Page 21 of As Many Stars
That was a good story. They would be so happy. They already were.
He nudged the chicken around on his plate, set down his fork.
Ash cut himself off to say, “Are you feeling well? You look tired. It’s not worse—a relapse…”
“No,” Blake said hastily. “No. Only tired. Like you said.”
“I’m thinking I should look at you.” Cam’s eyebrows drew together, expressive red thunderclouds. “You’re having headaches, again?”
“No. I’m fine.”
“Still your doctor,” Cam said, “and I—we—love you, lad. In case you’d forgot that part.”
“Thank you,” Blake said, “I love you, of course I do, I’m just thinking about the next book. My publisher. It’s not important; I can finish whenever I want. I might need to meet with them, though. To give them some sort of timeline. Maybetomorrow.”
“If you’re well enough,” Ash said. “You can have your meeting here. I could stay with you.”
“You don’t need to do that. You’re busy.”
“I have to see Margaret in the morning,” Cam said, “but I can come back early…I’m thinking I should in any case.”
“No, don’t. It’s all right, really, I’m only being self-indulgent now.” He conjured up his best lazy seductive rake performance. “Lying around in your bed. Taking advantage of you, when I’ve got a house right there. Your bed’s nicer, I’ll admit.”
They both gazed at him dubiously. But just then Peter came in with a note—the Duchess had been feeling unwell, and requested Cam’s attendance, if he could—and dinner ended in a flurry of Cam ducking out into the rain and Ash finding the housekeeper to give instructions about ordering more of Cam’s favorite tea, since they were going through it.
Blake ran a hand over the leather of his topmost journal, feeling salt, memories, stories to hide in. Ireland, he thought. Greece. Turkey. Someplace he hadn’t been. Someplace believable, if he said he was feeling restless.
As they were getting into bed that night, Cam’s arm around Blake on one side, Cam’s other arm around Ash, Ash’s long limbs draped across Cam to find Blake, Ash murmured, “You fixed my household accounts.”
“You were being overcharged for candles.”
“You were supposed to be resting.”
“It’s not hard. You just can’t add numbers.”
“I can add,” Ash protested. “There are too many columns.”
“You,” Cam said softly, “weren’t going to tell us you’d done that, were you, Blake?”
Blake shifted in the bed, or tried to. Cam held him. Hesaid, “It’s not anything significant. You could have a steward do it. Or Baynes.”
Cam exhaled, a loch-tinted grumble of air. “We should talk, lad. In the morning.” His arm cradled Blake close; his chest was large and solid, with that familiar masculine fuzz of red hair.
In the morning Cam would go out to see clients, and Ash would be working on a new act of scholarly amazement; but Blake did not say that. Instead he said, “You feel good here; I always thought you did,” and tucked his face into Cam’s shoulder.
“Good.” Cam kissed the top of his head, turned to kiss Ash. “You keep thinking that, feeling good, then.”
Chapter 12
Blake was right about the morning, though wrong about the afternoon. He’d managed to get up and dressed, in at-home trousers and a loose linen shirt; Peter had brought some of his clothing. He’d lost some weight, being ill; the trousers almost fit well enough again, over his thighs.
He was sitting in the small study, flipping through his journals, making desultory notes on how best to organize chapters—Murray, his publisher, would be in ecstasies over the length and therefore price of this volume—when both Ashley and Cam appeared, framed by the white lines and slate-blue rug and botanical prints of the room. The sun was out, mostly, skittering in and around clouds; the room hadn’t needed a fire today. It warmed more with their presence: white-gold and auburn-dark, Ash’s slender owlish elegance and Cam’s broad shoulders, the prettiness of Ash’s chin and the mature grey flecks in Cam’s hair.
Blake set his notes aside quickly, in case they needed him to move. “You’re home early.”
“We need to talk to you.” Ash had a hand in Cam’s, Blake noticed, as they came up to him: unremarked, as if they did so often. “Well, first, we should say—we think we’ve worked this out, you know, we were thinking about it. How this could work.”
So this was it. The limits of his time. The portion of the story he’d been allotted. Blake nodded.
