Page 26

The downpour didn’t let up, making the slow drive down the country roads even slower. They only made it back to their inn very late in the afternoon and Sebastian and Wesley had to scramble upstairs to change.

Wesley made quick work of getting into his dress coat and ensemble, doing up the many buttons of his shirt and adjusting the starched white waistcoat. On the nightstand were the two small boxes he’d asked to be delivered alongside his evening wear. He hesitated for a moment.

No, for fuck’s sake, he wasn’t going to chicken out of this, especially not when Sebastian was being dragged to a hunt ball of all places. Wesley wasn’t going to choose the comfort of cowardice over the chance to make Sebastian smile.

He picked up the older of the two boxes and looked across the room.

Sebastian was standing in front of the dresser mirror, getting his white bow tie in place around his high, stiff wingtip collar.

His fingers were nimble and sure as he tied the bow tie as easily as if he wore them daily.

Had there been a time when Sebastian had worn bow ties often, and gotten the practice?

Or was he just skilled at learning and remembering movement, whether dancing or shooting or dressing?

Why did Wesley not know which it was, yet?

Sebastian smoothed the finished bow tie, and Wesley felt the echo of those fingers along his own throat; after all, his body knew damn well how skilled Sebastian could be with his hands.

Sebastian glanced up then, and their eyes met in the mirror. His lips curled up in a fond sort of smile, like seeing Wesley had made him happy. “Did you have an opinion about my bow tie?”

“Just that I like it.” Wesley tilted his head. “I was actually just thinking that there’s so much I still don’t know about you. You must be the most fascinating man I’ve ever met.”

“Oh.” Sebastian ducked his head. “I am not so fascinating, though—very simple, really. I like the ocean, and cats, and you.”

“That last one is a rather rare quality, albeit not a particularly wise one.” Wesley cleared his throat, the box feeling oddly heavy in his hand.

“I, um.” Christ, was he stumbling over this?

Wesley forced himself to straighten. “I thought you might need more formal accessories for tonight, so I had Ned send an extra pair of—well. Here.” He stuck out the box more abruptly than he’d meant. “Cufflinks.”

Sebastian took the box, tilting his head as he opened the lid. “Are these—yours?”

“An inherited item, which I never wear, and I just thought, given that you needed a pair for tonight, and your affinity toward animals, and that it really was never my intention to drag you to a gala with hunting at its core—”

Wesley bit his tongue. For fuck’s sake, he was babbling. Clearly Sebastian ought never to be allowed into formal wear; the sight had scrambled Wesley’s ability to articulate.

Sebastian was lifting one of cufflinks out of the box, studying it closely. “Wait.” His eyes lit up. “Are these little sheepies?”

“ Sheepies? ” Wesley pinched the bridge of his nose. “ No. Those are rams. Rams. Like the fountain at Shepherd Hall. They were made for my great-great—you know, it doesn’t matter. I inherited them but I’ve never worn them and if they’re not to your liking—”

“I love them.”

“You do?”

“Such a clever design, to hide the ram in there.” Sebastian was smiling as he turned the cufflink, the light catching the gemstones along the edge.

He glanced up at Wesley. “Didn’t you tell me, when we were in your Yorkshire garden, that your mother’s favorite animals on the farm next door were the lambs? ”

He’d remembered that. There had been lambs in Wesley’s life, once upon a time, innocence and gentleness, things he hadn’t known again until he’d handcuffed Sebastian to his bed in London and discovered he’d caught a man who cared more for dogs and foxes than his own safety.

Yes , Wesley went to say, only his throat had gone tighter. He nodded instead.

Sebastian held out his right arm. “Help me put them in?”

Wesley exhaled in relief. A task that needed doing—excellent, he could handle a task. Sebastian held still for him as Wesley aligned his cuff and fastened the cufflink into place. Then he stuck out his left arm, and Wesley’s fingers were wrapping around the lion tattoo on his inner wrist.

Without consciously planning to, Wesley let his thumb skate over the tattoo, the familiar lion now in the black ink. Sebastian’s inhale was quiet, but unmistakable.

Don’t let Sebastian try to use magic again , Mateo’s cable had said. But don’t tell him about this message. What did Mateo know that they didn’t? When would his letter arrive?

Wesley’s thumb kept moving, following the path of the lion. “Will you humor me and answer a question?”

“Of course.”

“Back in New York, at the Magnolia, I asked if you could have accidentally created a relic when your magic disappeared. Why did you seem so sure you hadn’t?”

Sebastian’s gaze was also on the tattoo, following Wesley’s thumb.

“The relics required the siphon to make—and lots of planning. I don’t think I could have made one by accident,” he said.

“If my magic had gone into an item, surely I would have felt the connection to the object? But there was nothing in there that felt like mine. I mean, except you, of course,” he added, more playfully.

It sent a spark over Wesley, the thought of being Sebastian’s. He let his thumb come to rest on the lion. “Does it bother you, that he lost his color?”

“No.” Sebastian said it immediately, firm and resolute, like the answer had come straight from his bones. “I like him like this. The lion is my—how did you call it once? He’s my battle scar. He doesn’t remind me of what I lost—he reminds me of what I won.”

He glanced up, smile growing, and touched Wesley’s face with his free hand. “That’s you, if you didn’t know.”

This time, Wesley heard his own quiet breath. If you won me, take me with you, to your wild places wherever you go , he wanted to say. Let me stay with you, grow old with you, lives intertwined like the branches of two trees that can’t be separated.

“Stop trying to give me feelings, you absolute menace,” Wesley muttered instead, and heard Sebastian’s soft laugh. “May I give you a hand with your dress coat? It’s going to be tight.”

Sebastian nodded, and Wesley reluctantly let his wrist go to retrieve the tailcoat from the closet. Sebastian gamely stuck out his arms, and let Wesley help him into the jacket.

Wesley’s gaze stayed glued to their reflection as he pulled the coat over Sebastian’s shoulders. It went on as smoothly as silk over skin, following the graceful proportions of Sebastian’s body while the line of the jacket’s collar echoed the high cheekbones and definition of his jaw.

“Look at you.” Wesley didn’t recognize his own voice. In that moment, the acerbic bitterness and sharp edges were gone, replaced with something softer, maybe even a little dazed.

In the mirror, Sebastian made a face. “I look like a penguin.”

“You really fucking don’t,” Wesley said, with feeling.

They needed to leave in the next few minutes; he didn’t have time for any of the things he wanted to do with Sebastian, all of which involved some degree of getting him out of the clothes he’d just gotten into.

But even if they couldn’t fuck, surely this was a moment Wesley could at least indulge in touch, or perhaps even kiss him—

“You’re so sweet.”

Sebastian followed that patently outrageous statement by turning and stretching up.

And suddenly Wesley was watching his mirror image being kissed, Sebastian’s lips soft and warm against his own as a hand found the back of his neck and pulled him down.

And Christ, there was something about having a shorter lover shamelessly manhandle Wesley down to kissing height that had heat flaring through him.

Then Sebastian was pulling away. “I suppose we have to go,” he said regretfully, his fingers lingering on the back of Wesley’s neck and sending sparks across his skin. “Otherwise I am going to make you very late.”

Wesley licked his just-kissed lips. “Right.” He made himself straighten. He’d gone without sex, or frankly even touch, for months at a time. He could wait a few measly hours to have Sebastian to himself again.

Sebastian moved his hand off Wesley’s neck and held up his wrist. The ram cufflink sparkled in the light while the black ink of the top of the lion tattoo peeked out from under the stark white shirt cuff.

For fuck’s sake, Wesley could have put a sign on him reading Mine and his damnable possessive streak probably would have found it more subtle.

“At least I get to wear your cufflinks tonight,” Sebastian said happily.

Waiting was going to be torture.

* * *

Arthur drove the Bentley to the ball, Rory up front with him and Sebastian and Wesley in the back.

“Why is this place called Beckley Park when it’s a house?” Rory asked, as Arthur followed a Cowley onto a narrow country road. “Is it because the house is the size of a park?”

“Don’t ask me to explain the English aristocracy,” Arthur said, joining the line of cars approaching the lit manor house just ahead. “I haven’t the faintest idea why they are the way they are.”

“I heard that,” Wesley said.

Rory glanced over his shoulder. “You ready to go onstage, Seb?”

“Sort of.” Sebastian’s wingtip collar was much higher and tighter around his throat than his preferred attached collars.

He forced himself to keep his hands in his lap.

Was this why Wesley carried a walking stick, to stop himself from fussing with his formal clothes?

“I am not looking forward to holding my tongue around Lord Valemount’s hunters. ”