by Anna Bradley
Lucas turned to him then, though he already knew what he’d find, even before he saw Sydney’s face.
Confusion. Shock. Grief.
It happened every time someone new read the inscriptions on the gravestones.
Leah Caroline Dean, born October 9, 1797, died May 12, 1816.
And beside Leah’s grave, a much smaller one.
Lucas Charles Dean, born May 12, 1816, died May 13, 1816.
Lucas had long since memorized every line, but today his gaze roamed over each carved word, each number before he tore it away again to squint up at the clouds. He noted with faint surprise that some of the tree branches above him were still encased in ice. They looked like bony, frozen fingers clawing at the sky.
Sydney didn’t speak for a long time. When he did, his voice was pained. “I thought it was your parents who—”
“No.”
It wasn’t an answer. Sydney remained silent, waiting.
Lucas sighed. Less than an hour ago he’d been cursing himself for not keeping a safe distance from Sydney, but he’d been in this house alone for two years, with Leah’s story burning a hole in his heart. There was an aching, lonely part of him that had wanted to talk about her death for a long time, and maybe…
Maybe two years of silence was long enough.
He nodded toward the gravestones, his throat tight. “My younger sister, and her son. He lived for three hours. Two hours longer than his mother.”
A faint, choked sound left Sydney’s throat. “My God, Lucas.”
Lucas nodded, but he didn’t trust himself to speak.
Sydney hesitated, then asked quietly, “Her husband?”
“No husband.” Again, it wasn’t an answer, but unspoken permission for Sydney to ask the next question. Lucas knew that’s what would follow, and yet he hadn’t hesitated.
Against all odds, Lord Sydney was here. He’d landed on Lucas’s doorstep without warning. There was no history between them and no expectations. Once Lord Sydney healed, he’d be gone, and there was little chance Lucas would ever see him again.
Perhaps it was all these things that loosened his tongue, or perhaps it was just the kindness in Lord Sydney’s face.
Or perhaps he was just that lonely…
“She died in childbirth,” Lucas offered, stupidly enough. Sydney only had to read the dates on the stones to draw that conclusion for himself, but Lucas had kept quiet for so long, he wasn’t sure where else to begin.
Sydney nodded. “She named her son after you.”
“Yes.” He’d held his nephew for two hours—just long enough to trace a hint of Leah’s features in the newborn’s face. Long enough to imagine who he might have been, had he lived.
“What was she like?”
For a moment, Lucas wasn’t sure he could answer around the ache in his throat. Thinking about Leah, talking about her aloud was like tearing the bandage off a bleeding wound. Once the dressing was removed the blood gushed free, and there was always the danger another dressing wouldn’t contain it—that it would continue to gush until there was nothing left.
But he was grateful, so pathetically grateful Sydney had somehow known just the right question to ask.
He’d come this far—farther than he ever had before—and he wouldn’t turn coward now. “She was the sweetest young lady you’d ever meet. Naïve, though, and far too trusting. She was clever, but never very good at reading people. She didn’t have hurtful intentions toward anyone, and she assumed everyone else was as kind as she was.”
Sydney nodded again, his gaze still on the gravestones. “Did she look like you?”
Lucas smiled. “Not much. She was fairer than I am. She did have red hair, but it was much lighter than mine. More of a golden red.”
“What color eyes did she have? Were they gray, like yours?”
There was a husky note to Sydney’s voice that made warmth blossom in the center of Lucas’s chest. “No, they were green. She had my mother’s eyes and looked very much like her. I take after my father.”
They were both quiet for a moment as they listened to the wind sighing through the trees. Then Sydney raised his gaze from the stones at their feet to Lucas’s face. “She sounds lovely, Lucas.”
“She was.”
Lucas squeezed his eyes closed, and when he opened them again, words began to spill from his lips. “She was compromised. A cousin of ours got her a place as a housemaid at a grand estate in Wendover. She went off to work when she was seventeen, then came back a year later without a single coin in her pocket, and a child in her belly.”
Sydney stared at him, his mouth open in shock. “Some scoundrel ruined her, then refused to marry her?”
“Marry her?” Lucas’s laugh was bitter. “The gentleman who was responsible for her condition tossed her out without a reference when he found out she carried his child. I heard he was just married recently, to a lady of great fortune who adores him.”
While my sister and her child lie cold in the ground…
Sydney’s gaze sharpened. “Gentleman? You mean—”
“He’s an earl.”
Sydney fell silent, his throat working. When he spoke again, his voice was shaking with anger. “What’s his name? The earl. What’s his name?”
“It doesn’t matter now.” What difference did it make? Leah was gone, and her child with her, and nothing would change that.
“Yes, it does. There are ways to bring blackguards like that to account for their sins. It sounds as if this gentleman richly deserves to be taken to task for his.”
Lucas shook his head. “Noblemen ruin housemaids every day in England, Sydney, and no one gives a bloody damn. The only people who care are those who aren’t in a position to do anything about it.”
Sydney’s unbound hand had clenched into a fist. “I do. I care. Tell me his name, Lucas.”
Lucas hesitated. It was too late to save Leah, but maybe there was a chance Sydney could do something to prevent Leah’s fate from befalling other innocent young girls. Lucas had no idea what could be done, but Sydney might. “He’s the Earl of Cowden.”
“Cowden.” Sydney spat the name, as if to rid his mouth of the taste of it. “Jesus. I might have known.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “Do you know him?”
“Not well, no. I steer clear of him, but I know of him. All of bloody London knows of him, excepting perhaps his new wife. One would hope she wouldn’t have been fool enough to marry the scoundrel if she did.”
“Or maybe she knew him well and married him anyway. People rarely get what they deserve.” Lucas thought of his sister, lying buried under the snow, with her day-old baby boy beside her. “My sister and nephew didn’t.”
“No, they didn’t.”
They stood there silently for a long time, looking down at the gravestones, until at last Lucas roused himself. “Leah never said so, but I’m certain she believed Lord Cowden loved her.” It seemed important, somehow, that Sydney understand this.
Sydney sighed, then leaned down and traced a finger over the inscription carved into Leah’s stone. When he straightened again, he said sadly, “I’m sure she did.”
Lucas brushed a few stray flakes of snow from Leah’s grave, then rubbed his hands together. “I’m ready to go back inside. It’s cold, and you were fool enough to come out without a greatcoat or gloves.” He whistled for Brute, who bounded to his side, then trotted along behind them as they made their way across the yard and into the house.
Lucas paused when they reached the stairs leading to Sydney’s bedchamber. He hadn’t forgotten their earlier argument, and a resentful voice in his head whispered Sydney had made it down the stairs without his assistance and could go back up the same way.
But in the end, he gave in with a sigh and slid an arm around Sydney’s waist. Sydney didn’t object but leaned into Lucas’
s body, and they went up together.
“Get in bed,” Lucas ordered, as soon as they reached the bedchamber.
“What, with my boots on?” Sydney perched on the edge of the bed, his lips curling into that appealing grin. “That’s downright barbaric, Dean.”
But his smile turned to something else—something carnal and vulnerable at once—when Lucas crossed the room, knelt at his feet, and, one by one, removed his boots.
Lucas didn’t rise when he’d finished, but looked up at Sydney.
Sydney stared back down at him, but he didn’t move or speak. After a few moments Lucas began to feel like Brute must feel when he was begging for treats or favors. He started to shift awkwardly to his feet, talking quickly to cover his embarrassment. “I’ll need to check that shoulder sling, to make sure you didn’t dislodge—”
“Lucas.” Sydney reached for him, stilling him with a hand on his shoulder.
Lucas swallowed. “Yes?”
“What I said to you earlier today, about…well, I never should have said something so hurtful. I beg your pardon.”
Lucas managed a careless shrug, but his heart was pounding. “You weren’t wrong.”
Sydney’s fingers drifted through Lucas’s hair. “That doesn’t make any difference. You saved my life, Lucas. I owe you my gratitude.”
Gratitude. It was a poor thing in comparison to what Lucas wanted from him. It struck him then that he and Leah were far more alike than he’d ever imagined, except he had no excuse. He knew better than to fall in love with a nobleman, even one like Sydney, who must be the least aristocratic of all the arrogant aristocrats in London.
“You should rest. I’ll just check that sling first.” Once again Lucas tried to rise to his feet, but Sydney’s fingers tightened in his hair.
“Wait, Lucas.” Sydney was gazing down at him, his face half lost in shadows. “Will you stay here with me tonight?”
* * * *
The moments Sydney waited for Lucas to answer him were the longest of his life. On and on they stretched, with Sydney holding his breath as Lucas knelt at his feet, silent and unmoving.
Christ, he never should have asked. It wasn’t fair to either of them. Not to Lucas, who’d be left here alone once he was gone, and not to Sydney, who knew a night spent in Lucas’s arms would change him in a way he’d never forget, and never overcome.
Yet still he waited, his heart pounding in his chest, for Lucas to answer him.
In the end, Lucas didn’t answer in words. He rose to his feet. For one awful moment Sydney was certain Lucas was about to walk out and leave him there alone, but then Lucas leaned over the bed and reached for the knot at the back of Sydney’s sling.
“You could have slipped in the snow today and reinjured your shoulder.” Lucas ran his fingers over Sydney’s collarbone, prodding gently. “You could have—”
“That didn’t happen. Can’t we do away with the sling altogether?” Sydney was half-ashamed of his fretful tone, but he wanted to hold Lucas, and he couldn’t do that properly with only one arm.
“No. Not yet.” Lucas frowned down at him as he slid the sling off Sydney’s shoulder. He looked as if he were preparing to deliver a firm lecture on the proper way to heal dislocated bones, but when he noticed Sydney’s disappointment, his face softened. “Perhaps in another few days. Raise your other arm.”
Sydney did as he was told. Lucas tugged the shirt free from Sydney’s good arm, then worked it carefully over his injured shoulder and tossed it onto the chair. His gaze lingered on Sydney’s bare chest, and there was a hot look in the gray eyes that made Sydney’s breath seize.
Lucas had seen him in various stages of undress, but Sydney had always been his patient then, and Lucas had remained detached. But he wasn’t looking at Sydney as a patient now.
He was looking at him the way a man looks at his lover.
Jesus, those eyes…
“Get in the bed.”
Lucas’s voice was gruff, his tone commanding, and Sydney reveled in it. He knew Lucas was painfully aware of the class difference between them. To Sydney they’d never been an aristocrat and a laborer, or an earl and a farmer, but then Sydney had the luxury of forgetting it, and Lucas didn’t.
But tonight, they were simply two men with a profound, unspoken need between them, and there was nothing in the world Sydney wouldn’t have done for Lucas.
He climbed into the bed, wincing a little as he jostled his shoulder, but when Lucas didn’t immediately climb in after him, an awful thought occurred to him.
Lucas did realize Sydney expected him to join him in the bed, didn’t he? Sydney chewed at his lower lip, suddenly unsure if he’d made himself clear. After all, Lucas had spent more than one night in this bedchamber with him, but he’d always remained in the chair. Perhaps he thought that was what Sydney had meant when he’d asked him to stay.
What had he said to Lucas again? What had been his exact words?
Will you stay here with me tonight?
Sydney stifled a groan. He hadn’t said where here was, had he? Damn it, he should have been more specific. He should have said the word bed. Bloody hell. He’d made a muck of this. He should have…
There was a soft thud, and Sydney’s attention darted back to Lucas in time to see him kick one boot aside, then the other.
Well. Perhaps he’d made himself clear, after all.
Sydney’s mouth went dry as Lucas tugged his shirt from his breeches. “Do you want me to take it off?”
Sydney couldn’t recall ever wanting something with such burning desire in his life, but he forced himself to answer calmly. “Yes, but only if you want it, as well.”
Lucas studied him, his breath moving in quick, hard bursts in his chest; then he grasped the hem and drew the shirt over his head.
Sydney swallowed back his soft gasp.
He’d been with striking men before, but none of them had ever had the same kind of rough beauty Lucas did. There was no pale, smooth skin here, and there were no soft edges. Lucas had a working man’s body, with hard, raw angles, his chest and arms a rough landscape of nicks and scars. Every inch of him was taut and corded with muscle.
“There’s nothing fine about me, Sydney,” Lucas whispered. “Mine isn’t a gentleman’s body. I’m…not what you’re accustomed to.”
It wasn’t until Lucas spoke that Sydney realized he’d been staring and hadn’t said a single word. He jerked his gaze to Lucas’s face and caught a flicker of self-consciousness in the gray eyes that surprised him.
Did Lucas think he wasn’t attracted to him? Jesus, as soon as Lucas had revealed all that bare flesh to his gaze, Sydney’s mouth had gone so dry with desire he had to lick his lips before he could make them form a single word. “No, you’re not what I’m accustomed to. You’re much better.”
Lucas’s shoulders relaxed, and a faint smile tugged at his lips. “Well then, do you intend to move over and make room for me, or should I go back to my chair?”
Sydney shifted to the center of the bed before Lucas could rethink this entire thing and opt for the safety of his chair. “Come here.” He wriggled his fingers, and Lucas crossed the room and joined him on the bed.
They sat staring at each other until Sydney drew a deep breath and reached out his hand to stroke Lucas’s strong shoulder. He trailed his palm over the warm skin, down to the hard muscle bulging in Lucas’s arm. “No, yours isn’t a gentleman’s body,” he murmured, his lips parting as Lucas’s muscles twitched under his hand. He met Lucas’s eyes. “Yours is a man’s body, and a beautiful one.”
Lucas sucked in a quick breath. He didn’t answer, but sat quietly and watched Sydney’s face as Sydney’s hand moved over his arms, his chest, and the layered muscles of his abdomen. He gasped softly when Sydney trailed the tips of his fingers over the sensitive hollow where Lucas’s neck met his shoulder.
His chest was…dear God, it was flawless. Sydney took in Lucas’s shoulders, the perfect contour of them, and then his tightly muscled arms. Lucas’s torso was long and lean—it seemed to go on forever—and all this muscled perfection moved and flexed under a layer of skin so taut it made Sydney’s lips part with helpless anticipation. His eager gaze drifted lower, down over Lucas’s hard, flat abdomen to the thin trail of dark red hair low on Lucas’s belly, then froze on the unmistakable stirring of Lucas’s cock beneath the falls of his breeches.
Lucas saw the drift of his gaze and ordered softly, “Lie on your right side.”
Once again, Sydney did as he was told. Lucas came around to the other side of the bed, lifted the edge of the coverlet, and slid in behind Sydney.
Sydney nearly groaned aloud at the sensation of Lucas’s bare chest against his back, but he managed to bite it back, suddenly unsure if groaning was appropriate. Lucas didn’t appear to know either, because he also remained silent. They lay together, neither of them moving or speaking. Just as Sydney’s muscles began to tense, Lucas let out a breath and wrapped one long arm around Sydney’s waist.
That was all it took. Sydney closed his eyes and melted into the hard body pressed against his.
“Are you tired?” Lucas murmured, his breath warm against Sydney’s ear.
“No.” Sydney had never before been so at ease in both mind and heart, even as his body was utterly alert, clamoring for Lucas’s touch.
Yet when it came at last, he wasn’t prepared for it. There was no way to prepare for something so tender, so sweet as Lucas’s mouth, his lips open, brushing over the back of Sydney’s neck.
Lucas pressed a string of soft kisses across his shoulders before sliding back up and taking Sydney’s earlobe in his mouth, scoring it gently between his teeth. “Is this all right?”
Sydney shuddered at the tiny sting of pain, and his cock surged against his falls. “Yes. Please, yes.”
Lucas laughed softly, pressed his body closer to Sydney’s, and slid one muscled leg between Sydney’s knees. The skin of Lucas’s chest and belly were hot against Sydney’s back, and Sydney could feel Lucas’s hard cock throbbing against him. Lucas drifted his fingertips down Sydney’s spine, his mouth still busy against Sydney’s neck as he explored the curves of each of Sydney’s vertebrae.
