Page 1 of Vanquished By A Viscount
Prologue
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY – SPRING, 1833
Lord Charles Aspenden, Viscount Broxbourne woke slowly, drawing in a long breath as he stretched, then immediately holding it. Straight out of slumber, his heart began to race and his muscles tensed. The new day had dawned, and with it, a thousand choices roared at him from all sides.
It seemed incongruous that his hired rooms near the River Cam were peaceful and sunny with morning light. Outside, birds were singing and the comforting sounds of tradesmen and ordinary people going about their business filled the air. That spring had been balmy and drier than usual, lending everything a paradisal glow. And in the bed beside him, the warm, lithe form of his lover pressed against his side, one arm thrown over his chest.
Charlie turned his head to take in the sight of Grayson Hawthorne’s sleeping face. Gray always looked supremely innocent in sleep. His dark hair was a mess, and his almost cherubic features were relaxed and sweet in slumber. Gray was innocent in a great many ways, or at least had been.
Charlie let himself smile tentatively and turned to his side so he could watch his sweetheart and stroke a hand gently over Gray’s arm and down his side.
Grayson Hawthorne. Second son of the Earl of Felcourt. Scholar, dreamer, and until the autumn of the year before, wide-eyed novice to the world of Uranian pleasure that Charlie had introduced them to when their friendship had caught fire and burned into so much more. Gray was the most beautiful thing Charlie had ever seen with his dark, perpetually tousled hair, his high cheekbones, blue eyes, and sensual mouth. That mouth could talk up an eager storm, but Charlie had taught his lover to use it in much more exciting ways as well.
Not that Charlie’d had much more experience in the sins of the flesh than Gray when they’d met. He’d always been aware of his preference for the other boys rather than the girls of his acquaintance. One of the footmen in the unruly house his negligent father had run before exiting the world at an early age had caught on to that preference and schooled Charlie in the way of things. But other than Tommy, and the upperclassman from his first year at Trinity College, who had turned him over a desk a time or two and taught him the benefits of a bit of well-placed grease, Charlie hadn’t been half as promiscuous as many of his other aristocratic classmates.
Until Grayson had come along.
Gray stirred in his sleep, shivering a bit at Charlie’s touch and snuggling closer to him with an erotic hum. Charlie’s heart raced harder and his smile turned strained. His body, as always, reacted strongly to his gorgeous lover as blood rushed to his cock, but the way Charlie’s heart felt too large for his chest was terrifying. It whispered of powerful emotions he was not quite ready to embrace fully at his age and situation.
“Good morning,” Gray mumbled, pressing his lips against Charlie’s shoulder and reaching for his half-hard cock. “You’re up early.”
Charlie laughed slightly. “Which implication of those words do you mean?” he asked.
Gray glanced up at him, his sleepy eyes half open, a wicked grin tugging at his mouth. “Both,” he said, then promptly disappeared beneath the bedcovers.
Charlie gasped as Gray pushed him to his back, spread his thighs apart, then settled himself between them, his mouth teasing its way around his groin. He groaned lightly as Gray cupped and tugged his balls, nuzzling him until he found the base of his cock. Gray drew his tongue slowly up Charlie’s length, then tormented him by suckling just his flared tip.
Charlie gripped the headboard behind him and closed his eyes, reveling in the pleasure Gray gave him. When they’d first come together, Gray was hesitant and overexcited about everything. He’d had no idea what he was doing, but he’d been a fast learner. Now, eight months on, Gray was insatiable, and Charlie loved him for it.
Charlie loved him. The swell of powerful, terrifying emotion that swept through him at the notion was nearly enough to wither his erection, despite Gray’s mouth teasing him to the point of dripping. Having a lover was one thing. Falling desperately in love with the man was a different thing entirely. Men could not fall in love with other men, not without risk of losing everything, including their life. Charlie’s title could only go so far to protect him.
The title could only go so far to protect Barbara as well.
Thoughts of his sister nearly deflated Charlie again. It was only the two of them and had been since their father did them the immense favor of dying three years before. Their mother had died in childbirth along with their baby brother twelve years ago,when Barbara was only two. Even before their father had died, Charlie was solely responsible for Barbara. It had pained him to leave her behind while he went away to university, even though she professed to be happy with their cousins in Lancashire.
Despite everything, Barbara was a happy, sprightly girl, nearly a young woman now. She had delighted Charlie’s peers at Cambridge when she’d come to visit during the frosty winter months earlier that year. As chance would have it, she’d charmed Gray’s older brother, Robert, as well, though Robert was nearly ten years her senior. He probably should have exerted his brotherly authority to forbid Barbara from corresponding with Robert, but Robert swore he had only innocent intentions, and Charlie had been so preoccupied with getting Gray’s cock down his throat that he’d allowed the acquaintance to continue.
Still, he should have paid closer attention to Barbara’s welfare and the society she kept. The two of them were all the other had in the world, and he?—
“Are you certain you’re quite well,” Gray asked suddenly. He threw the bedcovers back over his head, treating Charlie to the sight of his impish, pink-cheeked face and wet, red lips in very close proximity to his flagging erection.
Such a wicked and hedonistic sight blasted thoughts of Barbara and his myriad responsibilities right out of Charlie’s head and sent blood back to where it should have been with his lover between his thighs.
“I am well,” Charlie reassured him, brushing his fingers through Gray’s hair.
“Good,” Gray said. “Because I am putting quite a bit of effort into slobbing this nob, and I should like to be rewarded with a mouthful of ambrosia, if you please.”
Charlie burst into a smile. “Go on, then,” he said, thrusting his hips up slightly.
With a cheeky wink, Gray went back to his task. Charlie caught his breath then moaned it out at the renewal of pleasure that shot through him.
It had almost been humorous, the way Gray had gone from being convinced he was as ordinary a man as any to throwing himself onto the altar of Ganymede. The two of them together had been as fervent as satyrs since their first kiss, making use of whatever dark corner or cupboard they could find when need claimed them.
Perhaps a bit too much, if Charlie were honest. He’d lost track of the number of times the two of them had nearly been caught. There were only so many innocent excuses a man could come up with to explain why he and a friend might step out of an empty storage room with red lips, their clothing askew.
More worrying than that, Gray had taken to making extremely thinly-veiled references to the two of them as a couple at inappropriate times. Charlie was happy to be with Gray, but surely the man must know that to divulge the true nature of their relationship to the world was madness.
There was a chance Gray did not know. Though the two of them were of an age at nearly twenty, Charlie had often thought himself to be the more worldly and mature of the two. Grayson had been raised by a loving family in a pastoral part of Kent, sheltered from the darker aspects of life. Charlie could not say the same.
