Chapter 3

Blake did not recall crossing the room. He might've flown. Leapt. Transported himself. It did not matter; all that mattered was himself, down there at Ashley's side, cradling too-light bird's-bones against himself. Heart thundering. "Ash—"

Ash actually reached for him, outright reached up and held on; Blake's own breathing stuttered, skipped, grew ice. "I'm here. I've got you. Don't try to talk. I'll get you to bed."

Ashley tipped his head against Blake's shoulder. In soft at-home trousers, shirt, quilted robe, he might've been a simple scholarly young gentleman; at the moment nothing was simple, because his cheeks were a brilliant color, and his eyes held dark smudges and hollows. "I just need to rest. I'll be fine tomorrow."

"Yes," Blake said, "in the same way Pompeii was, after the volcano," and pressed fingers against his throat. Intimate, so intimate; everything he'd wanted, Ashley in his arms, and yet nothing he'd ever wanted, not like this.

Ash's pulse fluttered against his touch. Too rapid, racing. He said, "Why the fuck were you even out of bed?"

"I was answering a letter from the estate manager about crop rotation," Ash protested, "and you don't need to swear at me. I'm doing my best." The last word got interrupted by more coughing, a futile attempt to gather air.

"Of course you are." Over and over, in the face of unwanted responsibilities. Facing them head-on. Being a good man. While Blake himself had encountered a former lover on the street outside, and kept secrets from his best friend, and ran halfway around the world to hide from too many feelings. "And you like it when I swear. So that you can disapprove. Shocking language. So impolite."

Ash narrowed those silvery eyes at him. "I've translated Catullus. You're comparatively tame."

"Never been accused of that before. I'm getting you to bed. Can you stand, or shall I carry you?"

"You can't—"

Blake got an arm under his legs, an arm around him. Scooped him up, getting up.

Ash wasn't that heavy. Blake had carried men before—a climbing partner in need of rescue, a man overboard and subsequently unconscious, during a trip along the Nile—and the muscles were good for that. Besides, the bedroom wasn't far.

Ashley had gone suspiciously silent. Amazement in parted lips, in the automatic reach of his hands around Blake's neck. From someone else, on someone else, that tiny indrawn breath might've been arousal.

It wasn't. Blake knew it wasn't. Never had been. Couldn't be.

He was the walking scandal, the sensation, the wicked wild adventurer. Ash was the pure unsullied first radiance of morning, a dawn that didn't know about secrets and untold yearnings and midnight ropes binding wrists and shuddering surrender and anguished ecstatic fleeting absolution.

The Earl of Thorns; the nickname had been easy. It was more apt than most people knew.

Cam had, in a plainly furnished practical physician's home in Edinburgh, put a hand on Blake's head and put him on his knees. Had looked at him, and seen him. Clarity like sunshine through glass, Scottish gold.

And he should not be thinking about Cam while holding Ash, and he did not know what to do, and his chest ached, twisted up inside.

He took Ashley to the light and airy bedroom, the world of tall windows and pretty furnishings and spacious bed. The renovations had extended even here, before Ash had unexpectedly inherited; no expense had been spared. The graceful bed, the elegant writing-desk, the cream and blue paper for the walls, collectively turned the room into a jewel-box, a treasure-chest, the opposite of Blake's own fiery choices.

He got Ash settled in bed. He rang for tea. He requested some books, because Ashley without a book felt wrong. Some translation at hand, a history, an obscure bit of genius. Poetic and erudite.

"I'd like one of yours." Ash leaned back against pillows, sipped tea, cradled warmth in both hands. "Something fun. Stories."

"I can just tell you all of those. Have you seen a doctor?"

"No…"

"You're about to." He summoned a footman, who brought Baynes, as requested; Blake demanded that the butler find the best doctor money could acquire upon immediate notice, and sent him off. "Didn't you have a valet? Where is he?"

"His name's Priday, he was my uncle's valet, he's not young, and I suggested he take some time to visit his parents when I began feeling ill…" Ash stopped to cough, breathe, sip tea. "I'm not even used to having a valet yet. It's disconcerting."

"He's supposed to be helpful. So you can get on with solving the mysteries of ancient Greek epic poetry. Tell me about your Catullus. Are there naughty bits?"

"Yes. Utterly filthy. Even you wouldn't—" Ash stopped abruptly; his gaze ducked away, down at tea. "Never mind."

"Now you'll have to tell me."

"No, I—it's not—" Ash's laugh sounded odd. "You're too nice for that."

"Nice? Me? Don't make me curse at you again." He rested a hand on Ash's knee, over blanket and robe; safe enough, surely. And what wasn't Ash telling him? And what had that quick unguarded near-admission meant?

But this wasn't the time to push. Ashley needed to rest. Perhaps later Blake could ask again what that had been, what Ash had been reading, here in this sunlit literary oasis. He did not expect it to be particularly depraved, but it'd been enough for embarrassment, and Ash had heard some of Blake's own stories; perhaps this poem went beyond kisses and into outright sex.

Ashley had shut his eyes, supported by pillows; Blake took the teacup away from still hands, gently. Ash said, not moving, "I'm awake."

"Of course you are."

"I'm not an invalid."

"Of course you're not. Just rest for a few moments. The doctor will be here soon." And if he wasn't, Blake was fully prepared to kick down doors and shout and live up to his own reckless wild adventurer's reputation.

He promised, "I'll be right here," and watched Ashley sleep, and thought about unspoken words, and secrets, and the depths of his own heart, which he could never reveal. And he thought about penance, and about devotion, and about his own general hedonism and unworthiness; but unworthy or not, he was here, and he would do everything in his power to see Ash awake and healthy and smiling at a book of poetry once again.