Rite of Summer: Treading the Boards, Book 1 (15 page)

They stroked together, fingers laced through each other’s, pumping their cocks with fierce determination. Joshua kissed him, thrust his tongue into Ashbrook’s mouth with the rhythm of their bodies, sucked and bit at his lip, desperate and wanton.

“Please,” Ashbrook begged, and Joshua ran his thumb over the head of Ashbrook’s cock, dipped down into the slit and then around the ridge.

His reaction was electric, a pink-red flush running down his cheeks and throat to color his chest as well.

Joshua looked down between their bodies and the sight of it—oh, torture and bliss! Their swollen and wet pricks vanished into their fists, the purple-red heads reappearing over and again. Ashbrook’s cock pressed hard against his. The slick, solid length of it slid against the base of Joshua’s, the head bumping hard and hot against the ring looped through the crown of his.

It was too much, too much!

Ashbrook squeezed their hands tighter on the upstroke and Joshua was gone, his balls drawing up and fire exploding outward from the very base of his spine.

His release spurted, white and thick, over their hands. Ashbrook flung back his head and laughed with delight as he dragged their hands and his prick through the mess.

Joshua ran his tongue along the prickly line of his throat, bit down at the soft place where it joined Ashbrook’s shoulder. Ashbrook’s entire body jolted and froze. He made a noise like a sobbing moan, one Joshua had never heard before, and then he too was coming, his emissions joining Joshua’s in hot ropes over their hands, stomachs and thighs.

They stayed like that for a moment, Joshua seated in Ashbrook’s lap, one hand cupping the back of his head and the other laced around their slowly softening pricks. Ashbrook held on tightly, his one hand entwined with Joshua’s, his other dug fast into Joshua’s hip. Their chests rose and fell together as they fought for breath, Ashbrook’s forehead gleaming with a sheen of sweat.

Joshua tipped his head forward and rested his forehead against Ashbrook’s, skin pressed against skin.

Ashbrook kissed him and slowly untangled his hand from around their cocks. Joshua’s muscles sagged, exhaustion taking hold, and they tumbled sideways to land on the bed in a heap of sweaty and sticky limbs.

A bowl and jug rested on the side table, a cloth beside them, and Joshua stretched out, brushing the edge of it with his fingertips. Another inch—there, he had it, damp and cool against his fingers. He cleaned them both, and Ashbrook blithely dropped the cloth off the side of the bed, to be dealt with at some other time.

He settled between Joshua’s thighs, his head resting on Joshua’s chest, and there he stayed, pressing tender kisses along Joshua’s ribs.

“Thank you,” Joshua murmured, and Ashbrook’s lips echoed the words against Joshua’s skin.

Joshua slid his hand into Ashbrook’s hair and stroked his head gently. He traced the edge of Ashbrook’s ear, the tendon along the side of his throat, the rises and valleys of his spine.

Ashbrook found his free hand and took it, closing his fingers between Joshua’s and holding tight.

Joshua bent his knee and set his foot among the bedclothes. He caged Ashbrook between them, his own precious thing.

Ashbrook buried his face in Joshua’s chest and wrapped his arms tightly about him.

This would not, could not, last. The world outside still hated them, and Cade’s tantrum would no doubt have its own repercussions.

Worst of all, before the sun rose, he would have to be gone—back to his own room, the four posts standing as silent sentinels over a cold and empty bed.

No.
He would not allow himself to consider that now. There might be trouble coming, but for this single moment, all was contentment, satiation and peace.

Surely they deserved that much.

Chapter Eleven

Beaufort was gone by the time Stephen struggled into solitary wakefulness. Only the rumpled and dirty sheets suggested that anything but quiet slumber had taken place; those, the cloth on the floor and the lingering scent of him impressed into Stephen’s skin. He rose to wash and dress, sorting the chamber into something resembling respectability. If the servants chose to believe he’d brought a girl in the previous night, so be it. Sweat, after all, was sweat.

The day dawned bright and cheerful, but an anchor wrapped chains around Stephen’s heart. The distraction of carnal bodies could only last so long.

Every name in the newssheet had a face he remembered. Each one had been a friend or a former lover to a friend—laughing, joyful boys and men who would be forever tarnished now by rumor, gossip and hate.

He had lain with some of them in the past, with Whittington and with Tanner, their bodies thickly muscled and tinted golden by the sun. He’d cheered Evander on as he’d taken Ellis’s member into his mouth and tried—ultimately in vain—to encompass the monster in its entirety, sung lewd ballads over pots of ale with Colchester while Yardly filled their plates with stew and good brown bread.

Yardly and Cook had turned traitors. It was impossible to believe of their two jovial innkeepers, but the records surely didn’t lie. They had turned their backs on the men who had put faith in them, pled guilty to maintaining a bawdy house, and now a body that Stephen had admired in all its youthful perfection swung on the gallows, to be picked at by crows.

Stephen’s gut overturned and he lunged for the chamber pot, his stomach thankfully empty but for bile. He rinsed his mouth when the retching finally ceased, his eyes watering and his stomach cramped tightly in sailors’ knots.

Evander.
If ever he needed comfort and loving arms about him it was now. Evander would chide him, call him ridiculous, make him understand just how little his fears actually meant in the grand scheme of things. And then perhaps he would put his arms about Stephen and hold him as Beaufort had the night before. Just long enough to make the shaking stop.

His knock on Evander’s door received no answer. He called out, knocked again, his arms wrapping back around his unhappy gut to hold himself upright. This time Evander answered with a low and angry grumble. “I’m asleep.”

“Obviously not, or you would not be answering.” Stephen waited a few minutes more; perhaps once he was more fully awake…

It was not to be. While Stephen was reasonably certain the door was unlocked, barging in to demand attention was not the sort of action that would end well. Resting his forehead against the cool solidity of the wall helped, some.

He stumbled back to his own room instead of waiting any longer. He was weak, weak and foolish to feel things so deeply. How could he help it, though? How could Evander sleep peacefully, knowing what would be waiting for them when they returned home?

He fumbled with his waistcoat and frock instead, tied a cravat about his neck and pinched his cheeks to rid himself of the pallor of the grave. Company would do him better than brooding alone, thinking about a hundred things he could not change.

If Evander could not be a comfort, at least he had Beaufort.

Or not.

Beaufort was at breakfast, true, but his formal bearing and rigid back did little to encourage Stephen to approach. He nodded, made a small smile, so utterly at odds with his affectionate demeanor from the night before that Stephen had to remind himself forcefully of the kind of peril they all faced. He, like Evander, was no doubt doing as he felt best to protect them all.

The topics at breakfast seemed to have moved on entirely from perversion and arrests to hunting and riding, subjects about which Stephen was only marginally prepared to add anything of value. He spent most of the casual meal observing.

Coventry’s high spirits and Miss Talbot’s easy laughter made for bubbling contrast to Lady Chalcroft and Lady Horlock’s murmured conversations. Evander surrounded himself with the remaining young ladies and bucks, holding court of his own down at the far end of the table, and all around Stephen the world hung in a state of enforced and brittle gaiety.

Stephen rode out with the men that day. Beaufort, as was his habit, did not. The heat had abated a little, replaced with a clean, fresh breeze, and Coventry had found him a docile enough horse that did not seem prone to throwing either shoes or riders. He carried a gun but found excuse not to shoot it; Evander’s hands were less valuable than his own in case of a misfire, after all.

Evander did not speak a single word to him on the ride back, despite the three birds tied to his saddle horn. Stephen probably deserved it.

His bed was empty that night; his dreams were dark and ringed in fire.

Stephen was being punished, though Evander refused to tell him his current sin. Given the mood he was in, it could have been anything.

It was easier to assume that Evander was more disturbed by the news than he had let on, Stephen decided four days later, with both his lovers still distant.

Evander spoke little with Stephen and never to Beaufort. He rode out with Coventry and his friends instead, or whiled away the evening hours paying court to the debutantes.

Did Stephen honestly have the right to feel upset? Evander was a tender soul, after all, and such things struck him very deeply. He teased Stephen for his sensitivity and moods, traits that he always seemed to regard as an intensely personal failing, but he was no less easily bruised. Stephen rather liked it.

Men could be just as passionate about life as women, if not more so, and to allow people to touch the depths of your soul was a precious thing. So Stephen liked to think, anyway. Evander would snap out of it, given time. In the end, everything would once again be as it was, despite the vast expanses of cold sheets on either side of Stephen in his large and empty bed.

The door to the suite closed. Stephen sat up in that bed and frowned, but no other sounds followed. His banyan hung on the bedpost and he drew it close around himself, padding quietly out into the sitting room. Dare he hope that Beaufort had come? Even now he could be waiting, his arms open—

He had not and was not, and when Stephen knocked softly at Evander’s door, there was no response. He had to open it, sure again that Evander would be sleeping, his blond hair tousled across the pillow in golden disarray.

The bed was empty.

Stephen headed back to his own room, more troubled than when he rose. He dragged the armchair closer to the banked fire and settled himself in it, wrapping his counterpane around himself. He would sit up, wait for Evander to return, in case there had been some trouble. Had something happened elsewhere in the house? Perhaps Evander would need his assistance, and it would be better if he was already awake and ready to be of help.

Shackles clapped around his ankles, he shuffled forward through the mud. More mud splattered on the side of his face, the cold, wet slime dribbling down into his shirt collar.

The crowd jeered and yelled. “Sodomite!”

“Catamite!”

“Arse boy and whore! How many do you bend over for?”

Stephen woke with a gasp, the sunlight that streamed across his room through the gap in his curtains cutting across his closed eyes. Faint images of a dream flickered around in the back of his mind and then were gone, only a faint sense of troubled sleep lingering behind to plague him. Where was he and what happened?

Memory filtered back slowly as he struggled into consciousness, his eyes sandy and his mind in a fog. He sat in the armchair by the fire in his room, his bedclothes in disarray and his banyan puddled on the floor before him. One corner stuck through the grate and he yanked it back away from the coals. No singes or scorch marks there to betray his clumsiness, thank God!

Evander’s bed had been empty last night. He had sat up to wait—

And fallen asleep.

It was a very good thing that he had never been hired on as a night watchman because he had done a piss-poor job of the whole thing. He struggled free of the counterpane wrapped around his legs and the chair.

No one was in the sitting room, and he had a flash of memory of making this same trip in the darkness. He rapped on Evander’s door, once, twice, and this time was greeted with a groan.

“Are you up?” Stephen called. “May I enter?”

Both were answered in the affirmative. Evander sprawled across his bed in nothing but his shirt; golden hair tumbled down around his face. His eyes were bleary from interrupted sleep, and he flinched when Stephen reached out to caress his stubble-rough cheek.

Stephen leaned in to press a kiss to Evander’s lips. It stayed chaste and gentle, and Evander pulled away without further encouragement.

“I trust you slept well?” Evander asked, showing no interest in the answer.

“Well enough,” Stephen answered, and there was something in Evander’s eyes that he did not like, a set to his jaw that suggested—what, he was unsure—but there had to be a reason for it. “I am troubled with bad dreams,” he admitted. If he were open, perhaps Evander would be inspired to do the same.

“They will pass,” Evander promised, his eyes flickering to the door. He squeezed Stephen’s hand and brought it down from his face, all the while with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

“Have yours?” Stephen asked, no longer interested in dancing about the issue. “I heard you leave the room last night—did you need wine to help you sleep?” There were better solutions that he could suggest, certainly that he had applied many times before and could help bridge the chasm forming between them.

“Leave?” Evander’s brow furrowed and he blinked twice in succession, his brows all up and innocent. “Not I.”

“I heard the door, and then your bed was empty.” Stephen began to explain himself, then stopped.

Evander was toying with him, perhaps, and now he would admit that he had, in fact, been caught.

“I was in the suite all night,” Evander said instead, and with such powerful confidence in what he said that Stephen was hard-pressed to disbelieve it. Except that he had seen with his own eyes— “You must have been dreaming.”

And that… No, he had not been. He remembered it too clearly, the feel of the floor under his bare feet, the doorknob in his hand, the drag of the armchair across the floor to place himself before the fire when he returned.

“You said yourself that you are being disturbed by nightmares, dear heart.” Evander interrupted his train of thought as it began to whirl, pressing one of Stephen’s hands between his own. “Let them not trouble you in the daylight. I know I have seemed uncaring of late—it is only because everyone’s suspicions have been aroused.” He seemed to be reading Stephen’s mind, the lines of his palm, and seeing the truths written there. “I am concerned for all of our safety.”

It could have been a dream, couldn’t it? Stephen had imagined himself lying awake when he heard the door shut, but, then, might that not
also
have been a dream? He remembered flashes of dark images before and after, those ones indistinct and not at all like the memory of crossing their rooms. But dreams took different forms and changed one moment to the next. How could he be sure?

His own mind was a tangled mess, thick from lack of sleep—or, perhaps, disturbing dreams and sleepwalking—and the only thing certain was Evander’s hand in his.

“A dream, yes,” he agreed, only half believing it. “Of course. And I understand. I do not have to like it, but I understand. And once we are home again, and safe,” he added for good measure, “we shall have to make up for all the time we are now losing.”

“Of course,” Evander agreed too easily. He dropped Stephen’s hand and stood, dipping his own hands into the bowl of water on the nightstand.

“I will leave you to dress.” Stephen rose, his heart lighter than it had been, but his mind far more troubled. If he was mistaking dreams for something real—or so unsure of his own mind that he was allowing himself to be convinced that reality was no such thing—what then could he do to save himself? “And see you at breakfast.”

Another beautiful day dwindled into late afternoon, the sun making her lazy way down the clear-blue arc of the sky. The conservatory could only hold Stephen so long, and he found himself wandering the corridors of the house once more. His footsteps fell quietly in the upstairs rooms, most of the guests at play elsewhere and the staff carrying out their duties with reverent silence.

It was too much, too quiet, too heavy and stately and still. He needed the tavern with its laughter, the chaos of the city streets, the market and music shop and all the things that sang to him of life and joy. He clattered down the main stairs, but turned away from the front door.

The kitchen door was directly to his right and he took it instead, no footman here to watch everyone’s comings and goings. A block of cheese and a hunk of bread came easily enough to hand again, with a giggle from a scullery maid, and soon he was out the servant’s exit and into the orange and gold light of late afternoon in the kitchen yard.

Beaufort was here.

Stephen refused to allow his pulse to do anything so trite as skip. His gut clenched, instead, in an entirely unwelcome and unforeseen way. What was wrong with him? Until now, until this, his mood had never been so dependent on the presence or absence of another, and now Beaufort had become the arbiter of his joys, just as Evander—

That was a dangerous line of thinking, and he would not travel down it.

Beaufort was not alone, either, that lady’s maid bowing her head close to his in intimate conversation. They did not touch, not until she laid a hand upon his arm and nodded toward where Stephen stood, his hands full of bread and cheese. Beaufort said something else and Armand nodded, then slowly departed, casting a long and knowing look at Stephen as she did so.

“Mr. Ashbrook,” she said coolly as she passed. Her stare unsettled him, reaching right through his eyes and taking note of every flaw she found.

By the time he had even begun to consider a reply, she was gone, the kitchen door closing behind her.