Tom found Lucas at Ned Howick’s lodgings in Duke Street, with two other friends from their schooldays. The men sat around a table, with a punch bowl and a pack of cards, but when Ned’s manservant ushered Tom into the room there was a scraping of chair legs as everyone stood hastily.
“Tom!”
“Matlock, old chap!”
He was clapped on the back, his hand wrung heartily, a chair drawn up to the table for him, a glass of punch poured, the cards shoved aside. Questions were pelted at him about the recent skirmishes in Portugal, the French defeat—and unavoidably, the Convention of Cintra.
“It’s a disgrace!” Rupert Banning said indignantly. “Those damned generals should be discharged from the army!”
“Burrard and Dalrymple certainly, but not Wellesley,” Tom sipped the punch. It was warm and spicy, potent with arrack. “Wellesley wanted to fight. He was as mad as anything to go after the French.”
Talk turned to the approaching hunting season. Tom drank a second glass of punch, refused a third, and kept an eye on Lucas. He looked to be in good spirits, leaning back in his chair, glass in hand.
A sham, Smollet had said. But it didn’t look like a sham; it looked real. It looked as if last night—the cognac, the tears in the dark—hadn’t happened.
Lucas caught his glance and smiled cheerfully.
He doesn’t remember that I found him crying, Tom thought. He doesn’t remember that I put him to bed.
He dug in his pocket and pulled out his latest sketchbook and a stub of a pencil.
“You still doing that?” Ned asked, as Tom flicked through to the next blank page.
“Whenever I can. Don’t mind me. Keep talking.”
The four men, inured by long experience to his sketchbook and pencil, did just that. Tom drew them quickly, two-minute portraits, each on a page two and a half inches by four. Rupert Banning, with his collar-points as high as a dandy. John Ludlow, halfway to being drunk. Ned Howick, round-faced and jolly. And Lucas, lounging in his chair.
Tom’s pencil slowed. Lucas was nowhere near as relaxed as he appeared. His smile didn’t reach his eyes. He looked like a man enjoying a convivial evening with friends, but he wasn’t. Smollet was correct: it’s a sham.
Tom soberly sketched in the folds of Lucas’s neckcloth, closed the little book, and tucked the pencil back into his pocket.
“Let’s see,” Rupert said, with a snap of his fingers.
The sketchbook was passed around the table, and inevitably the pages were turned back to the beginning and the drawings of the past two weeks examined—the journey from Plymouth, the transport from Lisbon. “This Portugal?” Ned asked, peering at a street scene.
“Lisbon.”
“You got any more sketchbooks of Portugal?”
“A couple.” He glanced at Lucas. “I brought them to show Lu.”
“What? You’ve got them here?” Ned said. “Show us!”
Tom pushed to his feet and went out into the entrance hall and fished in the pockets of his greatcoat. One, two, three little sketchbooks. He hesitated a moment, and then drew out the fourth, uncertain whether he wanted to show it to anyone.
He brought the books back to the table, laid three of them out, and tucked the fourth one in his pocket, still undecided. “Not much in one of ’em. Spilled tea over it.”
Lucas refilled everyone’s glasses but his own and the sketchbooks were passed around. The inevitable questions followed: questions about soldiering, about what it was like to be one of General Wellesley’s aides-de-camp.
“Where’s this?” Ned wanted to know, and “What the devil’s this?” John asked, and Tom leaned over the table to explain.
“Who’s this?” Lucas asked.
“Let me see.” Tom reached across for the sketchbook. “That’s Houghton. Damned good sergeant. Lost an arm at Vimeiro, poor sod.” He handed the book back. His fingers brushed Lucas’s briefly.
Tom reached for his glass and sipped, and watched Lucas study the sketch of Sergeant Houghton.
Lucas was very carefully not looking at him, all his attention on the sketchbook, but Tom wasn’t fooled. The angle of Lucas’s head, the set of his shoulders . . . it looked like casual nonchalance, but it wasn’t. Tom’s fingers burned where they’d touched Lucas’s, and he knew—knew—that Lucas’s fingers were burning, too.
Lucas turned three more pages, his gaze fixed on the little book, and Tom made a discovery: Lucas was blushing ever so faintly, the merest hint of color along his cheekbones, almost invisible in the lamplight.
Tom swallowed another mouthful of punch. He’s as aware of me as I am of him. And on the heels of that thought, came a jump of intuition: Lucas did remember what had happened in his bedchamber last night.
He watched Lucas flip through the pages, and told himself that intuition wasn’t infallible, that maybe he was seeing what he wanted to see, that the blush was because the room was overly warm, that in all likelihood Lucas didn’t remember last night.
“No battle sketches?” Rupert said, flicking through a sketchbook, his tone disappointed.
“There’s no time to draw during battle. And if I tried to, the general would have my head on a platter—and rightly so!”
“You’d be a target, standing still,” John put in.
“You’re a target whether you’re standing still or not,” Tom said, and he brought out the fourth sketchbook and tossed it down on the table.
“Jesus Christ!” Ned said, reaching for it.
Rupert beat him to it, picking up the book, giving a low whistle. “Musket ball?”
“At Roliça.”
“Where were you carrying it?” Rupert asked, turning the sketchbook over in his hand, fingering the lump of lead embedded in it.
“Breast pocket.” Tom tapped above his heart. “Knocked me off my horse. I thought I was dead for a few seconds.”
John took the sketchbook and examined it. “Lord,” he said, awe in his voice. “That’s something, that is!”
Tom shrugged, and glanced at Lucas.
Lucas’s smile had congealed. If Tom didn’t know Lucas had been nursing the same glass of punch for the last hour, he’d think him drunk and ready to cast up his accounts.
Tom stayed another half hour, and Lucas didn’t say a single word, not even when Ned asked him if he’d like more punch. He simply shook his head. Ned and Rupert and John, well on the way to being bosky, didn’t notice his silence, but Tom did.
Soberly, he stacked the sketchbooks in a little pile, the one with the musket ball at the bottom. I shouldn’t have let Lucas see it.
At eleven, Tom pushed to his feet. “I must be off.”
“Me, too,” John said, yawning and lurching to his feet. “Promised to drop in on Frasier. Coming, Rupert? Lucas?”
Rupert declined.
Lucas stood. “I think I’ll head home.” He thanked Ned for his hospitality, and donned his coat and gloves. A smile sat on his face, but his eyes gave him away, blue and somber.
Tom silently pulled on his own greatcoat, and wished he’d kept the fourth sketchbook in his pocket.
Outside, thick clouds still covered the moon. John walked as far as Oxford Street with them, then took his leave with a cheerful good-bye, lounging off into the dark. Tom matched his step to Lucas’s. “You all right?” he asked quietly.
“Me? Of course.”
Bollocks. “Lu . . .” He caught Lucas’s arm, halting him. “We need to talk.”
Lucas tried to tug free.
Tom tightened his grip. “We need to talk.”
“Tom, I’m tired. I’m drunk. I just want to go to bed.”
“You’re not drunk.” You’re upset. He paused, and then said, “Last night you were drunk.”
Lucas wrenched his arm free. He began striding towards Grosvenor Square.
Tom stretched his legs to catch up. “Last night—”
“I don’t remember last night!” Lucas said fiercely.
The devil you don’t.
They walked to Grosvenor Square in silence, their boots slapping briskly on the pavement. Tom didn’t notice the great townhouses towering against the black sky. He was remembering what it had been like to hold Lucas’s cock in his mouth.
Intuition told him that Lucas was remembering it, too. Tension built between them as they walked, a taut, prickling awareness of each other. They turned into Brook Street. Lucas lengthened his stride, walking even faster. Trying to outrun the memory of last night? Trying to outrun the silent, sexual frisson between them?
Or is it only me who feels it?
Tom didn’t think so. Something—instinct, hunch, gut feeling—call it whatever one wanted—something told him that the attraction wasn’t one-sided. That it had never been one-sided.
But if Lucas felt the frisson, he clearly didn’t want to talk about it. He wanted to pretend it didn’t exist, to pretend that last night hadn’t happened.
I should let this go. It could ruin our friendship.
And then Tom thought of the musket ball, and how close he’d come to death, and thought Fuck it, I’m not letting this go.
Lucas swung right and cut down Avery Row, striding fast.
“Lucas—”
“Not now.”
“Yes, now.” Another five minutes and they’d be at the Albany, where Smollet was waiting and where any chance of private conversation would be lost.
“I told you: I don’t—”
The Brook Street Mews loomed to one side, a black cave in the darkness. Tom caught Lucas’s arm and pulled him into the mews.
Lucas tried to jerk his arm free. “Look, I don’t want to talk. I’m tired—”
“Tough,” Tom said, propelling Lucas backwards until his back thudded up against a wall. “Because I do want to talk.”
“Damn it, Tom—”
Tom leaned in and kissed him. He couldn’t see Lucas in the darkness of the mews; the kiss fell off-center, catching the very corner of Lucas’s mouth.
Lucas stiffened, and jerked his head back. Tom heard their breaths—short, sharp—and then he kissed Lucas again.
This time he found his mark: Lucas’s mouth. Lucas’s lips.
Lucas jerked his head back again and made a wordless sound of protest—and Tom’s certainty twisted into sick realization that he’d made a mistake, that the attraction was one-sided—and then Lucas uttered a sobbing sound and kissed him back.
The kiss was a clash of mouths—rough, fierce, clumsy, desperate. He felt Lucas’s fingers dig into his arms, felt their bodies strain against each other.
Tom kissed Lucas until he was breathless and dizzy, until his hat tumbled off, then he gulped a breath and kissed him again—and again—again—years of pent-up desire compressed into a handful of seconds. Each kiss was frantic, savage, hungry, their mouths colliding bruisingly.
Finally he tore free and rested his cheek against Lucas’s, gulping air, dizzy with euphoric disbelief. Lucas was panting, too, and shaking. Tom was aware of his own arousal beating in his blood, and he was aware of Lucas’s arousal, too. How could he not be aware of that pressure against his hip? Lucas’s cock, as hard as it had been last night.
Tom fumbled at Lucas’s waist, slipping one hand inside his pantaloons.
Lucas made a grab for his wrist. “No.”
Tom gave a breathless laugh. “Why not?” He twisted his wrist free and slid his hand through the fly front of Lucas’s drawers.
Lucas jolted, as if his touch stung.
Tom wrapped his fingers around hot, hard flesh. “I want to suck you again,” he whispered in Lucas’s ear.
“No . . .” Lucas’s voice strangled in a groan as Tom squeezed.
“Why not?” Tom said.
Lucas caught his breath, and groaned again deep in his chest, and said hoarsely, “Because if anyone sees us, we’ll be hanged.”
“It’s as dark as a coal-pit, Lu. No one’s going to see us.”
Lucas’s breath was wheezing. “Someone could.”
“I can’t even see you, Lu.” He pressed his mouth to Lucas’s earlobe, to his cheek, to his lips, while his hands were busy with Lucas’s buttons. “And if I can’t see you, no one else can.” He freed Lucas’s cock from the drawers, took it in his hand again, stroked its length.
Lucas trembled, and groaned breathlessly, and said, “Tom, we can’t—”
“It’s all right, Lu,” Tom said, and he kissed Lucas again, a longer kiss this time, reassuring him, and then he knelt and took Lucas’s cock in his mouth.
Lucas inhaled sharply, a sound like a sob. His fingers buried themselves in Tom’s hair, not pushing him away, not pulling him closer, just holding him.
Tom let that hot, smooth, blunt head rest on his tongue for a moment. Pleasure hummed in his throat. No taste in the world could possibly be as exhilarating as this. He ran his tongue over the contours, tracing the slit, following the ridge between head and shaft.
Lucas groaned, and trembled.
Tom took more of Lucas’s cock into his mouth and sucked hard.
Lucas grunted as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. His hips bucked.
Tom laughed around Lucas’s cock, took a good grip on the shaft with one hand, and sucked a second time, even harder.
He set a fast rhythm. There were times when slow was good and times when fast was good, and here, in a public mews in the middle of London, fast was definitely best.
Lucas was gasping for breath, and each gasp had a moan in it. His fingers clenched in Tom’s hair—and then his body shuddered and his cock jerked.
Tom stayed where he was for almost a minute, kneeling, reveling in the powerful intimacy of the moment: Lucas’s fingers relaxed in his hair, Lucas’s musky scent in his nostrils, Lucas’s cock hot and spent in his mouth, the taste of Lucas’s mettle on his tongue. This isn’t a dream; it’s real.
Finally, he gave a silent sigh and sat back on his heels. Lucas’s fingers slid from his hair, Lucas’s cock slid from his mouth.
Tom climbed to his feet. He fastened Lucas’s drawers, fastened the pantaloons, tucked the shirt back in. Lucas was shaking. His breathing was low and ragged, almost as if he was weeping. Tom put his arms around him and held him tightly. I love you, Lu.
“Damn you,” Lucas whispered hoarsely, and then he took a deep, hitching breath and shoved Tom away, pushing past him, heading for Avery Row.
Tom reached out blindly, caught Lucas’s arm, and swung him back. “Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy that, because we both know you damned well did.”
“Fuck you,” Lucas said, shrugging off his hand.
“You just did. Fuck me.”
“This isn’t funny! This isn’t a joke!” There was real anguish in Lucas’s voice. “We could be hanged!”
“Lu . . .”
“I’m not doing this. I won’t do this!”
Tom caught Lucas’s arm again and stepped close to him. “I almost died in Portugal,” he said, in a low, fierce voice. “I am not walking away from this.”
Lucas said nothing. He was tense, trembling.
Tom leaned close and kissed him, finding Lucas’s cheek with his mouth.
Lucas turned his head away. “We can’t do this,” he said, sounding close to tears.
“We can. If we’re careful.” Tom kissed Lucas again, pressing his lips lightly to the taut plane of Lucas’s cheek, and then released him and stepped back. “Good night, Lu.”