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Authors: Katherine Marlowe

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“It is my duty to serve,” Mr. Rochester replied, and turned again to leave.

“Mr. Rochester,” Lord Loxley repeated, more urgently.

Mr. Rochester looked back again, waiting.

Miserable and longing for him, Lord Loxley bit down on his own lip, trying to find the words to lure Miles back to him and running out of things to try. “Please kiss me,” he said at last, out of desperation.

There was no change of expression on Mr. Rochester’s handsome face. He merely turned and left the room without a word.

L
ady Mathilda Loxley
came again to visit that Thursday as was her habit. This time, Mr. Rochester did not accompany him.

“I’m quite concerned about your behavior, Fitzhenry,” said Lady Mathilda Loxley. “I fear it is the influence of the company you keep.”

“I apologize for any offense I may have given,” Lord Loxley said, preferring to avoid the subject of the company he kept as much as possible.

“How did you find Miss Sarah Meriwether?”

“Pleasant, but I will not marry her,” Lord Loxley replied. He stared stubbornly into his tea, continuing to feel like a scolded child.

“How unfortunate,” said Lady Mathilda Loxley, “considering what I had planned to gift you upon the wedding.”

Curiosity piqued, Lord Loxley glanced up. “What do you mean?”

“Loxley Manor. Marry her, and I’ll give you the estate outright.”

Ownership of his own estates, rather than the deeply humiliating management of the estates that he managed now. Lord Loxley caught the tip of his tongue between his teeth, deeply tempted by it. The offer meant independence at last, and control over his own life. “Why her?”

“She’s decent, and her family is monied. She’ll net a titled member of the peerage, and you’ll have her income. If not her, marry someone else of your own choosing. But that’s the only way you’re getting the manor. I’ve endured you putting off the matter quite long enough, Fitzhenry. I won’t be here to watch out for you forever, you know. I wish to ensure that you have someone to keep you in line, once I’m gone.”

Lord Loxley stirred the already-cold tea in his cup, considering her bargain. He wisely kept his mouth shut on the opinion that he did not want to be kept in line by anyone other than Miles Rochester.

“Think it over,” Lady Mathilda Loxley advised. “Now, what news regarding the management of the estate?”

“In rentals and income so far for May, 19 pounds, 2 shillings,” Lord Loxley lied, underestimating the true number by half.

“That’s up a bit,” Lady Mathilda Loxley remarked.

“Yes. Mr. Rochester is quite gifted in the management of the estate,” Lord Loxley said. “His advice has been invaluable to me.”

“Hm,” said Lady Mathilda Loxley, who was inclined to think well of any person who was sensible about money, even if that person’s father most decidedly had
not
been so.

Once she had gone, Lord Loxley headed for the kitchen in hopes of finding Mr. Rochester, without success. He asked Mrs. Pellicott, the housekeeper, to send up a bottle of wine and to send Mr. Rochester as soon as he was found.

She sent up dinner along with the wine. Lord Loxley ignored it, curling up on the window seat and gazing out miserably at the rain.

It was an hour before Mr. Rochester came to find him, by which time Lord Loxley had made his way halfway through the bottle of wine.

“You sent for me, my lord?” Mr. Rochester asked, coming to stand near him.

Lord Loxley glanced up only briefly, then returned his attention to the wine, running his thumb along the edge of his empty goblet. “Yes.”

He provided no further information, which forced Mr. Rochester to remain, waiting. After a minute of this, Mr. Rochester sat down across from him on the window seat. “You haven’t eaten.”

Looking over at the dinner tray without interest, Lord Loxley reached instead for the bottle. Mr. Rochester reached it first, keeping it from him.

Lord Loxley grimaced at him. “Some husband you are. You’ll nag me but not bed me.”

“Are you the lady of the manor, in this analogy? Eat something and I’ll let you have the bottle back.”

“I’m not hungry,” Lord Loxley told him. This did not seem to influence Mr. Rochester’s decision.

They sat in silence until Lord Loxley surrendered and reached for the cold remains of his dinner.

Mr. Rochester made himself more comfortable on the window seat, remaining in possession of the wine bottle but not drinking from it.

Choking down half the cold veal and potatoes, Lord Loxley set the rest of it aside and held out his goblet. Mr. Rochester filled it only halfway. Accepting that, Lord Loxley leaned back and sipped at his wine, content that Mr. Rochester had stayed this long and willing to settle for that.

“She made me an offer,” he said at last, staring out at the rainy evening.

“Your aunt?”

“Yes.”

“What offer?”

Lord Loxley hesitated on the words, cradling the goblet close to his chest. “The manor. Mine outright, if I marry.”

Mr. Rochester made no reply, and Lord Loxley did not look over to see his expression.

“I don’t wish to marry,” Lord Loxley said at last.

“You’d be a fool not to accept her offer.”

“I’m already a fool.”

Mr. Rochester didn’t deny that.

“Why is it,” Lord Loxley asked, finally looking over at him, “that you won’t touch me?”

Mr. Rochester met his eyes without expression or response.

“I don’t think,” Lord Loxley theorized, “that it is from lack of desire, on account of how you continue to take objection to the prospect of anyone
else
touching me, or coming within arm’s reach of me.”

“My lord, this topic is ill-suited to a nobleman such as yourself.”

“Tell me why,” Lord Loxley insisted.

Mr. Rochester glared irritably at him. “You should turn your thoughts toward your marriage, my lord, not to me.”

“Oh, yes, shall I?” Lord Loxley said with drunken belligerence. “Do you suppose I shall enjoy lying atop her, when I’d so much rather be beneath you?”

“Don’t be vile.”

“I
shall
be vile, damn it,” Lord Loxley snapped, hurt and unhappy. “Those days at Oxford—“


Forget
Oxford,” Mr. Rochester roared.

Startled, Lord Loxley blinked at him.

“I have no desire to resume our activities at Oxford,” Mr. Rochester said, his voice hard and cold.

“The way you kissed me when you first arrived here might suggest otherwise.” Bitter and sullen, Lord Loxley sulked into his wine.

“A folly.”

Silence settled between them, harsh and miserable.

“I think,” Mr. Rochester said, “it would be best if we ended my contract of employment.”

Lord Loxley let his head rest against the cold window pane. “… Please don’t leave me.”

Mr. Rochester stayed, and did not speak further.

Finding that his cup was empty, Lord Loxley set it aside. Mr. Rochester still had possession of the bottle.

“When I was at university,” Lord Loxley said, speaking more to the dark window pane than to Mr. Rochester. “There was a young man. He was handsomely formed, in mind and body, and I thought indeed that he might be a young Apollo who had descended to the world. He had this laugh, where he would throw back his head in joyful abandon, as though there was nothing at all in his nature but joy, and whenever he did it I would feel my heart and body sing with longing for him.”

“Did you tell him so?”

“No. It wasn’t that I never had the chance, but that I never felt the need. When I was with him, caught in the arms of my young god and lured into kisses or his bed, I felt complete. He led, I followed.”

“Did he die?”

It was a cruel question, especially when Fitzhenry Loxley thought that Mr. Rochester
must
know that they were speaking of him. “Yes,” he said, miserably. “I rather think he did.”

At last, when it was late, Mr. Rochester sighed and came over to his drunk employer, helping him to his feet and steering him to the bed. Lord Loxley hugged his arms around Mr. Rochester’s neck, holding close to him and refusing to let go. “I beg you not to leave me.”

“Hush,” Mr. Rochester said, more gentle now in the face of Lord Loxley’s drunken misery.

“Please.”

Mr. Rochester kissed him, briefly, which had the desired effect of calming Lord Loxley enough that Mr. Rochester could unbutton his jacket and unfasten his cravat. Lord Loxley watched him passively as Mr. Rochester helped him out of his shoes and clothing, setting it all neatly out of the way.

“Stay. Please. Just for tonight.”

Hesitating only a moment, Mr. Rochester nodded, and loosened his own cravat, stripping out of his outer clothing and climbing in next to Lord Loxley in the bed. His strong arms wound tight around Fitzhenry, the way he’d held him so very long ago, and Lord Loxley slept with a feeling of safety and contentment that he hadn’t enjoyed in years.

Chapter 5

T
here was
no further talk of Mr. Rochester leaving, though he would not be lured into bed a second time and continued to avoid Lord Loxley. Even the occasional touches had stopped, and Mr. Rochester no longer hovered possessively when he accompanied Lord Loxley into the village. It was all very disappointing and perplexing, but Lord Loxley resigned himself to give up the chase, if only because he could not bear to press his affections where they were genuinely unwanted.

When he went to visit the residence of Miss Sarah Meriwether, he did not take his valet along.

He was greeted in the hallway by Miss Lucy and another, younger sister, Anne, the two of whom introduced him in a whirlwind way to their father and then showed him into a parlor where he might speak privately with Miss Sarah. It was strongly indicated by both younger sisters, and more subtly indicated by their father, that Lord Loxley no doubt had a Very Important Matter to discuss with the eldest Miss Meriwether. This had the effect of making Lord Loxley feel like a fraud and a cheat, and by the time he was shut into the room alone with Miss Sarah, for the purposes of imminent proposal, he was utterly flustered and beginning to stammer.

“Miss Sarah,” he said. “I, um.” He cleared his throat.

“Please, my lord Loxley,” she interrupted, having seated herself on a straight-backed chair near the center of the room, and showing a considerable amount more dignity and composure than Lord Loxley. “I must speak. I know why you have come, and I fear that the enthusiasm of my parents and Lady Loxley has quite misrepresented my situation.”

Startled speechless by this unexpected development, Lord Loxley blinked at her.

“I do not wish to marry,” Miss Sarah Meriwether told him. “I
will
not marry, my lord, and should I be
forced
to marry, I shall never willingly share my husband’s bed, nor do I ever intend to bear any man’s children, and so I must beg that you give up your suit, and I hope that you will forgive me for allowing things to get this far.”

Feeling addled, Lord Loxley found the nearest chair and sat. He searched for words.

When he produced none, Miss Sarah Meriwether got to her feet. “I pray you excuse me, Lord Loxley.”

“Miss Meriwether,” Lord Loxley said quickly.

She hesitated.

“If you please,” he said, struggling to compose his thoughts, and then blurted: “I rather—that seems a highly desirable state of matrimony, to me.”

Miss Sarah Meriwether sat back down, watching him uncertainly. “I hope you don’t—you don’t mean to imply, that is, that you would prefer a wife to be
unwilling
—”

Lord Loxley nearly fell off his chair in horror. “No!
No
. I meant, rather, that I would prefer to have a wife, um, never in my bed and rather disinclined toward the act of procreation entirely.”

Miss Sarah Meriwether continued to observe him.

“I must marry,” Lord Loxley said, at length. His ears were burning, and he wished, as he often did, that Miles were here to tease him about it. “I had no idea that you were disinclined, and had I known I suspect I might not have come.” Sighing, he fidgeted and struggled to find words. “But if I were to assure you that I should never expect anything of you but sisterly companionship, would you be willing to consider—would you marry me, Miss Meriwether?”

“Yes,” said Miss Sarah Meriwether. “I think I will.”

Lord Loxley felt an immediate rush of both gratitude and dread. From what little acquaintance he had of Miss Sarah Meriwether, she seemed a very serious and reserved young lady, and he didn’t have any idea how she might react at his explanation of why he preferred a chaste marriage with a woman. Nor did he have any further knowledge of her reasons for dreading marriage.

He very much wanted to discuss the matter and their individual preferences further, but they were promptly thereafter interrupted by Miss Lucy Meriwether, who brought them tea, and then dominated the conversation for half an hour regarding the wedding practices of faeries while the rest of the Meriwether household showered congratulations upon the newly betrothed couple.


M
r. Rochester
,” Lord Loxley said as he burst into the study, slightly breathless from his haste up the stairs.

Mr. Rochester had been leaning against the desk, consulting one of Lord Loxley’s books, but at the sight of Lord Loxley’s urgency, he shut the book and came to him immediately.

“Miss Sarah Meriwether,” said Lord Loxley, “has agreed to marry me.”

Recoiling in shock, Mr. Rochester stared at him.

Lord Loxley wasn’t at all certain how to interpret that expression, and decided that the best course of action would be to continue explaining. “You see, when I went to—“

“You
proposed
to her?” Mr. Rochester’s tone made Lord Loxley stop in surprise.

“I, rather…”

Mr. Rochester stepped forward, pressing Lord Loxley up against the nearest wall of bookshelves, his hands curled around Lord Loxley’s hips. “Even though you don’t
want
her?”

Lips parting in pleased shock to have Mr. Rochester manhandling him again, Lord Loxley decided that perhaps it would be to his advantage to
not
continue explaining. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t?” he asked, his hands hooking under the front of Mr. Rochester’s waistcoat in order to tug him closer.

Mr. Rochester growled, sealing their bodies together and murmuring against Fitzhenry Loxley’s ear. “You’re
mine.

Heart pounding with how much he missed and needed this, Fitzhenry Loxley moved one of his hands up to curl around the back of Mr. Rochester’s head, keeping him close. “Am I?” he asked, making his voice as careless as he could manage. “You’ve done very little to assert your claim lately.”

Mr. Rochester grunted in his ear, giving Fitzhenry a reprimanding nip to the side of his throat and then starting to swiftly unfasten the buttons of Fitzhenry’s jacket and waistcoat.

Laughing breathlessly, Fitzhenry turned his head, catching Mr. Rochester’s mouth for a kiss. Mr. Rochester returned the kiss the way Miles would have: heated and reverent, as if his Fitz was the most precious thing he’d ever held. The kiss slowed, lingering, both of them forgetting everything but the way their mouths moved against each other.

When Mr. Rochester broke the kiss, he didn’t go far, breath still warm and sweet against Fitzhenry’s lips, pausing just a finger’s breadth away before giving him a quick kiss on the nose. “I think I do feel inclined to assert my claim,” he said, resuming his unbuttoning of Fitzhenry’s waistcoat. “Shall I?”

“If it pleases you,” Fitzhenry said, feeling young and wild again and dizzy with joy at seeing a side to Miles Rochester that he
recognized
. He stole another few kisses, each of them brief and playful, as he fumbled with Mr. Rochester’s buttons in return. Miles grumbled at him for the teasing kisses, and caught Fitz’s mouth in a much more passionate kiss while Miles’ hands slid down the back of Fitz’s breeches, grabbing his ass in both hands and pulling their hips flush. Fitz moaned against him, shivering with pleasure at having Miles’ hands on his bare skin.

Breaking the kiss at last and devoting himself to getting Fitz out of his clothes, Miles dropped Lord Loxley’s coat, waistcoat, and shirt to the side, running his hands over Fitz’s bare chest and studying him with a mix of adoration and lust that made Fitz feel dizzy with affection. Enjoying his lover’s gaze, Fitz tilted his head back, starting to unfasten the buttons on the narrow fall of his breeches. Miles’ eyes drew immediately to his hand, watching as Fitz opened the front of his breeches and pushed them and his drawers down just enough to show his hipbones.

Dropping to his knees, Miles lifted Fitz’s foot, guiding off his boot and stocking, and then repeating with the other.

“Are you mine?” Miles asked him, drawing Fitz’s breeches the rest of the way down so that he was fully naked and on display for Miles Rochester.

“I’ve always been yours,” Fitz vowed, gasping as Miles’ hands slid up the insides of his thighs and making a noise of complaint when they suddenly
stopped.

“Christ, Fitz—“ Miles Rochester sat back on his heels. “We haven’t any oil.”

Fitz laughed, leaning back against the bookshelves and enjoying the sight of Miles Rochester on his knees in front of him. “So go get some,” he said, inclining his head toward the door. “I’ll wait right here.”

Miles grinned, rising to his feet and kissing Fitz briefly, letting his hand slide down to linger over the cleft of Fitz’ buttocks. “I’ll be back promptly.”

Quickly re-buttoning Miles’ waistcoat for him so that he wouldn’t look indecent on the way down to the kitchen, Fitz grinned back at him. “Go on. Hurry.”

Kissing him one last time, Miles let go and slipped out through the door of the study.

Fitz sighed once he was gone, leaning nude against the bookshelf and feeling how his heart thudded in his chest. “I love him,” he said aloud, testing the sound of the words. He’d never said them before. At Oxford, he’d never really thought about it—he had Miles and Miles had him. They were two parts of a complete unit, and Fitz had never needed words when he wanted to make Miles smile, or laugh, or moan…

Miles burst back through the door in barely a minute, making Fitz laugh with surprised delight.

Shutting the door, Miles leaned against it, watching him with a lopsided smile as he shamelessly took in the length of Fitz’s body. “I thought,” he said as he began to advance, “that I must have misremembered how
radiant
you are, for no human creature could possibly be so lovely. And I do not,” he continued, as one hand curled around Fitz’s hip, while the other set a bottle of oil on the shelf next to him, “preclude the possibility that you are no human at all but a faery come to tempt me. I swear you have become even more exquisite with the passing years.”

“Miles,” Fitz breathed, flushing with pleasure at the flattery.

“No,” Miles said, his face closing off immediately. “You don’t get to call me that.”

Fitz’s lips parted, almost asking
why
, but he caught the question behind his teeth. If he asked, they would fight, and Miles would storm out again. Looking aside briefly while he recovered his pride from that affront, Fitz recovered himself and tilted his head back, pretending that it was a moment ago, when Miles had praised him and lusted for him, and he watched his lover from low-lidded eyes. “Shall I call you Mr. Rochester?” he asked, letting it be part of their bedroom play.

Miles’ eyes widened at how he’d responded, but he relaxed again and stepped close. “Yes.”

“Mr. Rochester,” Fitz said, making it as playfully heated as he could, and Miles actually
laughed
, the first time Fitz had heard him laugh in years.

“You are such a
tease
,” Miles said, returning to his knees in front of Fitz.

“Says the man who is still devilishly fully dressed.”

Snorting at that, Miles held his gaze as he stripped off coat and waistcoat, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it to the side, letting Fitz see his body.

He was more muscular than when they were younger. Beneath his shirt, his skin was the pale honey-brown that it had been in Oxford winters, not the full, rich brown of summer when they would go picnicking along the Thames, and Miles would nap luxuriously in the sunshine while Fitz remained safely in the shade with a book, only venturing forth when the temptation of tasting Miles’ smooth brown skin became worth the risk of sunburn.

As Fitz stared admiringly at him, Miles drew his hands up Fitz’ thighs, kissing the side of his prick once as he reached for the bottle of oil. The color of it caught Fitz’s eye—rose and gold, made of glass, not the sort of earthenware ewer that Fitz would have expected him to fetch from the kitchen.

“Mi—” he said, and bit his tongue between his teeth before he could finish the name. He reached out for the bottle, and Miles let him take it. It was the same brand Miles had favored when they were in university. Possibly—as battered as it was—the same bottle. Rose scented ‘massage’ oil, in the Chinese style. “You still buy this?” he asked, stunned by a wave of nostalgia. Sex with Miles had always smelled of roses, and the two of them had gotten no end of teasing from their friends for their coordinating ‘cologne’.

“Haven’t had much use for it in the past years,” Miles said, taking the bottle back from him and uncorking it. He nudged Fitz’s thigh up over his shoulder, turning his head to kiss the inside of it. Fitz groaned, curling his hands around Miles’ head to encourage him. He liked knowing that Miles hadn’t done this with anyone else. Gasping at the touch of a cold, slick finger circling his fundament, Fitz arched, leaning more of his weight back against the bookshelves.

Miles kept his finger where it was, pressing against Fitz but not yet breaching him, as he leaned in and kissed wetly along the side of Fitz’s prick. Biting down on a cry of Miles’ name, Fitz groaned pleadingly at him. “You call
me
a tease?” Fitz asked, squirming his hips back against the tantalizing finger and the wet, lingering lips.

“Yes,” Miles said, pushing his finger a little more firmly, coaxing Fitz’s body into opening to accommodate it. Fitz moaned, and promptly got louder as Miles suckled along the underside of his cock. Over many, many days at Oxford, Miles had taken care to learn all of Fitz’s preferences and weaknesses, and it seemed he hadn’t forgotten any of them. His mouth unerringly sought out all of Fitz’s most sensitive spots, teasing them mercilessly instead of giving Fitz the stimulation that he wanted.


Please
, Mr. Rochester,” Fitz begged, and was swiftly rewarded for it as Miles curled his lips around the head of Fitz’s prick, pressing the flat of his tongue against the glans and just holding there.

Fitz keened with desire, knees faltering briefly. He reached one of his hands up and behind himself, taking hold of one of the sturdy bookshelves in order that he might not collapse. “Mr. Rochester,” he pleaded again, and though Miles’ mouth didn’t move, his finger did, sliding in fully and beginning to slowly move in and out. Fitz rocked his hips against it, all too willing to aid in fucking himself on Miles’ finger. “More, please,” he asked, and received a second finger, carefully wiggling within him and coaxing his body to relax.

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