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“I should’ve known you’d approve of sex jokes.”
“You’re even more perfect than I knew you’d be. Filthy, unrepentant, imperfect.” John propped himself up on an elbow, resurfacing. “Marry me.”
“What.”
“Why not? It’s legal, we’re not related, you adore me and I adore you, and I’m never letting you out of my bed again. Besides, you like a little bit of scandal.”
“We’ve only just—this is—” Sam waved both hands around. Then lunged over and landed awkwardly atop John, weight for emphasis. John let him do it, and even wriggled happily. Sam protested, “We’ve just met again! We barely know each other!”
“You like marvelous sex jokes and loving people and being put on your knees. I like music and adoring you and putting you right where I want you.”
Sam groaned. And then pressed their foreheads together, himself sprawled atop John. “You…”
“You like practical furniture, and you like sugar-plums when I feed them to you, and I like feeding you.”
“I’m not going to marry you the day after we’ve…done whatever this is.”
“Maybe the day after that?” John wiggled both eyebrows at him: absurd, beautiful, hopeful. “Don’t make me wait too long. I’m trying very hard to be an honest man.”
Sam groaned again, and sat up, freeing him.
“No, seriously,” John said, sitting up as well, finding both of Sam’s hands, taking them loosely into his. “Not tomorrow. Not next week. I know. We need some time. And you like plans. I just want you to know I mean it. I won’t leave you again.”
“Not tomorrow.” Sam bit his lip, felt John’s hands around his, felt John’s eyes on him, steady as seasons, as the rhythm of winter turning to spring. “Not next week. But…ask me again in a month. Or two. I don’t care about the gossip. That part doesn’t matter. Society will be surprised, and then some duke’s daughter will elope with her governess, and no one’ll give a damn about us.”
“Besides, you’ll be retiring.”
“Maybe I’ll take up horticulture. Or write a history. The early years of the Preternatural Division. For whomever comes after Kit.”
“It’d be useful. Will you put in those stories?” John’s fingers found lightning again. “I don’t like those stories.”
“They’ll be useful training lessons, not sensational penny-printings. I might become a patron of the opera. The theatre. Every opening night.”
“Every time I write something new, you’ll be there.” John did a small lip-lick. His gaze was serious. “I’ll turn one of your big empty rooms into a studio. Instruments. Sunlight.” He paused. “Redecorating.”
“We can’t,” Sam said, “display them. The other two pieces.”
“In here, though. Or my studio. Eccentric artist and all—no one’s allowed in.”
“Agreed. I’ll tell Kit the truth. Officially, the thief escaped—they had an Italian accent, perhaps one of your bandits, following you here, out for some sort of revenge—”
“Inventive. I like it.”
Society would believe it, too, given all the dramatic stories about Emily and John Thynne’s wild immoral existence. “We recovered that last one because they dropped it. We think they took the other two and left London. We don’t have the resources to go and search the Continent, so that’ll be as far as it goes.”
“It’s far enough.”
“It’s not perfect. But we’ll have Torie’s paintings, and Rookwood’s friends won’t—”
“And you’ll have me,” John said. “And I’ll have you. It’s justice. It’s right.”
The fire leapt, spun, twirled in lapidary ballet, topaz and honey dancer’s dresses flaring. Art. Heat. A promise.
Rightness, like the way John’s hand fit into his. Like the way they fit, as if they’d always been meant to. Maybe they had. Maybe they’d always known.
Sam let himself feel it, weigh it, balance it out on the scales. Him and John, righting an old wrong. Him and John, together.
There’d never been anyone else, for him. Not like this. He thought, from the way those musician’s fingers curled around his, holding on, there’d never been anyone else for John either.
