Rite of Summer: Treading the Boards, Book 1 (4 page)

He shoved his hands in his pockets, then guiltily pulled them out again. How many times had Evander lectured him on the importance of cutting a proper figure?

Damn him, anyway. He was as much a child of poverty as Stephen, if not more so. He was the youngest of a full litter of children, while Stephen’s parents had only been burdened with two to clothe and feed. Where did he get off putting on such grand airs?

It was hardly Evander’s fault that he had such a keen and critical eye, mind you. He hadn’t grown up in a large house, but in a cottage on the edge of an estate much like this one. He had learned, watching little quirks and habits of the wealthy, and been generous enough to pass those tricks on to Stephen in turn. They were able to pass among the proper folk now, be lauded and loved for their talents and not judged on their poor family names.

Stephen had taken advantage of all of it with little qualm before. Why did it stick in his throat now?

He should find Coventry’s conservatory and see what sort of arrangements he could make for practicing. He had not been able to do anything of the sort in the coach, naturally, and had been too drained and ill at the halfway mark to do anything more strenuous than drink some broth and fall into uneasy sleep. His fingers ached from lack of use; his knuckles cracked when he curled them.

But his violin was back in the suite, and returning meant making conversation again.

It could wait.

Noises sounded from the first floor, murmurs of conversation and the swish of silk skirts, and Stephen turned into the open archway on his left rather than go downstairs just yet. The portrait gallery stretched out before him, long rows of paintings hung along the facing walls. Shadows clung to the walls, the sconces not yet lit.

The images were mostly of the standard sort: prettily posed ladies with various small dogs, simpering children, doughty-looking gentlemen with swords on their hips. Some of them were rather more dubious, a weedy-looking, young man with a highly unfortunate chin, chief among them. One good stiff wind would knock him flat on his arse, and that chin would act as a sail.

A handful of portraits in a newer fashion looked like more recent additions. The paintings themselves fit the mold of the others—delicate brushwork, the sitter looking off to the side or down in modesty or up to glory, depending on nature, sex and inclination. All but one. The palette was still muted, but the straightforward pose and the natural life in the expression of the sitter stopped Stephen in his tracks.

The man in the portrait was not classically handsome. His mouth was too full and his hair too red for that, his jawline perhaps a little too soft. But his eyes crinkled at the corners with secret mirth, as though sharing a very private and personal joke with the viewer, and those lush and generous lips curled up at one corner. He sat in a smock and his shirtsleeves, a palette on the table behind him. His head tilted very slightly to the side, like he was listening to some secret, lively song. His eyes caught and held Stephen, gray as storm clouds over the cliffs, a hint of blue that was the clear sky breaking through, and a knowing look that struck some chord deep within that Stephen could not immediately name.

He wanted—

Well, he wanted a great many things. But never before had a
portrait
been responsible for a curl of longing or desire twisting its way up from the center of his being, some vague and wistful sense of thwarted desire focused on that arresting stare.

I wonder if he would look at me that way in life.

I wonder who he is.

A faint scuff of feet behind him was all that gave Stephen warning before someone spoke, and he managed neither to whip around in surprise, nor jump like a child caught where he shouldn’t be.

“He’s not a particularly good-looking fellow to deserve such lengthy scrutiny.”

The voice was an unfamiliar one, a warm, rich tenor that verged on a deeper range, a faint Northern accent coloring the tone.

“I suppose not,” Stephen replied, pausing to allow his heart to slow before he introduced himself, “if you value men solely based on looks. But there is more life in his expression than in all the other portraits put together. Either the sitter was a man of uncommon vivacity or the painter was exceptionally fond of him.”

He turned and looked at the man standing behind him.

His hair was shorter now, and he was dressed for dinner, his cravat impeccably tied and tucked into a cream waistcoat. The man from the portrait stepped into the gallery, framed by a shaft of light that fell across the floor from the hall. His eyes had not been exaggerated. They had been perhaps underplayed, and that gray-blue gaze regarded Stephen with a peculiar intensity. He was a little taller than Stephen, his frame of very pleasing proportions, and had a controlled energy to his walk that suggested strength lying beneath the layers of wool and linen.

“Or he was his own painter,” the newcomer said, his lip quirking up in that selfsame knowing smile, “and both irredeemably prone to vanity and in desperate need of an honest friend to check him in his fancy.”

“I should say otherwise,” Stephen replied, the compliment easy to make. “It appears to be the very copy of life.”
Careful!
It was all well and good to flatter and tease when flirting with the ladies, but this man was still a stranger. “Stephen Ashbrook, at your service.”

The other man hesitated, but only for a moment, and bowed in return. “Joshua Beaufort. A pleasure, sir.” Something about the light in the room suggested an edge of color rising to Beaufort’s cheeks, a faint flush that vanished a moment later. “Though, I should confess, your name was already known to me. I saw you play last summer, at a chamber concert at Vauxhall.”

That thrill of recognition would never become tiresome! Still, modesty demanded a different sort of reply. “Then I should have given you another name so that you would not have made the connection,” he joked, beating back the urge to let his tongue tie itself in knots. “I promise that I have made some effort to improve since then.”

Beaufort.
His eyes kept playing over Stephen’s face, his shoulders, his hands—the scrutiny made it difficult to focus on the conversation. He smiled, and his eyes were warm. “If your playing has improved, sir, then I hesitate to ask if you have brought your instrument. I don’t think my nerves could take a performance better than that.”

“You flatter me.”

There was a hint of something in Beaufort’s expression, beyond that careful smile. The way he held himself, carefully poised and controlled, his gaze lingering perhaps a breath too long on Stephen’s mouth when he spoke, a gleam on his lower lip when he moistened it.

Perhaps—

Was Beaufort playing with flirtation, or was he merely being kind to a fellow artist? In the years Stephen had been living in London, he had not once seen Beaufort at the taverns, or on the stroll in Moorfields where less careful men went to find their fun. That meant little, mind you. He could be circumspect, or live nowhere near London, or have a lover at home to whom he kept faith.

He was not beautiful, but he was exactly the sort of sensual that made Stephen wish Evander were there to charm him and flatter him and convince him to come to their bed.

“Not at all. I was particularly moved by the third variation. I am sorry, I don’t know enough about music to describe it, but perhaps you know the one I mean. There was such passion in your playing of it that it utterly transported me.”

Stephen’s ears flushed hot at the tips and he ducked his head like a child at the praise. It was ridiculous! He’d had compliments plenty of times before, ovations and applause aplenty. But none of it had been delivered with that delicious intensity and a gaze that held him as though he were actually someone important.

He should mention that Evander was also a guest, redirect Beaufort’s compliments to the appropriate place, but something held his tongue. “I do indeed, and you’re very kind to say so. It is one of my own favorites, which I suppose can have an effect.”

Beaufort’s nearness was having a very real effect on
him
. That mouth was all too much. He would likely make soft, breathy sounds when Stephen nipped at it with his teeth. He would press his tongue against it, draw Beaufort’s lower lip between his and taste the heat beyond it—

Noises of conversation and laughter filtered up from below, as well as the sound of feet on the stairs. Stephen blinked and realized with a start that he and Beaufort were standing quite close together in the half dark. There was something dangerously intimate about it, and he stepped quickly back to a safer distance. “It sounds as though the hordes are gathering. Time to make an entrance, I believe.”

Beaufort glanced at the door, and by the time he turned back he was remote again, dispassionate and cool. He nodded, whatever moment of connection they’d been sharing seemingly dismissed from his mind. “It would appear so.” He gestured to the door. “After you, Mr. Ashbrook.”

It was unseemly and a little bit ridiculous, but Stephen could not help the flicker of disappointment that flared as he walked out into the well-lit hall. Beaufort did follow him as he clattered easily down the stairs, Lady Charlotte and the other guests already amassing in the parlor.

There was the world-weary Earl of Horlock with his pinch-faced countess, whom Stephen knew of from a carefully maintained distance. She paused in her conversation with Lady Chalcroft to stare at him over her pince-nez, like a caricature of a gargoyle, and he bowed with carefully precise courtesy. The chaperoning crows—Mrs. Talbot and Lady Chalcroft—paid little attention. The girls giggled together on the couch behind them, now in fancy evening gowns and ribbons woven in their hair. It was too bad they didn’t seem to be wearing the same colors as their day dresses because it took him some effort to match their names to their faces.

“Gentlemen and Ladies!” Coventry entered not far behind them, saving Stephen the effort of requesting proper introductions. Evander was close on Coventry’s heels, perfectly pressed and put together. “The table is laden—shall we process in? Let us not stand too heavily on ceremony, for we are all friends here. Or at least we shall all be soon enough!” Coventry winked to his daughter’s companions with the broad and exaggerated gesture of an older man who knew he would not be taken seriously.

The countess had been in her grave over a year, Stephen reminded himself, as the ladies rose and teased him in return. It would not be unheard of for Coventry’s eyes to wander once more. From the calculating look in Lady Amelia’s eye as she hung off of Charlotte’s arm, Stephen was not the only one to make that observation. Miss Talbot trailed the other two girls in, not seeming to mind being relegated to the back of their cluster.

Mr. Beaufort looked back and held his gaze just a moment too long before processing in to dinner.

Well, well. And a good evening to you too, sir.

Chapter Four

Joshua lowered himself into the armchair in his room and untied his cravat with a peevish snap.

“That bad, was it?” Sophie asked from the chair opposite, her legs curled under her. She closed the book in her hands, tucking it into her lap. It said something that he wasn’t the least bit surprised by her presence, though by all rights he should have been appropriately scandalized. He could always tell her to leave, as though that would do any good. The girl was like a cat—she went where she pleased and did what she liked, and woe betide anyone but her employer who tried to force her otherwise.

“I had no idea,” Joshua said, checking first to be sure the door was most securely closed, “that her ladyship had such strong opinions about the idea of gas lighting.”

“Ooh, yes, did she get on about that again? ‘Those gas lines will be a blight on the city’,” Sophie imitated bitingly. “‘They’re an invitation to treachery and a first stage toward a new Gunpowder Plot’, to hear her go on. And did you know that they’re sinful as well? Apparently our Lord and Savior would prefer candlelight.”

“Lord save us from the march of progress.” Joshua sighed and rubbed his forehead. Exhaustion nipped around the edges of his eyes, his shoulders aching. “You were quite right, by the way.” He glanced up at Sophie, not too tired to add to her amusement. “Lady Chalcroft’s got her eye set on Coventry for her eldest. The two of them would set on her rivals like a pair of wild dogs if they thought it would get her a handspan closer to a coronet.”

“I said as much.” Sophie nodded in agreement, running her fingers over the embossing on the leather cover of her book. “She’s got mean eyes, that one, and the daughter’s not much better. Mrs. Talbot, on the other hand…she comes a daft creature, but she’s smarter than you’d think. I was speaking with her girl, Poppy, while we were airing out the gowns? She said the family’s come on hard times since their boy caught sick. They need a good match for the miss, and fast.”

“You would make a remarkable spy,” Joshua observed, only mildly caustically. “Have you never thought about entering the diplomatic corps?” He itched to remove his jacket, but Sophie showed no signs of leaving.

“If I thought they’d take a girl…” Sophie smiled sweetly, “…in an instant. Now…” she pointed at the center of his chest and arched an exquisitely crafted eyebrow, “…what of those musicians? The girls downstairs were all atwitter, and I’ll not leave until I’ve heard your impressions.”

Joshua schooled his face into something which he prayed resembled indifference and shrugged expansively.

Sophie’s eyes narrowed.

“There is not much to tell,” he said in an attempt to put her off the scent. Not that it was at all likely to work, but he had to try. “Mr. Cade and Mr. Ashbrook attended dinner, they were seated down at the other end of the table from me, and we did not speak beyond pleasantries after our introductions.”

There. None of those things was in and of itself a lie. The musician and composer had been seated by Lady Charlotte and the Countess Horlock, while Joshua had ended up entertaining the Chalcrofts and fending off Mrs. Talbot’s increasingly unsubtle hints about painting lessons.

And, though it was a technicality, all of his conversation with Mr. Ashbrook had taken place before they had been formally introduced. That conversation was something he would keep most firmly to himself, Sophie’s curiosity be damned.

Sophie’s eyebrow had climbed higher on her forehead while he had been lost in thought, and he made a dismissive noise at her. “Out with you now, I’m for bed.”

“D’you need a powder for your head?” Sophie rose languidly, book in hand. “I can fetch one, or some brandy if you prefer.”

“No, thank you.” Joshua rose with her from force of habit. “Only some sleep.”

“G’night, then.” Sophie slipped out, with one last, pointed look, and closed the door behind her.

He followed behind to bolt it fast, then tossed his cravat over the back of his chair. He stripped efficiently, doused the light and collapsed onto his bed in nothing but his shirt.

He should have known better than to approach the man in the gallery. It had been temptation too strong, Stephen Ashbrook standing right there before him. He had intended to take the chance to reassert their respective places, meet him as a person and banish forever the fantasy that had lingered since Vauxhall. Reality should never come close to the things fevered imagination could dream up.

Ashbrook had indeed been different than expected, but in ways that did nothing to stop the lurch in Joshua’s gut at the sight or thought of him. He had left his hair to grow long over the year, and it curled about his neck and face in rich, dark waves. His eyes, which had simply looked brown from a distance, were flecked with green, his lashes impossibly long against the high curve of his cheek. He was not girlishly pretty, despite that. Ashbrook was every bit a man, from the breadth of his shoulders to the slim taper of his hips.

And it had been a long time since Joshua had taken anyone to his bed.

Those warm, walnut eyes had lingered a moment too long on Joshua’s lips. He had come very close to succumbing to the unasked question.

Ashbrook and Cade,
he reminded himself, and tried to bring up images of the two speaking together after dinner, heads bent in quiet conversation. Ashbrook had a lover. He had no need for Joshua’s fumbling attentions.

And yet. Ashbrook had flirted—it
had
been flirting. He was not yet so far gone in his solitude that he could no longer recognize the flash of interest and the subtle mark of a kindred spirit in another man’s eyes.

For a moment, however brief, Joshua had been desired.

It rushed hot through his body, flared deep in the back of his mind and burned down his spine, settled in the deep pools of his understanding. If those few moments of connection were all he could have, it would have to be enough.

Sleep, normally a welcome lover, forsook him for warmer beds. Joshua tossed and turned in his sweaty sheets, in that half space between dream and waking. Every time he dozed off it came back, that feeling that he was reaching for something, only to have it turn to mist and slip from his fingers the moment they closed about it.

He rose and dressed again by the faint glow of moonlight. A small stub of candle was enough to light his way, and he went wandering. The almost-full moon shone in through the bay windows in the upstairs hall, turning everything it touched to shades of silver, taupe and gray.

Silence reigned, not the quiet of the grave, but something more wholesome and peaceful. It was late enough that all the servants would be abed, and not yet time for the parlor maids to be slipping through the rooms to set the next morning’s fires. Darkness closed about him when he turned the corner and left the moonlight behind, his tiny flickering flame the only thing holding it at bay. He was a ghost, passing melancholically and unseen past closed and barred doors. Once he was gone, there would be none left to mourn him.

Joshua turned another corner and then stopped, the flicker of light below a door banishing all of his morbid thoughts. The double doors led to the music room—he remembered that much from the tour he had received upon their arrival. The countess had been disinterested, he had marked it more from curiosity than anything else, and they had moved on.

Now someone else was there.

Ashbrook? His treacherous pulse beat faster before he could calm it, but who else would it be? The master of the house was no music lover, to be hanging about his pianoforte in the dead of night. Unless one of the ladies was indulging in a secret assignation with her music master—hardly likely. The man was fifty if he was a day, and with a potbelly to match.

No music echoed down the hall, but even through the door he could hear the soft susurration of voices, both male, and the creaking of furniture. He needed to know, though he could probably guess. His feet moved one in front of the other despite his nagging impulse to turn around and return to his room. The candlelight flickered again, below the doors and between them. The latch had not been properly set.

Someone gasped, a sound followed by a low and guttural moan that quickly cut off. Or had that been a sob? Despite himself, he pinched out his candle and put his hand to the door. What if someone inside was injured or ill? Just because it sounded like something other than that—

It swung silently at his touch, the hinges well oiled and the door heavy. He stopped it before it could open farther than an inch or so, but that was more than enough for the image to sear itself into his memory.

The hushed and muffled noises that emerged from the room were musical indeed, but not the sort that could be played upon a harp. Two bodies writhed and rocked into one another in the center of the room, a portrait of lusty abandon. Candlelight gleamed golden and warm on Cade’s long, lean thighs, his trousers pushed down about his knees. Ashbrook knelt on the upholstered armchair in front of him, his fingers clutching tightly to the headrest, clad only in his shirt. A pair of trousers lay in a heap on the floor.

Cade’s fingers sank into the flesh of Ashbrook’s hip, digging hard enough to leave dents. That fair skin would be marred tomorrow with pink and purple marks, the constant low ache a persistent reminder of their fucking. Ashbrook’s shirt clung to him, the sweat-damp fabric clinging to the dips and shadows of his muscled back and shoulders. Cade bent low, pressing kisses to the bumps of Ashbrook’s spine with every snap of his hips. Cade’s buttocks clenched in time with the slap of skin against skin.

God above, Joshua would pay any price imaginable to be the one leaving marks like that, to feel Ashbrook’s body clench around his cock, to drive into him and wring gasps of pleasure from his throat. Ashbrook arched deliciously, his neck and back a perfect taut bow. He groaned and bit his lip as Cade laced fingers in his dark curls.

Cade pulled back, tugging Ashbrook’s head up and baring his throat. The curve of it in the flickering shadows was devastating, the angles of their bodies and the punishing thrusts of their movements a punch to the gut that sent Joshua reeling back a step.

His breath heaved faster, loud even to his own ears. They must be able to hear it, had to realize that he stood there, hardening inside his trousers, at war with himself. He should respect their privacy, turn and walk away.

And yet. They had a suite entirely to themselves—why plan an assignation in a public room if not for the thrill of the possibility of discovery? Better that it be him than one of the maids or, heaven forbid, one of the chaperones or Coventry himself. Perhaps it would be better if he stayed where he was, if only to raise the alert if someone else should happen to come by, someone who would be less…understanding about their particular proclivities.

Yes, he would be doing them a service. He turned his back, pressed his forehead against the cool, solid wall.

In the meantime…Joshua pressed the heel of his hand against his cock, fought the urge to thrust against it, to roll his hips into the friction. He tried to will it down, to force his pulse to slow to normal. Mathematics—that could work. Times tables, if he could remember them all, or the order of precedence of the current peerage…

Another creak and gasp from behind him made him turn, and the sight drove all thoughts of leaving out of his mind.

Cade had knocked Ashbrook’s legs wider where he knelt on the chair and slotted himself more snugly between them. He slid again into Ashbrook’s body and his own head tipped back in exultation, his face contorted with pleasure and lust.

Joshua ached. He ached and he
throbbed
, and pushed against his palm despite it all. What if he were there, beneath Ashbrook as Cade was above him? He could not see Ashbrook’s cock from this vantage point, blocked by the hem of his shirt. He would be big, though, full, red and long, hanging thick and heavy between his thighs, the crown gleaming with the wet evidence of his desire. Yes, and he would thrust into Joshua’s mouth as Cade thrust into him—

Ashbrook panted and reached back, sank his nails into the meat of Cade’s thigh and urged him deeper, faster.

Heat suffused Joshua’s body, his cock hot and hard inside his trousers. They were too tight, the buttons pressing into sensitive flesh, and it would be so easy to undo those buttons, slip a hand inside and stroke himself. He could practically taste Ashbrook’s skin, could imagine what it would feel like to slide his tongue up, from the shadow of his clavicle to the Adam’s apple that bobbed with every swallowed moan.

Joshua stepped to the side, craned his head to get a better view. Good judgment? What was that compared to this?

There—he could see Ashbrook’s prick now, as large and well-formed as any man could ever desire, hard and slick with precome that made the silk-soft skin gleam. It bobbed up against the flat plane of his stomach with each thrust and roll of his hips.

Ashbrook let go of Cade and wrapped one hand around his own prick. He stroked himself, the tip thickening and lengthening more than before. He panted, gasped for breath, his lips red. They gleamed wet in the light, parted just so.

What would it be like to slide his own prick between them, to feel the hot slick of Ashbrook’s mouth enveloping him? He would be so beautiful like that, his lips stretched full around the root of Joshua’s erection, his own skin shining slick with spit as he thrust—gently, so as not to hurt—and Ashbrook’s tongue circled and pressed and rubbed, like that—

The strangled cry ripped from Joshua’s throat, too quickly to smother.

Ashbrook’s head snapped toward the door, Cade’s eyes stayed closed and his face tipped up toward the ceiling.

He was unmade, undone, discovered in his voyeurism!

The only saving grace would be that they could not expose him, but Ashbrook would surely despise him. Joshua staggered backward, remembering too late that his hand was pressed rough against his prick through the fabric of his trousers. No dim lighting could disguise the bulge of his erection or what, precisely, he had been doing there.

Ashbrook’s eyes met his and went wide, but he said nothing. He stared, and Joshua stared back, caught, paralyzed. Ashbrook’s hand moved faster on his own prick, tight and rough. He fucked back onto Cade’s cock in violent motion, and his gaze on Joshua was
hungry
. He came with a shudder and a strangled, quiet cry and sob. He shot his emissions over the fingers of one hand, gripping white-knuckled to the chair with the other. And all the time, his eyes stayed fixed on Joshua.