by KJ Charles
“She is one of my dearest friends,” Hart said severely. “Although it was a near thing, to be honest. I know you did not make a marvellous impression on her—”
“She saw right through me, didn’t she?”
“At least she didn’t have your hands broken. I would like to mend matters between you, though. She is my only friend with whom I speak about my personal affairs—”
Robin blinked. “Lady Wintour knows your tastes?”
“Knows? She explained them to me, when she ended things.”
“Oof.”
“It was salutary. She is a good friend, and I think you might like each other, given a fresh start.”
Hart wanted him to meet his friend? As his lover? Robin attempted to keep his posture relaxed while digging his fingers into the upholstery.
“Anyway, I digress. I merely meant to say that Giles is a high stickler, but I hadn’t previously seen him so judgemental. He is deeply hurt, of course, but even so. I’m sorry for his choice, and that things have ended thus, for both their sakes.”
“Thank you.” Robin could feel something hard and angry dissolving in his chest. “Thank you, Hart. That means a great deal.”
Hart offered him an uncertain smile. “Talking of people left distraught by their lovers, I wondered if I could speak to you about my offer.”
“Yes, you can, but could you just...not do the same thing again?”
He winced. “I think I have finally grasped that. Let me try to explain myself? When I made you that offer, I wanted to give you the security you have asked for, but I also wanted something like the arrangement, because, to be quite honest, it was something I understood. You asked me if I believed you wanted me for myself. And honestly, I do find it hard to believe because you are wonderful, Robin, bright and airy and irrepressible. You find joy wherever you can, and make your own. You are gloriously loyal and kind, and desirable in every possible sense. I want you and I want to be with you, and what do I have to set against all that but money? I am not used to—to being cared for, and I certainly should not presume it.”
“Hart—”
“No, wait. I need to explain. I’d have liked to sweep you off your feet, but I know I’m not capable of that. I did think I could serve you, though. I wanted to make you feel safe. And you thought I was trying to buy you, but I hope you’ll believe that I meant the opposite. I thought, if you didn’t have to worry about money or your future, you would be able to choose freely, and then...well, I hoped you might choose me.”
“But I would have had to choose you to get the money,” Robin pointed out.
“Yes, that was where my plan fell apart. It is staggeringly obvious to me now that I had everything wrong, but I’ve never offered carte blanche before, and frankly I never want to again. It was foolish, but it was not nearly as foolish as my belief that it was for me to offer and you to accept. What I should have done was ask. Ask you if you wanted to have more time with me, and if you do, discuss how we might achieve that between us.”
“You wanted to do something for me, didn’t you?”
“I did, but that isn’t how I should have gone about it. I have spent a great deal of my life doing things for people—which isn’t a complaint, I am a damned lucky man to have my sister and Alice, but clearly I have got into bad habits.”
“Habits of seeing what needs doing and pressing ahead in the teeth of other people’s objections. I expect a lot of the things you do need doing,” Robin said. “This isn’t one of them. I don’t want your money because it would be bad for both of us. It would be bad for you to give it to me, because you have a lifetime of being responsible for leeches, and it would be bad for me to take it, because I have a lifetime of being an irresponsible leech.”
“That’s not fair. You had—have—a little sister to look after.”
Robin would have answered, but for the quite unexpected sob that rose in his throat, silencing him. Hart’s eyes widened. “Oh God. What did I say?”
“Nothing. It’s all right. I just— She’s very nearly taller than me, and stronger in almost every way and it’s been such a long time since she was my little sister, but she is. I didn’t know you saw that.”
“I should have seen it a long time ago. I’d do anything for Alice or Edwina too.” Hart paused. “Well, not become a fortune hunter, but I don’t have the qualifications. Robin, listen. I have needed something more in my life for a long time. I thought having my own business would answer that, and then I met you. Well, not ‘and then’, obviously, it was some time after our first meeting that I came to appreciate you, but the point is, I have been happier in the last month than any time I can remember. And that is not down to a fantasy lover, though heavens knows you were that, but to you. Making me see differently, showing me what care and kindness look like. Refusing to be squashed or shamed. Making me laugh, because you bubble with joy. You make me feel loved, and I love you. So the first thing I need to ask is whether you want to be with me too. And if you can’t answer me now, that is quite understandable, but maybe you will be willing to have that conversation one day—”
“Hart! I’m free now.” Robin was all but hopping on the edge of the settle. “I truly, desperately don’t want to batten on you, and it is important that you believe that.”
“I never meant to insult you."
“It’s not me you insulted,” Robin said. “The idea—the very idea—that I might not want you for yourself is an outrage. You’re wonderful. You carry the world on your shoulders, and you’re so scowling and so sensitive, and your thighs are glorious, and I adore you. I don’t deserve you, but I love you, and I want you to love me. And I want all the time I can have, preferably starting here and now while you kiss me a great deal.”
Hart lunged. They met in the centre of the room, and Hart put a hand to his face, cupping Robin’s jaw. He looked into his eyes with a kind of hungry wonder, and then he leaned forward and kissed Robin, absurdly gently, and everything was all right. Everything was so all right, he could have cried.
Hart’s mouth was hot and desperate, his hands sliding up and down Robin’s body before settling on his arse. Robin locked both hands on Hart’s shoulders and wrapped a thigh around his leg. Hart’s tongue delved into his mouth and Robin opened to him, his whole body nothing but a long stretch of wanting and needing, and they kissed wildly, until Robin lost his balance and fell into Hart, who held him as close and safe as if nothing could go badly at all.
THEY SPENT THE NIGHT at Hart’s rooms, since Robin had a single bed in the room he shared with Marianne. Neither of them was in the mood for elaborate loveplay. Robin whispered, “Hold me,” and Hart did, bare and close in bed, fitting Robin’s sturdy body to his own bulky one and bringing him off with a careful hand and his own prick between Robin’s thighs. It was...peaceful.
“Where is Marianne tonight?” Hart asked idly.
“Lady Colefax’s soiree.”
“I don’t know how she tolerates all that socialising. I’d run mad.”
“I’m not sure she won’t,” Robin said. “Tachbrook is a domineering prick, and Marianne has a temper.”
“She hides it well.”
“She can’t hide it forever. She could start a fight in an empty room, and she regards a belt as a handy indication of what to hit below. She will only put up with his condescension for so long. And—ugh. Normally I would back her against all opposition, but he’s a marquess. All the power, all the family, twice her age, she’ll be alone. I don’t like it, Hart. I don’t think she should do it.”
“Have you told her?”
“Of course, but she doesn’t back down easily, or ever, and it’s a lot of money, and mostly, if she doesn’t get Tachbrook now, we’re in trouble. She’s made too much of a splash in London to hook another rich man without a scandal. If she jilts him now, we’ll be going home by Weeping Cross. Except we’re not going home. Or anywhere near Manchester, or Salisbury either.” He shrugged at Hart’s look. “We lit our way to London with
burning bridges.”
“If it is any use, you would both be welcome to stay with me in Aston Clinton for as long as you needed.”
“You plan to invite an unmarried woman who has just broken her glittering engagement to your enemy into your home? I’m sure that wouldn’t cause any comment at all.”
“Damn.”
Robin squeezed his hand again. “You are a darling for offering. As if you and Marianne wouldn’t murder one another within the month.”
“I would like you to visit Aston Clinton though,” Hart said. “My home is plain enough—I had Mother’s extravagances sold—but it’s a fine old place, and I am proud of my roses.”
“You have roses?”
“A garden of them. I adore roses, no matter what they spring from.” He planted a kiss on Robin’s neck. “You would like it. I wish you would come.”
Robin wished that too. He let himself slip into the dream. “What would I do in Aston Clinton? Which, I may say, I have never heard of. Town? Village? Thriving metropolis?”
“Village. There is not a great deal of entertainment there compared to London, needless to say. But—” He stopped there.
“But?”
“It’s just a thought I had last night. Not even a thought, a castle in the air. You have your sister, and your life to consider.”
“But, Hart?”
Hart tightened his arm round Robin’s chest. “I told you I am setting up a new brewery in Tring, in partnership with James. It will be a great deal of work and there is Fenwick’s to run, plus my manager is to retire next year. I need another pair of hands. I intended to take someone on. That could be someone who needed training up from scratch.”
Robin wasn’t following. “And?”
Hart hesitated. “I don’t suppose you’d consider it?”
“Me?”
“I need a bright, personable, capable man. It seems to me I have one here.”
“But I don’t know anything about brewing. I have never done an honest day’s work in my life. I wouldn’t know how to start.”
“I didn’t know anything when I took over. James taught me the business, and I learned. So could you.”
“Could I?” Robin said, almost breathlessly.
“I can’t see why not. You’re quick and clever, and exceptionally likeable, which I am not.”
“Does that matter?”
“Well, the point of brewing beer is to sell it, and selling is better done by likeable people.”
“I can sell things,” Robin admitted. “Myself, for example, or the advisability of increasing the stakes mid-way through the game.”
“Beer should be easy. There are always arguments to be settled, bargains to be struck, men to be managed. Personal things, and you are very good at people. And it would be a trade, Robin. You’d have a salary that you earned, and skills you could take elsewhere. And this isn’t charity, or payment by other means, before you ask. I have far too much to do and I should work you like a dog.”
“It’s charity if you need to teach me everything.”
“Good Lord, Robin, how do you think people acquire skills? We all have to be taught.”
Robin sat up. “Tell me the truth, Hart. Is this something I could truly do, or are we playing?”
Hart propped himself up on an elbow, face serious. “I think you could do it if you chose to apply yourself. You’re perfectly capable. I wouldn’t invite you into my business if I didn’t think you would do well by it; I have too many responsibilities for that. If you don’t serve, I will tell you so plainly. But if you do...well, there is no reason the new man I am training should not take a room in my home on arrival, and stay a while, if he cared to. It’s a big house for me alone.”
“With roses in the garden, who wouldn’t stay?”
“It’s up to you. You would have to see if the life suits you. No obligation, needless to say. But if you’d care to try...”
Robin curved his neck to bring his lips to Hart’s fingers. “If you truly think I could do it, I would do my best. I swear. If you absolutely promise to tell me if I’m no good.”
“And if you promise to say if it does not suit. I could ask James to take you for a fortnight to begin with. He’s forgotten more than I’ll ever know, and I’m sure you will like him. And then we could say you come from Alphonso’s.”
“Oh God. Hart. Really?”
“Really.”
Robin opened his mouth to say yes, and then reality returned. “Marianne.”
“Marianne?”
“I need to be sure she’s safe,” Robin said. “If she marries Tachbrook, I suppose—but if it goes wrong—”
“You need to look after her. I understand.”
“Not at your expense. But it’s just been the two of us for so long and I have to know she’s all right. I can’t abandon her.”
“You have a responsibility,” Hart said. “I know, Robin. I wouldn’t expect you to do otherwise.”
“But if I can’t go with you—”
“Shh.” Hart pulled him down. “If that’s the case, we’ll find another way. We’ve already thought of one, so we can think of others.”
Robin buried himself in Hart’s chest. “I want this one,” he mumbled.
“So do I.”
“God, I love you,” Robin said. “Who’d have thought it? My castle in the air is a brewery.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
There were many things Robin had imagined himself and Hart doing on the last night of the arrangement, all of them more desirable than going to the Duchess of Aylesbury’s ball. Yet here he was.
The Aylesbury ball was one of the great events of the Season, and perhaps the most important for Marianne, since Tachbrook was first cousin to His Grace of Aylesbury by marriage. She was to be introduced to the great man as the Marquess’s affianced bride, a public acceptance and recognition of her status. The Dowager had sent her instructions as to what to wear.
“This is irrevocable, Marnie,” Robin said as he curled her hair in preparation.
“I know.”
Everyone would be there, it felt like. The Verneys were going, as were Hart, Mrs. Blaine, and Alice, on the basis of the geographical connection with the Aylesburys. He would have far preferred not to go, but Marianne was suffering under the tension of her lost love and her miserable engagement: he could see lines around her lovely eyes.
She looked defeated already, and that was frightening. They’d airily assumed she could make a husband do her bidding no matter how rich, but the fact was, she’d be outnumbered by his family, legally his possession, effectively powerless but for her own will, and wills could be broken. Marianne was strong, and savagely determined, but Robin wasn’t sure anyone could resist all that weight.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” he said.
“I know. Don’t say any more.”
“He’ll grind you down, Marnie.”
“That’s men for you.”
“No, it is not. For Christ’s sake. I don’t do that. Hart doesn’t. Tachbrook wants you to be a trophy in public and a victim at home—”
“Enough,” she said, and her tone made Robin clamp his lips shut.
After a few moments, she glanced up at him in the glass. “What about you, Rob?”
“What about me?”
“Hartlebury. Are you happy?”
“Very.”
She put up a hand to hold his. “You want to be with him, don’t you?”
“Yes. Very much.”
“Then for God’s sake do it. Don’t wait around to see me settled. I’m going to be a marchioness. Toddle off and sort out your unwedded bliss.”
“You know damned well that you and I stand together until we both choose to part,” Robin said. “I haven’t changed my mind on that, and Hart knows it too. If I have to wait for you—”
“Will he wait for you?”
“If he doesn’t, he’s not the man I think. But I believe he is. He knows what it means to love.”
She pres
sed his fingers. “I hope he knows what it means to love you. The poor bastard.”
“He may still be coming to terms with the consequences, I grant you.”
“I’m glad you have him. I’ll be out of your way soon, Rob.”
“You have never in your life been in my way. If you want to throw the ring back at Tachbrook and run for it, I’m in. We don’t need riches, Marnie.”
“And then what? Where will I go? What is my security against age if not marriage?” She glowered at the woman in the mirror. “I can do this. I will take the best and live with the worst. Don’t worry about me.”
THE BALL WAS A MAGNIFICENT affair. The ballroom was strung with apricot silk, wax candles blazed in the chandeliers and candelabra, musicians played, drink flowed. Marianne made a grand entrance on Tachbrook’s arm, superb in dark green with emeralds, his engagement gift, dripping from her neck and ears and wrist. She’d said they were hateful. Robin thought they were beautiful, but he was fairly sure that she hadn’t meant their appearance.
He wasn’t part of Tachbrook’s party. The Marquess had indicated that Marianne would have no future need for her own relatives or friends, since he would provide or approve those for her. So Robin arrived alone, and wandered the halls. He spoke to various acquaintances, responded to many congratulations, some of them sincere, on Marianne’s engagement, and fended off a few nakedly unpleasant remarks about how well she had done for herself or Tachbrook’s remarkable condescension. There had to be more than two hundred people here, a sad crush. God knew what it must cost.
He worked through the crowd into the salon, where there was a hubbub of conversation. Robin caught a flicker of dun-coloured coat and a fraction of bulky shoulder, and his heart skipped before his mind had caught up. Hart.
He squeezed his way forward between people, and as he did, an odd silence fell, rippling out from the centre of the room. Something was about to go wrong.
He didn’t know what, but he’d been in plenty of rooms just before things went wrong, and he knew how it felt. People sensed a storm about to break, inched away, kept watching. They did it in gambling dens and low taverns and prayer-meetings, and they were doing it now, at the Duke of Aylesbury’s ball.
