Page 44 of Seduced By a Scoundrel

Jeremy seemed to have shrunk in on himself, in all likelihood both because of his appearance and because Cecil was so far above him in class.

Derrek turned back to Cecil and addressed him as the friend he was. “We’re in need of a room so that we might clean up, and perhaps sleep for a bit.”

Cecil glanced between the two of them, his brow lifting in question. “Will that be one room or two?” he asked carefully.

Derrek turned back to Jeremy, no idea how to answer. If it were solely up to him, he would request one room. His earlier intentions to continue what had been interrupted the morning before were still there. But Jeremy was clearly put out with him, and he had no idea where that left him.

Jeremy didn’t help with the question either. He glanced at Derrek, gaze intent, as if he were as interested in the question as Cecil was.

Finally, Derrek sighed, rubbed a hand over his face, and said, “Do you have any of the larger suites available? And I hate to trouble you, but it would be easier if you sent up two baths.”

Cecil’s mouth twitched into a lopsided smile and he said, “I will see to it at once.”

There was a bit of faffing as some of the club’s servants were called and as Cecil sought out the key to the suite Derrek had requested. Jeremy remained silent through it all, his weariness from their sudden journey becoming more apparent by the moment. Derrek was grateful when they were finally taken up to the room on the second floor, and when tubs were brought up a short time later and filled with warm water.

It was not until he and Jeremy had stripped and seated themselves facing each other in the two tubs, which had been placed side by side near the fire, after the servants had taken most of their clothing to launder and left them with robes and clean, borrowed clothing instead, that their earlier conversation resumed.

“I feel as though you are treating me like an object you’ve placed on the shelf and intend to keep there,” Jeremy said, scrubbing soap over his body but not meeting Derrek’s eyes. His assessment was uncannily like the thoughts Derrek had had earlier. “But I cannot fathom whether that means you believe the two of us are together or if, after all this time, you think of me as nothing more than your charge, to be protected and sheltered.”

Derrek sighed, knowing the matter would be raised between them at some point. He told himself he should be grateful that everything was being brought to the fore immediately.

“I do not think of you as an object,” he said, looking at Jeremy and waiting for his dove to look back at him. “I would very much like for us to be together.”

Jeremy snapped his eyes up from the water to meet Derrek’s. “We are together,” he said, though by his tone, it sounded more like a question.

“I would like us to be,” Derrek repeated. “Much of that depends on your thoughts on the matter.”

Derrek watched the tension of Jeremy’s reaction to those words and noted the moment when whatever tether Jeremy had kept his temper on snapped.

“If we are together, then you should have informed me of your investigation when we were in the country,” he said in a burst. “If we are together, then you should trust me and include me in matters that pertain to my own safety, not treat me like a child who cannot comprehend the world they are a part of.”

“I never treated you as a?—”

“If we are together, then you should have kept me more informed of your discoveries. Are there other things you have not told me?” Jeremy demanded.

Derrek clenched his jaw, holding his breath for a moment as he debated how much Jeremy needed to know and whether the truth would upset him too much. Of course, he could not hide anything from his lover now.

He huffed out his breath and said, “I did not merely walk around the manor house at Maidstone Close a few weeks back as I told you. I went inside and spoke to the servants to inquire about Lord Linton, Lord Albert, and any connection they might have to Conroy.”

“You went inside the house and spoke to its servants and you did not tell me?” Jeremy asked, voice raised.

“You were already upset with me for returning late to the cottage.”

“You could have said something once I was calm,” Jeremy chastised him.

“I did not want to disturb your peace. You were happy working with Miss Jones,” Derrek defended himself, growing impatient with Jeremy’s peevish mood. It was likely that the man was merely tired and overwrought from their journey and unable to proceed rationally, but that did not help soothe his hurt feelings at being questioned with such accusation. “The two of us visiting the house together would only have raised suspicion with the servants there.”

“You could have told me about your interviews with the servants sooner,” Jeremy said, slumping back in his tub and sloshing a bit of water over the edge.

“To what end?” Derrek asked. “I discovered nothing of any great importance, though there was evidence that someone had gone through the desk drawers in Linton’s study. I could not know with any certainty who that might have been. You did not need to know about the investigation.”

“I am your—” Jeremy stopped, pressing his lips together and glaring at Derrek for a moment, as if he did not know what word to affix to the relationship between the two of them. “We are meant to tell each other everything, are we not?”

Derrek’s shoulders dropped. Joseph had said something to that effect once in their time together. Lovers of the sort they’d been, of the sort he wanted to be with Jeremy, did not keep secrets from each other. But there was a vast world of difference between keeping secrets and failing to mention the dull minutia of their professions.

“Did you tell me about every petticoat you stitched or every farmwife who requested a May Day gown from you and Miss Jones?” he fired back in return, though he knew full well it was not the wisest tactic for him to employ.

“The goings on of Miss Jones’s shop were not matters of life and death for you,” Jeremy argued. “Anything you might have discovered in the house of the man who was and likely still is trying to kill me very much is.”

---