Kane, Samantha - Brothers In Arms 4 (11 page)

Ian was smiling softly. “Of course not. I never want you to leave.”

Derek chose to interpret the statement narrowly. “You say that now, but tomorrow night you’ll be singing a different tune.”

Ian sighed. Derek rushed to speak. “Yes, I know, don’t start.” He pushed away

from the door and walked across the room. “You’re right.” He snorted at Ian’s look of astonishment. “Don’t you start either,” he said with a trace of his old humor. He lowered himself onto the windowsill next to where Ian was standing, resting just on the edge of it, his right knee bumping Ian’s thigh.

“I want it to be just us tonight, Ian,” he whispered, looking down at the floor. “It’s our last night, our last chance for that.” He finally found the courage to look at Ian and was rewarded by the warmth and tenderness in his gaze. “No more fighting, no more Sophie.” He held up his hand to halt Ian’s response. “Just for tonight. One last time.”

Ian’s look turned serious and Derek thought he saw panic quickly disguised. “Are you leaving me?”

Derek started in surprise. “Hell no. You’ll have to drag me out kicking and

screaming, I’m afraid. You know I hate to lose.”

“Lose?” Ian looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not going to let her win. If I leave, she wins. So I’m going to try, Ian, I really am.”

Ian ran his hand over Derek’s shoulder and down his arm. The touch was tender

but underlying the tenderness was the heat that had always simmered between them.

“You’re wrong, Derek. If you leave Sophie loses, and so do I.”

Derek turned to Ian and slid over on the windowsill until he was close enough to rest his head on Ian’s chest. The other man began to run his fingers through Derek’s hair, his touch soothing and erotic all at once. It had always been that way for Derek.

Ian’s touch had aroused and comforted from the first, before they were ever lovers.

“I want to make love with you tonight, Ian. I need to be yours tonight, because tomorrow I have to share you and it’s killing me.”

“When the three of us are together—”

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Derek cut Ian off. “No!” He was shaking his head and dislodged Ian’s hand. He

pulled back and looked up into Ian’s eyes. “No. I’ll learn to live with her, I may even learn not to hate her, but I will never love her, Ian. I will never be her lover.”

Ian looked out the window at the night sky. “I was thinking about Dolores.”

Derek felt an ache in his gut at the reminder of their beautiful girl. “She will never be Dolores.”

When Ian turned back to him Derek didn’t like the look in his eyes. “No, she will be more.” The words chilled Derek to the bone. It was precisely what he feared, that she would be more—more than Dolores, more than Derek, more than anything Derek could give Ian or do for Ian.

Ian continued, each word like an arrow in Derek’s heart. “She will be my wife and the mother of my children. She already has a place in my heart. I want to share this with you, Derek. Please let me.”

Derek shook his head again and Ian smiled sadly. “You are leaving me.”

Derek stood abruptly and faced Ian angrily. “I told you I wasn’t, I won’t. Are you trying to push me away?”

Ian grabbed him and pulled him into his embrace. He spoke into the curve of his shoulder where he rested his head. “Not physically, but inside you’re pulling away from me, Derek. I need you. Don’t leave me.” Ian looked up at him. “You promised to take care of me. Do you remember?”

* * * * *

April 1813, Torres Vedras, Portugal

Derek was reluctant to go back to camp. It made him feel guilty and that pissed him off. But Jesus, it was so hard to be around Ian these days. He was so polite, so solicitous and so aloof. At night Derek lay on his cot listening to Ian breathe in the dark next to him and he was assaulted by memories of their passionate nights with Dolores when their ragged, mingled breaths cut through the darkness.

He wanted Ian so badly sometimes he thought he’d go mad with it. Couldn’t Ian

see it? How could he not be aware of Derek’s feelings when every time he turned around Derek was watching him? When he used any flimsy excuse to touch Ian? It had been months since Derek had had any kind of release. Not since Dolores was killed.

Dolores—another reason for Derek to feel guilty. If he hadn’t brought her back to their tent that night, if he hadn’t begged Ian to stay, she’d probably still be alive. But he’d wanted Ian so desperately and sharing Dolores was the only way he could think of to have him. Now he was lost to Derek, so far out of his reach that those idyllic nights with Dolores seemed like a dream.

He’d thought after Matilla that Ian might return his feelings. The way he’d looked at him that day, right after the Frenchman had fired at his back, for one moment he 54

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thought he saw an almost wild look of intense emotion in Ian’s eyes. Then his look had changed to dismay and even though he’d saved Derek’s life and they still rode together and lived together Ian had slowly been pulling away.

Derek felt Ian’s withdrawal like a physical pain, as if an arm or leg were being slowly ripped off. He knew he was surly as hell, nearly impossible to live with these days, but he couldn’t seem to do anything about it. He’d lost so many people in this fucking war that when he saw Ian charging recklessly into battle at Matilla he’d nearly gone insane with fear. He wouldn’t be able to bear it if he lost Ian. What would he do when Ian left him? He knew he’d leave, they always left. But Ian mustn’t die, he couldn’t die. That was why Derek had sought out his command in the first place, because everyone knew he was lucky, so damn lucky bullets and cannon shot couldn’t even touch him.

As he rode slowly back to camp with his pilfered goods, food and wine from a nearby camp, he thought about all the friends that they’d lost in the last year. Dolores was the hardest to bear. But Harry Collier had gone down, and Bertie Thorne. Brett Haversham had gone home after he’d been injured. God knew he was lucky to be alive although he might not walk again. And Gideon North, who wished he hadn’t been so lucky, who’d screamed and begged for Doctor Peters to kill him when he awoke with most of his leg missing and his right side burned so awfully. Dolores had helped care for him until they found him transport out. She’d stayed by his side with his young sergeant and made every man in camp love her for her compassion. Ian had written to Gideon of Dolores’ death, and he’d written a one-line letter back, the handwriting shaky and scrawling.
She deserved better
. Yes, she had.

Before he knew it, he arrived back at their camp. They’d been here for months. Last year had been a waking hell, one battle after another. They’d been idle for months nursing their wounded and waiting for reinforcements while other battalions bore the brunt of the fighting.

The inaction made suffering Ian’s indifference even harder. Day after day they sat around trying to find ways to amuse themselves until night fell. He’d won a bloody fortune in cards it seemed. But all those hours spent with Ian acting so cool, showing no emotion were beginning to tell on Derek. Last night he’d nearly broken down and begged Ian to touch him, to fuck him. He literally ached with want, the space between his balls and his ass tight with desire. He knew what he wanted, what his body wanted.

It wanted Ian inside him fucking him like he used to fuck Dolores—hard and wild with that huge cock of his. He’d never had a man before, never wanted one, but he wanted Ian. He’d known he wanted him almost from the first. He’d had to content himself with friendship. Now he wasn’t sure he had even that.

An hour later he’d taken care of his mount and delivered the food where it would do the most good. He turned for his tent with a sigh. He was bringing a hot meal and several bottles of wine with him. Maybe he could get Ian drunk and seduce him. He snorted with the improbability of that. Ian was rarely in his cups. He valued control too much to voluntarily give it up to a bottle.

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“Get the fuck out of my way,” he snarled at a couple of people who made the

mistake of getting within ten feet of him. Most people stayed out of his way these days.

He’d taken to picking fistfights when he was good and pissed, and he was good and pissed a lot lately. The anger felt better than this pathetic weakness over Ian. It felt a hell of a lot better than the choked, panicked feeling that he’d been getting lately in the middle of the night after a nightmare.

When Derek reached their tent, Ian wasn’t alone. Majors Richards and Randall were there sharing a drink with him.

“Derek,” Ian greeted him, his voice cool, his stare intense. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you all day.”

“Oh, I’ve been out collecting. I’m sick of the swill we’ve been eating around here lately.” He picked up the bottle the three men were drinking from and looked at the wine in disgust. “I’m also sick of this piss that passes for wine.”

Major Randall raised an eyebrow at him. “That, Lieutenant, is my piss so you will show a little respect.”

“Major piss is still piss,” Derek said with a shrug.

“Quite the little toad-eater, aren’t you?” Randall said as he lifted his glass for another drink.

Ian laughed hard at that little sally. “Toad-eater? Derek? He hardly knows how to give a genuine compliment much less flatter someone’s ego.” Still laughing, Ian took a drink.

“Is that what you want, Ian? Do you need me to flatter your ego?” He pulled off his light blue jacket, the uniform of the Light Dragoons, and threw it on his cot in disgust.

“You’re the fucking rajah of the Peninsula, Captain; the stinking Supreme Prince of this shithole. You are brilliant and beautiful and so funny I piss myself over your jokes.

There, feel better?”

He grabbed a bottle of the wine he’d brought back and pried the cork out. Without even looking for a glass he sat on his cot and drank straight out of the bottle.

“Well, rajah,” Richards said, touching his hand to his chest, then his mouth and finally his forehead in a parody of the foreigners’ greeting of respect, “I almost feel bad leaving you in such rotten company.” He looked at Derek for a moment and then

smiled. “Almost.”

“Leaving? Where the hell are you going?” Derek demanded, wiping his mouth with

the back of his hand.

“Home,” Randall spoke reverently, “England. ‘This royal throne of kings, this

sceptered isle,’” he quoted. “‘This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise,’—”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Derek impatiently. “‘This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.’” He took another swig of wine then looked up into the astonished faces 56

At Love’s Command

of the other three men. “What? I’m not a cretin. What kind of Englishman can’t quote his Shakespeare?”

“Who the hell are you?” Ian asked, bewildered. “Every time I think I know

everything about you, you surprise me.”

Derek stared at him. “You don’t know anything about me, Ian. You only think you do.”

“How dare you address his majesty the Supreme Prince of this shithole that way,”

Major Randall mocked.

Derek looked over at him and feigned shock. “You’re still here? I thought you were leaving for your sceptered realm.”

“Sceptered isle, toad-eating cretin,” Randall said with a sly grin and even Derek smiled as the others laughed.

Major Richards stood up. “Well, we’ve got to make the rounds and tell everyone

goodbye.”

“A toast first.” Ian stood up and raised his glass, but before he could speak Derek got up from the cot.

“Not with that French piss.” He dumped their glasses in the dirt outside the tent and refilled them with wine from his bottle.

“Good God, Derek, were did you get this?” Major Randall asked in astonishment as he took an appreciative sip.

“The less said about that the better,” Derek told him, topping off Ian’s glass last.

“Let’s just say a certain commander will be going without for a while.”

Major Richards held up his hand. “Enough. We don’t need the details.”

Ian held his glass up again. “I wish you luck, gentlemen. Here is to your success in obtaining your objectives in England.” They all drank to the toast.

“Are they invading England? What exactly are their objectives?” Derek asked

lightly, sitting back down.

“Marriage, my boy,” Major Randall told him with mock gravity.

“Really? Who are you going to marry?” He wasn’t that interested actually. He’d

probably never see Major Randall again.

“Mrs. Katherine Collier.” Major Randall said her name in the same tone he’d said home and England, as if she were one and the same to him.

“Harry Collier’s wife?” Well, that was news. He had no idea they’d been carrying on. He wondered idly if it had started before old Harry’s death last year.

“Yes, one and the same,” Major Richards said, putting his glass down.

Derek turned to him. “Are you getting married too, Major?”

Richards smiled like a man with a secret. “I hope so, Derek, I hope so.”

“Who’s your lucky bride?”

“Mrs. Katherine Collier.”

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Derek stared at Major Richards for a moment then looked over at Major Randall,

who seemed amused at his consternation. “Aren’t you upset about his courting your intended?”

“On the contrary, she is intended for both of us.”

Derek very nearly fell off his cot. “What? You can’t do that!” It took quite a lot to astonish Derek, but this had definitely done it.

“You did. You and Ian and Dolores.” Major Richards had picked up his shako and

walked over to the door.

Derek was standing now, incredulous. “It’s one thing for a Spanish whore to live with two English soldiers in a tent in the middle of a war. It’s quite another thing for a respectable English woman to do it in some fancy manor in good old England.”

“I don’t see why. I should think that the fact that we love her and plan on marrying her would make it more acceptable than your temporary arrangement with Dolores.”