Page 32 of To Defend a Damaged Duke (Regency Rossingley #2)

TOMMY WAS QUIET on the long ride on account of an unfamiliar emotion suspiciously close to nervousness.

And nudging on irritability. The stink of cow shit had kept them company for the last half mile, liberally spread across the fields in every direction he looked.

If that wasn’t enough to make him long for the festering fug of London town, then, ever since they crossed the river Rye at Ashtead, a persistent horde of gnats were making it their short life’s work to build a home in his mouth.

He remembered, a little too late, that he loathed the countryside almost to the same extent as he loathed Lord Lyndon Fitzsimmons.

Tommy was out of his depth, of course, he reflected miserably as they trotted along at a pace a little faster than an occasional amateur rider such as he was used to.

Making opportunistic love to Benedict in London, a grimy town with rhythms as familiar to Tommy as his own nose, was one thing, but trotting out to his hunting lodge was another kettle of fish entirely.

Nothing exposed the thinness of his respectable veneer like falling in love (and how insufferably!) with a duke in possession of a hunting lodge.

Regardless, love seemed determined to drag him there by his bootlaces.

Riding with great ease alongside, Benedict was quiet, too, no doubt brooding.

On their return, he would meet with his brother and suggest he alter his course, together with a modest offer to increase his annual income.

Tommy hazarded it would fall on deaf ears.

He’d grown up in the stews. He knew people.

He knew how they ticked. How petty jealousies matured into feuds, how envy and resentment simmered for years, how weak, clever creatures such as Lord Lyndon desired nothing more than to draw those they despised down to their level.

Which meant the half-baked scheme they’d laid most of the groundwork for had to succeed.

“How do you plan to tackle Lord Lyndon’s assault on your stables?

” Tommy enquired of his companion. He’d saddled up Rossingley’s fine grey mare, a creature he often borrowed when riding through the parks at leisure with the earl.

She was placid enough, but after an hour, he was convinced the saddle was stuffed with rocks.

Surreptitiously, he shifted his aching buttocks.

“It’s a secret,” answered Benedict, then chuckled. “I am permitted one , aren’t I? If only to drive Francis and Rossingley insane.”

“For those reasons, you certainly are,” Tommy agreed. “Rossingley prides himself on always being one step ahead.”

“I am in awe of his wit as much as I am yours. I imagine the two of you make an excellent business team. You have accrued several investments together, I understand. When did you begin?”

Two years after I was freed from the pillory? Nine months after I stole a man’s silver watch? One month after a madge beat me to a pulp? For all that he sensed Benedict was hungry to fill the gaps, his inglorious past didn’t belong here, amongst fresh spring blossoms and dewy green grass.

“Several years ago,” Tommy answered, shortly.

Bestride his beloved Nimbus, his lover sat straight-backed and severe.

Even Tommy’s inexpert eye recognised Benedict was a superb horseman.

Windswept, flushed, and so solidly in his element, the longer he spent on horseback, the farther the diffident, uncertain duke receded.

And the wider the crevasse between them gaped.

“He told me you were once lovers, too,” Benedict pressed.

“Did he?” Tommy tightened his hands on the reins. “How very…forthcoming of him.”

“More a lucky guess on my part. You…you do not hold a candle still?”

“No.”

Tommy spat out a gnat, more single-minded than its companions. The foreshadowing of a sneeze tickled his nostrils. “We…I have had more than my share of lovers, Benedict,” he said testily. “My sordid chequered past can attest to that. Do you care for me to enumerate them?”

Tommy couldn’t have startled Benedict more if he’d pushed him off his mount into the clusters of stinging nettles lining the road.

“Apologies, Benedict,” he managed stiffly, then sneezed twice in rapid succession. “I’m a little out of sorts.”

“You are ill?” Concern limned Benedict’s soulful eyes. “You are coming down with a cold? Have I ridden too fast?”

“No. I am perfectly well.” Another sneeze, even more explosive than the first two. “Perhaps a little fast.”

“Then tell me what ails you. Please, so that I can prevent it.”

“It is nothing. I must apologise for my short temper.”

Yet still, those bloody brown eyes gazed at him from within their damned fluffy lashes, mirroring the strength of the man’s sincerity, his gentleness, his absolute goodness.

And, despite himself, Tommy’s deprived, velvet fist of a soft heart was enchanted.

“I am…not at ease in the country,” he admitted.

“Nor indeed, in hunting lodges, though I have never had cause to visit one. What with once being a molly boy and all.”

There, he’d said it. Benedict could make of it what he would.

The duke replied with a sharp clicking sound. He pulled on the reins, Nimbus stopping in an instant. “Let us pause a moment and dismount. Here.”

“I am quite all right. Forget I said anything. Indeed, I have looked forward to our trip.”

“I said we’re stopping.” Benedict dismounted with a smoothness belying his size. “We have gone too long without each other to let snappish words and misunderstandings go unheeded. You are unhappy. Or uncomfortable. Or…something.”

He helped Tommy down, which was damned embarrassing, unnecessary, and yet also indescribably wonderful. He secured the horses whilst Tommy succumbed to a sneezing fit.

“I’m going to give you some riding lessons this autumn,” Benedict declared as much to himself as Tommy.

“And I shall acquire a suitable mount, especially for you, to keep at my stables.” As if fitting him for size, his eyes raked over Tommy, from the top of his head where his annoying cowlick was most likely doing its thing, down to the shine of his riding boots, still creaky from underuse.

A satisfied smile reached from one corner of his mouth to the other. “I shall enjoy that very much.”

“Alas, it will take more than a good seat to make a true gentleman of me.”

“I know,” answered Benedict, taking Tommy’s hand. “And I don’t care. Come here.”

Being neither oak nor beech, the tree Benedict selected exceeded the extent of Tommy’s botanical knowledge.

Tall and sturdy, with oval-shaped green leaves, it was a commonplace sort of tree, the kind a child might draw.

And yet, when Benedict gently pushed him against the trunk and its crusty brown bark warmed his back, Tommy forgot about ordinary trees and gnats and his chafed arse.

Because Benedict was kissing him as though his hand was already around Tommy’s prick and his head resting on a goose down pillow.

“I have neither enjoyed nor suffered much in this life,” Benedict murmured between kisses.

He smoothed back Tommy’s errant lock of hair as his eyes, fringed with lashes the colour of the damp earth under their feet, levelled with Tommy’s.

“I have been surrounded by creature comforts, yes; I have wanted for nothing. But believe me when I tell you this. It has been a life lived in grey twilight. Until now. Until you.”

He tipped Tommy’s face up to the leafy canopy above and smiled before planting a kiss on the tip of Tommy’s nose, which Tommy loved, although it made him squirm. “And I shall embrace you and cherish you, young Tommy Squire, because of our differences, not in spite of them.”

And then, looping his arms around Tommy, Benedict hugged him.

The man was very much like a warm solid tree trunk himself. He smelled of the earth, of horse, and of a handsome raven-haired youth. Tommy couldn’t recall ever having been the recipient of a hug like it.

“There are so many questions I want to ask you, Tommy, I scarcely know where to begin. They spring into my mind, unbidden, when I should be focussing on mundane matters. For instance, whether you have a favourite season? Why you favour red ink? If you like crocuses? Thunder? What is the origin of the scar on your left wrist? Your preferred dessert?”

Tommy couldn’t help a short laugh. “Those things sound terribly immaterial.”

“Not to me.”

He lost track of how long they stood that way, Tommy’s body cradled in his lover’s arms, his head nestled in the hollow of his neck. This hug was a little thing, too, immaterial, like his penchant for red ink. And yet it told Tommy so much about the man.

When they reluctantly pulled apart, Benedict fished out his pocket square and offered it to Tommy. He beamed as though bestowing a gift.

“Your nose. It is dribbling.”

“As you can see, no part of me is fond of the country.” Mortified, Tommy dabbed it. “But my nose will learn to tolerate it. As will the rest of me. For you.”

Conversation flowed more freely when they resumed their ride. Benedict pointed out a few unusual landmarks and places he’d visited, and, as they came nearer their destination, places and land he owned.

“You are so grand that I feel I should be offering you a tithe of my harvest,” Tommy teased as they passed yet another swathe of forestry belonging to the Ashington estate.