“You are very quiet.” Lucius gazed across his ducal carriage at the pale-faced young man sitting opposite him.
A very beautiful young man, who, Lucius had discovered these past three days, had the ability to cause his cock to twitch every time he so much as looked at him. Even when he was not looking at him, Lucius found Toby’s unique aroma—pine and earthy young male—as heady as the man himself.
It had been a flurry of activity in the two days since Daniel’s will named Lucius as guardian to his son. A guardianship he knew Toby had only grudgingly accepted when the alternative was to reside with the Barfords. Lucius was painfully aware that the choice had been made only because the young man’s reticence extended more toward his aunt and uncle than it did to him.
Nevertheless, this drive was the first time the two of them had actually been alone together as they made the drive from Bishop House to Sheffield House, where that young gentleman was to reside with Lucius for the next year.
“Tobias?” Lucius prompted sharply when the boy gave no reply to his question.
“Toby,” he corrected stiffly. “No one but my late grandmother has ever called me Tobias, and I am not sure she even liked me,” he added when Lucius raised a questioning brow.
“Toby is a child’s name,” Lucius dismissed.
Angry green-and-gold eyes glittered across at him. “Then I must still be a child. And you,” he continued when Lucius would have spoken, “are no doubt one of those gentlemen who believes ‘making a man of me’ begins with changing the name I have clearly stated is my preference.”
“Making a man of you?” Lucius’s brows rose as he acknowledged that Daniel had been correct in that his son was no longer a child but a man with a definite mind of his own. As he had demonstrated these past three days. Toby might be young in years, but he possessed a strong will and determination.
The realization of which made Lucius’s cock completely hard rather than that previous small twitch of awareness.
At Daniel’s funeral, he had been slightly shocked at the changes he saw in Toby since they last met. The younger man was still slight of build and had golden curls in abundance, but there was a fine-boned musculature to his features now. His pretty face was no longer boyishly rounded but had slimmed down into high cheekbones above hollow cheeks, his jawline unmistakably firm and stubborn.
Small and fine-boned Toby might be, and probably always would be, but Lucius could no longer see him as a child.
He honestly wished that he could. It would have made the next year of his life so much easier.
Admittedly, Toby was not the sort of man Lucius was usually attracted to. Lucius’s own height and size already meant that most, if not all men, were shorter and smaller than he was. As he preferred to be the dominant partner in any sexual liaisons he indulged in, Lucius usually chose lovers who were capable of withstanding his strength and the depth of his physical demands. Toby Bishop, despite his pretty appeal, would be crushed by both the force and excess of those passions.
If Daniel was right about his son’s sexuality, then Toby would almost certainly be the more submissive partner in any of his encounters. That slender and yet elegant body would break under the demands Lucius would ask of it. He knew many other men who would not care whether or not they caused this lovely young man harm, but Lucius was not one of them.
If only Toby did not have the prettiest and most pouting red lips Lucius had ever seen…
“‘Making a man of me’ is a phrase my Uncle Barford is far too fond of making in regard to me,” Toby now snapped in answer to Lucius’s question.
His lips quirked with derision. “I trust I am nothing like your Uncle Barford. Nor,” he continued firmly, “do I appreciate having words put into my mouth when I have no interest in attempting to change a single thing about you. Why should I when I see nothing wrong with the Toby Bishop that you are now?”
A delicate blush colored the younger man’s cheeks. Confirming, if Lucius had needed any confirmation, that Daniel had been correct in regard to his son’s sexuality, if a simple compliment from another man could make the boy—young man—blush so prettily.
“No?” Toby challenged.
“No,” Lucius confirmed lightly. “Are you trying to provoke an argument with me, Toby? Because if you are, I think I should warn you that you will almost certainly lose.”
He gave a snort. “I already know that!”
“But you choose to be confrontational anyway?”
The young man’s mouth set in a stubborn line. “I fail to see why I could not have continued to reside alone at Bishop House or at my country estates until I reach my majority, instead of being foisted on you by actually living with you in your home for the next year.”
“You do not intend to return to Oxford in the autumn to finish your studies?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Toby shrugged. “I left at the beginning of the year in order to be at home and take care of my father. I have since decided I shall not return.”
The latter statement was a direct challenge Lucius had no intention of answering. If Toby no longer wished to finish his studies, then that was his decision to make. As he was now the Earl of Chelmsford, the young man had other responsibilities in need of his attention. Besides, Daniel had assured Lucius that Toby was already well-read and learned, and Lucius had witnessed that intelligence for himself these past few days.
He nodded. “Even so, despite what might have happened in the past, your remaining alone at Bishop House or the family estate would not have done at all. Your father is no longer here to offer his protection,” he added as Toby would have protested. “And your uncle, Lord Barford is, to quote your father, a brute and a bully. To allow you to remain living alone in Bishop House, or alone in the country, for any longer than the week since your father died would leave you completely vulnerable to that bullying and his wife’s machinations in regard to the Bishop fortune.”
Toby’s eyes widened. “But…but at the funeral, you gave me the choice of living with him and my aunt rather than with you.”
Lucius shrugged. “Because I already knew it was a choice you would not make.”
The young man stared at him incredulously. “In other words, it was no choice at all.”
Lucius chuckled. “Does that anger you?”
Toby was far too befuddled by this man’s close proximity to know how he felt about anything. Sheffield exuded such power, even when sitting supposedly relaxed and at ease on the seat opposite him. He also smelled divine, of sandalwood and spice with an underlying male musk that caused Toby’s palms to sweat and his heart to pound as he now suffered the same erection he had tried so hard to maintain control of, and failed to do so, during the past three days whenever he was near this gentleman.
It would no doubt result in a serious beating if Sheffield were to notice and take offense and strike him with one of those large, if elegant, hands.
“No,” he answered huskily, although he made a mental note to take more notice in future of the choices this man supposedly gave him.
“Good.” Sheffield nodded his satisfaction. “I trust you have brought things with which to entertain yourself during your stay?” He added briskly, “Much of my own time during the day is taken up with business matters, and my evenings are also far too busy to see to your entertainment.”
Toby bristled. “I am more than capable of finding my own amusement, thank you.”
“As long as you understand my stable boys and male household staff are not there for your amusement,” Sheffield snapped.
Toby felt the color drain from his cheeks as he stared across the carriage at the other man.
Did Sheffield know of Toby’s preference for men?
One glance at those cool gray eyes was enough to confirm that he did.