems that in both my expansive size and girth, as well as in my insatiable appetites, I am quite like our late father, Arend.”
“Wh-what . . . Fin, what the devil are you saying?” Arend demanded, sounding more numb than angry. “You can’t mean to imply . . .”
“I’m not implying. I’m stating it bluntly, Arend. That I’m precisely like our father. I’m equally mammoth, just as unfashionably large.” Alistair shook his head, standing to his tallest, most imposing height. “Or have you never noticed the resemblance? Surely you must have done. Samuel certainly has—it’s why he’s sitting there looking like the cat who got the cream. It’s why our sire’s outdated attire suited me so well tonight, right up until I popped that bloody button.”
Arend’s mouth was open, no additional words coming forth. It had never been supposed to happen like this. The tale was never to be told.
Alistair turned to beautiful Marcus, the man who he’d intended as husband, and gave him a formal bow. “Lord Marcus, my most sincere apologies, truly. I have embarrassed you and I am regretful for that . . . and many other things. Deeply regretful, my lord.”
Alistair then turned to Arend, who remained speechless, his face leached of all color. “And you, my king, my friend . . . my brother. I never wished you to know these things. But our cousin baited me. He has learned my secret somehow, and appears determined to tell the ugly, sordid tale.”
“You truly are an arse, Finley,” Samuel said hotly. “I wasn’t going to say a bloody thing. You brought this on yourself.” His cousin shook his head, laughing. “That slip of your tongue the other night. You can’t even expect us to believe that meant anything. I doubt you’ve Tollemach blood in your veins.”
Alistair bent over the table, braced his beefy hands upon the fine linen, and eyed his cousin. “No? Have a look at the portrait hall, and then take another gander at me. We’ll see what’s true or not, right there in your family gallery. You’ll glimpse it then, if you can’t accept the august truth before you now.”
Then, without another word, without a glance at his lover, nor his king, Finley thundered his way out of that formal dining hall, making a direct line for the wine cellar. He planned to get as foxed as he’d ever been. He wanted to be numb, needed to plummet face-first into nothingness, to feel the warm embrace of oblivion.
He wanted to be as cold and moldering as their dead father.
He wanted . . . for the feelings, the rioting, knotted frenzy of emotion he’d carried in his gut for some twenty years, to stop once and for all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Marcus quietly entered the bedchamber he’d been sharing with Alistair, and found him laid out upon their four-poster, spread-eagled in utter inebriation. That blasted velvet waistcoat was missing four buttons now. Only two remained attached, and the man dangled a heavy leg off the edge of the bed—boot half-on—an empty bottle of wine cocked between his thighs. He snored in wet staccatos and bursts, with a periodic undertone of a plaintive whine. One hand came down along his thigh, cupping that empty bottle.
How utterly perfect.
The trail of lost gold buttons wound about the room, and Marcus imagined his lover pacing in agitation, back and forth, more and more inebriated, losing buttons as he moved.
Marcus sidled onto the edge of the bed. He’d not known what to do, so he’d remained at dinner, wanting to be ill. Thankful that his own family wasn’t meant to join the party until later in the week, and therefore hadn’t witnessed any of what transpired. The king had excused himself after the soup, with dear Prince Julian following quickly after him. That had left only Samuel, Lucy, Colchester, and himself to awkwardly dine together, so much heat crawling beneath Marcus’s collar he’d barely been able to breathe.
Especially when Samuel glanced at him quite pointedly and observed, “I don’t suppose you still intend to marry the fellow. I wouldn’t. He’s a bastard and wholly dissipated.”
“Yes, Your Grace, you’d obviously know of dissipation,” Marcus managed to fire back in disgust.
“Well, apparently,”—Samuel inclined his head—“it runs in the family.”
And that had been that, with barely any additional conversation flowing as Marcus fought the urgent need to seek out Alistair. To ensure his well-being, to rail at him, to demand to know why he’d not been able to trust him with such an important secret.
Instead, Marcus had arrived too late, finding his lover passed out cold. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to sob or scream till the whole palace was roused. The only thing he did know was his heart was breaking. Badly. A thick lump had lodged in his throat, as if his necktie had been cinched too tight. He swallowed, battling tears that he’d held back at the table.
Marcus bent over Alistair’s prone form, and brushed a stray black wave off his forehead. In slumber, even so foxed, the man was gorgeous. And now that it had been brought to light, his lover did quite favor both Arend and Samuel, in his rangy, significant height, in his dusky coloring. His long patrician nose and high cheekbones. That face was puffy now, blotched from the liquor, swelled from years of pain and hiding who he truly was. So much of his beloved’s suffering finally stood in sharp, understandable relief.
Oh, why hadn’t Alistair felt he could confide in him? If he’d done so, would they be in a different situation now? Or had it been necessary for his fiancé’s world to crumble abou
t him, in order to begin a new day—tomorrow—as a new man?
Marcus would help his dearest Alistair find his footing again. Surely tonight had been a breaking point, the one when a dam holding back heartache and shame finally gave way.
He bent low and pressed his lips to Finley’s clammy brow. “Darling,” he murmured softly. “Please wake. We must talk.”
Alistair groaned and stirred, reminding Marcus of a bear being roused from hibernation. A thick forearm flung out, and then moved across his eyes. “Damnation,” he growled. “My head’s killing . . .”
“Alistair,” he said more firmly, stroking the man’s arm, trying to urge it away from his eyes, “please sit up.”
Another growling, ursine groan. “Get outta here, man. Just . . . go.”
He rolled onto his side, away from Marcus’s touch. And muttered something unintelligible, although Marcus did hear one word. “Over.”
Over? They were over? The lies were over?
“Over?” Marcus repeated numbly, but then his voice turned sharper. “What, precisely, is over, Alistair?”
“I’m nobody’s husband. Nobody’s brother . . . nobody’s son.” Alistair waved vaguely toward the bedroom door. “Just go back to your passel of brothers.”
Marcus was livid. Furious. Devastated. And he wanted to provoke his lover. Force him to confront all that he’d done, those dark secrets he’d kept. And dear God, what Marcus wanted most of all, was to make Alistair accept his love at long last.
But in that moment, it was the fury that spurred him on; he wasn’t going to walk away without a fight.
Marcus gave Alistair a sharp poke in the side. “How dare you tell me to go, you sodding arse. Dismissing me like I’m little more than some wilting flower of a man. As if I can’t fight my own battles, but need my fucking brothers? I have a family that loves me, and maybe you hate that. Maybe it crawls under yer prudish collar because—false as the notion is—ye believe ye’ve no family of yer own. That ye have no one at all, including me.” Marcus paused, sucked in a furious, painful breath, and added, “Or maybe what ye really hate, Alistair, is yerself.”