Lyndon grimaced, remembering one particular experience which had felt akin to drowning, all too slowly, in a sea of ratafia and spit.“If I must.When one is not paying in coin, then they generally expect it.”
Rollo rolled his eyes.“Your charm knows no bounds, Lord Lyndon.Did you kiss your boyhood friend?”
“Well, yes…but…we were mere…boys.And friends.Experimenting.”
“Yes, but did you enjoy it?”
A flash of colour—the bright yellow walls of the nursery—seized Lyndon’s mind.Two blunted swords and a wooden chest.Carefree laughter.His dearest Will in his worn breeches and thin cotton shirt, his long solemn face regarding Lyndon’s as if the answers to the entire universe were contained within.But then the face changed, became fairer, the shirt crisper; loose linen trousers replaced ragged wool breeches.
“Yes.Very much.”
Lyndon reached up to cup the narrow nape of Rollo’s neck.He pulled him closer.“But I shall enjoy this more.”
A fleeting second passed before their mouths met.A pause in time, during which Lyndon drank in the perfect bow of Rollo’s upper lip and the sweeping curve of the lower, his delicate beauty, like grace itself, coming towards him.
Lyndon wanted to grasp it and claim it and never give it back.
Rollo kissed as prettily as he walked.Their first was long, slow, deep, and soft.Blissful, in fact.Yet terrifying, all at the same time.With a tight knot of want pooling in his belly, Lyndon rolled him onto his back, the better to devour his mouth.A few years had elapsed since Lyndon’s own had been used for kissing.With relief, he discovered it still knew what to do.
When at last they parted, breathless and panting, Lyndon gently slid off him.He lay on his side, feasting his eyes on Rollo’s flushed, bruised lips.“For a small, capricious sprite, you have an unnerving ability to unman me,” he murmured.
Unable to resist, he slid a finger into the corner of Rollo’s mouth and ran it across the swollen bottom lip.Against the fall of his trousers, his cockstand still throbbed uncomfortably.“If my servants weren’t nearby, I’d strip you bare and take you right here.”
His lover sucked the finger into the wet heat of his mouth in a manner leaving no room for misunderstanding.He might as well have been doing it to Lyndon’s cock.
“It is only because your servants are nearby that you haven’t already thrice had that pleasure, my lord.Though to be smothered all afternoon in your tender kisses is a more than adequate substitute.”
Lyndon preened even as his skin pinked, the blush likely not escaping Rollo’s pale, sharp gaze.As that same gaze cornered Lyndon’s own, he folded one of Lyndon’s big hands in his smaller one as if the hand was his to do with as he pleased.
“I have stirred up emotions you wished lay dormant,” Rollo stated.“You believed yourself cured of attraction to another man.”He smiled gently.“Your marvellous kisses suggest that you have concluded it is a tiresome condition for which there is no cure.”
“Yes.”Lyndon faltered at the candid summing up.A strand of unhappiness reminded him how undeserving he was of praise.“I…here…with you, I find I am the very thing I wielded against Benedict in a cruel attempt to bring him down.I used my knowledge of his predilections against him.Were it not for your father’s intervention, Benedict’s position as one of the most regarded dukes in the land would have tumbled.He would have been humiliated and shamed.And lost his well-deserved contentment forever.”
Lyndon swallowed, that damned break in his voice returning with a vengeance.“But if our roles were reversed, he would never have done the same to me.Not for all the gold, tea, brandy, or damned tobacco smuggled through the Thames docks.And still, the man has found it in his capacious heart to forgive me.”
“You would like to make your peace with him, yes?”
“Yes,” answered Lyndon carefully.“When I wasexiledhere—” He gave Rollo a wry look.“—I was still too angry, too proud to properly express my remorse.”Blowing out a long breath, Lyndon examined their joined hands.“And perhaps too ashamed.But now, there is much I’d like to say to him.”
Rollo nodded.“Excellent news,” he declared softly.
“Is it?”
“Oh, yes.”
Even before it spilled from Rollo’s delectable lips,Lyndon sensed trouble brewing.The sly expression crossing his lover’s face was too reminiscent of his damnedpapa.Sealing Lyndon’s doom, Rollo brought Lyndon’s hand up to his mouth and kissed each finger, one by one, before his lips curved into an enticing smile.At that moment, Lyndon doubted there was nothing his companion could do or say that would meet with his disapproval.
Well, almost nothing.
“The day after tomorrow,” Rollo said, “the Duke of Ashington arrives at his solicitor’s office in Norwich on business.I have arranged that we, too, shall visit.A light lunch is planned, and then the duke is of a mind to tour your charitable venture.”
Chapter Eighteen
My dearest Willoughby.I pray to God that you and Papa are right about the duke’s forgiving nature.Fitz can’t even form his name without tying himself in knots about the possible consequences of his impending visit.
Papa.Fitzsimmons is an ardent enthusiast of summer picnics.Especially when ants are involved.And his splendid garden is awash with hydrangeas; I could lie on a blanket for hours, under the shady beeches, admiring every single living thing in it.
Your Grace.Forgive me for speaking out of turn.But know that your brother has much to say, even when he does not say it.
