Owen raised his eyebrows. “Out? I thought it was rather more the thing to stay home, the day after?” Arthur swallowed hard, images of what this day was after flashing rather vividly through his mind, and Owen blushed, clearly thinking along similar lines. “After being married,” he added in a rush. “After the wedding.” His emphasis clearly excluded any other events of the day before.
Arthur wanted to push the issue, and see if he could win a rather more explicit reference to their nighttime activities. But that might be a little cruel in the face of Owen’s confusion.
“Hang whatever’s more the thing. We can do as we please.” He took a deep breath, praying that he was about to make Owen happy, rather than embarrass him further. “Let’s call on your parents.”
Delight flashed across Owen’s face for a moment before wariness took its place. “You can’t possibly want to?”
Indeed, he did not want to. The Honeyfields had stayed for a portion of the afternoon the day before, along with several friends and well-wishers who had been invited to the wedding breakfast; they had lingered when the other guests departed, and Arthur suspected they had not wanted to leave Owen alone with him. Perhaps, he thought rather guiltily, they had a fair point, given the way he had behaved last night. Not that Owen had objected overmuch, but his mother and father might have a rather different view of the way he had debauched their son.
“There’s nothing I would like better,” Arthur said with staunch cheer. “And I’m sure they would be glad to see you.” To make sure he hadn’t chained him to the bed or locked him in the attic, no doubt.
Owen’s answering smile lit up his whole face this time, and his eyes positively glowed. “Then — may we go at once?” He sounded as eager as a child with a birthday present.
Arthur pushed back his chair and held out a hand. “I only need my hat.” Owen took his hand, and even gave his fingers a gentle squeeze, and Arthur was quite certain that any number of hours in the Honeyfields’ cramped drawing-room, subjected to suspicious glares, would be well worth it.
“More tea?” his mother asked, her tone all solicitousness. Owen hid his wince as Arthur, his polite smile growing rather grim about the edges, held out his cup for the third time. He had never once seen Arthur voluntarily drink tea. He suspected that his mother had noticed too, and had forced the issue on this occasion because she had.
She set the teapot down on the table at the end of the settee she and Owen’s father occupied, and resettled herself opposite Owen with an air of perfect innocence. Owen’s father simply sipped his own tea and stayed out of it, as he was wont to do.
“Mama, not everyone likes tea as much as you do,” Owen said, trying for nonchalance. She had not wanted this marriage, but it was done and over, and surely she would reconcile herself to it. Surely she must. Owen sent up a heartfelt plea to his patron goddess that it would be at once.
“Nonsense,” his mother said, proving quite conclusively that Mirreith had chosen not to listen. Her tone had gone from bland to sweet, and every muscle in Owen’s body tensed. “You must learn your husband’s preferences a little better than that, my dear. I’m quite sure you’ve complimented my blend before, haven’t you, Mr. Drake?”
Owen turned his head in time to catch the quick but speaking glance Arthur threw his way from where he sat beside him. It conveyed both gratitude for Owen’s attempted intervention, and a plea — perhaps for Owen to either stop making matters worse, or to offer Arthur a swift death, he wasn’t sure which. “Yes, of course, madam. It’s delightful,” Arthur replied after a moment of awkward silence.
Arthur took a careful sip. Owen thought he heard him grind his teeth, hidden behind the rim of the cup. And that was more than enough of that. He loved his mother and father, truly, more than anyone in the world, but this was the outside of enough. Arthur must have the patience of Mirreith’s high priestess herself, and Owen had never been so mortified in all his life.
He set down his cup and stood. “I think we had best be going,” he said, narrowing his eyes at his mother in a way he hoped added, because you’re being horrid. “It’s more traditional for newlyweds to spend time at home, but Arthur thought it would please you to see me today, and so he offered to escort me.”
His father’s mouth opened, and for a moment Owen was sure he would say something nice, give one of the responses he hoped his praise of Arthur’s thoughtfulness might evoke.
And then his mother spoke first, addressing Arthur, not Owen. “Is there some reason why you objected to his visiting alone?”
Owen sputtered, and his father said, “Emma,” and Arthur’s strained voice cut through it all with, “What precisely are you implying, ma’am?”
A cold silence descended, as his mother’s face turned a shade of cherry-red that could not possibly be healthy, and his father gaped like a hooked fish. Arthur set his teacup down on the end table hard enough that the saucer cracked in two. The stillness broke with it.
Owen’s parents and Arthur all jumped to their feet at once, putting them awkwardly face to face, and Owen reached out blindly for Arthur’s arm, grasping at his sleeve as if to — what? Arthur would hardly commit violence, but the pressure in Owen’s chest was suffocating, and the pressure behind his eyes built to the point of pain. He tugged, but it was like pulling at a slab of granite.
“That china belonged to my grandmother,” his mother hissed. Oh no, oh no, if she was beyond shouting… “And not one piece of it has ever been broken. Not one!” Her voice rose to a pitch that could easily have shattered every cup and saucer in the house.
Owen yanked again on Arthur’s arm. “We should go,” he tried again, his voice horribly faint. “Please, we ought to go.”
“Emma, that is quite enough,” his father said sternly — a grave tactical error.
Owen’s mother rounded on him, with a sharp, “I don’t think it is!”
His parents began to speak over one another, their voices rising, and this was perhaps their only chance to escape. Owen wrapped his whole arm around Arthur’s and dragged him toward the door by main force. They were too far from the side door to get out that way; it would have to be through the hall. Arthur followed at last, and Owen tugged the door open and all but ran for the back of the house. If they went out the front, the whole neighborhood would see them fleeing.
“Our hats are back there!” Arthur protested, and Owen paused long enough to turn his head and shoot him a look of utter disbelief. “Right,” Arthur said, as the raised voices behind them raised a little farther. “Forget the hats; lead the way.”
Chapter Twelve
They were half a mile from the house before either of them spoke, partly from lack of breath — their headlong run had lasted all the way to the end of the garden and then some way along the footpath — and partly from the lack of anything to say that the other might wish to hear.
No one had followed them, as Arthur was half afraid they might have done; the only impediment to their flight had been the housemaid, who had cried out indignantly as they ran through the kitchen. “It’s all right, Martha,” Owen had called back over his shoulder. “But you should really go out to do the marketing, quickly!”
Arthur had felt a burst of fondness for his young husband at that. Despite the gods-awful morning they’d just endured, Owen had still spared a moment to think of the maid, when Arthur would never have taken the trouble. Owen, who now walked beside him, his bare head shining golden in the sunlight, his hands fisted at his sides. His profile was cast in shadow, since the sun shone from the other side of the path, but what Arthur could see of it was pale and set in lines of deep unhappiness.
The house was only another half a mile away, a matter of ten minutes’ walk, but Arthur couldn’t allow another second to pass without trying, at least, to comfort him. “Are you quite all right?”
It wasn’t the most inspired opening, but “Have your parents taken leave of their senses?” seemed less than suitable, and Arthu
r couldn’t think of anything better.
“No,” Owen said, with a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “I can’t believe — goddess. I can’t believe she would speak to you that way. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Arthur, I’m so terribly —”
Arthur did the only thing he could think of to end that pitiful litany of apologies, apologies that were neither really needed nor coming from the person to blame. He stopped, wrapped his hands around Owen’s upper arms, pulled him against his chest, and kissed him.
Owen’s lips were as yielding and as utterly delicious as the night before; Arthur lost himself for far too long in exploring their sweetness, and reveling in the way Owen opened his mouth and gave himself over to Arthur without reservation. He had meant only to distract Owen, to soothe his unhappy turmoil. When they surfaced at last, Arthur’s breath came in great heaves, and his cock was half-hard; Owen’s eyes, when they fluttered open, were glazed and dark.
“I don’t want to hear any apologies,” Arthur said.
A slow smile overtook Owen’s face. “You made that clear enough, I think.”
Arthur could only answer that with another kiss — that smile was meant to be kissed. He trailed more kisses down the line of Owen’s jaw and nuzzled the tender skin of his throat above his cravat. He had his arms firmly around Owen’s body, now, and let his hands drift down, seeking the soft curve of Owen’s arse.
Belatedly, he remembered he had some other purpose than seduction, and lifted his head. “You did nothing wrong,” he said softly. “You tried to defend me against — I’m not sure what, to be honest. But I was grateful for it all the same.”
Owen dropped his head against Arthur’s chest, forehead resting on his clavicle. He sucked in a deep breath and sighed it out. Arthur could feel his heart pounding. “I made matters worse,” he muttered into Arthur’s cravat.
“I’m not sure there was a way to make matters better.” He stroked a hand up and down Owen’s back, again and again, and felt Owen relax against him, just a trifle. “I know they didn’t want you to marry me. I suppose they thought as a goddess-blessed, you could do better?” Arthur didn’t really suppose any such thing. In fact, he was quite in the dark. But he had observed Owen enough to know that direct, open-ended questions were more likely to fluster and distress him, when the answers upset him. Fishing for tidbits of information, though slower, would yield more results in the end.
Owen was silent for long enough that Arthur thought he might not get any answer at all. “It’s not that,” he said at last. He sounded drained, quite hopeless. Arthur hadn’t really gotten angry at the Honeyfields — indignation had overcome him briefly, but they loved their son. However misguided their suspicions might be, they clearly thought Owen wasn’t safe with him, and Arthur could hardly blame them for their desire to protect him, particularly not when Arthur felt the same.
Now, a flash of fury ignited in his breast. Owen was his to care for, now, his to guard and cherish. He had sworn as much the day before; he had meant every word, but it was just now dawning on him what that entailed. Even Owen’s parents could not be allowed to hurt him. Before the wedding, that relationship had been one in which Arthur ought not to interfere. Now, like everything else affecting Owen, it was his affair and his responsibility. They had no right to make Arthur’s husband unhappy. They were perhaps the only people in the world whose noses Arthur wouldn’t be willing to break when they did, but even so. Arthur couldn’t tolerate it.
“Tell me why, then. Before we were married I didn’t ask, even though it was clear they didn’t approve. But now I have a right to ask, and to expect an answer.” Owen just shook his head against Arthur’s chest. Arthur lifted one hand away from his back and stroked through Owen’s hair instead. It was like strands of silk, fine enough to catch on Arthur’s fingers, callused from years of riding and fencing. He petted Owen’s head for a moment, and then said, more gently, “I need to know if I am to help you resolve whatever their reservations might be. I am your husband. Owen. I don’t ask because of any authority I mean to exert over you, but because I want to help you. Tell me, and let me help.”
A sniffle from somewhere in the folds of his cravat was the only answer, followed by a sigh. Arthur kept up his caresses. Finally Owen lifted his head. His nose was very pink, and his eyes a little watery, and for no reason Arthur could think of, he was more beautiful than ever.
Owen took a deep breath, and to Arthur’s resounding disappointment, stepped back and out of Arthur’s arms. “They were — they were very angry with — with him.”
“Yes,” Arthur said slowly, “so was I. And so were you. At least I hope you were more angry than grieved. I can see why I might be tainted by association, but I’m hardly responsible for his behavior.” He kept his voice level by main force; even a hint of offense or hostility might be enough to close Owen down again completely.
Owen crossed his arms and frowned a bit at that. “They do think you might be like him.” A long pause followed, and Arthur clasped his hands behind his back. It was either that or grasp Owen by the ankles, turn him upside down, and attempt to shake the words out. Patience with one’s husband, it seemed, was easier resolved upon than practiced.
“They think you’ll tire of me, and divorce me, and take a m-mistress, and probably be cruel when I’m not what you want, and let your friends laugh at me for being a foolish little country v-virgin. And then — then divorce me. I think I already said that.” Owen spoke suddenly, and in such a rush that Arthur could hardly parse his meaning. When he did, and the full scope of his imagined future crimes became clear, the air rushed out of him just as it had the time he’d been punched full in the stomach during a drunken boxing match, several years before. For a moment, he feared he’d cast up his accounts just as he had on that occasion, too.
If it had just been the Honeyfields who entertained such absurd, outré speculations, he might have been able to laugh it off. But Owen clearly didn’t find it absurd — he thought it possible. Likely, even. He thought Arthur would —
Arthur turned abruptly, forced into motion by — it had to be fury, it could not, could not be grief and betrayal — and walked away, his fists clenched. He spun and advanced on Owen, who stumbled back a step, eyes wide with fear, his whole posture that of a man poised to run.
That stopped Arthur dead. He could halt the movement of his body, but the emotion searing his insides like magma must have an outlet. “They think I will do what, precisely?” he roared, unable to stop the words, even as Owen flinched away from him. “Neglect you? Abuse you? And then divorce you, after I’ve, what, had my fun? Tom might not have been any prize as a husband, but even he —” His chest heaved as he ran out of breath.
It was just as well. Owen was panting too, as if he had been the one shouting. His pale, pinched expression tore at Arthur’s conscience, and abruptly, his rage evaporated, regret rushing in to fill the space it left behind.
“Owen,” he said, helplessly, and held out a hand.
“No,” Owen said, and stepped back. That hurt, a pain like Arthur’s chest cracking in two. They had been married only a day. Only one day, and already he had failed in every duty of a husband. Owen would leave him, annul the marriage, and the days to come would be — empty. He had not realized how much he had looked forward to days, weeks, years of coming to know Owen, to understand his every look and gesture, to explore his lovely body and the intricacies of his mind. Loss sat heavy on his shoulders, and he knew it was a weight he would bear for a long time, perhaps forever.
“Owen, please,” and his voice broke a little. “I would never. I would never do anything like what you’ve described. Please.”
He waited, in silence, with his hand outstretched, for longer than he thought likely to be of use. Owen stood perfectly still, pale and miserable.
At last his arm faltered and dropped back to his side, and as it did, Owen’s face crumpled, and he lunged forward and seized Arthur’s hand in both of his. He ga
zed up at Arthur, panicked and distraught. “I know you wouldn’t!” he cried. “I know you wouldn’t. I wouldn’t have married you. Don’t —” He faltered to a stop.
Arthur wrapped his fingers around those slender hands, cold despite the warmth of the day, and pressed them. Without meaning to, he found himself sliding his other through Owen’s hair to cup the back of his neck. He rubbed his thumb over Owen’s cheekbone and carefully tilted his head up, so that he could look at him.
“Don’t do what?” He moved a little closer, drawn like an iron filing to a magnet.
“You must hate me, for thinking that of you. Any of it. But they were so very sure it would turn out badly. And I used up all of my — all of my strength, arguing with them. I didn’t have enough left to persuade myself that it was all nonsense.” He gazed up at Arthur, eyes huge, pleading for his understanding as much with that look as with words.
Arthur had never been in love. If he had, he might have recognized the inevitability of his fall, have understood the signs in his own behavior. “Hate you?” Arthur laughed, then, at his own blindness, and at the essential absurdity of the position in which he now found himself. His husband, whom he now saw that he loved almost to distraction, was not quite convinced he was not a monster. “Not bloody likely,” he said. Another unpleasant thought struck him. “If you believed that of me, why did you…last night. Why?”
In a heartbeat, Owen went from deathly pale to as pink as a hothouse peony. “I thought it wouldn’t matter much,” he said. “If you were going to divorce me, or something worse, then you would. And I — I wanted to,” he finished, almost in a whisper.
Relief nearly took Arthur out at the knees. Relief — and something else, scalding through his veins and rousing his prick to full attention. He shifted closer still, drawing Owen in so that they were pressed together from chest to thigh. Arthur leaned down until his lips almost brushed one delicate ear. “Do you want to again? Now, possibly?”
The Replacement Husband Page 8
