Kindred Hearts (42 page)

Tristan smoothed back a lock of blond hair and kissed the broad forehead revealed. In a low, sultry voice, he said, “We’ll ride this afternoon, and then this evening, it will be I doing the riding.”

“You wicked thing,” Charles said, laughing, and he kissed him. “Save it for when I can act on it and don’t have to meet my general sporting a cockstand.”

“Go on, then,” Tristan said. “I’ve already warned the household that you’ll be stopping here some nights as your billet is noisy—I got that idea from your Duke—so they won’t be surprised to see you downstairs. In the meantime, I’ll go mess up the bed you allegedly slept in.”

“Wicked, wicked Tris,” Charles said in amusement.

“All those years of criminal conversation must be good for something, if only a conspiratorial mind,” he retorted, giving Charles a little push.

Charles dropped a kiss on Tristan’s cheek and was gone.

He took the light from the room, though the morning sun was already shining through the drapes. Tristan sighed and went to the guest bedroom he’d chosen for Charles, bringing along the damp towel for verisimilitude. There he hooked the towel on the washstand, then mussed up the bed, lying down on the pillows for a moment to give the illusion that someone had slept there.

Finally, he went back to his own bed, climbed back in to linens still redolent of the scent of Charles, and fell back to sleep.

The
late May sun was warm on Tristan’s face as he sprawled on the blanket thrown down on the hillside. Beside him, Charles sat with his chin on his knees, looking out over the countryside. “It’s a pretty place,” he mused absently. “Too bad it’s destined to be a battlefield.”

“You’re that sure?” Tristan asked sleepily. “That it will be here?”

“The French border’s only a short way away, and this is the main route to Brussels, and the army’s here. Napoleon’s best chance is to crush the Northern Coalition; none of the other allies are strong enough to stand against him. As long as he stays that side of the border, we can do nothing, but he won’t stay. His Grace has already worked out some of the logistics based on the spies we have in the French camp. Of course, I’m sure Boney has done the same with his.”

“What’s that in the distance?”

“Place called Hougoumont. ‘Chateau de Hougoumont’, formally, but it’s really just a big farm. Nobody lives there except the tenant farmer.”

“Mm,” Tristan said.

Charles lay back and threw his arm over his eyes. “So. What’s wrong?”

“What makes you think anything’s wrong?”

“You’ve been here four days. We’ve talked about Charlotte, Caroline, Jamie, Ellen, your father, London, Lilac Cottage, Brussels, the upcoming battles, Napoleon, and Wellington. We’ve talked about Blucher and Gneisenau and Wilhelm Friedrich. But not once have you mentioned anything about medicine or your studies with Crosby. What happened? Was he angry about you leaving London?”

“No.” It was Tristan’s turn to sit up and rest his forehead on his knees. “He didn’t need to be. I’m not studying with him any longer.”

“Whyever not?” Charles lowered his arm and gazed up at him.

“Because.” Tristan swallowed and raised his head to stare out at the distance. “He told me that I was wasting my time.”

“
What
? That’s insane. Just before I left, MacQuarrie said that he was quite pleased with your progress. What happened?” Rolling onto his side, Charles propped his head up on one elbow.

“I assisted him in a surgery. A tumor removal. It was successful and the patient was doing well. I thought Crosby was happy with my performance. But afterwards he called me into his office and told me that I would never make a good surgeon.” Tristan swallowed. “He said that I was adequate as far as the rougher forms of surgery—like bonesetting and blood-letting—were concerned, but that more complex surgeries like cutting for stone would forever be beyond me. It seems as though my hands aren’t steady enough. He says that the drink has ruined me for finer surgery. He suggested I switch studies to medicine, and that under MacQuarrie I would learn enough that I could set up as a country doctor if I wished, or work under another physician. But I’d never make a really competent surgeon.” He held his hands out in front of him. They looked steady. Far steadier than Tristan’s heart right now. He’d held off on telling Charles because he knew how disappointed he’d be, but Charles had asked, and so he’d answered. “It doesn’t matter that I’ve barely drunk a drop since starting at St. Joseph’s months ago. Apparently the damage was done.”

“What did you do?” Charles asked quietly.

Tristan swallowed. “What do you think I did? I went straight home and got stinking drunk. Then the next morning I packed up Charlotte, the children, and my hangover and went home to Lilac Cottage.”

“Are you still drinking?” The voice was still quiet, not accusing, not anything but inquiring.

“No. I’ve found I don’t have the taste for it any longer, and I’m sick of waking with a headache and nausea. So apparently I’m not only not a good surgeon, I’m not a good drunk anymore, either. I suppose I’ll have to stay in the country and see if I can not be a good landowner too.”

“That sounds like self-pity,” Charles said.

“Of course it does,” Tristan replied, forcing lightness into his voice. “That’s what it is. So. Once Charlotte and the children were settled, I packed up and came here. I’m warning you, though—Charlotte has it in her mind to match your cousin Ellen with my father. I think Brussels on the eve of battle is a safer place for me than Lilac Cottage.”

“It’s all right to be disappointed, Tris. I wish you would have told me sooner.”

“I didn’t want you to know. I knew you’d be more disappointed than I.”

“I doubt it. Well, if Napoleon wins this battle, Europe will be back at war, and the army is always looking for surgeons. Shall I introduce you to Dr. Grant?”

Tristan gave him a wry grin. “Charlotte would
murder
you,” he said. He lay down on his side, mirroring Charles’s posture.

“Seriously, Tris—what are you thinking of doing?”

“I don’t know.” Tristan pulled up a blade of grass and chewed on it thoughtfully. “I’ve considered Crosby’s suggestion that I study medicine instead, and that’s a possibility. I sent them each a polite note just before I left for Leicestershire, thanking Crosby and mentioning to MacQuarrie what Crosby said and telling him I’d be in contact with him on my return to London, if he was interested and able to take me on as a student. I also added that I thought you might vouch for me.”

“Of course I will,” Charles said promptly. He leaned forward and kissed Tristan softly.

“Lottie thinks the battle will be terrible,” Tristan murmured against Charles’s mouth. “She says I need to be prepared to do real work, and sent a huge box of medical supplies. It just arrived yesterday.”

“She’s probably not wrong,” his lover said, his fingers moving to loosen Tristan’s cravat. “You know her correspondents always keep her informed. They’ll bring the wounded back to the city, most likely. Will you help?”

“Of course I will,” Tristan echoed Charles’s words. He sighed as Charles’s mouth settled on his throat. “Charlie—dare we? Here?”

“There’s no one for miles, we’re on the highest point in the area, and the grass is over our heads here,” Charles said, and he scraped his teeth along Tristan’s jaw. Tristan shivered. “We’re safe as houses.”

“Good,” Tristan said, and pushed him over onto his back, climbing on top of him. Charles laughed and rolled them over in the grass, his hands turning rough and wild. Tristan matched him as they tore at each other’s clothing, desperate to be skin to skin. “Ah,” Tristan gasped as Charles slid into him, his cock slick with spit, “that’s so good, Charlie.”

“You’re so beautiful,” Charles said against his chest, licking and sucking as Tristan wrapped his legs around Charles’s waist. “I’ve waited my whole life for you, I swear. Mine, Tris. Mine.”

“Yours, Charlie, love….”

Charles crested first, arching against the pull of Tristan’s legs with a deep groan, then his hand found Tristan and coaxed him into release. Spent, he rolled off Tristan and lay beside him in the grass, both of them breathing hard.

The light and sky blurred in Tristan’s eyes, and he realized he was weeping. Not sobbing, not crying, just quietly weeping, and he wasn’t sure why. “Tris?” Charles asked softly from beside him.

He shook his head and rolled over onto his belly, pressing his face into the smell of earth and crushed grass, a warm, healthy smell. A deep shudder wracked his body and then he
was
crying, harsh, fierce sobs. He was marginally aware of Charles moving, of his laying his arm across his back and pressing his face to Tristan’s shoulder, but he was too wrapped up in this strange, frightening despair to acknowledge him.

When he’d exhausted himself, he said into the ground, “I never used to cry. You’ve turned me into a watering pot.”

“My sincerest apologies,” Charles said wryly. “Care to tell me what that was about?”

“I think that I thought that if I never mentioned it to you, it wouldn’t be real,” Tristan said, looking up and meeting Charles’s eyes. Charles immediately reached over and rubbed a streak of dirt off his cheek. “The thing with Crosby, I mean. I was just pretending that it hadn’t happened, that I would be going back to London and picking up where I left off with him, and nothing would have changed. Telling you made it real, somehow. I’m sorry to be so lachrymose, Charlie. I never used to be.”

“It’s all right.” Charles drew him into his arms and they lay there in the sunlight, the scent of the grass surrounding them. “It’s strange. You’ve an ancient name, a beautiful face, a strong body, a lovely wife, two wonderful children, and plenty of cash, not to mention a devastatingly handsome lover. But they’re bars to you, aren’t they. Just bars of a cage. You’re like a skylark, bashing your wings against the cage wire, unable to sing unless you’re free.”

“Well, not so much the devastatingly handsome lover,” Tristan said. “You’re more the door to the cage, Charlie, but you’re right. I feel trapped. I’ve always felt trapped. It’s foolish and ungrateful, but I’ve never wanted all that. I don’t care about the name, the looks are meaningless, and while I adore my children and am fond of Lottie, I never asked for them, never needed them. Even my friends—I love them, but in so many ways they bore me. I’ve always felt as if I were playing a role I hadn’t auditioned for. But I didn’t realize it until I met you. I need
more
. I need…
different.

“And then I started working with Crosby and the others and I felt as if I had come home. That
this
was what I was meant to be doing. And now it’s gone, lost to me, because of my
own damned fault
.” He tensed, his hands fisting. “My own foolishness, my own
stupidity
. And nothing I can do will change that.”

“Tris, Crosby is not the only surgeon in the world—or even in London. Someone else might think differently. And maybe even if he’s right, and you’ll never be able to do the finer forms of surgery, what’s wrong with doing what he said, and studying medicine? You could still study surgery; it’s part of what we’ll be learning, even if we’re not permitted to actually practice it. You’ll just learn more than that. Perhaps you’ll find a way that you could combine them, something more than just a ‘country doctor’.” He drew him close and kissed his forehead. “Perhaps go into practice with another physician, focusing on the diseases of the body while he focuses on things like beastly tasting South American herbs?”

Tristan let out a watery chuckle. “I see the plot,” he said. “You want to go into partnership and let me do all the work while you spend all your time with your precious books.”

“You’ve struck it,” Charles said with a grin. “But the important word there was partnership, Tris. Study with me. Learn with me. Work with me.” He kissed him again. “Live with me. Love me.”

“I do. God, what you’re suggesting—I never even considered it possible. A partnership as physicians? You and I?”