Page 20 of As Many Stars
But he was none of those. He hadn’t done anything.
He’d written to Cam, upon the strength of desperation. He’d been unable to help Ash on his own. He didn’t even have his usual strength, muscles easily worn out. He could not be seductive or attractive; his hair was too long and he was ill in bed and he sometimes thought about being a lost puppy, in the rain, and how one might care for a small pathetic creature in need but probably not fall in love with it.
He watched Ashley and Cam both do their work to improve the world, to help people; he watched them fall into a sweet familiar shorthand, knowing each other’s routines, fetching a book when Ash’d mentioned wanting it or having strong dark tea waiting when Cam got home, shaking off misty rain. He saw them together, Cam’s arm around Ash when they came into his room.
He could not be angry. That wasn’t the emotion. He loved them both, after all.
He knew it’d be a matter of time before they asked him to go. Before they recognized that they did not need him, in order to be happy.
Ashley, on the seventh day, had a letter from the Royal Antiquarian Society; he came into the bedroom positively glowing, while Blake was napping. He said, “Oh, Cam’s not back yet—I wanted to tell you both…”
“He’ll be back in an hour,” Blake said. “He went outwhile you were in the library with that Oxford scholar. The apothecary.”
“Ah. I’ll tell you both after he’s back, then.”
Blake nodded, because what else could he say? He tried, “Good news, at least?”
“Oh yes.” Ash’s eyes danced. “The best. But you look tired; don’t let me keep you awake, please. You need to rest.”
“I’ve been resting. Tell me something interesting about your poetry?”
“Oh, of course.” Ash settled in on the bed, slippers kicked off, an absentminded literary water-bird come to land. “Would you like to know about the argument—in verse—over whether soft seductive poetry, or, er, explicit and bluntly sexual expressions, would be more effective? There were differing schools of thought, fairly obscenely…”
Blake listened to that light flowing voice, let it fall over him, and knew love like heartbreak. Like those blunt verses: obscene and unmistakable.
At dinner—in the bedroom, on trays, shockingly informal but none of them cared—Ash produced the letter, radiant. “I’ve been invited to give a lecture! To the Society. And to contribute to an exhibition of manuscripts! They’ve read some of my work, and the invitation’s such an honor—”
“And well deserved,” Cam put in, voice rich with praise. “You’re good at what you do. And if they’re any good, they’re recognizing that too.”
“You’re welcome to come, as guests—it’s not for two months, they’ll advertise—” He stopped, buoyant, self-deprecating. “I hope people do come.”
“They will.” Blake knew they would; how could people not respond to Ash’s enthusiasm and intelligence? “And you’ll love it. You’ve missed teaching.”
“Yes…” Ash laughed again, quieter, pleased. “I thought I’dhave to give that up. Not enough time. But this…I can have this. I can do this. I can be a scholar, still—a scholar duke, perhaps. With a library. I could build a library. A proper one, I mean, a whole building. A museum.”
“Congratulations, then,” Cam told him, “and we’ll be right there cheering you on. And a library’s a fine thing.”
It was. Blake saw it unfolding in glittering possibility: Ash’s brilliance, a home for scholars, a section on classics, of course. And no doubt a medical textbook wing.
The next day he managed, from bed, to look over Ashley’s accounting for the estate and the income, and to fix the mathematics, because Ash was a genius with words but less so about adding multiple columns in the correct order. He got away with that because Cam was working and Ash was meeting with the Oxford scholar again, selecting texts for the lecture; nobody ordered him to rest and not be productive, so he summoned Baynes and the ledgers.
He couldn’t change the world or save lives. But he was decent at mathematics. And that might make Ash’s life, and library project, easier. In the future.
He also asked young Peter to run over to his own house and bring back his last travel journals, water-stained, sand-scuffed. After all, his publisher wanted the next memoir.
The next adventures of the Earl of Thorns. Exotic places and sensual encounters. Theatre adaptations, prints, fleeting fame. Sensational, improbable tales. An object of fascination, but only that, easily consumed and forgettable. Definitely not morally or physically improving in any way.
He poked at his own notes, gingerly. He was engaged in doing that when Cam finally got home and Ashley emerged. Ash asked what he’d been up to, all afternoon, and apologized for leaving him alone; Blake said, “You should know the Earl of Thorns doesn’t need assistance for entertainment,” and aimedfor his best grin. Didn’t quite make it. He’d have to try harder. “You’re busy with your lecture.”
“Well, but you’re still important.”
“Only reading my own notes. How’re the manuscripts?”
“Magnificent!” Ash launched into a discussion of fragments and scribal hands and what would make a good candidate for the exhibition. Blake nibbled a bite of chicken, listening.
He saw Cam looking at him, eyebrows tilted. Blake looked away, at Ash and all the excitement.
He knew he should go. He knew it was a matter of time. He could not help wishing he could stay, but he had not ever had a home, not since he’d been old enough to understand how much his father hated him; this space, this house, this impossible daydream, would not be any different. And at least he’d done one good thing: he’d brought Ash and Cam together.
