by Bliss Bennet
“How is it that you know so much about even the most obscure of Catholic saints?” Benedict asked. “You are Church of England, are you not?”
Thank heavens for Benedict’s intellectual curiosity. Nicodemus must be his patron saint. “Of course. Blame my beloved aunt, who gifted me with Butler’s Lives of the Saints at my twelfth birthday in the vain hope their exemplary behavior would somehow rub off on me. Now, is this the shop you had in mind? It hardly looks promising.”
Dulcie had expected to see a paint box or two, or at least a few watercolor cakes, scattered between brushes and palettes, pastels and drawing charcoal, in the window of the colourman’s shop. Or at the very least a selection of the art instruction books the fellow had on offer. But apparently Mr. J. Newman’s small shop did not cater to the amateur artist. All Dulcie could spy were a few small glass bottles in various shapes and sizes, filled with colored liquids—representations of the colors they stocked within?
A dark-skinned shopkeeper with a paint-stained apron bustled over to greet them. “Mr. Pennington! We did not expect to see you again until the autumn,” he said, a pleasant lilt to his voice. “Miss Adler told us you had left town. But how may we assist you?”
Benedict and the colourman soon became engrossed in a discussion of which colors should be blended with linseed oil and which with walnut, Benedict waving with animation in the stuffy shop air. He’d always been drawn to the quiet but intension passion at the heart of Benedict Pennington, even when he’d been a mere stripling. Dulcie leaned over the counter, chin in hand, and gazed hungrily at the sight, the animation on Benedict’s face, his bright eyes, those mobile, expressive features.
A movement from the other side of the shop pulled him from his abstraction. How long had he been staring?
He didn’t care if all the merchants and apprentices in Mayfair knew of his infatuation. But Benedict might not care to be the subject of such gossip, especially in a shop he obviously visited with some frequency. With a shrug, Dulcie stepped away and prowled the room.
Palettes, easels, and stretched and primed canvases crowded the small room, with little space for would-be purchasers to browse or linger. And the smell— No, decidedly not a place for amateurs, but rather for those, like Benedict, who knew precisely what they wanted, and could instruct the owner to bring it directly. He shuddered at the thought of a genteel lady such as Polly Adler visiting such a place. Was this the secret place she’d scurried off to whilst pretending to sit with him as Benedict sketched his likeness?
An old-fashioned muller and slab, which looked as if it was actually put to good use grinding the pigments that colored the paints, rather than just serving as a prop to lend historical ambience to the proceedings, stood on a table towards the back of the shop. As he picked up the muller, testing its weight in his hand, another fellow—the colourman’s apprentice?—hurried over, pulling at his forelock in a gratingly subservient manner.
“Begging your pardon, sir, but the pigment’s more ’n like to stain those fine gloves of your’n,” he said as he lifted the stone muller from Dulcie’s suddenly nerveless fingers.
Dulcie froze. He’d not heard that voice in more than a decade.
But as the other main raised his eyes to his, he schooled his features into a semblance of impassivity.
“Copeland.”
“My lord.” The fellow nodded once again, this time with far less subservience. The war between fear and defiance in his expression made Dulcie’s stomach turn.
“But I thought—did my father misunderstand?—you were to have left the country.”
The fellow’s eyes—eyes that had once gazed at him with adoration and lust—narrowed. “Come back again, haven’t I? No crime in that.”
“Not in that, no.”
Copeland said nothing, just crossed his arms. Letting the words hang there above them both, more precarious than the sword of Damocles. Though whether he or the apprentice was the one the sword would cleave was still to be determined.
Dulcie leaned against the counter, using his greater height to loom over the smaller man. “Your uncle will not write to my father again.” A pronouncement, not a question, despite the roiling of his gut.
The other man shrugged. “Dead now, isn’t he?”
“So you’d be a fool to call attention to yourself, then, wouldn’t you?”
“Indeed, my lord.”
How much of that blasted letter sent to his father—a letter far more damning than anything Benedict had ever written—had been Copeland’s doing? And how much his uncle’s? Dulcie had never been certain.
Do you regret it? The foolish words were on the tip of his tongue, but were forced back inside by the weight of the hand that fell on his shoulder.
He smiled up at Benedict, praying his companion hadn’t felt the start that shook his frame at the unexpected touch.
“Finished, are you?” Dulcie chirped, his voice sounding hollow even to his own ears. It took real effort to turn his back to Copeland, but he forced his body to obey. Still, he could not quite bring his eyes to meet Benedict’s. “I am more than ready to leave. The stink here is even worse than in your studio.”
“Good day to you, sirs,” the shopkeeper called to their retreating backs. “I’ll have those packages sent to Berkley Square immediately.”
“Good day, Lord Dulcie,” Copeland added.
Dulcie halted, just for the merest instant. Then, before he could betray himself with a glance over his shoulder, he dashed out again into the rain.
Saint Epipodius, pray for me.
Though Dulcie’s charm, taste, and sartorial style had all received many a compliment, no one had ever praised him for his ability to sit still. During church services, his mother always had to squeeze his hand to keep him from pinching his sister, or twirling his hat in his lap, or dancing his restless fingers against his hymnal or the back of the family pew. School had been little better; though he could speak when called upon, his restless elbows and tapping feet still managed to frustrate his instructors almost as often as his quick wit disarmed them. As an adult, he’d soon learned to avoid prosing scientific lectures, plodding musical performances, and lengthy political orations unless he knew the room in which they were being held included space at the back through which he might pace without unduly annoying the other attendees. And to sooth his restless spirit by indulging his carnal appetites. Something he’d not had the opportunity to do for more than a month, now, thank you, Mr. Benedict Pennington, so very much.
Perhaps that was why the drawing room felt so stifling tonight, despite being one of Pennington House’s most spacious chambers.
Visions of a younger Tom Copeland, arse teasingly on display as he bent to lift a bale of hay, biceps flexing as he raised a glass in the pub, muscular body gloriously naked as he sprawled in abandon across the bedsheets in Dulcie’s Oxford chambers, washed through his mind. Dulcie shook, sloughing off the unwelcome memories as instinctually as a dog shakes the rain from his coat.
Since coming to London, he and Benedict had spent almost every evening out—attending the opera, calling in at the Athenaeum and the Alfred Clubs, even dining with the few gentlemen still in town who might be persuaded to support Benedict’s museum plan. But tonight, provoking man, Benedict had declared he required a quiet evening at home. He sat across from Dulcie, completely engrossed in a new book on the nomenclature of colors he’d purchased this afternoon at the colourman’s shop. The only sound in the room was the occasional turn of a page. And the tap of Dulcie’s toe against the fireboard that nestled inside the bricks of the unlit hearth.
“Inviting the bats and mice to join us?” Benedict asked, nodding at the fireboard, which Dulcie’s tapping had kicked out of place. Any vermin that wished to climb down the chimney could now easily escape into the room.
Dulcie snorted. “London is so thin of company in summer, I just might welcome such lowly visitors. But I’d never be so rude as to issue invitations to another man’s house.”
“Then stop taking out your frustrations on that poor fireboard.”
Dulcie placed a hand on his jiggling boot. Frustrations? What frustrations? Benedict didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Besides,” Benedict continued, his voice deceptively mild, “I’ve more than a little affection for it, as it was painted by my mother.”
Damnation. Dulcie knew in how much esteem Benedict held the late Lady Saybrook. He scrambled from his chair and shifted the abused fireboard back into place, then scrubbed a handkerchief at the smear of polish his boot had inadvertently left behind. “My apologies, Benedict. A most exquisite fireboard, to be sure. The non plus ultra of fireboards. Come, shall we carry it in state over to the British Institution, and set it on display for all to admire?”
Benedict smiled. “The fireboard thanks you kindly for the honor, but prefers to remain quietly at home.”
As did Benedict, damn it. Fitting action to pronouncement, he took up his book again, paying no more attention to Dulcie than he would to a cat who just happened to occupy the same room.
“Ah, but we need not follow the timid fireboard’s example,” Dulcie replied, striding over and grabbing Benedict’s book out of his hand. “Shall we visit Brooks’s? Or go and see Gil Blas again? Set aside this dull tome and pluck the day with me. Or the evening, as it were.”
Benedict reached out a hand for the purloined volume. “If you tire of my company, Clair, you’re more than welcome to venture out on your own.”
“But I don’t want to go by myself,” Dulcie said. How appalling, that hint of a whine in his voice. But still, he could not seem to temper it. “I want you to come with me. Please say you will? I’ll make certain it’s worth your while.”
Benedict cocked a single eyebrow, a most fetching look on that expressive face. “Reduced to begging, are you? Who could have imagined the great Lord Dulcie brought so low?”
To his surprise, Dulcie could. On his knees at Benedict’s feet, running his palms up the thick muscles of those luscious thighs, begging to be allowed to undo the buttons of his falls—lord, how his cock stiffened at the mere thought. The perfect way to distract himself from other, less welcome ghosts, if only Benedict were not so damned determined that each and every sexual act be filled to the brim with some deep meaning . . .
His companion must have caught something in Dulcie’s expression that betrayed his longing, for he blushed, then turned quickly back to his book.
No distraction, then, damn it to hell and back. Dulcie jumped up from his chair and began to pace. His boots thudded softly on the carpet. Thud, thud, thud.
The clock in the front entryway chimed the hour.
Benedict flipped another page.
Finally, Dulcie could stand the quiet no longer. “Did you— Your father, or one of your brothers, or— No, what I mean to ask is, has anyone in your family ever been told, or discovered on his own, of your, your . . . ?”
Bloody hell. How ridiculous, the way those questions staggered out of his mouth, as clumsy as an intoxicate reeling home after one too many at the local public house. He pressed his thumbs against his temple. What had compelled him to even broach such a painful topic? And with Benedict, of all people?
The thump of a book on the table told him he had finally caught his companion’s attention. He risked a glance at Benedict’s face.
The sympathy he found there nearly set him reeling.
“Does anyone in my family know that I enjoy the company of men, as well as of women, in bedsport?” Benedict folded his hands in his lap. “Is that what you wish to know, Clair?”
Dulcie sank into a chair and cradled his head in his hands. “Yes,” he mumbled between his fingers.
“The topic has never been mentioned to me by any of my relations. At least not directly. Theo has taken of late to sharing certain bawdy stories from the ancients with me, which makes me think he might have some suspicion. But he does nothing more than hint obliquely. He’s not one for stirring up a hornet’s nest.”
As are you. Dulcie heard the words in his head, though Benedict was too polite to utter them aloud.
“So no one ever caught you kissing a stableboy? Or a comely Saybrook footman?” Or a certain fag-master at school?
“In flagrante de licto? No.” Benedict sat forward in his chair, leaning closer to Dulcie. “Is that what it felt like, when your father confronted you about that ill-advised letter I sent you so long ago? To be caught in the very act?”
“No,” Dulcie said, hands clenching in his lap. “Father proved surprisingly forgiving, at least that first time.”
Benedict’s hand moved to rest lightly on one of Dulcie’s. “It happened again?”
Dulcie’s mouth twisted. “Yes.”
“With that man in Newman’s shop today? His employee, the one with whom you were so engrossed?”
“Engrossed? With Copeland?” Dulcie jerked from his chair and strode to the hearth, wishing it held a fire. An unnatural chill had descended on him. “What did he say to you? Did he threaten you?”
“No, Clair!” A soothing hand come to rest against his turned back. “No. He did not even speak to me. But you’ve been as skittish as an unbroken horse even since we returned from Mr. Newman’s shop. I knew something must have upset you, upset you deeply. I thought it might have been something Melheux said, until you began asking me those unexpected questions. And then I remembered how that man stared at you as you rushed from the shop.”
Bitterness knotted Dulcie’s stomach. “What, with gloating and disdain? He wrote to my father, you know, or at least, his uncle did. Threatened to reveal to all the world how Lord Milne’s depraved son had debauched his innocent nephew. Unless, of course, the earl made him just restitution.”
Dulcie stared down at his white-knuckled hands, clenching the edge of the mantelpiece. He could hardly bear to remember the disappointment on his father’s face that day. An expression that appeared all too often in the ensuing years, whenever the dubious exploits of his painfully wayward son were thrown in his face.
“I doubt Copeland participated willingly in such a scheme,” Benedict said as his hands came to rest on Dulcie’s shoulders. “Mr. Newman confided to me that his new apprentice had his life blighted by an early lost love.”
“And you imagine me in such a role?” Dulcie gave a hollow laugh.
Benedict gave him a shake. “Well, if he did know what his uncle was about, I’m certain he long since regrets it. All I saw in his face was longing, and the deepest of sorrows. As if he were a grieving Achilles, and you his beloved Patroclos, lost to him forever.”
Behind him, Benedict took a deep breath. “The way I must have looked, when I heard you were never to return to school. The way I did look, all these months since my return to London, whenever I caught sight of you.”
Dulcie spun and had to catch his breath at the naked emotion on Benedict’s face. Longing, yes, tempered by sorrow—for all the years that they had lost? But also something shockingly expectant, vulnerably open. Something that declared he was willing to risk the sting of rejection, because the anticipated reward would be so very great.
The most frightening feeling of all.
Hope.
“Lord, how did you find the courage to say such a thing to me?” he whispered, stroking a thumb down the whiskers curving from Benedict’s ear to his cheek. “You shame me by your willingness to show such vulnerability to my careless, hard-hearted self.”
Benedict shuddered under his touch. But his words did not waver. “You are not unfeeling. You’re simply afraid. As am I. But if you put yourself in my hands, Clair, I promise with all that I am that you’ll be safe with me.”
Lacing his hand behind Dulcie’s neck, Benedict bent his head. “Let me?” he whispered.
Blood pounding in his brain, Dulcie nodded.
Then his head nearly exploded as Benedict’s lips ignited against his.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lord, what fools they’d been, allo
wing fear to keep them apart for nearly three months. Three long months since their lips had last meet. And their hands, and their skin—
Dulcie unwound the cravat looped around Benedict’s neck and tossed it beside the chaise longue, entranced by the achingly vulnerable dip between Benedict’s collarbones peeking out from behind the single button of his shirt. What was that spot called? Benedict, who had studied anatomy as part of his artistic training, would surely know. He’d have to remember to ask him. Later. Much later. With a growl, he flicked open the single button, then lowered his head to trail his tongue over the shadowed depths of that skin.
At Benedict’s moan of approval, Dulcie buried his nose in that divot as his fingers threaded through the waves of his hair, chasing the scent that had haunted him for months—a mixture of charcoal, the bitter orange of bergamot, and the musky tang of Benedict’s sweat. He wanted to wallow in it now like a hippopotamus in the waters of the Nile, steeping until he’d never be free of its scent. If only a perfumer might bottle it for him, so he could keep it close after Benedict left him—
Hands on his arse pulled him tight against a hard thigh, forcing his brain away from the melancholy thought. The feel of Benedict’s fingers, kneading the muscles of his own bottom. Benedict’s lips, trembling as they gently nuzzled the cord of his throat. Benedict’s cock, taut but mobile, twitching with life beside his own.
“I want to see you,” Benedict whispered, his voice vibrating, husky and deep, in his ear. “Please.”
Benedict’s attentive artist’s eyes, focused solely on him—how the thought sent the blood rushing to his cock. He jerked free of Benedict’s arms to whip his linen over his head, then stood, hands on hips, allowing the other man to look his fill.
Benedict’s face—the intent tilt of his lips, those dark, dark eyes that gazed at him, unblinking—Dulcie could almost blush under the fixed attention of such a gaze.
“Like what you see?” he asked, hoping Benedict did not hear the slight quaver behind the teasing tone. He added a seductive smile for good measure.
