A Rational Arrangement, page 63
Such as one evening after supper when they’d gathered in Nikola’s study. This room had become a favorite haunt of theirs because the catbed he kept in it afforded enough space for three humans to cuddle – or use for still more intimate activities, as time and inclination allowed. Tonight they had shed only the least comfortable articles of clothing – jackets, neckcloths, shoes – before the lovers snuggled together. Wisteria was in the middle this time, leaning into the curving corner where the back dipped down towards the front, while Justin and Nikola cuddled to either side of her. Justin was not sure when or how this greatcat-like-heap had become their default mode when alone together. He and Nikola had never done so except post-coitus. The casual physical intimacy gratified Justin in a way he could not articulate, as if it satisfied a craving that had gone unacknowledged so long he had not realized it existed. It was disquieting if he thought about it. He tried not to think about it.
“How did you first become lovers?” Wisteria asked after all three were settled together cozily. Her question prompted a laugh from Nikola and a groan from Justin. “Is that something I should not ask?”
“It’s definitely something you shouldn’t ask,” Justin growled.
Nikola was still laughing. “Oh, come, Justin. You have to admit it’s a great story, and it’s not as though there’s anyone else in Paradise we could ever tell.”
“It’s a hideous story and I have been grateful never to have had to relive it in words.”
“I am sorry. We can speak of something else, my lords,” Wisteria offered.
With an impish smile, Nikola promised her, “I’ll tell you when we’re alone.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” Justin reached across Wisteria to tickle Nikola into submission.
Laughing, Nikola squirmed out of range as Wisteria said, “He won’t, Justin, I do not wish to pry.”
Still grinning, Nikola mouthed to him I absolutely will. Aloud, he said, “Justin is only playing, Wisteria. He doesn’t mind.”
Justin made a face at him, his reluctance more genuine than he wanted them to know. “Fine. But I will tell her. No doubt you’d mangle it to make it even more horrifying.”
Nikola straightened enough to give an insouciant half-bow before he lapsed back against his wife’s side. “By all means.” Wisteria tilted her head and waited for Justin to begin.
Justin put one hand over his eyes as he considered how to relate these events to maximize the humor and minimize the painfulness of the recollection. “About seven years ago, I visited the East Hansleigh Boys Academy to present one of the Ambrellan Society grants. It was the second-to-last stop on this five-week tour I’d been on as I put my father’s estate in order. One thing and another had led to several delays to my arrival. The last of these – the overturning of my cab and resulting injury to my valet – had caused me to arrive less than an hour before the scheduled event. Alone, on foot, grungy, and in the foulest mood imaginable.
“My host, Dean Dremmond, sent me up to my room to prepare as best I could, and promised to send someone along to serve as valet. A few minutes later, the most beautiful young man I had ever laid eyes upon – this angelic vision, slim and with perfect carriage, golden hair, astonishing blue eyes—” Justin looked to Nikola as he spoke; the younger man had the grace to blush at the description “—walked into my room and asked how he might be of service.”
Wisteria glanced to her golden-haired, blue-eyed husband, then back to Justin, perplexed. “But that cannot have been Nikola?”
“Yes! Exactly! That cannot have been Nikola!” Justin said, prompting a laugh from Nikola. “The Strikers’ only son was a mere child, so young I had not yet been introduced to him! And there is no sane reason in Paradise that a count’s heir with a Blessing would come into my room to act as valet. That is precisely why, even when I asked his name and was told ‘Nik Striker’ – note the lack of any title! – it never occurred to me that there could be a relation.”
Nikola was still laughing. “I was not trying to mislead him, Wisteria. It was—”
“Shut up, Nikola, this is my story and we’ve already established you cannot be in it yet. So I spent half an hour doing my best not to molest this handsome angel, who by the by had brought me food, gently brushed the tangles from my hair, washed and massaged my aching feet, and was in every way all that one might hope for from a valet. By arcane means I am no longer able to explain, I somehow concluded from this that he must be flirting with me—”
“—probably because I was—”
“—so I kissed – wait, what?” Justin broke off his narrative as his mind processed Nikola’s interruption.
Nikola laughed. “Justin, I was all but fondling you the entire time I helped you dress.”
“But I – you – you were terrified when I kissed you!”
“Yes! That you’d stop. Which you did.”
“Because you were whimpering in fear!”
“I was not! Arousal, maybe. Come, Justin, I knew you didn’t realize this at the time, but you must have known when I came back?”
“I…” Justin’s mind reeled as he sorted through all the misunderstandings and different interpretations he’d made of the long-ago events. “…I never did.”
“Why did you think I’d come back?”
Justin blinked at him, not answering. Between them, Wisteria asked, “My lords?”
Nikola explained for her, “After discerning – correctly! – that I was flirting with him, Justin kissed me. Passionately. I panicked, because it was Lord Comfrey, whom I’d been infatuated with for years—”
“—what?” Justin demanded.
“—and he was actually kissing me and I didn’t know how I was supposed to respond and I was terrified that I’d do the wrong thing and he’d stop. Since I was not responding, Justin decided I must be repulsed and stopped. And laughed, like it was all just a joke and he hadn’t meant anything by it. And clapped me on the shoulder and ran off to his function—”
Justin propped himself higher on one arm and waved the other. “Wait, stop, go back, what was that ‘infatuated for years’ bit? We’d never so much as met before!” I would have remembered you. You are unforgettable.
Nikola’s smile turned shy. “No, but I’d watched you at sporting competitions. And I snuck down to a party you were attending at Anverlee Manor one year. Did you ever see him compete, Wisteria? He won all sorts of tournaments. Fencing, archery, backball…”
She shook her head. “I do not believe so; I’ve attended few sporting events.”
“Ah, pity. He’s magnificent.” Nikola extended a hand to caress one well-developed bicep through Justin’s shirt.
Justin blinked. “So…you knew of me already?”
“Justin, I volunteered for that assignment, the instant Dremmond’s butler came looking for someone. Did I truly never tell you?”
Stunned, he shook his head. “I had not the smallest notion.”
Nikola smiled, leaning across Wisteria to kiss him. “I can scarce remember a time when I did not long for you, Justin,” he murmured. Justin was still reeling from the shock of revelation.
“So what happened after this kiss?” Wisteria asked after a moment’s pause.
“Oh, I was devastated,” Nikola said, easily. “I thought Justin had noticed my infatuation and was intentionally mocking me over it.”
Justin pinched the bridge of his nose. “I had not the smallest notion. I was trying to think of some way to keep you from believing I’d intended to molest you.”
“In fairness, you did accomplish that.”
“In the most horrific way possible. I spent the whole ceremony trying to think of some way to ask Dremmond to replace you—”
“I always wondered that you did not!”
“—but I could think of no way without implying that you were at fault and risking that you’d be punished. For my indiscretion.” Justin looked back to Wisteria. “So when I found him waiting for me when I got back, I apologized for my behavior and told him to take a holiday. I’d care for myself and not tell a soul. Then the next night—” Justin paused again. “Why did you come back the next night? Because I had a whole host of theories and I believe now that every one of them must have been wrong.”
“I was hideously confused at first – I was not even sure what you were apologizing for – but after considerable thought, I concluded it was for desiring me. Which was what I wanted you to do, so I worked up the nerve to approach you again.”
Wisteria shifted between them, nuzzling the top of Justin’s head before glancing at Nikola. “Have you two managed to know each other seven years without ever discussing your first meeting? How is that even possible?”
Nikola laughed. “I don’t know. It never came up. There’s…a great deal we never talked about,” he said, wistfully.
“One doesn’t talk about such things,” Justin said. Even to his own ears it sounded prim and fatuous.
“I hope that doesn’t mean you will refuse to tell me the rest,” Wisteria said.
“Of course we’ll tell you,” Nikola said.
Justin cleared his throat and raised his head from Wisteria’s shoulder to continue. “I found him the next night in my room, out of uniform and all dressed up – terribly fine for a servant, I thought. When I asked him what he wanted, he said—”
“‘You’.” Nikola leaned in to kiss Justin again; Wisteria watched them with rapt attention.
“I thought you terrified then, too,” Justin murmured against Nikola’s mouth.
“I was. That I was wrong, that you were uninterested, that you’d laugh or worse.”
Justin closed his eyes, hugging Wisteria to him with an arm about her shoulders and his other arm holding Nikola to them both. “I am a very great fool. And that, madame, is how we became lovers.”
“But then you hardly knew one another at all when you began? Did Nikola tell you that night he was Lord Striker’s son?”
Nikola shook his head ruefully, while Justin laughed and answered, “No. No, we did not know one another at all, and I daresay Nikola was too busy to consider correcting his little oversight with his title.”
“It wasn’t an oversight! East Hansleigh Boys’ Academy had a ‘culture of service’, which meant we weren’t to use our titles on campus and we got drafted for menial labor during big events like Ambrellan. That’s why I was in a position to volunteer. It was that or set up tables.”
“Oh my,” Wisteria said. “When did you find out, then?”
Justin covered his eyes. “Five months later? At an Ascension-season party. When his father introduced him. I about died of mortification, learning that what I had thought was an affair with a valet of about my own age had actually been with an underage peer.”
“It truly took five months to emerge?”
“We were not in contact after those first few days Justin spent at the academy,” Nikola said. “I was too intimidated to write Lord Comfrey, and he – well, he could not start a personal correspondence with a man he thought a servant.” Justin was thankful that Nikola omitted the one disastrous gift Justin had sent while in ignorance. Nikola stroked Justin’s cheek. “But it all worked out well in the end.”
Justin managed a smile, turning his head to kiss the pale hand. “That it did. After that formal introduction we became friends.” He remembered what a miracle even that much had seemed, at the time. How much he had missed Nikola in those intervening months, how he had thought Nikola uninterested in continuing the relationship. To think that he had always admired me, and I never knew until now. We never spoke of it.
Perhaps we should have. Perhaps I ought to say something now, about those feelings. But even like this, it felt impossible to match his lovers’ frankness. Men in his world did not share their emotions, and Nikola might be the exception to every rule but that did not mean Justin could be, too.
“Did you think of one another, in that intervening time?” Wisteria asked. “I cannot imagine having a lover without attachment. What is it like?”
“Not as good as one with,” Nikola answered. “Not bad, mind, I still enjoy the act. But it’s less intimate and intense, at least for me.” He hesitated, then added, “I don’t think I could ever be described as unattached to Justin, though. I missed you, you know. And felt like a complete fool for it, under the circumstances, with no acquaintance to speak of between us. I imagine you scarcely gave me another thought until we met again.”
Justin looked at Nikola’s slight self-deprecating smile. I never told him. I never tell him anything, and then I wonder why he does not understand. “No, not above a half-dozen times,” Justin said, softly. “Each day.”
Nikola blinked, smile turning to wonder. “Truly?”
“Truly. I thought it perhaps as well you were not around, because I was so obsessed with you I was sure to give it away in my behavior.”
“You were always so collected, your manner so easy and casual. Even when we were alone. I never thought you greatly affected,” Nikola said in a voice just as low.
“I’ve been pretending so long that sometimes I think I have forgotten how to stop.” Justin paused, struggling for his next words. I love you. I’ve always loved you. Until I met Wisteria, you were my whole world. How can I know these things are true and yet find them impossible to say aloud? “I have always been attached to you, Nikola.” That was such a profound understatement it felt like an untruth. “Those five months, when I did not know who you were and thought you indifferent to me, I still longed for you. I would imagine returning to East Hansleigh, just to see if you’d changed your mind, if there was anything I could offer to induce you to leave Dremmond’s service for mine. I could not, you know. I could not face harassing you so, not when I felt you had made your wishes clear. But how I wished I might.”
Nikola touched Justin’s hand, where it rested on Wisteria’s stomach. “I…I never thought you could be anything less than confident.”
“One more pretense, my friend.” My love, Justin thought, and could not say it. “My life is full of them. I do not know how the two of you manage to be so honest.” That was dangerously sincere; he ought to leaven it with a joke, but his mind refused to produce one. “Or why you would take up with someone as unaccustomed to truth as myself.”
“It is no virtue in me,” Wisteria said, her arm tightening about Justin’s shoulders. “I’m jealous of you, do you know, my lord? You know just when to be false in order to please the society you are in, and just how far to take it, to ensure no one ever notices it. If I could imitate your manners, I would in a heartbeat.”
“You wrong yourself.” Nikola’s voice was harsh with emotion. “You have played the part others demanded of you, and only deceived those who had no right to the truth. Those who’d condemn you for what they had no business questioning you upon at all.”
“No.” Justin shook his head, straightening to sit upright. “You said it yourself – even with you, with the two of you whom I ought to trust, for whom I care more than anything in the world, I have still clung to my masks. Like an armor I don’t know how to set aside. Let me set it aside for this moment, and tell you: I love you.” He met Nikola’s eyes, tan fingers trembling under pale ones, then looked to Wisteria. “I love you.”
“Oh Justin.” Wisteria caressed his cheek, and she did not smile but Nikola was smiling wide enough for both of them, blinking quickly. She sat up to kiss Justin, with all the warmth and passion her expression never showed. “You are safe with us. We would never betray you.”
“Never,” Nikola promised, kissing his cheek. “I love you too.” They enfolded him fast in their embrace, holding him tightly enough that Justin could almost believe in that safety.
It was the second week of Justin’s stay: Nikola and Wisteria had conspired to persuade him to lengthen his trip beyond the original plan of a single week. Justin was outside, once again exercising before his hosts arose. As he jogged along a wide trail through the hills behind the manor, Fel Fireholt loped up to him from behind, then slowed to fall into stride beside him. “Mind if I join you, Lord Comfrey?”
Justin shrugged. “As you like. Pacing me won’t be much of a workout for you, I daresay.”
“That’s fine. I’m a lot lazier than you anyway.”
They traveled together in silence for half a mile, Justin breathing hard as he ran up the gentle slope of the winding trail, and Fel Fireholt doing little more than a walk to keep up. Justin did not know how to treat Fel Fireholt any more. The greatcat wasn’t Nikola’s employee now, but he still watched out for Nikola as if he had been, and the two often rode together. Nikola treated Fel Fireholt as an equal, a feat which made Justin uneasy and which he could not match. It was wrong somehow, a violation of the social order. Yet the black greatcat had saved his own life, as well as Nikola’s and Wisteria’s. Decency demanded Justin treat him civilly at the minimum.
At length, the greatcat interrupted the silence. “So. Do they know what you’re doing?”
Perplexed, Justin asked, “‘They’?”
“Lord Nik and his wife. Do they each know you’re screwing the other?”
Justin nearly ran into a tree. “What?” He stumbled to a halt as he glared at Fel Fireholt, a dangerous wrath building inside him. “I beg your pardon?” He couldn’t call out a greatcat: it would be suicidal even if it weren’t illegal.
The dark greatcat dropped back a pace, broad shoulders hunching. “Look, I know you humans are weird about mating, and I’ve kept out of this for six years, but…I can’t pretend I haven’t noticed any more. I don’t care what any of you do with each other, really. Ain’t my fur. But if you’re gonna rip Lord Nik’s heart out again and stomp on it, I…kinda…need to know.” He faltered, ducking his head with an incongruously abashed look.
