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The next week or so felt like holiday. It was a perfect English summer, with a few showers of rain keeping the warm ground watered, bees and birds and flowers bringing the green land into vibrant life. Amanda was transferred with great care to a bath chair, which allowed her to be wheeled outside, her splinted leg out straight. She and Sheridan struck up a strong friendship and chatted for hours; she insisted on being introduced to Corvin despite Guy’s reservations, which resulted in quite a lot of delighted shrieking on both their parts, and no signs at all of her succumbing to his charm. A working party was promptly formed with the addition of John to discuss new and ever more outrageous ideas for Gothic novels that would attract the right kinds of attention while avoiding tiresome matters of libel. Philip rather thought that Isabella Crawford would like her, and that, if the Frisbys lived in London, he would invite them to meetings of the Murder.
If. They wouldn’t and couldn’t, but he had no intention of thinking about that before he had to. The sun was shining, and he and Guy were making hay.
And, indeed, making love. Guy had taken his lessons to heart, and was learning to speak his desires in a way that shook Philip to the bone. He’d only wanted to make the man understand that the best way to get what one wanted was to say what it was, and instead Guy was putting his soul on the table, with hesitant confessions of longings that he barely understood himself, yet offered to Philip like a gift. Touch me there. Speak to me like that. This is how I thought of you.
It was that damned innocence of his. He hadn’t understood the difference between baring the truth of his body and that of his heart, and Philip was finding himself increasingly inclined to beg him to be less trusting, because he couldn’t bear the thought of Guy putting himself in the hands of some ignorant oaf who might respond with scorn or jeers or blows. And it would be all Philip’s fault if that happened because he’d taught Guy to assume his desires and refusals would be respected, when there was no guarantee of that at all.
Guard your heart, he wanted to say. Not with me, never with me, but don’t trust anyone else. They won’t understand.
He pushed that impulse down. Guy had let go of so much of his fear, at least when the two of them were alone, as though it had salved something at a deep level to speak his truth and have it embraced and returned. Philip couldn’t bear to take that away, not yet.
And in the meantime, they were loving more gloriously than Philip could recall, because Guy’s soft voice whispering desire, and the light in his eyes when he looked up, added more than Philip had known possible to any act he could come up with.
Guy had proved every inch the apt pupil, including when Philip had fucked his mouth as requested, declining the Latin verb in his head for distraction, then aloud for comic effect. And, tentatively but with endearing enthusiasm, Guy was attempting more active roles too. He’d taken to frotting like a duck to water and had fucked Philip that way just this morning, driving between his thighs with impressive strength, after they’d woken up together for the first time.
That simple thing, a shared bed, was something Philip wouldn’t soon forget. Guy had been understandably nervous, but he’d taken Philip’s word for his safety, and slept by him, breathing steady, warm chest rising and falling under Philip’s arm. In the morning, he’d woken and smiled up at him, and Philip’s lungs had constricted so that he could barely breathe for the loveliness of it. He’d woken with John, Corvin, or both often enough, but that was different. That was a lifetime’s trust and friendship, people who would always be there with him because they had made themselves the family all of them had been denied. They’d had to be there for one another because there had been nobody else.
But Guy chose to be there. He’d chosen Philip, chosen to let himself be seduced, chosen to trust, and Philip was increasingly aware that he’d plunged into the depths of his lover’s heart with absolutely no idea how far down it went.
He was sitting in the orchard, thinking about it, when Corvin strolled up.
“Phil. I am amazed to see you.”
“In my house?”
“In your house without your Patroclus. Move up.” Corvin dusted off the bench with his sleeve, sat, and blinked. “This could be more in the shade, you know. You’ll get a sun-burn.”
“I like the sun.”
“‘My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun.’ Where is your mistress?”
Philip shot him a look, which was ignored. “If you mean Guy, he and David are managing that bath chair arrangement.”
“For the irresistible Amanda. She’s a charmer, isn’t she? I’m astonished she hasn’t married.”
“There was an unfortunate situation when she had her Season. Remember Hugh Peyton?”
“That prick? Ah. Oh dear.”
“Mmm. Caught in flagrante at a ball.”
Corvin raised a weary brow. “What a shit he is. I’m amazed I don’t recall.”
“It was while we were in Spain.”
“Ah. That explains her spinsterhood, I suppose, though one might think there’d be a man with the common sense to look past a youthful misstep.”
“They don’t have any money either.”
“Makes it more difficult, I grant you.”
“Not for a rich man.” A thought dawned on Philip. “Christ, you aren’t interested, are you?”
“Oh, she would have none of me, Phil. I’m far too frivolous. That laughing young lady will choose a serious man.”
Philip didn’t argue. He had no idea how Corvin could be so definite on the subject of other people’s desires, but he had never known him be wrong, and would not in any case have wanted to present him to Guy as a candidate for his sister’s hand. “I hope she has the chance.”
Corvin leaned back. “Indeed. Yes, she’s delightful. The brother’s charms are somewhat less evident to the untrained eye.”
“Is there something you’d like to say to me that isn’t sarcastically allusive?”
“No. Sarcastic allusion is my preferred mode of speech.”
Philip turned to look at him. “Let me rephrase that. If there’s something you’d like to say to me, spit it out. If not, shut up. I don’t know what the devil you have against Guy—”
“Nothing. Well, there wouldn’t be any space, would there, with you so close.”
“Sorry?” Philip said. “Are you jealous?”
“Of course I bloody am,” Corvin said testily. “Keep up.”
“If I could just tot up the number of lovers you’ve had in the past year—”
“It would be entirely irrelevant arithmetic. This isn’t about fucking. If it was about fucking I shouldn’t care in the least. No, I should be thrilled if you’d finally found someone you wanted to fuck.”
“I have.”
“That isn’t what you’re doing and you know it. Are we losing you, Phil?”
“Of course not, you bloody idiot.”
“Really? Want to fuck?”
“I wouldn’t have the strength.”
“And seriously?” Corvin asked. “Without the shield of flippancy? Now, or later, back in London, which is where you live, are you still with us?”
Philip stared ahead. He hadn’t yet let himself give serious consideration to afterwards, when he left for a place he could live in, and Guy stayed here, and his normal life began again. He hadn’t fully thought about a practical way that Guy, or the absence of Guy, could fit into his comfortable, established situation. “I don’t entirely know. I—don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you’ll want to be with us? Or you don’t know if your green-eyed innocent would like it if you were?”
“I haven’t discussed any of this with him, still less made any promises.” Not out loud, at least. “I don’t know, V. Do you have to ask me now?”
“Yes,” Corvin said. “This feels very like when John married, and that wasn’t good.”
“I’m not getting married.”
“Would you be, given the choice?”
“For God’s sake. I’ve known him a few weeks.”
“You’ve known everyone else for the best part of twenty years, and you haven’t fallen in love with any of them.”
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Philip snapped. “And it’s—”
“Don’t say none of my business, Phil.” There was a very gentle warning in Corvin’s voice.
“I wasn’t going to.” He had been about to say exactly that, like a shit, and was deeply grateful he’d been prevented. “It’s your and John’s right to know what I’m about, yes, but anything between me and Guy is his right. I’m not making a declaration to you that ought to be to him. And I haven’t spoken about this to him anyway. For all I know he’ll be glad to see the back of me.”
“I doubt that. I repeat, this feels like when John married, and you know how that changed things. Unbalanced them. We’re not the same two as three.”
Philip wanted to protest, but it was true. John’s absence from their circle, or triangle, had been difficult for them all. Philip and Corvin had barely seen him in two years, and it had been a guilty relief when the marriage had reached its abrupt and catastrophic end. Philip truly hadn’t wished it to fail, for John’s sake, but when it had done so, he hadn’t regretted the fact nearly as much as he should have.
“No,” he said. “I grant you that. But John didn’t tell his wife about us. And he made vows.”
“To forsake all others. Will you be forsaking all others for your country boy, Phil? Will he want that, or need it? Will you resent it, or not miss us at all?”
“His name is Guy,” Philip said. “It’s neither long nor difficult. Use it. And I don’t know. I’ve no idea what he thinks on the matter and I don’t even know if I’ll see him again after we leave.”
“If you don’t, you’re a fucking fool,” Corvin said. “I haven’t seen you like this in your life. You can’t seriously intend to wander away.”
Philip blinked. “What? You’ve just spent five minutes arguing me out of it!”
“I have not. Philip, you stupid illegitimate sod, you’re in love, and the—Guy has handed you his heart on a platter, with garnishes. That much is entirely obvious. And I am truly glad for you, deep down, although if you imagine for a second I won’t be an arsehole about it, you’re optimistic.”
“How deep down?”
“So far we might have to send Harry to dig it up. But I want you to be happy slightly—very slightly—more than I fear losing you.”
“You won’t lose me, you fool,” Philip said. “John felt he had to stay away from us altogether when he married, but I’m not remotely in his situation. I don’t know what might change, or how Guy might feel about any one of a dozen aspects, but if my prick dropped off tomorrow—”
“Through overuse?”
“Shut up. —I shouldn’t love you and John the less. There is more between us all than just fucking, as you are well aware.”
“Yes, but I’m good at fucking,” Corvin said plaintively.
“You might consider being good at something else one day. Is John worried too?”
“Yes. Although he told me to let you alone and not be a prick.”
“I see you took his advice.”
“As ever. Promise me something, Phil?”
“What?”
“Promise me you won’t trap yourself between lives,” Corvin said. “Promise me that you won’t find yourself as John did, resenting what you lost to someone who might not, if consulted, have asked you to give it away in the first place. We won’t ask you to choose, or insist on a damn thing, but if it comes to a choice— Oh, I don’t know. Honestly, if you want to bring him in, I’ll welcome him. He’s pretty.”
“Keep your excessively fingered hands to yourself. Are you seriously suggesting—”
Corvin held up a hand. “I am open to anything that doesn’t divide us, in whatever form works. If that means you don’t want to fuck any more—well, I like your prick, but I can do without it. I need your friendship.”
“I need you too, V. You know that.”
“I do. Please don’t cut us off, my best bastard, I don’t think any of us could bear it again. John and I want you happy, and we’ll do what we need to that end. Whether that means being a four-sided triangle, or anything else.”
“So will I, for us all. But I don’t think— Did you just say a four-sided triangle?”
“Exactly that.”
“That’s a square. Triangles don’t have four sides. The clue is in the name.”
“Pyramids do, and they’re triangular,” Corvin said triumphantly.
“That is not how it works!” Philip said, and let himself be drawn into the subsequent argument with a profound sense of the world steadying itself once more.
***
CORVIN’S WORDS WEREN’T the only problem. The Murder had been at Rookwood Hall for weeks, and the planned visit was coming to an end. John and Corvin intended to return to London, in John’s case extremely discreetly, before heading up to Wrayton Harcourt, accompanied by the Street-Salcombes, who were excavating on his land. The musicians had engagements to fulfil. David Martelo had a practice to which he needed to return, but that at least Philip could stave off.
“Can you leave your patients to survive without you another week?” he asked, having tracked David down that afternoon while Guy and Amanda were having a quiet hour. “At my cost, of course. I’d prefer it if you could see Amanda walking again.”
“So should I. What’s your intention, Phil?”
“Well, we can’t evict the Frisbys until you’ve given your professional approval, and I can’t leave my guests here. I thought you and I might stay until they can return home, whenever that may be.”
David gave him a look. “Would you like it to be a little longer?”
“Given the choice, yes. Wouldn’t you?”
David grimaced in lieu of answer. “You’re very taken with Guy, yes?”
“Apparently that is obvious to everyone.”
“Including Amanda.”
“Shit. Are you sure?”
“As sure as I can be without having a direct conversation on the subject. She’s mentioned how clearly he adores you; I don’t know if she realises you’ve taken him to bed, or what she understands to be possible. I wouldn’t swear she’s unaware.”
“Jesus Christ,” Philip muttered. How much damage could he possibly do Guy? “Shit.”
“She loves him very much. But still.”
“Yes. What the devil am I going to do?”
“I had assumed you intended simply to go back to London, having had your fun,” David said. “I see I was wrong. How wrong?”
“Entirely wrong.”
“Then you should speak to him. See if you can discover how he might feel about his sister marrying a Jew while you’re at it.”
Philip blinked. “It’s that serious?”
“On my part, I’d propose tomorrow and take my chances,” David said. “I’ve no idea about her part, because I can’t damned well say anything to her while I’m constantly poring over her thigh. Femur. And for heaven’s sake don’t say anything to him, that was a joke. This is trying my nerves, Phil.”
“I don’t see what you have to worry about. Her leg will mend.”
“And she’ll still be a Christian.”
“Granted, but would that stop you?”
“It might well stop her. I couldn’t convert, not to save my own life. My family... It matters. I don’t make any claim to devotion, I’m not particularly observant of my faith but—no. I could not do it. I’d resent it, resent the need for it. And I have to assume she would feel much the same, and why should she bow to a compromise I’m not prepared to make myself? What do I have to offer? ‘Please accept my hand in marriage, offered with the condition you convert to a despised religion, and resign yourself to an existence scraping pennies as a doctor’s wife’? It’s scarcely the stuff of dreams, is it?”
“That’s unusually humble of you. Have you spoken to her on the subject?”
“Of course not,” David snapped. “I’m her doctor. I can’t make a declaration—one which she might well decline—and then go back to examining her person. It would be grossly wrong of me and deprive her of the treatment she needs. If she had a doctor here I could trust, I could withdraw, but damned if I’m abandoning her care to that old fool who turned up to bleed her dry. Could they not come to London?”
“It’s not likely,” Philip said. “Financial issues. I...might ask.”
“Do that. And in the meantime, you would do me a service if you found a decent doctor to replace me and then I could at least speak.”
Philip went. He wasn’t sure if Yarlcote could provide such a doctor, but he wrote a note to his steward, cursing that David hadn’t spelled out his need before. He’d assumed the man wanted the excuse to be close to Amanda and hadn’t really considered the ethical or professional issues it might create. He hadn’t considered much, in fact, except that he wanted Guy, and he’d let that wanting blind him to the mounting problems it would cause to the people he loved best.
No, that wasn’t right either. He’d deliberately chosen not to consider the consequences. He’d spent a lifetime not considering consequences because he didn’t care about them, picking the most desirable or entertaining option because he could. He hadn’t hurt anyone, much, until now, but it seemed he was about to make up for lost time in a spectacular way.
He didn’t think he wanted to encounter Guy under Amanda’s too-sharp eye, which meant waiting until past five in the afternoon, till Guy emerged from the sickroom, rolling his shoulders. He saw Philip in the corridor, and smiled, and Philip wanted to bang his own head against the wall.
“Come with me?” he said instead and led the way to the roof. It was private, and he could always jump if the conversation went badly.
Guy followed obediently and settled where they’d sat before with a pleased sigh. “This is lovely. It’s such a beautiful house.”
“It’s a beautiful view. The house is ghastly, but at least from this vantage point one can’t see it.”
“It is not ghastly, though I’m sure it’s cold in winter. I don’t know why you dislike it so much.”
“Because it’s not mine,” Philip said. “Because every square inch of Rookwood Hall, ancestral home of the Rookwoods, filled with Rookwood portraits and possessions, reminds me I am not one, and that my nominal father would have cut off his hand to prevent it coming to me. I didn’t set foot here till after James died, did I tell you that? I wasn’t permitted to soil the land with my presence, even as a small child. I wasn’t wanted here, and I’m bloody not now. In the neighbourhood, I mean.”
“That was your choice.”
“Was it? I’m a notorious bastard, which might be overlooked if I was also an eligible bachelor, but I’ve never inclined to a woman in my life. I’m not like John and Corvin, I omit that entire side from my composition. I would be a swine to marry under false pretences, even if I felt it right to hand on the Rookwood inheritance to a child of mine. And yes, granted, I have made no effort to establish myself here as anything other than a gambling, drinking, probably devil-worshipping atheistical rake of the first water and with the worst friends, so I can hardly complain about the results, but I regret them now.”
“But you don’t want to mix in Yarlcote society. Do you?”
“Not at all, no. And where does that leave us after your sister has recovered the use of her leg, when you no longer have the excuse of her injury to stay in my house, when the world will see you enjoying the company of the man whose brother ruined your mother—or, worse, assume it’s Amanda that I’m enjoying.” Guy sucked in a breath. “Quite. Tell me if I’m wrong, please do, but I cannot see that it’s possible for me to remain here, or visit you in the future, without causing you more damage than I am prepared to do.”
Guy swallowed. “Very well. I see what you’re saying.”
Philip grabbed his hand. “No, you do not, if you think this is a polite dismissal. It’s the very opposite. I don’t want to go away and leave you behind. I am looking for a way to avoid exactly that. This isn’t even close to enough.”
“No, but, what?” Guy said. “You told me, you said that, that we—people—would have encounters and fall in love, even, and get better. That’s what I thought you meant, that you’d go, and I should expect you to go.”
“I might have meant that,” Philip said. “I have entirely failed to consider any of this properly, and I’m sorry, but I haven’t fallen in love since I was eighteen or so, I didn’t even notice I’d done it, and I didn’t expect you to fall in love with me either, and—”
“Wait! What?”
“Aren’t you?” Philip said, with a distinctly cold sensation. “That is, I thought— If I am labouring under a misapprehension, now would be a good time to tell me before I make an even bigger fool of myself.”
Guy’s mouth moved slightly, then he waved a hand. “Could we tackle this one part at a time? Did—did you say you’d, uh, fallen in love?”
“Yes.”
“With me?”
“Obviously with you.”
“Well, it’s not really obvious, because you hadn’t mentioned anything about it!”
Philip twisted round, dropping to his knees on the warm stone, so that he could take both Guy’s hands and see his face. “Guy. I suspect I have been falling in love with you since you came through my doors, terrified of everything and still fighting for your sister. You’ve given me your trust and your innocence and your body, and if I had any sense at all I would have spent the last week telling you I adore you, instead of trying not to face up to the consequences. Which...are real, and difficult, and we are going to have to speak about them, unless you want to give me my marching orders. But we should perhaps spend a moment on the fact that I love you as I have never loved anyone.”
“You said you loved Lord Corvin.”
“I do, but when I fell in love, I was a boy, and a damn fool one at that. As a man, I have never once fallen in love, still less found it returned.” His chest with tight with tension, but he made himself say it. “Until now?”
“Until now,” Guy said and lunged forward.
It was several moments until Philip came up for air, and he didn’t want to. He’d rather have drowned here, with Guy warm and frantic in his arms, their legs tangled together, Guy’s fingers in his hair and his mouth on Philip’s with devouring need. It was everything of which he might have dreamed, and he eased back anyway, because it was time to wake up. “Guy.”
“Mmm?”
“I love you,” Philip said again. “And I can’t simply move to Yarlcote, or come visiting every month. Can I?”
“Ugh,” Guy said. “If it were me—but it’s Amanda.”
“You don’t think she might marry, at all?” Philip suggested. He couldn’t break David’s confidence but there was no harm in a general enquiry.
“I can’t see how. We don’t have a penny put by for a portion, and—well, she’s always said, she won’t conceal her past from any suitor.”
“She isn’t the only woman to make a mistake of that nature.”
“I know. But after Mother, and with her, uh, indiscretion having been awfully public... She wouldn’t lie about that. And she’s right not to. It would ruin everything if a husband found out afterwards.”
“A sensible man would understand.” David would be highly unlikely to blame a woman for behaving with a fraction of the licence permitted to men, Philip thought, although he’d seen worse hypocrisy in more unlikely places.
“If only we knew any,” Guy said. “The fact is, you’re right. I think if you came visiting us, everyone would assume the worst of Amanda. But I could come here, couldn’t I? To see you?”
“For a few days every few months. Yes. Or you could come to London.”
“We can’t.” Guy shut his eyes. “We haven’t any money. Really, we have none. Aunt Beatrice gives us enough of an allowance to pay Mrs. Harbottle and Jane, but we’ve saved nothing. It’s been bad enough for Amanda to be trapped in Yarlcote without scrimping every penny. And Aunt Beatrice is quite serious about us staying here. We’re not even allowed to pay visits, not that we’ve anyone to visit, since she’s our only family.”
“That isn’t much of a way to live.”
“It’s the only way we have. We’ve talked about it. If we dismissed Mrs. Harbottle and saved for a couple of years and I found a position— But we can’t come to London that way.”
“No.”
“I don’t imagine Amanda wants to go anywhere near Society again in any case. But suppose we did, and then something happened to me? Aunt Beatrice would be all Amanda had left. We can’t burn that bridge.”
“Granted, but it’s been five years since Amanda’s indiscretion. Surely your aunt could loosen her grip?”
“Her second daughter is on the verge of making an excellent marriage to an earl-in-waiting,” Guy said. “We can’t make ourselves a nuisance now. And my aunt is strict but, you know, she was truly horrified by my mother’s behaviour, and Amanda’s scandal was really dreadful. She’s so very respectable herself, I can’t blame her for not wanting people to remember we exist.”
“You’re more charitable than me. Damn your mother. And my half-brother,” Philip added hastily. “The pair of them.”
“I don’t know if I can blame them either,” Guy said, adjusting himself to lie more comfortably on Philip’s chest. “My father didn’t concern himself with anyone else’s happiness, and if Sir James was anything like you, I don’t blame my mother for running away with him. If she felt as I do, if she saw happiness and love and the alternative was a lifetime with a man who didn’t care—”
“She left you in his charge.”
“We’d have been in his charge whatever happened. If she’d tried to take us, he’d have had the law on her. No, the only question was whether she shared our misery or reached for her own happiness. And I’m not saying I’d have made her choice, but I do think I understand it better now. I hope she was happy while she had the chance.”
“Christ, I love you,” Philip said. “And, to return to that subject—”
“We can’t go to London,” Guy said again. “Aunt Beatrice has a third daughter, who is sixteen. Once she’s married, perhaps—”
“Guy, this is years of your life!”
“I know. What am I to do about it? It’s not as though Amanda could live here without me. She’d die of loneliness, and in any case, Aunt Beatrice would cut her off. I couldn’t do that.”
Philip considered his next remark. He was almost certain it was a foolish one, but he said it anyway. “I’m well off. Well off enough for three.”
“No,” Guy said flatly. “Don’t be absurd. You can’t be seen to keep Amanda.”
“I would avoid being seen.”
“And what would happen if you decided you no longer wanted a little country innocent?”
Philip bit back his first response. It was a fair question. “I would hope I should behave decently, but I don’t expect you to wager both your futures on that.”
“I couldn’t.”
Naturally he couldn’t. Amanda would always be first, of course she bloody would, with Guy never claiming his own happiness at her expense, and Philip wasn’t sure if he loved Guy more for that or simply wanted to shake him.
“Then we return to visits,” he said. “I am quite sure I could show more interest in my lands, you know. Come up every few months.”
“Yes. We could have that.”
Philip didn’t want that. He wanted Guy in his bed, waking up with him, not given time to brood and worry and wait. He didn’t want to roam England on his own, wasting time, snapping at his friends, counting the days till the next visit. And, very probably, sleeping with Corvin or John to take the edge off, or not doing so because he wasn’t sure what Guy would think. “Ah, hell. There’s something else.”
“There can’t be.”
“I fear so.” He rolled away and sat up, hugging his knees. “I told you about Corvin, and John, and myself. I’m not sure I told you everything.”
“What else is there?”
“The depth of it. They’re my best friends, and my lovers, and the closest thing to family I have ever had. It has been the three of us, and sometimes only the three of us, for close on twenty-five years. We’ve been fucking since we were sixteen, in pairs or all three together, and that may not be the kind of love about which the poets write, nor the kind I feel for you, but it’s still as real and true as anything in the world. And when John married—well, he made his vows truly and sincerely, and he kept them, and it was an appalling mistake. His wife didn’t understand why he wanted to spend time with people she despised. She was a radical, she’d have happily seen my and Corvin’s heads in the guillotine basket, and she thought him a hypocrite for his friendships given he shared her political beliefs. And she never came to understand because he couldn’t tell her the truth of us. Or perhaps he could have, but he didn’t, and it destroyed the trust between them. The damned fool thing was that he truly loved her. But he loved us too, and it was extremely hard for everyone. For us without him, and him without us, and him without her, and I imagine for her throughout the whole damned business.”
“Right,” Guy said slowly. “That sounds rather dreadful.”
“It was. She left him after two years for a fellow radical who didn’t have unwanted aristocratic connections. They emigrated to the Americas, which seems extreme but who am I to criticise, and that’s gone some way to assuaging John’s guilt, but you will understand why I don’t want to repeat his mistake. The question is how to avoid doing so.”
“I’m not quite sure what you’re asking of me.”
“Nor am I,” Philip said. “Perhaps simply that you hear me out and consider what you think, and we start from there. I’m not going to ask you to accept Corvin and John in your life as they are in mine. But they are in my heart and always will be. I’d be lying if I said otherwise.”
“You mean, as lovers?”
“I don’t know. In all honesty, that’s scarcely the most important part of it for me, and given our history, I don’t know if our ceasing to fuck would make a great deal of difference to you. Not if what you wanted was my undivided devotion. John didn’t share our beds when he was married and that didn’t help at all.”
“No. I see that. Um, what do they think about me?”
“They want me to be happy,” Philip said. “Whatever that may mean. I’m hoping this conversation may lead, somehow and by circuitous paths, to that end. I’m trying very hard not to present you with a fait accompli, still less an ultimatum. If you want a heart-whole man without encumbrances—”
“I wouldn’t have a great deal to offer one, even if I found him,” Guy said. “I wouldn’t be heart-whole either and then we’d all be in trouble. Is there a particular difference between what you feel about me, and about them?”
“Christ, yes,” Philip said. “Corvin’s a prick, and John’s an obstinate swine, and they both drive me to incoherent fury on a regular basis.”
Guy spluttered. Philip grinned at him. “And Corvin has a heart so big I don’t know how he carries it around, and John plants his feet against the world and stares it down, and they both loved me before I understood what the word meant. Whereas you trusted me with your truth, and took me to your tree, and found words in Latin when you were afraid to say them any other way, and your eyes hold all England. It’s like asking me if there’s a difference between fine wine and poetry. Of course there is, but it’s hard to make useful comparisons. I love you; I also love them. And that leads me to say that if you felt the need, or desire, to take other lovers, well, I couldn’t and wouldn’t object. You probably should.”
“I—don’t think I want to.”
Guy reached out, a tentative movement. Philip took his hand feeling his muscles relax. “Perhaps not, or not now. But I can’t offer you what you deserve. I can’t ask you to be entirely mine, and pledge my own disreputable self to you in return, and I shouldn’t if I could. We won’t see one another for months on end, and I am neither making nor holding you to promises that stretch out over months till they snap. That kind of thing sounds wonderfully romantic at the time, and then we have to live. And I certainly shan’t ask you to accept my friends before you’ve had a chance to consider what it means to be—let’s say, primus inter pares.”
Guy thought for a moment. “I’ve got Amanda. Which isn’t the same, but—”
“She will always come first. I know.”
Guy’s hand tightened on him. “First among equals. Philip, you didn’t conceal this. I knew you loved them. I’m just not sure how it works that you love me too.”
“Corvin’s lesson. The more love you give, the more you are capable of giving. It’s only when you shut off the source that it dries up. Or, at least, that principle works for us. Others would disagree.”
“I’m going to have to give this some thought, if you don’t mind,” Guy said. “I don’t want to say anything until I’m sure what I think. It’s all quite far from my experience.”
“I’m sorry to make this so complicated. You should probably have had some simple, straightforward amour for your first, and instead you find yourself with a bastard baronet in what Corvin insists on calling a four-sided triangle.”
“Triangles don’t—”
“I know.”
“I’m sure he says these things to annoy you,” Guy said. “It is complicated, but thank you for being honest with me. I would much rather know where I stand, even if it’s a bit— Oh my goodness.”
“What?”
“Before she met you, Amanda was asking if you had orgies, and I said I was sure you didn’t. Well. I do hope she doesn’t ask that again.”
“I haven’t had anything that I’d call an orgy in years,” Philip said. “That’s quite a different thing, and requires more than three people. Also more organisation than you might think, and a great deal of tidying up afterwards. Three of us is just a rather crowded bed.”
Guy choked. “I dare say. I don’t even know how you’d manage with three.”
That sounded like a hint. Philip cocked a brow. “I could tell you, beloved, if you’d like to hear about it. You might find it quite shocking, or then again you might not. Sometimes it’s nothing but making love with extra hands. Two people you adore, stroking and kissing and telling you they want you.” Guy shivered. Philip grinned. “And other times—let me see, how does one express Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo in the passive voice?”
Guy opened his mouth to answer, and then his brows shot up as meaning caught up with grammar. “You mean, uh, one person for each verb?”
“Indeed.”
“At the same time?”
Philip had a powerful memory of John’s hands on his head, Corvin gripping his hips. “Very much so.”
“Philip!”
“I will tell you such a bedtime story tonight,” Philip promised him, delighting in the betraying wash of colour. He wondered briefly if Corvin had a point, what it might be like to see Guy writhing under his hands, or John’s, or both. “And you will think about all this, as long as you need, and we will find some sort of answer between us. But whatever that answer is, I love you. Hold to that?”
“Always,” Guy said, and buried his face in Philip’s chest.
***
THE OTHERS LEFT THE next day. Corvin kindly deputised four members of his staff to keep the Hall running, so that Philip didn’t have to live with Yarlcote servants and the inevitable creeping around that would entail. He’d have to face that when he visited in the future: people in the house who could not be trusted, looking for secrets and guilt. He hoped Sinclair wouldn’t rebel at the thought of enforced rural seclusion without Cornelius to entertain him. The last thing he needed was to find a new valet.
The following week was one of the happiest he’d known, if he’d been able to shake the sense of the end of Arcadia approaching. Rookwood Hall was an echoing place with his noisy group whittled down to himself, David, and the Frisbys, but the days were still sunny. David decreed that it was time for Amanda to put weight on her splinted leg, and she hobbled up and down the corridor with him and Guy hovering in attendance. The four of them ate together, in nonstop, laughing talk, and if Amanda had any suspicions about Guy’s private activities, they didn’t show.
There were a lot of private activities. Philip could have stayed in bed with Guy all day, for the closeness and the look in his eyes, and because when it was just them there was no self-consciousness, no fear of observation, no hesitant restraint or shame or flinching in anticipation of hurt. He needed nothing more than Guy’s happiness; as it was he got plenty more, because Guy was warm and eager and had a lot of lonely nights for which to make up.
“Philip?” Guy asked, on the third night. He was sitting on their—Philip’s—bed, stripping off his stockings with joyous unselfconsciousness.
“Beloved?”
“I’m not suggesting anything, as such,” Guy said carefully. “But, well. Would I like sodomy?”
“That is without a doubt the best question that has ever been asked. English was invented purely so that you could ask that.”
“Seriously, though,” Guy said, blushing but grinning. “You made it sound rather enjoyable when you were telling me all about what you’d got up to with the others.”
Philip had done that with Guy’s prick in his hand, his own pressed between Guy’s thighs. It had been highly effective. “It can be marvellous, but not everyone finds it so.”
“Why not?”
“Some people find it painful. Some find the concept distasteful. And even when one enjoys it, it’s not always easy for a man to admit he likes to be fucked, the world being as it is. Some feel it to be unmanning.”
“Oh.” Guy looked as though he hadn’t thought of that.
Philip could have kicked himself. “I think that’s arrant nonsense, myself,” he went on. “It makes you no less a man than ever you were—no, that’s not true, actually.”
“Isn’t it?”
Philip stroked his hair. “No, because it’s the opposite. There’s nothing brave about hiding from one’s desires. It takes far more courage to know yourself. But other than that, the act has no significance at all. It’s purely a matter of taste.”
Guy nodded. “All the same, you haven’t suggested it.”
“A month ago, you’d never been kissed. I thought we might take our time.”
“But Amanda’s walking,” Guy said. “We don’t have much more time. Do you think I’d like it?”
“I don’t know, beloved. If you would care to try, I am at your disposal, in either part.”
“I think I’d like you to do it,” Guy said, barely above a whisper. “I don’t know really—or if it would hurt—but I can’t stop wondering what it would be like if you did it to me.”
“With you. It will hurt a little, inevitably. And if it isn’t to your taste, we’ll stop.”
That won him, unexpectedly, an eye-roll dramatic enough for Corvin. “I know that, you idiot. For heaven’s sake, we’ve been doing this for weeks.”
“Well, you haven’t had much practice in asking me to stop. Barely any. In fact, you’ve been as ripe for every sort of ruin and debauchery as my most sordid imaginings could have hoped. Who knew that pose of virginal innocence hid such a shameless sensualist?”
Guy was blushing fiercely. “I was virginally innocent, and everything else is your fault. Tell me, these sordid imaginings—”
“Have involved you bent over a bed pleading for me, yes. Now and then.”
“I thought they might. Debauch me, Philip?”
Philip pushed him gently onto his back. “I will educate you, my love, and I will strive to please you. And, yes, I will also debauch you like the eager little wanton you are. If I absolutely must.”
“Not if it’s an imposition,” Guy assured him, and they were both giggling as Philip went looking for the oil.
That was mostly what he remembered of that night, afterwards: the easy happiness. He’d had a superstitious fear, against all his experience, this might feel significant, as though it would be some final act of deflowering that changed things. That Guy would hate it, that he’d feel it a sin, that something would go wrong. In the event Guy followed instructions with no more than little gasps and a few pauses to get it right, and took Philip with a determination that ripened quickly into joy. Philip held himself back for longer than seemed possible, concentrating fiercely on Guy’s pleasure, making sure every slow stroke counted, until Guy was moaning under him, clutching the sheet.
“I want you to spend,” Philip whispered. “I want you to spend while I’m in you, fucking you. I want you to like it.”
“I love it. Touch me,” Guy panted. “If you— God! Yes.”
Philip had a hand on his shoulder to brace himself. The other, oil-slick, he slid round to circle Guy’s prick, sliding his hand up and down in time with his thrusts. “Tell me how it feels. Speak to me, beloved.”
“It’s—you’re— Oh God, it’s good, you’re good, it’s marvellous, I can’t say. Me pedica, Philip. Don’t stop.”
“Tell me in English. You know the words.”
“Fuck me,” Guy said on a breath. “I love you, keep fucking me, please.”
And Philip did, driving into him, feeling Guy’s whole body tense as he spent and finding his own release in a near-painful rush that left them both in a wet, shivering, tangled heap.
“Christ,” Philip said after a while. “Latin imperatives in bed. I had no idea. Well, now we know why the Roman empire declined and fell.”
“They were declining the wrong verbs.” Guy snuggled into him. “Do you remember telling me I might enjoy being ruined?”
“I remember being an unnecessary prick to you, yes.”
Guy kissed him on the collarbone, presumably since that was where his lips were. “You had a point. Thank you for debauching me, Philip. You’ve done it beautifully.”
“I should probably feel guilty about taking your virtue.”
“But I don’t think you have. I feel more—more loving, in all the different ways, than I ever have in my life. I feel as though, while you love me, I could be better and kinder to the whole world. If that’s not virtue, I don’t know what is.”
“Nor do I,” Philip said, and pulled him close.