Page 12 of Seduced by a Scoundrel (Tales from the Brotherhood #1)

Twelve

“T hat’s a fine-looking man you have,” Clary commented as Jeremy walked out of the woods with her and along the path that led to the wildflower meadow. “I was lucky enough to get to see quite a bit of him before he noticed me looking.” She winked and nudged Jeremy’s arm before hooking her elbow around his, as if they were two fresh village maids out for a walk at dawn.

Jeremy instantly heated and contorted his mouth, wanting to deny what his friend was implying but unable to find the words. The way Clary looked at him made him feel like a beetle specimen speared under a naturalist’s needle.

He found his voice, but the only words that came out were, “You saw Derrek in the altogether?”

He blinked, then frowned at himself. That was not what he’d intended to ask at all, but his friend’s mention of spying on Derrek reminded Jeremy that he’d more or less been doing the same thing, though he hadn’t been able to see the good bits in the scant dawn light.

This time. He’d peeped on Derrek more than a few times before, both while his champion was washing and when they were alone in the house. He was reasonably certain Derrek was aware of his curiosity, and Jeremy did not think anyone could blame him. Derrek had a fine, masculine form, and he himself was a man with ordinary desires, after all.

“I did,” Clary answered his question with a sideways smirk that said she could practically hear his thoughts. “And you are a lucky man.”

“I am not lucky at all,” Jeremy said, laughing airily. “That is to say, not in the ways you are implying.”

“Why?” Clary glanced at him with false innocence. “Have you not seen him unclothed yet?”

“I…I have,” Jeremy confessed.

“And have you not touched that magnificent body of his?”

“Well, in a manner of speaking.” Jeremy flushed hotter and wished he had something to do with his hands, since the anxiety of her questions made him feel as though he needed to do something or perish.

“I’ve been given to understand that there is only one bed in that cottage,” Clary went on, her grin uncontrolled.

Jeremy gave up his flustered resistance and sighed. “Firstly, you should not know about these things, you are a lady.”

Clary laughed loud enough to startle some birds from a bush near the path where they walked. “Mr. Talboys said the same thing to me,” she said.

“It is Detective Talboys,” Jeremy corrected her.

“Ooh!” Clary exaggerated the sound. “You find that fetching, do you? That he’s a detective ?”

Jeremy did not know whether he wanted to laugh or perish from embarrassment. “What is your aim in teasing me so?” he asked, choosing to think the best of his friend and to treat her teasing as the deepest form of platonic love. “You do realize that the things you are implying could cause a great deal of trouble for me and for Derrek, possibly including our arrest and execution.”

Clary sobered at once. “Your man reminded me of that as well. I did not mean it like that. And besides, you’ve been here in the country for over a month now, and I believe enough of the village folks suspect that you and Detective Talboys are not cousins to mean something. If they have not called the constable on you yet, I doubt they will.”

Clary’s words were meant to be a comfort, Jeremy was certain, but they had the opposite effect. He swallowed hard and glanced around him, as if a contingent of lawmen would march across the open fields to snatch him up and take him to be clapped in irons then and there.

Suddenly, the countryside they walked through seemed too big and too open. There were no places to hide should he need to escape capture. It was not like London, where there existed an entire network of men, many of them now formed into The Brotherhood, who might shelter him at a moment’s notice, should he need it.

Perhaps the countryside was not a good idea after all. Perhaps London was where he belonged. He knew the lay of the land in London, knew who he could trust and who he could not.

“I’ve upset you,” Clary said. “On a fine morning like this, that was not my intention at all.”

“I forgive you,” Jeremy said, sighing. “And I am wise to the purpose behind your teasing. But things such as love and happiness are not easy or simple matters for men like me.”

Clary hummed sympathetically and hugged his arm. “So you and Detective Talboys are not lovers?” she asked, curiosity and confusion in her expression.

If it had been anyone else, Jeremy would have been offended by such a direct question. Clary had become one of the closest friends he’d ever had in such a short time, however. It made him realize how desperately he’d longed to have someone he could confide in. He could never share the sort of thoughts he was having about Derrek with his clients, even the ones who understood the world like him, and to pour his heart out for the lads who worked for him would completely undermine his authority with them.

Clary was something of an answer to a prayer.

“I know my hesitation with Derrek makes me weak and pitiful,” he said, glancing down at the spring grass edging the dirt path they walked. “It is not considered manly to be so squeamish about amorous interactions, particularly among men like me.”

“Are you squeamish about it, though?” Clary asked. “Are you squeamish about letting Talboys touch and kiss you, and other things?”

“No!” Jeremy said too loudly, looking up and around him, then focusing on Clary. “I am not a fainting virgin by any means. I enjoy pleasure, really, I do.”

Clary tilted her head and narrowed her eyes slightly, as if she didn’t believe him.

Jeremy sighed, his shoulders sagging. “I was once far less careful than I am now. I indulged whenever I had the chance. But then a friend for the night and I were nearly caught by the police.”

“Gracious!” Clary gasped.

“It was a harrowing experience, to say the least,” Jeremy went on. “Perhaps I am merely cautious by nature, but I have a successful business to think of and many friends. I do not want to be hurt or to have anyone else be hurt because of me.”

Clary hummed again and nodded slowly. “I cannot say that I know what it is like to have my love and its expression threatened by the law, but I do know what it feels like to love and cross the law by doing so.”

Jeremy furrowed his brow in confusion and glanced to his friend.

“He was already a married man,” she explained. “And above me in station as well. Why do you think I have remained unwed all this time?”

“I understood you to say that the man you loved slipped your grasp or somehow allowed you to slip his,” Jeremy said.

“He did,” Clary confirmed with a nod. “Because he was someone else’s husband, and despite his insistence that he would run away with me someday, he chose her, exposing and humiliating me in the process.”

Jeremy’s eyes went wide.

Clary leaned closer to him and finished in a mock whisper, “Do not tell the people in the village that I came here because of disgrace. They believe I chose to take over the running of my aunt’s seamstress shop out of some great love of Kent and my family.”

“So you do not have any strong ties to this land?” Jeremy asked.

“Of course I do,” Clary said with a smile. “These people have accepted me and made me one of their own, even though they did not have to. I would not be at all surprised if many of them know the true reason I came here. Just as they know who you and Detective Talboys really are. We have both been lucky to stumble across exactly the right place to be at the right time.”

“I suppose we have,” Jeremy said, though he did not have as much faith in the goodness of the village’s inhabitants, should they reach a point where the truth about him and Derrek ended up flaunted in public. Although he supposed it would not be much better for Clary if she were exposed as an adulteress.

“So you and Talboys are not breaking the bed every night with your activities?” Clary asked him with a wicked grin after several minutes of silence.

“We most certainly are not,” Jeremy hissed in return, keeping his voice low, since they’d reached the wildflower meadow and one of the village lasses had already spotted them and waved. “But I would not be opposed to creating a few splinters, if the time should be precisely right.”

Clary laughed out loud. Jeremy smiled at the free and easy sound. That was how the two of them greeted the other young ladies who had come out to pick flowers at dawn.

They were greeted with open warmth by the other ladies. Jeremy found it delightful, if he was honest. By his reckoning, half of the ladies knew exactly what he was and why he had been included in their number. The other half seemed to think there was some sort of romantic attachment between him and Clary. Jeremy knew better than to correct those who sent them soft smiles and made certain they were sent to the same clump of flowers with their cutting knives. He would not have been the first man to find safety in pretending a closer acquaintance with a female friend than he had.

They finished filling multiple baskets of flowers within an hour, and as they set out for the village with their bounty, the ladies sang May Day songs and fashioned some of the flowers into garlands and circlets for themselves and others.

“You need a crown of flowers yourself, Mr. Wilkes,” one of the younger ones said, presenting him with the circlet she’d just woven. “It would look lovely against your dark hair.”

“Me? Oh, no, I couldn’t,” Jeremy laughed. He might not have been as masculine as some other men, but there was such a thing as taking things too far.

“I insist,” the young woman said, moving closer to him and plunking the circlet on his head. Seeing as his arms were filled with baskets and bundles of flowers, he couldn’t protest or take the thing off.

The others saw his good-humored discomfort and quickly set to work decorating him with more flowers from their mission into the field. By the time they rounded the last bend and walked into town, Jeremy was bedecked from head to toe in a ridiculous variety of wildflowers that had him close to sneezing.

Just as he was about to call an end to the tomfoolery, he found himself face to face with Derrek…who was kitted out in the finery of a Morris dancer, complete with bells tied below his knees.

Jeremy was only partially aware of Clary and the other ladies taking the flowers and baskets from his arms as he stared at Derrek, unable to breathe at his champion’s beauty, despite the slight absurdity of the Morris dancing costume. The bells and ribbons were just enough of a hint of whimsy to stand in contrast to Derrek’s usually gruff and dangerous demeanor. He looked a bit like a proud and dazzling steed dressed up for some sort of pantomime.

But it was the look of pure desire in Derrek’s eyes as he raked his gaze over Jeremy that had Jeremy’s heart beating faster.

“You look a sight,” Derrek said, approaching him slowly and with the sort of swagger he usually reserved for when they were alone at the cottage.

“I could say the same about you,” Jeremy replied, stunned that he had any sort of voice at all. “Are you a dancer now?”

“Your cousin tells me he always has been,” the owner of the Three Bells, Martin, Jeremy believed his name was, said, standing up and moving closer to Derrek so that he could thump him on the back. “Says he used to dance when he was a lad in Wiltshire.”

Derrek blinked and shook himself slightly, like he’d remembered the way he should behave when they were around others. Indeed, the look that he and Martin exchanged was as much a warning as anything else.

Once again, the unsettling feeling that living out in the country was not as safe as Derrek insisted it would be, despite who might have been after him in London, came over Jeremy again. They belonged in London.

“I’ll just leave the two of you to have a word while we go and set up the dance,” Martin said, arching one eyebrow at Derrek before walking away.

Derrek glanced distractedly over his shoulder at his friend before turning back to Jeremy. He smiled, then looked around a second time before gesturing for Jeremy to follow him over to the narrow alley between two buildings.

“Is something the matter?” Jeremy asked as they moved from the light into the cool shadows of the alley. “I know I look ridiculous, but Clary and the others were so insistent that I?—”

That was as far as he got before Derrek grabbed him and pushed him up against one of the alley walls. He then clasped his hands around Jeremy’s face and brought his mouth crashing over his.

Jeremy let out a sound of surprise that quickly turned into a moan of pleasure. He closed his eyes and lost himself in the kiss for a moment, opening himself like a flower and praying that Derrek would devour him whole. He hadn’t been lying to Clary when he said he wanted Derrek, and despite his fears and concerns, resistance was becoming harder by the moment.

As quickly as the kiss started, Derrek pulled back and cleared his throat. That didn’t seem to be enough, so he coughed then cleared his throat again, finally managing to say, “You look lovely.”

“I feel slightly ridiculous,” Jeremy confessed breathlessly. “But it appears as though you appreciate me when I am at my most ridiculous.”

“I appreciate you all the time,” Derrek said, clearing his throat yet again, then adjusting the hem of his jacket. “That is the trouble.”

Jeremy eyed him curiously, standing straighter and moving away from the side of the alley. “Do we have troubles?” he asked.

Derrek sighed heavily. “So many,” he said. For a moment, he looked like he would go on to enumerate them, but he stopped and shook his head. “Not now,” he said. “Not today. Today, we should enjoy ourselves to the fullest and make merry while the sun shines.”

Jeremy wasn’t certain whether to be amused or worried by those words. “I am all for making merry,” he said. “As long as we can be discreet about it,” he added in a whisper.

Derrek grinned at him, heat filling his eyes. He peeked up and down the alley to be certain no one was watching them, then stole another, quick kiss. “Come on,” he said, touching Jeremy’s hand without taking it, then turning and walking out of the alley.

Jeremy followed him, though he had the uneasy feeling that he was flushed and his lips might have been suspiciously pink. Clary and some of the others might have been willing to look the other way where he and Derrek were concerned and so might Martin be, but Jeremy did not want to rely on the discretion of the people around him where his life could be at stake.

That thought brought others with it that even the cheerful music that marked the beginning of the Morris dancing couldn’t banish completely from Jeremy’s heart. The entire purpose of fleeing to Kent was to avoid people who wanted to kill him, not to run straight into the midst of another group that could have him and Derrek dragged before a magistrate simply for loving each other.

“Your man is a surprisingly good dancer,” Clary whispered, coming to stand beside Jeremy as he watched Derrek jumping and moving through the steps along with the other dancers.

Jeremy turned to her with wide, wary eyes and whispered back, “Have a care with what you say when others are around.”

Clary frowned at him in concern. “Has something happened? Has someone said something?” she asked.

Jeremy shook his head tightly and turned his attention back to the dancers.

“I’ll fight any of them who might raise a finger against you,” Clary went on in her teasing voice.

Jeremy smiled and relaxed slightly. “I’ve no doubt you would,” he replied.

His heart was so conflicted. Right there, in that exact moment, his life was wonderful. He had found the truest friend he’d ever had. The villagers around him were all in a merry mood, the dancers were entertaining and quite good at the dance, Derrek among them. He was more certain than he’d ever been that someone loved him, and God help him, he was falling desperately in love with Derrek as well.

But there were definite storm clouds on the horizon. Conroy and his accomplice might not have found him yet, but they most likely would not stop trying until he was silenced forever. The more his love for Derrek grew and the less he was able to suppress it when around others, the more likely he was to be killed for that as well. The country might seem warm and welcoming at first, but as a Londoner, he’d always been taught that people were fickle and could change their minds in an instant.

By the end of the dance, Jeremy had come to a difficult conclusion. He couldn’t build a life in the village where he was. Everything around him was merely a temporary respite from a larger story. He had a business and a life waiting for him in London, and if he and Derrek ever wanted to have more than kisses in alleys, they would have to return to the city and face what was waiting for him, sooner rather than later.