An Improper Holiday (8 page)
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Authors: K.A. Mitchell
his sister’s perverse sense of humor. Charlotte had been at her worst, simpering as she asked Nicky to fetch her a cup of rack punch, and then to engage in minute adjustments of the fire screen to suit her comfort.
Each of her demands wrought darker and darker looks from her brother until Nicky thought he’d enjoy
strangling the blasted chit. Couldn’t she see the way Ian was tying himself into knots of guilt because he thought Charlotte had truly set her cap at his lover?
When Charlotte asked Nicky if he would be so gracious as to retrieve her fan from the gaming table,
Ian popped to his feet as if the sofa’s upholstery were afire. Nicky just had time to gift Charlotte with both fan and glare before Ian bowed. “A word, Lord Amherst?”
Nicky snatched up a candle before following Ian through the doors.
Why the hell had Nicky’s mother settled on winter as a good time for a lengthy house party? The foul
weather meant that there was no sure retreat from an out-of-control game of blind man’s bluff or another guest seeking a change of scenery. Or from Nicky’s budding spymaster siblings. Nicky thought of bringing Ian up to the nursery since the twins had no doubt abandoned it in search of damaging information they could use to extort money from unsuspecting guests.
“Do you mind if we walk?” Nicky set off at a brisk pace toward the south end of the gallery. He’d
only gained a few yards when Ian stayed him with his hand.
“What are your intentions toward my sister?”
“Your sister? How can you even ask that after last night?”
Ian resumed walking. “I know you will soon wish to marry.”
“Wish to?”
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“Must, then. But Charlotte has no female relation to advise her save Rayne’s wife and she is unable to travel.”
“I am afraid I have lost the trail, Ian.”
“What I mean is, Charlotte is not well-versed in the way things are done. She was gently reared.”
Nicky fought back a bark of laughter until it turned to a cough. Ian’s look of concern only made him
cough harder until he was forced to lean against the wall next to the painting of the third marquess.
“Perhaps you should get out of the chill,” Ian said.
“I’m fine. A little desperate for a proper meal, but well enough to sustain further conversation.”
“Very well. I simply do not wish to see Charlotte hurt.”
“I believe your sister may have depths which remain hidden even from those who know her well.”
Ian nodded as if he understood. “I only recently discovered she is quite fond of Shakespeare’s
comedies.”
This time Nicky thought the effort to suppress his laughter would lead to genuine asphyxiation. He
assumed a serious expression. “Let me see if I have this full. You insist that I marry, when you know that any woman will of necessity find herself neglected since I will always choose to take my affections
elsewhere, yet you balk at this lucky woman being your sister.”
Ian paused, mouth slightly agape. Unassailable logic. It would always be Ian’s defeat.
“Well, yes,” Ian said at last.
“Perhaps I won’t marry.”
“But you must. You have a duty to your title and your family and—”
“I have two brothers who will no doubt be willing to leap at the chance of title and duty.”
Ian’s expression of slack-jawed horror would have been amusing if Nicky weren’t so fond of the dolt.
“Aren’t you worried your face will freeze like that? Of course, I know I must marry.”
“And will you?”
“That all depends.”
“On what?”
“On you.”
“No. There is no possible say I could have in the matter. I know—I know I was a bit off my head
where Lewes was concerned but this—I will always regard you warmly, Nicky, and I will treasure what
time we have here, but—no. You must do your duty to the title.”
“Warmly. It seemed far more than tepid to me last night.”
Two dark red spots appeared high on Ian’s cheeks, but he lowered his gaze.
Nicky pressed on. Charlotte had been the one to caution him against rashness, claiming Ian would bolt
if they revealed too much too fast, yet her actions today had precipitated this. “And if my choice is
Charlotte, do you have any say in the matter?”
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An Improper Holiday
“I have a brother’s say and that is to refuse the honor.”
“And what will
your
brother say?” The new Earl of Rayne wouldn’t have been more delighted with the match than if he’d learned to piss gold, and they both knew it. Nicky gripped Ian’s arm, holding tight enough to keep him from fleeing. “Ian, I swear to you, on my honor, I will not marry unless you approve my choice.”
“Then it will never be Charlotte.”
Hiding a smile felt at least as difficult as standing in for Sisyphus and taking a turn with his rock, but Nicky managed it. “Just as you say.”
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Chapter Six
Though Simmons appeared hale and hearty each morning when he brought Ian a cup of tea and
helped him to dress, it was no surprise that Nicky claimed to be aiding an ailing Simmons by taking his place each night when it was time to prepare for bed. Ian accepted the pretense, though he did not know why Nicky insisted on maintaining it. Each night Nicky had barely locked the door before they were
divesting each other of clothes as if their very speed would bring about the release they sought in each other’s arms.
Ian tried not to think about how easily he had been converted to hedonic pursuits. Somehow he had
managed to convince himself that this indulgence was only for a week’s time, and if they refrained from actual sodomy no one’s soul or life would be irreparably harmed. What was hardest to banish from his
mind was consideration of how painful the inevitable separation would be.
Their parting would sting less if a physical release was all they shared, but after that exquisite
moment, they still lay together, talking. Nicky seemed to delight in lavishing kisses and caresses on Ian’s scars.
“Tell me what it’s like,” Nicky whispered one night, thumb rubbing gently across the folds of skin at
the end of Ian’s stump.
Some sensitivity had returned, an odd patchwork, so that Nicky’s touch danced in and out of Ian’s
awareness.
“War?”
Nicky nodded.
Ian settled more firmly on his back. “The smell gets you first. And you can’t see from the bloody
smoke. If you aren’t deafened by cannon, you’ll wish you were when the screams start. Half the time you don’t know where you are or where your men are or what they’re shooting at.”
“And this?” Nicky’s warm kiss tickled across the wrinkled skin. “Tell me.”
“I don’t remember much.” And sometimes he remembered too much. Lieutenant Archer’s surprised
face. A sensation of movement. The gut-wrenching separation from earth. Pain and red-tinged darkness.
“We were ordered to the breach in the walls. To take out the defenders. The escalades were soaked with blood from the last company to try. I slipped. The mine went off. I woke in a field hospital.”
“Thank God you slipped.”
Ian doubted Lieutenant Archer’s family would say the same.
An Improper Holiday
Nicky shifted and looked down into Ian’s face, moving the arm so the stump rested over the beat of
Nicky’s heart. “Did they ask you about taking it? Did you have to decide?”
There were flashes of it. Hearing the discussion. A tiny protest buried under the cowardly majority
that prayed he would bleed to death and be done with it. The blessedly uncaring embrace of opium. He was far more aware when they removed the fragments imbedded in his chest.
“I never really was conscious enough. Even after, I had a fever. It was more than a week before I truly knew.”
Nicky leaned down to kiss the lump of flesh over Ian’s heart. As he did so often, Ian reached out with his missing hand, seeking the softness of Nicky’s curls. Pain shot up Ian’s arm, and he clenched an
imagined fist.
So real, the memory of it, he could see it, knuckles, tendons, fingers. “I still feel it. As if it’s there.”
Surprise widened Nicky’s eyes.
“I know it sounds mad. It’s long healed. Long gone.”
“No. I thought I was mad. Sometimes I swear I can feel it. I thought I was just remembering.”
“That’s probably it. There’s no way you could feel it.”
Nicky held up his own hand, fingers spread wide. “The Haunted Hand. A perfect tale for a dark
December night.”
“You are mad.”
Despite the concern from his family, the quiet understanding of his cousins in Norwich, there was no
one who simply accepted it. Who spoke of it without fear or pity. Who touched without horrified curiosity.
Who even now could make Ian laugh.
“It still hurts.” Nicky’s tone made it statement rather than question.
Ian wanted to look away, but Nicky held his chin and kissed him.
“Then I must needs take your mind off it.” Nicky licked the side of Ian’s neck.
There were moments without words too.
And if in those moments Ian dared believe nothing could be more right than when they strained
against each other, cocks rubbing together, mouths fused with shared heat, the truth came rushing back each morning when Nicky woke while it was still dark, dressed and slipped from the room.
The penultimate day of the year was the first that the weather deigned to permit decent hunting. They
were out well past breakfast, only returning when the hounds floundered in deep drifts and lost the scent.
Exhausted from the sudden increase in exercise atop little sleep, Ian dropped into oblivion that night with his hand still wrapped around Nicky’s spent prick, damp forehead pressed into Nicky’s neck as they lay on their sides.
He woke to Nicky’s tongue lapping at him as if Ian’s cock were made of sugar and cream, deep
sounds of satisfaction echoing from Nicky’s throat.
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“Somewhat of an improvement over rising to reveille.”
Nicky made a long wet swipe up Ian’s prick with an accompanying smacking sound then looked up.
“And rise you did.”
Ian groaned as Nicky chuckled and returned to his task with an eager and meticulous commitment.
Lips tight around the head, tongue flicking in unpredictable rhythm. Ian threaded his hand through Nicky’s curls and dragged him forward. Something akin to shame but far more thrilling beat under Ian’s skin at this use of his friend as Nicky groaned and swallowed, the soft tissue of his throat pulsing around Ian’s prick.
Nicky took Ian to the back of his throat again and again, tongue and mouth working a magic that
turned Ian’s bones to liquid. He scarcely noticed what Nicky was about until he felt the rub of Nicky’s finger—there.
Ian shuddered, and the tip of Nicky’s finger slipped inside.
“What are you doing?”
Nicky raised his head. Without the slick bob of his mouth, Ian was all the more aware of the intrusion.
It didn’t hurt. It simply was. A sensation of pressure utterly neutral.
“I believe I am engaged in a practice Aristophanes called sucking the sugar stick.”
“He never said—”
Nicky sucked again, finger wiggling farther inside. The pressure was no longer indifferent. Ian’s
nerves could not seem to choose a side between pleasure and discomfort, a desire to pull away and the
yearning to sink deeper into sensation, to capture Nicky’s finger with his body.
Wrapping his hand in Nicky’s hair, Ian tugged. “I mean what are you doing with—” Damn. He hadn’t
needed a word to refer to that particular location since he stopped needing a nurse. “—my nether eye.”
Nicky’s laugh tingled along Ian’s most sensitive flesh until at last Nicky raised his head again, blue eyes locked on Ian’s.
“Nether eye?”
It was hard to summon the tattered shreds of his dignity in a situation that transported dignity as
swiftly as a ship of convicts to Botany Bay. “Well. The term is certainly as applicable as sugar stick.”
Nicky rubbed his chin across Ian’s ballocks, the unruly hair on his forehead tickling Ian’s prick. “Oh, Ian. Only you could make use of a word like
applicable
with a mouth on your cock and a finger up your arse.”
Ian thought of pointing out that there was no longer a mouth on his cock, but that would not answer
the more…penetrative question. “What do you plan to do?”
Nicky looked up, his fixed gaze unnerving as his finger glided in and out as easily as if oiled. Each
time he thrust it in, a sweet jolt raced along Ian’s prick.
“I plan to frig your arse with my fingers while you use my mouth with your cock.”
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An Improper Holiday
Almost against his will, Ian’s hips moved to widen his legs. He should stop this, but he couldn’t.
Because there was something bewildering about the sensations coursing through him and he might be
damned forever, but the trip to hell was astonishingly sweet.
As if Nicky sensed capitulation, he wedged Ian’s legs farther apart with the brace of broad shoulders
before returning to plunge that heavenly mouth up and down Ian’s prick. Nicky’s finger tapped against
something inside that seemed to be the very root of Ian’s cock, and he clutched at the sheets, at Nicky’s hair, anything that could ground him against the pleasure spiraling outward. A flush of scalding fluid gathered in Ian’s balls.
“I will—must—Sweet Jesus—”
The flood took him and his hips snapped, prick ravaging Nicky’s mouth and throat. Ian knew he
would need to beg for forgiveness for the way his hand held Nicky fast, permitting no quarter until Ian had spent himself between Nicky’s lips.
