Rite of Summer: Treading the Boards, Book 1 (24 page)

My body yearns for your touch again and my mouth for your kisses, pleasures such as I had never known before and now die to know again. How much longer before we can meet, my darling heart? We arrive in town tomorrow. Tell me the plan and I will be yours.

Stephen deflated, air spilling out of him and his body slumping back into the chair, the darkness inside mercifully making him utterly numb.

So that explained it. The reason for Evander’s cheer, his lack of interest in Stephen’s bed. (To which, truthfully, Stephen had not objected. There was only one touch he wanted now and it was not Evander’s.)

He had said he was done with her, but he would be off to meet her…

Stephen looked out the window, the darkness of night settling in. Now. He would be with her now, unless Stephen missed his guess. He had given up his own dreams for a house built on a foundation of lies, and the letters from Evander’s secret mistress were his proof.

Stephen pushed his chair back with such force that it toppled over with a crash, and swept the papers off the desk with his arm, the mug and apple core clattering and spinning across the uneven wooden floor.

“God
damn
you,” he hissed, and could not be sure whether he meant Evander or himself.

He was alone in the flat when he went to bed, Evander humming somewhere in the sitting room when he awoke.

The sun streamed in through the shutters he had forgotten to close, piercing through the fog surrounding his brain. The empty bottle on the floor and taste of stale wine in his mouth explained why his head thrummed with pain and how he had ended up draped half across his own bed, still in his shirt and stockings from the day before.

Dulled the pain of our own stupidity in the arms of Bacchus, did we? How novel.

Sitting up was difficult, his head swimming, but he managed. Washing cleared some of the fog away, enough to make him feel mostly alive. Breakfast would do the rest. He dragged on trousers and fastened them as he left his room, memories slowly filtering back around the gray.

Evander went to Charlotte last night, and I left Joshua behind.

And there he was, the man himself, spreading jam thick on toast and so relaxed in his bearing that one would think he had the sure and certain prospects of a king. He sat back in his chair when Stephen entered the room, his eyes crawling over Stephen’s body in a way that used to make him feel desired, and now only left a film of dirt behind that he would never be able to scrub away.

“Good morning to you,” Evander said, amused.

“And to you,” Stephen replied, purely by reflex. Breakfast first, to fortify himself, and then—

Evander rose from his chair, oily as a snake, and insinuated himself between Stephen and the bread. His hands fell to Stephen’s hips, his shirt bagging over the waistband of his trousers, and he leaned in as though to deliver a kiss.

Stephen twisted away sharply, forcing Evander off-balance and the kiss to land on air.

“What has gotten into you?” Evander asked peevishly, grabbing for Stephen’s hip again.

“Nothing, and I prefer to keep it that way,” Stephen snapped. He pushed Evander’s hand away, the flash of fury on Evander’s face spurring on his anger, rather than fear, as it once would have. “I know full well where your mouth has been.”

Evander cocked his head, his eyes narrowing. “You’ve lost your mind,” he said flatly, inspecting Stephen as though he were some kind of specimen on a tray.

“Oh no, I have not,” Stephen retorted. “I have found it.” The black pit inside him flushing bright and red. Fire clawed around the edges of his vision, his chest tight. “Does Charlotte carry your bastard yet? Have you planted your seed in noble soil?”

He lashed out, his hands landing on Evander’s chest. He pushed, his rage blinding, and Evander stumbled back a step, his mouth hanging open. “Does that girl have any idea what kind of depraved monster she’s given herself to?”

That got him talking again, Evander’s voice a low hiss of fury. His hands clenched and his lip curled in a snarl. “You are just as depraved as I, if you want to discuss our sins,
Mr.
Ashbrook.”

“Do not mistake me,” Stephen snarled because he was
finished
with all of this. Finished taking orders, bowing and scraping, spending his life walking on knife edges because every misspoken word could start a conflagration. He lived with a cannon on a hair trigger in the bed beside him. How dare he imagine that Stephen would simply roll over and accept the correction? Except…except that he always had done so before, and the shame of that realization cut him open stem to stern.

“This is not because you prefer arse to cunt, but because you will sacrifice everyone around you to advance yourself. You care for nothing, and for nobody.” Evander fell back another step and Stephen followed, driving him backwards with the force of will alone until Evander’s back was against the sitting room wall. “You don’t have the facility.”

“And
you
do not have the balls,” Evander spat. He grabbed Stephen and turned them both, his strength and surprise attack both catching Stephen off guard.

His back slammed against the wall, Evander’s hand at his throat. Stephen scrabbled at Evander’s arm, air cut off and his head throbbing with pain.

“You are
nothing
, a puling schoolboy, a sad
parody
of a man.”

Stephen kicked his foot forward but only hit Evander’s leg. Evander loosened his grip and Stephen dragged in a breath, his lips parted. Evander used the moment to force his mouth over Stephen’s, his breath cloying with the taste of jam.

His hand tightened at Stephen’s throat and black spots swam before his eyes. Evander forced his tongue between Stephen’s lips, sluglike and thick.

Stephen pushed at him, brought his knee up between Evander’s legs with as much force as he could muster, bit down with all his strength. In an instant he was free to breathe.

Evander staggered and caught against the edge of his writing desk. His mouth was open, his lips stained red, his hands dropping to the tender spot on his thigh where Stephen’s blow had landed. An inch to the left and perhaps all Evander’s dynastic dreams would have been shattered—worse luck!

Stephen’s mouth filled with sour iron and he spit on the floor, his saliva streaked red with Evander’s blood.

“You utter
bastard
,” Evander cursed. He lunged forward, the letter opener from his desk gleaming sharp in his hand, now aimed for Stephen’s throat, and his words chosen to slice open Stephen’s heart. “I should have thrown you over for Beaufort long before now. At least he knows how to use his prick!”

“You don’t get to say his name—not now, not ever!” Stephen did not make the conscious decision to let his fist fly, but in an eyeblink, it had, his knuckles striking Evander’s cheek and nose with such force that he felt the bone splinter beneath the skin.

Evander fell, dropping the wickedly pointed blade. It clattered on the floor, spinning away to land beneath the desk.

Stephen lunged and pinned him down, Evander’s stomach flat under the pressure of his knee. He pulled his fist back again, the world bathed in red, red of fire and blood, his pulse hammering like a drum in his ears.

Evander froze beneath him. He didn’t fight back, only flinging his hands up to protect his face. The flush of anger drained from his skin, silent hopelessness and acceptance sitting in the grim lines of his face and the bleakness in his eyes. Stephen paused, the red mark on Evander’s face already bright and swelling.

He couldn’t do it. Stephen pushed himself back, the nausea thick in his throat. He stumbled away, his hand against the wall to brace himself.

“Stephen—” Evander said softly, sitting up. Blood ran freely from his nose, splattering his shirt with gore.

“Don’t.”

Stephen staggered to his feet, reeling, his knuckles throbbing and his throat worse. He would bruise; he and Evander would both be purple and blue by morning, their shirts stained blood red.

They had run together down the dark and starlit road, laughing, hand in hand. Evander had kissed him, shy and trembling, and they had sworn to be each other’s.

How had it come to this?

“Don’t,” he repeated needlessly and gripped the doorframe until he could catch his breath once more.

His bag, then, and his clean clothes—he shoved the one into the other, grabbed the first waistcoat from the pile and slung it around his shoulders. Green, unworn since— A coat overtop of it to hide his shirtsleeves, his boots on his feet and hat on his head. His music, books, everything he could not replace easily. Rosamund in her case—she fit perfectly in his hand before he even realized he’d taken her, as though she had been anticipating flight.

Back on his feet, Evander tried to stop him as he headed for the door, but a hand up gave him pause as it had never done before.

Stephen’s feet clattered on the stairs, the bag on his back no weight at all.

Evander threw the door wide before it could close, his hands on the frame, his face and shirt spattered bloody and his eyes burning with thwarted rage. “Where will you go?” he shouted down at Stephen’s retreating back. “What will you do with yourself, now that you are alone?”

“Play for myself!” Stephen called back, his mood lifting higher, the black clouds parting with every step that took him farther away.

“You are
nothing
without me!” Evander cried out in desperation.

Stephen turned at the bottom of the stairs and spread his arms wide.

Evander loomed out at him from the top step, a gore-splattered gargoyle, spitting in his rage and unable to touch him.

“I am
music
,” Stephen shouted, his triumph echoing up the stairwell.

The sunlight burst across his face, golden and warm, as he jumped down the outside stairs. He lifted his face into it, let the midmorning light burn across his eyelids and cheeks, soothe the burning, throbbing pain that circled his neck. He breathed in, his body shaking and tears welling up in his eyes. He blinked them away—men did not cry! Especially not at their moments of triumph!

Something crashed above him, sound echoing down the busy street. Stephen paused, his hands up behind him to tie back his hair, and the shutters of their flat flew open.

Evander appeared, only briefly, his face wiped mostly clean and his fist raised. “You forgot this!” he spat, and something winged at Stephen’s face, a dark shape in the corner of his eye.

He stepped neatly aside, ducked his head, and the old leather-bound book clattered to the ground impotently.

He recognized it a moment after it landed, his ancient copy of Chapman’s
Iliad
, annotated and stained by years of schoolboy pencils and sticky fingers. He picked it from the cobblestones, saluted with the book held high above his head. “Thank you for your kindness, Mr. Cade, as ever!”

People were staring, old ladies stopped in their shopping, Bunsen with his broom on his stoop, but Stephen broke into a run and waved as he passed them by. He was free, with the world open before him, wings on his feet and absolutely no idea where he was going.

He ran out of wind a few minutes later and sagged back against the stone wall of a tavern, laughing and breathless. The bag could sit on the ground for a few minutes while he sorted himself out, made himself look like less of a criminal on the run.

Shirt tucked into trousers, all buttons done, his waistcoat properly buttoned, his coat back on both shoulders… He slid his hand into his waistcoat pocket to check for his watch, and his fingers closed around fabric instead.

What is this, now?

It didn’t come back to him until he drew it out and looked at it—the linen square with carefully monogrammed initials on the corner,
JBM
.
Joshua Beaufort.
The white linen still bore a few faint traces of rust-colored stains in the middle that Stephen had not been able to soak out, unwilling to entrust the handkerchief to the laundress. Unstarched or pressed, it fell softly across his hand. He curled his fingers into it and brought it to his face, but no trace of Joshua’s scent lingered. Not after all this time.

Still. Perhaps it was an omen, or a sign. He drew it out between two fingers to smooth the wrinkles, folded it so the faint brown stains would not show and tucked it into his waistcoat pocket. A talisman, for luck.

John Meredeth had a guest bedroom that was not always filled with his wife’s relations, and Stephen had long promised him those lessons for little Susannah. It might not be somewhere to keep him for more than a day or two, but it was a place to start.

He pulled his bag back up over his shoulder and set off in a new direction. He brushed his fingertips against the corner of the handkerchief and breathed out into the warm late-summer air.

More than one person had believed in him. Perhaps it was time to try to believe in himself.

Chapter Eighteen

August passed for Joshua as August always did, sultry and slow. Even the birds and beasts on the Horlock estate remained the same, cows with their jaws working for hours, placidly staring and seeing nothing, horses with their fine necks and long manes that deigned to allow him the occasional ride. The brook flowed as though every crick in the bed took more effort than it was worth to navigate, eddies and shallows capturing little minnows who were themselves too bored to attempt escape.

September kept the heat, lingering far longer into the fall than usual, as though Nature herself still clung to those last, lingering threads of summer.

This time, even taking his paints out to try and capture the perfection of the sunset failed him. The colors ran flat, the lines untrue, and in every cloud that smeared in gray across his canvas, he saw a thing he could not have again.

Letters came every day, and some for him, but never the one he watched for.

No! He did
not
watch for a letter. That was a ridiculous thought.

He could write to Stephen if he wished to. He simply…didn’t wish to. No good would come of it.

If Stephen was ready to be with him, then
he
would write. He had cared for Joshua once; his devotions and the promises he had murmured against Joshua’s skin had made that clear. But he was not free of Cade, and that was where Joshua had drawn his line. Stephen would have to come to him.

Until then, he would pick up the pieces of his life from where he had left them, his books on their shelf in neat array, his canvases stretched upon their frames, waiting to be splashed bright with color. He had been content here, among his paintings. He would find that again.

Except now, standing on the hillside and staring at the reds and oranges that streaked the darkening sky, even that was mocking him.

He closed his eyes and saw Stephen, as beautiful as crystal and just as easily broken. How could a soul with so many scars produce the music of the spheres, make it sing for him, and the universe pause to take notice? How could a man so badly wronged still trust? How did he keep enough passion burning within him to willingly give his heart to Joshua’s keeping?

Joshua could not heal him. So he’d run away instead.

Memories pounded in his brain, voices and breathy moans and sweet, solemn oaths—all blending together until he could no longer remember who had said what and when. He tugged at his hair, his fingers buried in it, to have something to focus on other than his spinning thoughts—anything else! The pulls stung, sharp and ready, and his eyes filled hot with the faint pinprick of tears he had never shed.

Joshua fell to his knees, the heels of his hands pressed tightly against his eyes, stars bursting in the blackness of his vision.

I cannot save him. I cannot save myself. I am drowning.

No one was around, not for a mile at least. Safe in that knowledge, he let out a howl of frustration, struck at the easel with his fists and his feet. It toppled over into the grass, the canvas flying off to land elsewhere, wet paint smeared across his hands. It was barely satisfying, not nearly enough.

The world was dark, but not yet dark enough for stars. He let out a single, shuddering sob that seemed to echo in the twilight gloom. And he sat. He sat until the day’s warmth had entirely fled the ground beneath him, until the heavens overhead were dotted with a million tiny flames, until his pulse had slowed in his ears and he could keep his breathing calm.

Two months was nothing in the grand scheme of things, and time healed all.

Or so he had once been promised.

The rain began as he trudged back to the house, lights flickering from only a handful of windows to guide his steps.

“Mr.
Beaufort
!” Mrs. Colby’s shriek of dismay cut through him worse than the cold and wet as he slunk through the kitchen door, his paint box tucked under his arm. The walk back to the house hadn’t been so bad, but the sudden rain, on top of the dark and the chill and the pounding in his temples from his emotional outburst—all that together was enough to make him feel, and apparently look, like something one of the dogs had found on the side of the road.

“What on God’s green earth happened to you? And what were you doing out so late at night? You’ll catch your death of cold, you will.”

“I was caught in the storm, Mrs. Colby,” Joshua protested, “nothing more.”

But he had the bad luck to sneeze at precisely that moment, and the cook, all iron-gray curls and shoulders like a burly forester’s, had his paints away from him, a blanket around his shoulders and one of the scullery girls spooning soup into a mug for him before he had the chance to look for his handkerchief.

“Honestly,” he mumbled from deep within the wool blanket as she pressed him down into a chair in front of the banked fire, “I’ll be fine.”

“If you catch your death, Mr. Beaufort, I’d like to know who, precisely, is going to paint me my picture?” Mrs. Colby drew herself up to her full height, all of five feet, if that, dug her knuckles into her powerfully Teutonic hips and beamed down at him with a look of triumph. “It’s not as though I have girls sitting about doing nothing and waiting to bring you medicines, either.”

He had no choice but to concede to the superior force, waving his hand in a pale imitation of a white flag. The soup did smell good, the rich savory broth making his mouth water. He’d forgotten dinner, and the last thing he’d had to eat that day was a heel of bread and a cold sausage during his hike out.

“You’re quite right,” he conceded contritely, his fingers tingling as they dried and his toes warmed from the coals. “My apologies to you and your staff.”

Drips of rainwater ran down his hair and splashed on the end of his nose. He shook his head violently, making water spray across the room in all directions, and the scullery girl broke into a cascade of giggles. He should draw her, as well as Colby, Joshua decided impulsively. And give them the pictures as presents when he…when he left.

Of course. When he departed for the Continent. Because what had seemed like such a bold plan at one point now seemed distant and trite. The vicomte had not responded, not yet, and he had only just begun to weave fantasies of himself and Stephen, setting out together to forge a brand-new life. And then it had all gone to pieces.

A foolish notion, and he would do well to forget about it.

He sipped at the soup, the peppery heat of it sliding down to puddle in his empty stomach and warm him through. The embers in the fireplace winked at him, glowing red eyes in the dim light of a single candle, and he solemnly blinked back.

“Finish that up—it’ll do ye some good. You’re too skinny as it is.” Mrs. Colby patted him on the shoulder as she passed, her broad hand comforting. “And get yourself to bed. I’m off myself now, unless you’ll be needing anything else.”

“No thank you, mum.” He found it within himself to tease her, just a little, and she beamed back.

“Cheeky,” she reproved him. Then, “Sleep well then, Mr. Beaufort.” She set her apron on the hook and bustled herself off, leaving the candle stub so he could see his own way to bed.

More than anything, at the moment, he needed sleep. Sleep and the numbness that would come with it, blanketing himself away from the world. Water trickling down his forehead blurred and prickled in his eyes, and he closed them against the insipid, flickering light.

The morning dawned with Joshua apparently little the worse for wear, only the linens hung over the grate to dry, a reminder of his lapse into morbid sensibility. His toes ached with the trace of a bruise, probably from when he had kicked the easel, but otherwise he remained unscathed. He stretched, his shoulders and neck clicking and cracking, the muscles in his arms and sides pulling luxuriantly against each other.

A new day was dawning, another chance to get his head on straight and rededicate himself to finding satisfaction in his life as it was. He was not an ungrateful man; he needed to remember that. His existence was a pleasant one overall, far beyond what many could claim.

Washed, dressed and looking like something approaching human once more, Joshua turned down the hall toward his studio. There were hours yet between the sunrise and the time when breakfast would be set upon the table, and he had work to do. The portrait of Lady Amelia, for one. He would be glad to get that canvas away from him and out of his life.

He saw Belmont House and Stephen whenever he looked at it, the drawing room in the background, the trees outside the window behind her. It was no wonder he was still fixated on his ridiculous summer dalliance, when he was surrounded by daily reminders!

The studio sat empty, curtains drawn back and windows opened to let in the air, the sound of birdsong outside lifting his spirits further. Yes—that would be his task today. But, first, to limber up his fingers and finish waking his eye…

He laid his hand upon the sketchbook sitting on his writing desk, the leather binding a soft and warm old friend. It fell open when he picked it up, not to a blank page, but to one so familiar that he could redraw it in his sleep.

Stephen Ashbrook arched across the paper, nude and yearning, his prick hidden in shadows and his teeth leaving impressions of passion in his dented lower lip.

Joshua slammed the book closed, a tremor in his hands.

He could burn the damn thing. Or at least those pages. He had the knife in his hand before he could develop the conscious inclination to seize it, to take the sheaf of pages in the other. One slice, rip the pages from the binding with the edge of the blade, and he could throw them away. One more step toward excising Stephen from his life.

Trembling, he pressed the tip of the blade against the page, denting it. And he could go no further. Light played over the lead and charcoal lines on the page, highlighted the angles of Stephen’s face, touched his eyes, until it looked as though some of the sketch studies were pleading with him, yearning and alive.

Kiss me, Beaufort. Come to my bed tonight.

Joshua threw the knife aside. It clattered against the wall and fell to the ground, harmless. He slammed the book shut and pushed it back on his desk.
Enough.

Enough yearning, enough pining, enough self-torture over someone he would never see again.

Clean paper, then. He drew it across the surface of the table, swiping his arm to push all else aside. Nothing here but untapped potential, the beginning of something fresh and new.

A figure study, if he was so obsessed with bodies today. A couple dancing, flowing out from under his fingers. Smudge the charcoal to shade the side of her dress, feathers cascading behind her head, and then the man. Tall and lean, his hand raised to turn her beneath his arm, long, lean fingers, deft and capable, a clean jaw and full bottom lip that he could catch in his teeth to elicit a gasp—

His cock ached, heat pooling in his gut at the memories, the sensation of that mouth trailing down his body.

“Damnation!” Joshua exploded as Stephen and Sophie stared at each other, smirking, on his page. Even the curve of the dancer’s smile resembled
his
, the familiar sardonic edge and the shy evidence of a dimple lurking in the hollow of his cheek.

That too he pushed aside, buried under a pile of random pages that signified nothing.

His head followed, thumping against the smooth wood. The desk lay cool against his forehead, sturdy and unmoving. He ran his fingers through his hair, longer now than he usually preferred it, and prone to sticking up in all directions.

That was an excellent idea. He would ride to town, see a barber, order some materials for new pigments and revitalize his inspiration. A few days in London would do more to restore his spirits and his perspective than he could find in another month staring at the same four walls.

And once there,
came the treacherous internal whisper,
who knows whom you might encounter?

He shut that down without a word. He was going solely for himself and because he required a change of scenery. Nothing else and nothing more. And if he
did
happen to see either Ashbrook or Cade, his only logical course of action would be to turn around and walk away.

Isolation in the country had seemed like a terrible thing until Joshua found himself in London once more. The summer heat beat down on the cobblestones in greater force than on the grassy hills of Berkshire, compounding the sweat already prickling at the back of his neck and knees. Late afternoon crowds on the streets went about their business with little regard for the man standing and looking about.

The list of things Lady Horlock had asked him to acquire crinkled in his pocket, and his own requirements would necessitate a few very particular, personal stops. But not immediately. For the moment, at least, lodgings secured and his belongings stowed, he had the time to be his own man.

His ears ringing with the raucous calls of the shop owners closing for the evening, Joshua held his head high and scanned the storefronts for a likely place. His feet turned him toward Vere Street, at first, to the old haunts that he had once known so well. But memory caught up with memory before he went far. Nothing but death lay that way now.

Even if he were to go prowling among the pretty, young men clustering at Moorfields or St. James’, none of them would recognize him, and they would all be strangers. Could he bring himself to do that now, be nothing more than a body in the night after having tasted something more?

Nothing stirred in him when he thought it over, no hint of interest from mind or prick. Dinner it would be, then, and back to his rented bed alone. A copy of the
Times
to keep him company, and he was set for entertainment as well.

Joshua stopped and stared at himself in the plate glass of the shop front, his reflected head superimposed on a bottle of perfume. He was undoubtedly as dull and boring a person as Sophie liked to tease, but there was something to be said for knowing what he liked.

He wrinkled his nose at the floating head in the reflection and caught the eye of a woman behind him just as he stuck out his tongue in impulsive response. The old dowager tut-tutted at him and he whipped his head forward, his cheeks flushing hot. There was a public house next door and he ducked inside before she could say anything to compound his embarrassment.