Beguiled

by Joanna Chambers

He wouldn’t need to say no to sidestep the responsibility that Chalmers was seeking to give him. It would be easy to give a few meaningless reassurances that he’d do what he could, while pointing out the practical difficulties. But David couldn’t do that. Had never been able to walk away from a cry for help.

  “I’ll watch out for her,” he said, meeting Chalmers’s troubled gaze with his own certain one. “And should she need it, I’ll do everything I can to help her. I promise you.”

  DAVID TOOK HIS LEAVE of Chalmers after a light dinner. It was dark when he left—yet not. Up the hill, on Queen Street, a faint haze of light glowed above the roofs of the townhouses. At first it puzzled him, but by the time he’d strolled halfway up the hill, he could hear the babble of the accompanying festivities. It was, he realised, the sound and reflected brilliance of the Illuminations, a grand spectacle that had been arranged in celebration of the King’s arrival.

  The royal yacht had finally arrived at the harbour of Leith two days ago, but aside from taking part in his official welcome at Leith yesterday—and the inevitable procession that followed—the King had not been seen. It seemed, however, that the people’s disappointment at the King’s evident lack of enthusiasm was being effectively diverted by the sights that greeted David when he reached Queen Street and beheld the city...

  ...aglow.

  Everywhere, there was light.

  David had heard about the plans for the Illuminations—they had been much discussed—but nothing could have prepared him for the magnificence of them. Queen Street teemed with people gawking at the wonders around them, and David joined them, merging into the vast crowd. The facades of the public and commercial buildings were festooned with flowing fabrics and cleverly cut paper transparencies, all of them vivid and glowing with light. There were images of the King, Britannia, saltires, thistles and lions rampant, every kind of patriotic flummery, lighting up the dark and shivering in the breeze. It was amazing. Spectacular and unprecedented. Who would have thought this grey, sober city had in it so much colour?

  A sudden explosion made David jump, then laugh as a shower of red and gold embers lit the sky. Another rocket went off, and another, one after the other like an artillery of guns. The explosions of light seemed somehow disconnected from the sounds, spontaneous fire bursts appearing out of nowhere, brief and amazing, leaving nothing behind but a drift of smoke that hung in the sky with nowhere to go.

  The spectators—David among them—laughed and gasped and cried out at the wonder of the display, letting out a collective sigh of disappointment when the rockets finally stopped.

  It was strange, he thought as he walked on, that such a simple thing had lightened his heart so much. What had he witnessed but a few coloured lights? The brief fellow-feeling of that shared laughter and joy. Yet he felt happier than he remembered feeling in ages, and more alive. Excited too, though he wouldn’t let himself think about the reason for that.

  “You know where my house is.”

  He allowed himself to be carried along with the crowd as he gazed at the wonders around him. He was drawing closer to a house he’d visited once before, but it wasn’t his doing. The crowd was taking him there. He just allowed it to happen.

  “Come anytime...”

  The local householders had become involved in the Illuminations too, it seemed. Every window on the street blazed with candles, the drapes thrown open, some of their occupants staring out at the street below. The light from all those windows brightened the streets till it was almost like daytime, or at least that part of the day before darkness truly falls. High above them, on the other side of Princes Street Gardens, the castle glowed too, its battlements strung with a necklace of fiery braziers.

  David drifted along, stopping briefly to chuckle with the other bystanders at a group of four sailors dancing a drunken hornpipe while a fifth tootled on a reedy flute.

  A battery of guns started thundering from the east. The guns on the Calton Hill, David guessed. More salvoes pounded out from the castle’s guns to the south, and a scattering of cheers went up.

  “God save the King!” someone called out, a sentiment that was echoed over and over again.

  When the guns stopped, the crowd began to move again, carrying David farther east. For a while, he strolled along Queen Street with everyone else, till he realised where he was. Standing at last in front of that house he remembered so very well.

  The crowd behind him pressed at him, but he resisted its friendly push. Instead, he stood there and let people flow around him, like water round a river boulder, as he stared at a familiar door with dark, glossy paintwork and a gleaming brass knocker.

  “You know where my house is.”

  He’d entered this house for the first time two years ago, and what happened here had been a defining moment in his life. He had given up something of himself in this place, and the experience had changed him in some way he still found difficult to put into words.

  Even now he could remember every detail of that night: lying in a bed with another man for the first time, the flickering patterns made by the candlelight on the ceiling while his partner’s mouth pleasured him. His partner—Murdo Balfour. Balfour leaning over him, taking his own pleasure, his dark gaze hot and possessive.

  David sagged against the iron railings in front of Balfour’s house and looked up at the windows above him, his chest aching. As with all the other private houses on the street, the drapes were open, the windows illuminated. And two floors up, a solitary figure stood at the drawing room window, staring out.

  It was as though a giant hand gripped David, crushing him till he couldn’t breathe. He stared, his hungry gaze eating up the picture Balfour presented, alone in his elegant castle.

  Why should that sight make David feel so sad?

  Why should it make him feel anything at all?

  Just then, Balfour shifted. He began to scan the crowd on the street below his house, as though he’d felt David’s attention somehow, like a physical touch. Or heard it, a silent call.

  David watched, waiting helplessly for Balfour to find him, and moments later, he did. His wandering gaze halted on David, and their gazes caught and held—for an instant, no more—before Balfour whirled away from the window and was gone.

  It occurred to David, somewhere in the back of his mind, that now might be a wise time to leave; that further encounters with Murdo Balfour might not be prudent. But he didn’t move. He leaned against the railings and stared at the glossy front door. And half a minute later, when it swung open, sure enough, there was Balfour, limned in light, a bright, excited smile on his handsome face. “Mr. Lauriston,” he called, lifting his voice against the chatter of the crowd and beckoning with his arm. “Won’t you come in?”

  David found himself walking towards the short flight of steps that led to Balfour’s open door. He moved like a man in a dream, travelling west against a river of people flowing east, and ascended the steps. When he finally halted in front of Balfour, he had not the slightest idea of what to say, only hesitated, greedily taking in the picture the other man presented. Balfour’s habitual expression of faintly mocking amusement—one lifted brow, a curl to his lip—seemed to have deserted him, and an unfamiliar tenderness warmed his dark gaze.

  “It’s good to see you again,” Balfour said. “I was afraid...we wouldn’t get another chance.”

  David frowned at that comment, and for some reason that provoked a smile from Balfour. The lines at the corners of his eyes deepened with gentle merriment.

  “Come in,” he repeated, this time putting his hand round David’s shoulder and propelling him forward. “Come and take a glass of wine with me at least.”

  Perhaps it was the dreamlike quality of the evening that made David accept Balfour’s invitation. The night seemed filled with infinite possibility. Infinite magic. He murmured his agreement and followed Balfour inside and up a set of stairs that felt familiar enough to imbue him with an unsettling sense of déjà vu as he mounted them. At the t
op of the stairs, they turned to walk down a corridor that led to a cavernous set of rooms he remembered all too well.

  No open drapes here. No, this was very private indeed.

  “Wine?” Balfour offered, crossing the room to a sideboard that already held a half-drunk glass of burgundy liquid.

  “Yes, please.”

  Balfour topped up the glass he’d been drinking from and poured another, handing the fresh one to David. Again that feeling of déjà vu spiked, drenching David in memories of standing in this very room, drinking Murdo’s wine and wondering what he’d been thinking of to come here. Wondering what the night would bring.

  He took a healthy swallow from his glass, hoping to calm the nerves clamouring in his gut.

  Balfour said, “I’d just been thinking of you. I couldn’t believe it when I looked out my window, and there you were, looking up at me.”

  “I didn’t plan to come. I was caught up in the Illuminations and came upon your house unexpectedly.” David felt a flush stain his cheeks at the half lie.

  The quirk of Balfour’s lips was oddly tender. “I suppose it was too much hope that you couldn’t stay away.” He paused, then added, “But I’m glad Fate brought you here.” He raised his glass in brief salute, then drank deeply, and, after a moment, David followed suit. Somehow they both ended up draining their glasses.

  David’s glass dangled from his fingertips, the wine warming his blood. He couldn’t think what to say, what to do, just stared at Balfour, tall and elegant in his expensive coat and pristine linen, as perfectly put together as a man could be. A knot of yearning twisted inside him, a yearning that was all tied up with his memories and with the way Balfour studied him, his gaze suddenly gone hot with desire.

  Balfour crossed the space between them and tugged the cool glass from David’s fingers, setting it aside and taking David’s face in his hands, bringing their lips together—

  —in a kiss.

  For an instant, David froze, passive and disbelieving, as Balfour’s lips pressed against his own; then he groaned, lifting his hands and fisting them in Balfour’s clothes, gripping him, and pulling him closer with jerky, desperate movements. Balfour reciprocated, and then they were half embracing, half grappling, mouths opening and tongues tangling, both of them gasping for air between rough, wet kisses.

  It had been two years. It felt like forever, and it felt like no time at all.

  “I need—” Balfour muttered between kisses. “Need to see you.”

  They worked together, undoing buttons and buckles and knots, unpeeling coats and waistcoats and neck cloths, till they were both down to their breeches. And Christ but the heat and silk of Balfour’s skin rubbing against his own made David half-mad with lust.

  “Let me suck you,” Balfour muttered, dropping to his knees, his hands going to the placket of David’s breeches, his lips pressing against David’s fabric-covered crotch as he worked the buttons free with nimble fingers. He drew David’s cock out and engulfed the firm flesh in his hot, wet mouth.

  David cried out, his fingers tunnelling into Balfour’s dark hair, his hips helplessly bucking forward. God, the man’s mouth was heavenly.

  “Balfour—” he moaned.

  At the sound of his own name, Balfour pulled his mouth off David’s cock and leaned back on his heels. David looked down, blinking, to meet a sloe-black gaze that was half-pleading and half-angry.

  “My name is Murdo.”

  “Murdo,” David repeated dazedly, the sound of it unfamiliar to him, intimate.

  Balfour—Murdo—dipped his head again, and the heat and silk of his mouth enveloped David’s cock again. Oh, the luscious pull of those lips. The sinuous twining of that tongue. And—yes, there—the sudden astonishing space as Murdo opened his throat and let David slide all the way back.

  “I’m not going to last—” David gasped.

  Murdo’s only answer was to grip David’s hips harder, applying his mouth more eagerly to the task, and in moments, David climaxed straight down his throat in a crisis more intense that any he could remember. As though Murdo had drawn something more than mere seed from him.

  As soon as he finished, he felt ashamed of his eagerness. He’d lasted a minute at most, perhaps not even that. He’d never climaxed so quickly before, and he felt his cheeks suffuse with colour again. When he looked down at Murdo, it was to encounter a self-satisfied grin.

  “Good lord, how long has it been for you?” the man teased as he raised himself to his feet.

  “A while,” David mumbled. “Sorry.” He stepped forward and reached for the placket of Murdo’s own breeches to return the favour.

  Before he could loosen a single button, Murdo’s hand was on his, stopping him.

  “I want this to last,” he said, smiling, the little creases at the corners of his eyes ridiculously appealing. “Kiss me again.”

  David had been reluctant to kiss this man when they’d first met, but now, tonight, he didn’t hesitate. Maybe it was the magic of the night again, or maybe the words themselves, spoken like an incantation, Murdo’s softer, English-sounding accent caressing the syllables slowly. Whatever it was, David obeyed him, his hand snaking up to curl round the other man’s neck, drawing him down so that their lips could meet again.

  The taste of his own seed was in Murdo’s mouth. The salty brine of life. Salt on his tongue, and the taste of Murdo too. The scent of him, in David’s nostrils as they kissed deeper still.

  Ah, this was madness. He should stop this now and go. Pleasure was all very well, but when it was like this, when his senses were tricked into thinking this could be more than the mere scratching of an itch, there were consequences. Bittersweet regrets. Memories that were all the harder to bear for their remembered pleasure. Life was easier sometimes when you didn’t know what you were missing.

  But already it was too late to stop. He’d started a brand-new memory, and even now, knowing what it would be like to lie in his lonely bed weeks from now and remember this, the wanting, the craving was stronger. He could no more walk away from this than a starving man could refuse bread.

  And what pleasure. These kisses. The intimacy of them. The rough of Murdo’s chin scraping his own, the give of his lips. His tongue, teasing the corner of David’s mouth and the feel of his smile—lips curving up against David’s. David opened his eyes at that smile, just in time to see Murdo’s own lashes flutter open. And, the shock, the shock and the pleasure of meeting a gaze that expressed so perfectly what David felt at this moment: wonder, pleasure...unexpected affection.

  Murdo broke the kiss first, though he curled his fingers round David’s jaw, keeping him in place and brushing David’s damp lips with the warm, fleshy pad of his thumb.

  “Come to bed,” he husked.

  He drew David—heart thudding, breath still coming fast from their kisses—into the neighbouring bedchamber, halting at the end of the bed. He knelt, divesting David of his remaining, already loose clothing before unfastening and removing his own. When he stood again, fully naked, he pulled David flush against him.

  “You’re different than last time,” he murmured. “More...amenable.”

  “Am I? I feel just as overwhelmed.”

  “Overwhelmed?” Murdo’s gaze was teasing and curious at once.

  David hated the blush that returned to heat his cheeks yet again. His ready blush was the one thing he could never control, a horribly obvious betrayal of his feelings. “I’d never done this with anyone else before you,” he admitted.

  Murdo frowned. “Of course you had. You knew what you were abou—”

  “Like this, I mean,” David interrupted tightly. “In a bed.”

  “Oh.” Comprehension transformed Murdo’s expression. He turned David round and gently pushed him down onto the mattress till he lay flat on his back, then settled himself at David’s side, his hand propping up his head. It was all David could do not to grab hold of him. Despite having only just climaxed, David’s cock was as hard as stone all over again,
aching with need. How Balfour could lie there, just studying David’s prone body with calculated patience, was beyond him.

  When Murdo finally touched him, it was to smooth his hair back from his forehead.

  “Last time we did this, you told me you’d didn’t allow anyone to fuck you,” he said, watching David carefully.

  “I still don’t.”

  “You won’t let me do that, then?”

  David paused. The truth was, he’d thought about that very possibility a great deal over the last two years. And about what it meant to lie with another man; what it was that made a man a sodomite. About the thoughts he had that made him hard and needy in the dark hours of the night, and the images that floated into his mind while he serviced—or was serviced by—another faceless man. It certainly wasn’t the case that he had no desire to be fucked. But it was still something that petrified him, though perhaps in a different way than it used to.

  Slowly, almost reluctantly, David shook his head.

  “All right. How about we pleasure each other at the same time?”

  David’s mind raced, considering possibilities.

  “Lie on your side,” Murdo murmured, and David obeyed, shifting his body into position while Murdo turned his own around. When he was done, they lay head to crotch, their bodies mirroring each other. Then, without giving David time to think, Balfour engulfed David’s prick in his mouth.

  It shouldn’t have been a surprise in the circumstances, but having already climaxed, it felt oddly rude and astonishing. Paralysed by pleasure, it wasn’t till Murdo’s cock stabbed at his chin that David woke up enough to play his own part in the mutual pleasuring Murdo had initiated. The blunt, reddened tip of Murdo’s prick bobbed for attention, butting at David’s lips, the skin impossibly soft. David inhaled, and Murdo’s musky scent teased at him, heady and good.

  Rather than swallow him straight down, David rubbed his cheek against Murdo’s shaft and burrowed his nose into the thatch of dark hair at his groin before pressing his lips against the hot flesh. He lapped at it with the flat of his tongue, adoring, moving up the length of it before sucking it into his mouth.