Page 12 of As Many Stars
Blake said, “What?”
“Oh, nothing, lad, just thinking about some things I didn’t know, then…”
“Well, don’t. There’s not much to know, anyway. Shallow. Like the puddles. Ashley?”
“I’m fine, only tired…”
“It’s all right.” Cam put a hand on Blake’s shoulder. “He can sleep, for a bit. Healing. More of that tincture, in an hour or two. For the fever.”
“Thank you,” Blake said. “Thank you.”
In the night, in the sickroom, the world moved like a dream. Ashley sleeping, fitfully. The scents of barks and herbs and firelight and the strong dark pot of tea Cam had requested. Rolled-up shirtsleeves and spare towels. Cool cloths to keep Ash’s temperature down. Water for hydration, when Ash was awake and sipping medicine as well. Honey, dribbled into the mixture. Every small detail distilled, crystallized, spun out in sugar and fear.
Blake’s head ached with tiredness, with secrets, with the knowledge that he could only do whatever he could do, and it would not be good enough. If someone saved Ash it’d be Cam. If Ash woke, healed, they might still be friends, or they might not; and then Cam would leave.
And he did not want that either. He wanted Cam to hold him again, the way those muscular arms had on a wintry night in ruthlessly spartan physician’s rooms, a shield and a salve for bruises and a kiss brushed against Blake’s forehead.
Cam watched him pour another cup of tea—theirs; Ash was sleeping—and then watched him more, evaluative, as Blake held it out. Cam said, “For me, then?”
“For you.” Blake sat down, or more accurately collapsed into a chair. The pretty style was deceptive; the furniture’s bones were hearty. “There’s enough for one more cup, I think, when you want it.”
Cam nudged over a tasseled footstool. Sat down upon it. Somehow remained effortlessly powerful, evaluating the night and Blake and every bit of scientific observation. He’d tossed the greatcoat over a chair-arm. His waistcoat was dark and sober; the folds of his sleeves were no longer neat. His forearms were strong, taut with muscle. “He doesn’t know about your inclinations, does he? Or should I say, ours.”
“No. I don’t know. I think he suspects.” Blake had the oddest impulse to move, to get out of the chair, to stop being taller than Cam. His bones had become pure weariness. The headache carved silver sickle-slices behind his eyes. “It’s complicated. Or not. As far as inclinations…I like…I don’t know. Everything, that way.”
“Everything.”
“You know what I do like.” He shut his eyes, opened them. “The role. It’s not so much about whether it’s men, or women, or…any sort of anatomy. It’s about…” He was tired, and he hurt everywhere, and he was talking and he could not seem to stop. Cam was gazing at him, and the gaze was a silent order, and Blake whispered, “I just want that, what you did for me, I want to feel like someone—like I’m someone’s, I can be someone’s, I can be good, I can be whatever you need from me, please just use me, please tell me I’m worth using,” and then he put a hand over his own mouth, because he had not meant to say that, to confess that. Behind the hand, he said, “Pretend I didn’t say that.”
“Oh, lad.” Cam got up from the footstool, set the tea down on the closest table, came over to him. “You’re so lonely, aren’t you? And I thought, when you turned up in Edinburgh…famous traveler, writer, and all…I thought you’d be different. Morearrogant. If I’d thought about it at all.”
Blake tipped his head back to look up. “You knew who I was?”
“Of course I did. Read your first book, didn’t I? Saw some watercolors, sketches, all that. Even up in Scotland, you know, we heard about the Earl of Thorns and his exploits.”
“Oh God,” Blake said, and put his head in his hands, and rubbed his temples in the hope that’d make the headache less. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? You were lovely. And if I was surprised, well, I was. What with all the ladies, respectable and otherwise, in your books. But then I wasn’t surprised, just about as soon as I’d met you.” Cam paused. “Headache?”
“A little. It’s fine.” He dropped the hands. “What does that mean, as soon as you met me?”
“Well, for one, the way you looked at me, in the rain.” Cam grinned at him, though the grin came tinged with rue. “I thought…I don’t know what I thought. I wanted to…take you home, I suppose. Someplace safe, where I could give you what you needed, and maybe hold you, after.”
“I wanted that,” Blake admitted: truth, here and now, in this space beyond time. This bubble of existence, in an endless night full of him and Cam and Ash’s sleeping form. “I want that. The way that felt, with you…”
“And you’ve got him here at home.”
“I don’t. He doesn’t—it’s not…”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not true for you.”
“I don’t know what I want.” He heard his own voice, too rough. “I don’tknow. I want—but I know I can’t—and then you were here, you’rehere, and I feel—the way you help people, the way you know people, I saw you again this morning and I…” He fought the emotions, nearly lost. “I can’t think about it right now. I don’t have room.”
At that exact second Ash stirred, mumbled something incoherent, went still. Blake bolted up; Cam was already in motion.
Not good. Warmer. Thatworse, stampeding in. The night was more than half over. Dawn, soon enough.
Cam put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re all right. I’ve seen this before; it’s progressing right on schedule, as it were. Nothing unexpected. You should get some rest.”
