Rite of Summer: Treading the Boards, Book 1 (6 page)

He was alone in nature once more, the clattering and banging coming from the kitchen windows the only signs of human life around. He wandered down the path again, this time choosing a different route. The garden lay ahead, and the hedge maze beyond it. He had little else to do now but be left alone with his thoughts. Perhaps there would be something worth finding in between those carefully pruned and tamed rows of domesticated shrubbery.

Chapter Six

Curls, sinuous and sensual, unspooled under Joshua’s pencil. He stopped for a moment, used the pad of his little finger to smudge the lines, blur them into one another to soften the edges. The chin, then, following the lines that he had sketched in from memory—strong and sure, clean-shaven, with a divot barely visible below the rounded lobe of his subject’s ear.

He sat back on the bank of the creek and examined his shading with a critical eye. The sketch of Ashbrook stared up at him from the page. There was an expression on his face that Joshua had not intended to place there. He looked introspective, thoughtful, possibly affectionate; it was close to the expression on his face when staring at Joshua’s self-portrait. At the same time, though, some of Joshua’s own fantasies had obviously intruded. The man in the sketch regarded his creator with openness, not jest, nor flirtation, nor teasing, and that was wholly unlike the man Joshua had seen at dinner.

That
man was closed off, a shell and a pretense, his expression a polite mask.

It had been different, somewhat, in the gallery.

Very different again in the conservatory, his head thrown back with pleasure, his mouth open.

It was foolish. Joshua closed his eyes, a familiar throbbing beginning in his groin. This was not the time or place to dwell on
those
memories! He had to save that for later consideration, when he could properly indulge in the memory of Ashbrook’s arms trembling as he held himself up, or the way the flush of lust extended down the sleek, firm curves and shadows of his throat and clavicle.

Idiot.

He opened his eyes and brought his pencil back to the page. Shading in around the eyes helped, turned them harder, cooler, more distant. He was not a child, to be dwelling on an infatuation. The man was very pretty, yes, with a cock that begged for sucking and arms that curved with sinuous lines of muscle, but that was
all
.

There were many other pretty men in the world, and some of them were even musicians.

The creek burbled along at the base of the hill, adding a gentle chorus to the other sounds of the outdoors. Perhaps he could be excused for his distraction because he neither saw nor heard the man coming up behind him until the other spoke.

“What do we have here?” said the voice.

Joshua’s heart stopped beating for a moment. He may or may not have yelped quietly, and he slammed his sketchbook shut.
Too late? How much did he see?

“A wandering minstrel and a riverside artist, a pleasant combination.” Ashbrook spoke easily, though his eyes tracked the closed cover of the sketchbook as Joshua laid it aside. “May I join you?”

And here it came—exposure, censure, disgrace? Ashbrook could not make the incident public, of course, but he could certainly convey his disappointment and disdain in private conversation. On the credit side of the ledger, perhaps that would be enough to cure Joshua of his ridiculous infatuation.

Joshua did not ask the first question that came to his mind—
whatever for?—
instead, he merely nodded. What would his voice do if he spoke now? Would it stay steady or break like a growing boy’s?

Ashbrook paused, staring at the creek for a moment, and at the reeds along the edges that blew in the intermittent breeze. He hitched his trousers and sat. The dark-gray wool pulled snug around his upper thighs and hips, outlining the rounded swell of his arse.

Joshua’s mouth went dry.

The slap of flesh on flesh, the way he had pushed back to spear himself more fully on Cade’s cock, dark curls stuck to the back of his neck and damp with sweat—

Ashbrook stared out at the river for a while, his arms resting deceptively casually on his knees, his fingers, long and slim, always in motion. He tapped out a hypnotic rhythm on his calf, seemingly unaware that he was doing it. A cloud wandered across the sun and cast his face in shadow, the dark pools of his eyes fading. For a moment, just one, he looked sad, unsure and a little bit lost.

The cloud passed, the sun shone down on them both, and Ashbrook’s curls gleamed in the light. They sat in silence so long that the birds began to sing again in the bushes behind them. Ashbrook tracked a sparrow as it flew overhead, leaning on his elbows and tipping his head back to keep the delicate creature in view as long as possible.

“Do you prefer to sketch outdoors?”

The sound of his voice after minutes in quiet startled Joshua, and he had to think about his reply before he made it.

“There is only so often one can paint armchairs and be satisfied,” he said finally. Ashbrook snorted a rough and startled laugh, and Joshua felt his lips tug up in a small smile. “The light is better,” he explained, this time more gently.

So they were not about to discuss the events of the previous night. While the thought soothed some of the tension in his gut, he found himself oddly disappointed at the same time.

Ashbrook nodded sagely, as though Joshua had said something deep or important, and dropped to lie in the grass. He sprawled there, loose-limbed and boyish. “I met your Armand this morning,” he said unexpectedly.

“Sophie?” Joshua’s fingers curled around the cover of his sketchbook.

Ashbrook followed the movement, his brow furrowed.

Joshua ducked his head, flipped his book open to a blank page and took his pencil in hand again. “She’s hardly
my
anything,” Joshua replied, though why should he feel the need to explain? Simple shapes began to rough out under his fingers—vertical strokes for the bulrushes, a handful of curving arcs to mark the sinuous lines of the riverbank. “She works for the countess as well. Though we are, of course, acquainted.”

“Of course.” Ashbrook pushed himself up on his elbows, still heedless of the damage the damp grass could do to his coat and trousers. “She’s quite the hoyden, once you look beneath her elegant coiffure. I came upon her teaching some ruffian boys quite the unforgettable lesson in manners.”

That scene was one he could picture with ease, and Joshua’s smile flickered again. “She does that.”

Ashbrook seemed to have little to say in return, and the quiet fell upon them once more. He lay too close, his knee a scant inch from Joshua’s, near enough to bump against it quite innocuously should one of them choose to move.

He wanted to; it would be so simple. Just press his knee a little farther to the right and soak in the heat of Ashbrook’s body for himself.

Ashbrook’s attention momentarily stolen by flocking birds on the other bank, Joshua could hardly be blamed for taking the opportunity. His eyes drifted, made careful study of the particular arc of Ashbrook’s cheekbone, the curve of his mouth, the distant expression in his eyes. The dimple below his lower lip where it pushed out in something that, on Joshua, would look petulant at best. On Ashbrook, it was an invitation to debauchery of the worst sort.

Apart from Cade, away from the sparkle of champagne and chandeliers, Ashbrook appeared almost…small. Utterly normal. Human.

For a moment, only he thought he understood, could see in the depths of his imagination—Ashbrook spread out before him, his face as open and vulnerable as it appeared just then, something more than scorn or distant amusement welling up in those depths.
Please, Joshua, I need you—

Joshua forced his eyes down to his paper again, added a handful of lines that would eventually become a duck.

“Why do you?” Ashbrook blurted out, a startled look flashing across his face, as though he had not anticipated his own question. “Work for the countess, I mean.” He recovered, bracing himself backwards on his outstretched arms, and the casual air he affected was too obviously that. “Lady Charlotte mentioned at dinner that you’re related,” he explained himself, eyes flickering to Joshua and then away again. “Doesn’t that make you an aristocrat as well?”

“Like any man whose skills do not tend towards useful things,” he began dryly, the self-deprecation within aimed entirely at himself.

Ashbrook barked with laughter again, which was more gratifying than it should have been.

“I found myself in need of a wage and a roof. The countess—my great-aunt once removed, I believe the situation to be—was kind enough to provide both in return for some flattering pictures and the assurance of her name appearing regularly in the best papers. I presume your patronage with his lordship was founded along similar lines.”

That was, most likely, the longest speech Joshua had given in Ashbrook’s presence. It was a distinct pleasure to note that his voice had neither broken nor stammered once during the entire thing. Perhaps he was getting better at ignoring the way Ashbrook’s pulse thrummed at the side of his throat or the soft divot beneath his ear that would be warm against someone’s lips.

A shadow fleeted through Ashbrook’s eyes and was gone.

They would have to play cards someday, Joshua reflected with some level of amusement. Preferably for money. Ashbrook’s inability to hold a closed face was appalling.

“Something like that,” Ashbrook agreed, and appeared happy to let the conversation lie there for the time being.

“It is good that you still find the time to draw for your own pleasure,” he ventured after a moment, following the distracted movements of Joshua’s hand as he fleshed out the sketch. “Unless Coventry has already been after you for commissions.”

There was something amiss in the way he spoke, dancing around something obviously weighing on his mind. And yet his queries were, on the surface, innocuous and even pleasantly light conversation.

“No commissions yet,” Joshua replied, roughing in the shapes of distant trees before laying his pencil down along the sketchbook’s spine. The wood was smooth from his fingers, the paper rough. “Though I have been reliably warned to stay away from the south lawn while the young ladies are about with their watercolors.”

He was rewarded with a laugh from Ashbrook that seemed more natural than anything else so far. “Indeed, you would be wise to take that advice,” he joked in return. “There is such a marked lack of young and titled men here so far that anyone even remotely appealing to the eye is like to become targeted as a plaything.”

“Remotely appealing?” Joshua fired back. “Hardly a rousing recommendation in my favor.”

Ashbrook did not rise to the obvious bait, laughing and pushing himself to sit fully upright again with his arms balanced easily on his knees. “As working men both, I rather think we fall under that lesser category, regardless of the prettiness of our eyes or mouths. Unless, of course, you have a coronet stashed at the bottom of your paint box.”

As a suggestion and an invitation, Joshua had received and given many both more and less blatant than having his mouth called “pretty”, but this one he deliberately ignored. “I am a bit amazed that you did not ride out on the hunt this morning,” Joshua said instead, not looking up to see whether Ashbrook’s marvelously expressive face registered any reaction. “You could avoid female companionship for the entire day with little additional effort.”

He expected another joke, perhaps another invitation, but Ashbrook once again surprised him. This was becoming something of an unwelcome habit. “It’s not to my taste,” was all he said, the flirtatious laughter gone from his voice.

Joshua did look up, settling himself to face Ashbrook instead of the riverbank. “How so?”

Ashbrook’s gaze stayed fixed on the steady flow of water down the lazy slope of the hill. “I’m no stranger to death, but to take a life myself seems anathema.”

Such sentimentality! Another surprise, and Joshua would do best to stop trying to keep track, for Ashbrook was soon going to surpass every record.

A small sound must have escaped him because Ashbrook glared at him sharply. “You’re laughing,” he said, his eyes snapping. “You think me foolish.”

Haste, haste, or he would lose this moment forever, and he had not yet memorized the curve of Ashbrook’s lashes against his cheekbones when his eyes were soft and honest.

“Not at all,” Joshua corrected, keeping his voice as easy as he could. “Life is a rare and precious thing. Who is man to make the decision to end one, when he cannot restore the dead back to breathing in return?”

“Now I
know
you’re making fun,” Ashbrook replied, allowing himself to be gentled back into ease. The tension ebbed from the set of his shoulders and the tightness faded from the set of his jaw.

“Perhaps I am.” He tempered the comment with a careful smile. “Or perhaps I am entirely serious.”

A distant horn sounded and Ashbrook startled, looked out toward the woods and then back to the house. “That sounds like the party returning.” He changed the subject. “I suppose I should go and greet them and see what bounty they return with.” He rose easily, limbs uncurling and his muscles moving sleek as a cat’s beneath the fine wool of his suit. “If you will excuse me, sir.”

“Of course,” Joshua answered, for what else could he say?
No—stay here and pose for me and I shall draw you from life instead of flawed memory?
And so Ashbrook brushed loose blades of grass from the seat of his trousers and headed off toward the main house without a backwards glance.

Avoiding the south lawn was easier than avoiding the mistress of the house turned out to be. Joshua had barely stepped foot inside the hallway, finally abandoning his fruitless attempts to sketch, before he was set upon. His afternoon was lost to educating the debutantes on still-life painting, while their chaperones sipped tea and stitched idly at handkerchiefs and cushion covers.

The talk revolved entirely around Viscount Downe and his two eligible sons, who were due to arrive before dinner. He’d met Downe a handful of times; the man socialized with Horlock. He was utterly remarkable, purely for his unremarkableness. He was neither thin nor fat, neither tall nor short, and had the singular distinction of having no distinguishing features whatsoever. He could always be counted upon to lose just about as much at cards as he had won in the previous hand, and when he passed from this life, the existence of his sons would be just about the only mark he would leave on the world to prove that he had ever been.