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And then he’d had John, and Emily. A stepbrother, a stepmother. His to care for. A gift. And John had, from the beginning, made him smile. Quick wit, lightness, the ability to gaze at a ribbon or a raindrop or a daisy and see poetry, where Sam saw simple fabric or uncomfortable weather or a common plant. John had been poetry, himself.
It hadn’t been love, not then. They’d been too young. But it’d been—a want. A recognition. An answer to an empty spot he hadn’t known he had, deep inside. A song, the sort of wild spontaneous melody John had hummed when sad, or when Sam’s cheekbone bore the imprint of a fist, or simply to make books or ribbons dance, a distraction, a small brightness where they huddled in the library.
They’d danced together, once or twice. Never seriously, simply practicing steps, acquiring gentlemanly polish, under the eye of the dancing-master who’d been ordered to make John ready for society. John had made mistakes, wrong steps; but he’d been graceful and laughing and so irrepressible that even the dancing-master had smiled. Sam remembered that, the same way his hand remembered the feel of John’s in his, the sideways sparkling glance in John’s eyes that said we’re in this together, thank you, and even if it’s an order, isn’t it a little bit fun?
There’d been more bruises, more cold dispassionate cruelty, from Phineas Rookwood in response to any mistakes, of course. That was a fact of life, in the Rookwood household. No flaws permitted, not even laughing ones. Nothing that might reflect badly upon the viscount’s name and reputation.
Sam had taken most of the responsibility, as best he could. His job. Always.
And John had grown up beautiful and flirtatious and charming, the sort of person who could deflect anger and slide out from under rage, with the right agreement or silence or offering, given at precisely the right time. The sort of person who could take in the world, in one speaking glance, and sing to his audience, so that every person present felt that the song was chosen just for them. The sort of person who could smile at a footman or a countess and coax both of them to tell him their secret desires, simultaneously, in bed. They wouldn’t even mind, after.
John was not his, could not be his. Sam understood that. He’d understood back then.
It was wrong, it was wicked, it was the opposite of all his promises: his vows about keeping John safe, above all else. Someone who trusted him. Someone who did not need to ever know that Sam’s breath caught, Sam’s pulse picked up, the same way everyone else’s did, at John’s smile.
He’d had a few other lovers, over the years, then and now. Not too many, not ever, because none of them were ever quite right. Some of them came close. Men who would smile at him and shove him to his knees and tell him to earn his pleasure. Men who understood, even before he had, that something in him cried out with relief at the command, the surrender, the moments of not needing to think, to work, to be responsible. Men with charm, and charisma, and blue eyes.
When Emily Rookwood had fled her marriage, she’d taken John with her. She’d left her small daughter, the daughter she had not wanted, with the man she had escaped. And Sam had tried his best to be a good brother, to support Torie’s artistic genius, to be a shield, to be a detective, to find his stepbrother somewhere in Italy. He’d promised. He would protect his family. He needed to take care of John.
He’d found answers, on occasion; and not, on others. Emily had escaped with nothing beyond the jewels in her dress and the scandal at her back, but had found protectors, lovers, counts and wealthy bankers and a clever talented weather-worker who’d earned the gratitude of merchants and lords. They moved frequently. Sam heard murmurs, stories, about Emily’s son, winsome and glittering and brilliant, a composer, magically and musically gifted far beyond the small household talents the average person might possess. Melodies for an opera in Florence, a Midwinter Masque in Rome.
Somehow no address ever seemed current, no letters provoked an answer. One of the rumors said John had been kept by a countess as a pet for a month, idling away among sheets of silk and music-notes. Another said that his coach had once been waylaid by banditti, and they’d kept him for two weeks, playing music for them, entertaining them in other ways, until he’d written a song so beautiful they’d let him go.
Letting go, Sam thought. He said, “You have every right to be angry. If I’ve made you feel unsafe. Unmoored, you said.”
“Well, I planned to be. Angry, that is.” John, standing beside him, was taller, younger, more vital and powerful. His hand drifted: up from Sam’s shoulder, setting on Sam’s head, stroking grey-flecked tired strands. “I don’t feel unsafe. The opposite. You always did that, for me.”
“I tried.” Too much, too much, too kind; Sam could have turned and clung to him, could have let John pet him and soothe him and take charge of him. Instead he slumped forward and buried his head in his arms, on his desk. “I know it wasn’t enough. You should go.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“You should be anywhere else. Someplace free. Colorful. With violins.”
John’s hand rested atop Sam’s head again, a small tender weight. “Why violins?”
“First instrument I thought of.”
“I think I should be here.” John’s fingers slid through Sam’s hair, repetitive, a rhythm. “I think I should’ve come home years ago, maybe.”
“You never needed to.”
“I did, though.” John’s touch found the back of Sam’s neck, and rested there, almost a command. From someone else, in another world, in the world in which that was possible, it might’ve been. “Your…Harry? Viscount Sommersby? The tall adorable one, not the one who looks like a medieval illustrator got instructed to draw an angry panther.”
Sam smothered a disloyal laugh in the fortress of his forearms. “The short one’s Kit, you’re not wrong, and don’t let Harry hear you say so.”
“It was a compliment. I like dangerous cats. Anyway, your viscount said something. We both heard him.”
Sam knew where this was going. Could’ve protested. Like himself up against the door, earlier, he let it happen. Let it change the world, here in his study, at his desk.
John said, “He said you love me. You’re in love with me. And I love you.”
“Harry,” Sam grumbled, not looking up, body and heart equally weary and confused and overflowing with the sensation of John’s hand on him, “should mind his own damned business. Especially if he wants to work for the Division as a special consultant.”
“He’s not already?”
“He is now. We’ll make it official. He and Kit are inseparable, anyway.”
“He’s some sort of empath, right?”
