An Improper Holiday (5 page)

Their breaths came heavy between them, wisps of steam visible in the unheated chill of the gallery.

Then of all things, Ian executed a perfectly formal bow. “I beg your pardon, Amherst,” he said with

no more feeling than if he delivered an inadvertent elbow in a crush at a soiree.

There were a million things Nicky should have said, but what came from his still-burning lips was

“What for?”

“For far too much,” Ian said, revealing a ghost of his old self, the unexpected humor that came up like wildflowers between cobblestones. Then he bowed again and left.

~ * ~

Thirty-six guests were staying for the full party, but Father and Anna might as well have decided to

host the entire
ton
because the elusive Mr. Ian Stanton confounded all of Nicky’s efforts to catch him alone Christmas morning despite a bitter north wind that imprisoned everyone in the castle. Nicky had been

driven to considering the extreme of hiring someone to bind and gag Ian in the hayloft just so they could have a private conversation, when Charlotte rallied round to propose a riding party as soon as the wind let up.

It was for the best. Nicky didn’t know how to get in touch with any criminals, though he would

daresay Simmons might be of some help.

Several other gentlemen and ladies were keen to escape the indoors and a party of ten set off in the

early afternoon.

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25

K.A. Mitchell

In deference to the ladies, they maintained a decorous pace. Nicky’s Galen kept twitching his ears and shaking his head as if he could not believe he had been dragged from a warm stall to mince along the fields instead of flying over fences. Galen was only too eager to take up the trot that brought him side by side with Ian’s mount.

Ian immediately glanced about as if he sought rescue in larger company, but Nicky had timed it well.

The path narrowed through a copse, forcing them to keep to no more than two abreast, and the party spread out long ways. Charlotte and a few ladies were behind them, all of the gentlemen and the Dowager Duchess of Coventry rode ahead. Ian’s gaze sent a final appeal to the impassive hemlocks and beeches before

staring straight between his mount’s ears, his spine as fixed and rigid as his gaze.

“You never answered my letters,” Nicky said.

Ian’s head didn’t turn. “There was nothing more to say.”

“After all you swore to me?”

Dark red stained Ian’s cheeks, more than could be attributed to the frosty air. “We were boys.”

“And five years later we are men who no longer feel that passion.”

“As it should be. That is all in the past.”

“And my best stud’s an untried colt. You bloody kissed me last night.”

That at least sparked something. Ian’s head shot ’round, eyes wide with alarm. Although no one could

possibly be in earshot, Ian’s voice lowered till it was scarcely audible over the ring of hooves on frozen ground. “And I have apologized. My judgment was impaired by—”

“Don’t try to tell me you were in alts. I know you, Ian. You had barely a sip of whiskey.”

“Nevertheless, I express deepest regrets for my—”

“Regret? Of all the stupid, doltish, empty-headed—I wanted you to do it, you unmitigated ass.”

Ian shook his head. “Nicky—Amherst. Even the Greeks knew there was a time when a man had to put

aside his
eromenos
and undertake a man’s obligation as a citizen and head of a family.”

Nicky remembered the papers he had found behind lock and key in the college library, how he had

brought them to Ian for translation, aching with joy to hear love between men not only accepted but

celebrated.

“There are ways of meeting the expectations of both heart and duty. What of the lovers described by

Aristophanes, the ones who forever seek to join themselves to their missing halves, whether it is man to woman, woman to woman or man to man? Are you not the same man who finished the translation and

looked straight at me to whisper, ‘He is so right, Nicky. That is what I have found with you’?”

Ian looked away. They approached the edge of the copse. Rejoining the others would end the

conversation.

26

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An Improper Holiday

When Ian looked Nicky’s way again, there was little of that remembered joy to be seen on Ian’s sharp

features. “But we do not live among the ancients. Such physical union risks our necks. And as I recall, you found little to enjoy in our attempt.”

They had reached the field. Nicky read imminent flight in the tension of Ian’s hand on the reins, the

shift in his seat. He was going to urge his mount to a trot, catch the others up and vanish into the crowd where further direct speech would be impossible. Nicky reached out and gathered Ian’s reins, forcing the mare to stop.

“For a man who could read Greek as easily as many do plain English, you are incredibly lacking in

native intelligence. We didn’t know what we were doing. Of course it was uncomfortable. But I have

learned—”

Ian snatched away the reins, wheeling the mare so tightly her eyes showed white. “How?”

“I beg you will not take your idiocy out on my horses, Ian. Rowena has a soft mouth.”

Ian eased his grip on the reins, but his voice was still cold enough to rival the air. “How?”

“How do you think, you bloody fool? The point is there is much we can share. The pleasure is

boundless and with proper caution—God, what I will show you.”

Ian dug his heels into Rowena’s sides and urged her off at a canter, flying across the field, far from the riding party, headed for—oh Sweet Christ, the folly. The ditch that kept the picturesque image of grazing sheep in sight of the castle without the actual sheep shit to litter the lawn. Most of the snow had been swept from the high field by the morning’s wind, but it surely filled the ditch. If Rowena and Ian took flight there unaware, the fall would break both their necks.

He heeled Galen after them, calling out a warning, but he was sure his voice would be lost under the

wind and pounding hooves. Even if Ian remembered the exact location of the folly, or it was miraculously clear of snow, could he take the jump with only one limb for balance? A low try for certain, but the folly was wider than any fence Nicky had taken on a hunt. As if aware of pursuit, Ian’s path veered, no longer on a trajectory to the folly but to the style in the fence farther upfield. Rowena was a good hunter and could easily clear it, but if Ian lost his seat…

Nicky’s own heart and stomach parted ways, like he could sense the power gathered beneath him, as

if he too made the dizzying leap into space on ninety stone of horse in flight. As Rowena cleared the style and landed in the next field, the man atop her pitched dangerously forward onto her neck, nearly dangling off to the left. Nicky’s pulse echoed in his ears, loud even over the thud of Galen’s hooves. He counted off the beats…one-two-three…before Ian righted himself and sped into the distance. Nicky drew a deep breath and turned Galen back to the rest of the riders. If Ian didn’t come to his senses soon, Nicky might break the man’s neck himself.

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27

Chapter Four

Ian tugged at his cravat, itching to be free of the starched cloth and the high collar of his coat. What the devil was taking Simmons? Every bit of sinew and bone—both real and phantom—ached for a chance

to settle into the mattress and forget the whole blasted holiday.

He wished he could lay the fault for his pains on the ride this afternoon, but Rowena had a softer gait than he deserved, especially after his dash pell-mell for land unpeopled by the heir to Carleigh. Upon his return, he had stayed with a groom to be sure she had not suffered from his ham-fisted treatment and seen to her getting a soft warm mash as a reward for the exercise.

No amount of mash or currying could excuse either his behavior toward a creature under his care or

his assault on Nicky. Whatever the provocation—and Ian should have realized a man like Lewes could

scarcely be counted on to speak the truth—Nicky hadn’t deserved the violence of Ian’s temper any more

than had the gentle bay mare.

When at last the door opened, Ian spun ’round to be relieved of his coat, sufficiently irritated by

Simmons’ delayed arrival to forgo his usual greeting.

Perhaps the fellow had been overindulging in whatever libations were being offered to celebrate the

day in the servants’ hall because the valet was clumsy rather than deft, struggling just to ease the coat from Ian’s shoulders.

“And I shall be retiring, Simmons.”

Instead of the expected “Very good, sir,” the man left his arms pinned behind his back and brushed

his fingers beneath Ian’s cravat. The unanticipated contact awakened Ian’s skin, his flesh alight with delightful ripples of sensation.

“What the devil?”

He would have turned to face the man, but Simmons stepped closer, hands moving to remove the

starched tie while pressing his hips intimately against Ian’s arse.

The shock and terror in his gut, even the pain of his confined shoulders, could not dampen the rush of arousal evoked by the touch, by the strength of another man’s embrace.

“Simmons. I must ask that you remember yourself.” Ian twisted free, retreating to place a wall at his

vulnerable back, but his all-too-vulnerable front was exposed to—Nicky.

The identity of his assailant did little to mitigate Ian’s dismay.

An Improper Holiday

“Are you mad?” Ian struggled with his coat, anger lending him sufficient strength to tear one of the

sleeves from the body.

Nicky locked the door and removed his own coat. “It is Boxing Day, after all. Simmons has the

evening off, as do almost all of the servants. Surely you would not deprive the man of his well-earned holiday.”

“It is not Boxing Day for another hour,” Ian asserted as the solemn toll of the chapel bell made him a liar. He flung his torn coat to the floor.

Nicky’s cravat parted company with his shirt, revealing a neck still defined with the strong tendons

Ian had once traced with his tongue. Quelling thoughts of other flesh his mouth longed to revisit grew more impossible with each piece of clothing Nicky dropped onto the Aubusson rug.

“What are you doing?”

“I am preparing for bed. That bed.” Nicky indicated the four-poster in the center of the room.

“Is the castle so crowded the son of the house has been turned out of his rooms?”

“If it pleases you to think so.” Nicky straightened, torso bared to Ian’s gaze.

Firelight gilded Nicky’s skin, gleaming on the fine hairs of his breast, drawing Ian’s eye to the waist of Nicky’s breeches where the hair thickened and darkened. The garnet on his signet ring flashed as

Nicky’s hands moved to those buttons.

Ian shut his eyes. “No.”

“No?” The amusement in Nicky’s voice had Ian looking again, forgetting what imminent danger had

prompted his action. But Nicky only bent to remove his shoes and stockings, gifting Ian with the sight of the firm curve of his backside under the tight kerseymere breeches.

Nicky brought his hands to rest above his hips, fingers disappearing under the waistband. “Is it truly no or is that what the good soldier, the dutiful second son, feels compelled to say?”

Ian’s throat burned as it tightened, but he could not look away.

“Whom do you seek to save with your denial, me or you?” Nicky persisted. He stepped closer, but

made no move to touch Ian. “Why are we to be denied pleasure when you must know how precious and

brief life is?”

“The risk of—”

“You threw yourself against a wall of French rifles in service to your father’s idea of honor. Can you not permit yourself something your own honor knows is right? How can it be wrong when we both desire

it?” Nicky shoved his breeches down and stepped free, the proof of his desire standing proud and hard.

As swiftly as snow falling off a steep roof, Ian’s body dropped into a pit of raw need. He made a last effort to find any handhold which might keep him from the abyss.

“I do want…”
you
“…this, but only what we did before. We cannot, I will not…” He tried making a gesture to communicate the specific deed.

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K.A. Mitchell

“Bugger me?” Nicky grinned. “Fuck me?”

Despite Ian’s shock, the coarseness of Nicky’s words brought a faster beat of blood to Ian’s prick.

That unabated grin suggested Nicky knew damned well what effect he had wrought. His next step brought

Nicky close enough to try the truth with his hand. Fingers traced the outline of Ian’s prick beneath a layer of wool and linen, a light pressure that offered nothing beyond exquisite torment. A quick hard rub against the crown, dragging the linen across the damp skin until heat pulsed from the tip, the touch as unerringly accurate as Ian’s own.

Pleasure stole his breath as surely as a fist to the stomach. Sucking the air through his teeth, he

reached a hand to Nicky’s shoulder, hips tipping into the caress.

Nicky leaned forward until his breath moved against Ian’s ear. “While I find your concern utterly

charming, what makes you believe you could take my arse if I didn’t allow it?”

Ignoring the wail of protest from his prick and balls, Ian transferred his grasp to Nicky’s wrist to still the motion of his palm. “I am well aware that many now consider me less a man, but with all your

protestations, I would have thought—”

Nicky laughed. “Christ, Ian, try not to be more of an ass than the good Lord intended you to be. You

couldn’t best me even when you had four inches and two-stone advantage.”

“I’ve never had two stones on you, you country-fed beast.” The retort came unbidden to his lips, their long habit of verbal sparring impossible to amend.