Discreet Young Gentleman (25 page)

"And I had no idea, I swear," Dean put in. "His captain, my friend Jacob Franklin, knew him only as Jim Piatt, and thought there was no other family."

A silent tear slid down Charlotte's cheek. "What am I to do? I've come into a legacy, so I have the means to care for him, but he'd have no reason to go off with a complete stranger. And suppose his family gets wind that he's alive? They'll take him back home to Ireland, and if what you say is true, the shock could break his mind completely."

Dean leaned forward. "Come to Carwick, Mrs. Westport. Next month, after I'm married—or better yet, right away, if you can bring your mother or cousin to make it respectable. If you're there, every day, in time Jim will come back to himself, I'm sure."

Charlotte looked hopeful. "Your fiancée won't object?"

"Of course not." Dean frowned. "Maybe not. Oh, dash it, I'll just explain it to her, best as I can. I'll have to find her first, though." He looked at the clock. "We'll speak again tomorrow. Do you have lodgings in Bath?"

"Yes, my lord." Charlotte rose. "I have a room at the Essex, on Milsom Street."

Dean stood as well. "I'll walk you over there, and check in on Erich—Jim—on the way back. Rob, will you come?"

"Yes, of course."

The three of them had barely reached the foot of the stairs when Mrs. Waddhams's door flew open with a crash. "What did I say?" she hissed, hands on hips. "None of your bits of muslin in my house! Your uncle will hear about this, and if I don't cancel his lease on the spot, he'll be—"

"This is my sister," Dean said through gritted teeth. "And my uncle will hear from me what an interfering and filthy-minded old hag you are. If he doesn't cancel the lease on the spot and—"

"Sister?" The landlady snorted in derision, but only halfheartedly, doubtless remembering that Uncle Phineas paid his reckoning promptly and without demur.

"Very well. This time perhaps I'll let it go. But we'll have no repeats while you're here."

"None," Rob averred. "Good night, Mrs. Waddhams."

They saw Erich's wife to her lodgings, then stopped by the stable on Westgate to visit the coachman himself. As in many establishments of this kind, there were rooms available to be shared by the grooms and coachmen who looked after their employers'

horses.

Dean saw that Erich was comfortably established, trying to picture him the son of an aristocratic house, like himself. More so, since Dean had grown up merely the nephew of an earl, not the son of one. "Alles ist gut?"

"Ja, Herr Graf. Alles ist gut."

Dean hesitated, putting out his hand to Rob, who immediately divined his need and handed over the English/German dictionary he'd been in custody of for the past few days. "Diese Frau in Grau, Erich, heute morgen in Chippenham."

Erich tilted his head. "Ja?"

"Kennst du sie?"

Erich shook his head: no, he hadn't known her.

Dean sighed. "Maybe you will." He didn't need to look in the book to translate that.

Pity his new language skill had so little other practical application. "Vielleicht kommt das noch."

"Ja, Herr Graf. Vielleicht."

He and Rob walked in silence back to their rooms. Mrs. Waddhams's door opened a crack when they passed, then closed with a soft click once she'd verified that they did not have a whole muslin company in tow. Just one prostitute, Mrs. W., Dean thought to himself. If you don't count me selling myself to the Lewises.

Dean was careful not to look at Rob while they undressed and got into their new nightshirts. Sharing a bed with him was going to be hard enough, without tempting himself with glimpses of Rob's naked flesh. When he turned around, his companion was safely covered to the knee with white cotton and sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at him.

"You know," Rob said. "You're a remarkable man."

"Hardly that."

"You are. You took in Erich despite his difficulties. You're trying to place me with one of your uncles, so that I don't have to..." He waved a hand. "And now, you're taking in Erich's wife as well, even though it's bound to cause trouble with your fiancée."

"I have to," Dean said. "It's the right thing to do."

"It doesn't seem remarkable to you? To care what becomes of damaged soldiers, unclaimed wives, and," a strong shoulder lifted and fell, "fallen men?"

"I make mistakes," Dean said, looking directly at Rob. "Terrible ones. If anything else I do helps to make up for them, it's a mere droplet in the ocean, I assure you."

"May I tell you one last story?" Rob asked. "About me."

"Yes. I'd like that." Dean sat on the chair in front of the dressing table, not trusting himself to sit next to Rob on the bed.

"Once upon a time," Rob began, his voice uncharacteristically halting, "once upon a time there was a young boy. He was different from the other children, and they made fun of him."

Dean nodded sympathy. He certainly knew what that was like.

"Even his mother, who was flawed in the same way, was driven to say things she shouldn't, and that hurt even more."

Dean hadn't realized they'd shared that, too. But for the first time he thought about how hard it must be, to see in one's offspring the same trait one hates in oneself. "Go on," he said, hurting for Rob.

Hurting for all four of them: sons and mothers alike.

"The boy found it difficult," Rob said, "getting close to people, and as he grew he made few friends. Still, he dreamed that one day, someone would see beyond what was wrong with him." He paused, chest expanding in a deep, painful breath. "And beyond the superficial things that made others consider him a kind of trophy."

It began to occur to Dean, uncomfortably, that the story thus far could be about either of them. The superficial things: Rob's beauty, or Dean's title? But despite the similarities, this story was supposed to be about Rob.

"But you see, along the way, this boy—this man, now—was forced by financial circumstances to make a choice. He did what he felt he had to do, even though it might put what he truly wanted out of reach forever."

Rob paused for a moment, and again Dean slotted in the details for both of them: the one, turning to prostitution; the other, to a betrothal with a woman he barely knew.

He himself had told Rob that no one would get romantically involved with a man who had sold his body. Dean regretted those words now, regretted even more the marriage vows that would soon serve as the final barrier between them.

"And then," Rob continued, "he did meet the man he wanted, wanted with all his heart. A man who didn't just ignore his flaw, but tried to make him feel better about it.

Feel better about himself. No one else had ever done that before. But perhaps none of his other acquaintances so fully understood what it was like to be different, and scorned."

"So." Dean cleared his throat, shifting on his chair. "What did he do?"

Rob shrugged. "What could he do? He had laid out his course, and there was nothing to do but follow it."

Dean shook his head. "So much of it familiar. Tell me—which of us did you truly mean your story to be about?"

Rob looked at him keenly. "Can't you tell?"

"No."

"Well," Rob said, lips quivering in an incipient smile. "That's something, I suppose."

Too late, Dean realized what he'd revealed: the man he wanted with all his heart.

He flushed, groping for words.

"I'll miss you," Rob said simply. "Tomorrow, you'll find Miss Lewis, and whatever happens, we'll likely never see each other again. I just wanted you to know that I think you're quite wonderful, and I'll miss you."

Dean stared at him helplessly, with nothing left to hide. Allowing himself to drink in Rob's beauty, fixing each feature in his memory against the lifetime of cold nights to come. Rob's sleek black hair, rarely ever out of place. Those warm, dark eyes. The lips that so easily curled into a merry smile, that felt so shockingly right on his own.

The intangibles, he knew, would haunt him even more: the quick sense of humor, lively curiosity and bright intelligence that were as much a part of Rob as his broad shoulders and long-fingered hands.

But, as Rob had said, their course was set.

"We'd best get some sleep," he said at last, peeling back the covers and sliding within. Rob had blown out the candle and curled on his side away from him, carefully keeping to his half of the bed, when Dean admitted at last, "I'll miss you, too."

"Good night, mein Blümchen" Rob said softly in the dark room.

Dean smiled. Rob had looked it up. "Gute Nacht, mein Traumprinz." Let him figure that one out, Dean thought, staring into the night. Rob was right: assuming he located Minerva tomorrow, their time together was over. His heart ached, thinking of what lay ahead for Rob, the bastards like Parker and his foul little Ceddie. Even if he wrote the plea to his uncles and sent the Quarterly off tomorrow, he wouldn't receive a reply in time to save Rob from the scheduled trip to Italy. No time before the wedding next month to visit them all in turn, and make his case in person. Bugger the Quarterly: he would write them each individual letters and post them at once, begging for a response posthaste and including pre-franked sheets of paper for their replies. Was there anything, anything else he could do for Rob?

Nothing but what Rob had asked of him, and he'd refused: //' you can't be in my future, I'd at least want you in my past. Being Rob, he wouldn't ask again, even if he also lay aching in the darkness. Dean squeezed his eyes shut tight. For someone Rob credited with such compassion, he'd certainly thought mostly of himself lately. Rob had never shared passion with someone he desired for himself. For that matter, Dean realized, neither had he. The drunken, one-sided encounter in the barn hardly counted.

Was it right to deny them both such sweetness, on the grounds that it would add to the pain of parting? But nothing, it seemed, was going to spare him that. Not now, when Rob had gravitated to the very center of his world.

Dean shifted in bed, rolling to face Rob's back. How do you tell someone that you were wrong, that you've changed your mind? Rob was the one who was good with words, and with all his might Dean wished he had even a smidgen of that talent.

He reached out and placed his hand, palm flat, in the center of Rob's back. "Rob," Dean whispered. Beneath his fingers, he could feel muscles stiffen, and then the bed creaked as the other man rolled slowly to face him. And waited.

"I won't hurt you." The words tumbled out without thought, and Dean could have kicked himself. Such a stupid thing to come up with, the sort of thing you'd say to a virgin, not a man with Rob's experience. But perhaps it was the right thing to say after all, because with a small sound Rob was wrapped around him, lips seeking and finding his in the darkness. Their bodies strained against each other, chest against chest, thigh against thigh, cock against cock. Nightshirts were first pushed impatiently out of the way and then shed completely. Now naked in Rob's arms, Dean's world was reduced to a series of sensory flashes that he tried to grab onto as they passed, for further examination later. Rob's skin was warm and supple, the hair on his body as soft and sleek as that on his head. He smelled of soap and a sweet, natural musk that was all his own. His muscles were hard, all of him tense with excitement, yet his lips—oh, God, Rob's lips—were gentle everywhere they touched: Dean's face, his neck, his collarbone. They searched lower, and with a cry Dean found out why men have nipples. He couldn't stand it. He tugged on Rob's head, bringing their mouths back together, trying to express without words how badly he needed completion, that they had to join or he would surely die.

Rob understood. "A moment," he breathed, and he left the bed. Dean was cold and bereft without him, but soon the covers lifted again, and once again Rob was kissing him. There was something cold in one of the other man's hands, and Dean realized that Rob had fetched the hand cream he'd purchased at the apothecary in Chippenham. You never know when a nice slippery balm will come in handy. Dean shivered, wondering if Rob realized what he wanted, even though until just now Dean himself hadn't known.

"Rob." Dean reached for one strong, warm hand, placing it first on his hip, and then guiding it back to rest on the curve of his buttock. He could feel himself blush, the heat spreading from his face clear down into his chest. "Show me." Hell and damnation— what if this wasn't what Rob desired? "I mean, if you want—"

Rob wanted, making it unmistakably clear. There was a moment when it seemed impossible, long enough for Dean to mourn that he would never know the magic of having Rob within his body. Rob was too big, or he was too small, or not made for such pleasures, or... But Rob was patient, keeping up a gentle pressure until something within Dean relaxed, and then Rob was pressing into him easily and Dean could have wept for the joy of it. The physical pleasure was intense, but that was the least of it.

The wonder of Rob, within him. Rob, around him, supporting Dean with one arm while pressed tightly against him from behind. Rob, on him, his breath coming in uneven gasps against the back of Dean's neck. The only reason it wasn't perfect was that it wasn't enough: Dean felt that if he could dissolve himself into Rob and be the blood in his veins, he still wouldn't be as close to Rob as he craved.

Rob's pace increased to a near frenzy, his hand groping for Dean's cock and pumping it in a matching rhythm until Dean could hardly breathe from the double pleasure. Then Rob stiffened and shuddered, involuntarily tightening his fingers on Dean so that he was coming, too, in a burst so unlike any he'd known in the past that it was as if he had suddenly discovered a whole new sense.

Rob rested his head against Dean's back, laughing breathlessly. "So much for my legendary control." He gently disengaged himself, rising and returning with a towel to clean them both up. Then, they cuddled together in the darkened room, in a shared peace and protective quiet. Rob couldn't stop touching him, his hands stroking down Dean's arms and back. "God," he said, "how you could ever see yourself as anything but beautiful is beyond me. Do you mind if I light a candle, so that I can see you properly next time?"