Page 4 of As Many Stars
He looked at himself in the long glass, the one he’d placed near the bed for even more decadence.
He thought of Ash, made of starlight and knowledge, old books and parchment and simple unthinking goodness.
He looked away.
He went out. He walked briskly. Matching the sharpness of the morning.
The early hour meant that not much of the ton was up and stirring, but a few whispers followed him: Blake Thornton, back from the latest new country or new conquest or both. Striding down the street with uncouth roughness and speed. Dark and dangerous. In need of a hair-trim.
Blake heard the tap of his boots upon pavement, felt thescratch of his own annoyance—didn’t the whisperers have any more pressing topics of discussion?—and realized that, in fact, it was his own fault. He’d made himself a story.
He had even wanted that. Or he’d thought he had.
Right now, this morning, he wasn’t sure why. A shocking immoral reputation wasn’t important. Ash was. Caring for Ash was.
He turned a corner. Someone was out, after all, at this unfashionable hour; a carriage had drawn up at the home of the Duke and Duchess of Straithern. Blake noted that fact idly, without thinking much about it; but then the person got out of the carriage, and a long greatcoat swung, and burly shoulders took up space across the world, and that smoky red hair was too long for fashion, and that familiar lochs-and-hillsides voice was saying kind words to a driver—
Blake froze mid-step. Worlds, universes, desires colliding.
HisCam. Here. Carrying a doctor’s bag, turning toward the tall golden townhouse under pewter-colored skies.
Cam saw him, too. And so many expressions crowded through those green eyes, too many to count: shock, wariness, curiosity, something like affection, perhaps even pleasure—sharpening to sudden concern, as that gaze kindled—
Blake could not face concern, not for him, not so raw and true. He fled.
Not literally. He did not run.
But he did cross the street. He needed to do that in any case, eventually.
He did not have any memory of crossing the street, after. Nor of ducking around a neatly manicured corner.
He forced his breathing to slow. Tried to tell his heart to ease. The tall houses with their matching stone steps, freshly brushed, surrounded him with conventional societal judgment.
It was too much. So much. Such want, safe when far away, now landing here at home. Guilt—because he loved Ash, of course he did, but Cam—the way that’d felt, that sure and heavy anchor—and now Cam was here, no doubt attending to someone ill in the Straithern household, and that meant they wereallhere, Cam and Ash and Blake himself—
The thunderclap of it battered him. He fought not to crumple under the weight of all his own stories.
When he breathed, the air tasted brittle. Crisp. Biting, in his lungs.
He needed to make certain Ashley was well. That was a truth, amidst the tempests. He clung to it.
Ash’s butler—not a footman—let him in before Blake had even knocked. Baynes possessed an even more dour droop of shoulders than usual, and intoned dolefully, “Good to see you, sir…” while shutting the door.
Blake stopped walking. “How is he?”
“Not well, sir. In fact—” They both heard it. The coughing. Echoing. Freezing the hall, Blake’s bones, Blake’s blood.
“Hewouldget up,” Baynes said, “and we couldn’t argue, but…perhaps you can persuade him, sir…he listens to you…”
“He’d damned well better.” Mountain-climber’s legs. Multiple stairsteps at once. Ash’s study. Slamming the door open. Aware of firelight, heat, Ash’s startled sound at the forcefulness.
Blake snapped, “Get back in bed, you’re not well—” and stomped into the room. He’d use all his muscles to haul Ash bodily back to bed if he had to.
Except he might not have to. Because Ashley, face pale, had taken a step, begun coughing again, and—
And lost his balance, and fell to the carpet. Right there. On both knees.
Chapter 3
