His words made Vasily’s heart flutter in his chest for reasons he chose not to think about.
“Secondly,” Mother continued, softer now, “you’re being too hard on yourself. This ‘asking people to keep company’ lark is all new to you. I’ll bet you couldn’t tack up a horse the first time you tried, either.”
That drew a smile out of Vasily as he remembered his first failed attempt at putting on a bridle. “Oh, that was a disaster. The straps were all arse about face, and I ended up tying the thing in knots before the head groom took it off me.”
Mother smiled knowingly. “Aye, I’ve seen that happen a time or two. But you can get a horse saddled up and ready to ride quick as a flash now, right?”
“Well, yes, but that’s only because I’ve had lots of practice.”
“Well then, you’ll just need to practice this as well.” Mother ruffled his hair, and Vasily leaned into the touch without thinking about it. Mother’s hand stilled and he gazed at Vasily, his brow creasing as though he were considering something. He drew his hand away, jutted his chin out and, voice rough, said, “Course, you could always practice on me.”
Vasily blinked. “What?”
Mother ducked his head. “You said you wished you knew how to talk to attractive men. Well, I’m no handsome young buck like Jeremy, but I daresay I’d do well enough if you want to learn how to give a compliment without making a tit of yourself.”
“Oh no,” Vasily said without thinking. “You are, actually. Handsome, I mean. For your age,” he added quickly, to distract Mother from the fact he’d just said he found him attractive. His cheeks flamed as he berated himself.
Shut up shut up shut up.
Mother’s head snapped up, but he didn’t look upset, more surprised. He raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Handsome for my age, am I? How old do you think I am?”
“Um…” Vasily scrambled to think of a number that seemed realistic. In truth, he hadn’t given it much thought. “Forty-two?”
Mother fixed him with a look. “Cheeky little shit! I’m bloody well thirty-five. And even I know that the rule is when someone asks how old they look, you shave off ten years.”
“Oh. Sorry,” Vasily said, biting his lip. Now that he looked closer, he could see that Mother was indeed younger than he first appeared—it was his height, his tanned skin, and his work-rumpled clothing that made him seem older at first glance. “So, I should say you look…thirty-two?”
“Now you’re getting it.” Mother grinned. “Don’t worry, lad. We’ll make a smooth talker out of you yet.”
ChapterFive
Mother sat alone in his cottage that night, staring at the wall as he tried to work out what had come over him.
Whyhad he offered to let Vasily learn to flirt with him? What had he beenthinking?
In truth, he knew exactly what he’d been thinking. It was the same thing he’d been thinking when he’d taken Vasily a bucket of hot coals, and when he’d invited him to breakfast every day, and when he’d brought him a headache cure and Cook’s special hangover cake after Vasily had gotten drunk.
Vasily needed someone to take care of him.
Of course, it wasn’t the first time Mother had looked after his grooms. It was just that normally it was the younger stable boys that needed a guiding hand, with some of them away from home for the first time and in need of a parental figure.
With Vasily, it was different. Mother’s feelings towards him were…well, they were complicated.
And most definitelynotparental.
MotherlikedVasily. From a professional standpoint, there was nobody who worked harder. He appreciated his easy smile and quick wit and the way he hummed unfamiliar, lilting tunes as he worked. But Mother was finding that, as he spent time with Vasily and their friendship grew, he was starting to notice things about Vasily that he never had before.
For example, there was the way his face lit up like a sunbeam as he plucked dandelions and wove them into a hasty flower crown, draping it over the hair of whoever was closest. Sometimes he stood on his tiptoes, grinning, and bestowed a crown on Mother. And Mother, for his part, kept every single one of them pressed flat between the pages of a book in his bottom drawer for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate.
Then there was Vasily’s recently developed habit of stripping off his shirt as he worked, unused to the heat—even though the temperatures were mild at best. Mother wasn’t going to stop him. Vasily came from a cold climate, and the last thing Mother wanted was his new groom laid up with heatstroke. But the last time Vasily had stripped, Mother hadn’t been able to stop staring at his broad muscled chest with its thatch of dark blond hair, and it had made his stomach swoop and dive in unfamiliar ways that, despite their newness, weren’t entirely unpleasant.
It was only later that night in bed, when he’d closed his eyes and the vision of Vasily, bare-chested and glowing with a light sheen of sweat, had his cock hardening, that Mother had finally identified what he felt as attraction—which in and of itself was unexpected, but even more so because Vasily was aman.
Mother had always assumed that if he ever did feel a physical pull towards someone it would be a woman, but apparently nobody had told his cock that. And although it had been something of a surprise to realise where his preferences lay, his initial moment of shock hadn’t lasted. Mother had been too busy wondering what it would be like to run his hands down Vasily’s broad chest or kiss the jut of his collarbones, or perhaps plunder that smiling mouth. The very idea of it had been enough that he’d ended up taking himself in hand and working himself to completion, panting Vasily’s name into the quiet of the night.
So yes, complicated.
But hewasfond of Vasily, and he did want to help him. And because Vasily was clueless, that had led to Mother presenting himself like a training yard dummy for Vasily to use to hone his romantic aim, so to speak.
