Toby looked debauched.
Or as if he had been debauched.
Lucius stubbed out his cigar in the nearby ashtray with more vehemence than was probably necessary. “As I said, we will discuss the matter of your drinking, late return home, and inappropriate comments to me in the morning.”
Toby turned. “I thought I was to receive a smacked arse if I forgot my manners again?”
Lucius stilled, barely breathing, his hands fisted at his sides. “Do you want a smacked arse?”
“Not sure.” Toby pulled a face, as if he was considering the matter. “Will I like it, do you think?”
“It would not be administered with the intention of being liked,” Lucius snapped, the situation not helped by his total awareness of the return of the stiffness of his cock inside his breeches. Merely from discussing spanking the arse that currently looked utterly delectable outlined against Toby’s evening breeches.
The young man gave an unconcerned smile. “That ain’t what I heard. Of course, that conversation was in regard to women.” His brow creased into an exaggerated frown.” But I see no reason why a man should not like it too. If it was administered by another gentleman with the same preferences, of course,” he added with obvious mockery.
Lucius’s throbbing cock was growing longer and thicker and his balls heavier with each word that left Toby’s pretty lips. Lips he instinctively knew would taste delicious or look beautiful stretched about the girth of Lucius’s cock as he fucked that length down this younger man’s throat.
Except Toby had obviously drunk too much this evening to be fully aware of what he was saying or inviting. “We will meet again at ten o’clock tomorrow morning in my study,” Lucius stated.
Again, there was that frown of deep and exaggerated concentration. “I thought the two of us were to eat breakfast together at ten o’clock?”
Good God, Toby made it sound like they were two lovers intending to break their fast together the morning after—after—
Fuck.
Bugger.
Damn.
Fuck.
“Go to bed, Toby,” he ordered in a gravelly voice.
The young man deflated slightly, shoulders slumping. “You ain’t any fun at all.”
“Oh, I can be fun, in the right circumstances,” Lucius assured him dryly.
“I ain’t seen any evidence of it.”
“Perhaps not, but that is because these are not the right circumstances. I also have the feeling that, of the two of us, you will be the one to most regret this conversation in the morning,” Lucius drawled.
Toby’s nose wrinkled. “I feel a certain amount of regret already.”
“Only a certain amount?” Lucius was finding it difficult not to be amused by how endearing a slightly drunk Toby could be.
Toby shrugged. “Best I show some regret now, ’cause I doubt I will remember the conversation at all in the morning.”
“In that case, I shall remind you,” Lucius promised.
“Had a feeling you might,” the younger man muttered.
“Make sure to blow out that candle before you fall sleep,” Lucius called out in warning as the younger man made his way up the staircase.
He could not be certain, but he thought he heard Toby murmur, “I would much rather be doing something or someone else before I fall asleep,” as he made his weaving way up the staircase before the lighted candle, and Toby, disappeared down the hallway to the left.
Lucius was still smiling as he returned to his study. Toby was proving to be highly entertaining without the need for any sexual interactions between the two of them.
Nevertheless, Lucius had every intention of taking care of his hard and leaking cock before it burst completely out the front of his breeches, as Lancaster had predicted it might.
Chapter Six
Toby’s head ached. No, not ached, it throbbed. As if someone were beating a drum inside it. What—
Oh sweet fucking hell!
It all came back to him now. The hours he’d spent at the Venus Club the previous evening, enjoying several glasses—bottles?—of champagne celebrating his birthday with his friends. Then being dropped off late last night outside Sheffield House from the carriage of one of those friends. Stealthily entering the house—at least, Toby had thought he was being stealthy, until the challenging sound of Sheffield’s voice in the darkness had caused him to freeze in the entrance hall.
Toby gave a groan and pulled one of the pillows over his head at the memory of the conversation that followed.
He remembered saying something to the duke about his advanced years and not having the stamina to both fuck a woman and walk away afterward.
And then…then Toby had totally humiliated himself by reminding the duke he had threatened to spank Toby’s arse the next time he misbehaved. Toby had also added to that humiliation by revealing he thought he might enjoy it.
Would Sheffield notice if his ward of only four days disappeared from the house never to be seen or heard from again?
Probably. Toby cringed. He doubted the duke missed very much that went on, inside his household or outside it.
The fact that Toby’s bedside clock now read fifteen minutes after ten told him he had more than last night’s inappropriate conversation to apologize for.
Nor did he see any point in rushing his bath before dressing. He was in trouble anyway and had no intention of hurrying downstairs to face whatever punishment Sheffield had decided fitted his crime.
Thus it was forty minutes past ten o’clock when Toby quietly entered the duke’s study.
“You are late.”
Toby winced. Obviously, he had not entered quietly enough.
Nor was he fooled for a moment by the duke’s dangerously soft tone as the man stood in front of the window with his back to the room, his hands loosely clasped behind him. Toby had no need to see the other man’s face to know he was angry. Well…angry again, and this time because of Toby’s tardiness.
“I trust you have a good reason for it?” Sheffield still made no attempt to turn and look at him.
“Um, I overslept?”
“Is that a question or a statement?”
“Both?”
Sheffield finally turned to look at him, the sun shining in the window behind him making it impossible for Toby to see the expression on his face. Not that Toby needed to see it to know that the duke was furious with him.
“You were drunk last night when you returned home.”
“I was a little…foxed,” Toby admitted.
“Do you remember our conversation upon your return?”
With sickening clarity, Toby acknowledged inwardly. “I remember a little of it, yes,” he prevaricated.
“Which part?”
“Er, let me see. Something about me being drunk and you would talk to me about it in the morning?” Every statement coming out of Toby’s mouth sounded like a question. As if he doubted, or hoped, the duke did not remember the conversation. Even though Toby already knew that would not be the case.
Sheffield’s jaw tightened. “Did you take a lover last night?”
“Of course not!” Toby recoiled at the unexpectedness of the very personal question. His cheeks burned. “I told you, I went out with friends. Friends who are not interested in other men,” he clarified. “Why would you even ask me such a question when I have already made the embarrassing admission of never having engaged in sexual relations with anyone?”
The duke shrugged as he strolled forward to stand in front of his desk. “You were in a defiant mood yesterday evening, enough so that you might have done something…rash. Either to celebrate being twenty or to spite me.”
“I would far rather have been twenty-one and no longer a burden to you. I also fail to see how my taking a lover could possibly be interpreted as being a way of spiting you.” Toby frowned his confusion.
Lucius closed his eyes, his fingers gripping the edge of his desk as he leaned back against it. The reason Toby coul
d not see the sense in what was being said to him was because Toby had no idea of the increasing and overwhelming desire for him that was rapidly taking over Lucius’s every waking thought. So much so that, as he had discovered at the club the previous evening, he could currently feel desire for no one else.
Worse, he could not even take care of that desire himself.
Oh, Lucius had returned to his study the previous night with every intention of stroking and pumping his cock to completion before going to his bed. Except he had not. Could not. Because the moment he released his cock and laid a hand on it, the arousal began to fade. Even closing his eyes and imagining it was a much smaller hand caressing him, and those green-and-gold eyes were looking up at him through gold-tipped lashes, had not been enough for that desire to return.
It seemed he wanted the flesh-and-blood Toby.
Toby’s touch.
Toby’s caresses.
Only Toby.
This single-minded desire had never happened to Lucius before, and he had no idea what to do about it now that it had.
Except to perhaps tell Toby the truth about himself and see if the two of them might become friends, at the very least. He still believed anything else was out of the question.
Lucius drew in a deep breath through his nose as he tried to settle the churning inside him. He had lived behind a facade for so long and for so many years, with only a few close friends of the same inclination knowing the truth about him. Daniel, it seemed, had been the exception. But it was becoming impossible, even in so short a time of living with this beautiful young man, to lie to Toby simply so that Lucius might protect himself.
Lucius’s desire for Toby aside, he knew Daniel had expected more from him than this. Damn it, his friend had chosen Lucius as Toby’s guardian because of his sexual desires, not in spite of them, so that he might act as mentor and protector to his son. How could Lucius do either of those things if he continued to keep the truth about himself from the younger man?
He could not.
“Here.”
Lucius opened his eyes to find Toby holding out a glass of brandy toward him. “Is it not a little early in the day for that?” he drawled.
“Not when someone has gone as pale as you have, no.”
He blinked. “I have?”
“Very.” Toby proffered the glass again. “I promise not to lecture you on the wickedness in imbibing of the demon drink before lunchtime.”
Lucius chuckled as he took the glass. “You do?”
“Are you aware that you are now answering all my statements with a question?” Much as Toby had earlier. Except it could not be for the same reason.
Toby’s questions had been made out of nervous uncertainty, something he was sure Sheffield had never felt in his life. Or if he had, not for a very long time.
“Am I?”
Toby looked up into gray eyes that were brimming with amusement at the duke having asked another question. “Drink your brandy,” he instructed ruefully.
Dark brows rose. “You are a bossy little thing when given the opportunity to be so.”
Toby shrugged. “I have learned that what I lack in size and stature has to be made up for in character.”
Lucius sipped the brandy before speaking huskily. “I find your character perfect—perfectly delightful,” he amended.
Toby blinked. “Did you just pay me a compliment…?” Surely he was mistaken. The duke had been nothing but blunt with him, too much so on occasion. Although he had never criticized him, Toby realized. In fact, the times Toby had criticized himself, the duke had corrected him on it.
Sheffield threw the rest of the brandy down his throat before placing the empty glass on the desktop. “I did, yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it is merited. I have watched you these past few days, and your strength of character after the loss you have suffered is to be commended. As is your kindness and consideration toward others.”
Toby swallowed. “You have watched me?”
Sheffield’s smile was self-derisive. “Don’t look so alarmed. I might be quick to pull you up on a misdeed, young Toby, but I am equally willing to pay you a compliment when one is due.”
Toby scowled. The duke might be willing to give a compliment, but he had then instantly nullified it by dismissing him as “young Toby.” “I apologize for last night. My only excuse is the extenuating circumstances of my birthday. It will not happen again.” He turned stiffly on his heel, his head held high as he marched to the door.
“Toby!”
He kept on walking, having suffered quite enough humiliation for one morning.
Chapter Seven
Toby had barely entered his bedchamber and closed the door behind him when it was thrown open again to admit a furious Lucius Cranfield. The duke’s eyes were flinty gray, his face still pale, and his lips compressed into a thin line.
“You will never turn your back on me and walk away again,” he bit out as he slammed the door closed behind him.
Toby raised his chin. “I will if you talk to me as if I were a child.”
“If that is what I did, then I apologize. A child is the last thing I think of you as being,” he added with a frown.
Toby eyed him uncertainly. “I believed our conversation to be over.”
“Did you?” Sheffield’s voice was silky soft as he stepped farther into the room.
Toby instinctively took a step back, totally intimidated by having this overpowering gentleman in his bedchamber. Not the same sort of trepidation he had felt when his Uncle Barford forced himself into Toby’s room. No, this time it was because he did not wish his own attraction to Sheffield to become apparent. “Is there more you wished to say to me?”
Was there more Lucius wished to say to this captivating young man?
Lucius knew exactly what he had done downstairs. Knew he had addressed Toby the way he had in the hope of reminding himself of their different roles in what was turning out to be a severe test to his control. But the moment he had seen the hurt in Toby’s eyes and felt the tightening of his own chest when Toby had turned his back on him and walked away, Lucius had known he could not leave things so unsettled between them.
Except he was not sure how to continue their earlier conversation now that he was here and alone with Toby in his bedchamber. A bedchamber that was surprisingly tidy considering Toby’s age and his having arrived home inebriated the night before. There was nothing out of place and no clothes lying about, as might have been expected of one so young. Lucius did not recall ever having been so tidy in his own youth.
And delaying saying what he had decided to impart to Toby this morning was not making it any easier to say those words. Best to get it over with, then. “Toby, I…” Lucius paused, realizing he had never had to say these words out loud to anyone before now. In the past, because of the private establishments Lucius frequented and the friends he had, his sexual orientation had always been accepted. “I do have something I wish to say to you. To confide to you. I should have told you this sooner but…”
But what?
Had he lost his nerve?
Been so busy protecting himself that he had actually lied by omission and had hurt Toby by doing so?
All of the above were true.
He owed Daniel more than that. He owed Toby more than that.
Toby was becoming more and more nervous the longer the duke, a man who was always so sure of himself, continued to prevaricate, and to such a degree he was actually stumbling over his words. What could be so dire it had disturbed this arrogant and aristocratic gentleman to such a degree?
“Has someone else died?” Toby frowned. “Because if it is my Aunt or Uncle Barford, I assure you I am more likely to sing and dance on their grave than feel even a moment’s remorse.”
Sheffield looked so taken aback by this response, he seemed unable to answer. When he did, he gave a sudden burst of laughter. “Can you sing and dance?” he prompted once he had sobered enough for sp
eech.
“For such an occurrence as that, I would be willing to learn,” Toby assured with feeling.
The duke continued to chuckle for several seconds. “No one else has died.” His humor faded. “You dislike your aunt and uncle that much?”
“Yes!”
Gray eyes narrowed. “Why?”
Toby’s chin rose. “Is it not enough that I do?”
“I would still be interested in knowing the reason why.”
“And I have stated a preference not to tell you. Besides, you are changing the subject,” he added with a frown. “I believed there was something you were about to say to me?”
“Ah. Yes.” The duke began to pace the confines of the room. “What I wished to tell you… What I should have told you before today…”
“Yes?” Toby’s tension only increased at this further delay.
The duke’s jaw tightened. “Last night, you accused me of having fucked a woman during my evening out. I should have told you then that was not even a possibility.”
Toby’s eyes widened. “You have become impotent?”
“No! No, that is not the reason.” Sheffield scowled at the mere suggestion of it. “The thing is… The reason why that would never have occurred is that my sexual preference is the same as your own,” he finally stated flatly.
Toby stared at him. Completely unmoving. Barely breathing.
Was this some sort of jest? Or perhaps a warped attempt on the part of the duke to make Toby feel less…awkward about being “different”?
If it was the former, then it was in particularly bad taste. As for the latter… How could saying such a thing to Toby succeed in making him feel better about himself, if it was a lie?
“Does it not strike you as strange that I have never married?” the duke prompted at his continued silence.
“I presumed you did not need to do so when your reputation with the ladies in Society is that of a legendary lover.”
The duke grimaced. “A reputation I have deliberately nurtured but which, in reality, is a complete fabrication.”
Toby snorted his disbelief. “So all those ladies you are reputed to have bedded lied about your sexual prowess?”
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