“None at all.” Indeed, Shrike rather looked forward to the opportunity to display his acrobatic talent.
Lofthouse went to the window, unfastened the latch, and swung it out wide. A chill night breeze entered alongside a few wisps of curious fog. Lofthouse stepped back and shot Shrike an expectant, almost challenging look.
Shrike strode over to swing one leg out the window and balance on the ledge. He turned for one final glance back at his new comrade-in-arms. By the cold flickering light of fae flame, he beheld the dark eyes wide with wonder, the flush beneath the freckles, the chestnut locks and neck-cloth both askew after their frantic embrace. Impulse struck him. “Before I go—may I have something of yours?”
Suspicion clouded Lofthouse’s brow. “That would depend on what it is.”
“A kiss,” said Shrike. “If you have one to spare.”
A wry half-smile tugged at the corner of Lofthouse’s perfect mouth. Then he glanced past Shrike to the night beyond the open window—moonless and impenetrable beneath the thick fog. Not even Shrike could see more than an ellspan beyond his own nose. Mortals had no hope of glimpsing what went on within an attic window.
Evidently Lofthouse drew the same conclusion, or perhaps he simply had more courage than most would credit him. Regardless, he approached the window.
The second embrace proved no less passionate than the first, and far more lingering. As Lofthouse withdrew, his wistful expression showed as much reluctance as Shrike felt in breaking off the embrace.
“‘Til Samhain, then,” said Shrike. “Fare thee well, Lofthouse.”
And with a grin, he shoved off from the window-frame and fell backwards into the fog.
~
Chapter Eight
Wren seized the window-frame and thrust his upper half out into the night where Butcher had gone. The fog swallowed up all trace of him. Wren doubted he could see his own hand if he waved it in front of his face, much less the cobblestones three storeys below.
As said thick, caustic, choking fog had begun seeping into the garret, Wren retreated and shut the window—though not without reluctance. He’d had half a mind to leap into the night after Butcher. Even now his heart flung itself at his ribs like a caged finch determined to escape. His fingers yet trembled with the thrill as he fumbled at the window lock. It took considerable resolve for him to shut the curtain.
The blue fae flame hovering over his quilt guttered and went out. Wren took this to mean Butcher had left Staple Inn. He lit a candle at his desk in its stead, though while a candle might replace the will-o’-th’-wisp, nothing could replace Butcher.
Wren sat down hard on the quilt where the fae flame had flickered—where Butcher himself had sprawled not an hour past.
Now alone, Wren brought his fingertips to his mouth to touch the ghost of Butcher’s kiss. His lips yet tingled with it. So, too, did the mark blooming on his throat where Butcher had torn open his collar. The fury of Wren’s repressed desires had overtaken him in the moment, had allowed him not only to submit to the embrace, but to return it in force. He knew he ought to feel appalled at his own audacity.
But rather than dread, his heart pounded with elation.
He’d long ago given up on his dreams of kissing another man, instead transferring his desires to the heroes and villains of his manuscripts and illustrations.
Until tonight.
When, incredibly, his first kiss in more years than he cared to count had exceeded all his considerable expectations.
He felt as if a decade’s weight had lifted off his shoulder and made him a young university student again, his aspirations not yet snuffed out. Even now, with so long and grim a conversation between the first kiss and the last, the thought of either proved enough to stir Wren’s prick to half-mast. Wren knew the recollection would drive him to onanism long before Samhain—likely more than once. For the moment, however, he would have to draw on twenty years of resolve to turn his mind towards more pressing needs.
The first order of business, after Butcher had vanished into the fog, was to find a new hiding place for his manuscripts. The desk had proved too obvious. It did, however, make a convenient perch for Wren to climb on as he stretched up into the rafters to search for someplace better. Unfortunately the stark white of the paper appeared far too visible against the dark wooden beams, no matter how deep a shadow he tucked them into. He went over the chimney brick-by-brick as he came down but found none loose. Only when he slid under his own bed to try stuffing the manuscripts between the ropes holding up his mattress did he discover, quite by accident, a solution. While crawling on his back, he struck his left elbow sharp against a floorboard and heard a curiously hollow thud. Despite the pain and numbness spreading down his arm to his fingertips, he felt along the edge of the board and, after much more crawling, writhing, cursing, and the retrieval of a letter-opener from his desk, pried it up. Beneath it lay the cross-boards supporting the floor above and ceiling below, and plenty of space between them—some six inches deep—more than enough room for his papers, which he stashed inside.
Dawn had broken by the time Wren finished hiding his sins. Which was just as well, as he didn’t think he could sleep a wink after the night he’d had. The passing of a quarter-hour saw him scrubbed, brushed, and wearing a fresh shirt beneath his suit. In another quarter-hour he had tea boiling in the copper kettle downstairs and stood before the fire with bread on a toasting-fork in one hand and a pan of sausages in the other. His aborted educational career had taught him, amongst other things, the art of cookery outside of kitchens. By seven o’ clock the first round of the penny post had arrived along with the morning edition of theTimes. Wren arranged it on the breakfast tray alongside the buttered toast, tea, and sausages, and set the whole down on Mr Grigsby’s desk. Five minutes later, punctual to the minute, Mr Grigsby himself descended the stair to the office.
“Good morning, Lofthouse!” Mr Grigsby said as he approached his desk, much like every other morning for the past decade. Today, however, he paused just before sitting down and shot Wren a questioning glance.
Wren froze. He kept his subservient mask on—barely—while panic raced through his mind. His heart stopped as he recalled the bruise Butcher had kissed onto his throat. He had thought his cravat covered it, but if it’d slipped since then—
“Are you feeling quite the thing, Lofthouse?” Mr Grigsby asked. He sounded more concerned than disapproving. Wren tried to take heart in that.
“Quite well, sir,” Wren lied. “Thank you.”
Mr Grigsby professed himself happy to hear it, adding, “It’s only, if you’ll forgive my saying so, you don’t look as if you’ve slept well.”
Wren had grown so accustomed to the blue bruises under his own eyes that he hadn’t noticed they appeared much deeper than usual this morning. “Bit of a head-ache, sir. Gone now.”
