Maxim’s anger, already deepened by the delay of the insinuating conversation with Lord Geoffrey Adams, had grown to a simmering rage by the time he’d watched Christopher squirm in his carriage to find a comfortable sitting position for the twenty minutes it took to reach Maxim’s home. Having obviously failed to find one, in the end, Christopher suffered the discomfort of the journey to Lancaster House in silence, his face growing paler and paler.
Whatever that bastard chef had done to him, Maxim wished to return it tenfold, and it took every bit of his control not to express those angry thoughts aloud. Christopher had seen and heard enough anger already this evening.
Besides, some of Maxim’s anger was direction toward Lord Adams.
How dare that man so much as touch Christopher, let alone imply Maxim was the one responsible for those visible injuries upon Christopher’s face? Nor had Maxim cared for the way Christopher had leaned forward so as to be heard by the other man rather than continue to have their conversation overheard by any other club members.
What on earth…?
Was it possible Maxim felt jealous of Geoffrey Adams touching Christopher?
He understood the rage he felt toward the chef for brutalizing Christopher and his impatience to take the younger man away from the place of the attack. But jealousy because another man had dared to touch Christopher? It was not an emotion Maxim was familiar with.
Until now!
His insides felt twisted and hot, and his hands repeatedly clenched and unclenched, as if longing for someone’s throat to wrap themselves around. The chef or Adams, either would do.
Maxim was forced to push away those unfamiliar urgings as the carriage came to a halt outside Lancaster House and he moved to help Christopher step down from the ducal carriage. He then assisted the younger man when he was able to walk only at a snail’s pace up the steps into the house. Once inside, Maxim took a lit candle from the butler and instructed the man to bring brandy up to the blue guest bedchamber.
Christopher needed even more assistance to ascend the wide staircase. His face was a shade of gray, his breathing labored by the time they reached the top of the stairs. He paused to catch his breath for several minutes before accepting Maxim’s aid in helping him farther down the hallway and into the blue room.
Maxim continued to hold Christopher’s arm as he sank slowly down onto the edge of the four-poster bed. “Perhaps I should send for my doctor to attend you?”
He was deeply concerned by how the now-purple bruising showed stark against Christopher’s otherwise pale cheeks. And they were only the visible bruises. From the manner in which Christopher couldn’t walk unassisted, there were sure to be more unsightly ones beneath his clothing.
Horsewhipping was too good for that bastard of a chef. The man deserved to be flogged to within an inch of his life.
“Perhaps if I am feeling no better by tomorrow,” Christopher dismissed.
He spoke softly, but even so, Maxim could hear his steely resolve. Christopher would claim to be feeling “better” tomorrow even if he was not.
“I shall go to my own bedchamber and collect the salve the doctor prescribed for me to use when I have had a particularly rigorous fight at the boxing saloon I frequent,” Maxim explained before hurrying from the room and down the hallway to where his own bedchamber was situated.
He took one of his own nightshirts from a drawer in the dressing room, as well as collecting the salve, before returning to the bedchamber where Christopher waited for him.
And not in the sultry and inviting manner Maxim had fantasized him doing these past three weeks.
He frowned when he returned to find the other man still seated on the edge of the bed, exactly where Maxim had left him. “Let me assist you in undressing,” he spoke gently.
Christopher appeared visibly taken aback at the suggestion. “I’m sure I can manage.” As if to prove his point, he attempted to remove his jacket, only to draw in a pained breath and cease all movement mere seconds later. His face was now a chalky white. “I shall be comfortable enough resting in my clothes. If you could assist me in taking off my boots, I’m sure I shall be comfortable enough as I am.”
“Christopher.”
“In any case, I shall be on my way first thing in the morning—”
“Christopher.”
“—before you are even up, it is to be hoped,” the boy continued as if Maxim had not spoken. “I should not like to cause you any awkwardness with the servants—”
“Christopher!” Maxim raised his voice to be heard over his guest’s rambling.
He looked at him with startled eyes. “Yes, Your Grace?”
Maxim’s heart melted at the expression of absolute trust in those deep blue orbs as they easily met his gaze. A trust Maxim was not sure he merited when he wanted nothing more than to gently rub the salve onto each and every bruise marring the silky skin on that lithe body before then joining a naked Christopher in the bed and holding him gently and protectively in his arms for the rest of the night.
“I do not give a f—fig, for what the servants have to say about your presence here. And I will gladly assist you in removing your boots.” Maxim moved down onto his knees beside where the much shorter man sat on the bed before he removed his footwear. Surprisingly, the boots were made of a fine, if scuffed and worn leather. “Pantaloons next,” he stated firmly, deliberately not looking up at Christopher as he pushed his legs apart so he might kneel between them to begin unfastening the buttons down the sides of the flap at the front of the pantaloons.
“This is not… I cannot allow… You should not—”
“I should not what?” Maxim sat back on his heels to look up at him.
Christopher’s cheeks reddened. “You are a duke, the highest-ranking title in the land, except for the royal family,” he continued softly. “Royalty apart, you should not be on your knees for any man or for any reason.”
The first statement confirmed what Maxim already knew: Christopher was educated enough to know the order of the titles of the aristocracy.
The latter statement caused Maxim to remember Sheffield once confiding in him of how he’d knelt for Toby for the first time, something his friend had never done before for any man. Something Maxim was sure, having seen the intimacy the couple shared, Sheffield had willingly done many times since.
Maxim now asked himself if he’d ever knelt for any man before now either. During sexual circumstances or otherwise.
He’d had lovers suck his cock, too many times to remember, and he’d returned the act, but had he ever actually gone down on his knees in front of any of them to carry out that act?
Maxim was sure the answer to that was no, never.
And yet it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to do so now for Christopher.
Too bad it was only with the intention of helping him take off his boots and clothing because Christopher was in too much pain to be able to do it for himself.
Maxim rose to his feet to help to ease off Christopher’s fitted jacket.
Then he unbuttoned and removed Christopher’s waistcoat.
His hands shook a little as he removed the neckcloth. He then unfastened the tie at the throat of the billowy white shirt before helping to gently lift it over Christopher’s head.
Maxim drew in a harsh breath the moment he saw the many bruises and welts that covered Christopher’s chest and back. Beside the fresh welts were livid purple and black bruises, and some which were that sickly yellow color of much older and fading ones.
Maxim stepped back to stop himself from reaching out and touching that bruised flesh, not wishing to add to Christopher’s discomfort. “How many times has that bastard hit you before tonight?”
Christopher seemed reluctant to answer. He even tried to avoid meeting Maxim’s gaze, until Maxim placed his finger and thumb firmly against his chin and turned his face toward him.
“How many?” Maxim pressed.
Christopher winced. “A half dozen or so.” He swallowed. “He did so because I have steadfastly refused his demands since commencing my work at the club.”
Which was approximately three weeks ago.
Who was Maxim attempting to deceive? He knew to the day exactly when Christopher had begun his employment at the Apollo: it was three weeks and two days ago. Learning that Christopher had been avoiding the chef’s sexual demands for that same amount of time filled him with rage.
“Those previous beatings were nowhere near as bad as the one he administered this evening,” Christopher added hastily.
No doubt that was in response to Maxim’s furious expression as he decided the bastard ex-chef was to receive a beating of his own in punishment for all the pain he’d caused so many others.
Christopher’s expression became anxious. “Will he make trouble for you if you dismiss him?”
“There is no if about his dismissal, and he is in no position to make trouble,” Maxim soothed, knowing that the obnoxious chef was more than capable of reporting their sexual activities to the authorities. It would be up to Maxim and the other owners of The Apollo to ensure he did not succeed. “After all, he has worked there for almost three years without having his sensibilities so shocked before now so as to report the happenings inside the club to the authorities.” And now Maxim knew exactly why that was.
Not only was the chef a liar in regard to his origins, but he was also one of those men Maxim abhorred. The ones who chose to hide their sexual leanings behind the respectability of a marriage. The man’s wife probably had no idea that her husband worked in a club that catered to sodomites. That her own husband was one too.
“But—”
“We will not discuss this anymore tonight,” Maxim stated huskily.
Christopher might be bruised and his spirit slightly broken, but his beauty was still undeniable. The delicacy of Christopher’s face was reflected in the slight build of the young man’s body, his skin the color and smoothness of ivory. He had a slightly defined musculature in his upper arms and chest, no doubt acquired from three weeks of carrying heavy trays of drinks about the Apollo Club. There was not a single hair upon that creamy chest and flat abdomen.
Maxim’s cock stirred inappropriately merely from looking at that beautifully smooth skin, and it engorged to fully erect when Maxim easily imagined the slenderness of Christopher’s cock surrounded by a thatch of golden curls. His legs would be slender, and Maxim imagined feeling them wrapped about his hips as he pounded into the boy—
Man, damn it.
Christopher was a man, not a boy.
Except Maxim’s sexual partners had never run to men as young as Christopher before now. There was just something about him, in particular, which enticed and beguiled Maxim into wanting to kiss and caress every inch of him.
In the same way that Sheffield had fallen in love with Toby’s youthful beauty after a lifetime of bedding men as tall and muscular as himself?
Maxim was not in love with Christopher. He merely wished—wanted… Damn it, this was not the time to think of what he wanted to do with Christopher. Not the time at all.
“Pantaloons off now,” Maxim instead stated briskly.
Color entered Christopher’s cheeks, and his gaze once again refused to meet Maxim’s. “I’m sure I can manage to take those off myself after you are gone.” His slender hands moved down instinctively to hold on to the fold on his unfastened pantaloons.
Maxim’s expression softened. “I doubt you will be able to reach the bruises on your back or those you admit are on the backs of your thighs and bottom.”