Chapter 1

April 1816

Doctor Cameron Fraser knew how to set a bone, sew up a wound, treat a fever. He wrote a clear hand—unlike several physician colleagues he could name—and he liked to think he was a good judge of horses and whisky and men's desires.

He gazed at both his companions, across the velvet expanse of the fancy carriage. He was the tallest, and did not mind riding backward; both Ash and Blake had offered to trade at the last stop. Cam had shaken his head.

Ash—Ashley Linden, the Duke of Auburndale, and wasn't that something, and only the half of it—hadn't noticed Cam's attention, being buried in a book. Ashley, given a volume of poetry, would not notice a thundering avalanche; Cam had come to understand as much, this past month. He felt the tug of his own smile, faint and fond, at the sight of Ash's bent head, white-blond as precious metals.

Ash had been coughing, these few days on the road, but only infrequently. Recovering, Cam thought: not fully there, not as yet, but on the way. Professional evaluation, joined with personal hope.

Framed by the luxurious sky-blue hangings of the Auburndale carriage—expensive, and not in fact Ash's choice, and that was complicated too—Blake Thornton tilted a dark wicked slash of eyebrow in Cam's direction. He said nothing; the question hovered, though, in his face.

For someone with that height of debauched and decadent reputation, Blake possessed perhaps the keenest awareness of emotion Cam had ever met. Sometimes that insight swung around and sliced into Blake's own heart, because Blake Thornton, Earl of Wildborough, was made of martyrdom and self-sacrificial impulses and a hidden sweetness like bruised rainbows, layered with indigo submission and rose-pink shy desire to be good enough.

Sometimes that insight—which made Blake such a brilliant writer, an author of bestselling travel and adventure memoirs—got extremely focused upon the people Blake loved. Ashley, for one, especially when Ash had been so ill. And, at the moment, Cam himself.

He sighed. "I'm fine, lad."

"Of course you are," Blake said. "Which is why you're looking at us as if you're surprised we're here." His hair was too long, rakishly so: witch-black and romantic and alluring, like all the portraits, all the painted plates and engravings, celebrating the ton's dashing and scandalous Earl of Thorns. None of the portraits, nor the silly embroidered pillows Cam had seen in at least three drawing rooms, did him justice.

None of the portraits and pillows knew Blake the way he did. Him and Ash.

He said, "Just admiring the view." True, though not the whole truth; Blake knew it, he guessed, from the slight narrowing of those pirate's eyes. "A very nice view it is."

Ash looked up, finger in place in the poetry. He was dressed well, in shades of green and fawn, complementing the woods-fairy prettiness; but the clothing remained too large, given his thinness. "Are we appreciating Blake? If so, I'm very in favor."

"We're not appreciating me," Blake retorted, instant self-dismissal for which Cam should probably spank him later; but then Blake actually managed to get up, in a moving carriage, and to kneel more or less gracefully at Cam's feet. On the spot. Heedless of fine buckskins and fashionable clothing and the jouncing of the carriage.

On both knees, between Cam's tall boots, he was a portrait of temptation. A fallen angel, but not a tragedy. A surrender to love, instead. Face upturned for a benediction.

Despite the carriage and jostling, the arousal shot silver down Cam's spine. Hot and stiffening. His beautiful Blake, at his feet. And Ashley looking over with that firework smile.

He put out a hand, stroked Blake's hair, reveled in the feel. Blake made a pleased sound; Cam sighed again. "That floor's not comfortable, aye?—Come up here."

Blake did, tucking himself in along Cam's side, though he had enough space to do otherwise. Cam put an arm round him.

Ash put the book properly down this time. Scooted to the edge of his own seat. Held out a hand. "Is everything all right?"

"And why wouldn't it be?" He let Ash hold his hand in those long chilly scholar's fingers. He knew that'd make Ashley smile, and it did.

He knew he was being evasive. He felt older, abruptly: aware of the nine years between himself and the two newly found pillars of his heart, both of whom were twenty-eight and adorable.

He glanced out the window: at the lowering sun, the rumbling roads, the familiarity. Scotland. The way to Edinburgh. Home, or no longer home, or the place that'd once been home. Wild heather, rough hills, shades of lavender and gold. The lift and cry of the pipes, though that was only in memory, buried deep. In his soul, built of old stones and amber whisky and the clean medicinal air of his doctor's practice, which he'd left to come to London, a favor for an old family friend.

He'd be leaving all over again, a fortnight from now. Fourteen days, and it'd be for good; and the awful burn of old grief swept in out of nowhere behind his eyes. Hugh, he thought; Hugh, I'm sorry, I'm leaving you—

He knew Hugh would've laughed. Would've kissed him, and told him to go and be happy. To take all the joy he'd been given, the miracle of it.

He was happy. He knew he was. In love, astonishingly so, and beloved. This was not a betrayal, not an insult to Hugh's memory; that wasn't the emotion.

Blake sat up a bit, from under his arm. "I remember your rooms. I remember those bed-posts."

Cam had to laugh, which Blake had no doubt intended. "Surprised you recall the details. Awfully sweet for me, weren't you, that night? All surrendering and needy."

"Oh, I recall quite a few details." Blake's grin was utterly sinful. No wonder Society fluttered and gasped and gossiped about the Earl of Thorns; they had no idea, of course. No knowing of even the slightest of it. "Your hands. Those ropes. That cane."

Ashley outright raised a hand. "Do I get to hear this story?"

"You know it," Cam said to him. "‘Twas only the one night, or I thought it'd be. Comfort for us both."

"You compared me to a lost puppy," Blake said, but lightly.

"That was later," Cam said. "I was explaining."

"I know the outline of the story," Ash said. "I didn't know there was a cane involved. I'm a scholar. I require details."

"You're recovering," Blake said. "No exertions."

"You were ill, too," Ash protested, "and worse than I was—and anyway I'm not going to be exerting myself nearly as much as you are, I promise you that—"

His joys. His brightnesses, the pair of them: starlight in Ashley's hair and hazel eyes, midnight velvet in Blake's. A matched set, especially given that they'd been friends for so long: since childhood, far longer than Cam had known them.

He knew, now, that they had wanted each other, and had been equally afraid to admit it, for all those years as well. Ash had never believed that Blake could want him; Blake had done an excellent job building a persona of rake, adventurer, flirt, seducer of women; and therefore Ashley—thin, prone to headaches, surrounded by books and an Oxford professor's obligations—had ached for every drop of attention. Blake, of course, had built that entire life and persona precisely because he'd believed he could never have the one person he yearned for the most: his clever scholarly best friend, a castle of spires and translations and ink-stained cuffs because Ash never paid attention to his sleeves.

Cam knew they loved each other. He wondered again, fleeting as the roll of dry thunder outside, why he was here. What he was doing.

But that was a poor thought, and unworthy of Blake and Ashley. They loved him equally; not as long-standing, perhaps, but that did not make it lesser. They told him so. And showed him. Repeatedly.

The night was coming in, but they'd made good time. Ash's driver was skilled, and the horses were good—Cam's family would've approved, if he still spoke to them—and this was the last leg of the journey. He'd bring Ash and Blake home, tonight.

Himself, a physician, a horse-trainer's son—a near-legendary horse-trainer, of course; certain racing circles muttered the name of the Fraser stables with awe—in the carriage of the Duke of Auburndale. Himself in a carriage with not only that duke, but an earl, and a scandalous celebrated one at that. On the way to his house, or their house, except the them in question had changed, he supposed. Six years on, he still occasionally caught himself thinking of the rooms, the practice, as both his and Hugh's.

He'd mostly trained himself out of it, not confusing clients and all. But sometimes he forgot. Or wasn't paying attention. Old habits like scars.

Blake Thornton had been a glorious splash of color, the night they'd met. Vibrant, in the grey dull rain outside a bookshop, and shortly thereafter in Cam's bedroom. Wild rover's hair, ink-pool eyes, sun-browned skin. More pink and red, after: flushed with exertion, and submission, and satisfaction.

Cam said aloud, interrupting the debate about which of them needed more fussing over, "You're both right; Blake, you were more in danger, there, more of a scare for us." It had been. A fever, something tropical, something Cam—for all his expertise—did not precisely recognize. It'd been vicious, in part because Blake had been determinedly ignoring his own well-being for some time, until it'd become unignorable. "Ash, you also know he's got over it. Resilient, that one. Yours, though, those lungs. I'm still not liking that."

Ash started to argue, paused to cough, made a grumbling resigned sound. "Yes, fine…it's better, though, you said…"

"I did and you are, but that's not all healed, not yet." Ashley had been more obviously ill—a bad cold that'd settled into his chest, lungs, thin frame—and it lingered, though he hadn't been in real danger, the way Blake had. That one had been recognizable, treatable, a known quantity.

Cam privately worried a bit about the headaches, but Blake had said that Ash'd had those for years, mostly to do with stress and exhaustion. Worse as of just over a year ago, when Ash had unexpectedly inherited the title, and had had to deal with family grief and abrupt estate management and the disruption of his entire cozy professorial life.

Cam knew about grief. And loss. He'd been afraid, in the long black nights in that whimsical ornate Mayfair bedroom, that he might lose Blake too. He'd genuinely not known whether he would. He'd done everything he knew, all his physician's training and old family doctoring herb-lore, hands not shaking because he refused to let them, in battle.

He'd won. This time, for all three of them, he'd won.

Scotland at dusk rumbled by, outside the carriage window. Somnolent indigo fields and hills giving way to the outskirts, now. Edinburgh, that tumble of history, built on rock and pride and lifted banners. Old as legend, new as the crackle of medicine and education and professional buildings, spilling over the banks of the old city.

Old, and new. Home, and not. Because he'd made it home, the first time, when his family told him not to return; he'd made it home with Hugh, in students' rooms and pubs and laughter and the shared passion of learning to help people, to heal.

And now he'd be leaving. A fortnight to pack up, to close those doors, to move and open up a practice in London, where Blake Thornton wrote sensational adventure tales and smiled like hopeful firelight, and Ashley Linden balanced a duke's responsibilities with cool precise joy in translations of ancient Greek and detailed plans to build a great library.

Stories. Past and present.

He said, because it was true, "I'm glad you're here with me. You know that, aye? The both of you."

Ash nodded, and put the other scholar's hand over Cam's as well, so that those slim fingers enfolded his, safe and sound.

"We know." Blake leaned in to kiss him, a murmur of a kiss, a breath along Cam's jawline. "We're here for you, too. It's our turn, isn't it? We're all yours. Whatever you need."

"Such a promise," Cam said, truly amused, and kissed him in turn. "I'm holding you to it."

And he thought, as the city and his life approached, that they both meant it: they would be here for him. They believed that was fair. Our turn, Blake had said.

It wasn't about that; it wasn't about evenness, or owing each other, or any of that. He did not want them to feel obligation.

He loved them. He did not want them to worry for him.

He would not give them reason to. He was a physician, after all. He would do no harm.