Page 26 of A Gathering Storm

His strong, lean body.

His barely reined-in anger that evening at the mill stream.

His smile at the end of today, half-hitched and oddly warm.

In his imagination, Ward kissed Nicholas, even though he’d never shared a kiss with another man. Not that he was innocent—he’d done plenty of much more wicked things than kiss, but only with Alfie. Alfie was handsome and skilled and very expensive, but when he’d asked Ward, at their first meeting, if Ward would want to kiss him, Ward had found himself declining. Even now, he wasn’t entirely sure why. If Alfie had simply done it—kissed him without asking—he certainly wouldn’t have objected. It was the fact that hehadasked, and perhaps too that there had been a tone to the question, a silent expectation that the answer would be no. Perhaps even that it ought to be no.

So no, Ward had never known a lover’s kiss, but that did not stop him dreaming of sharing one with Nicholas Hearn now. As he stroked himself rhythmically, he let his mind dance over the possibilities. Having undressed the clothed Nicholas of his memory, Ward knelt at his feet to suck his cock, bent himself double to take him deep in his body, fucked him hard in return.

With that fevered swirl of images in his head, he was very soon ready to come and, recognising that, began to regret his own too-quick efficiency. At the last, he tried to pull back, banishing his more lustful thoughts and endeavouring to think only of the man as he’d first seen him, down by the mill stream. But it was no good. Even the thought of Nicholas’s mocking smile and angry gaze pushed Ward closer to his climax. Those perfect, lean forearms crossed over the man’s chest.

The moody slope of his broad shoulders.

Ward came with a hiss and a stifled groan, his blood-warm spend spattering his pale torso. For a moment he was all tension—arched back, stiff arms, clenched fingers—and then he was all softness, his tight grip loosening on his shrinking cock, his heavy arm slumping to the mattress.

His body throbbed with the woolly good feeling of having climaxed, and he let himself enjoy it fully. That was one thing his days of childhood sickness had taught him: that moments of pleasure and comfort ought not to be squandered. So he relished his pleasure, not hurrying to wipe the mess away, just lying there as the final pulses ebbed to nothing.

FromThe Collected Writings of Sir Edward Fitzwilliam, volume I

When I returned from that first London trip, my father allowed me to set up a very basic “laboratory” of my own at home where I was able to carry out some simple, practical experiments. These enabled me to witness in operation the scientific principles expounded by Mr. Faraday and other eminent gentlemen of the time. Although George and I were apart during the school term, we were as close as ever when he came home for the holidays. He would spend hours with me in the “laboratory,” listening patiently as I explained the principles and theories that fascinated me, exclaiming with gratifying wonder at the experiments I performed. Occasionally, I would allow him to drag me outside. Through his determined efforts, I eventually became both a tolerable horseman and swimmer, although there was nothing he could do for my cricket.

The whole of the next week, Nick was preoccupied with thoughts of the day he’d spent at Varhak Manor. Or perhaps, more accurately, he was preoccupied with thoughts of the master of the house—his master too now, he supposed—Sir Edward Fitzwilliam.

“If I’m calling you Nicholas, you have to do likewise and call me Ward.”

Ward. It suited him, Nick thought, though he still found it difficult to imagine using it to the man’s face. Names could be strangely intimate things. It was one thing for Sir Edward to address him as Nicholas—he didn’t care about that at all. No one else called him by that name anyway—but somehow the invitation to call Sir EdwardWardwas troubling, smudging the clear boundary that Nick had set up in his mind between them.

Ever since the invitation had been issued, though, Nick found he couldn’t think of the man as anythingbutWard. That bothered him more than it should have.

Nick also found himself revisiting, over and over, the strange, timeless period he had spent in a trance, tethered to the world only by Ward’s devil-harsh voice. To his surprise, he hadn’t hated it. Hadn’t felt, as he’d feared, as though he was in Ward’s power. He’d been clearheaded and coherent throughout when he’d expected to feel out of control and confused, as though he were drunk or half asleep.

Nevertheless, it had been a distinctly odd experience. His words had come out, unbidden, without him deciding what to say beforehand. It was as though a door had closed on the part of Nick’s mind that made him stop and think and reason, so that the words that tumbled from his lips were painfully true. Except, that wasn’t wholly accurate, because there had been times too when he’d refused to answer questions, rudely even, like a recalcitrant child. He smiled at the memory, and at how surprisingly patient Ward had been. Perhaps it was more that a different side to Nick had been unlocked by the trance, a more spontaneous fellow, who answered as he wished without weighing the consequences first?

All in all, it had been a strange day. Certainly not as unpleasant as he’d feared, other than that excruciating talk they’d had in Ward’s study when he’d first arrived. Up until then, Nick had been thinking of Ward as a shameless blackmailer, but whilst blackmailer he might be, he was far from a shameless one. The man had plainly been mortified when Nick had raised the subject, unable even to look him in the eye as Nick forced him to address it, all red-faced and stumbling over his words. Nick had almost felt sorry for him, which really was ridiculous. But Christ, that was the only explanation he could come up with for his absurd offer to go there every Sunday for the whole summer. He was certain now that Ward would have accepted less. What had he been thinking?

Worse than that thought, though, was the little voice in his head that whispered that it wouldn’t be so bad to spend a day every week at Varhak Manor, would it? Last Sunday had been diverting in the end. Ward was knowledgeable and enthusiastic about his passions, and when it had come, at last, to the hypnosis, he’d been gentle in his manner.

You want to go back, the voice in his head whispered.You’re looking forward to it.

And to his mortification, it was true. Despite his lingering resentment at being blackmailed into this, he did want to go back, and God help him, he wanted to see Ward again. When he thought of Ward—standing at the top of the stairs at Varhak Manor all bathed in sunshine, or later in the laboratory, animated as he explained how magnets worked—he felt almost giddy, and then he would be miserable, because he knew very well how foolish it was to have such thoughts about another man. Especially this man. This wealthy, powerful, and untrustworthy man.

Even Nick’s sleep was affected by his preoccupation with Ward. One night he dreamt that he was running along the sands at Mother Ivey’s Bay with Ma. They came upon a wide band of washed-up stones and Ma said, “Look, Nick, wishing stones!”

Wishing stones. That was what she called any stone with an unbroken ring of white running right round it. When Nick was small, he’d make wishes on them, then throw them back in the sea. Ma said if he was lucky, he’d get one with the wish still in it, but a lot of them were no good because their wishes had already been used up by mermaids.

In the dream, they bent down to look at the stones and Nick started filling his pockets with them. After a while, a devil said, “The white parts aren’t wishes, they’re lightning.”

Nick glanced up. Ma was gone. Instead, it was Ward standing there, perfectly elegant in his well-cut clothes, that errant lock of hair falling over his forehead.

Nick looked down at himself—he was dressed like a tinker in his oldest breeches, no stockings even, just his bare feet, all spattered with wet sand. He felt ashamed.

“Lightning?” he said. He lifted the stone he held in his hand to peer at it more closely. It was a very ordinary grey colour, but the uneven band of white did seem to glint with tiny sparks. “How do you know?”

“I cut them open to let it out,” Ward replied in his characteristic rasp. “Once I get enough sparks, I’ll bring your mother back from the dead.” He looked so very serious.

Nick wanted to kiss that serious mouth.

Instead, he asked, “Will she be like she was before?”