Objects Of His Obsession (12 page)

Turquoise eyes gripped his.

“My name on your lips. Your
seed on my tongue. All as it should be,” Evander bit out, that aristocratic
drawl, cool, returning fast. He lapped the last traces of Benedict’s climax
from his skin. Dropped his hand. “This will continue,” he said, voice like
steel. “You and I. Forget your moral objections. I can assure you, they are
misplaced.”

“I will not–”

Evander’s eyes dropped as he
eased Benedict back inside his undergarments, fastened his trousers with a
practiced ease. Task completed, he glanced back up to Benedict’s heated face
with an utter assurance.

“You will. You understand so
little, Yeats. Even back at Oxford, that first time I saw you, so bookish, so
in love with learning, so foreign to anything I’d seen before, I knew I would
have you.”

Benedict stared at him in
shock. That first glimpse, the quad in the sunshine, that first, insane flowering
of his obsession with Evander St John–

And he had not been alone in
that moment marking him–

“But how did you know–”

“That you were a … sodomite?”
Evander’s carnal mouth curled at both the dangerous, loaded word, mocking him, mocking
Benedict’s anxiety that his preferences were that obvious. “I did not. Until
your eyes met mine. And I read them as you would read one of your books.
Thoroughly and well.”

“Evander–”

But the other man held up a
hand and walked over to the window. His broad back, so immaculately tailored,
was rigid as he stood at the window, a hand raised, gripping the frame as he
stared out at the grounds.

Benedict knew he must still be
ferociously aroused. Benedict had not,
could
not
, offer Evander release. Nor had Evander sought it himself. And so his
cock and balls must be throbbing, pitched to a level of arousal near agony. Yet
he simply stood, stared out, completely still as he seemed to be willing his
body back under his control.

Finally, he said, still staring
out at the endless grounds, “You and I did not begin to finish with one night,
Ben. I knew in that moment, years ago, that you would play a part in my life.
Not a casual one. I knew neither one of us was ready for it. But we are now.
And I will not be denied, nor will I allow you to deny yourself. Do you
understand?”

At nineteen Evander had taken
one look at him and understood all that?

Should any other individual
have said such a thing, Benedict would have laughed it off.

But Evander … Evander, he
recalled, even in that first glance, had been a man. Not a youth, as the
friends surrounding him had been.

Christ, he wished he’d paid
more attention to gossip. Listened more, asked more.

That would surely give him
greater understanding now.

And yet, he believed. He could
believe that the nineteen year old Evander could look at another man and know
that he would have him. More strikingly, would know that they would play an
important role in each other’s lives.

And would know that the time
was not yet right for them, yet
would
arrive.

Even at that age, he had been
formidable.

“This is wrong,” he said
flatly. “This is wrong, and you know it.”

Evander did not turn from the
window. Would not allow Benedict to read his expression, he knew.

“You know nothing, and
everything, Benedict,” he said coolly, and added with some asperity, “You will
not believe me, but attempt to. What we have done, what we
will do
, is not wrong. Is no betrayal. And that is all I can say,
and all I will.”

“It
is
wrong. I cannot continue with it.”

“You know nothing. And I will
permit no refusal.
None
.”

The day passed in a haze of
work and lust. Benedict would never have known the two could combine so easily
and yet they did. Between his absorption in the incredible pieces, both large
and spectacular in the collection, and those smaller, everyday, humble, more
human, and somehow, because of that, to his preference, and his bodies
incessant reminder of just how Evander had brought him off that morning, he was
floating in a sensual sea.

Disturbed, drowning, yet eager.

The dining room had been an
abrupt return to reality.

The sight of Juliana had torn
at him. Turned his memory of what had happened in that gallery from fantasy
reluctantly realized to shameful filth.

From the grim look in those
turquoise eyes, Evander had read him, that reaction, like a book.

A book that would be opened and
discussed at a later date. Both the Duke and Duchess of Casterwell excused themselves
after lunch, Evander brushing a kiss of apology against Lily Rosso’s white, ruby
laden hand.

She’d arched a sleek brow,
green eyes glinting. “That gesture will soothe nothing. You would visit
relatives and leave guests languishing? How did either one of you acquire a
reputation for good manners or for being good hosts?”

Beside him, Juliana was
allowing her maid to complete her preparations, buttoning an ivory kid glove up
in a hurried manner that made Lily shake her head.

Juliana’s azure blue eyes
widened mockingly. “Why, we are wonderful hosts, Lily. Between Friday and
Monday morning. Even to ladies on the run from their beaus. After that, I’m
afraid, you have to take your chances.”

Lily’s chin had tilted. “How …
bohemian.” She eyed Evander. “Is that your wife’s way of saying that I am not
welcome here?”

Standing by the massive, twinned
curved spans of the staircases, Benedict had watched this piece of theatre with
a certain amusement.

“Lily, we were happy for you to
stay an extra day or two. But you did tell us you would be concentrating on
plans for your theatre company, and I did tell you that I would be working, and
that Benedict would be concentrating on the collection. And Juliana has the
running of the house to consider.”

Lily pouted, all of which, Benedict
thought, watching, was a superlative piece of acting. He’d left the breakfast
room with her seated and scribbling into a red leather bound notebook, press
clippings spread out before her and several reference books, open, to one side.

She’d been working as hard as
any of them. In the breakfast room, all morning. It just pleased her to put on
a show of displeasure at her neglect.

Juliana touched her arm.
“Evander’s cousins are charming, but it will only be a short visit. And then we
will return. And you can tell us more of your plans.”

Lily brightened and went back
into the breakfast room, ignoring the servants who would have preferred to
clear it properly. Capricious, she had claimed it as her work space. Benedict
went out onto the front portico, watching as Juliana and Evander went down the
broad, imposing sweep of stairs to the waiting black phaeton.

The thing looked deadly. The
horseflesh standing, impatient, waiting to draw it, gleaming as glassy black as
the vehicle itself. Juliana was assisted into it and Evander took the reins.

He gave Benedict a quick salute
and they headed off.

Hands in pockets, Benedict
wandered back into the house. He was halfway back upstairs when he realized he
was picking up Evander’s habits and dragged his hands out of his pockets,
feeling a renewed sense of purpose. The collection awaited him, an old friend
already. And in his heart, he had a strange lightness.

Juliana and Evander were on
their way to see their children, their hellion, broken-armed son, Charles. And
they’d mentioned none of it to Lily Rosso. Merely that they were conducting a
duty call on relatives.

Ridiculous, but that warmed
him. The knowledge that he had been allowed into that part of their lives. A
part that they clearly kept separate from their usual social crowd.

For Juliana had known he’d been
told. He’d known from the secretive smile she’d given him as Lily had wailed
about their absence.

Even consumed by guilt as he
was, he’d felt as if he were being drawn into a secret, between the three of
them.

Two parents who’d loved their
child and despite assurances he was fine, were dropping by, a decent carriage
ride there and back, to ensure he was, together with their daughter. Parents
who’d known Lily Rosso would consider such concern a waste of time.

Her’s not an entirely unusual
attitude.

Not that his own parents had
been that bad, he thought, opening the double doors enclosing the collection and
stepping inside, breathing in that resinous, special air. Boarding school, yes,
but home tutelage for most of his younger years. And maybe his parents weren’t
effusive, but they were good people. His brothers and sister cut from different
cloth from him, but still family.

He could have no complaints,
and had none.

His life was good.

It was just… He stared into the
black-rimmed eyes on the sumptuously decorated face of a sarcophagus. Ancient
eyes, that had seen millennia pass.

His own life a speck of sand in
that time.

And that speck, that life was
going to become – had become – very, very complicated.

Sighing, he picked up his pen,
notebooks and the crumbling inventory he needed, and went into the next
gallery.

Work. The best cure for any
trouble.

~~***~~

“Need you here,” the telegram
said. “Falling behind schedule. Holiday over. H.”

The telegram was brought to Benedict
as he worked in the collections middle gallery.

Damn Hamer, he thought grimly. He
could only imagine he’d been tracked here via his family.
Hell
. The man had taken off a damned month and change for travel
time not long back, basked in a massive amount of adulation in London, and left
him in charge of it all, when he hadn’t had a break from Cairo at all in over two
years. And Hamer couldn’t deal with the workers. He was condescending with
them. Brusque. Didn’t trust them and made it all too apparent.

Hamer had done a magnificent
thing in discovering the tomb.

Not to mention its treasure,
bar for some minor, ancient looting, intact.

And astonishing. It was the
most extraordinary find since…

There had never been anything
like it. Nor would there be again, Benedict suspected grimly, yet had hopes
otherwise.

But simply, while many discoveries
lay ahead, century upon century of looting lay behind.

And Hamer wanted him back
there.

Somehow Benedict had a gift for
holding it together.

But he had been growing
impatient now for some time. He’d had over four years of Hamer.

He needed to forge his own
path.

This supposedly extended break,
one he had been forced to demand earlier in the year, had been a dry run for
him to hand in his walking papers to Hamer and break out on his own. He had a
group seriously interested in sponsoring him.

He knew exactly where he’d like
to start digs. Was itching for the required permits to be acquired, lest
someone else start looking at the source evidence with a fresh eye and beat him
to it.

“My apologies,” he said
abruptly, once dinner was over. “I’m tired. I think I’ll retire for the night.”

Evander, Juliana, Lily, all
looked up at him in surprise. It had been a casual, chatty meal. The food
superb. The wines, the finest. And he had been impossibly distracted. Had been mentally
composing an explosive telegram to send back to Hamer, which he knew he would
not do.

No, he would not get his full
break in England to catch up with friends, family, his academic life. Would be
cancelling two important lectures he’d been scheduled to give.

Would be leaving England, not
tomorrow, as Hamer would no doubt prefer, but by the end of the week.

Fuck, he thought, wearily
making his way up the marble span of the stairs. He was tired. Body and soul.
He’d found so much here, in this extraordinary house. And he wouldn’t be
completing his work with the collection … and he wouldn’t be…

Well, that never
was
meant to be.

There was an actual, physical,
wrenching pain in the region of his heart.

He ached for the man. And was
being torn apart by it.

He’d been given a guest bedroom
of extraordinary luxury and indulgence. It had its own ensuite bathroom, the
plumbing a symphony of modernity. And so he’d taken a warm bath, without having
to trouble the servants to haul hot water up the stairs – a ritual that
still occurred in the massive country house he’d grown up in – and with a
small fire burning in the fireplace in deference to his dislike of the –
to him – cool summer night, he’d scrubbed himself dry and fallen into the
bed.

Far softer, of course, than
anything he’d grown used to.

At some point, he awoke,
staring into the darkness. One scarcely broken by the dying embers in the
fireplace.