Rite of Summer: Treading the Boards, Book 1 (21 page)

Stephen slowed his hips, his head buried in the join of Beaufort’s shoulder and neck. Beaufort tried to thrust up against him, to urge him on, but he did not, could not.

He rolled instead, intimate and slow, rising and falling as the waves against the shore. He could push himself up again after a moment, pulling back and out so slowly that it was all but painful, the drag of tight muscle against his skin so brutally good. He trailed the tip of his nose along Beaufort’s and won a smile, blinding and joyous.

He followed that with long and yearning kisses, the hot puffs of breath. He scraped his teeth against Beaufort’s throat and won a gasp, a stuttered thrust, the muscles in Beaufort’s long, lean thighs contracting all together to wrap around Stephen’s hips more securely.

That was it, he could hold out no longer, the coils of pressure and heat burning him from the inside out, his balls drawn up tight and heavy against his body.

He braced himself and pushed in deep, thrusting faster and faster now as Beaufort gasped and urged him desperately on.

There, there,
there
—snakes of fire ripping through his skin.

He convulsed, shuddered, pumped deep into Beaufort’s body and claimed him, the blinding light behind his eyes so bright that, for a brief moment after it faded, he imagined himself blind.

He trembled through the aftershocks, rolling gently in and out of Beaufort to steal those last few sparks of pleasure before everything became too much. Hands played over his back, stroking and caressing, and Beaufort whispered nonsense syllables into his ear. He started to roll away, let Beaufort find some comfort, but Beaufort stayed his hips and held him in place.

“A moment longer,” Beaufort begged, and dropped a hand between them.

Stephen nodded, resting his head on Beaufort’s chest so he could watch, their hearts thundering along together too loud, too fast.

Beaufort took hold of his cock and stripped it, stroking himself with furious intensity, Stephen still buried, slowly softening inside of him. He pulled at the ring, harder than Stephen had dared, a tug that seemed to send all his limbs trembling.

He followed Stephen over the brink a moment later, spilling white and hot over his fingers, stomach and hand.

Stephen held himself up over Beaufort a moment longer, then slid out of him and collapsed to the crumpled sheets, utterly spent. There was a washbasin across the room; he had noted it when he came in. That would do in a moment. But not yet. He sprawled, arms wide. Beaufort curled in, nestling his head on Stephen’s chest and breathing him in.

“Thank you,” Beaufort murmured minutes later, then pressed his lips chastely against Stephen’s shoulder.

“For this?” Stephen asked, confused. Confused and a trifle sticky. The washbasin was sounding like a better idea every passing moment.

“For this, and for coming tonight,” Beaufort elaborated. “Alone. I know things are…complicated between you and Cade. In a very selfish way, I hope this means they have become less so.”

And that was an excellent point at which to extricate himself from Beaufort’s arms, as warm as they were, and cross the room in search of washcloths and clean water.

Beaufort sat up when Stephen draped the cold, wet cloth across his stomach, and then only to snap it at him with a wrinkled face.

“I think…” Stephen began, hesitating—he could draw his clothes on and leave, or be selfish and take his ease a little longer, “…I think things will always be complicated,” he finished lamely.

Beaufort reached out, snagging his hand and drawing him back into bed, making his decision for him. Strong arms settled around Stephen’s shoulders and back, and he rested his head on the pillow beside Beaufort’s. Red-golden hair tickled his nose, and he nuzzled in to press his lips against Beaufort’s ear before he said more. “We have built our lives around each other for so long, I know no other way to live.”

Beaufort’s fingers moved to Stephen’s hair again, rubbed gently against his scalp as he brushed them through Stephen’s tangled waves. They fell around his shoulders, the ribbon long discarded somewhere between the door and the bed, the soft press and release of Beaufort’s tender ministrations draining any remaining tension out through the top of his head.

“There are other ways,” Beaufort said quietly. “Other places which do not hold the kinds of danger that England does for men like us.”

That phrase again, reflections of Cade’s endless arguments as to why the rules of society should not apply to them (more properly, to
him
). This time, though, it was not used as a weapon.

Stephen shifted in the bed, unsettled. “You would leave England,” he said, instead of anything else that was on his mind. “You who did not like to leave his studio for a house party? How are you so fearless all of a sudden?”

Beaufort stayed silent for a moment, his lips pressed against Stephen’s forehead and his fingers stroking through his hair. “At first, only because of Sophie’s urging. Now, it is my own inclination as well. The Swan,” he said finally, grief around the edges of his voice. “Watching needless death after death, the hatred only growing as time passes. Things were freer a decade ago than they are now, and yet we are all supposed to be enlightened men.

“Sophie has a cousin in Belgium, you see, who works for a French aristo-in-exile, who may have need of a painter. I wrote to him. Perhaps it is time to pay a visit in person, if he will see me.”

And that—no—none of that was the sort of thing Stephen expected to hear from the man who had once professed that his idea of adventure was a good novel in front of a calm fire.

“French?” he replied, seizing on the first thing that came to mind to express his shock. He sat up, resting on his hip and elbow, staring down at Beaufort beneath him. “You would turn traitor?
You?
”

“No such thing,” Beaufort argued, and he too sat up, the sheets pooling in his lap. “But have you not read France’s new laws?” He gestured in the air. “Buggery is no longer a crime. They have no stockade and pillory in wait for men who dare to love. They execute aristocrats, certainly, but the empire has no regulations at all regarding sodomy.”

That seemed unreal, too good to be true, even if it did involve the French.

Beaufort may have misunderstood his frown, for he ran his hand down the length of Stephen’s arm, his eyes old and sad. “I have seen too many dear friends beaten or hanged. I am tired of it all.”

“And you will go when?” Stephen formed the question, his mind trying to race and finding itself sluggish. Seeing him at the Horlock estate would have been difficult; spending time with Beaufort once he sailed across the Channel, utterly impossible.

“I have no immediate plans,” Beaufort said, and Stephen relaxed. “I should wait for the vicomte’s answer before making travel arrangements. But think of it, Stephen—” Beaufort blurted out, using his Christian name for the first time. The familiarity was unexpected, but Stephen’s name sounded good in Joshua’s mouth. Considering they were naked in bed together and but ten minutes ago Stephen’s cock had been up Beaufort’s—
Joshua’s
—arse, it probably shouldn’t have been such a surprise.

Joshua stopped talking abruptly, all but holding his breath until Stephen smiled.

“Go on,” he said, and Joshua slowly smiled back.

“Think of it,” he repeated. “The vicomte is in Belgium right now, but it would be easy enough to slip from there across the border, move down into France once we found somewhere safe, far from the fighting. Then we could live free and easy, our only worries finding clients and audiences, not arrest and ruin simply for loving.” He grabbed Stephen’s hand as he spoke, rubbing his thumb across the breadth of Stephen’s palm.

It was an intoxicating idea, however impractical. “We?” he asked, just to be sure.

“We,” Joshua said, half-breathless. “If you like. Come with me.”

Could he do it? Abandon Evander, pack his violin and his music, his books and his clothes, latch a trunk closed on all of his worldly goods and simply…go? He had done it once before, sliding away in the night before he could be packed off to the army like so much unwanted baggage.

And now, another offer to run.

Evander would be furious. As would the earl. But in Belgium and France, who could touch them? (The revolutionary army, he supposed, and they would never be allowed back into England if it came out that they had defected, no matter what their reasons. “Evading arrest” would never be a good answer.)

And on the other hand, here was Joshua Beaufort, bolder and stronger in spirit than Stephen could ever be, holding his hand and promising a chance at something new and better.

“I—” Stephen began, and then he stopped. “Let me think about it?” He did not need to be watching too closely in order to see Joshua’s face close in, his fearlessness fade. “It is a decision I cannot undertake lightly,” he tried to explain, scrambling for the right words.

Joshua only nodded, and kissed him, his hand pressed against the side of Stephen’s face.

“It is,” Joshua agreed simply, and Stephen had done the wrong thing again, said the wrong thing.

They tangled together, their lips locked and chests tight against one another.

“You should go,” Joshua said as they parted, with a glance at the clock sitting on the mantel. “The hour is late, and you cannot be found here in the morning.”

“’Tis the nightingale, and not the owl,” Stephen joked, but he slid out of bed and drew on his pants, buttoning them up without looking. “I will go, you get some rest, and we will talk about this again tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

And Joshua said no more.

The earl’s library contained an atlas, a massive, hand-colored tome filled with maps and diagrams, legends of obscure symbols, portraits of strange and exotic peoples decorating the corners of the pages. That was where Evander found Stephen the next day, the book open to a map of Northern France before the war and the Belgian border.

“Planning a trip?” Evander’s voice cut through the quiet, speaking over the trill of midmorning birdsong outside the partially open window.

Stephen jolted upright, his heart thumping in his chest.

“I beg your pardon.” Evander held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I didn’t mean to break your concentration,” he added, moving into the library and closing the door behind him.

The click of that particular door was a sound Stephen would be happy never to hear again. “Only passing the time.” Stephen shook his head, flipping the pages over to hide his research. “I’ll leave and let you to your work.”

“I came here to find you,” Evander said, and caught Stephen by the arm as he stood to make for the door.

Stephen looked at him for the first time that day and tried his best not to frown.

Evander’s cravat hung about his neck, tied loosely in the kind of simple knot he would usually chide Stephen for. His cheeks were pale, circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. He looked altogether unlike the polished and perfected young man who could squire about an earl’s daughter. He was just the vicar’s wayward son, alone and unhappy, and once more he turned to Stephen… But for what? Solace? Affection? Unlikely.

“You made your feelings very plain the other day.” He could not bring himself to shake Evander’s hand off of his arm, however. Not as bedraggled and pathetic as he seemed now. Perhaps they could part ways as friends, instead of letting the unresolved anger simmer forever. Who better to be a comfort than someone who knew you so well? “I have been doing my best to stay out of your path. I thought that was what you wanted.”

“I was unkind, I know.” Evander shook his head and took a step closer. He was still beautiful, damn him, even pale and upset. But his eyes had been cold and cruel, and Stephen could not allow himself to forget. Evander was all warmth now, though, which made that particular resolution that much harder. “I am sorry, you must believe me. I said things I didn’t mean, lashed out at you for no fault of yours. I have not been myself these last few weeks, for reasons you well know.”

And he did, for they had sat together in the barn and listened as Joshua read out the lists of the arrested and of the dead, each name falling like a drumbeat in a funeral dirge. He had seen the fear in Evander’s eyes, felt the chill settle deep into his own bones.

He had repaired things with Joshua with a humble apology—perhaps now he could find the strength of character to grant Evander the same.

“I know,” Stephen said, and Evander smiled, mollified. “We have both been upset and spoken harshly.”

There, that was easy enough. He could be an adult as well and apologize for his own faults.

“I do not want to leave here still upset with one another,” he added for good measure. Because the thought of it—going back to their shared lodgings, trying to pack up his things, all with Evander erupting at him at random, like a furious blond volcano—was too much.

“Nor do I.” Evander was all smiles again, his eyes alight, a sunrise that now left Stephen cold. (He had smiled at Charlotte that way, brightened when she’d come into a room.) “I promise you, I will do everything in my power to make it up to you.”

Stephen’s gut clenched. “That won’t be necessary,” he forced out, a heavy tangle sitting in the pit of his stomach. “I think it might be best…” he broached the subject tentatively, watching Evander’s face, “…if we begin to sever our partnership. I can start looking for other work—perhaps an orchestra or the opera. Phillips is always hounding me to play with his ensemble.” His voice felt close to breaking under the strain, and Evander gave no sign of a reaction. Maybe he wanted Stephen gone as much as Stephen wished to be away?

“We have become too close over the years, and perhaps some more distance will do us, and our friendship, some good. You, I am sure, will have no trouble finding another violinist to play for you. As you keep telling me,” he added impetuously, regretting the daggers in his words as soon as he let them fly, “there are a great many who could fill my shoes easily enough.”

Evander’s face went dark for a moment, his brow coming down like a thundercloud. “Are you going to throw that back at me forever? Words spoken in anger, you know I didn’t mean them.”