Lyndon would have been quite happy if the Earl of Rossingley never travelled at all.
“And…ah…if I’m not mistaken,” Rollo continued, “As you were feasting on my ballocks, I believe I recognised the sound of another coach and four heading up the driveway.Admittedly, I was a tad distracted, but…could it be your own brother perhaps?His visit was due about now, was it not?”
Lyndon closed his eyes.Perhaps he could feign illness and avoid all of them.Particularly the ones who’d witnessed his theatrics on the roof.In honesty, he felt terribly foolish about it all and furious that he managed to let his black thoughts get the better of him.
That he came so close to losing all he held dear.
Lyndon groaned again.“Benedict will be accompanied by Tommy bloody Squire, I’d wager.”
“I jolly well hope so,” answered Rollo cheerfully.He delivered a sloppy kiss, then laughed with delight as Lyndon wiped it away.“Having everyone together will be such fun.”
Lyndon gave a mournful sigh, refusing to let himself be so easily mollified by scrumptious kisses.“A slew of sodomites awaits me.”
Rollo snorted.“You say it as if gangs of us roam the countryside.”
“I’m starting to believe they do.Claiming unsuspecting, women-bedding lords as one of their own.”Lyndon gathered a giggling Rollo up in his arms and kissed his forehead.
“You are one of our own,” Rollo said.“You simply haven’t come to terms with it yet.Don’t worry.We shall have fully indoctrinated you by the end of the week.”
“I’m surprised they’re not here now, making a start.Certainly, they’ll be wondering where the devil we’ve got to.”
“I suspect that once Papa saw me safely in your arms, he retreated.”Rollo giggled again, happily.“He’s not widely known for racing up three flights of stairs.”
“Bloody tulip.”
Rollo’s frivolous little waistcoat, a peach stripy thing, hung from the old rocking horse, flung there in a fit of lust.Lyndon had never owned an item like it.He never intended to either.“Can one…” he began, then hesitated.
In the past few lonely weeks, convinced Rollo would never return, his unhappy mind had brooded on this very subject a great deal.
“What I mean is…I label myself no more a sodomite than I would label myself an astrologer or a…a horticulturalist.I am a man who enjoys those things—stargazing and plotting my summer flowerbeds—as I enjoy sodomising you.Enormously.But…am I defined by it?So that I must carry that label in all that I do?One is not defined by a love of hydrangeas, for instance.Nor by a passing fascination with…with the Flaugergues Comet.”
Rollo frowned as he considered.“Why do you ask?Does it concern you?Do you view us as lesser?Is that why you hid your urges for so long and made trouble for Benedict?”
“No,” Lyndon answered truthfully.“Especially as I have come to accept, nay embrace, my own desires.This…” He gestured around the room at the discarded clothes and the rumpled red dress on which they lay—it made for an excellent blanket.“Is the most pleasure I have attained in my life thus far.My love for you and how we…make love to each other is a…a source of great pride as well as comfort.”
Rollo tilted his head on one side, studying him, no doubt seeing scruffy whiskers, skin sallow from poor living, and two eyes resembling dark, bloodshot wounds.All redeemable though.Lyndon would turn over a new leaf starting tomorrow.As he’d rushed to Rollo’s rescue up on the roof and the boy had lain faint in his arms, he’d decided he would jolly well like to live to a ripe old age, after all.
“For some of us,” Rollo began carefully, “our sexual predilections imbue our every action.In our walk, in our speech, in how we view the world.My father, for example, is of that nature.As am I.”
“You think nothing of donning a dusty old dress.”
“Yes.”Rollo smiled.“Though I am still a man and, should the occasion arise, I would willingly fight for our country alongside every other full-bloodied male.”
He paused, choosing his words.“Your brother, Benedict, however, is not of my nature.He presents a more sober face to the world, befitting his standing as a duke.He does everything in his power not to draw attention to his private predilections.That is his choice, and because of it, thetonviews him with fondness, as a man married to his estate.In so doing, the gossip mongers leave him alone.”
He stroked a soft hand across Lyndon’s chest and its thicket of russet curls.“You, my lord, are a man built in your twin’s mould.You would not wish to flaunt your desires for a man outside of this household any more than you would covet living as a monk.”
“No.”
“And I wouldn’t want you any other way.”
As Lyndon indulged Rollo petting him, he mused on his good fortune.Being stroked and kissed was all well and good, but if he lay really still, his sated lover might nod off again.They could postpone leaving the nursery until they absolutely had to.Alas, after Rollo’s mouth nuzzled his neck, he wriggled from Lyndon’s grasp.
“You smell,” the boy declared and wrinkled his nose charmingly.
“Like a troll,” Lyndon replied, sniffing his bare armpit.“I haven’t bathed for days.”
“I adore your scent.But one can have too much of a good thing.Especially where guests are involved.”
