Bernard Trentham was only half a dozen years older than Tom, but he behaved as if he was in his fifties: staid, pompous, disapproving. But Bernard had been a fifty-year-old his whole life—or at least as long as Tom had known him, which was almost twenty years.
Bernard shook Tom’s hand and made the same not-quite-joke he always did: “Ah, the Honorable Thomas.”
Tom smiled tightly.
“And how is your brother, the earl?” Bernard asked.
“I haven’t seen him yet.” And he realized, with a faint sense of shock, that he hadn’t written to tell Daniel he was back in England, hadn’t even thought about Daniel. He felt a twinge of guilt. I must visit him before I leave England.
Bernard droned on and it was nearly ten minutes before Tom escaped. “Christ,” he said to Lucas, in the privacy of the library. “He gets worse every time I see him. Poor Tish, having him as a stepbrother.”
Lucas put down his book. “Did he mention his mother, Lady Mary?”
“Yes.”
“And his grandfather, the duke?”
“Yes.”
“And his father-in-law, the viscount?”
“Yes.” Tom crossed to the fire and leaned against the mantelpiece. “Thank God he hasn’t brought that prim, fubsy-faced wife of his.”
“You mean, the viscount’s daughter?”
Tom gave him a look.
Lucas grinned—and he looked so beautiful, so golden, that Tom’s heart tightened painfully in his chest.
He looked away, swallowed, looked back. “Two of Tish’s suitors are coming. Bernard invited them.”
Lucas lost his grin. He blinked. “What? Bernard invited them to Whiteoaks?”
“Robert invited them, at Bernard’s request.”
Lucas frowned. “Robert did? Dash it, he knows she gets hounded enough in London—”
“Don’t blame Robert. I think Bernard badgered him until he gave in.”
Lucas grunted. The beautiful, golden grin was gone.
“One of them’s that idiot Stapleton, but the other one’s Henry Wright. You remember Henry? A year ahead of us at school?”
Lucas nodded.
“Bernard called him Sir Henry.”
“His father died a couple of months ago. Left him in a devil of a mess. Debts up to his eyebrows.”
Tom grimaced. “Shame. I always liked Henry. Very up-front.”
“And in need of an heiress now.”
“At least he won’t hound Tish. He’ll ask, she’ll say no, that’ll be it.” He shrugged. “I understand why Henry’s after her, but why is Stapleton? I thought he inherited a fortune.”
“Run through it already. Gambler.”
Tom thought of his father. He kicked the grate with his boot. Gamblers and fortunes were a bad combination. “What’s Tish’s count this year, d’ you know?”
“Proposals? Fifteen, last I asked.”
“A coachwheel says she’s past twenty by now.”
Lucas considered this for a moment, and then nodded. “You’re on.”
Tom pushed away from the mantelpiece. “Dinner in half an hour.” He crossed to the armchair and ran his fingers through Lucas’s hair—a light, swift caress that was over before Lucas could stiffen in alarm—and then continued to the door. “Come on, you know you take forever to change.”
After dinner, once the ladies had withdrawn and the decanters of port and brandy had been placed on the table, talk turned to boxing. The upshot of that conversation was an informal sparring session the next day, in one of the unused salons. Eight men gathered: the four Kemp brothers, three Kemp cousins, and one brave brother-in-law. Tailcoats were shucked and footwear removed.
Tom, who was a mediocre boxer, fished his sketchbook out of his breast pocket and opened it to a fresh page.
The Kemps were a family of large, strong, athletic men, and Lucas was one of the largest and strongest, but for all his brawniness he was light on his feet, fast and agile. God, he was magnificent—and yet completely unaware of his magnificence, just as he was unaware of the admiration he was garnering as he demonstrated a number of moves with his cousin, Arnold—the common parry and opposite parry, the side step and drop step, the chancery hold and pinion. When he laid Arnold on the floor with a cross-buttock throw that even Tom could see had been superb, Lucas didn’t swagger, because Lucas didn’t know how to swagger; he just held out his hand to Arnold and hauled him to his feet again.
The men broke into pairs to practice the moves; the room filled with the sound of panted breaths and scuffing feet, grunts and laughter. Tom made quick sketches—knuckles and knotted brows, grins and grimaces. Half an hour passed. Waistcoats and neckcloths were flung aside and shirt-sleeves rolled up. The room began to smell strongly of sweat. Tom’s sketchbook was nearly full. He closed it and watched Lucas spar with his second-oldest brother, the Very Reverend Hugh Kemp.
No one looking at Lucas would believe that he’d been a virgin until last month. He was so damned masculine, so virile, the absolute epitome of manliness.
“No,” Lucas said, when Hugh attempted a chancery hold, “Like this,” and Hugh, who was pompous and starchy and destined to be an archbishop if ever Tom had seen a man destined to be an archbishop, didn’t bristle, but instead paid frowning attention to Lucas’s instruction.
The pugilists broke for ale. Lucas came to stand with him. “Sure you don’t want to spar?” he asked, gulping down his ale. “Good exercise.”
“I’d rather sketch.” Boxing wasn’t his sport. Swords were another matter; he could hold his own against Lucas when it came to fencing. But if he ever crossed foils with Lucas, he wanted the two of them to be alone, so that when they grew hot and sweaty and out of breath, they could—
Tom stopped that thought in its tracks. Down, boy, he told his cock, before it could get any ideas. He took a hasty sip of ale, and another, and found himself gazing at Lucas’s open shirt collar. He imagined kissing Lucas there, imagined tasting his warm, salty skin, and stifled a sigh of longing. “Riding, later?”
Lucas’s cheeks became faintly pink. He nodded.
After the ale had been drunk, Robert asked the two most skillful boxers—Lucas and his next-oldest brother, Edward—for an exhibition bout.
Tom watched the two men take their places. Edward belonged to the sporting set in London. He was a regular out and outer, a top o’ the trees—and he had the swagger to go with it. The swagger Lucas lacked.
A stranger might mistake Lucas’s quiet self-assurance for shyness, but Lucas wasn’t shy. He was as confident as Edward, just without his braggadocio.
But he’s not confident about sex, Tom thought. He’s shy in the bedroom. And he remembered Lucas’s blushes, his tentative explorations, and felt a pang of emotion: tenderness and protectiveness mixed together.
“Ready?” Robert said.
Talk ceased. All eyes turned to the two brothers: Lucas standing calmly, Edward strutting. Tom didn’t begrudge Edward his posturing and his bravado. Everyone—including Edward—knew that Lucas was going to win this fight.
“No blows to the face,” Edward said. “I like my nose the way it is, little brother.”
Tom had watched Lucas box hundreds of times—at Eton, at Oxford, at Jackson’s Saloon in London—and whenever he watched Lucas fight he always came to the same conclusions. It wasn’t Lucas’s size and strength and speed that made him so formidable an opponent. It wasn’t that his science was excellent—although it was excellent. What made Lucas formidable was his calmness, his almost introspective focus. Lucas’s temper never frayed when he was boxing, he never became frustrated or impatient or reckless—and that, to Tom’s mind, was what gave Lucas his edge.
The bout was a friendly one—no blood, just sweat. Lots of sweat. After fifteen minutes, Edward was red-faced and laboring and beginning to flail wildly. “For God’s sake,” he rasped, breath whistling in his throat. “Finish me off!” And so Lucas did, with another one of his superb cross-buttock throws.
Edward made no attempt to climb to his feet. He lay where he’d fallen, theatrical in his defeat, gasping and groaning.
The man alongside Tom let out a sigh. “Damn, Lucas is good.”
Tom glanced at him. It was Lucas’s cousin, Arnold.
Arnold’s expression mirrored the tone of his voice: admiration, underlain by a rueful envy. He wanted to be Lucas.
Tom thought about Lucas’s years of lonely celibacy. No, Arnold, you don’t want to be Lucas. And then he thought about riding out to the folly later that afternoon and how close he and Lucas would be—mouths kissing, cocks touching—and how not lonely Lucas would be then.
He looked across at Lucas, sweaty and magnificent in the middle of the salon, quietly laughing at his brother’s histrionics, and all the air left his lungs, as if it was he who lay winded on the floor and not Edward.
I love you, Lu. I will always love you.
Six days later, he and Lucas were trotting slowly through the park, and Tom was happy and relaxed and his cock was still pleasantly warm, when they came into the avenue of oaks and saw a lone figure walking—the height, the thin, boyish figure, the austere elegance of the woman’s clothes . . . there was no one it could be but Letitia Trentham.
“That’s Tish!” Tom said, and he whooped loudly, startling his mount, and together he and Lucas thundered down the long avenue.
Tom whooped again as they swept past Tish in a swirl of dead leaves, and then he jumped down from the saddle and strode back to her and hugged her, lifting her off her feet. “Tish, m’ love. God, but it’s good to see you.” And Lucas hugged her, too, and they were all laughing, and it was so right, the four of them being together again, and Tom looked around for Julia, knowing she was there—but she wasn’t.
His laughter drained away, but the sense that Julia was standing beside him didn’t vanish. It was so strong, so real, that he actually looked around a second time.
“When did you arrive?” Lucas asked.
Tom brought his attention back to Tish.
“An hour ago,” she said.
It was nearly two years since he’d last seen Tish, but she hadn’t changed at all. She had a face that begged to be drawn. Not because it was perfect in its symmetry, like Lucas’s, but because it wasn’t. All her features were slightly out of balance—nose too long, mouth too wide, cheekbones too prominent—until she smiled, when suddenly everything was in balance. She was smiling now, as she asked, “How are you both?”
“In fine form,” Lucas said. “What’s the count now?”
“Eighteen so far this year.”
Darn it. Tom dug in his pocket and flipped a half-crown at Lucas.
Lucas caught it. “You’ll find a couple of ’em here this week, Tish. Bernard nagged m’ brother into inviting them. Stapleton’s already arrived, and Henry Wright’s coming on Monday. Wright’s a decent fellow—he was at Eton with us—but I don’t think much of Stapleton.”
Tom fished another half-crown from his pocket and waggled it between his fingers. “A new wager. Stapleton and Wright to propose by the end of the week.”
Lucas pursed his lips, as if debating this offer.
“I am here,” Tish said indignantly.
Tom grinned at her. “I know, love.” And even if Julia was no longer with them it felt marvelous to be together again, teasing each other. He stuffed the coin back in his pocket. “Walk back with us?”
Tish tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. “I met an acquaintance of yours in London last week. Icarus Reid. He was a major before he sold out.”
“Reid?” Tom said, startled.
“He said he’d be passing through Wiltshire. I told him you were here, suggested he look you up.”
“I hope he does,” Tom said. “Good man, Reid.”
That evening, after a rowdy game of Speculation, Tish said to him in an undervoice, “Come riding with me tomorrow morning. Before church. I need to talk with you.”
Tom grinned at her. “An assignation, Tish?”
“Eight o’clock,” Tish said, not grinning back.
Tom lifted his eyebrows. Was this something to do with Major Reid? He laid a hand to his breast and gave a bow. “I’ll be there, dear heart.” But Tish didn’t smile, she merely said, “Thank you.”
Tom watched her leave the room, tall and thin and elegant. What’s this about?