The Only Gold (21 page)

Reid
could not have laid him low more expertly with a fist to the gut. The strength seemed to drain at once from his bones, and he grasped a gate paling, to find the iron like ice. He held on all the tighter. “If you want to be rid of me, you need not ruin me in the process.”

“For God’s sake.” Reid’s voice was soft, but sharp with frustration. It was not what Jonah expected, and it rooted him to the spot as Reid went on. “Is that what you think I want?”

“I don’t have any idea what you want.”

“Don’t you?” Reid’s breath warmed the nape of his neck. Jonah twisted around, to snare himself further in a gaze that set nerves aflame over every inch of his skin. His back against the gate, he groped for the latch. It rattled in vain, and Reid laughed, quiet and rueful. “We’re surrounded by barred gardens.”

“We?”

“You and I—”

“I will thank you to stop right there.”

“Stop what?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“And you know what I want.”

Jonah snorted. “Do you care to know what I want?”

The glitter in Reid’s eyes told him a sly answer was forthcoming. Jonah preempted it by bidding him goodnight. Before he could push past, Reid caught his arm. “Don’t go.”

He was neither teasing nor plaintive. There was, unsettlingly, no pretense at all. Jonah avoided his gaze. “Goodnight, Mr. Hylliard.”

Reid released him, and Jonah kept walking until he was far along Lexington and safely out of reach. Though the man could cajole most winsomely, it was a side of him simple enough to see through and dismiss. But when the easy smile slipped away and the hazel eyes sought Jonah with such insistency, that side frightened him—all the more because fear wasn’t the only thing he felt when Reid was around.

He couldn’t dwell on it, couldn’t even let himself think about it. He had come too close to ruin in the past to be so foolish. Reid would tire of the useless chase and turn his sights elsewhere. They all did, eventually. He had only to keep his distance and remain polite and unyielding. Reid was already beginning to understand that the matter could have no other resolution.

On the cab ride home, Jonah pondered his conversation with Mr. Grandborough and considered whether he had fallen further by broaching the subject of his promotion. Mr. Grandborough hadn’t seemed angry, only taken aback. But nothing he’d said made sense. No bank hired outside when they could promote from within. Only an unworthy candidate would be overlooked in favor of a stranger.

Whatever the truth might be, Mr. Grandborough did not appear inclined to share it. Jonah wondered if Napoleon had felt so numb and empty after Waterloo. When the cab stopped, he was relieved to see no sign that anyone in the house was awake. He trod carefully upstairs, and no door opened, no one came out to ask how he’d fared with the young ladies—with Alice, they’d mean. He closed his door soundlessly, and though no fire had been lit, undressed with care, folding away each article. The floorboards were cool beneath his feet, as was the nightshirt against his skin. The sheets would be cold, but he was glad of it. He would not be warm until he was nearly asleep, and he would not think about the evening at all, if he could help it.

He woke
warm, to the patter of a light, steady rain, and lay wondering if someone had just knocked at his door or if he’d dreamed it. It came again, a sharp rap, and he struggled out of bed, shrugged on his dressing gown, and cracked open the door.

The hallway was empty. Puzzled, he shut the door and turned the key in the lock. If anyone wanted a word, it would have to wait till morning. He turned back to his bed, and the knock came again, louder—not from the door, but the window. Jonah moved to the chaise and peered out. On a swaying sycamore branch, Reid Hylliard perched, grinning; surely drunk, Jonah surmised, as Reid waved at him cheerfully.

Recovering from his astonishment, Jonah pushed up the sash and leaned out. “Must you always take the most dangerous route?”

“At this hour, I think that would be the front door.” Reid inched forward and the branch swayed again.

“You’re going to fall.” Jonah pushed the chaise away from the sill and leaned out as far as he could. “Come in quick.”

Reid crept forward another inch and the branch dipped. He surged suddenly, throwing both arms around Jonah’s shoulders, and hung there, struggling for purchase on the branch flailing underfoot. Jonah pulled with all his strength until he had Reid partway into the room and able to free one arm to grasp the sill. The hat Reid had fastened to the ends of his scarf tumbled to the floor as Reid got one leg over the sill, then the other. Moving backward to give him room, Jonah bumped into the chaise and fell, landing with Reid on top of him. Winded, he could only stare at Reid, who interpreted his expression with no difficulty, judging by the sheepish smile. “I stopped by to be sure you’d gotten home.”

“You were concerned about me?” Jonah said dubiously.

“Considering your mood, I was concerned about the rest of New York. But if you hadn’t found a cab—”

“I did. So you’ve wasted your time.”

Reid’s smile slipped away, but amusement remained in his eyes, behind the sparkle of something else that made Jonah all the more aware he was wearing only a nightshirt and dressing gown. Little protection it offered, with Reid’s warmth and weight upon him—and insubstantial against a sudden, terrible desire of his own. “Will you please….”

Reid shifted in the most calculated manner and, with apparent deliberation, misinterpreted the request. His lips brushed Jonah’s, not tentative but testing—then, as if he’d lost all capacity for restraint, pressed for the most intimate of kisses, lips parting to offer the same. The shock of it swept Jonah, and he broke away, gasping. “For God’s sake, stop. Do you know how fast we’ll be ruined?”

“No one will know.” Reid’s whisper was as rough-edged.

“Someone will know.”

Lips warmed the hollow of his neck and found their way to the racing pulse beneath his jaw. Jonah closed his eyes but couldn’t shut out the sensation. Reid’s face buried against his neck felt, unexpectedly, almost as intimate as the kiss. Hands were under his clothes, on his skin, and he had no power to forbid it. Even his misgivings had faded beyond any ability to recall. When a demanding mouth covered his, he could not hold back. His kiss was as graceless as Reid’s—but satisfactory, it seemed, as Reid groaned. Jonah pulled away. “You’ll wake the house,” he whispered.

Faint gold sparkled in the dark eyes above him. “You locked the door.”

“Edith has a key to the rooms.”

“No one will know, Jonah. Trust me.”

Jonah snorted softly. “Trust you? I don’t even like you.”

Reid pushed Jonah’s nightshirt out of the way and laid a hand on the hard length of vulnerable flesh as if it belonged to him. Pleasure melted Jonah’s bones, and his ragged gasp provoked Reid’s most self-satisfied grin. “Seems I’ll have to take the will for the deed.”

Jonah could not will even annoyance at the moment. Helpless against rising sensation, he buried his face in the damp wool coat. What had been in his control as far back as he could remember lay now in Reid’s. It seemed impossible. He choked out a cry, then clamped his mouth shut, trying to contain the sound. Reid muffled it for him with a rough kiss, and that was the finish of him. Heated blood deluged his veins, and he found himself gasping, unable to stop. When he could breathe, he noted that by some miracle the whole house had not awakened. In a flush of self-consciousness, he dropped back on the cushion, eyes closed. “All your amusements do verge on suicidal.”

Reid’s low laugh enveloped him. “You opened the window.” He rose, and Jonah shivered at the absence of his warm weight.

“I did. And if you’re discovered, I’ll need an explanation for your presence.” He climbed to his feet, his nightshirt plastered to his skin, and his legs wanted to give out.

“Easy enough.” Reid set a hand lightly against his back, as if he knew. “We had too much to drink.”

“Yes, and I could not let you wander Broadway in such a state.”

“Especially after I’d seen you home.”

They fell quiet, and Jonah made a halfhearted effort to dry his skin with the damp ends of the nightshirt.

“Do you want me to go?” Reid asked.

Jonah hesitated, but new misgivings could gain no ground against an unexpected loneliness at the thought of crawling back into a cold bed by himself. He closed the window, then turned to Reid and grasped his overcoat lapels. “As it stands, I’m far more compromised. You can’t leave until we’ve remedied that.”

Reid looked startled. “You—”

“Yes.” Jonah pushed the coat off his shoulders and proceeded to take apart the rest of his evening dress, layer by layer, until Reid was the vulnerable one—naked, erect, and unblushing under Jonah’s attentive eye. Jonah laid fingers against his collarbone, traced its outline, and moved as lightly over his chest, to lay a hand against his abdomen. Solid muscle twitched against his palm, and he swallowed at the reactionary twitch of his reviving erection.

He let his hand dip lower, wanting to touch Reid as Reid had touched him. Reid held so still and breathed so softly, as if he were afraid to wake and find he was dreaming. And dream it felt like, when Reid’s mouth met his with the same adventuresome kiss, the one that left him so weak-willed.

The hours of the night had shortened, for it seemed no time at all before he lay under the blankets of his own bed, Reid asleep beside him. An unnatural state of affairs, to say the least, but he supposed there was little natural in anything they’d done.

In the dim first light, he woke, and his gaze fell on Reid, dressed and halfway over the sill. Jonah climbed out of bed, gooseflesh rising as the cold hit him. “You’re going?”

“It’s better. You won’t need to explain anything.” He grinned. “If I fall, you can tell them I came knocking at your window, drunk, at this ungodly hour, and you wouldn’t let me in.”

“If you fall, you’ll kill yourself. I’ll risk sneaking you downstairs.”

Reid caught his hand, pulled him close, and kissed him. “I won’t fall.” He swung his other leg over the sill and reached for the nearest limb hanging above. It swayed with his weight as he pushed from the sill and landed on the same branch he’d jumped from the night before. It, too, swayed, and Jonah held his breath, waiting in dread for the snap. But Reid had already moved to a lower branch, making his way swiftly to the bottommost, from whence he dropped to the ground. He was smiling as he looked back and waved. Then he was through the gate, and gone.

Alerted to the bitter cold seeping in, Jonah shut the window and crawled back into bed, but sleep would not oblige him another hour. Too much occupied his mind—and his senses. He lay where Reid had, and the scent of him remained on the sheet, the pillow, and the discarded nightshirt crumpled against the headboard. It brought back vividly all the moments between them, and Jonah lingered in remembered sensation, until it struck him that scent was on his skin, blended with his own, a telltale odor that would give him away to the world. It was irrational to think anyone might notice. Still, he rose, and gathering his clothes, took them to the bathroom to wash them out.

After he bathed, he hung the damp clothes on the screen in his room and lit a fire. Judging by the cheerless morning without, it was a Sunday better spent at home. He wasted the greater part of it wondering whether Reid would return when night fell.

It kept
him wakeful much too late, and he woke well past six Monday morning, with barely time to dress for breakfast. His relief at Reid’s absence seemed a passing emotion compared to the regret that stayed with him in a most disturbing fashion. At the table, he said little, which earned him a curious glance from both Liliane and Winnie. Begging off after a bite of bread and butter, he took the first omnibus along the route. In the crowded confines, he got past the obligatory good mornings and tried to bury himself in a book. He knew every glance his way was innocent, but he could not shake the feeling that someone would rise at any moment and solemnly denounce him before God and the whole world.