Chapter Seven
Wren stared in silent horror at Butcher. The fur-lined cloak lay flung over the foot-board. The highwayman boots sat on the floor amidst the snow drift secrets, one half-fallen over the other. The long-beaked Venetian leather mask and the peaked cap with its feather had tumbled onto the counterpane beside Butcher. Butcher himself, by the eerie blue light of his own fae lantern, appeared deep in concentration, his handsome brow furrowed, his full lips pursed, his dark eyes intent on the page he held up before him. He sat with his knees bent, one laid out on the bed and the other upraised, the hem of his tunic far too short to disguise what lay between them despite his woollen hose. A few strands of his black hair had come loose from the leather cord at the nape of his neck and now tumbled down over his high, sharp cheeks like ribbons of rain.
All this would have formed a composition of admirable beauty, had Butcher not held Wren’s doom in his callused fingertips.
Wren recovered his voice. “How long have you been waiting?”
Butcher glanced up with such rapidity that it appeared as though he flickered rather than moved. His expression brightened as his eyes alighted on Wren—then his brow contracted at Wren’s evident displeasure, despite Wren’s efforts to keep his tone even and his face a blank mask. “Since nightfall.”
Which had come at half-past six, meaning Butcher had hours to peruse every last piece of ill-advised literature Wren had penned throughout his career with Mr Grigsby. How foolish of him to assume the lock on his desk would prove sufficient to keep prying eyes at bay. Wren renewed his efforts at maintaining a casual tone. “Did you enjoy your reading?”
Butcher had the decency to look abashed—or so Wren thought, until he replied in a much-humbled voice, “I don’t have my letters.”
Wren felt rather abashed himself. He hadn’t meant to shame the man for illiteracy.
“But,” Butcher added, a faint smile returning to his handsome features, “I’ve much enjoyed your illuminations.”
Wren hardly thought his doodling measured up to illuminated manuscripts, even if he did refer to his own illustrative scribbling as marginalia. And while he very much wanted to take the compliment in its intended spirit, he knew his drawings were just as incriminating as his writing.
Still, Butcher appeared more intrigued than disgusted.
Butcher rose from the bed with a shocking amount of grace for a man of his stature, his long limbs tangling and untangling themselves in a languid fluidity as he stretched. Wren found himself transfixed by the sight of him. Likewise transfixed by the tiny blue flame, which Butcher set down on the bed-post, where it neither fell nor burned through the wood, but continued to flicker and glow. A shuffling sound drew Wren’s attention from it, and he belatedly saw Butcher had begun to collect the scattered papers.
Wren rushed to intercept him. “That’s all right—I’ll handle it.”
Butcher paused, then handed his sheaves to Wren, who realized as he took them that Butcher had collected them in order.
“Your pardon,” Butcher said. Then, “I was curious.”
Curiosity killed the cat—but satisfaction brought it back. The childish rhyme rose unbidden to the forefront of Wren’s mind. He dropped his gaze from Butcher’s face to the top-most page in the stack, whereupon a slender and beautiful knight embraced a wild, bearded lord. The marginal illustration neatly summarized the entire manuscript. If Butcher had seen this and not been put off by it, then perhaps…? It seemed too much to hope for, and yet the existence of the fae realm had seemed just as impossible before Wren had visited it himself last night.
And wouldn’t it be nice, for once, not to have to keep secrets?
“Well,” said Wren, forcing a casual tone over his thunderous pulse. “What do the fae think of men who lie with men?”
The ensuing pause drew out into a lengthy silence as the two men stared each other down. Then, in a single stride, Butcher was upon him. Even barefoot, he towered over Wren. Near enough to fill Wren’s lungs with his woodsmoke musk. Near enough for Wren to feel the heat of his body radiating through his woollen tunic.
And near enough for Butcher to raise his hand to Wren’s jaw and gently lift his chin.
Wren’s heart pounded in his ears. He gazed into those dark eyes, their depths glinting with warmth and curiosity like the night sky shot through with stars.
Then those eyes shut, and Butcher bent down, and Wren tilted his head to meet his kiss.
Wren hadn’t received a kiss in more years than he cared to tell, though he’d imagined many. He could never have imagined this. Butcher’s lips kindled the curious spark into a bonfire, which raged through Wren’s heart as he opened his mouth to taste him, devour him, consume him as he felt himself consumed by the overwhelming flame of his own desire. He burned with need above and below and found himself clutching Butcher’s arms with the grip of a drowning man. All too soon, however, his need for breath forced him to break away. He opened his eyes, gasping, and beheld Butcher gazing down on him with a fascination that matched his own passion.
“I think,” Butcher murmured, “a man who lies with men is the sort of man I like.”
~
No sooner had Shrike pronounced his preference than Lofthouse fell upon him anew. His small and slender frame seemed hardly able to contain the fury of his passion. It was all Shrike could do to keep hold of him as he took Shrike’s face in both hands and all but devoured him. Shrike retaliated by seizing his neck-cloth and tearing free its knot. The collar and studs went with it, leaving the slender throat exposed. Shrike broke off from the embrace—shuddered in illicit pleasure at the moan that escaped the clerk—and kissed a bruise over the pulse leaping in the stark blue vein, much to Lofthouse’s evident delight. Only a moment, and then lips found lips anew, as legs tangled and Shrike found solid proof of the clerk’s enjoyment between his thighs. Very solid proof, indeed. Shrike let his hand fall to trace the rising shaft in admiration. Then, after a moment’s fumbling amidst the woollen layers, Shrike found the fall-front of the trousers and slipped his hand inside.
Lofthouse broke away from the kiss with a gasp. “Wait!”
Shrike ceased. Withdrawing his hands from their work below the waist, he set them instead on the clerk’s shoulders, as it seemed Lofthouse, on the brink of a swoon, lacked the strength to stand under his own power. It lasted but a moment, however, and with a firm shake of his head which sent his feathery locks scattering across his brow in a dishevelled look that quite became him, the clerk regained his firm stance. He stepped back from Shrike, who released him entire.
“Have I displeased you?” Shrike asked.
“What? No, no, not at all—quite the reverse—only—not here,” said Lofthouse, running his hand through his hair again, as if he might find his composure there. “My employer is asleep just below us, and I cannot conceive of a worse place to be caught out if…”
