It took three more days to reach Woodhuish, and they were good days. And good nights. But not great, because while Lucas allowed the sex to happen, participated in it, enjoyed it, slept in Tom’s arms afterwards, Tom was aware of an invisible and insurmountable barrier between them: Lucas’s shame.
He couldn’t imagine Lucas ever initiating sex between them, saying in an urgent voice, “Tom, I need you now,” just as he couldn’t imagine Lucas joking about what they did. Lucas would die rather than say “Get your saber out, Tom, and let’s have a swordfight.”
He’ll be glad once I’m gone. Glad when this is over.
For some reason, that made him both angry and sad. He wanted to hit something, and at the same time wanted to cry.
He stared out the window at the Devonshire countryside—gray, damp—until he’d mastered both those urges, and then looked over at Lucas, dozing in the far corner of the post-chaise.
Why did I have to fall in love with you?
He might as well ask why the sun rose in the east each morning. The answer was the same: Because it was meant to be. It had been impossible to not fall in love with Lucas all those years ago. Just as it was impossible not to love him now.
He fished his sketchbook out of his pocket and drew Lucas. If he ever had the occasion to paint an archangel, he’d use Lucas as the model—that golden hair, the symmetry of his face, the perfect blend of beauty and masculinity. And the purity.
Tom lowered his pencil and looked at Lucas. He should have painted Lucas’s face on Sir Gawain. Lucas was Sir Gawain made flesh: chaste and pure.
Until I corrupted him.
He remembered the night of Lucas’s birthday, remembered what had happened in the Brook Street Mews. Two times when he could have turned away—two times when he’d chosen instead to cross that line.
Lucas probably wishes I hadn’t.
Tom sighed, and closed the sketchbook and slipped it back into his pocket. Every time he came home on leave he’d be faced with that choice again—and he’d make the same decision again—and have to break down Lucas’s resistance again.
But it would be worth it, because Lucas was worth it. Quiet, private, tidy, steady, good-hearted Lucas. Lonely, grieving Lucas. Lucas who deserved to have a lover, who deserved intimacy and moments of physical ecstasy, who deserved to fall asleep being held by someone who loved him—even if those things brought him as much shame as pleasure.
Tom reached over and took Lucas’s hand.
Lucas stirred, opened his eyes, smiled sleepily.
Tom felt his heart lurch in his chest, as if the post-chaise had run into a pothole. He smiled back, and tightened his grip on Lucas’s hand. I love you. I will always love you.
Tish had written that she would be staying at Woodhuish House with a Lady Ware, whom she described as a newfound cousin. The closest inn was three miles away, the Golden Hind. From the outside it was the most painstakingly clean country tavern that Tom had ever seen—fresh whitewash, scrubbed doorstep, no grass daring to grow between the cobblestones.
The innkeeper was as neat and scrubbed as his inn—and massive, taller than Tom, broader than Lucas. If I ever paint Goliath, this is the man. He had the deformed ears and scarred eyebrows of a man who’d had a career in the ring. His name suited him: Mr. Strike.
Tom looked at Mr. Strike’s humorless face and thought, Lu and I need to be careful while we’re here. This was a rigid, exacting man. A man who would pay attention to what his guests did.
He revised his opinion when he saw the chambermaid. She brought them hot water, then lingered in the corridor, flirting. There was nothing demure about the assessment she gave them both—head to toe—or the offer that followed that and the saucy flick of her skirts as she headed back down the stairs.
Tom watched her out of sight. Why would he want a woman, however pretty and willing, when he had Lucas? “The innkeeper’s not such a stickler for propriety as I thought. Not if he hired her.”
“Did she mean what I think she meant?” Lucas said.
“I think it’s pretty clear what she meant.”
“But . . . both of us? At the same time?” Lucas looked so shocked that Tom laughed.
“You’re such an innocent, Lu. Yes, both of us at the same time. I’d swive her, while she, er, smoked your cheroot. Or the other way around.”
Lucas digested this statement, an expression of distaste on his face. “Have you ever—?”
“No.” Although he’d once spent a memorable afternoon in bed with two women—but he didn’t think Lucas would like to hear that tale.
“Smoke a cheroot? Is that what you call it?”
“It’s what Armagh sometimes called it, when he was joking.” Tom saw the colonel in his mind’s eye, grinning, saying I feel like smoking a cheroot, Lieutenant, and yours is the closest.
Lucas’s face stiffened, as it always did at mention of Armagh.
Tom turned his head away to hide a smile. It was foolish, but he liked Lucas’s jealousy. It told him Lucas didn’t want to share him with anyone. He pulled out his pocket watch. “Too late to visit Tish today.”
He spent half the night in Lucas’s bed—among other things, smoking Lucas’s cheroot—before creeping back to his own room. He fell asleep thinking of Lucas—and woke worrying about Tish and Major Reid. But when he saw them three hours later, at Woodhuish House, he stopped worrying. Tish hadn’t married Reid out of pity, and Reid hadn’t married her for her money. They were in love. Tish looked so luminous that his fingers itched to draw her, and Reid was unrecognizable as the man who’d visited Whiteoaks.
Tom hugged Tish and shook hands with Reid. “Lord, Major, you’ve put on at least a stone! Tish been forcing you to eat?”
Reid glanced at Tish, laughter in his eyes.
Tish went pink. “Not any longer.”
The last remnants of Tom’s worry evaporated. This was the man he’d served with. Too thin still, but alive in a way Reid hadn’t been in Wiltshire. There was ease in Reid’s body and contentment in his smile. The damage that had been done to him in Portugal was mended.
He and Lucas ate luncheon at Woodhuish House with Tish’s new cousin, Lady Ware—petite, blonde, pregnant—and her husband, Sir Barnaby.
“What do you think?” Lucas asked afterwards, when they were riding back to the inn on the hacks they’d hired.
“A good match,” Tom said, without hesitation. “Reid’s strong enough not to let her boss him, and they’re clearly, uh . . .” He searched for a polite way to say having great sex. “Compatible.” He wasn’t certain what made it so obvious—something in the way Tish and Reid had looked at each other? Whatever it was had been as unmistakable as it was indefinable, and it made him think about sex, about naked skin and sweat and heat and panted breaths. It made him want to tumble Lucas into bed, even though it was only mid-afternoon.
He was pretty confident that Lucas was thinking about sex, too, that the prickling, humming sense of anticipation between them wasn’t just his imagination, and when they dismounted in the stableyard he was proven correct. Lucas scuffed the toe of one boot on the clean cobblestones and said diffidently, “Want to come up to my room for a bit? We could, um, play cards?” And then he met Tom’s eyes and blushed so vividly that Tom was glad the ostler had already turned away.
“Yes,” Tom said. “I do.”
The pretty chambermaid met them on the stairs, and brushed against Tom’s arm so that he felt her soft breasts.
Tom almost laughed. Nice try, love, but I have a much better offer.
He followed Lucas into his room, locked the door, and leaned against it. Lucas crossed to the table and picked up the pack of cards and stood fidgeting with it, still blushing, looking awkward and self-conscious and hopeful and shy all at the same time.
Tell me what you want, Lu.
He knew what he wanted. Lucas’s fat, rosy cock in his mouth. Nothing could match the intense intimacy of it, the way Lucas filled all his senses. He loved the salty taste of Lucas’s skin and the bitter taste of his mettle. Loved the faint musky scent of his sweat. Loved the size of him, the smoothness, the hardness, the heat. Loved the sounds Lucas made, the helpless groans, the way he shuddered and trembled.
Tom straightened away from the door. “Forget the cards,” he said, taking the pack and tossing it on the table. “Take everything off.”