“You don’t think Blanshard could have the brooch andmymagic?” Sebastian curled his hand, the arm with the tattoo. “Zhang, I don’t want to think that my magic could do this.”
“I know. There might be another explanation, let me work on this. Jade and I are coming up to York tomorrow. Is there a place we can meet you?”
Sebastian asked Lord Fine, who described a restaurant near the train station. He said goodbye to Zhang and hung up the phone, off-kilter like he was standing on the deck of a boat in stormy seas.
Lord Fine looked him up and down. “You look terribly pale again. Have you considered that it’s past teatime and you’ve used your magic repeatedly while eating nothing but biscuits today?”
Sebastian opened his mouth, then closed it.
“I watched you faint once already and I’m not keen on you driving yourself to it again.” Lord Fine straightened up. “Come on. You owe me a proper tea, don’t you? Let’s find something.”
Chapter Ten
Wesley would have liked to take Sebastian to the hotel by the train station now, just the two of them, instead of waiting for Jade and Zhang in the morning. The ground-floor restaurant was elegant, the food was excellent, and it might even have felt a bit like a date to have Sebastian across the table, something Wesley hadn’t had in a very long time.
But Sebastian was obviously shaken by his exertions and whatever he’d felt in the alley. So when the innkeeper pointed them to a pub one block over, Wesley didn’t want to take the time to find a better recommendation and dragged Sebastian there instead.
The pub was in the red-bricked ground floor of a two-story building with a peaked roof. Inside was brighter than he’d expected, a bay window letting in gray light as it framed a small courtyard with a few outdoor tables. It was early enough only a few others were inside, a couple men playing darts, a woman talking to the barkeep behind a counter made of small white tiles with a dark wood bar top.
They sat in a wooden booth with brown velvet cushions and a waitress came by to take their order.
But when Sebastian looked up, she visibly startled. “Oh, you’re back!” she said. “I didn’t think we’d get to see you again.”
Sebastian furrowed his brow.
“You don’t remember?” She snorted. “I rememberyou. You were quiet last time, but there aren’t men like you around here.” She tapped her pencil against her notepad, her expression very keen. “Are you, um. Staying in town?”
“No, he isn’t,” Wesley said, rather snappishly. “May we give our orders now?”
She gave Wesley a decidedly less keen look, but took their orders.
“I can’t take you anywhere,” Wesley said, as soon as she’d left.
“But I didn’t do anything.”
“No, of course you didn’t, that’s what’s so galling,” said Wesley. “You just sit there, doing absolutely nothing, and people flock to you like lecherous moths to a sexy flame.”
“What’sgallingabout that? Besides the questionable metaphor, because you are certainly the first person to call me that.”
“It was asimile,” Wesley said, because it was, and also because it was better than saying,because I’m one of those lecherous moths and I’m getting territorial.A territorial lecherous moth, Christ, thatwasa terrible metaphor.
“And why did she think she had seen me before?” Sebastian went on, looking confused again. “I’ve never been to York before this trip.”
“Do you expect an answer more sophisticated thanshe’s hoping you want in her knickers?”
“She seemed sincere,” Sebastian protested.
Wesley rolled his eyes. “Maybe she mistook you for another Caribbean boy wandering the Yorkshire moors, I don’t know. You owe me a drink and I want something stronger than tea. Go get me an ale.”
And try not to get fucked on the way to the bar,he stopped himself from saying out loud, because maybe Wesley was rude and unpleasant but he didn’t have to be rude and unpleasant toSebastian. It wasn’t his fault he was a sexy flame while Wesley was a territorial lecherous moth.
In short order, they both had drinks and food. Wesley picked up the vinegar for his fried fish and chips, another taste from his army years that he’d acquired alongside cheap cigarettes. He would never have been allowed to eat here in his youth. It was not a meal fit for a gentleman, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t looking forward to every greasy bite.
Sebastian had gone quiet and lost in his thoughts again in the seat across the booth, his outer coat now off and no jacket beneath. Just the waistcoat and tie, his chin propped in his hand and the edge of his tattoo visible where his shirtsleeve had slid down. The impossibly attractive sod frankly also looked good enough to eat, but he was still too pale, making no move for his fork as he bit his distractingly kissable lips and stared blankly with golden-brown eyes.
Wesley speared a chip with his fork. The waitress had been pretty, and she’d obviously been interested, but Sebastian didn’t seem to have even noticed. He’d been only quietly polite, as he usually was with everyone.
Except Wesley was actually getting more thanquietly politefrom Sebastian now, wasn’t he? Sebastian had teased him over biscuits at breakfast, kept protesting that Wesleywasn’t bad at all, had shamelessly charmed his way right into the driver’s seat of Wesley’s Bentley.
