A Gentleman Revealed

by Cooper Davis

  Marcus was thankful that, from the beginning, he’d loved Alistair for himself, without knowing his bloodline, and without his darling having trimmed. He’d loved Alistair without reservation, for exactly and truly who he’d perceived the man to be. Himself.

  Arend smiled at Marcus. “Are you ready, my lord?”

  “Ready?” Confused, he glanced at Alistair, but it was their king who answered.

  “Lord Marcus, you’re to step onto the balustrade with Alistair. I’m going to acknowledge him as prince, and then, at the appropriate moment, we shall announce your betrothal.” Arend smiled at him. “You are, after all, to be prince, as well.”

  Marcus’s eyes went wide, and he turned to Alistair, shocked. “But . . . it’s your day, Alistair. Are you quite certain?”

  Arend chuckled, touching Marcus’s arm reassuringly. “My lord, you’d not deny your king, surely?

  Marcus’s eyebrows rose so sharply that his hairline lifted. “Sire, no, no. Never . . . I just . . .”

  Alistair stepped closer, glancing at his brother. “Please, sweetheart, won’t you do me the honor? This day—this moment—is ours, not mine alone. And it shan’t be complete without my husband at my side.”

  Marcus beamed. “I’m not your husband quite yet.”

  “That,” Alistair told him, dimples deepening and that handsome face turning russet, “is but a formality.”

  And with that, his prince extended an arm, and they moved out onto the balustrade, where quite literally thousands of subjects waved magenta banners and shouted hearty, joyous approval. Perhaps that unabashed outpouring, so devoted and earnest, was why Alistair Finley-Tollemach—previously most retiring and starchy—drew Marcus into his arms and soundly kissed him, for all the realm to see.

  Continue reading for an excerpt from

  A NOBLEMAN TEMPTED

  Available in November from InterMix

  Two years earlier

  Ethan Avenleigh’s carriage drew to a halt in front of a stately brick townhome rising above the city cobblestones to an impressive four stories tall. He stared up at the roofline, trying to settle the temper that had brought him here, to the Earl of Harcourt’s doorstep.

  He was shown inside the townhome by the butler, who appeared confused when Ethan refused to surrender his coat and hat. “I shan’t be here long,” he explained curtly.

  And it was true: he meant to resolve this situation swiftly and emphatically. He couldn’t stand by and allow Marcus’s reputation to be savaged. Ethan did not want to see another scandal sheet featuring his youngest brother’s name. Nor the lamentable Earl from the Garden. The same earl who had Ethan standing here, furiously clutching his hat.

  The distant sound of piano music filtered down the hallway. Undoubtedly that was Harcourt playing, as he and Marcus had performed together in the royal symphony. Could the damned Earl from the Garden not simply cease his music long enough to properly greet Ethan?

  As if in answer to his mounting pique, the music abruptly stopped. And then, at the farthest end of the hall, a blond head suddenly appeared, popping out of an open doorway. “Oh, Viscount Dunshire!” the man called out brightly, as if wholly surprised to realize Ethan waited at all. “Apologies, good sir! Apologies!”

  The earl hurried toward him in shirtsleeves, brushing his hands together as if just wrapping up some indelicate project, or perhaps anticipating a delectable treat. “My lord, my butler was to have shown you to the library,” Harcourt called to him. “But he obviously misunderstood my directive.”

  Ethan made no move to meet the fellow partway, remaining rooted where he stood in the entry. “Needn’t apologize,” he replied coolly. Need only right this dastardly situation for my brother.

  That blond head bobbed once as the man dipped into a light bow, then rose again, a gracious smile on his elfin face. “Blazes, you look the twin of Lord Marcus!” Harcourt said, amber-bright eyes widening. “I had heard as much, but for a moment, I thought it was Lord Marcus himself standing there.”

  “He’s half an inch shorter,” Ethan returned, doing his best to swallow the rougher edges of his brogue. He might be a duke’s son, but theirs was a northern family from the moors, not the citified snobbish sort given to decorating drawing rooms.

  The earl emitted an airy laugh, a bubbling sound trapped somewhere between delightful and inelegant. “From my vantage point below, sir, half an inch could be three, and I’d not know the difference.”

  He’d assumed Robert Barrington, the Earl of Harcourt, would be much like Marcus’s usual type: broad shouldered and stout. Instead, what Ethan discovered was a lovely, small-boned, porcelain man who barely reached Ethan’s own shoulder. A gentleman so diminutive, he appeared precariously close to blowing across town on the next stormy day.

  Which suddenly explained so very much about the entirety of the situation, and why Marcus, with his kind heart, had been hell-bent on allowing the rumors to persist. He had been protecting his friend from the very first.

  Harcourt’s lightly freckled face broke into a smile much akin to a beam of sunlight. “You truly are the very image of Marcus.”

  “I am the elder of us both.” Ethan inclined his head.

  “But of course!” Harcourt exclaimed. “An older man. Very clever of you indeed.”

  “To be born five years earlier than my brother?” Ethan laughed sardonically. “Yes, that required a great deal of imagination and brilliance on my part.”

  “No, Viscount Dunshire,” the gentleman said with exaggerated patience, “clever of you to call upon me wearing a lovely green waistcoat that makes your eyes sparkle like my garden after the rain. Well played.”

  “That . . . that . . .” Ethan’s brain turned sap sodden. “That,” he managed, standing taller, “has nothing whatsoever to do with the five years I own on my brother.”

  The earl laughed softly, then pressed a hand to Ethan’s forearm. “I’m the same age as Lord Marcus, remember.”

  “That also has nothing whatsoever to do with cleverness.”

  Harcourt tsk-tsked. “Now, see, you’d not say that if you knew me better.”

  “How can anyone know you, Harcourt? You keep a fellow in a kerfuffle, speaking so fast and with such twists of phrase,” Ethan complained.

  The earl kept his hand on Ethan’s forearm. “I only do so when I wish to impress,” Harcourt told him confidingly. “Or, more particularly, when a lovely lad in green appears unexpectedly in my entryway, clutching his hat as if it holds the very mysteries of life, nature, and all things philosophical. Do you read much in the way of philosophy, Viscount Dunshire?”

  Loosening his grip on his now-warped hat brim, Ethan blew out a fitful sigh. He should’ve surrendered his hat and greatcoat to the butler. He searched for the man, but his gaze fell on a risqué oil painting. Staring at the bacchanal, he wanted to seize the bloody thing off the wall. The last thing he needed was to gawp at a reclining naked man being fed grapes by a muscular centaur.

  Ethan nodded at the piece disdainfully. “I should have suspected that you’d have lewd paintings about your entry.”

  “Of course, for one never knows when a handsome lord may call,” Harcourt said smoothly, his voice betraying no fluster whatsoever. “Best to have him in the right frame of mind from his very first arrival, no?”

  “God, you’re a tart!” Ethan wanted to disapprove, but the flirtation had instantly aroused him.

  “What I am, Viscount Dunshire,” Harcourt said, “is having a rewarding jest at your expense. And this is where I am clever, and you perhaps less crafty than I initially calculated if you can’t recognize that fact.”

  When Ethan simply gawked back, Harcourt rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “That painting was done by my great uncle, otherwise I’d have pitched it over to the royal gallery an eon ago. And it must hang in that very spot—so grotesque! That very spot, lest my aunt visit a
nd find it missing. Quite the fuss.”

  Ethan nodded toward the monstrosity. “I couldn’t know that, when it is, point of fact, adorning your entry rather prominently.”

  The earl snarled at the painting. “Yes, well, let’s hie ourselves away from its watchful, damning presence, shall we?” He motioned down the hallway with a flick of his wrist. “I was having a go at my morning piano practice,” he said, much more soberly. “Although it’s off-season for the royal symphony, I must maintain my daily rigors. Follow me?”

  Ethan trailed after the earl in mute disbelief.

  When they reached the library, Harcourt moved to the piano, but Ethan rooted himself in the broad doorway, needing to hold back. The lord was a spell caster, so beautiful and brilliantly witty and charming. The drunken, Sunday-warm feeling of just being near the man already had Ethan feeling heady, reeled in. The earl’s delicate features, coupled with his tightly coiled, sinewy strength, compelled Ethan to stare. To want. To absolutely burn with lust in a way he’d worked to suppress since university.

  As those elegant fingers began fluttering like daylight over the keys, producing music almost as intoxicating as the lord himself, Ethan closed his eyes. Let the music seep into his body, his soul, and it was mesmerizing. Transporting. But then, suddenly, Ethan jolted. His eyes flew open. It was as if he’d dozed off briefly, experiencing a full vision of what could be, in the space of two heartbeats. “You’re not what I expected,” Ethan said quietly.

  The lord paused in his playing. “And what was that?”

  Ethan hesitated, then said bluntly, “The sort of gentleman who’d carelessly sacrifice my brother’s reputation in order to salvage his own.”

  “Ah.” The earl chewed on his lower lip. “I do realize how tenderhearted Marcus is. I’ve tried my very best to quell the rumors. The truth will win out soon enough. And I am grievously sorry that your brother was ever dragged into this mess. But he flung himself into it willingly. Which is Lord Marcus to—”

  “—the very ground. I am aware. Thank you.”

  Ethan studied the back of that blond head—inclined over the piano, moving slightly in rhythm to the music—and wondered how any male could possibly be so lovely. He’d tried his best to conquer this side of himself. He had a title to secure, heirs to produce. But the ache had never left him. His inclinations—once briefly indulged, years ago—had forever transformed him. The need was ever there, like so much background noise at a midnight ball. Sometimes the need became more of a dull roar, but Ethan had learned to tune it out.

  Usually. But now, staring at Harcourt’s blond curls—and one extremely unruly cowlick—that dull roar turned to screaming madness in Ethan’s veins.

  He scowled down at those curls and blurted, “What addlepated moron would have broken off a betrothal with a gentleman like ye?” Ethan’s brogue had thickened up, as it always did when he was upset. “Who would be so bloody daft and bacon brained?”

  In profile, he saw Harcourt smile sadly. “My former fiancé, it would seem.”

  “Had the idiot bothered kissing ye before doing so?” Ethan demanded, inexplicably angrier. And wholly unable to hide his accent, not when this unseated.

  “Yes. And obviously found me quite wanting.” The earl laughed, a marrow-warming sound much like champagne.

  “I rather doubt that.”

  The fellow cast a brief glance over his shoulder, still playing gracefully. “I’m not what you expected. And yet you, Lord Dunshire, are precisely what I always imagined you’d be.”

  “And that is?”

  “The sort who shows up uninvited in a fury, ready to protect his brother at all costs. With fists raised and eager to use them. And then, of course, only stops to pose pertinent questions much after the fact, once eyes are blackened and noses broken, and pockets turned inside out. You seem that sort of northern lad, all redheaded sprite and blustery.”

  “That is how I strike ye?” Ethan leaned against the doorjamb, striving to appear far calmer than his riotous heart made him feel. “A sprite? All six-foot-two of me? Ye, sir, are the spritely one. Ye mustn’t be more than—”

  The earl snorted disdainfully. “I am the tallest man in my family, thank you.”

  “Good God! The rest are a passel of little dryads, are they?”

  The playing ceased as Lord Harcourt began to laugh in earnest. “I am, Viscount Dunshire, a solid five feet five. Hardly qualifies me as a dryad,” he said with a grin. “But how did I strike you? Since I’m not what you expected.”

  “Complicated, pricey,” Ethan said, “and perhaps worth the trouble.”

  Lord Harcourt shook his head. “The trouble of what, Viscount Dunshire?”

  “Any trouble a gentleman might get up to with a man like you.” Ethan adjusted himself against the doorjamb languidly but wasn’t nearly so relaxed on the inside. A hummingbird had set itself within his broad chest and was beating frantically, making his palms sweat, causing his vision to waver. Those bird wings flapped even harder—maybe it was more like a hawk—every time he looked at the loose tumble of blond curls atop Harcourt’s head. “Were you and my brother ever lovers?”

  “You never asked Marcus that question?” Harcourt said.

  “I didn’t think to ask.” Ethan swallowed hard. “Wasn’t important. Before.”

  “But it is now?” The earl kept his expression unrevealing, and it maddened Ethan.

  “Increasingly so, yes,” Ethan admitted softly. “More with every passing note you play, and every moment I darken this doorway.”

  An oddly lopsided grin met him as the earl tossed him a glance. “You needn’t lurk there, halfway in and halfway out. Then again, maybe you’re that sort: the kind who can’t decide which side he’s on, nor fully commit to either one.” Elegant fingers waggled him toward the piano. “Come, sit beside me, why don’t you?”

  Ethan plowed forward and in but two strides was at the piano. He sank down beside Lord Harcourt and positioned himself strategically on the bench. He kept his back to the keys, so he could watch Harcourt’s face while he continued playing. And a whimsically beautiful face it was, as delicate as the rest of the man, from his pink, rosebud mouth to the narrow nose and the golden freckles that dusted it. But all that prettiness was underscored by unexpected strength. Not just in how offhandedly he was dealing with Ethan, but in the set of his jaw and the keen brilliance in his amber eyes. As if a bit of extra fire lit the man from deep within.

  The earl played without speaking. The longer Ethan stared, a bit of color hit the man’s cheeks, even as he smoothly played a beautiful piece. This man was no sprite at all, but an iron-willed fellow who could handle all comers. Even if he did blush a bit while he dispatched them. “You didn’t need Marcus’s protection at all,” Ethan said firmly.

  “Not in the slightest.” He gave Ethan a quick glance, then ran his fingers up to the higher notes, a movement that caused his body to dance briefly into Ethan’s. “But I suspect I would need a great deal of protection from you, Lord Dunshire.”

  The playing stopped then, Ethan with his back to the keyboard, the earl gazing up at him. Their hips nudging so solidly close, the lord moved his face a bit nearer, as if waiting to be kissed. Demanding it, as those rosebud lips parted in a tempting smile. One fine-boned hand moved to Ethan’s forearm, encouraging him with just a brush of fingertips.

  After a moment of Ethan staring at Harcourt’s hand, then his mouth, then back to his hand, Harcourt cleared his throat. “You may, you know,” the earl said encouragingly. “Kiss me, I mean. I shan’t mind.” The words were wholly earnest, said without any mockery or jest.

  Ethan groaned, closing his eyes against the titillating invitation. Soft fingertips grazed over his own lips. Ethan’s eyes flew open, and damn it all, he grew achingly hard. He bolted to his feet, lunging for his hat where he’d dropped it atop the piano. “I should go.”

  H
arcourt caught his hand. “Should you?” He laughed a warm, morning-rough sound.

  Ethan glared down at the little lord of a man. “You’re an incorrigible flirt.”

  “You lapped it up. Nor shall you forget our interlude anytime soon, I wager.”

  “Why the devil would you play at me so?”

  Harcourt shrugged. “You came here to tell me to bugger off. I met that with an invitation to bugger me.”

  Ethan gaped and sputtered. He felt utterly transparent, seen through in a frightening, startling way. In an electrifying one. “I prefer women. Females. I’m no sod.”

  But I am, apparently, a first-rate liar.

  The Earl of Harcourt’s glittering gaze traveled only a few inches upward, his position on the bench allowing him an unencumbered view of Ethan’s present shame. “Which is why the front of those fine trousers—or rather the package snugged within—is jutting upward like a merry flagpole.”

  Ethan growled hatefully at the fellow, caught somewhere between seizing him in a senseless, blinding kiss—and needing to swat him atop the head until he yowled.

  The earl tossed his head back and laughed. “Marcus might have prepared me for how delightfully adorable you are.”

  With a narrow-eyed huff, Ethan spun on his heel and stormed out of the library’s grand double doors. Then, standing in that hallway, shaking, he recalled he’d forgotten his bloody hat. Thus, he stormed back into that room, marched to the piano and glared down at Harcourt. “Do your best to salvage my brother’s reputation, will you?” He snatched up his hat and shoved it onto his head. “He thinks the world of you.”

  “I love Marcus,” Lord Harcourt returned, with heartfelt sincerity. “He is one of my dearest friends. I will continue to heartily disabuse society of these absurd rumors.”

  “Good.” Ethan began fastening the front of his greatcoat. “I’m glad to hear that.”