Page 59 of Provoked
“That’s different,” Balfour said, shrugging. “I owed my aunt a debt. She did something for me a long time ago. Besides, Hugh is family.”
“You value your family, then, at least.”
Balfour laughed. “Don’t try to find a virtue in me, Lauriston. You won’t. Family is just another kind of privilege. Little groups of people, sticking together to further their shared interests. I’m not averse to making such allegiances to advance myself.”
“That’s not all family is,” David protested, thinking of his hard-working father, his brusque, loving mother, kindly, warm-hearted Drew. The fierce and helpless love he felt for them all, despite everything.
“No? In my experience it is.”
“Then I pity you.”
“Don’t waste your time, I’m perfectly content.”
They were such opposites, David thought. Different in every possible way.
Suddenly, he felt overwhelmingly tired.
He set his glass down on the occasional table next to the sofa and stood.
“You know, I think I’ll go home after all,” he said.
Balfour looked up at him, a moment’s disappointment in his dark gaze before he masked it. “You’re not staying the night?”
“No,” David replied. “I’ve decided I need my own bed.”
Balfour’s gaze moved over him, and David felt unsettled, standing while the other man examined him with that bland expression. What was he thinking? At last, Balfour levered himself up from his chair. “If you insist,” he said at last. “I’ll call for my carriage to take you.”
“There’s no need.”
“Don’t argue.” Balfour sighed. “Please.”
He crossed to the room and pulled the bell rope.
“I’ll be going back to London tomorrow,” Balfour added in a flat voice. “So this is good-bye.”
“Good-bye?” David wished he could bite back the word as soon as it was out. It seemed to him his voice rang with disappointment.
“I don’t expect I’ll be in Scotland again for a while.”
“I see. Well, I’ll wish you all the best, then.” David thrust out his hand.
For a moment, Balfour simply stared at his outstretched hand, till David felt so uncomfortable he wanted to draw it back. But then Balfour took it, and in one swift movement, turned David’s hand over, palm down, and lowered his head to press a kiss to the back of it.
Balfour’s lips were soft and warm, but the fingers holding David’s hand were strong and determined. The gesture made David feel supremely off-balance. It was typically Balfour: challenging and humorous at once. Making a woman of David with his queer courtliness. It was…romantic.
David pulled his hand back swiftly, masking how shaken he was with a laugh.
“I’m glad I met you, Lauriston,” Balfour said, his expression back to the usual careless amusement. “You’ve made these last weeks very interesting.”
“Well, I’m glad to have entertained you,” David countered, adopting a determinedly light tone.
“Are you? You certainly have, whether you intended to or not.” He gave a wry smile. “Are you quite sure you won’t stay the night?”
For a moment, David hesitated, but he knew it would be a mistake. An intimacy had sprung up between them tonight—not the physical kind, a different sort—that unsettled him in ways he couldn’t put a name to. “Yes, thank you,” he said at last. “I’m quite sure.”
Was that regret in Balfour’s gaze? If so, it was good-humoured enough. “Very well.”
The footman came then, and Balfour went to confer with him, giving him his orders. When the footman had gone, he strolled over to David, who had risen from his chair.