Objects Of His Obsession (23 page)

He had a wife who was his
friend, children, the family the both of them had wanted.

Which made Benedict feel … on
the outskirts. On the outside, looking in.

He didn’t know what this
afternoon had meant to the other man, but he knew what it had meant to him. And
he was terrified that if he wasn’t careful, he was going to make the most
colossal fool of himself.

It was just as well he hadn’t
blurted out any declarations of love.

What a naive fool that would
have made him look. No, what Evander was looking for was something long term,
yes
, but … basically, a man to fuck when
they were in the same town. Someone he got along with well. Enjoyed the company
of out of bed. And could burn the sheets with in it. Could meet socially with
no questions. And was discreet. Under those terms choosing Benedict made sense.

And his lover was an eminently
practical individual.

Everything he had just said
about his relationship with his wife, the conception of their children proved
that.

And yes, Evander had said some
heated things, many months before … about them, about when they’d first laid
eyes upon each other at Oxford. But ultimately he’d probably meant just exactly
that kind of cool, sensible arrangement.

What else was there for them?

Benedict had given him plenty
of chances to suggest more. Follow through on those heated words. Benedict was
waiting,
dammit
, was still waiting
now, for just that.
Anything
. For
some crumb. For some indication of just how they could shape a real, bonded,
future together.
He wasn’t getting it
.

Because it wasn’t what his
lover wanted. Evander
always
said
what he wanted.
Got what he wanted
.
But he didn’t want that, apparently.

In the bedroom, he was pulling
on clothing. Evander had followed him. Was leaning naked in the doorway,
studying him, eyes narrowed.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting dressed. I think I’ll
go for a walk. Get some air, maybe get something to eat.”

Evander was studying him,
scowling. “I’ve told you before, Ben. You think too damned much. Don’t tear up
what we had this afternoon. Don’t kill it before it begins.”

Benedict stared at him,
swallowing. What was there to say to that? Tear up what? Kill what?
What did they have?
Just what had they
had that afternoon? An incredible time in bed … up, against a wall … on the
floor.

Oh yes, it had been truly
something. His arse was still throbbing from the pounding Evander had given it.

But otherwise? Just where the
hell could their relationship go?

Fucking and then more fucking.
And all most discreet. But nothing more.

Not sex bound up with a real
emotional connection he knew, instinctively, he truly needed.
Had to have
. A partner for life.

Evander didn’t need that. Want
a male partner. He wanted a permanent fuck.

It was obvious.

This
was what it was
. And he could
expect nothing more.

Evander walked a block before
he’d eased the rage knotting at him. He would have preferred to simply keep
walking, but the hour and the knowledge that Juliana was waiting for him prevented
that – although she had probably, given the erotic, sordid possibilities,
decided that it would be another few hours before he returned, and written off
the evening. She wouldn’t have been troubled.

A scowl dragged his black brows
together. Not that he could ever spend quite that extended length of time at Benedict’s
house. Not late into the evening. Not after arriving so conspicuously in the
middle of the afternoon. It wouldn’t be discreet. He paused, hailed a hansom
with no trouble whatsoever, and headed back to Berkeley Square. Benedict had
waited till he dressed to leave.

Or at least he assumed Benedict
had left. Although maybe once he’d gotten Evander out of the place he’d not
carried through on that threat. Just stayed in the house.

Stayed and slept off that
monumental session of fucking.

Christ, what he would have
given to have stayed there, too. Insanity. Given how much he’d revealed to Benedict,
the raw truth he’d given the man with every touch, action,
revelation
, of the last hours, only Benedict had reacted by …
reveling in the fucking and hiding his emotions, if he had any at all, better
than Evander would have thought him capable of.

Which was exactly what he
didn’t need. Benedict suddenly becoming an impossible to read sexual
sophisticate.

He’d
never seen that one coming
.
So to speak.

No, not honest, open Ben.

Vulnerable Ben, heart on his
sleeve. But that man hadn’t been there.

That vulnerable man he could
read like a book had been long gone.

Juliana greeted him with some
surprise and studied his shadowed eyes. Then his taut mouth. She shook her
head. “I did wait, but I ate not long ago. I’ll get cook to put together a meal
quickly.”

“Juliana–”

She put a hand on his arm, drew
him down to his study, closed the door behind them. “I’ll tell them we’ll be
ready in half an hour. In the meantime–”

Evander read the look on her
face and said flatly, “This is not up for discussion.”

The concern on her face slid
away at his grim, foul mood.
Refusing
to allow it. This was his tough, no nonsense Juliana, he recognized. Those azure
eyes regarded him wickedly, widened.
Teased
.

“Did your time with sweet Benedict
truly go so badly?” She had never looked more like a perverse, golden haired angel,
fine brows raised. “Don’t tell me that Benedict’s eyeful of Liza’s performance
with me turned him wholly, helplessly heterosexual? Because isn’t that every
man’s fantasy? Two women playing at Sappho together? And my darling,
that
he did get.” Clearly all earlier
embarrassment had fled as she eyed her husband with sugary mock concern and
asked too sweetly, “Oh my darling, did Liza and I ruin him for you forever?
Turn him?
And now all he wants are lush,
bouncing breasts and–”

Evander burst out laughing, a
dirty, deep belly laugh. At his own romantic, cock-fuelled folly. At her filthy,
insane suggestions.
As she had intended.

The monster. She knew him too
well.

He couldn’t help it. Leaning
down, he tipped up her exquisitely shaped chin with a finger and pressed a kiss
against her smooth cheek.

“I’m hungry,” he drawled. “And
you are an utterly impossible bitch. Now let’s go and see if I can’t get
something to eat.”

~~***~~

Evander watched as Nanny Porter
and the nursemaid conferred with the footman loading the carriage with the
trunks. Standing in the portico of Harkenstorn, Evander studied them, his mind
elsewhere. Watched as Charles darted up to the trio by the carriage, his sister
already inside, clutching her spaniel puppy, waving its paw to her father as
Charles offering helpful suggestions to the footman heaving at the luggage. The
man took them with a patient good nature.

Another damned house party. Evander
really didn’t feel like this. Instead he felt like retreating from the world,
and that,
that was one damned emotion he
had never had in his life
.

If he had a problem, he confronted
it. Head on.

Nothing
bettered him
.

No
one
bettered him
.

That was about the only
characteristic he had inherited from his godforsaken, son of a bitch of a
father. And it had served him, as it had his pater, well.

Except that a clean, square
jawed face kept filling his mind. The man so completely unaware of his own
appeal. And those honey-brown eyes, filled with such unconscious longing…

Until the last time he’d seen
him, coming by Berkeley Square for Juliana’s weekly open-house afternoon. Ben
hadn’t had much choice, Evander thought grimly. The combination of Benedict’s
engrained good manners and Juliana’s invitation, on her exquisite stationery was
not something he could ignore.

Mingling with the guests, the
atmosphere informal, Benedict had not avoided him. But as at their last goodbye,
it had been impossible to read him.

The man had finally developed a
veneer of social sophistication. A shield.

And Evander didn’t like it one
bit.

Just what the hell was going on
with him, after that wild afternoon they’d had, near a fortnight ago? He’d
assumed, lying in the sweat and funk that was its aftermath, arms wrapped
around Ben, that the barriers were truly down between them. Thanks to Ben’s
discovery of the truth at the heart of his marriage, all problems out of the
way. That they would continue seeing each other … enjoying each other, lovers.

Apparently not. Instead Benedict
had skillfully avoided him.

However, the invitation to Harkenstorn
this weekend had already been set in stone. The trip out here was a regular
thing in any case, house party or not. The children kept up with their cousins,
got some country air.

And when they had guests, the
adults got away from the constraints of London.

Although in this case, with the
inclusion of the other two backers in Benedict’s venture, it would be a mix of
business with pleasure.

Juliana came down the front
stairs with him, hugged her unruly offspring before he climbed into the
carriage with the others.

She shook her head as she
walked with Evander back into the house, the crunch of the gravel beneath the
carriage wheels fading.

Evander avoided her
questioning, sympathetic gaze and strode away.

He was a stranger to himself. A
weaker, vulnerable version of himself that he despised. He knew what
vulnerability did. The bruises and blood letting, externally, internally, it
led to. He remembered his mother, Elsa, shattered. Near destroyed by a man she
had once loved.
And that was not going to
happen to him
.

One way or another this
situation was going to be corrected,
permanently
,
this weekend.

~~***~~

Benedict was in his element.
The notebooks he’d been using, the yellowing, outdated inventories he’d had as
reference, piled with them, gingerly, on one of the flat glass display cases.

That resinous, familiar scent
all about them.

He should have been happy.
Looked happy. But he did not. Evander saw that the instant he walked into the collections
main gallery and closed the doors behind himself.

Instead the man looked like a
cat balancing on barbed wire.

“How is it progressing?” Evander
asked politely.

Benedict had arrived earlier, after
lunch and sequestered himself in the galleries as soon as decently possible
after afternoon tea. Politely acknowledged the small circle of other guests
– Eliza Stark, Lucien Kingsley, Hunt, the tea magnate who was the third
of the financing triad, his wife, and another married couple, the husband, a
famous painter. Disinterested in the wild innovations of artists in France, he
was a Royal Academician who had founded a career on stagy historical tableaus featuring
semi-naked women.

In their youth, his wife had
often featured as a model.

From the glint in his eye, upon
meeting Eliza, he had decided she would make a wonderful Celtic priestess for
his latest planned work.

“I think not,” Eliza had grinned,
eyeing him with some amusement at the suggestion, smothering a scone with cream.
“But certainly, keep asking. It is doing wonders for my ego.”

“So what do you think,” Evander
said now, leaning back against the windows, arms crossed, studying Benedict.
“Do you think Eliza should take up Standish on his offer to model for him?”

Benedict snorted, a smile
finally appearing on his face. “I don’t think Standish knows the kind of
battles he’d be taking on. Eliza would no doubt tell him exactly how to paint the
damn thing, forget about merely modeling for it.”

Evander felt his lips curl at
the accuracy of that assessment. He lifted a brow. “True enough. So Ben, are
you looking forward to finally sitting down tomorrow and discussing plans with
Kingsley, myself and Hunt?”

Benedict nodded. “Yes.
Completely.”

No. No hesitation there. He was
a man with an eye firmly on the prize.

“And you and I?” Evander said
bluntly.

Benedict flushed then, a deep,
bloody flush that gave Evander a surge of hope. Because that flush was so like
the old Benedict, and nothing like the cool stranger he’d become.

Benedict tipped his head down, streaky
brown hair no longer long enough to fall across his eyes, hiding them. Instead
he stared down at the golden, jeweled objects in the glass case.