Page 1 of Marked Out with Greater Brightness

Chapter 1

April 1816

Doctor Cameron Fraser knew how to set a bone, sew up a wound, treat a fever. He wrote a clear hand—unlike several physician colleagues he could name—and he liked to think he was a good judge of horses and whisky and men’s desires.

He gazed at both his companions, across the velvet expanse of the fancy carriage. He was the tallest, and did not mind riding backward; both Ash and Blake had offered to trade at the last stop. Cam had shaken his head.

Ash—Ashley Linden, the Duke of Auburndale, and wasn’t that something, and only the half of it—hadn’t noticed Cam’s attention, being buried in a book. Ashley, given a volume of poetry, would not notice a thundering avalanche; Cam had come to understand as much, this past month. He felt the tug of his own smile, faint and fond, at the sight of Ash’s bent head, white-blond as precious metals.

Ash had been coughing, these few days on the road, but only infrequently. Recovering, Cam thought: not fully there, not as yet, but on the way. Professional evaluation, joined with personal hope.

Framed by the luxurious sky-blue hangings of the Auburndale carriage—expensive, and not in fact Ash’s choice, and that was complicated too—Blake Thornton tilted a dark wicked slash of eyebrow in Cam’s direction. He said nothing; the question hovered, though, in his face.

For someone with that height of debauched and decadent reputation, Blake possessed perhaps the keenest awareness of emotion Cam had ever met. Sometimes that insight swung around and sliced into Blake’s own heart, because Blake Thornton, Earl of Wildborough, was made of martyrdom and self-sacrificial impulses and a hidden sweetness like bruised rainbows, layered with indigo submission and rose-pink shy desire to be good enough.

Sometimes that insight—which made Blake such a brilliant writer, an author of bestselling travel and adventure memoirs—got extremely focused upon the people Blake loved. Ashley, for one, especially when Ash had been so ill. And, at the moment, Cam himself.

He sighed. “I’m fine, lad.”

“Of course you are,” Blake said. “Which is why you’re looking at us as if you’re surprised we’re here.” His hair was too long, rakishly so: witch-black and romantic and alluring, like all the portraits, all the painted plates and engravings, celebrating the ton’s dashing and scandalous Earl of Thorns. None of the portraits, nor the silly embroidered pillows Cam had seen in at least three drawing rooms, did him justice.

None of the portraits and pillows knew Blake the way he did. Him and Ash.

He said, “Just admiring the view.” True, though not the whole truth; Blake knew it, he guessed, from the slight narrowing of those pirate’s eyes. “A very nice view it is.”

Ash looked up, finger in place in the poetry. He was dressed well, in shades of green and fawn, complementing the woods-fairy prettiness; but the clothing remained too large, given his thinness. “Are we appreciating Blake? If so, I’m very in favor.”

“We’re not appreciating me,” Blake retorted, instant self-dismissal for which Cam should probably spank him later; but then Blake actually managed to get up, in a moving carriage, and to kneel more or less gracefully at Cam’s feet. On the spot. Heedless of fine buckskins and fashionable clothing and the jouncing of the carriage.

On both knees, between Cam’s tall boots, he was a portrait of temptation. A fallen angel, but not a tragedy. A surrender to love, instead. Face upturned for a benediction.

Despite the carriage and jostling, the arousal shot silver down Cam’s spine. Hot and stiffening. His beautiful Blake, at his feet. And Ashley looking over with that firework smile.

He put out a hand, stroked Blake’s hair, reveled in the feel. Blake made a pleased sound; Cam sighed again. “That floor’s not comfortable, aye?—Come up here.”

Blake did, tucking himself in along Cam’s side, though he had enough space to do otherwise. Cam put an arm round him.

Ash put the book properly down this time. Scooted to the edge of his own seat. Held out a hand. “Is everything all right?”

“And why wouldn’t it be?” He let Ash hold his hand in those long chilly scholar’s fingers. He knew that’d make Ashley smile, and it did.

He knew he was being evasive. He felt older, abruptly: aware of the nine years between himself and the two newly found pillars of his heart, both of whom were twenty-eight and adorable.

He glanced out the window: at the lowering sun, the rumbling roads, the familiarity. Scotland. The way to Edinburgh. Home, or no longer home, or the place that’d once been home. Wild heather, rough hills, shades of lavender and gold. The lift and cry of the pipes, though that was only in memory, buried deep. In his soul, built of old stones and amber whisky and the clean medicinal air of his doctor’s practice, which he’d left to come to London, a favor for an old family friend.

He’d be leaving all over again, a fortnight from now. Fourteen days, and it’d be for good; and the awful burn of old grief swept in out of nowhere behind his eyes. Hugh, he thought; Hugh, I’m sorry, I’m leaving you—

He knew Hugh would’ve laughed. Would’ve kissed him, and told him to go and be happy. To take all the joy he’d been given, the miracle of it.

He was happy. He knew he was. In love, astonishingly so, and beloved. This was not a betrayal, not an insult to Hugh’s memory; that wasn’t the emotion.

Blake sat up a bit, from under his arm. “I remember your rooms. I remember those bed-posts.”

Cam had to laugh, which Blake had no doubt intended. “Surprised you recall the details. Awfully sweet for me, weren’t you, that night? All surrendering and needy.”

“Oh, I recall quite a few details.” Blake’s grin was utterly sinful. No wonder Society fluttered and gasped and gossiped about the Earl of Thorns; they had no idea, of course. No knowing of even the slightest of it. “Your hands. Those ropes. That cane.”

Ashley outright raised a hand. “Do I get to hear this story?”

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