Page 33 of The Herlequin: Pitch & Sickle 6

‘No…that’s not right.’ Silas shook his head. ‘Idowant you to take heed of my words, because they are true. I love you. I adore you, quite frankly. And I’m sorry if that bothers you, but I can’t change it, nor do I wish to. You don’t need to do or say or offer anything in return. You need never think on it again, for I shan’t burden you with any more outbursts. I just wanted you to know, Pitch, that I care for you deeply and will not leave you.’

The prince was, in that moment, the rarest of things: so very unsure of himself. His teeth toyed at his lower lip, his gaze a fluttering butterfly of indecision on where to land.

He was delicate when he spoke. ‘I don’t know what to do or to say to that, Silas. I’m not…I’m not familiar with…this.’

This what? Being cherished? Having a besotted oaf stuck to his side? It made Silas’s chest ache to imagine the prince knew not what it was to be cared for.

‘Not familiar with a man making a dolt of himself over you?’ Silas forced his laughter, heat striking his cheeks. ‘Come now, I’d say you are most expert with it.’

He moved to where his trousers lay over the seat of the chair. He longed to cover up, to cease feeling so exposed.

‘Expert with an enchantment perhaps, but it’s not that.’ Pitch turned away, dropping the coat to return himself to stunning nakedness once more. He stepped closer to the fire, holding his shirt where it might dry. The tattoo he bore on his back was so faint as to be confused with a shadow. Seeing the faded state of the amuletum tinged Silas’s unease darker. Sybilla had not attempted to reapply the strange ink after the Fulbourn. Not after Edward’s touch. Theangel’stouch. But Silas found no comfort in that, for it did not mean that all was fine and dandy for the prince. Far from it.

‘I’m not familiar with all…this…’ Pitch paused, picking at a piece of milfoil that clung to his shirt. ‘The time spent thinking about you. Worrying about you. Getting annoyed when you aren’t in my bed. Playing the fool to make you smile. Feeling as though I’d burn this world to cinder if any harm comes to you.’ He paused again. His hands glowed bright. ‘I said I need you. But I don’t know if Ilikeneeding you. I certainly don’t know if I love…being this way.’

Silas blinked, his heart thumping like a battalion’s drum. The daemon had said far more than he dared imagine possible.

They both stood, stark naked and dishevelled. Silas watched the light dance over Pitch’s lean body and envied it for its closeness.

‘I seek no answer. You have far greater things to concern you.’ Silas turned over his trousers, well aware they were still too damp on one side to justify the switch. ‘I didn’t intend for any of this to add to your burdens. But with how our days are going…well…I didn’t want important words left unsaid.’ He tensed, realising a painful truth. ‘And that was selfish of me, wasn’t it? Damn it, I truly did not intend to make you uncomfortable on top of everything else. Bloody hell, I am so–’

‘Stop.’ Pitch flicked the sleeve of his shirt, and the material slapped Silas’s bare thigh.

‘Ouch, shit.’ Silas flinched, rubbing at the reddened patch of skin. ‘That seems unnecessary.’

‘It had to be done to stop another of your endless apologies. Tell me I am wrong, and that was not asorryabout to leave your lips?’

Silas fell into his smile, grateful for the sign Pitch was not so terribly unhappy with him. ‘I suppose we shall never know.’

‘I suppose not.’ Pitch hung his shirt on the handle of a rake that leaned against the mantel, then held out his hand to Silas. ‘Here, give me your trousers. You weren’t wearing any drawers?’

Silas duly handed over the trousers. ‘No. They were in the wardrobe, and as the door creaks, I did not wish to wake you.’

‘Well, we shall have to install a creaky wardrobe at Holly Village, then. I favour the notion of you wandering about with your jewels dangling.’

Silas could do little but stare at the daemon. Not because he was being salacious, that was a given, but because he seemed to suggest a coexistence would continue after all was said and done. The longing for such a future was painful as a knife strike.

Pitch gave Silas a sideways glance and a crooked smile. One Silas tried to return, lest his melancholy be seen. But Pitch’s smile split into a grimace as the daemon seated himself.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Do you not recall how it was after the Bow? You’re a large man, Silas.’

Silas blushed, down to his gums it felt. ‘Oh–’

‘Don’t say it. And it is not a complaint, by any stretch of the imagination.’ Pitch laid the trousers across his lap, stealing Silas’s view of all the resting beauty between his legs. ‘But seeing as there was no oil…’

‘Oh bloody hell, I knew it was not right to continue without it.’

Pitch’s laughter held a whisper of meanness, a devilish delight in the taunt he’d just delivered.

‘Bastard,’ Silas muttered, crouching by the fire, scowling at the flames as he stirred them. ‘That was not nice.’

‘No, but it was amusing. Your face.’ He chuckled to himself as he spread his hands over the shirt, using the heat of the flame like a washerwoman might use her iron.

‘It is pointless to dry everything,’ Silas said, still grumpy. ‘We shall get soaked again on the walk back to the house.’

There was no laughter now from the prince. ‘I don’t intend to go back for a while. But I’d like to be dressed in dry clothes in the meantime.’