“I love—”
“But I don’t love you the same way. And we cannot marry.” He laughed. “Imagine what Stephen…Hell, forget about my brother. What would society say if I brought you home as my wife?”
“Now you are just being ridiculous.” Tyler gasped, struggled for breath. Neither of them had to play the woman.
“I feel like the biggest type of cretin, but this must be done.”
Tyler stared where he knew ebony eyes were hidden by the dark. “Don’t do this, Will.”
“Go toy with someone else. I do not want you. I lust after women, Ty. More than I ever thought possible as we were growing up.”
A sob ripped from Tyler’s throat. He knew there was no changing Will’s mind. He’d been pulling away for months.
He reached with one hand and touched Will’s beloved face, the skin moist with tears. He leaned forward and gave him a gentle goodbye kiss more symbolic of their ended relationship than of a physical separation. For God’s sake, the two of them had seen each other almost daily for the past nine years, except when he was training at sea and Will had classes. They would likely be forced together often for the next ten as well, when Will graduated and was stationed with him.
This was goodbye to his one chance at love. Will, with a crazy lack of judgment, had decided for both of them, and it hurt like a cannon blast to his chest.
“I have to be strong and stop this insanity before we ruin everything. After all, it is simply boyhood lust. A fun fuck here or there. Nothing more. It cannot be more. It’s wrong, Ty. Unnatural. Men who continue to do this after they grow up are abominations. The longer they participate in sodomy, the more unstable they turn. Eventually they are not fit to be around children.”
“Did you read this in one of your medical texts?” he asked, mocking his friend.
“In fact, yes. And I don’t want anyone to find out about us. Promise to never tell anyone, Ty.” Will shoved both hands in his pockets. To keep from reaching out again, or to keep from physically shoving Tyler away with more than just words? “See you soon, eh?”
Tyler’s fist flashed out before he knew what he intended. The blow zipped through the dark with such stinging accuracy, Will stumbled backward, tripped over something, and landed on the frosted grass.
He was halfway to the stables before registering the startled, “Ty?”
The dampness on his cheeks surely came from the night’s dew.
✥ ✥ ✥
“I always wondered why you sabotaged William’s happiness,” Hector said. “Now it makes sense. You wanted him all to yourself. Well, turns out you received nothing. How does that feel?”
It feels like crawling through a mile of fresh goat shit, actually.
“You loved my brother first. You fucked my brother first, and you did not think that was important to tell me?” Hector turned away, then turned back, his face red with anger. “I repeat, I love you, and he cannot. He never will. Get the hell over him before you ruin what we might have together. I have adored you since I was a child. Am I only a substitute body for you? Am I?” Tears welled in Hector’s lovely dark eyes, his whole body shaking, fists clenched.
Wentworth looked at him. Truly looked. He was gorgeous in his fury, dark curls in disarray, but his eyes were full of love, and that scared the devil out of him.
He could love Hector. Had probably loved him at one time. Hell, he could not remember. Damnation, he was getting a headache trying to sort this out…this…whatever the hell it was.
He wanted to be happy with a man. With this man. But it was not right. How he felt was too strong, his emotions too entwined with this family, and he could not live through another rejection if he let his heart have free rein.
He would allow himself stolen moments, lust, longing, affection for a lifetime, but not love. Love was too painful. They could have a brief affair. Be occasional lovers. Nothing more.
No happily ever after.
No forever.
It was not possible for people like them.
Will had taught him that when he left that cold Grantham winter night. The message was driven home again when Will’s vitriol and hatred at learning Wentworth slept with Hector turned into a violent assault.
Understandable, really, since Wentworth had tainted a young man of twenty and had never been brave enough to tell either brother. That deception still burned a hole in his heart. He swallowed a lump at the reminder.
Will would not have had such a horrified reaction if the act of sodomy were not so heinous in the eyes of society. Because of constant pressure and cajoling, Will had tried sodomy. Although they both enjoyed it for some time, in the end it had nearly ruined their friendship. Sleeping with Hector, betraying the family, did ruin their friendship. Will and his wife were filling a nursery, just what a man should do. The natural progression in life.
God, his thoughts were all jumbled. He turned away from Hector, trying to clear his mind. He felt stupid and confused. He needed time to think, but Hector kept pushing.
“Talk to me!”
He spat careless words, hoping to gain time. “This is not love. We are sating lust, that is all. We can have fun for a while, but nothing more.” Realizing what he said was an unmitigated lie, he ran fingers through his hair and forced a calm he did not feel. “I do enjoy your company. Stay the fortnight. We shall ride again tomorrow if you like.”
“So, by the end of next week you will break my heart? Is that what I must look forward to?” Hector’s voice shook as if his heart did not need to wait an extra week before shattering.
Wentworth almost reached out for him then. He did not want anyone to ever feel the pain that had nearly ruined him a decade ago, but he could not touch the lad. Out of self-preservation, he kept his distance.
“I want you,” Hector said. “Not just for a fortnight, but forever. Don’t you see this is something special? We could make a life for ourselves. You and I could be together, be a kind of family. I know men who have succeeded in this.” He reached out a trembling hand.
He wanted to accept that hand and the offer with all that was inside him, but Hector was fanciful. He needed a dose of reality, so Wentworth lashed out instead. “Don’t be ridiculous. Two men living together do not make a family!” He laughed. It was not a happy sound. “Do not delude yourself.”
“We can make it work. We must simply be discreet.”
“You do not understand.” He shook his head. “So naïve…”
“Naïve? I am too good for you, sir. I refuse to be second best.” Saliva sprayed on the last, heated word. “I will find a man who wants a life with me because he loves me. And you can rot in the pathetic world you created for yourself.”
Hector gathered his clothes, jamming arms and legs into shirt and pants with no regard to seams or tender skin.
“Be sensible and do not leave in a fit. The servants will talk.”
Cravat poking out of one pocket, hair sticking up on one side, Hector turned and gave him a rather vulgar hand gesture. Probably the most vulgar thing the boy had ever learned. He then turned on his heels and stormed out of the room, angry footsteps echoing off the teak floor.
Wentworth wanted nothing more than to bellow his words to the entire household, but he contented himself with raw mutters. “I should have kept my damn mouth shut. I knew he would not take the truth well.”
He’d protected his heart since the reunion with Hector, so why did he feel the boy’s absence so sharply? Because he wanted, no, needed Hector. He ached for the boy to return. He would talk to him in the morning and apologize. Perhaps by then his mind would be clear of all these half-formed thoughts, and he could start making sense out of his jumbled feelings.
Yes, tomorrow Hector would be calm, and they would work out this problem.
Chapter Eight
Hector brought the bay mare to a walk. No reason to take his foul mood out on the sturdy horse. It wasn’t her fault Wentworth was a bastard.
Wiping sweat from his forehead, he squinted at th
e orange sun blazing halfway up over the horizon. It would be a hot day. It was already warm even in the shade of the large oaks lining the dirt road. The horse would need water soon.
He trembled with anger, thinking about last night’s confrontation.
He’d left at daybreak, would have left the night before had it been a full moon. He’d demanded a horse with good stamina be saddled, and he’d taken only his leather money purse and stormed from the cursed Kent estate. Fearing Wentworth would catch up to him, placate him, and seduce him into staying the rest of the fortnight, he’d not even taken the time to exchange horses at his family estate. And there was the off chance he might see William, and in his current mood, he might try to kill his brother. So he left as fast as possible, and it felt like he was fleeing.
In fact, his exodus had been so rushed, he’d forgotten to ask the horse’s name. Poor girl.
Wentworth was a bastard! Damn, it kept coming back to that. Hector’s judgment in regard to the men he fancied was dreadful. Why couldn’t he have fallen for someone stable, like Lord Blair had when he found his Captain Wedgewood?
And Hector had known better, since Wentworth already broke his heart once before. Still, he’d coordinated this sojourn into hell with eyes open and his heart on a salver, even knowing why Wentworth left the country. He’d been too ashamed of plotting malfeasance against the Somerville family to remain on good, clean English soil. After spilling the truth about cooperating with a demented man obsessed with Mary just to keep her from marrying Will, Wentworth signed his ship up for patrol after patrol. He overtaxed himself, his vessel, and his crew, and for what purpose? Punishment for his actions? Fear of retaliation?
Hector sided with the family; he’d had to. Wentworth’s actions almost led to Mary’s death, not that he’d known Admiral Greig was demented, but still he’d lied to Will, to Hector, to all of them. The man had done something unconscionable, so of course Hector sided with his family.
To be sure, he was an idiot to give the man a second chance, and Wentworth was a bastard. A fucking bastard.
He remembered the last time he’d seen Wentworth before he left the country, the day he learned how agonizing a broken heart could be.
For years he’d had a niggling suspicion wrapped around his chest that William and Wentworth were once lovers, but he stupidly believed that if they did have a liaison, it had been out of convenience and so lacked in importance. But when he saw the two men fight and wrestle on the floor on that winter day, they’d looked so much like they were mimicking the act of love. They were the closest of friends, who had helped each other through an abusive father, through war, and through love and lost love. But were they still lovers?
He’d always been jealous of Wentworth’s affection for Will, but he never truly believed Will had returned that affection. He’d never believed they were in love.
On that day almost two years ago, the small, wiggling green emotion in his chest ignited, and Hector turned into something he was ashamed of. When he observed the two men struggling on the floor, his bones felt fluid, his muscles on fire, and he could easily have killed them both on the spot—right there on the floor, struck them down when Wentworth’s lips brushed against Will’s ear.
He remembered wondering if they were lovers, something Wentworth confirmed yesterday. Were they still occasional lovers? Damn it coming back to that. No. No. He did not believe that for a moment. Will was too infatuated with Mary to stray.
That horrible night in Grantham, watching his brother and lover fight through a red haze, he’d shoved Mary away. Laughing as he realized he’d been trying to keep her away from the fighting men. He’d scoured the room for a weapon to do both men harm. For a few horrible seconds, he’d been angry enough to kill.
While he searched, Will and Wentworth had lost strength and stopped throwing punches, but they continued their verbal sparring. Their bodies writhed together as if the motions were choreographed, long practiced.
Fortunately, Mary had stopped Hector before he could lay his hands on the large earthenware urn by the door. Otherwise, he would have likely smashed it over both men’s heads and spent the rest of his life in gaol.
Hector rubbed more sweat from his face with a violent flick of his thumb.
What a bastard!
Wentworth. Will too, for that matter.
Unmitigated fucking bastards! May they both rot in hell!
He swallowed bitter anger to keep from spurring the horse to a gallop, and patted her neck. The poor girl seemed to be aware of his tumultuous emotions and pranced worriedly, ears twitching and tail flicking. “It’s okay, girl. You’re a wonderful horse, and I promise to get you extra grain when we arrive in London.”
Hector planned to stable the horse at his brother’s London residence. He’d flung a note on the bed in his room asking for his things to be sent there, where they could also retrieve the horse.
There was a stream not half a mile ahead. With shaking hands, Hector brought the mare to a trot. Once they both slaked their thirst, he mounted. They should arrive home within the next two hours. By then he hoped to have his emotions—no, his anger at Wentworth, at Will, and at himself reined in.
Chapter Nine
Early summer 1808, London
Hector leaned his head against the padded carriage interior, feeling as if his bones had turned to porridge as he watched the upper-class neighborhood change into a very small middle-class one, which then turned into lower-class housing.
Not quite comfortable, he propped his chin in his hand because he didn’t have the will to hold his head up as the conveyance rocked over the cobblestones, en route to inspect another business. The fourteenth that week.
Third sons without land had few, if any, legitimate opportunities. And being the way he was, he didn’t have the option of marrying an heiress. Well, he supposed he could, but he wouldn’t subject some poor woman to a chaste match.
He’d been saving as much of his allowance as he could over the past four years, not spending it like most of the young bucks at gaming halls and on loose women. That last part made him laugh. The sound disappeared into the padded carriage interior as if the mirth never existed.
Good thing he had the will to laugh at himself these days, for he certainly had not laughed at anything else the past month. Not since he’d stormed out on Wentworth. Not since leaving his own soul trampled, his heart buried in Kent.
Upon returning to London, he tallied all his savings and investments and asked his friends, Lord Blair and Captain Wedgewood, who’d made bundles on their joint shipping venture, for a small loan. Then he started looking at businesses to purchase. Which venture was not important as long as it let him use his talent for numbers. Keeping accounts, analyzing costs, and studying population growth had always fascinated and come easy for him. He would organize the venture as a company within a company, as his name could never be associated with trade. It wasn’t fashionable for a member of the Ton to be involved in trade, but who gave a damn? It was unlikely anyone would find out, anyway.
He’d had this idea several years ago and talked to a less-than-scrupulous lawyer on how to structure the transaction. He decided it would be a lark at worst, profitable at best. And it would fill his mind with thoughts other than one dark-haired viscount.
He had hopes for the factory he headed to look at now, and he’d fabricated an event as an excuse to use the family carriage for this trip. It should make a very good impression on the owner. The family-owned manufacturing company made simple porcelain and ceramic kitchenware; nothing fancy, but highly functional and much needed for a growing lower- and middle-class populace.
Profits would be slow but steady if managed properly. Of all the enterprises Hector had screened, this was the one he held the most hope for. It should at least be able to fund his simple needs in life so he would not have to beg his eldest brother for additional monies if he needed anything. Besides, times were changing, and some peers had switched to investing out of necessity.
His decision was not completely unique, but he had not confided in his brothers. In fact, he had avoided William since the confrontation at Wentworth Manor.
Initially, he planned to take this step in a few years when he had sufficient funds to purchase the business outright, but he needed an occupation so he would stop moping about.
Wentworth had written him eight letters. The letter Hector wrote, in which he insisted that Wentworth stop communicating with him, was posted this morning. Pouring all his anger on paper, he let Wentworth know in vitriolic prose that he would never talk to him again. Perhaps what he wrote had been cruel, but he couldn’t find it in himself to feel bad about sharing his feelings. If Wentworth’s letters had contained any warmth…but they were so technical, so cold. There was no affection bleeding off the page even though that word decorated the page like a dark-inked lie.
The carriage turned a sharp corner into a lower-class section of town. He paid more attention. This is where his employees would come from if he purchased the porcelain works. He was relieved to see the residents obviously cared about their neighborhood—the streets were somewhat clean, most of the rubbish and horse dung swept, flower pots on windowsills, houses well maintained. The people who lived here would have pride in their work, their livelihood.
Hector’s mood began to lift. For the first time in thirty-six long days, he felt enthusiastic about the future.
They stopped in front of a nondescript one-story building constructed of utilitarian materials, nothing fancy, which was what one wanted in a business. Put all the money in the product, not the building itself. Hector smiled.
An hour later, after looking at the workings of the business and checking the books of account, he decided to have his solicitor compare the books with the receipts to ascertain everything was as it seemed.
He backed out of the humid, hot building onto the sun-warmed street and dried his forehead with his sleeve, sharing goodbyes with the owner, Mr. Tennyson, a gray-haired man with stooped shoulders and a broad smile. Two more steps back, and he came up against what felt like a brick wall, but the brick wall grabbed his arms. Shaking off the unwelcome grasp, he turned and crouched, preparing to protect his valuables and his life.
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