by J. M. Snyder
“Harry’s a wild talent,” Edward said, effectively rendering that question moot. “He’s a healer.”
The word floated down over the breakfast room like the snow outside, and left humans and books and the table all smothered and blank and speechless.
A healer. Rare. Valuable.
Certainly valuable to an older-brother Earl who had been ill and frail since childhood. Kit could think of innumerable extraordinarily wealthy men and women who would pay significant amounts for those services, back in London.
Who would pay, or do worse. Coercion. Kidnapping. Threats. Desperation. Harry Arden had to keep that secret.
“I’m not a healer,” Harry said. “Not exactly. I wish I were. It’d be easier.”
“Then. What. Are you.” Level. Relentless. Investigating. Doing his job.
“He fixes problems,” Ned said. “Sorry. I should’ve been clearer. We’ve never been able to define it exactly. He does heal the world, though. So I’ve always thought of him as that.”
“I don’t know what it is, precisely.” Harry made a face, ran a hand through his hair, let shoulders slump. “I can feel…when something’s not right. And then I can sort of talk to it and guide it into being right again. The way it should be. The land. Harvests. Sheep. People. Broken fences. It isn’t always easy, it hurts a bit, and I usually have to be able to touch whatever it is. I’d just finished looking in on Mrs. Fairfax’s roof, down in the village, when you first turned up.”
Kit said, “That’s why you never went to Eton or Oxford.”
“Oh, well,” Harry said. “Mother and Father wouldn’t let me leave the estate. They weren’t really…they weren’t terribly kind to me. But I understood why.”
“You—” Ned cut himself off. To Kit, said, “I tried to get him to leave. As soon as we were old enough. To join the navy, the church, a profession—he’s always been good at situating and siting buildings and bridges—or even just to travel. Someplace not here. Someplace where he wouldn’t keep hurting himself every time he put a hand on my shoulder. Someplace where Father couldn’t tell him his only purpose was—”
“You’re alive,” Harry said, smile bouncing off the corners of the room; and his brother bit a lip and glanced away. Harry finished, “In any case that’s what you saw, Constable. We’ve found it works best if I sit with Ned before bed and sort of shore up his strength. It lasts longer than it used to, he’s doing much better, but we do both tend to want to sleep after. He rests more easily when he’s not in pain, and I—I’m generally a little tired, when we’re done.”
Ned opened his mouth, closed it, glanced at Kit. Kit wasn’t sure what that glance was meant to convey, but he guessed it had something to do with Ned’s earlier comment, with Harry’s throwaway admission: it hurts a bit, Harry had said. He hurts himself putting a hand on my shoulder, Ned had said. And Father told him that was his purpose.
Kit discovered abrupt and thunderous loathing for the previous Earl.
He said, “I understand why you didn’t tell me.” He did. “And I believe you.” Again, he did. Every instinct, every talent empathic and professional, told him that Harry Arden wasn’t lying. “But that leaves us at square one. Is there anyone who’d want to hurt you? Or the estate? Anyone who could’ve summoned an elemental?”
The Ardens exchanged looks. Harry finally shrugged and went to pour chocolate out of the silver pot, luxuriously hot and dark and thick. “No? I’m not being facetious; I honestly can’t come up with anyone.”
“The tenants adore Harry,” Ned said. “He fixes their problems. They don’t know me as well, but I’d like to think if there were any unpleasantness I’d hear about it. And we’re on good terms with the neighbors, and my inheritance was uncontested, and Father was awful to Harry but not a bad landlord in general, not what you’d call friendly, but clever with money and never cruel to the staff. Elizabeth—Miss Featherdale—and her family are old friends of ours and thrilled with the match. I really truly don’t know.” Harry had brought over a plate; Ned picked up a muffin absentmindedly. Harry slid over a pot of jam and then went to go and find his own food.
Caring for people, Kit thought. Generous. Even if it hurts.
He found a plate for himself. Harry gave him a confused expression and said, “Oh, no, I can do that, I know you must be used to grand ballrooms and parties in your honor and servants and so on, and I don’t mind.”
“What sort of a lord’s son are you,” Kit grumbled, half a complaint and half not: Harry Arden defied categorization.
Harry’s smile flickered briefly, as if unsure whether this was a compliment; he plainly decided to take it as one, and the smile came back in full force. “The sort who’s hopelessly provincial and has never been anywhere near Society, I’m afraid. Lizzie despairs of me as a brother-in-law. I’m more likely to repair a rabbit-hutch than dance a waltz with one of her siblings.”
“He’s not that bad,” Ned said to Kit. “Don’t believe him. Father and Mother ensured we had the best private tutors in all the usual subjects, and he’s impressively graceful for someone with feet the size of a baby elephant.”
“I think I’d quite like to meet a baby elephant,” Harry said. Harry Arden was the sort of person who would pour rich creamy chocolate for his sibling but drink his own tea plain and strong and black, Kit noticed. “They’re supposed to be wonderfully clever, not that I’ve ever been any place where I’d be likely to encounter one, so I can’t say for sure. More clever than my own brother, possibly.”
Ned raised eyebrows at Kit, and murmured, “As if he could ever be a murderer; just look at him…” and consumed a bite of jam-adorned muffin.
Kit, who had just put bacon into his mouth, nearly choked. Surely Harry’s brother wasn’t inviting him to appreciate Harry’s good qualities. To look at Harry. To ponder Harry’s ability to waltz and move gracefully in the arms of a partner. Surely not.
Harry, to all appearances oblivious to this exchange, took a sip of tea. Asked, “Constable Thompson, have you ever seen an elephant? Aren’t there some in London?”
Kit swallowed hastily. Shoved aside images of Harry’s broad shoulders and sweetness pinned against books in the library, or pushed to the floor, kneeling, nothing holding those muscles in place but pure obedience.
Harry wanted to know about London. About celebrity. Harry expected him to have been everywhere and seen everything.
“No. I mean. Yes. There are two. At the Royal Zoo. They’ve got minders with animal communication gifts. I’ve never seen them, though.”
“Hmm.” Harry put that head on one side, regarding Kit over eggs. “You’d be more of a big cat sort of person, wouldn’t you? A tiger or a panther or one of the American pumas. Not a domestic cat.”
“What,” Kit said helplessly. “Why?”
“Good at hunting, powerful, suspicious of strangers, a bit dangerous, fascinating.” Harry paused. “Good at camouflage. At not letting people get close.”
“At—”
“But nice to pet, if you can get one to trust you,” Harry finished, and Kit just about dropped his fork.
Visions of that library encounter swirled up again. Contemplations of what precisely might be petted. A hand stroking hair, and a bent head, and kneeling in devotion. Harry’s body, close enough for heat. Kit’s own muffled groans afterward in his room, alone, pumping into his fist, spilling himself at the mere imagining of that cheerful mouth and that firm backside and those spectacular eyes.
Harry Arden, who waved at strangers on his own doorstep and had never been allowed off the family estate, couldn’t know about things like that. That sentence hadn’t had any double meaning. Harry had simply chosen…an unfortunately suggestive metaphor…about getting close enough for trust. Had to be that.
“Harry’s always been quite good with animals,” Edward observed, sipping chocolate.
Kit revised his earlier opinion. Edward Arden, unlike his sunbeam sibling, was nowhere near as innocent as the delicate health and privat
e tutors would suggest. And was perfectly happy to encourage a celebrated empath and thief-taker to take his younger brother’s virtue.
This made about as much sense as anything else in the Arden household, which according to Kit’s somewhat tattered mental notes consisted of fiercely loyal staff, a too-young butler, a sickly Earl, the Earl’s intended—who thought nothing of walking across the park by herself through snowdrifts, even with the aid of greenwitch magic—and the Earl’s brother, with those explosive secret healing powers.
The Earl’s brother, who liked animals, and fixed rabbit-hutches, and saw glimpses of Kit that no one else saw.
Harry Arden hadn’t pushed further when Kit had been uncomfortable with the discussion of his supposed feats of courage. Hadn’t made assumptions about glory and the thrill of the chase and the rewards waiting. Had only commented on camouflage, on not letting people in. Not without trust.
Harry Arden was a bright and decent human being, and probably not a murder suspect, and not at all Kit’s type, because Harry was a decent human being and therefore Kit shouldn’t even consider it, and he couldn’t not consider it, because no one had ever looked at him like that and known him in a heartbeat and then smiled at him anyway.
Oh, hell. All the hells. Multiple. Demon-infested.
He cleared his throat. “Should we start out? North of here, we said. Near your ocean.”
“It’s really more of a pond,” Harry pointed out, very solemnly. Those eyes were dancing.
“I know what your map says,” Kit said. “And I know what oceans look like.”
“It’s frozen over anyway. It’s a frozen pond.”
“It’s an ocean,” Kit said. “I’m expecting lost explorers. Abandoned camps. Wild dogs.”
Harry widened those eyes more. “Ned told you I like animals.”
His brother did not even bother not to smirk, and picked up another muffin.
“You’re staying here and staying warm,” Harry said to him. “No exploring for you. Go research ways to increase crop yield once we handle this.”
“By all means.” Edward waved the muffin grandly. “The two of you go and do battle with our snow monster. But, seriously, Harry…you know what happened last time you tried to reach out and fix this, without an anchor. Don’t do that again.”
Harry, about to pick up his coat from the back of the chair, stopped. Hand on Edward’s shoulder, with a squeeze. “I know. I’m not planning to get lost in it again. I wasn’t thrilled about that headache either. I’ll be careful.”
Ned nodded at him.
Kit got up too, since that at least led to action and his job and something he could possibly solve, and left behind the oasis of breakfast room and chocolate and bacon and care, following Harry out into the snow.
At first the weather wasn’t insurmountable. Cruel, yes; snarling and nasty, yes. The wind tried to eat his bones. The cold burrowed under his skin. Clumps of sticky white tumbled down and stuck to Kit’s boots, and to his borrowed greatcoat.
He’d not brought anything near warm enough. He hadn’t been prepared. Grayson, with impressively astute timing, had caught him upon leaving the breakfast room. The coat had been Harry’s father’s, likely because anything Harry currently owned would smother Kit in fabric; Kit had complicated feelings about accepting, but took it out of prudence.
He was glad he had. Excellent decision.
Harry, if he’d recognized the coat, had said nothing at all about it. Only smiled and struck out those long legs across snow-heaped terrain.
Someone had attempted to clear the paths closest to Fairleigh Hall itself, unless that was also magic; Kit contemplated possibilities while snowflakes fell idly onto his head. Would an elemental, or its master, want to encourage them to stay housebound?
He voiced this question to Harry. Harry gave him a look that suggested concern over city-bred paranoia, but only said, “I suppose it’s possible. Do elementals always have masters?”
“Not necessarily.” Kit took another step. Felt ice crunch under his boot. The snow was beginning to grow more intense. Aware of them, unless that was paranoia on his part. “No one knows much about magical creatures—some of the scientific societies have done studies, but not many—and it takes a decent amount of power to control one. They do follow their own instincts, sometimes.”
“So this one might be on its own? Lost?”
Kit stopped, which meant that Harry stopped too, leaving them face to face, or at least face looking up to face. “You can’t assume the best of everyone.”
“And you can’t assume the worst,” Harry said, sounding eminently reasonable. “We’ve told you, we haven’t got any enemies.”
“That you know of.”
“That I—yes, all right, but how can you think that way?” One hand waved vaguely at the snow and the sky and by implication the distant villages and people of the estate. “Aren’t there people you trust?”
“Yes,” Kit said. “Two of them.” He’d started walking again.
Harry, with longer legs, did not have to try hard to catch up. “And you won’t tell me who they are.”
“Why would I?”
“Because you can trust me.”
Kit halted again. “Why would I?”
Snow landed gently on Harry’s eyelashes, white on gold. They’d stopped far too close together.
“Because,” Harry said, “you like me.”
He might’ve been teasing; maybe he’d meant it to be. The words emerged like a fingertip-brush, a whisper over skin.
“No,” Kit said.
Harry blinked. “No?”
“I don’t like you. You’re still my best suspect. I’m doing my job. You’re a distraction.”
Harry, in contradiction of this, brightened up. “I’m a distraction? And I know you like me. I like you. In the library, yesterday—”
“That was—” What? A glimpse of a future I can’t have, one in which an Earl’s kindhearted younger brother looks at Kit Thompson with open desire? In which my family, my past, and the contrast with yours won’t matter?
That always matters, he thought. Always.
He said, “That wasn’t anything. And nothing you should be thinking of.”
“Oh,” Harry said, “is that the problem? Because I’m not entirely, er, inexperienced. The first time was with our new footman—well, he was new then, and in fact rather ambitious, he wanted out of the country and actually ended up at the townhouse in London—sorry, you don’t need to know all that, I was saying that we used to meet at the—”
Kit put a hand over Harry’s mouth. Not hard but firm. Not the gesture of a companion. Not the gesture of someone avoiding distractions, either.
He’d not been able to take that a second longer. Harry Arden, about to tell him all about experiences with a footman. Words and details tumbling from that happy mouth.
Harry gazed at him, and did not move, silenced by Kit’s hand.
Kit leaned closer. “You used to what? Have an arrangement? Meet him in your rooms, or the hallways, or…the library? Use your hands, or your mouth, on him? Did you get on your knees and suck him until he spent in your mouth? Did you enjoy it?”
Harry trembled a little, not from fear: he was not backing down. The stiffness now tenting his trousers was proof of that, matching Kit’s own.
Snow and clouds and trees wrapped around them, a cradle of ice and isolation. They might’ve been the only two people in the world.
Kit moved the hand just enough: finger tracing Harry’s lips, feeling each quick breath. “You don’t know what I’d do to you. What I’d want with you. You don’t know where I’ve been or what I’ve done, and you wouldn’t want to learn. You shouldn’t.”
He meant to frighten Harry. He meant to put up a wall between them. He meant to take a step back and move away, having demonstrated all the reasons why Harry should never raise this subject again.
He did not take a step away.
He slid his hand to Harry’s cheek, cupping fa
ir skin and freckles like stars over cream.
Harry whispered, gazing at him, “Would you like me on my knees now?” and moved as if to do so right here: to drop to the ground out in the open, indecorous and unashamed. “Please.”
Kit jerked his hand away. “You can’t—we can’t—”
“Is it because you don’t trust me?” Harry’s eyes flicked up and down Kit’s body, plainly noticing evidence of desire. “Or is it because you think I don’t know what I’m doing? I do. I’m not such an innocent.”
“You don’t know.”
“I know you won’t hurt me.”
That statement, so simple and easily given, shook Kit to the core.
The wind shrieked, picking up. Danger on the horizon. Burning cold, though Kit’s body ached with heat, ached to say yes, to sink a hand into Harry’s hair and tip that head back and plunge home inside that talkative mouth. To find out what Harry could do with that tongue, and whether he liked a man handling him firmly, whether he liked being taken and filled up and claimed over and over, with a man’s cock or hand or stiff leather or glass toys, a ray of sunshine wrung out and moaning and spending himself in climax after climax, writhing on a bed in a tangle of silken sheets….
He breathed, “You don’t even know me.”
“You’re here to help,” Harry said, as if it were that straightforward, as if the world could be. “You complain and you shout at me and you’re suspicious of everyone, but you’re trying to protect us. You’re trying to protect me right now. And I think you’re awfully beautiful, those eyes and those eyelashes and your hands, and I’ve been imagining those hands on me.”
Kit couldn’t find words. Harry waited for a second, then went on, “I know I’m not really anything special—you must have all sorts of gentlemen and ladies throwing themselves at your feet, in London, and I’ve never even been anywhere—but I don’t want to never have asked, you see, if I want this very badly, if I want you, and I do. And you haven’t said you don’t want me.”
“Gods,” Kit said. “Sommersby—Harry—” Harry’s eyes sparkled at this intimacy. Kit winced. Too much emotion. Too openly worn. He deserved none of it. “What is it you want from me? You’re an earl’s family—his only family—and you don’t leave his side. I’ll be back in London chasing telekinetic pickpockets or putting out fires started by someone’s illegal salamander. I live in a rented house and pretend Society doesn’t think I’m one step up from a servant. What future do you think we have? What do you think we’d get out of this?”
