Three days. It had been three long days since Warren tasted Madeline in the tack room. He felt like he was crawling out of his skin. He hadn’t felt this out of sorts since the first time he leaned across the bench in the curate’s garden and kissed Charles square on the lips. They’d been lads of fifteen at the time, both nervous and fumbling, all thumbs. Their explorations started out as awkward and short-lived. It took a while to get to good. And great had only come near the end.
And then Charles left.
With Madeline, things felt entirely different. She was a virgin in every particular, and yet she took to sex like a fish to water. Warren felt addicted to her. One taste, one feel of her in his arms, and all other women suddenly paled in comparison. There were no other women. There was only Madeline. And he needed more.
But she’d been kept hidden away at the great house, not even emerging for a casual walk in the garden. And his own work was keeping him busier than usual for this time of year. The duke had tasked him and two other keepers with hunting additional braces of pheasants, ducks, and rabbits to be delivered to the families of the Carrington fires.
Each time he made his way to the stables to borrow a horse to see the game delivered, he hoped to stumble upon her. Any piece of her would be enough. He’d settled for a glimpse of that golden hair through a window as she practiced the piano forte.
Did she play the piano? All ladies of her station played, right? He made it a point to ask.
“Goddamn it,” he muttered, jerking his knife across his whetstone with more force than was necessary, nearly skinning his knuckle.
What he needed to do was calm down. He was in way too deep over his head with this woman. She was so far above him. A proper lady, a viscount’s daughter, bosom friends with the duchess. And at no point did she make him a promise of any kind. Charles was the one she wanted. Charles was the one she proposed to, that she waited for. Idiot that he was, he still hadn’t given her his answer.
Even Charles was avoiding him, it seemed. He was too busy with his uncle.
“I’m going to hell,” he muttered, slamming his knife down.
Who was he to resent a dying man? And Selby had been good to him. He took him in and fed him more times than Warren liked to count. Selby offered shelter when Warren’s stepmother kicked him out. Even when he knew his relationship with Charles had taken a turn, he still extended the hand of Christian charity. Warren was a monster to resent him now.
And yet, here Warren sat, alone in his small cabin. Charles had Selby, for how little time was left. Madeline had a whole house of friends and staff to wait on her hand and foot. And Warren had…
“Nothing.”
A deep, aching hollowness filled him. He’d never had a single thing to call his own. Even this house was given in gift by the estate. The moment he was dismissed, he’d be expected to pack his belongings and clear out. He had nothing. No family. No wife. Certainly, no husband. He was alone in the world, ignored by the people he most wanted to care for him, to put him first—
Knock. Knock.
He stilled, glancing sharply at the door, his hand curling around his knife. “What kind of hour do you call this to go a’callin?!”
“Open the damn door. It’s freezing out here,” came Charles’s impatient voice.
Warren rattled his chair back, dropping the knife with a clatter. He crossed over to the door in two strides, pulling back the peg and lifting the latch.
Charles stood on his doorstep, a little lantern in hand. “Christ, it’s cold,” he muttered, shifting past him into the cabin.
Warren shut the door, sliding the latch back into place.
Charles went directly to the table to set the lantern down. Then he tugged off his hat and gloves, unwinding his scarf.
“What are you doing?” Warren muttered, still ready to wear his rejection like armor.
“Here, take this.” Charles stuffed his outer clothes at him. “Can we put some tea on? Do you still make that blend with the raspberry leaves?”
Warren hung the scarf and coat on a hook. “Charles—”
“Christ, I’ve just realized I was so distracted today that I skipped dinner. Would you mind terribly if I had a crust of bread?” Charles helped himself to a chair and was already working his way out of his boots.
“Charles, what are you doing?” Warren repeated, still standing at his door.
“I’m taking off my boots,” he muttered, bent over in the chair, and giving his boots a tug.
“You should be home. You should be with Selby.”
He stilled, his hands unmoving on the laces. “No.”
Panic sank into the pit of his stomach, followed quickly by the hollow feeling of grief. “Oh god. Selby—”
“He’s alive,” Charles assured him, brushing a hand down his arm as he moved past him towards the hearth. “Sick as ever, but holding on. We played chess this morning. He won all three games. I saw him put to bed before I left.”
Warren took a breath, sending out a little prayer to whoever was listening that Selby remain with them as long as possible. It was a selfish prayer, but a prayer, nonetheless. For Selby was Charles’s only tether to Finchley now. Without him, Charles would have no reason to stay. And, fool that he was, Warren wasn’t ready to let him go again.
Charles helped himself to Warren’s things, fishing through the tins until he found the tea, and setting the kettle back on its chain over the fire. “Did you eat tonight?” he called over his shoulder. “Shall I toast a piece for you?”
“Charles, why the hell are you here?” Warren said again, needing to hear his answer like he needed air.
Charles turned, knife in one hand, bread loaf in the other. He gave Warren a helpless shrug. “Because I can’t not be.” Turning back around, he prepped two slices of the bread and set them to toasting with the tongs.
Within fifteen minutes, they were sat at the table with a steaming cup of tea each and a piece of buttered toast spread with Molly Evans’s blackberry rhubarb jam.
“How is she?” Warren murmured, taking a bite of his toast.
“I’ve haven’t seen her,” Charles replied. “I’ve been so busy dealing with the bazar for the fire victims, and with my uncle—covering his sermons and making calls, writing his correspondence.”
Warren narrowed his eyes. Charles had always been so easy to read. He couldn’t lie to save his own life. Which is why Warren had taken the lead on every nefarious act of their misspent youth. Charles couldn’t steal a pie from the kitchen because he’d look too guilty when cornered by Molly. It was always Warren stealing food and scaling walls. It was always Warren taking risks.
Even now, his tells were obvious. Charles blushed when he was lying. Not much, just a faint pinking of the highest point of his cheek. And he didn’t make eye contact. He sat across the table, eyes on his mug of tea, that damned blush rising in his cheeks as he cleared his throat, taking a sip of his herbal tea.
“You’re avoiding her,” Warren surmised. “Have you still not given her an answer then?”
“Not yet.”
“You’re a damned fool, Charles. Why do you delay? And why do you deny the duke his offer too? It’s a good offer—”
“I didn’t come here to fight,” he muttered, setting his cup of tea aside. “I came to—I just wanted to…fuck, I don’t know what I want.” He groaned, dragging both his hands through his hair, elbows hitting the table.
Warren huffed, arms crossed over his chest. “That’s the problem with you, Charles. Always has been.”
Charles met his gaze, glaring at him. “Go on, enlighten me then.”
“You know exactly what you want,” he growled, pointing a finger at him. “You’re just too afraid to stand up and take it. You’ve always been a damned coward.”
Charles bristled. “Oh, I’m too afraid? Is that why you hide out here then?” he said, gesturing around. “You’re one of the smartest men I’ve ever met, and yet you are content to do nothing with your life. You let your own father bully you and belittle you, denying you an inheritance—”
“I am a bastard, Charles,” he growled. “My father did not want me. At no point has he ever wished to claim me. He gave me life and he gave me his name, and that is all,” he said with a sharp cut of his hand. “I don’t let him bully me anymore. I haven’t since I was twelve. He is nothing to me.”
“How can you say that when he still lives here?” Charles countered. “I saw him in town just yesterday. He said your brother died. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Warren stiffened and shrugged, taking a sip of his tea. “What does it matter? Hugh Warren is dead. He was nothing to me either. His mother made sure there was never any warmth of feeling between us.”
“Yes, but now your father has no living heir and Hugh never married,” Charles replied. “There are no children. You are the rightful heir to his estate.”
“I have no right to anything,” he muttered, shoving his tea aside. “Bastards cannot inherit.”
“They can if they are claimed—”
“God damn it, Charles, enough,” he barked, slamming his fist down on the table. “That life was finished for me before it began. I will never be a baronet. He could knock on my door this minute with a will in hand and I would burn it. I don’t want his title or his money or his land. I make my own way in this world. I am a gamekeeper and that is enough. I have food, shelter, a good job. I have friends. You want greatness for me, Charles. I simply want to live my life on my terms. And I do!”
“But don’t you see how things are changed now?” Charles pressed. “You could inherit and be worthy of Madeline in a way I never could be. She has all her attention on me because she doesn’t know you are the greater prize. Christ, I was crawling out my skin the other day, listening to her throw herself at me. I wanted to tell her the truth about us, about our positions. I nearly did. It was on the tip of my tongue, but I knew you would never forgive me if I did. It is not my truth to tell.”
“You’re damn right, it’s not,” he growled.
“But don’t you see? I am not worthy of her, John! She deserves someone of her sphere, not a lowly vicar.”
Warren laughed, but the sound was hollow. He hated the way Charles was dragging all this to the surface once more. “You don’t get to run scared for this, Charles. You don’t get to shove us at each other just so you can be the long-suffering martyr once more.”
“Go to your father,” he went on. “Tell him about Madeline. Tell him that she is ready to make you an offer of marriage. Sir John might see his way to naming you his heir if you are married to a viscount’s daughter. Then your match could be one of equals—”
“No.” Warren shook his head, heart thundering in his chest.
“Have you even told her it’s on the table? Does she know who you really are?”
“I am exactly the man who sits before you,” he replied. “She wants me as I am, Charles. I don’t need to put on airs to win her, to make her mine. If you’d stop being such a damned fool, she could be yours. She could be ours.”
Charles just shook his head. “But you could be so much more.”
Warren huffed, his irritation simmering. It wouldn’t take much to have him boiling over. “Classic Charles. I point out a flaw in you, and you run scared again, turning it all around on me.”
“Fine, say what it is you’re so desperate to say! Tell me your great truths!”
“Goddamn it, you work for Christ, you’re not the man incarnate!”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means stop hanging yourself on all these bloody crosses! You are the most tortured soul I’ve ever met, but you are your own tormentor. It’s maddening. We are not damned, and this is not a sin,” he said, gesturing between them. “If you would get that through your thick skull, then all the other pieces of your life could fall neatly into place!”
“What pieces?”
“You would marry Madeline for one,” he argued, pointing a finger at him again. “She’s beautiful and kind and perfect for you—for us!”
Charles shook his head. “We don’t—I can’t drag her down. I can’t ruin her life—”
“She doesn’t want that life! How many times in how many ways must she say it? She doesn’t want to marry a lord. I could not hope to lure her interest by claiming myself as Sir John’s bastard son. If anything, I think it would push her away, for she is done with that life. She wants you, Charles. That’s all she wants. She wants me to fuck her. She wants you to marry her.”
“And you’re content with that arrangement?” he said incredulously.
Warren just shrugged, burying his true emotions deep. Did it hurt to always come up second? To always be the afterthought? Did it hurt when Charles left without a backwards glance?
Is there a word in English for such pain?
“I take what I can get,” he muttered. “I’ve always taken whatever I can get.”
“John—”
“And you need to accept the duke’s offer,” he urged, pointing a finger at him. “I know you’d rather chew glass than move up to Bredbury. Take up the position here in Finchley. You belong here, Charles. You deserve to make a life surrounded by the people who love you—people you love in return. And I don’t just mean me,” he added quickly. “You grew up with these families, Charles. They know you. They trust you. That goes a long way—”
“And what, move Madeline into the parsonage?” He scoffed. “The vicar and the viscount’s daughter. We’ll have Molly serve us our breakfast in bed, I suppose. And where shall you be in that little picture, our bastard baronet’s son? Curled up on the floor before the fire?”
But Warren just smirked, seeing through his falsity. “I’m telling you right now that if I’m in this picture, I’ll be in the bed too, curled up around you with my hand on your cock.”
Charles groaned, closing his eyes. “Stop.”
“I’m only saying what you’re already picturing,” he needled. “You could have it all, Charles. Stop being a martyr, and take what is being offered. I have been yours since that first kiss in the garden. I will never stray from you. Hurt me, leave me, cut me down, I am lost to you.”
Charles groaned, dragging a hand through his hair, “John—”
But he didn’t want his apologies. Not now. Not when he was feeling so on edge. He hated talking of his father, of his past. Charles knew that. Warren wanted to see him squirm too. “Madeline’s offer sits before you now. Can you really mean to turn her down? You could slide your cock between her legs every night, burying yourself to the hilt in that sweet cunt. Meanwhile, I’ll take you from behind. My every thrust will sheath you in her until she’s crying out both our names—”
“Oh, fuck,” Charles whimpered, pushing away from the table.
“Is that what you came here for, Charles?” he growled, punching the table again. “You still think I’ll play the game where I call you a dirty whore and fuck you senseless? Rut you until you forget it’s a sin? Until you forget your own damn name? Only now you’re hoping I’ll add her to the fantasy too, right?”
Charles shook his head, turning away.
“That game is finished for me,” Warren called. “You left me, Charles. You ripped my fucking heart out, leaving me broken and bleeding on the goddamn floor. I will not play your games anymore. I will not be the man who fucks you quietly in the night, milking your passion from you as you pretend to fight me. There’s only one thing I want now. And unlike you, I’m not afraid to say it out loud, to own it with my whole damn chest.”
Charles turned, a glimmer of hope flickering in his amber gaze. “What, John? What do you want now?”
He squared his shoulders at him. “Well, to quote Madeline: I want everything.”
Before Charles could voice a reply, there was a second knock on the door.
