And I Am Happy (6 page)

“Do you remember the first time I did this
for you, sir?” Will wondered aloud, sliding his palms over
Charlie’s strong thigh, stopping only to apply more oil before
sweeping his hands up and down over bared skin with increasing
pressure.

“Yes.” Charlie spoke into the pillow, his one
hand curled into the bedding. That hand gave no clue as to his
thoughts on that night however Will wished it would. When Will had
offered the massage then, he had thought it a prelude to further
intimacies. His thoughts had been a muddle; confusion and fear of
his new, frowning gentleman, amazement at the scarred and missing
parts of his body, concern over what he might be expected to do if
his master was not whole. He had worked briefly for an older man
who had reacted angrily when his cock had not worked as he wished
and Will had not desired another such situation.

He also remembered surprise at the fit state
of his new gentleman’s body. Now he knew that it was the work
required to walk with the metal leg and how Charlie relied on one
arm more than the other, but at the time he had seen Charlie
without his clothing and thought only that perhaps it would not be
a chore to touch him intimately, not that Will ever stayed long
with gentlemen he did not wish to touch. But when his hands had
strayed to his new master’s lap, he had found himself rebuffed with
agonizing directness.

“You quite surprised me,” Will explained, the
air rushing in and out of him. Charlie’s skin was hot, the oil
pleasantly slick. He could move his hands almost anywhere he
wished. He slid a leg over Charlie’s to start to massage his
back.

“
You
quite surprised
me
,”
Charlie answered, his voice muffled. “But I do not—”

“I know, sir,” Will cut him off and swept a
long, loving sweep up to his master’s shoulder blades. He leaned in
to caress them and enjoyed the soft sound of pleasure Charlie did
not hide. “It’s all right, sir.”

“Especially not in this…” Charlie left the
rest unsaid but Will could guess his intended words.
Not in this
condition
. Will could not even truly deny it. He had been
shocked that first night though he had tried to hide his reaction
when he had noticed his new master’s hesitation in undressing
before him.

“I did not understand your reasons in hiring
me.” Will referenced his past as directly as he could and focused
on kneading the tension from Charlie’s shoulders. His fingers
traced the length Charlie’s spine with covetous touches. “I did not
realize you required more than a convenience.” He voice did not
even break. He was almost pleased. “I am happy to be your helpmeet,
sir.”

All Charlie had required of him that first
night was help with his pain and assistance at getting into bed.
Will had thought it strange that so brave and famous a figure had
wanted Will around to offer his strength. So strange that he had
not been able to sleep that night, or many nights after.

When Charlie had looked to him for news of
popular trends on the streets, and considered Will’s opinion on his
speeches, or asked if Will thought a visitor had been honest with
him, Will had known the cause of his disturbance. He was ardently
in love with his gentleman.

It was the kind of irony that Will only
appreciated in the theatre. In life it was much more like gulping
tea that hadn’t been allowed to cool. He knew it would burn but he
could not stop drinking it.

“Helpmeet.” Charlie groaned into the pillow
as though the word itself bothered him. Will dipped his hands down
to the base of his master’s spine and watched Charlie’s hand flex
into the bedding. His master groaned again. “I am glad you are
happy. I’d never make you do anything you didn’t want to.”

Will could have buried his face in his
master’s skin and offered himself as his plaything. “I know, sir,”
he breathed, not calm at all, “nothing I don’t
want
to do.”
There was too much emphasis in the single word and Will swore and
leapt from his master’s body and off the bed.

He dashed to the bathroom to wipe his hands
and draw a bath, trying to will away his state of partial arousal.
His master did not move from his position on the bed but turned to
watch Will, something about him so still that Will could not
approach him. “If you do not want help into the tub, I will go and
see about breakfast,” Will called out without meeting his eyes.

“I do not need the help, if you have other
things to attend to,” Charlie corrected him warmly, a red flush in
his cheeks that was probably from the powders. He did not rise, so
Will stayed uncertainly where he was. He ought to change his
clothes if he were going to leave the house. He ought to choose his
gentleman’s clothing for the day. He ought to do many things. He
did not move.

“Do you enjoy your work, Will?” There was a
slow, ecstatic note in his master’s voice, the work of some good
feeling or just the dragon in his pain powders. “Would you rather
work for another?”

“No.” Will put his back to the door and shook
his head. “No, sir.” He tried to smile to lessen the ferocity of
his answer. “No, I find I enjoy playing valet for you.”

“You are a very good valet,” his master
responded, his voice thick and ever so delirious with ease and
pleasure. Will had made him feel that, with some assistance from
the poppy flower.

Will ignored the obvious untruth of his
master’s statement and permitted himself a moment of truth.
“Before… I never realized how unwanted it made me feel.”

“Being wanted?” Charlie pushed himself up a
fraction from the pillow to frown bemusedly at him. Will wondered
if his gentleman truly thought of Will as so irresistible that he
could not understand anyone not wanting him. Will crept closer by
one step, then two.

“Being let go when I… when my services were
no longer desired, having no place to stay, sleeping alone,
always,” Will listed complaints he had not realized until he had
come here. “I do not miss it. This is all I need.” He firmed his
voice and nodded, sure of this one thing. He might want more, but
he could survive with this, the two of them just as they were.

“I am sorry that you were so cruelly
treated.” Charlie exhaled, relief easing the scowl from his face.
“But I confess I don’t like to imagine you with others,” he
murmured, then blinked and met Will’s eyes, “At their whim, is what
I meant to say,” he added. His gentleman was warm and flushed and
shining with oil from Will’s hands. It was the powders, but his
gaze was so light in that moment that Will couldn’t resist taking
the last step required to caress his shoulder.

“I do not want others, sir,” Will confessed
in return, then went to turn off the bathwater before he could do
anything else foolish, or convince himself that his words had
brought the beginnings of a hopeful smile to his master’s face.

~~~

Not long after his breakfast, his gentleman
left on business that he did not share with Will. Sometimes he did
not, though usually more out of forgetfulness than as a deliberate
attempt to keep Will in the dark. Will was not sure which this was.
There had been nothing in the appointment book aside from a
luncheon at his club. His master left much earlier than necessary
for that and was still gone as the clock approached four.

Will straightened more than he had ever
straightened in his life, startling and then annoying the maid who
came in to polish the wood and shake out the rugs. He ignored her
and continued putting back every book in the library in the place
it was supposed to go instead of in a pile on an ottoman. He
collected the laundry and sent it out, then went in to check the
ink and paper in his master’s study. When everything was where it
should be, he went to the kitchen to make himself some tea. He had
not even touched the kettle when the doorbell rang.

A chill went down his back, as he knew it
could not be his master, who had a key. He imagined the ring had
seemed more insistent than usual and walked slowly to the door to
admit Miss Ann.

“Mr. Howard is not at home,” he told her,
taken off guard when she swept in.

“Mr. Howard,” she echoed him and waved a hand
dramatically, “we both know you don’t address him so formally when
alone with him, William. If you did he would never call you Will,
no matter the difference in your stations.”

Will almost put his hands to his cheeks to
hide his blush. He stared at her for a moment, torn between giving
her the boot and losing his job, and ushering her in, and settled
for repeating himself. “Charlie is not at home,” he told her. Only
as he said the name did he remember that he used that name to his
master that morning, and Charlie had not corrected him.

Miss Ann harrumphed. “I’ll wait.” She
continued in to the study on her own. “Bring tea.”

Only the knowledge that Charlie would allow
his sister to stay kept Will from showing her the door. As it was,
he did not make sandwiches for her tea and gave her only two
biscuits. She harrumphed again when she saw them on the plate, then
made him jump when she directed him to bring a cup and saucer for
himself.

She did not ask. Will managed a weak protest
just the same. Miss Ann only stared, as fierce as her brother could
be. Will somehow found himself fetching a cup and pouring her tea
as best he could, as though he knew anything about a lady’s tea
aside from what he’d gleaned watching her with her sisters. He sat
as well, a startling breach of protocol that left him too nervous
and curious to have even a sip. She had never asked this of him
before and he could not ascertain her intent.

“As I said yesterday, William, my brother is
doing well. His health is certainly better. I will even allow that
he looks improved. You found him a better tailor.”

“I don’t think Charlie would care for us
discussing—” Will tried to interject.

Miss Ann was faster than he was. “He should
take a firmer hand with you. His cravat was showy today.”

“It was not,” Will argued, as the hints of
gold in Charlie’s cravat had been faint next to the white of his
shirt and the clean black of his jacket. He blinked. “You saw him
today?” He didn’t understand why Miss Ann would be here if she had
already met with her brother. He clutched his saucer so hard it
rattled. He did not think of his master’s “firmer hand” at all.

“Yes, he was in the Park with a group of
admirers.” Miss Ann was toying with him. Will couldn’t say how he
knew it, except that he very much doubted his master had been in
any group, much less a group of admirers, not if his master could
have avoided it.

He stilled his hand. “He
is
doing
better,” he said, reasonably calm on the surface, “but that is not
my doing, it’s his own hard work.”

“He has worked very hard.” Miss Ann paused to
take a shaky breath and then a long drink of tea. She rattled her
cup in her saucer too but only for a moment. “Very hard, as he
often works when he has a particular goal in mind.” Abruptly she
raised her head and narrowed her eyes. “I will trust in your
discretion now and tell you that Charles…. My brother was not well
when he returned from Afghanistan. He suffered a series of
setbacks. I do not wish him to suffer them again now.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Miss Ann. I
would never hurt him. You know I would not.” He lowered his voice
for that last part, unable to help himself.

“My brother might have a body forged of iron
but it shields a soul too easily wounded. He requires a committed
spirit. He requires strength and a selfish core, lest he give all
of himself away.” Will would never have been able to tell from Miss
Ann’s hard voice that she took three sugars and cream in her tea
and lavishly spoiled her herd of fat dogs. He had a fleeting
impression that whoever had broken her brother’s heart had paid
dearly for it. A lady’s revenge could be vicious.

Will bit his tongue so he did not say that or
whisper any more of his buried desires. He was committed more than
she knew but he was also aware of the impossibility of his
situation. He could not even say what his master felt for him
besides affection, and even if there were more, his beloved
gentleman would never approach him. The difference in their
stations was too great. A girl might on occasion marrying her
dancing master or her tutor, an older man might marry his lifetime
mistress, but that was rare and it had never yet occurred between
two men, even with the sodomy laws repealed.

But there was no arguing with Miss Ann, even
had Will known what point he was supposed to argue. “Yes, Miss
Ann,” he agreed at last, his tone subdued, and didn’t know what to
make of her puzzled expression or how she reached out to push the
cup of tea in his hands toward his mouth.

“Have a sip, William, you look peaked,” she
ordered, only to abandon him at the sound of the front door
opening. She rose, presumably to meet her brother, and Will took
that as his dismissal. He held his cup and saucer and darted past
both brother and sister into the kitchen. His heart was racing and
his thoughts were a mess that he could not seem to tidy. But he
slowed his breathing and leaned with his ear against the kitchen
door.

Miss Ann was speaking. Her words were upset
but she seemed oddly calm. “…Declined an invitation of hers this
morning… I had thought you got along.”

His master’s voice was level, which it almost
always was around his sisters, even when he later confessed to Will
that they could drive him to distraction. “She is a very nice
woman. A pleasant companion. But….”

“But you have no interest in women, or should
I say, not this particular woman.” Miss Ann was so blunt that Will
nearly dropped his cup and saucer. He missed Charlie’s reaction,
though he imagined a startled breath or perhaps even a rare frown.
Society begrudgingly accepted lavender-tinted marriages, as long
affairs between two men or two women were known, but until the man
or woman in question had made their tastes clear it was not usual
to speak of them, and then never so directly.