Page 33 of Vanquished by a Viscount (Tales from the Brotherhood #3)

Sixteen

D amn house parties and damn all the guests who attended them.

Gray was in a truly foul mood as he stomped up the stairs, desperate to go to bed, hoping that he wouldn’t go to bed alone.

After Howard’s captivating lecture and the spontaneous dance that had followed it, he’d been left to direct the footmen in tidying up the conservatory, to answer questions from the maids whom he’d caught wondering if they could eat the remaining tarts that the guests had not consumed, and to see off a few of their neighbors who looked as though they wanted to be invited to remain and become part of the house party.

“I’ve no idea why you would want to continue on for even one second more under the same roof as that devil,” he’d caught Lady Farleigh muttering to another of the neighbors as they were whisked out the front door. “He is as sordid as they come.”

“Good evening, Lady Farleigh,” Gray had said goodbye to her in the kindest and most heartfelt way, his smile as tight as could be. “May you have a safe ride home, and may your dreams be as pure as your soul.”

The old woman had scowled back at him, knowing exactly what he’d cursed her with.

From the front hall, Gray hurried up the stairs, loosening his neckcloth and undoing the top button of his jacket in anticipation of assuming the state he most wanted to be in when he joined Charlie in his room.

He honestly could not say where the two of them stood with each other.

It had been a day of fraught encounters and things left unsaid.

But at that moment, he did not want to stand with Charlie at all.

He wanted to be as horizontal as he could be, though he would not have said no to straddling the man and impaling himself over and over while on top and vertical.

Those thoughts were already beginning to send his blood throughout his body when he rounded the corner to the family wing and nearly ran headlong into Howard. Howard seemed as startled to encounter him as he was to see his former friend .

“Oh! What are you doing here?” Gray asked lamely. He immediately wanted to wince and berate himself for his clumsiness in the face of a man who was so…so everything.

Sure enough, Howard grinned at him as if he could see straight through Gray’s jumbled thoughts to the desires he could not hide, and see through his clothes to boot.

“I had gone in search of you, to be perfectly honest,” he said.

His smile grew warmer as he turned slightly back toward the hall and continued, “I thought perhaps we could?—”

“No!” Gray burst, then immediately regretted raising his voice to such a degree in a hallway as most people in the house were on their way to bed. “That is, no,” he said in an exaggerated whisper, going too far in the other direction.

Howard was clearly amused, which did nothing to ease Gray’s frantic nerves. “I do not believe I have ever known you to say that word before,” he teased.

Gray puffed out a desperate breath, his shoulders sagging. Howard was poking fun at him, but not in a cruel or unkind way. The man did not have a cruel bone in his body. That did not mean he was not impish and naughty when he wanted to be, though.

“I cannot,” Gray said, trying to be serious in a way that would impress Howard, though why he always felt so compelled to impress the man was a mystery he deemed it best not to dive too deeply into.

“I…I have far too many responsibilities toward the house party at present,” he made his excuse.

Nerves then got the better of him, and instead of leaving it there, he stumbled on with, “I am far too tired tonight. It would be too awkward to engage in such activities in my family’s house.

The guests might grow suspicious. And you know how servants talk. ”

Howard was chuckling by the time Gray finished his avalanche of excuses. “And perhaps Lord Broxbourne would feel left out?” he suggested, one eyebrow raised and a sparkle in his eyes.

Panic flooded Gray. All he could do for a moment was stand there, frozen in the fear that…that what? That Howard would see how much he genuinely cared for Charlie? That the charming and confident man would feel slighted because Gray was in love with someone else?

Gray let out a breath and dropped his shoulders with it. “I care about him,” he said. “Genuinely. Completely. He is…he is my home.”

Immediately, Gray wanted to take the words back or curse himself for being ridiculously sentimental, but Howard’s expression was approving and soft.

He reached out and rested a hand on Gray’s shoulder.

“You have excellent taste, my friend,” he said, then winked.

“And for what it’s worth, I believe Lord Broxbourne feels the same about you. ”

Gray’s heart rose and flipped in his chest. “You do?”

Howard blinked. “Do you believe otherwise?”

Gray’s mouth hung open for a moment before he could find the words he needed. “There has been a great divide between us these last seven years. Misunderstanding and resentment drove a wedge between us.”

“But you have been working to remove that wedge now?” Howard guessed.

Gray nodded. “I do not know where the two of us stand at present.”

“Do you want to be standing at all?” Howard asked, the teasing glint back in his eyes.

Something about that expression, and about the wise understanding that radiated from Howard, suddenly made Gray feel easier. “Yes, I do,” he said, taking Howard’s ribald words another way. “I want to stand by his side wherever and whenever he needs me, from now until the end of time.”

The seriousness returned to Howard’s expression along with a good measure of approval. “Then go to him,” he said, patting Gray’s shoulder, then taking his hand away. “I believe he is waiting for you.”

That possibility had Gray’s heart beating hard. He smiled at Howard, then hurried past him, down the hall and straight to Charlie’s door. Without knocking, he turned the handle and pushed his way into the room…which was empty.

For a moment, Gray’s heart sank. Charlie must be angry with him indeed if he’d taken himself off to sleep somewhere else for the night.

Perhaps he’d taken up lodging in the gamekeeper’s cottage with Barbara.

Gray had no difficulty at all imagining the siblings sulking away together, breaking their hearts when, really, there was no reason to break them.

He backed out of Charlie’s room, shutting the door behind him, then stepped across to his own bedroom.

He had no expectations as he opened the door and walked inside, but Charlie was there, standing by the washstand, the sponge raised to his nose as if he were breathing in the scent of Gray’s soap, and perhaps lingering traces of him.

“You’re here,” Gray said breathlessly, shutting his door behind him, then rushing across the room to Charlie. “Thank God you’re here!”

Charlie had barely put the sponge down when Gray flung himself into his lover’s arms, hooking his hand behind Charlie’s neck and pulling their mouths together for a searing kiss. Charlie made a sound of surprise that resolved into a moan of passion as he grabbed hold of Gray and kissed him back.

For a moment, it was beautiful. Gray could let everything go, forget the strains of the day, and simply revel in the taste of his lover’s mouth and the feeling of his hands gripping the front of his clothes.

Rain pounded against the windows as the promised storm began to break around them, but it was the perfect complement to everything Gray felt within him.

Too soon, however, Charlie’s grip became too tight and he pushed Gray away from him.

They both stood panting for a few seconds before Charlie breathlessly said, “Wait. We cannot.”

“Yes, we can,” Gray said, grabbing Charlie by the lapels of his jacket and yanking him into another kiss.

Charlie joined him, the sounds he made frantic and longing. He only allowed the kiss to continue for a few seconds before muscling the two of them apart once more. “We have much to talk about,” he gasped, desire sparkling in his eyes as he held Gray at arm’s length.

As much as Gray wanted to wrap himself in Charlie and beg him to fuck him within an inch of his life so that he could feel possessed by the man he loved, he had enough sense to recognize that Charlie was correct.

Still, he asked, “Are you not certain it could wait until we are both limp and satisfied?”

Charlie let out a quick laugh before sobering himself, though the hint of mirth remained in his eyes. “It cannot wait,” he said. “I must say my piece before you make your choice and go off with Bradford, or some other man of your choosing.”

Gray blinked at him. “Why would you think I would cast you aside for Howard or anyone else?”

No sooner was the question asked than his heart and brain filled in several answers for him. Had not Charlie thrown him off once himself? Did he expect that sort of behavior from him?

“I have been na?ve to think that you would be satisfied with a stodgy old viscount such as me,” Charlie said, lowering his head slightly. “Not when you have had such adventures and entertaining men like Bradford.”

Gray wasn’t certain he had heard Charlie correctly. He shook his head and took a half step toward his lover. “You are hardly old, Charlie. You’re not yet even eight-and-twenty. Howard is approaching forty himself.”

“You know what I mean,” Charlie said, scrunching his face and shaking his head. “I am not the free spirit you are. I threw you over for my sister.”

Gray stepped back, lust shifting to seriousness within him. “Is that your concern?” he asked. “That because you once chose family and duty over me, sending me off on a path of exciting irresponsibility that you are somehow no longer my match?”