Toby’s head ached. No, not ached, it throbbed. As if someone were beating a drum inside it. What—
Oh sweet fucking hell!
It all came back to him now. The hours he’d spent at the Venus Club the previous evening, enjoying several glasses—bottles?—of champagne celebrating his birthday with his friends. Then being dropped off late last night outside Sheffield House from the carriage of one of those friends. Stealthily entering the house—at least, Toby had thought he was being stealthy, until the challenging sound of Sheffield’s voice in the darkness had caused him to freeze in the entrance hall.
Toby gave a groan and pulled one of the pillows over his head at the memory of the conversation that followed.
He remembered saying something to the duke about his advanced years and not having the stamina to both fuck a woman and walk away afterward.
And then…then Toby had totally humiliated himself by reminding the duke he had threatened to spank Toby’s arse the next time he misbehaved. Toby had also added to that humiliation by revealing he thought he might enjoy it.
Would Sheffield notice if his ward of only four days disappeared from the house never to be seen or heard from again?
Probably. Toby cringed. He doubted the duke missed very much that went on, inside his household or outside it.
The fact that Toby’s bedside clock now read fifteen minutes after ten told him he had more than last night’s inappropriate conversation to apologize for.
Nor did he see any point in rushing his bath before dressing. He was in trouble anyway and had no intention of hurrying downstairs to face whatever punishment Sheffield had decided fitted his crime.
Thus it was forty minutes past ten o’clock when Toby quietly entered the duke’s study.
“You are late.”
Toby winced. Obviously, he had not entered quietly enough.
Nor was he fooled for a moment by the duke’s dangerously soft tone as the man stood in front of the window with his back to the room, his hands loosely clasped behind him. Toby had no need to see the other man’s face to know he was angry. Well…angry again, and this time because of Toby’s tardiness.
“I trust you have a good reason for it?” Sheffield still made no attempt to turn and look at him.
“Um, I overslept?”
“Is that a question or a statement?”
“Both?”
Sheffield finally turned to look at him, the sun shining in the window behind him making it impossible for Toby to see the expression on his face. Not that Toby needed to see it to know that the duke was furious with him.
“You were drunk last night when you returned home.”
“I was a little…foxed,” Toby admitted.
“Do you remember our conversation upon your return?”
With sickening clarity, Toby acknowledged inwardly. “I remember a little of it, yes,” he prevaricated.
“Which part?”
“Er, let me see. Something about me being drunk and you would talk to me about it in the morning?” Every statement coming out of Toby’s mouth sounded like a question. As if he doubted, or hoped, the duke did not remember the conversation. Even though Toby already knew that would not be the case.
Sheffield’s jaw tightened. “Did you take a lover last night?”
“Of course not!” Toby recoiled at the unexpectedness of the very personal question. His cheeks burned. “I told you, I went out with friends. Friends who are not interested in other men,” he clarified. “Why would you even ask me such a question when I have already made the embarrassing admission of never having engaged in sexual relations with anyone?”
The duke shrugged as he strolled forward to stand in front of his desk. “You were in a defiant mood yesterday evening, enough so that you might have done something…rash. Either to celebrate being twenty or to spite me.”
“I would far rather have been twenty-one and no longer a burden to you. I also fail to see how my taking a lover could possibly be interpreted as being a way of spiting you.” Toby frowned his confusion.
Lucius closed his eyes, his fingers gripping the edge of his desk as he leaned back against it. The reason Toby could not see the sense in what was being said to him was because Toby had no idea of the increasing and overwhelming desire for him that was rapidly taking over Lucius’s every waking thought. So much so that, as he had discovered at the club the previous evening, he could currently feel desire for no one else.
Worse, he could not even take care of that desire himself.
Oh, Lucius had returned to his study the previous night with every intention of stroking and pumping his cock to completion before going to his bed. Except he had not. Could not. Because the moment he released his cock and laid a hand on it, the arousal began to fade. Even closing his eyes and imagining it was a much smaller hand caressing him, and those green-and-gold eyes were looking up at him through gold-tipped lashes, had not been enough for that desire to return.
It seemed he wanted the flesh-and-blood Toby.
Toby’s touch.
Toby’s caresses.
Only Toby.
This single-minded desire had never happened to Lucius before, and he had no idea what to do about it now that it had.
Except to perhaps tell Toby the truth about himself and see if the two of them might become friends, at the very least. He still believed anything else was out of the question.
Lucius drew in a deep breath through his nose as he tried to settle the churning inside him. He had lived behind a facade for so long and for so many years, with only a few close friends of the same inclination knowing the truth about him. Daniel, it seemed, had been the exception. But it was becoming impossible, even in so short a time of living with this beautiful young man, to lie to Toby simply so that Lucius might protect himself.
Lucius’s desire for Toby aside, he knew Daniel had expected more from him than this. Damn it, his friend had chosen Lucius as Toby’s guardian because of his sexual desires, not in spite of them, so that he might act as mentor and protector to his son. How could Lucius do either of those things if he continued to keep the truth about himself from the younger man?
He could not.
“Here.”
Lucius opened his eyes to find Toby holding out a glass of brandy toward him. “Is it not a little early in the day for that?” he drawled.
“Not when someone has gone as pale as you have, no.”
He blinked. “I have?”
“Very.” Toby proffered the glass again. “I promise not to lecture you on the wickedness in imbibing of the demon drink before lunchtime.”
Lucius chuckled as he took the glass. “You do?”
“Are you aware that you are now answering all my statements with a question?” Much as Toby had earlier. Except it could not be for the same reason.
Toby’s questions had been made out of nervous uncertainty, something he was sure Sheffield had never felt in his life. Or if he had, not for a very long time.
“Am I?”
Toby looked up into gray eyes that were brimming with amusement at the duke having asked another question. “Drink your brandy,” he instructed ruefully.
Dark brows rose. “You are a bossy little thing when given the opportunity to be so.”
Toby shrugged. “I have learned that what I lack in size and stature has to be made up for in character.”
Lucius sipped the brandy before speaking huskily. “I find your character perfect—perfectly delightful,” he amended.
Toby blinked. “Did you just pay me a compliment…?” Surely he was mistaken. The duke had been nothing but blunt with him, too much so on occasion. Although he had never criticized him, Toby realized. In fact, the times Toby had criticized himself, the duke had corrected him on it.
Sheffield threw the rest of the brandy down his throat before placing the empty glass on the desktop. “I did, yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it is merited. I have watched you these past few days, and your strength of character after the loss you have suffered is to be commended. As is your kindness and consideration toward others.”
Toby swallowed. “You have watched me?”
Sheffield’s smile was self-derisive. “Don’t look so alarmed. I might be quick to pull you up on a misdeed, young Toby, but I am equally willing to pay you a compliment when one is due.”
Toby scowled. The duke might be willing to give a compliment, but he had then instantly nullified it by dismissing him as “young Toby.” “I apologize for last night. My only excuse is the extenuating circumstances of my birthday. It will not happen again.” He turned stiffly on his heel, his head held high as he marched to the door.
“Toby!”
He kept on walking, having suffered quite enough humiliation for one morning.