For days Cockburn had been happily ordering him about to do all sorts of things, but his voice—even when demanding—had a hint of not quite friendliness, but warmth. That hint was gone.
He whined. “Bugger, why are you the cross one? I’m the one with a reason and I’ve decided I don’t wish to be angry any longer even though you ruined my seduction of Harry.”
Ainsley was unceremoniously dumped on his bum. On the floor. He gaped.
And then shut his mouth because the fury written all over the older man now sitting up was formidable. Joachim opened his mouth and took a deep breath and then grimaced. Still managing to look handsome, somehow. Agh, that beard and those lips.
“I’ve appreciated your carting me around for the past few days, but I will be gone tomorrow, if there’s boos service.” Ah, the way he said bus. So lovely.
Cockburn clenched his teeth. And then spoke without unclenching them, which Ainsley didn’t know was possible before he witnessed it. “I’ll be gone regardless, actually. Please give my regards to your Hugh. And the rest of them. Good night.”
His brute covered his face again.
Dismissed.
Bugger, why?
And no...he had at least until Monday, or possibly Wednesday if Scottish weather behaved true to form. He itched. His vision went all narrow and then wide again. He wasn’t ready to say good-bye now. He’d be sure to be ready by Wednesday. Or perhaps Monday if it was sunny. But...
“Leave and turn off the light.”
Ainsley stumbled to his feet. “Can I...er...would you mind if I came back, when they all go home?”
Because he’d missed out on any sort of intimate conversations all day, and that was unjust. Especially the comfortable way the older man had been, so in charge in the kitchen, unflappable and gorgeous, besides. And then in that tuxedo. God, like someone who ought to be chiseled in marble and put in a museum not wearing any clothes. But thoughtful and steady and—
Cockburn rolled away without an answer. He waited for who knows how long, panic bubbling like acid in his...fuck, everywhere...until someone called his name from down the stairs. He backed out of the door, and switched off the light.
Bugger.
“Gracious, Ainsley, what’s turned you into a bluenose?” Poppy danced in a circle under the arms of both Manish and Hugh, who held their other hands together.
“Ainsley, are you well?” Barley pulled him to the corner and pushed a drink on him. He didn’t want a drink. He wanted Joachim.
“I’m fine.” He tipped up his lips out of habit.
“Bloody hell, have we hit the tower already?” asked his friend, face wreathed in concern.
Barley’s comment was undecipherable. More so than usual.
“The tarot cards? No? Never mind. Where’s your Mr. Cockburn?” Barley nudged his hip.
There was a scorch mark on the carpet from when he and Charlie used a magnifying glass and the sun one afternoon to burn their initials in a block of wood. And missed. They’d been sent to their rooms without supper for that.
Ainsley bent down and touched the short, dark fibers. “He’s gone to bed. Angry, and I can’t imagine why for the life of me.” Sod it all.
Barley patted his head like he was Violet, and it helped some, but not like when Cockburn soothed his feral side.
“Gosh. Did you quarrel?”
Ainsley scratched his arms. And reached around to his back because the skin was crawling. Swallowed. “No, I didn’t even fuss about how he messed things up for you.”
Barley dropped his voice to a whisper. “I don’t think he understood what Trix meant by cake-eater.”
Trixie danced by and lifted him off the floor without missing a beat.
He clucked his tongue. “Nonsense, surely he did. Everyone does.”
“Perhaps with the context of you close to ripping Hugh’s clothes off at the supper table, he ought to have understood, even if he didn’t precisely know the meaning.” His friend struck a match and lit a cigarette.
The smoke tickled Ainsley’s nose and he waved it away. “I wasn’t anything close to ripping off your would-be lover’s clothes. Don’t be absurd.”
“But Cockburn does ken why we had this soiree, doesn’t he?”
Did Joachim know? Shite.
His eyes crossed as he raced through all their conversations to try to figure out when and if he’d said anything. “Bugger if I know. I suppose I had to’ve explained. I’d never make a move like that on your fellow.”
Barley turned mournful eyes to him with a matching frown. “Too many negatives, Ainsley. I couldn’t keep up.”
Cockburn would have known exactly what he meant.
Fuck.
He raced back up the stairs. Threw open the door. Tugged Cockburn’s sleeve. “Tell me you know what tonight’s party was all about.”
Joachim spat out, “For you to either bully or seduce poor Hugh Menzies—I wasn’t quite sure which.”
“I didn’t really bully him, did I? I didn’t mean to.”
“You have the subtlety of an armored tank, then.”
“It was merely to seduce him. Only...” Ainsley might be ill. He fanned himself. Needed a splash of water on his face. “I’d never truly mean that, not with him, not in front of you. Or even not in front of you. Not in a million years.”
No response. Ainsley paced. Faster. “You do know what a cake-eater is, don’t you?”
“Someone who enjoys cake over rhubarb crumble, I suppose.” Joachim’s sigh was that deep, sad sort. The same kind he’d made his father sigh anytime they’d ever spoken a word to each other. It made him blink a hundred times. “Go away, Graham.”
Oh. He was tempted to because this was like when he’d cut his thumb on the potato peeler, but all over his insides. “Um, no. It has a specific meaning. A euphemism, you know? For being homosexual.”
Joachim sat up, frowning. “How’d you get that?”
Thank God, his glorious brute was speaking again. Christ, Ainsley’s knees went weak.
“Er... I suppose men who’d rather go to tea parties than football matches, even though I adore football and give fuck-all for tea. And I don’t know any man who likes pricks more than I do.”
Cockburn winced. Oughtn’t have tacked that bit on the end.
Ainsley barreled on. “I don’t wish to parse etymology. I need to know if you knew that this entire evening was orchestrated for me to figure out if Merson might be interested in fucking Barley? Well, falling in love with him, really, but that would probably come after.”
“Merson?” A deep crevice appeared between Joachim’s brows. “You mean Menzies?”
“I’ve no clue what I mean other than Barley is too scared to let that painfully bland man know that he thinks he’s hotsy-totsy. And he’s a lawyer and—”
The barest hint of a smile played on the edges of Joachim’s luscious lips. “An advocate, you mean. They’re similar but not the same, apparently.”
A large piece of nothing was stuck in his throat and made it hard to breathe, but fucking hell—the relief that perhaps he hadn’t made it all go pear-shaped by forgetting to explain everything nearly knocked him back on his bum. He took one of his lovely bearded Englishman’s hands in his and squeezed. And Joachim allowed it.
Still, Joachim’s eyes were unfathomable. And he didn’t rub his thumb along Ainsley’s hand the way he usually did, and therefore, the action lacked a good part of its usual comfort.
“Yes, well, Barley worries that he’ll destroy his friendship with Hugh if he lets him know he’s interested. So the plot was for me to make a pass at the man to see if he’d bite.”
“Because no man who likes cake could turn you down?” Joachim withdrew his hand and crossed his arms over that enormous chest.
“I’m not sure that the slang goes that far into breaking it i
nto the verb of liking to eat cake, but yes. Other than you, no one has ever turned me down.” He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment. This was perhaps the wrong approach. Again. “Not that I make passes at many men.” It was a diplomatic lie for the sake of expediency. Because it had been years, after all.
“I’m sure.” His brute demurred more sarcastically than Ainsley’d ever heard someone demur.
“And I’d never think to make a pass at anyone if you were in the room. Except as a false sort of one like I did tonight.” He pulled one of Joachim’s hands tucked under his armpit and squeezed his thumb to the center of the palm.
Joachim squeezed back.
“And why is that?” Cockburn held his face without emotions, but it was as if his eyes searched for something deep inside Ainsley.
His spine tingled. His mind whooped and soared over any number of pithy answers that might make Cockburn laugh. But none of them were true enough. And after all this, perhaps the Englishman deserved a proper response.
At least, as proper as he could manage.
“Because you’re you.”
And unlike Trixie, who’d have sneered, or Barley, who’d have scratched his head in confusion, Joachim nodded. Smiled even. With his beautiful eyes this time.
The room was heavy with poignancy and scared Ainsley half to death. But he meant to follow through. “And I missed you singing. It helps me focus. More than I can explain.”
The terrifying moment when Joachim’s face settled into something akin to endearment passed without making him sick to his stomach.
Cockburn raised Ainsley’s fingers and pressed them to his lips.
His heart fluttered like a whole flock of swallows.
“Then by all means, take me downstairs so I can sing for you.”
His breath caught. “I’d like that.”
Joachim brushed his lips across Ainsley’s like a shadow from the passing sun. “I would, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Joachim
Facing everyone after hiding away like a child for hours was more daunting than he’d imagined, but it appeared no one was bothered in the slightest.
“Goody, you’re both back. One of you needs to change the song and the other grab a glass.” Trixie and the rest of the guests were arranged around the coffee table, hands clasped behind their backs with champagne-filled coupes, not flutes, in front of them.
“You choose the music, Cockburn—I’m going to show them what for. You’ll be so impressed with me.” Ainsley dropped to his knees, always impressive, and sloshed the bubbly drink down the side of his glass in his excitement.
Joachim put on I Want to Be Loved by You before he lost his nerve, but Ainsley’s lack of reaction testified that even sledgehammer-strength innuendoes were lost on the younger man.
As soon as the opening chords began, all six heads dropped and resembled nothing as much as chicks pecking for bugs when they slurped at the liquid. Poppy lifted up first, sneezing from the bubbles, and Barley followed, making a sour face.
He couldn’t have said what the rest did, as he was transfixed on how quickly Graham was able to lap it all up. Bloody hell, it was the exact mixture of spellbinding and ridiculous—with more than a ripple of eroticism—that he’d come to expect from his ginger.
Who won, as he’d predicted, laughing and licking off the last drops of champagne as he stood and ran his hand up Joachim’s spine, under his tuxedo. “Will you dance?”
A pang dropped into the lonely well of regret that his ankle couldn’t manage, and he shook his head. “But I can work the gramophone for you.”
Ainsley didn’t spare a moment before grabbing his sister by the wrist and pulling her to her feet. “Something fast,” he said over his shoulder to Joachim, who picked out a quick two-step number and settled into a chair next to the record machine.
The Graham siblings appeared to have a sixth sense about what dance the other was about to switch to, and he clapped along with the rest as they toddled and did various trots and shimmies and generally threw themselves and each other around.
Joachim hadn’t been particularly sad that he’d spent years unable to dance, but tonight he’d have loved the opportunity. He might not be able to do some of the more modern footwork, but the foxtrot was merely the one-step from before the war, and he’d been quite good at it years ago. Barley, Ainsley, and Hugh had taken turns dancing together during the faster numbers—a modern convenience that satisfied at least two of the men, Hugh’s preferences for cake still unfathomable.
He’d have loved twirling Ainsley around the room.
The next song was another jazzy one that Ainsley exuberantly enjoyed. All the rest likely did as well, but he paid them no mind, loving the flush high on his lover’s cheekbones, the dedicated-to-pleasure twinkle in his eye.
When it was over, Manish, Barley and Hugh agreed it was time to head back to town.
A plan was concocted by Poppy and Trixie for everyone to meet in a fortnight at a nightclub in Edinburgh.
Joachim scratched Violet, doing his best not to pay attention.
He’d be back home, working, writing, studying. Trying to sort out what the hell he was going to do about his two years of bloody research.
Not prowling around with Ainsley and the dog. Or watching the rest of them dance. Or enjoying much of anything.
Barley shook Joachim’s hand in that way that felt like an embrace.
A wave of guilt washed over him about the Hugh debacle. “Er, I am sorry for involving myself in...” God, how to put it? Finding out if the man you desire might feel the same?
Fortunately, Barley waved away his apology with a pleasant shushing noise.
Joachim asked, “Can’t you...um...read your own future?” Because if the man believed in such things, why wouldn’t he?
“I’m sorry to say I can only divine for other people.” Barley shrugged. “For years I’ve tried to teach Ainsley but he just...” He shrugged again and they shared a smile.
Ainsley just... Quite.
The group moved almost as a single entity to the front door and somehow Poppy triumphed over Trixie by getting a drop-off by Manish, who was driving. Trixie clenched her jaw and pinched her friend’s arm when she hugged her good-night.
As soon as the door closed behind them, the house had that lonesome quiet feel as if all the fun had packed up and gone away for good. But not for long, as the postmortem-ing of the evening began in earnest, both Grahams’ voices competing for audibility.
Ainsley pulled him over to a sofa, put his head on Joachim’s thigh, and stretched out with his legs hanging over the arm. On the opposite sofa, Trixie mirrored him, but without a lap for her head.
After having determined that Manish Kapoor was going to end up in Trixie’s bed—a conversation that would have shocked Joachim to his core even a week ago but now seemed perfectly reasonable—their dissection drifted to the topic of Hugh Menzies.
“I say he’s a ladies’ man,” said Trixie in a puff of smoke. “Poor old Barley will have to come to terms with it. But when he and I danced, he was enchanted.”
Ainsley scrabbled up on his elbow with a derisive snort. “And I say he’s not. He blossomed as the night progressed. I thought I might have to fight him off with a stick.”
“Harrumph. Cocky, you had a better view all evening, what do you think?” Trixie pursed her blood-red lips, which she’d reapplied sometime since they’d eaten.
Cocky. Good Lord.
“I’d say he either likes everyone or no one besides his Gentleman Boarder because he gave the same smile all around as far as I could tell.”
That set both Grahams’ right feet bobbing as though they held back from arguing with him.
Trixie sat up first. “I’m not ready for bed yet. Come and dance some more.” She stood and yawned as she pulled off her shoes.
“I’m tired of dancing with you.” Ainsley sat up long enough to take off his jacket. And tie, with a wink at Joachim. He kicked off his shoes and then stripped off his socks, wiggling his toes. “Come on, get comfortable, Cockburn.” Thank God he didn’t call Joachim Cocky, too. It would be too, too much.
“Yes, relax and come and dance. I don’t think I got the chance to feel those arms around me tonight, did I?” Trixie pulled him to his feet and unknotted his bow tie. She pushed his jacket off his shoulders, squeezing. There was no malice in her flirtation to leave him anything but flattered. “Did I already tell you you’re luckier than you deserve, Ainsley?”
“I can’t dance,” Joachim said with a laugh.
For once, Trixie’s sophisticated mask dropped, and she smiled half up her cheek like Ainsley did. And Charlie. “Well, I’m zozzled and have two left feet now, but it’s only family. Come along, Ainsley’s stronger than I am. He can help.”
Trixie didn’t bother to cover her yawn. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, above his beard. “God bless you for not serving oats and cheese. We’d never have lived that down.”
She put on a slow song so there’d be none of the ankle-twisting steps he’d watched all night, half-jealous, half-agonized at the thought of it being him on the dance floor. The exaggerated New York accent of Helen Kane singing That’s My Weakness Now filled the room. Joachim intercepted the wink Trixie tossed her brother as she pulled the door shut, leaving behind a cloud of floral perfume.
“I’ve been a patient lad all night, but it’s my turn, isn’t it?” His ginger met him and pressed their hips tight together.
The Englishman wrapped an arm around Graham’s waist tightly enough that their lips nearly touched the way their chests and upper thighs and everything in between did. “I’m not the strongest man by any means, but I think I can help keep you steady, if you’ll trust me.”
Joachim’s lungs constricted for a breath or two before he relaxed into Ainsley’s arms, firm around him. “You’re stronger than I’d have thought when I first arrived, Dr. Graham. And you’ve already helped me quite a lot.”
Best Laid Plaids (Kilty Pleasures) Page 19
