December 15th, 1808
Whiteoaks, Wiltshire
They left Whiteoaks close to noon and stopped for the night at a posting inn just south of Grovely Wood. The post-chaise—spacious, clean, well-sprung—was a vast improvement on the mail coaches Tom had spent the last three days in, but in every other respect the journey was disappointing.
Lucas’s words yesterday had given him hope: Smollet sent on ahead, just the two of them in the post-chaise. He’d imagined them kissing, touching, maybe indulging in some hasty sex—but he’d known within half a minute of climbing into the carriage that there would be no kisses, and definitely no sex. Lucas was tense, radiating Don’t try to touch me as strongly as if he’d said the words aloud.
Tom sat alongside Lucas for thirty miles and stewed with frustration. Rain drummed on the carriage roof. Three times he opened his mouth to have it out with Lucas, and three times he stopped himself. Wait until we’re out of the post-chaise and he doesn’t feel so cornered.
Seen in the dusk and the rain, the posting inn was a dour place, but inside it was unexpectedly pleasant. The private parlor was cozy, the meal first-rate, and the wine surprisingly decent. Lucas relaxed fractionally, but everything about him still said Don’t touch me.
Tom, whose mood had mellowed with the wine and the food, found himself growing cross again. After the covers were removed he leaned back in his chair and sipped the last of his wine, waiting, not saying anything. Tension gathered between them, a frisson that reminded him of the night he’d kissed Lucas in the Brook Street Mews—the air seemed to bristle with expectancy, with anticipation.
He finished his wine and put the empty glass on the table. Lucas glanced at it, and seemed to become tenser. Tom waited a moment, then pushed back his chair. Lucas’s gaze fixed on him. He reminded Tom of an unbroken horse, apprehensive, ready to bolt.
Tom stood. “I’m going to bed,” he said, and waited for Lucas to say something, anything.
But Lucas didn’t speak; he just sat there, looking tense. Tom saw the conflict on his face—the shame, the longing.
Out with it, Lu. Ask me to spend the night with you. But it became clear that Lucas wasn’t going to say it, and he was damned if he was going to be the one who always pushed, the one who always begged. “Good night,” Tom said, and turned away from the table.
He paused at the door and looked back, giving Lucas one last chance.
Lucas was standing, and he looked so miserable that Tom relented. “Coming upstairs?” he said.
Lucas hesitated, and then nodded.
They climbed the stairs together, and halted in the corridor outside their rooms. Tom said nothing, just waited, and after a long moment, Lucas opened the door to his bedchamber.
Tom followed him inside and closed the door and locked it.
The room wasn’t large. The bed dominated the space, a four-poster with piled-up pillows and a blue counterpane.
Lucas went to stand by the little fireplace, looking taut and nervous.
Tom halted in the middle of the room. Ask me to spend the night with you, damn it.
Silence grew between them, but it wasn’t a silence filled with anticipation, it was a silence filled with anxiety—and that wasn’t how sex should be, wasn’t what he wanted.
“You know what?” Tom said flatly. “Let’s not do this.” He turned and walked back to the door.
“Tom . . .”
He halted with his hand on the door handle, and looked at Lucas. “If you want something from me tonight, you’re going to have to tell me what it is, because I’m not Julia and I can’t read your damned mind.”
But that was a lie. Anyone would be able to read Lucas’s mind right now; his inner torment was clear to read on his face.
He wants me to stay the night with him, and he hates that he wants it, and he can’t bring himself to ask for it, and if I walk out this door, he’s probably going to cry.
Tom’s anger fell away. He sighed, and crossed to where Lucas stood, and pulled him into a hug.
Lucas flinched slightly, and then leaned stiffly into the embrace. He was trembling.
“It’s all right, Lu,” Tom said, and he pressed his face into Lucas’s hair. “It’s all right.”
Lucas relaxed by slow increments. His shoulders lost their stiffness. His head bowed. His forehead rested on Tom’s shoulder.
“Do you want me to stay with you tonight?”
“Yes,” Lucas whispered.