By Chance Met (17 page)

Only then did Naeth realize that the enclosing walls concealed a great space adorned with graceful statuary and fountains, sculpted hedges and pocket gardens that would be awash with lush blooms come spring and summer. He almost whistled as he started to feel impressed by his lover’s ancestral domain.

They reined in their steeds and dismounted. A column of fully liveried retainers lined the shallow stepped stairs leading up to the massive front door. Naeth shook his head as the brethren swept past the retainers as if they were so many stone statues.

The heavy front door was duly opened by the head butler and ruler of the household staff. "Your Grace. Lord Keiran," he formally intoned, bowing as they entered the enormous main hall with its gleaming marble floor.

It did not take Naeth long to comprehend just how mistaken he’d been about the dimensions or affluence of the Arthanna estate. The actual size of the house as well as the extent of the grounds on which it stood could not be discerned as one rode up to the front gate.

Upon exploration he quickly discovered the many acres of parkland behind the manse including the expansive manicured lawns and exquisitely landscaped gardens. A small crystalline lake in the park, its placid waters graced by regal grey-winged swans, lent a charmingly fanciful touch. The stables lay on the opposite side housing some of the finest equines wealth and skill could breed, not to mention an astounding number and variety of steed-drawn conveyances to suit every occasion. Farther on were fertile fields and verdant pasture for grazing, numerous poultry pens, bubbling streams and scattered strips of game-rich woods.

Beyond the parkland stood a thickly grown copse of tall trees at the outer bounds of which clustered the neat cottages of the Arthanna tenants. And finally, at the very edge of the estate's perimeters, against its southernmost wall lay a private graveyard, last resting place of every Herun and Heris of Ilmaren since the fifth century after the Inception.

Yet Arthanna Court was not the only property of significance Reijir possessed, Naeth later learned much to his awe. There were other houses and smaller estates scattered all over Ylandre, their combined rentals and production making his lover one of the wealthiest Deira in the realm. Add to that Reijir’s title and close kinship to the Ardan—

Naeth marveled all over again at the tides of fate that had swept him into a life quite different from anything he’d ever imagined.

One thing Reijir had not expected when he took Naeth as his lover was the attention the youth would pay to his personal needs as much as his carnal ones. The three-week winter sojourn, for instance, proved full of warmth and cheer—the merriest holiday he could remember in so long a time.

The manor halls rang with jests and laughter. Naeth collaborated with Ruomi, and together, they somehow managed to bring some coziness to a building so immense it often looked forbidding in the dark. Torchlight flickered nightly out front making the approach to the house welcoming rather than imposing. Cheerful evergreen arrangements and other winter plants strategically placed in every major chamber and hallway brightened up the atmosphere immeasurably. And one afternoon, Reijir went so far as to join Naeth in treating the household staff to the spectacle of their Herun engaged in a snowball fight in the courtyard.

Ignoring the astonished gawks of the servants, Reijir and Naeth hurled fistfuls of newly fallen snow at each other. Ducking behind statuary and hedges to avoid the wildly flying missiles, they laughingly challenged each other, behaving like two unruly children whose parents were not home. Not even the scandalized stare of the elderly and oh-so-proper head butler deterred their enjoyment of this highly undignified play.

But when Reijir suddenly tackled Naeth to bring both of them down behind a tall hedge, Ruomi quickly stepped in and, to the butler’s relief, ordered the servants back into the house. However, while the butler only sought to do his duty, Ruomi was guided by a suspicion his employer might engage in business of a private nature.

"You're crazy!" Naeth gasped, trying to catch his breath as he lay panting on the snow beside Reijir.

"I'm crazy?" countered Reijir. "Pray tell, who threw the first snowball?"

Naeth snickered. He'd caught Reijir squarely in the side of his head when he'd emerged from the house looking for Naeth. "You were too good a target to resist," he admitted.

"You mean victim!" Reijir retorted.

Naeth laughed a little guiltily. "I fear we provided a bit of a show for the servants,"

he said with belated embarrassment. “And the butler looked positively horrified.”

"They will no doubt talk about nothing else for several days running,” Reijir agreed.

Without warning, he shifted atop Naeth and held him down with his body. Naeth yelped.

"What are you doing? Get off me! Let me up!"

"Nay."

Reijir suddenly parted Naeth’s cloak. Naeth wriggled in alarm.

"You can't mean to do anything out here!"

"Try me."

Unmindful of Naeth’s flustered protests, Reijir quickly unbuttoned the tunic of fine velvet beneath. He yanked open Naeth’s undershirt and bent to trail kisses from the youth’s throat to his chest. Naeth moaned softly as Reijir’s warm lips closed upon one nipple.

"This is madness," he whispered.

"I know," Reijir murmured, his tongue teasing the now hardened nipple. "It's what you bring out in me, my sweet."

"But this is indecent. It isn't right!"

Reijir lifted his head and looked at Naeth challengingly. "Why not? You're my leman. Unless you don’t mean to honor what that entails."

His comment effectively silenced the youth. Naeth gazed questioningly at him, to which Reijir responded with a stare that dared him to contest his choice of words. Naeth slowly smiled, and when Reijir kissed him again, he did not resist. As their kiss deepened, Reijir slid his hands under Naeth’s clothing with bold possessiveness. In lusty compliance, Naeth wrapped his arms around Reijir and pressed his body against the Herun’s.

Reijir huffed a throaty laugh. "I think we shall be late for dinner," he said.

With that he rose, pulling Naeth to his feet. Barely giving him time to rearrange his clothes, he picked Naeth up, unceremoniously slung him over his shoulder, and strode back into the house. Unmindful of the amused and bemused side-glances of his brother, adjutant, and several servants, not to mention the renewed horror of the butler, he swiftly carried his sputtering lover up the curving stairs.

*

After a few minutes, a door slammed noisily shut. The servants hurriedly scattered as the butler’s outraged gaze descended on them.

Keiran looked at Ruomi, grinning with glee and anticipation.

"I wonder…” he mused aloud. “But after all, stranger things have happened before.

Ruo, I do believe my brother's finally falling even if he doesn't realize it yet!"

“Or won’t,” Ruomi murmured.

He looked apologetically at Keiran when the latter scowled at him.

Reijir awoke on the morning of the winter solstice to find, neatly folded at his side, a midnight blue velvet robe lined with black satin. On the left breast, his herunic insignia had been laboriously stitched in gold and silver purl. The obvious surfeit of painstaking effort told him Naeth must have cut, sewn and embellished the robe himself. He wondered how long the youth had worked on it.

Almost reverently, he picked up the robe and slipped it on to check for its fit. To his surprise, it was perfect. Apparently, Naeth was fairly adept in the basics of tailoring but had not progressed as far as the intricacies of fine embroidery.

Just then Naeth walked in, a laden bed tray in hand.

"Good morning, Reijir-
dyhar
," he greeted.

"Good morning, Naeth-
min
," Reijir replied as the youth set the tray on his lap. He stared at the hearty breakfast of creamy scrambled eggs, links of crisp-skinned swylboar sausages, salty ham slices, crusty bread slathered with sweet farm butter, a jar of golden honey and a pot of steaming milk tea. "Did you prepare this?" he asked.

"Why so incredulous?” Naeth retorted with mild indignation. "Of course, I did. After I convinced Olve that I wouldn't burn the kitchen down."

Reijir chuckled as he imagined the cook possessively guarding his territory. Then he remembered the garment he was wearing.

"Thank you for this," he softly said. "I very much appreciate the effort you put into making it."

Naeth beamed. "I'm just glad it fits! I’m not really fond of embroidery.”

“But at least you know how to do it.”

“Enough to do a passable job,” Naeth conceded. “Now, have your breakfast, my lord, before it becomes cold."

"Only if you share it with me," Reijir insisted.

They fed each other in between jests and bouts of laughter and soon reduced the hefty meal to little more than crumbs.

"I have something for you, too," Reijir said when they were finished. "I was planning to give it to you tonight. But why wait?"

He slipped out of the bed and disappeared into the dressing room. Moments later, he reappeared with a silk pouch, which he handed to Naeth.

Half holding his breath, Naeth opened the pouch and turned it over. An earring slipped out onto his palm. Wrought from gold, it was elliptical in shape with a deep blue sapphire at one end and a bright red heartsfire stone at the other. It was a leman’s earring, and one that identified its wearer as a Herun’s lover.

Naeth gulped. The earring formalized his position as Reijir’s concubine.

"Thank you," he whispered. He ran a finger reverently over the earring. “I’ve never seen such perfect gems before. They’re beautiful.”

Reijir grinned, pleased by Naeth’s pleasure and excitement. He then turned serious.

"No gem can equal the beauty of your heart, Naeth-
min
," he said. But when Naeth looked up, blinking back his tears, Reijir teased, “My, but you’re a sentimental one.” He chuckled when Naeth forgot his tears and pouted at him.

Later, he discovered Naeth in the kitchen conferring with the cook about the traditional solstice dinner and even doing some of the cooking himself. Reijir suspected Naeth was trying to bring the hominess of his life in Losshen to the formality of Arthanna Court. And it seemed he was attempting to build memories for Reijir as well—perhaps in the hope of replacing some of the unpleasant ones that had so marred Reijir’s childhood?

When he held Naeth in his arms that night, Reijir became aware that he was never as happy or fulfilled as when he was with his leman. Naeth was like a breath of fresh air in his life. Where once Reijir saw everything with cynical eyes, Naeth now coaxed him to look at his surroundings and fellow Deira with interest and wonder and even charity. And Naeth was unfailingly thoughtful of Reijir’s wants and needs, sometimes anticipating them if possible.

As Reijir commented one day to his brother, Naeth pleased him in all things save one. He was making it impossible for Reijir to live in any meaningful way without him.

Keiran’s response was an incredulous huff and an acerbic, “Please explain to me
how
that is a crime.”

As the days progressed, so did Naeth’s lessons in the love arts also proceed apace.

Reijir did not hurry him along but took his time teaching him how to receive as well as give pleasure. This aspect of their affair initially befuddled Naeth. He had believed that, as Reijir’s concubine, he was expected to take the responsibility of providing release for the both of them. That was what concubines did or so he’d gathered from talk among the servants and gossip at the university.

That Reijir did not agree with such an arrangement was evident in their lovemaking, where more oft than not, Reijir made it a point to drive Naeth nearly mad with ecstasy first. And then toward the end of their stay in Althia, Naeth finally discovered the

satisfaction of making love by illuminating lamplight.

When Reijir started to undress him that memorable night, he darted a glance at the lamp on the bedside table. “The light,” he gasped as he was stripped of his shirt more swiftly than usual.

“Not tonight, Naeth-
min
,” Reijir replied. “Not ever again. I want to see all of you.”

Naeth stared then swallowed hard. But that meant he would be seeing all of Reijir from hereon. Every blessed part of him.

“Oh Veres,” he moaned as his loosened trousers slithered down his legs to leave him completely naked.

“Undress me,” Reijir softly commanded him.

Naeth hesitated then set to do as he was bid. With shaking hands, he divested Reijir of his clothing, not quite looking at his body as he did. Only after Reijir was as bare as he did he chide himself for misplaced prudery.

He knew Reijir’s body by touch and smell and taste. It was time he also got to know it by sight. Just as Reijir desired to know his. Naeth forced his eyes open.

His breath hitched, and his mouth watered. Naeth forgot his reservations as he eagerly perused Reijir’s form.
Saints above!
He’d thought Reijir’s body beautiful in the darkness of a moonlit room. There was no word adequate enough to describe his form as seen in revealing lamplight. All Naeth could think of were the statues he’d seen of the ancient Naeren gods. Intimidatingly lofty of height, sleekly muscular of frame, and nigh perfect of features, they were the stuff Deiran fantasies were made of. Therefore, it was a trifle disconcerting to see one’s fantasy in the flesh.

Just as he managed to regain his composure, he became aware he was under Reijir’s appreciative scrutiny as well. He blushed all the way to his chest and shoulders as the Herun’s gaze travelled down his body to linger not surprisingly on his groin. Naeth opened his mouth to say something, anything to break what felt like a protracted silence, though he would later realize mere moments had passed in their mutual study of each other’s bodies.

He did not get a chance to say a word for Reijir suddenly bore him down to the bed saying, “You have much too luscious a body to hide. Least of all from me.”

Reijir kissed him so hungrily and lengthily Naeth was soon trembling without cease.