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“That’s enough for me, I think,” Francis said as he discarded his final hand and swept up the modest pile of shillings before him.
There were looks of surprise on all the faces before him, and one man, Sir Richard Benworthy, was unguarded enough to start and declare, “Good Lord! We are at Quex’s, are we not? I’ve never seen you retire near this early, Webster. Not at Quex’s.”
“I’ve had a head-ache since noon, and this room is close,” he lied with ease. “You can comfort yourselves with heavier purses in my absence. Fancy a drink, Lord Gabriel?”
“Hm? Oh, yes,” Ash said, jumping up with alacrity.
He had no winnings of his own to collect, and retained only a small part of the purse he’d begun with. In the past few weeks, under Francis’s tutelage, the young man had evolved from a dreadful to a tolerable card player, but he had been distracted all night. It was not a good kind of distraction, like when his head was overflowing with thoughts of some other amusement (half of which would flow from his mouth, given a long enough game), or when his gaze was so riveted on Francis that he knew it was a tupping he was waiting for, rather than the next play. No, it was a rare worry that distracted him, leaving distressed dimples at the inner corners of his eyebrows. Francis couldn’t help but be distracted, too, by the urge to touch his lips to Ash’s forehead and brush his thumbs over his cheeks until those lines disappeared, and he could not do that at the card table, not even here.
He permitted himself to rest a hand on Ash’s lower back for just a moment as they wove through the crowd.
“Let’s go to the private rooms,” he said in a low voice.
“Oh?” Ash said coyly.
“The private common room. Impudent boy.”
“That’s not near as much fun,” Ash said, thought it seemed more like a habit than an earnest pout.
The room was empty when they entered—it was very early—and Francis asked Ash to fetch the drinks, purely so that, by the time he retuned, Francis has already chosen the best chair by the fire and could offer him a seat on his lap. There was a quick, shy smile on Ash’s face before he acquiesced, there and gone in a moment, and Francis’s heart lurched at the sight. It seemed like he spent half his time with Ash thinking what are you smiling about?. He sometimes asked, but this particular smile never lingered long enough, and its sudden appearance and disappearance always left him feeling off-guard.
“How’s your head?” Ash asked after a few minutes of comfortable silence, the port dwindling in their glasses.
“Full of you.”
“Really, Francis,” he chided, beaming. “The things you say sometimes—”
“What’s wrong?”
“Hm?”
“You’ve been quiet all night. What’s troubling you?”
“I’m never quiet.”
“By your standards, you’ve been quiet. Don’t lie to me, Gabriel.”
Ash sighed. He set his glass down and adjusted his sprawl so he could rest his head on Francis’s shoulder.
“It’s nothing, really,” he said in a voice that could have broken a heart much harder than Francis’s. “Overthinking, I expect, and I’m not in the habit of that. But I was out with Freddy earlier and he said something about how I was spending an awful lot of time with you lately, and someone else said that was a funny sort of way to score a point against a man one dislikes—stealing away his younger brother. And I haven’t been able to get that out of my head.”
“You’re in a mood because… I dislike your brother?” Francis asked, bewildered. But Ash was silent, and after another moment the cards were laid out in the proper order in his mind. “Gabriel, you can’t possibly think that I would have the patience or the inclination to befriend someone I didn’t like solely for the purpose of scoring a point against Maltravers.”
“Not befriending, no,” Ash said slowly. “If he was a silly sort of fellow and all you could do with him was converse, you’d soon grow tired of him. But it might take longer if he was moderately pretty and a devestatingly good fuck.”
“Dear creature,” Francis murmured. “Oh, you silly boy.”
He tightened his embrace, letting one hand come to rest on the silk of Ash’s waistcoat and kissing the top of his head. Ash wouldn’t look at him, yet, but his golden curls were gleaming so enticingly in the light of the fire.
“To begin with, you are not ‘moderately pretty.’ You are the loveliest thing I have ever beheld. And if I had only wanted to snub Maltravers—if I had had no opinion of you as yourself—do you know what I would have done? I would have waited for you at Millay’s, seven and a half months ago. When you were done with your—” He sneered. “—other man, I would have taken you right back up again. And do not try to tell me, my little minx, that you would not have gone.”
“I’ve quite forgotten that other fellow,” Ash said, with the light note in his voice that meant he was lying shamelessly. “I would not have forgotten you so quickly.”
“No. If I had thought you were an empty-headed rattle, a duke’s son with no other tender feelings what-ever, I would have been very content to fuck you once, fuck you well, and go on my merry way, feeling superior. But I did not. I had seen how kind you were, how eager to please, how desperate for real attention and affection. You were a spoiled brat, but not an unbearable one, and I hesitated only because I did not know how to make the overtures I thought you deserved.”
He could feel Ash’s mood improving, like a fog burning off in the sun. His fingers fiddled with the end of Francis’s cravat, and his lips brushed against his neck as he spoke.
“By which you mean getting fucked over a table?”
“That and more, my lovely Gabriel.” He twisted a golden curl around his finger. “Do you know why I enjoy hearing you say ‘please’ so much?”
“Because you’ve reduced a duke’s son to begging?”
“Because there’s nothing so lovely as the look on your face when I get to say yes.”
“Gracious, Francis, you’re making me blush.”
“You do deserve it, you know. You deserve everything. And not the everything you’re used to getting, the fine clothes and rich food and good horses and all that—” Although he did deserve those things, too, and if Francis were the one giving it to him instead of his loathsome brother and his hardly-better father, then so much the better. “—I mean kindness, and loyalty, undivided attention and unselfish devotion. Those things we all want, and none of us dare to ask for, that are written plain on your face.” He took hold of Ash’s hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “I cannot tell you what pleasure it brings me, to provide you with such things.”
Ash was silent for a long moment, although Francis could tell from his expression that there was nothing to fear. He brushed the back of his hand over the young man’s face and felt it blazing with heat.
“Well,” he said, somewhat breathlessly. “Er—thank you.”
They stared at each other for a moment, and then Francis burst into laughter, and Ash groaned and buried his face in Francis’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a muffled tone. “I told you I’ve never had a lover before. I don’t know what you expect me to say to that except that I’m grateful.” He turned his face and kissed the side of Francis’s neck. “You’re really very wonderful, Francis.”
The door opened and Julius Norreys strode in. He paused for only a moment at the sight of them, and then sniffed disapprovingly.
“I hardly think this appropriate, gentlemen.”
“Why not?” Ash asked, befuddled. “We’re in the private rooms. Where else are we supposed to have a cuddle?”
“I’m certain I don’t know. But this is a place for vulgarities and this looks distressingly like affection. It’s quite shocking to see you like this, Francis. I’ll need to fetch my smelling salts in a moment.”
“Julius,” Francis said with perfect sincerity. “You may cordially fuck off. He’s only jealous,” he said to Ash. “Because Julius hasn’t had so lovely a creature to perch on his knee in all the time I’ve known him. He tried once with Richard—well, I suppose Julius would have had to do the perching, because Richard would have crushed him—”
“How very witty of you,” Julius said in a voice like ice. “I don’t know if I can keep up with such elevated rhetoric. I may have to return to the card table with the rest of the dullards.”
“Oh, Julius, don’t, he’s only teasing—” Ash called, but Julius was in a proper snit, and he merely waved a hand in an elegant dismissal as he left the room again. “Lord, poor Julius. He ought to find someone. It would do him good. Although I don’t think I can picture him getting mussed up enough to fuck with someone. Actually, if you give me a moment, I could—”
“I don’t think there is any cause for you to do that,” Francis said firmly.
A delighted smile flashed on Ash’s face, the kind of smile that needed no explanation. He bent down and kissed Francis on the mouth, a leisurely, enjoyable kiss that ended in a mutual sigh. Then he kissed the tip of Francis’s nose and the center of his forehead, and suddenly Francis’s throat was tight and there was a very warm flush in his cheeks. He gazed up at Ash’s eyes, madder blue gone cat’s-eye green in the yellow light of the fire.
Now you know I love you, he thought. Why on earth do you love me? But he did not ask. Someday he might. Someday he might be confident enough to think on the matter without his insides going cold and quaking—or else he might be desperate enough to need the answer. This was not that day.
“He was very wrong, you know,” he said seriously. “These are public rooms, meant for affection. The rooms for vulgarities are further on.”
“Indeed? I should very much like to see them someday. Unfortunately, I have it on good authority that tonight my lover has a head-ache—”
Ash was laughing as Francis stood, coming very close to dumping him unceremoniously on the floor, and was already grabbing for his hand as he turned towards the door.