Page 15 of Unmasked by the Marquess
With a great show of reluctance, Robin peeled off his sodden coat and handed it to the butler, promptly wrapping himself in the towel and kneeling by the fire. Alistair stayed where he was, a safe distance half a room a way, too far to reach out and attempt to dry Robin’s dripping hair or make any other foolish mistake. There were so many foolish mistakes that he’d make if only given half a chance. Robin had been sent from his dreams—or maybe his nightmares—to tempt him into making every single one of them.
Robin was thin, very thin. Of course Alistair had known that the lad wasn’t sturdy—that much was plain even through several layers of linen and wool. But with his damp shirt clinging to his arms, Robin appeared so slight as to be almost delicate, like he could blow away as suddenly as he had drifted into Alistair’s life.
“I revise my opinion,” Alistair said. “Not nine stone.”
“Pardon?” Robin turned his head, and Alistair could see that the man’s lips were blue.
“You weigh eight and a half stone, at the utmost, and that’s including your wet clothes. You appear in need of a good meal.”
Robin looked away, but not before Alistair could see the expression of hurt in those many-colored eyes. “Don’t make me feel self-conscious,” he said.
“I didn’t mean—” Alistair stopped himself. “I’m sorry.” His second apology. He stood and made his way over to the fire, standing beside where Robin still knelt on the rug. “I worry,” he said after a minute.
Robin stood and looked up at him, the towel draped around his slender shoulders. “I know you do. I wouldn’t have thought you had anything to worry about, what with all this.” He waved a hand around, indicating his surroundings. “But you’ve got this line here,” he reached up and traced a single cold finger along Alistair’s forehead. “I don’t know what you fret about, but I know you do it.”
“I worry about everything,” Alistair confessed. And it was true. “I worry about Gilbert. I worry that somehow all the work I did to repair the estate will be undone. I have—” Was he really going to admit this? “I have a recurring dream that my father is still alive, plunging the estate further into decay.” He laughed, a bitter sound. “What a terrible thing, to dream that one’s father lives and to count it a nightmare.” Sometimes Alistair dreamed he was as bad as his father in every way and then some. That was even worse.
“It’s not terrible.” Robin cupped Alistair’s cheek in his palm, stroking his thumb along the cheekbone like one might to do a confused child. No, like one might do to a lover. Alistair leaned into the touch. “It’s hard to be the one on whose shoulders these things fall,” Robin said.
It was. It really was, and it was a relief to hear it spoken aloud. He turned his face and pressed his lips into Robin’s palm—not quite a kiss, but almost. “You know about that too,” he said, understanding dawning. Sometimes he forgot that other people had crushing responsibilities and fears and expectations. He was not alone, not in his burdens, not in his life, not in this house—not tonight, at least.
“A little,” Robin said, not moving his hand. “I won’t tell you to stop worrying, that there isn’t anything to worry about, because that never works. And it’s never true. There’s always something to eat you up.”
“You don’t seem to be eaten up.” He was always smiling, always laughing, charming everyone around him.
“I’ve found the fears are there whether you fret or not. So I sweep them aside and try to enjoy myself while I can.”
While he could? That didn’t make sense, but Alistair knew this wasn’t the time to ask. “That’s why calling you Robin sounds right,” he said, before he could reconsider the wisdom of what he was about to say. “You’re like spring. When you came here, when I met you. It was like... light, like the coming of spring, even though I hadn’t known it was winter.” Oh God, hehadhad too much to drink. Either that or he belonged in Bedlam. What a thing to admit out loud. “I’m afraid I’m a maudlin drunk.”
Robin looked up at him for a long moment, his expression unfathomable, then pulled him into a hug, letting the damp toweling fall to the floor. “Hush,” he said, and Alistair knew it meantI’m here,and notBe quiet.
Alistair felt Robin’s still-damp head settle beneath his own chin, as if it were the most unobjectionable thing in the world for the two of them to be standing here thusly. But Robin felt cold and smelled sweet, so Alistair wrapped his arms around his friend, the wet fabric of shirt and waistcoat chilly under his hands. He felt Robin let out a breath and sink against him, the younger man’s weight scarcely registering as a pressure against his chest.
There was a sound in the hallway and Robin abruptly stepped back. Alistair could have told him it was only a housemaid refilling the coal scuttles and that nobody would disturb them in here.
“If someone came in they might get the wrong idea,” Robin explained, not quite meeting Alistair’s eyes. He was fiddling with the hem of his waistcoat.
“Would they, now?” Alistair retorted. If this hypothetical intruder concluded that the Marquess of Pembroke was behaving like a lovesick swain, he would be quite correct, damn it.
Robin blushed but didn’t plead ignorance or make any move to change the topic, or do any of the other things he might have done if he didn’t know exactly what Alistair was talking about. “As a man who prides himself on his correctness,” Robin said patiently, as if Alistair were five years old and not particularly bright, “it wouldn’t do for you to be seen in the arms of another man.”
Suddenly Alistair felt furious. Not at Robin, not even at himself, but at everyone who gave a damn whose arms he was in. “I’m the bloody Marquess of Pembroke and I’ll do what I please with my arms, thank you very much. I’d like to see anybody stop me.” He knew he sounded infernally arrogant, he knew those very words had likely been spoken by his own father in justification of his exploits, but he didn’t care.
“Besides,” he continued in a calmer tone, “I haven’t done that sort of thing since school.” He straightened his cravat, as if that would restore his dignity. “With a man, I mean.” He was deliberately opening a door that didn’t need to be opened, and he was going out of his way to do so.
Robin turned to him with a startled grin. “Neither have I, for that matter.”
Only after Robin left did Alistair realize they had both forgotten the book.
Chapter Five
Charity knew she ought to refuse Pembroke’s offer to let her have the use of one of his mares. He framed it as a favor: the animal was very skittish, his new groom had not yet proven himself trustworthy, and so forth. But she had known it was a sham. She had stupidly mentioned that she missed the morning ride she had become accustomed to taking in the country, and he had maneuvered her in such a way that she couldn’t refuse.
And this from a man who said he never acted out of benevolence.
What would happen when Louisa was married and Robert Selby disappeared? Would Pembroke wonder why he had been so suddenly dropped? Or—worse—would he make an effort to find her? When Charity had planned and schemed all those months ago, this sort of entanglement had been the furthest thing from her mind. But now she felt like she was mourning her own death, mourning the death of Robert Selby all over again. Mourning things she had no right even to think of.
“I’ll race you to the Serpentine,” Pembroke called over his shoulder. It was only eight o’clock and the park was almost empty.
