Page 66 of Beguiled

“I know you’re dying to send a servant up to my rooms to pack my things,” David said in a long-suffering tone. “So you may as well join us.”

Murdo smiled. It was one of his rare smiles, and it made David’s heart kick like a mule in his chest.

“You’re right, of course, Lauriston,” he said. “As usual, you’re absolutely right.”

Chapter Eighteen

Thursday, 5thSeptember, 1822

The carriage journey to Perthshire was gruelling. Though not terribly far from Edinburgh, the roads were poor, and at the slow pace Murdo insisted upon, it took them the whole day to get there.

Murdo had hired a special carriage to take David. It was spacious inside with a specially made bench that David could recline upon, allowing his leg to stay completely still in its bindings. Murdo’s servants had lined the bench with blankets and stocked it with pillows to make it as comfortable as possible for David.

Despite these efforts, the journey was still torturous. The roads were badly rutted and very narrow and winding. Even at a slow place, David felt like he was being constantly jolted and jarred. He couldn’t even distract himself with reading since the constant movement nauseated him.

Murdo rode on horseback most of the way, but, on their last stop, he didn’t take a new horse, choosing to join David in the carriage instead.

“Just ten more miles,” he promised as he climbed in, “and the scenery on this last stretch is beautiful.”

“How would I know? It’s not as if I can see out the window,” David griped. He hated the petulant tone of his own voice but he was tired and in pain and feeling sorry for himself, not just because of the discomfort of this journey, but at the thought of what lay ahead of him. He’d already had a week of enforced idleness, and it was driving him mad. He couldn’t see how he’d bear three more months of this.

“You can see out the window if you sit up,” Murdo said gently. “Let me help you.”

He helped David into a sitting position that enabled his leg to remain stretched out and began to pile the pillows and blankets up behind him to provide support. But there just wasn’t enough bulk to make good the gap between bench and wall. The reclining bench had been designed for someone to lie on, not sit up.

“I’ve already tried that,” David said glumly as Murdo tried yet another combination.

Oddly, Murdo’s mouth quirked up at his grumbling. “I’ve never seen you peevish before,” he said, sounding amused.

A pang of guilt struck David. Murdo had done his utmost to make this journey as pleasant as possible. And all David could do was complain.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed.

“Don’t be. It’s actually quite reassuring to see you being as human as the rest of us for once. You usually make me so aware of my own feet of clay.”

David frowned. “You make me sound like a prig,” he said. “Am I that bad?”

“No, just annoyingly virtuous at times,” Murdo replied cheerfully. “Like when you tell me that life’s about being true to yourself and I know you’re being completely sincere.”

Before David could respond to that, Murdo spoke again. “Oh, look, I’ve got it! If I sit up behind you, you can rest your back against my chest and you’ll be able to see perfectly.”

He threw the pillows he’d piled up out of the way and slid in behind David, wedging his big body into the space between the head of the bench and the back wall of the carriage. Then he wrapped his arms round David’s chest, carefully pulling David back a little, till David’s tailbone met his groin. David suppressed a moan, turning his attention instead to the carriage window through which he could indeed now see.

“Is that better?”

“Much, thank you. But what about you, aren’t you terribly uncomfortable?”

“It’s only ten miles, and”—Murdo dropped his lips to David’s ear—“this position has its compensations.”

David flushed, unsure how to respond. There had been nothing of that nature between them since his accident. How could there be with David so disabled? But the memory of the night that Murdo had fucked him haunted him constantly. And Murdo’s proximity and kindness were fostering a new and different intimacy between them that hadn’t existed before. There was friendship between them now, as well as the other. A regard that went beyond David’s desire to hold a well-made male body against his own.

These new feelings were galling at times—like when he realised that he didn’t want to share Murdo’s attention with anyone else, and that it perturbed him that Murdo’s head footman was so handsome… Or perhaps these absurd observations were nothing more than a mark of his forced indolence, of having too much time on his hands?

The carriage jerked forward, jolting them both and saving David from having to respond to Murdo’s teasing remark, but there were still Murdo’s arms around his chest and the warm huff of Murdo’s breath at his ear to contend with. There was still the impossible-to-shake feeling of well-being and security that flooded him whenever Murdo was physically close to him.

It had been such a long, long time since he’d had anyone to lean on.

“We’re about to turn down the hill that takes us into the glen,” Murdo murmured in his ear. “That’s when it begins to get more picturesque.”