by Lily Maxton
“You don’t look like you expect to find anything.”
He sat back on his heels. “No. Miss Worthington doesn’t strike me as the type.”
“Because you like her?”
A beat of silence passed. “Well, yes, I suppose.” He did like Miss Worthington. He enjoyed talking to her—she was direct and practical and just a little bit wry, and she had nearly bested him at billiards, which was no easy feat. And it wasn’t as though she was difficult to look at—she was a very attractive woman.
That subtle little notch appeared between Cameron’s eyebrows, but when he spoke, his voice was flat. “That doesn’t mean she’s not a thief.”
“I suppose not.”
But they found nothing, as he’d suspected, and then they went to Mr. and Mrs. Worthington’s room. The couple had been given the largest and nicest bedchamber. A four-post bed with curtains covered in sprawling pink flowers took up the center of the room, and a rosewood washstand and armoire stood along the far wall.
Robert was striding toward the armoire when a sudden noise made him halt. “What was that?”
A feminine giggle drifted from down the corridor.
Damnation! Were they back already?
Footsteps approached, slowed, stopped. The door creaked as though a heavy weight was leaning against it, and Robert heard the unmistakable sound of a moan.
He stared at Cameron, wide-eyed. The other man was scanning the room. His eyes landed on the bed—or rather, the space underneath it. The only place where two adult men might actually have a chance of hiding.
Robert hesitated, and then the door began to open and instinct took over. He lunged for the bed, wiggling past the bed skirts until he thought he was concealed. But it wasn’t comfortable. Cameron, who’d sidled in from the other side, took up every spare ounce of space. His elbow dug painfully into Robert’s rib cage, and Robert couldn’t even move his legs without tangling them with Cameron’s. He could feel Cameron’s hot breath on his cheek.
And then the unexpected visitors tumbled in, and Robert wished he’d simply faced them, the consequences be damned. By the sounds of their voices, it was clearly Mr. and Mrs. Worthington and not someone conducting a scandalous liaison, which he supposed was some small thing to be grateful for, but the bed ropes creaked an inch or two overhead, and Robert realized they were not simply going to kiss for a little bit and then leave.
“You are ravenous, my dear,” Mrs. Worthington murmured.
Robert had the urge to cover his ears, but he didn’t think he had quite the range of motion required. It was dark underneath the bed, but he could see the glint of Cameron’s eyes, which looked every bit as wide and startled as his own.
“You tease me—revealing yourself in the stables—anyone could have seen.” He growled and then did something that caused his wife to yelp. A sound that quickly morphed to a sigh.
Oh, good God.
“The door is unlocked right now. Someone might come in and see us.”
“Would you like that, Mrs. W?”
Mrs. W?
Robert bit his tongue, but the end of a strangled laugh still emerged. Cameron slammed a hand down over Robert’s mouth, though it was probably unnecessary—the couple above them were completely oblivious to any signs of life.
“Oh dear. It would be so embarrassing, wouldn’t it? If someone walked in and saw us…and watched us.”
“Completely beyond the pale,” Mr. Worthington agreed. “Of course, they would be mesmerized by your titties, Mrs. W, so I couldn’t blame them.”
Cameron hadn’t removed his hand from Robert’s mouth, and he was forced to press down harder as another snort of laughter escaped. Robert was intensely aware of the other man’s body beside him, of the strength in that coiled form, the heat that blazed from his skin. He had the sudden desire to lick him, to trace a wet line along his palm. Or maybe he’d bite him instead—just hard enough to blur the line between pleasure and pain. He wondered how Cameron would react.
It was probably better not to find out.
Above them the mattress shifted, and the bed ropes began to creak in a suspicious rhythm.
“Mr. W, you devil!” Mrs. Worthington gasped. Robert heard the sharp sound of a slap, followed almost immediately by a masculine groan.
“You are so violent,” Mr. W lamented, though he didn’t sound displeased about the fact at all. “I should tie you to the bed for that.”
“Mmm…but then I couldn’t do this…”
Whatever she did made Worthington shout with (what Robert assumed was) excitement.
Robert, for his part, had never been more uncomfortable in his life. Laughter bubbled in his chest, and there was a sharp pain where Cameron’s elbow dug into ribs, and a slower, harder ache in his cock, caused entirely by the stoic man next to him and not the lusty encounter going on above him.
And then the couple became so exuberant that the bed rope just above Robert began to smack him in the forehead every few seconds.
Perfect.
He was going to be the first person in history to die of contusions from another couple’s vigorous lovemaking.
“Oh, Mr. W!”
The mattress finally stopped moving. Both of the bed’s occupants were gasping like they’d run a mile.
After a moment of quiet, feet padded over to the washstand, and Robert heard a splash of water. “We should get back,” Mrs. Worthington said. “We did leave rather hastily.”
Mr. Worthington laughed. “Indeed!”
The two shut the door behind them, happily oblivious to everything except each other. A beat of silence passed. Two. Cameron’s hand slipped from Robert’s mouth, and he immediately missed its warmth.
Robert tried to see Cameron’s expression in the dark but couldn’t make it out.
Finally, the laughter he’d tried to contain spilled out of him. His shoulders shook and his head fell forward onto Cameron’s upper arm, nose brushing the front of his coat, and still, he couldn’t stop.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at them without remembering that,” he gasped.
Cameron stiffened, but then he laughed, too. A deep, pleasant, rasping sound. Robert realized he’d never heard him laugh before.
“I don’t think I’ll ever stop wondering what it was that she did,” Cameron said. “I thought his heart might have given out.”
Robert laughed harder.
“Is your head all right?”
Robert took a few deep breaths to slow his laughter and brought his fingers up to touch his forehead. No blood, but when he pressed, it hurt. “Bruised, I think.”
He knew he should climb out from underneath the bed, but he was having a difficult time getting his limbs to move. What would Cameron do, he wondered, if Robert pressed forward, into him, if he gripped his face and kissed that thin, hard mouth?
But that was something he wasn’t prepared for.
Aside from the rather pertinent fact that Cameron was his brother’s employee and looking at him with anything other than polite friendliness would be a transgression, there was also the small matter of Robert never having approached another man before.
He didn’t know how it was done. Was there a code word of some sort? A secret handshake?
One couldn’t just go about these things in their society without some forethought, unless one wanted to risk ruination, arrest, or physical violence. The only thing he’d ever been absolutely certain he’d seen in Cameron’s eyes was disdain, which didn’t exactly give him confidence.
And anyway, even if he was more confident that Cameron was attracted to him, would he really want to ruin this moment with an uncertain outcome?
Cameron’s laugh still echoed in his mind. He’d never shared this sense of camaraderie with him before, this easiness, this almost friendship. It seemed a shame to do something there was no going back from.
“Townsend?” A hint of worry.
“What?”
“I thought ye might have fainted.”
<
br /> Robert snorted. But he felt…happy. And it was a different sort of happiness than he was used to. It was like wings beating against the inside of his chest—uncomfortable, but thrilling at the same time. He was thinking too much, about things that probably wouldn’t happen. This had always been his downfall—around acquaintances, he was relaxed and friendly and at ease…but it was an act. Or, if not an act, exactly, it wasn’t all of him.
Alone, he tended to get caught in his own mind, to mull things over too much, to worry.
But right now, he just wanted to let himself dwell in the strange lightness of the moment for a little while longer.
“It takes more than a head injury to keep me down,” he said. “Truly. I was hit in the head once playing pall mall…I was bleeding, and it left a scar. I bounced right back up and finished the game.”
Cameron made a small, derisive noise. Robert couldn’t see the look on his face, but he could picture it. “Who hit you?”
“Theo. He felt awful about it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ha,” he said drily. But inside he was thrumming like the plucked strings of a harp. Because Ian Cameron was there, and he’d been worried about him, and Robert was quite sure they’d just been joking with each other.
He hadn’t thought the other man had much of a sense of humor, but he was relieved to find out he was wrong.
“Do ye think the corridor is clear?”
Robert cocked his head to listen. “I don’t hear anything.” He—somewhat reluctantly—slid out from underneath the bed and dusted himself off. The sunlight streaming in through the window was harsh against his eyes.
He squinted at Cameron, who’d stood as well. His hair was tousled, his dark-blue coat crumpled. He looked like he’d fallen asleep in his clothes. This should have made him seem vulnerable, but somehow it only underscored the cool, hard planes of his face. It made him more untouchable, not less.
Five minutes ago, Cameron’s hand had been pressed to his mouth. Less than five minutes ago, Robert had been laughing against the other man’s shoulder. The knowledge caused an instant of disorientation.
Had we but world enough and time, he thought wistfully, and then felt a little ridiculous for quoting poetry to himself. And Elizabethan poetry, at that, which was even more embarrassing, for some reason. He shook his head.
“Tomorrow,” he blurted out.
Cameron stared at him.
“We need to finish this room and look at Hale’s. Tomorrow?” He’d meant it to be a statement, but the word lilted at the end and turned to a question, an uncertainty.
He didn’t breathe until Cameron nodded.
“Aye.”
His relief was far too disproportionate for that one little word.
…
“Mr. Townsend!” Mrs. Worthington exclaimed. “What on earth happened to your head?”
Robert felt his face heat. Across the library, Cameron, who had been cornered by Miss Hale, suddenly went very still.
“Careless of me, really. I was reclining while I read—a very dangerous thing to do, I assure you—and I dropped my book.”
Mr. Worthington peered at him. “A book caused that bruise? Must have been a heavy one.”
“It was a lively one, certainly.”
Mr. W frowned slightly at that before turning to a more interesting topic. Robert gazed past his shoulder, and saw, with a tinge of disbelief, that Cameron was grinning, broadly, with teeth and all. Miss Hale looked as dazed as Robert felt.
Cameron met his gaze briefly before looking down at Miss Hale again, and Robert found his own lips curving in response.
Chapter Eight
Sometimes when he was having trouble writing, Robert would go to an abandoned outbuilding—a stone structure open to the sky because its roof had crumbled away long ago—and drink some whisky and listen to the sounds of a Highland night—the hush of dying wind, the distant sound of the ocean, occasionally the caw of late-flying birds.
This didn’t always work. Sometimes his thoughts were too persistent to quiet. But sometimes it did work, and all he was left with was peace.
He picked his way carefully over the muddy terrain, whisky bottle in one hand and an oil lamp in the other. Though summer, the air was cooled by the sea, even more so at night. When Robert breathed deeply, he could smell the smoke of distant peat fires and the scent of heather.
He made his way up the stairwell and then stopped in his tracks, nearly dropping the oil lamp and shattering it all over the stone floor.
“Cameron.”
The other man was sitting in Robert’s usual spot in the center of the circular tower, knees bent, one arm slung across them. The posture was casual, more casual than usual, but his face was impassive as he watched Robert.
They stared at each other for a moment in the dim haze that spilled from the lamp.
Something had changed between them, shifted subtly since that morning. Robert supposed it was impossible to be crammed together beneath a bed while listening to a couple’s boisterous lovemaking and not form some sort of bond. At least that of a shared secret, if nothing more substantial.
And Cameron did seem more tolerant of Robert than he’d been before, though he looked like he was far from welcoming him with a pat on the back or spilling his deepest secrets for the sake of friendship.
Robert tilted his head. The best thing would be to turn around, walk down the steps and back to the castle, and go to bed. But he didn’t do the best thing.
Instead, he did what he wanted to, lifting the bottle as an offering. A voiceless question.
There was a pause, a fraction of a second, and then Cameron silently reached out and took it.
Robert’s heart leaped. He forced himself to move forward calmly. Seating himself a foot or two away from the other man, he mirrored his negligent posture.
“You discovered this place, too?”
He kept his voice quiet, unwilling to completely shatter the silence that had settled like a blanket around them.
Cameron put the bottle to his lips, and Robert had a hard time tearing his gaze away as he swallowed and the muscles in his throat moved.
“Put the lamp away.”
Robert started, but he set the oil lamp down in the farthest corner and then returned to sit beside the Highlander.
“I used to climb onto the roof of my cottage to look at the stars,” Cameron finally said. “Now that the cottage is gone, this is the next best place.”
The stars? Robert exhaled and tipped his head back. And then he had to suck in a quick, surprised breath. He rarely looked at the stars when he was here, and now he wondered why that was. The night was crisp and cloudless, the stars white and sharp as diamonds. Straight overhead, a heavy stretch of them shimmered like dust.
There must be thousands. Millions. It was almost impossible to wrap his mind around the vastness of it.
“I didn’t realize the stars could be so clear.”
“When it’s not cloudy, it’s perfect,” Cameron agreed. “There aren’t any other lights blocking out the sky.”
Robert snorted. “When it’s not cloudy? Does that happen very often?”
Cameron’s mouth lifted, just the slightest bit. “It happens enough.”
He handed the bottle back, and their fingers brushed. Heat rose to the surface of Robert’s skin, and spread, as though Cameron’s touch could command his blood.
“I saw the aurora borealis once.”
Robert wasn’t much of an astronomer, even an amateur one. The term was unfamiliar. “What is that?”
“Green lights that dance across the sky in the winter. It looks like magic.”
Robert took a swig of whisky. The lip of the bottle was still warm from the other man’s mouth. He leaned back on one hand so he could see the stars better.
Even this was like magic. He couldn’t imagine more.
“I didn’t take you for the type of person to appreciate the stars.”
A beat of silence and
then, “But you don’t really know me, do ye?”
No—on the rare occasions he’d thought of Cameron before they’d interacted, he’d assumed he was probably a straightforward, hardworking type. This was Robert’s failing, the assumption that he would fit it into a neat, simple category. And then Cameron had been forced to move in, and Robert thought he was cold—and he was. But then Robert had seen him burn hot. And he hadn’t been cold, either, when Robert had leaned against him and felt the heat of his body and heard Cameron’s laugh rumble against his cheek.
But that didn’t mean Robert’s earlier impressions were incorrect. They were all different sides of the same person. Faces he showed strangers and acquaintances and friends. Faces he kept purely for himself, like this one: the wonder of a starlit night.
But now this face was partly Robert’s, too, because he’d allowed him to see it.
Cameron was right—Robert didn’t truly know him, but he wanted to. He was too intrigued by the things he’d glimpsed beneath the surface. He wanted the other man to view him as a friend, as someone worthy of respect, as someone worth confiding in. Someone worth showing more than one face to.
Of course, the fact that he sometimes stroked himself while imagining Cameron’s hands and mouth on him wasn’t exactly friendly. And he wanted that, too—Cameron’s hands and mouth on him—but he didn’t know if it was something he was allowed to ask for.
He took two or three healthy swigs from the bottle and handed it back. Warmth pooled in his stomach.
A streak of light flashed across the sky, there and then gone. “A shooting star,” he said. “I should make a wish.”
Cameron was silent. Robert glanced over at him, though he could only make out his outline and the dark blur of his face.
“What would ye wish for?”
The question made Robert’s body flood with warmth. To ask that, he had to care, at least a little. Or maybe he was just humoring him. At the moment, the difference between the two didn’t trouble Robert very much. “I don’t know. You’re not supposed to reveal your wish.”
“Why not?”
“Seven years of bad luck?”
Cameron snorted. “I think you’re mixing up your superstitions.”
