“Would you?” Owen asked, eyes bright with curiosity.
“I’d thrash anyone who looked at you sideways,” Arthur said, and then felt a little foolish. He sounded like a lovelorn schoolboy, not a respectable man above thirty.
His absurdity earned Arthur a charming blush, though, and better yet, a quick kiss full of that familiar affection he craved at least as much as he did Owen’s passion. “No, not me. Tom. Even after everything, would you still defend him?”
Arthur considered that, absently stroking a hand up and down Owen’s slender back. “Right now? Probably not.” He hadn’t wanted to face the truth of that, and saying it aloud hurt more than he thought it would. “I hoped this visit would mend things. Give us all a chance to learn to live with one another, even if we couldn’t forgive. I should have known better. Owen, that thrice-damned saucer, of all the things to drive me past the limit of what I could forgive!”
Owen’s face twisted into an expression of uncharacteristic fury. “That drove me to distraction too. To pass off your thoughtfulness as his own — and how much would you lay on its being Mrs. Drake who found it, anyway?”
“You’re almost certainly right about that.” Arthur hadn’t thought of it himself, but — of course she must have. Tom would have danced a jig naked in the town square before he spent ten minutes searching second-hand shops for a piece of china for Owen’s mother.
“I’ll tell her, of course. Once Tom’s safely away from Trewebury, since I don’t want to see my mother taken by the constables for murder.” Owen dropped his head back on Arthur’s chest, and Arthur laughed despite himself, picturing Mrs. Honeyfield killing Tom in a rage, perhaps using a shard of broken china as her weapon.
As it did most nights, the urge to tell Owen the truth welled up, a well-nigh irresistible pressure behind his ribs. I love you. The words echoed in his mind, but if he spoke them aloud, they could never be recalled. Fear froze his tongue — not fear that Owen would mock him, or be cruel, never that. It wasn’t in his nature. But his pity would be more humiliation than Arthur could bear.
Owen’s soft lips tracing his collarbone jolted him out of his fugue of longing and confusion. A moment later, Owen’s fingers trailed down his torso, drew little circles on his abdomen, and then wrapped around his cock.
Worn-out as he was, he still hardened in that knowing grasp. Gods, but he was tired. He could, possibly, rouse himself enough to spend, but the effort required to get there felt as far beyond him as the moon.
Owen moved, following the same path with his mouth that he had with his hand. “You don’t need to,” Arthur gasped, feeling that he ought to receive a medal for his heroism in discouraging Owen’s obvious intent. “I came to your bed tonight for nothing more than your company. I wanted to sleep with you in my arms.”
A nip to his stomach, followed by a soft laugh against the skin just beside his hipbone, made all Arthur’s muscles tense for an instant. His cock jerked in Owen’s hand. “You still can,” Owen murmured. “After.”
And then the slick, heavenly heat of his mouth engulfed the head of Arthur’s prick, and he dropped his head back to the pillow with a groan of pure delight. “Gods, Owen, that feels — I can’t —”
He buried his hands in Owen’s hair as his hips thrust up involuntarily. Owen moaned around him, increasing his pace as if spurred on by Arthur’s loss of control. He braced one hand on Arthur’s thigh and wrapped the other around the part of his prick he couldn’t fit in his mouth, and abruptly, it was too much. Arthur’s hands clenched, probably too rough against Owen’s scalp, as he spent every drop into his throat, pulse after pulse of exquisite pleasure running through every nerve.
With one last lick, Owen pulled back, drawing a final shudder from Arthur’s body. He drifted, breathing hard, finally connecting the rhythmic motion near his hips and Owen’s hitching breaths.
“Come here, love,” he said roughly, his voice thick. He pulled Owen up and slipped his hand beneath that absurd, wonderful nightshirt, finding Owen’s hard prick and pushing his hand away. Arthur wrapped his own around Owen in its place and stroked, once, twice, and then once more; Owen’s back bowed, his eyes shut tight, and the little, broken sounds he made were sweeter than any music Arthur had ever heard.
Owen dropped to the bed, completely limp. With the last of his waning strength, Arthur gently manhandled him out of his shirt and used it to clean them both, before tossing it away from the bed, somewhere.
“At least those shirts have one use, anyway,” he said as he bundled Owen into his arms and fell down, down, down into the pillows, his head spinning.
“They keep my shoulders warm,” Owen mumbled into Arthur’s neck. “You’ll need to keep me warm instead.”
Arthur tucked the blankets up to Owen’s neck and pulled him closer, until there was not so much as a fraction of an inch between them, anywhere. He wanted to reply, to say something suitably gallant — tell him how Arthur would do anything for him, care for him to his dying breath. Within seconds, they were both asleep.
Chapter Eighteen
It had been a quiet morning so far, but Owen still felt a weight lift off his shoulders as he escaped out one of the house’s many discreet side entrances and walked swiftly across the wide lawn toward the lime walk. Dr. Fellowes had been and gone and pronounced Mrs. Drake and the baby both safe and well, for now. Other than lingering in the hall when the doctor departed in order to hear his report, he had hidden himself away in the study since rising, ordering tea there rather than brave the breakfast-parlor.
Arthur had been elsewhere; Owen could only assume he was attending to their guests. It was with no small quantity of guilt, and a much greater quantity of relief, that Owen abandoned him to that duty and made himself scarce.
As ten o’clock approached, his fear of discovery grew, and he fastened his coat and rose from the desk. His guilt only increased as he left the house, but he needed this: solitude, cold but fresh air, and the chance to work off some of his nerves with exercise. His breath formed small visible puffs before his face, although the sun shone, with only a few clouds scudding across the pale blue sky. Sodden leaves blown down by the last storm littered the grass, as it had been too wet for the gardeners to rake the lawn, and all in all, it was the best of all possible autumn days.
Halfway down the shady avenue of the lime walk, he heard a voice call out behind him. “Owen! There you are.” His heart sank. That was Tom.
With great reluctance, he turned to face him. Tom was pink-cheeked from the cold and from the exercise; he was also slightly out of breath, Owen noted with dismay. Had he run to chase him down? A chance meeting he could have endured, but he could imagine no reason he would like for Tom to have sought him out. Even an apology would be more awkward than welcome.
“Good morning,” he said, a little grudgingly. He supposed it would serve no purpose to be rude.
Tom crossed the remaining distance between them, coming to a halt rather closer than Owen preferred. “It is a good morning,” Tom said. “All the better now.” And then, to Owen’s horror, he had the temerity to wink.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said faintly, although he rather thought he did. Several months as Arthur’s husband hadn’t ridded him of his blushes, but they had relieved him of most of his ignorance. Arthur was most like Tom when he flirted, and this, most definitely, was flirting. Goddess. This was very bad. Owen began to edge away, hoping to circle past Tom and return to the house.
Tom dashed that hope by matching his movements, placing himself directly in Owen’s path. “Are you so eager to run back to Arthur?” That touch of malice Tom had shown the night before had returned, and Owen felt it like a slap. Whatever lay between Tom and Arthur was their affair, something that no one not born into a family could fully understand. But what, in the goddess’s name, had Owen done to merit this? “He’s currently fully occupied with my wife,” Tom continued. “They seem to be getting along splendidly. My mother would
be so pleased. She always fancied a woman for him.”
That last insinuation didn’t merit an answer, even if Owen could have thought of one. “They are brother and sister now,” Owen said stiffly. “I’m glad they’re getting to know one another. Aren’t you?”
“Oh, very glad,” Tom replied, a strange gleam in his eye and a small smile playing around his lips. “It gives me the opportunity to spend a little time with you. It’s been too long since we were alone, don’t you think?”
Owen did not think. “I need to return to the house,” he said, giving up on subtlety. “Excuse me.”
Tom stepped to the side, blocking Owen’s progress once again. He stepped nearer, too, until he loomed over him from only a foot away. “Don’t play coy with me. We were in love, ready to be married, only a few months ago. You can’t convince me your feelings have changed so much in such a short space of time. Or are you really so inconstant?”
Owen gaped at him. Had he passed through some sort of portal to a fairy realm where logic had no meaning? Tom could not, could not be serious. “Inconstant? Are you really tasking me with — with inconstancy? You — you — you got a woman with child days after asking me to marry you!”
“I had a moment of weakness,” Tom said, low and pleading. His eyes widened, and he held out a hand. “Owen, I was never unfaithful to you in my heart!”
“I cannot — I will not listen to this,” Owen cried, and tried again to go around Tom, pushing him aside with one hand as he did. Tom caught him by the arm. Owen tugged uselessly. “Let go of me!”
“Listen to me first. I’ve seen how Arthur is with you, how he looks at you, speaks to you, speaks of you. He thinks he owns you — he bought you with his name and fortune and now he can sit back smugly and enjoy his new possession —”
“He’s not like that!” The tiny, horrid spark of doubt Tom’s words brought to life only made Owen the more desperate to escape. “We’re happy together. He cares for me. Now let me go!”
“Cares for you,” Tom scoffed. “He cares for you the way Barnard cares for the silver plate. Owen, you don’t need to live like this. We could be truly happy together, free to enjoy all the world has to offer. You have not the faintest clue how much there is outside of this dreary little country backwater.”
“This is my home,” Owen choked out, trembling in every limb from anger and offense. “And you —” He stopped suddenly, Tom’s meaning only just sinking in. “You are asking me to run away with you, to leave Arthur. You want to leave your wife, your wife who bears your child? Are you mad?”
“We don’t love each other. I love you, Owen, only you, and I know you must love me too.” He released Owen’s arm at last, but before Owen could dodge away, he had wrapped both arms around him and pulled him close. “Tell me you love me.”
“I don’t love you!” Owen tried to wrench himself away, but Tom held him too closely for him to get sufficient leverage. He wriggled and thrashed, and then Tom gripped him by the back of the neck and forced their mouths together.
The kiss endured for an endless moment, Owen’s mind spinning like a top, his body rigid with disgust and anger and terror. He managed to work his hands between their chests, intent on shoving Tom away with all his strength, and then he heard a distinctly feminine cry of, “Oh, gods!” followed closely by a deep, masculine shout of rage.
He caught a confused, blurred impression of Tom’s face, contorted with fear, and then he was stumbling back, the force of his own push against Tom propelling him away as Tom’s arms suddenly released their hold. He fell on his arse, catching himself with one hand before his back could hit the ground. A bit of gravel stung his palm, but the pain of it hardly mattered — as Owen landed, so did Arthur and Tom, Arthur on top with one hand wrapped around Tom’s neck and the other pinning his body to the ground.
Another cry drew his eyes to the entrance of the lime walk, where Mrs. Drake stood stiff with shock with her hand to her mouth and her eyes wild. He should go to her, take her away from here, before she suffered another fainting fit — but Tom’s gurgling scream pulled his gaze back to where the two brothers wrestled, Tom’s face bright red as he choked and Arthur’s drawn into a rictus of pure fury.
In a panic, Owen dived for them, wrapping his hands around Arthur’s arm, his fingers slipping as he tried desperately to pull that hand away from Tom’s throat. “Arthur! Arthur stop, it’s not worth it, he’s not worth it, nothing happened, for the goddess’s sake let him go…” He tugged frantically at Arthur, but it was like trying to uproot one of the trees that lined the walkway.
Tom’s face had gone nearly purple, and his hands clawed at Arthur’s, and still Arthur didn’t stop, didn’t so much as spare Owen a glance. All his attention was fixed on Tom, his eyes blazing. Owen had read tales of ancient berserkers, and rather wildly wished he had troubled to find out how they could be broken out of their rages.
“Arthur, please,” he begged, and then he tried the only thing he could think of. “Arthur. I love you.” The words had passed uneasily through his mind more than once, usually when they were in bed together after making love, Arthur’s arms around him and his body sated and content.
As they left his lips, he felt the truth of them sink into his very bones. Arthur didn’t feel the same — how could he? Owen was merely an obligation, one of which he was fond, and one which he desired, but not the husband of Arthur’s choice. He didn’t wish to unsay it, though. He meant it, and if nothing else, if Arthur believed him, he could believe that Owen hadn’t wanted Tom’s attentions.
“I love you,” he repeated, giving the words all the weight he could. He pulled again on Arthur’s arm, and this time he felt a tremor beneath his fingers. “I love you!”
The hand around Tom’s neck loosened, almost imperceptibly. Tom’s efforts to free himself had slackened; he was losing air and losing strength. Owen put one hand on Arthur’s wrist, and pulled again, and miraculously, Arthur let go. Tom sucked in great gulps of air, rolled over and retched feebly; as if in a daze, Arthur slowly rose, still staring down at his brother.
Owen stood with him and wrapped his arms around Arthur’s waist. “Look at me?” He reached up and put his hand against Arthur’s cheek. “Please?”
At last, Arthur turned and gazed down at him, his complexion a blotchy red and white, his eyes still glazed and dilated. “Owen?” he said, sounding like he did when he woke in the night. “Did you — did I hear you say —”
“Yes,” he whispered. “You heard.”
Their eyes met, and for a long moment Owen could see nothing else. He opened his mouth, perhaps to tell Arthur again, perhaps to beg for an answer.
Quick footsteps crunched on gravel, and they both turned to find Mrs. Drake standing beside them, looking down at Tom with a hard, set expression that sat oddly on her pleasant face.
“Caro,” Tom gasped. He pushed himself up a little on his elbows. “You have to believe me —”
Mrs. Drake leaned down, her arm moved, and a crack echoed through the lime walk as she slapped Tom full across the face. With surprising strength, too; the livid imprint of her hand stood out stark white against the crimson of Tom’s cheek.
“Don’t speak to me,” she grated out. “Don’t speak to me ever again.” And with that, she burst into a storm of weeping and flung herself against Owen’s chest. He froze in terror and helplessly, silently shot Arthur a look of pure pleading. Arthur raised an eyebrow that Owen interpreted as Better you than me, and gestured with his arms. That Owen had no trouble understanding, and he belatedly put his arms around her, feeling a strange surge of tenderness as he did so. He had never been so uncomfortable in his life, but she was his sister, now. He must learn to be the brother she needed and deserved.
Tom was struggling slowly to his feet, and Arthur stepped back, not shifting in the slightest to assist. “Owen, will you take her back inside?” Arthur said. “And as you go in, tell Barnard to see that Tom’s things are packed and the c
arriage is readied. He will be departing this house within the half hour.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Tom’s voice was hardly audible, so hoarse as he was. “First you nearly murder me, and now you’d toss a woman in her condition out to undertake another journey?”
Arthur’s lip curled. “Don’t sport with my patience or my intelligence. I’m not tossing Caroline anywhere. She is welcome to remain here as long as she chooses. You are leaving. Now. Before I really do murder you.”
“Is it safe to leave you alone?” Owen asked, over the sound of Tom’s outraged sputtering.
Both brothers turned at once to look at him. How could he have ever preferred insipid blue to the rich, deep, endlessly fascinating umber of Arthur’s eyes? “It’s safe,” Arthur confirmed. “I’m quite in control of myself.” His look held something Owen couldn’t define; he could only hope it wasn’t pity or dismay. He might be dreading the moment the two of them were alone, when he would be forced to confront Owen’s confession. Or ignore it entirely.
Owen swallowed hard, nodded, and led Mrs. Drake — Caroline, he supposed she would now be to him — away to the house.
Chapter Nineteen
Caroline settled back into the corner of the drawing-room sofa with a half-sigh, half-sob and laid her hands protectively over her midsection, rubbing in gentle circles. Owen abandoned any attempt at propriety, pulled off her shoes, and boosted her feet onto the other end of the sofa. For a moment he considered rubbing her feet as he had seen his father do for his mother in the evening, but — no. He might have mentally reclassified her as a sister, but she had yet to express her own feelings on the subject, her fit of tears in his arms notwithstanding.
Barnard had already waylaid him in the hall, and with Arthur’s instructions given, tea ordered, and Kitty sent for, all he had to do was perch on an ottoman by Caroline’s side and wait. He dropped his head into his hands. What if Arthur sent him away, horrified by Owen’s unwanted feelings? Or perhaps he would prefer Caroline’s company to his. He could help her divorce Tom and then marry her himself — and after all, Owen reflected grimly, it wouldn’t be without precedent.
The Replacement Husband Page 12
