An Improper Holiday (2 page)

duty as your chaperone. With such a great beauty, I will have time for nothing but keeping your more

importunate suitors at bay.”

Charlotte’s gaze had not wavered, but at last she smiled. “Are you certain there was no accompanying

damage to your skull at Badajoz?”

One didn’t refer to the casualties of war in mixed company, but Charlotte was still the girl whose

braids had looked best when tipped with black ink. “As I remember very little after the mine exploded, anything is possible.”

Her expression turned to sympathy and Ian looked away. This was what had kept him in Norwich

long after he was fully healed. Useless sympathy when he felt consumed with anger. If he had moved more swiftly on the escalade, if he had not accepted assistance from the eager young Lieutenant Archer, the man would still be alive and Ian would be whole—or wholly dead. Either state preferable to his current

existence as neither.

“Do you think it will snow?”

“I fervently pray that it will not.” It would be bad enough to be trapped at Carleigh Castle by the weather, but a snowfall would provoke Ian’s memories of the five days he and Nicky had spent penned in by man-high drifts at the marquisate’s hunting cabin. It had been the first time they had dared to fully disrobe, the first time they could look their fill without fear of discovery. Five days of the same wretched

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K.A. Mitchell

stew turning to gruel over the fire, five days of Nicky’s infectious laugh, five nights of hard flesh pressed together until they were bound by spit and sweat and spilled seed.

“You have the most bizarre look on your face, Ian. Does your arm pain you very much?”

He could not even school his features around his sister. How was he to look at Nicky, perhaps even at

Nicky’s betrothed or—bloody hell—Nicky’s wife, without some untoward emotion starting in his face?

Ian’s guts writhed with a dread against which he had thought himself inured since leading his company to that breach in the walls at Badajoz. He could ask Charlotte about Nicky’s state of attachment, even a

female as peculiar as his sister would surely be aware of the alliances among the ton, but a newly found respect for her perception held him back.

“I am merely stiff from days in this carriage.”

“You are wishing you had ridden.”

“Of course not. I am pleased to keep you company.”

“You are a terrible liar.”

“I am an excellent liar. I told Rayne how much I admired that nag he spent far too much on, leaving

him none the wiser. You merely have an unbridled imagination which causes you to see pain or frustration where there is none.”

“Is that what it is?”

He met her steady gaze. Though she had yet to demonstrate the decorum Ian expected from a lady, his

sister’s acquisition of a dangerous perspicacity and immunity to his teasing boded ill for any future peace of mind.

He chose to exercise the familial option of ignoring a pestering female relation, focusing his gaze on the passing scene, wishing he could ignore the memories provoked by the lazy spiral of snowflakes that had begun to fall.

~ * ~

Amidst the deluge of inappropriate reminiscences, one item which had escaped Ian’s notice was the

memory of the Carleigh tradition of lavish hospitality. There were so many guests milling in the Gold

Salon, with more arriving every moment, that avoiding Nicholas Chatham, Lord Amherst, was a mission at which even the most bumbling of soldiers could succeed. If the crush also ensured that no one had borne witness to Charlotte’s precipitous departure from the carriage, nearly bowling over the footman who was trying to assist her, so much the better.

The last stretch of the carriage ride might have been especially designed for Ian’s torment by one of

Lucifer’s more creative demons. The coachman seemed determined to catch the wheels in every rut, a

constant reminder that he was utterly useless, as he could neither brace himself nor his sister against the sudden lurches that bounced them like India rubber within the confines of the coach. Then his gaze caught 10

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An Improper Holiday

a familiar landmark and he was flung back into the bittersweet memory of the first time he had

accompanied Nicky home to Carleigh. Nicky had wagered his skill at satisfying Ian against the speed of the coach and four.

Certain he could outlast the final few furlongs, he had taunted, “I can see barns, Nicky, and yet—”

Nicky had shockingly, devastatingly put his mouth to the same use as his hand, an obscene and

wonderful kiss, warm and wet around the head of Ian’s prick. A rut jolted Ian deeper into the slick suction and there was no further need to mark furlongs, or even a yard. The heat of Nicky’s mouth, the movement of his tongue, drew the sweet aching fire from Ian’s spine, brought it boiling from his stones and out his prick—and into Nicky’s mouth.

It should have been horrifying, but the notion that he had spilled between those wide, quick-to-smile

lips only made his body clench again and again with pleasure. He had scarcely even cared when Nicky had wiped his face on Ian’s formerly immaculate trousers.

With that fresh in mind, he had been nearly unaware of the present-day coach coming to a stop and

unable to halt his sister’s unladylike vault from the coach step. Intent on executing his chaperonage with a greater deal of success, he scanned the room, located her by dint of the towering yellow feather which graced her bonnet—easily recalled after the constant tickle against his nose as the coach jolted along—and cut a swath to her side like Major-General Picton into Ciudad Rodrigo.

Ian wished he could ply his saber for safe passage here. The manse in Norwich, the Stanton manor in

Oxfordshire, even their London townhouse all were untenanted wastelands compared with the long narrow

salon. Not since Badajoz had there been so many other bodies around him. And while the scents and sights of a nobleman’s salon in Derbyshire were far removed from the stench of smoke and entrails—or worse the vision of what had been men fragmented by shot and shrapnel—Ian’s ears roared as blood pumped hard

and fast, heating his skin, empowering his limbs. The voices around him faded under the drumming of his pulse, vision narrowing as if through a tunnel, the only sight not blurred that of the plume nodding on Charlotte’s bonnet.

A hand fell on his shoulder. Blood full of heat, muscles warm and vigorous, he whirled, good right

hand reaching for the saber he no longer wore at his waist.

“Ian.”

If there had been a trace of shock and fear on Nicky’s face, Ian’s chance to study it was lost as Nicky used the hand on his shoulder to pull Ian into a half-embrace, which though entirely appropriate to the season and their outward familiarity, left Ian rigid. The thrum of battle-ready nerves still vibrated across his skin, but for an instant the familiar scent of the flesh just above Nicky’s collar managed to penetrate the sensory blinders keeping him shuttered from the crowd.

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K.A. Mitchell

In that instant Nicky became a bulwark, shelter and shield against the worst memories of the

Peninsula. He was reaching to offer some reciprocation but Nicky had stepped back, hand sliding along

Ian’s arm to close on the empty sleeve.

Ah, there it was. Horror soon masked by pity. The dark blond curls that had slipped through Ian’s

fingers in countless caresses fell over Nicky’s forehead, but the clear blue eyes still laid his feelings bare.

“Lord Amherst.” Ian executed as correct a bow as possible with Nicky yet clinging to his sleeve and

turned, wrenching free at last.

But although Charlotte’s plume was still in sight, the path to her had closed and as he sought another, Nicky stepped around him again.

“Lord Amherst, is it? Are you not aware that in this bedlam no one would hear were you to shout,

Captain Stanton?”

“I am a simple gentleman only, my lord. As I am of no further use to His Majesty, I have resigned my

commission.”

More sympathy, lashes lowered in grief, drawing Ian’s gaze to the candlelight’s sheen on Nicky’s

cheek, the wide curve of his lips. That mouth. The mouth that had—

Ian tore his gaze free of the fascination, a wrenching separation that shared the aching emptiness of

his left arm with all of his bones. Charlotte’s gold plume had moved off, nodding near a lacey cap adorning the head of a tall slender blonde.

“And at the moment, my lord, I am failing in my new commission. I beg your leave as I must see to

my sister.”

“Then as always, I shall stand aside and permit you to do your duty.” Nicky’s voice held a rough edge

quite unlike any Ian had yet heard from Nicky’s lips.

When Nicky turned and strode off without another word, Ian was forced to a surprising conclusion.

Amherst was furious.

12

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Chapter Two

Stiff-necked, infuriating, whoreson bastard. Nicky allowed himself eight strides along the gallery and back to try to contain his explosion of frustration. With Ian and with himself. He had convinced himself that Ian only stopped answering their carefully worded letters because of battlefield conditions, that Ian’s feelings were still as strong as when he had acceded to his father’s wishes and taken up his commission.

Above all, Nicky had promised himself that Ian’s injury, his dreadful loss, wouldn’t matter. Instead Nicky had let show the terror and pain he had felt when he had heard the details of Ian’s wound.
Well-played
indeed, Amherst.

Despite that cold intonation of his title, it was clear Ian was not entirely indifferent to Nicky. In the past five years he had learned to discern when a man regarded him with a certain sort of interest. But the past five years had also taught him there was a great gulf between simple companionship and the

gratification of lust and what he and Ian had shared in those two years of sweet, slow discovery.

With the way Ian’s gaze had moved to Nicky’s mouth…no, Ian had not renounced his desire, even if

he clung ever more tightly to his restraint. In that moment just past, Ian’s hunger had been a nearly palpable yoke to bind them.

Had Ian learned as much as Nicky had these years apart? The idea of another man lavishing on Ian the

kind of attention that would bring the color to his cheeks, his throat, his chest, blasted Nicky with a surprising surge of arousal. He would have thought to find himself jealous. Instead, his too vigorous

imagination provided a tactile and visual feast. Ian’s back against Nicky’s front, the prickle of hair over hard flesh as Nicky’s hands stroked the broad chest, the heat between Ian’s thighs as Nicky’s cock slid through the tight space, pressing up against the heavy sac, driving Ian forward so that his own cock slid deeper into the throat of the faceless man kneeling before them.

There would be no returning to the salon now. A stubborn cock-stand was not at all the thing to

introduce in a room full of family and guests, certainly not in trousers as close-fit as those he wore. Nicky strode down the gallery’s full length to the portrait of the first marquess, wishing he dared run out into the snow to cool his face—and other overheated areas.

“Nicholas? Whatever are you doing out here? What is the matter?”

His four-years-elder sister Lady Anna had stepped into the gallery. Since their mother had passed

away after giving birth to the twins who were still in the nursery, Anna had taken over running the

household, maintaining her grip even after her marriage to the Bishop of Warwick several years ago.

K.A. Mitchell

“I am—” Hell, taking the air was something only females did. He could scarcely tell his sister he’d

stomped off in a fit of pique because of a romance gone awry, and he certainly couldn’t tell her he was trying to tamp down the pulse of blood in his cock. “I wanted exercise.” Under the circumstance, it wasn’t difficult to affect a limp.

“Exercise? Now?”

“I—it—I fell from a horse and—”

“When?”

“Last week.”

“And?”

“Well, my—uh—I don’t want the injury to—”
Ah, shit, don’t think stiffen
. “To wither.”

His sister regarded him as if he were mad, which he no doubt appeared to be, was, and would

continue to be until the all-too-honorable Mr. Ian Stanton came to his senses.

“It is a most inappropriate time. Lady Rathmoore wishes you to make the acquaintance of her

daughters. And Lady Susannah asked to be remembered to you. And Lady Charlotte Stanton was most

insistent that you wished to renew her acquaintance.” Anna’s lofty brow furrowed. “She is a lovely girl, excellent lines and no small fortune, but uncomfortably forward.” She gave him a pleasant smile. “Still, if your interest lies that way, I am certain we shall make the best of it.”

His interest. Yes. He had just attained the quarter-century mark, but Lady Anna wanted him matched.

As their father had come to realize, whatever Lady Anna desired would come to pass, another’s wishes

notwithstanding. The thought that if their plan failed he would find himself betrothed to a random female before the turn of the season was enough to quell his errant ardor.

He answered his sister’s smile. “I would be most pleased to renew my acquaintance with Lady

Charlotte.”

His sister stopped him as he reached the salon doors, flicking imagined lint from his sleeves and

pulling his hair farther forward onto his brow. “There, darling, better than even a plate from
The Register
.

Doubtless you shall capture whatever heart you choose.”

His own heart having long since been captured, he devoutly hoped her estimation would prove

correct.

Anna led him to Ian’s sister who was standing a great distance from the more dense clusters of guests