Kindred Hearts (29 page)

“Because he hates himself,” Lottie said. To Jamie, she said, “Fetch the stool over there, Jamie, love, and you can climb in my lap. I can’t pick you up anymore.”

“Let me,” Ware said and rose, bending to lift Jamie up into Lottie’s lap. “There. Is that comfortable?”

Lottie bent her head to whisper, “Tell him ‘thank you’,” and Jamie’s head rose to look at his grandfather. “Fanku,” he said solemnly.

“You’re welcome,” the baron said, equally solemnly, then he turned back to Charlotte. “What should I do about Tris?”

By the
fourth day of Tristan’s illness, he was feeling better and his temper had turned irascible from his enforced inactivity. To placate him, Charles had hauled his medical books up from the library and settled on the sofa next to him, poring over the volumes in English with him, translating aloud the ones in German. Tristan took the ones in Latin and Greek and did the same for Charles; although Charles had had some of the classical languages at Eton, Tristan was much better at translating those.

When he tired, as he inevitably did, he made Charles talk about the hospital and his activities there. He was especially interested in the descriptions of the more physical elements of his experiences, rather than the treatment for illnesses that Charles found fascinating. Charles supposed it made sense; Tristan had always been far more interested in the physical. “No, seriously,” he said, “what do you do with a broken bone?”

“Call a surgeon,” Charles laughed.

Tris hit him with a pillow. “Seriously, Charlie!”

“Well, if a surgeon’s not handy, there are some things you can do,” and he proceeded to explain the process for setting a bone, followed by how to manage broken ribs, how to wrap a sprain properly, and the importance of cleanliness when stitching a wound. “It’s especially important when something is embedded in the wound, such as with a ball from a pistol,” he said. “Embedded elements can lead to putrefaction. Oddly enough, boiling water on the wound and on the knife can sometimes prevent the putrefaction. I don’t know why. MacQuarrie has a theory that it has something to do with animalcules.”

“The invisible creatures Van Leeuwenhoek discovered with the microscope,” Tristan acknowledged. “I read his research at Trinity. It wasn’t my field, but I found it interesting nonetheless.”

“Well, Mac thinks they cause the putrefaction, and that the boiling water kills them. All I know is that clean equipment and boiling water seem to make a difference in treating wounded soldiers.”

“Well, I knew about wrapping sprains from fisticuffs,” Tristan observed. “Jackson showed some of us how to manage that since they’re pretty common. I watched him stitch up a man’s cheek once.”

“Didn’t make you sick?”

Tristan snorted. “A little thing like that? Ballocks. I’ve been stitched up myself much worse. Fell out of a tree onto a fence.”

“Is that the scar on your back? I felt it the other evening when I was giving you the rub down.”

“That’s it.”

“How old were you?”

Tristan thought a moment, then said, “Twenty-eight—no, twenty-seven. It was the year before I married Lottie.”

“You were a grown man and you were climbing a
tree
?”

Tristan grinned. “It was the only way to get into the house; the lady’s husband had footmen posted at the door to keep me out. Well, not me specifically; just whoever it was he suspected of cuckolding him. Good thing Gibson was there; he and a couple other friends spirited me away before the footmen found me. Got quite a lecture from the surgeon who stitched me up. Never did understand why surgeons aren’t thought of just as highly as physicians; their work’s just as important, if not more so.”

Charles shrugged. “Just as the barrister is more highly thought of than a mere solicitor; it’s all in the perception. God knows the solicitor does most of the work. Now, that’s enough mental work for you; we’ve got to give that brain of yours a rest as well as your body. And speaking of your body, here’s your supper.” That was to the soft knock on the bedroom door. Charles rose and let Reston in with the tray.

“Oh, God, not more of that beef tea. I swear it’s worse than that evil American potion you make up.”

“It’s not that bad—either of them. And they’re both good for you.”

“Bunk,” Tris replied. “They’re both just nasty, but the skullcap tea is the worst.”

“It isn’t,” his lover snorted. “It’s your imagination. You think that because it’s medicinal, it should taste bad. It tastes no worse than brandy.”

“Yes, but brandy has the advantage of bringing on a nice drunk,” Tris said.

He set the beef tea aside while he ate what Reston had brought: roast chicken, new potatoes, and bread pudding. When he was done, Charles handed him the cup again and he made a face, but finished it off, setting the cup back on the tray. “There. I’ve eaten my dinner and drunk my tea. What reward do I get?”

Charles took the tray from his lap and set it on the floor by the door, then sat on the sofa beside Tristan. “A kiss,” he said, and his mouth settled on Tris’s, warm and steady. Tris sighed happily and opened to Charles’s questing tongue, welcoming it with his own. His hands slid over Charles’s shirtfront and to the buttons at the collar, working them undone, then pulling the shirt from Charles’s trousers. “Off,” he said, his voice muffled by Charles’s lips.

“Bossy,” Charles said, drawing back and pulling the shirt over his head. “You must be feeling better.”

Tris smiled, running his fingers over Charles’s smooth chest. “I would have thought you to be more hairy,” he said, leaning forward to lick at one flat nipple.

“And why is that?”

“Because you’re so fierce and masculine.”

“And blond,” Charles pointed out. “Blonds have less body hair in general. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“You don’t. I like it.” Tristan’s tongue flicked over the solid planes of his chest. “I can see your skin clearly, taste it. You taste so different from a woman.”

“Tris—are you sure this is what you want? I don’t want to be pressing you. This—this is important to me and I don’t want you regretting it later.”

“‘Pressing me’? I’ve been trying to get you in bed for days now. Besides, I never regret anything,” Tris said absently. His hands traveled down that beautifully sculpted torso to the edge of Charles’s trousers. “Least of all sex.”

Charles caught his hands and held them still. “This isn’t just sex,” he said harshly.

Startled, Tris looked up. Charles’s eyes were dark and hard, and Tris felt a thrill of fear and something unidentifiable race through him. “No,” he said, swallowing. “No, it isn’t.”

“Just so you know that.”

“What are you worried about?” Tris asked, reaching up to rub away the line between Charles’s brows. He hadn’t lost that hard look and it made Tristan uncomfortable. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just….” Charles caught Tristan’s hands again and rested his forehead on Tris’s knuckles. “Not sure.”

“Not sure of what?” Tristan asked, feeling that shiver of fear again, but this time it wasn’t so pleasant. “Not sure of
me
?” He jerked his hands away and shifted away, sliding off the sofa. His legs trembled a little, but held him; he reached for the banyan on the chair and drew it on, then went to look out the window.

“I love you,” Charles said.

“So you’ve said.” Tristan’s voice sounded flat even to his own ears.

Down on the lamp-lit street, a couple of draymen were arguing over their carts. A large carriage with a crest on the side went by, splashing the pair; they turned as one to find common cause in cursing the carriage driver. A handful of militia in red coats trotted by, slowing to watch as a pair of shop girls hurried past on their way home.

The silence in the room was deafening. Finally, Tristan said tiredly, “I don’t know what you want, Charlie. This is all new to me. I’d made up my mind that I wanted you a long time ago, but now it seems that you’re shoving me away. You say you love me, and I think I love you, but I don’t really know what that all means. I don’t know what love is, or what it means in this situation. At least with the physical, I know what I’m asking. I don’t know all the details, I don’t even know
how
you want me, or how I want you, but I know that what I feel for you I never felt for any of the women I’ve fornicated with in the last fifteen years.
Never
. I don’t know if it’s love or just finally realizing that I’m not the man I thought I was.” He laughed humorlessly. “Not that that’s any great loss.”

“It’s when you speak like that that I can find it in myself to be angry with you,” Charles said.

Tristan waved a dismissive hand. “I’m not looking for kindness, Charlie.”

“I’m not being kind, Tristan.”

Tris turned, frowning at the bitterness in Charles’s voice. “I don’t mean to make you angry. I’m just trying to understand what it is you want from me. You talk about love as if it were something natural, something normal….”

“It is,” Charles growled.

“But I have never heard of anything like this. Oh, I went to public school and was aware of the silliness that went on there, I know all about madge houses, and even know a few men who frequent them, though of course that’s never discussed in public, but I’ve never heard of two men actually having a, a
connection
as though it were
normal
.”

“That,” Charles said harshly, “is exactly what the problem is, Tris. You seem to think that this isn’t normal. Isn’t natural.”

“Well, it isn’t,” Tris said reasonably. “It’s not the way men are meant to be. It might be just lust, not love. I want you, but when you say you love me, is it just because you’re fond of me, you know me from Charlotte’s letters, you desire me as I desire you? That isn’t what love is.”

“What is love, then?” Charles stood, running his hand through his hair agitatedly. “What would you describe love as, then, if not knowledge and fondness and desire?”

Tristan stared at him blankly. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Then isn’t that enough?”

“No,” Tristan said. “Not if it’s going to stop you from taking me to bed and rogering me until I scream.” He gave Charles a smile he’d practiced far too often on bored wives.

Charles turned and left the room, closing the adjoining door with a decided click.

“
Bloody
hell!” Tristan swore and went after him.

When he came into Charles’s bedroom, Charles was sitting on the end of his bed, tugging off his boots. He looked up, startled, when Tris came in. His face was bleak.