Page 32 of Vanquished By A Viscount
“Precisely,” Gray said with a nod. “We are grown men. We entered into a contract of sorts. We fulfilled the terms of the contract. That is all.”
“That is all,” Charlie echoed.
He dragged his eyes up to meet Gray’s at last.
A thousand memories, both wonderful and painful, assailed him like a thunderous breeze bashing open the windows and pummeling him. Charlie was his first love and still the only one who had actually meant anything. But did he mean anything now or was this just another dalliance to quash a deeper longing?
Charlie cleared his throat. “We’d best retreat to our own rooms now,” he said. “It was a tiring day.”
“Indeed, indeed,” Gray said, making no move to leave, nor to cover himself from Charlie’s hungry gaze. “Of course, you are already in your room,” he added lamely.
“Yes, quite,” Charlie said. He glanced up again, as his stare had once more returned to Gray’s dangling bits. “Unless…that is….”
“I should be going,” Gray spoke overtop of whatever enticing thing Charlie might say next. “The footman serving as my valet will talk in the morning if I am not abed when he arrives.”
In fact, Paul likely already knew where Gray was and what he was doing, particularly since the wily young man was a newly minted member of The Brotherhood himself.
“Right,” Gray said when the silence between them dragged on too long. He turned and began to gather his clothing to dress. “Tomorrow night, then?” he added because he couldn’t resist confirming that their passion would repeat itself.
Blessedly, Charlie repeated, “Tomorrow night,” with a good deal of fervor in his voice.
Charlie stood and assisted Gray in retrieving his clothing from the floor. He donned his trousers and slipped into his shirt so that he could walk Gray to the door and see him out into the hall like a gentleman.
Only after he’d stepped into the hallway did it occur to Gray that he should have ascertained whether anyone was there to observe them. Thankfully, the halls of Hawthorne House werequiet. It was not particularly late, but the day had been trying for everyone, and it was likely the entire party was already tucked into bed, attempting to put the miserable day behind them.
Gray stepped across to grasp the handle of his own door, but instead of marching straight through and putting what was likely necessary distance between him and Charlie, he turned back for one last look at the man who had just given him the best evening in recent memory.
Charlie continued to stand in his doorway, watching Gray with what Gray could only describe as longing in his eyes. Gray was certain he could see words resting on Charlie’s lips, see a slight lean toward him, a lift of one of Charlie’s hands that might indicate his old lover would beg him to come back and spend the night in his arms.
Indeed, Gray hesitated on the threshold of his room. He opened his mouth but had no idea what to say. Did he want to return to Charlie’s arms? Yes, if he was honest with himself, he did. He’d never been so happy, never felt so safe as he once did sleeping in Charlie’s embrace. But did he want to risk having his heart torn to shreds if Charlie chose to cast him off again? Absolutely not.
“Well,” he said, sending Charlie what he hoped was a cocky smile.
“Well,” Charlie repeated, slightly deflated, as if his courage had failed him.
Sod it, Gray wanted him. He wanted more than just a quick, rough tup over the edge of the bed. He wanted?—
Before he could do something foolish, like fly across the hall and back into Charlie’s arms, a door flew open at the far end of the hall and Barbara marched out, sobbing and shaking.
“Barbara, please,” Robert called after her, following her out of their room, radiating impatience. “I did not mean it that way at all.”
Gray and Charlie leapt back into their respective thresholds, eyes wide with shock, both at the scene that had suddenly interrupted their moment and at their moment itself. Gray’s heart was already hammering, but it reached a new intensity as Barbara rushed toward them.
“What is the matter?” Charlie asked, his expression of confused ardor replaced by frowning, brotherly concern.
Barbara’s sobs intensified, and she ran to her brother, throwing herself into Charlie’s embrace. Gray winced, not so much out of jealousy for his sister-in-law doing precisely what he’d just been contemplating, but out of fear that evidence of his and Charlie’s earlier activities would be visually and olfactorily apparent.
“What has happened?” Gray asked Robert, stepping slightly down the hall toward his brother, though he did not for a moment believe that putting distance between himself and Charlie would distract Robert from guessing what his own drama had interrupted.
If Robert did guess the truth, he was too preoccupied with his own concerns as he met Gray a few feet down the hall from where Charlie was attempting to comfort a sobbing Barbara. “We quarreled,” he said in a flat voice, staring at the back of his wife’s head. “Barbara is out of sorts because of the day’s disappointments.”
“They would not have been disappointments if you had supported me more fully,” Barbara said, half turning out of Charlie’s arms to shout at Robert.
“Please, my dear,” Robert hissed, glancing up and down the hall. “You will wake the others.”
“Oh, you know no one else is lodged on this hallway at present,” Barbara said as if it was a great sin for Robert to forget. “Richard is spending the summer in Scotland and Ernestine is in Shropshire with Lady Rodington, or more specifically, with herbrother. Your youngest siblings are in Paris with your mother, and you can see that Charlie and Gray are already awake, probably due to your incessant and unforgivable scolding of me.”
Gray saw a minute look of relief pass over Charlie’s face before indignation replaced it. “Have you been scolding my sister?” he asked Robert.
