She lifted a scone from a basket and placed it on a small plate. The rosiness in her cheeks never faded. “I seem to recall you calling your, um, your, um Byron during another encounter.”
“Before you ask, no, I have no name for mine. However, I might adopt Lord Golden as a moniker.” Colt lifted the glass of juice and sipped at the liquid, eyes crinkling with laughter. With his head tilted back, I spied several bruises along the column of his neck. I had been a bit too animated when I fucked him this morning. My wife also sported several beneath her ear as well.
“It is a fitting name.” Lillian lifted a piece of the scone. The pastry crumbled beneath her fingers, and she dropped it back down to the plate.
A piece landed on her bodice, and I lifted it, allowing my palm to skim her breasts beneath the linen. Per usual, she’d forgone a corset, and if one looked closely—like I did every time I stared at her chest—I caught the outline of her nipples. Juvenile, yes, but when I was around her, I felt like a green youth in the throes of his first infatuation. Love had revitalized me. “What is in the note?” I asked, trying to focus my mind on anything but rushing my lovers back upstairs and repeating our earlier coupling.
“If I tell you the story, you must promise you’ll not get mad,” Colt said, looking me in the eye.
Curious, I nodded, willing to concede to his wishes. The sooner we discussed Gavin, the quicker I could scrub him from my mind. “I’ll promise to do my best. That is all I can do.”
He traced a thumb along the length of the glass, a tick forming in his jaw. “Nobody— and I can’t stress this enough, nobody in the household liked Gavin. He was obnoxious, rude, and frankly, he bullied the staff when you weren’t paying attention.”
“He was no better than my father.” My father was a brutal and violent man, and I swore that I would never abuse the weak and vulnerable when I was duke. I had subjected my staff to what I had tried to protect them against. Horror filled me atthe revelation. I shifted in my seat and tried to listen without another outburst. “Please, go on.”
Lillian clasped my hand in hers, offering me moral support. “You see the best in everyone. Don’t fault yourself.”
Colt shifted his leg, his foot outstretched. The brown trousers hugged his thighs. Like me, he was in his shirtsleeves, his tan vest fitting his lean torso. “If you recall, I suggested you have Gavin sign a gentleman’s agreement.”
“I heard you mention it last night. What is that?” Lillian asked.
“It is a non-binding agreement that simply stated means we both promised to keep our conversations to ourselves.” I thought it was silly, but Colt assured me it might come in handy. He was right. Gavin had balked at first, but I convinced him to sign it by taking him to Paris. “We’d first met when I was looking for a model for my marble statue that the queen commissioned. We became lovers soon after. He was thrilled to be immortalized in the royal gardens, except I never finished the statue.”
“Because of me,” she said in a small voice.
I squeezed her fingers and shook my head. “No, don’t blame yourself. What I thought was a disaster turned out to be the best day of my life. It started a chain of events culminating in what we have right now.”
Colt’s compassionate gaze skimmed her face. “Kendrick is right. You’re never to blame yourself for this. Gavin has bad character. If not for you, I wouldn’t have told the duke how I felt. But I digress. Gavin signed a gentlemen’s agreement because he had no choice.”
“If it is non-binding, I still don’t see why it mattered,” Lillian said.
Colt lifted the end of the note Henry had delivered. “Legally, no, but among gentlemen, yes. I told you that Henry was hisfriend. He arranged an introduction to Gavin’s mother, the opera singer, for me.”
“You presented the note to his mother?” I asked, leaning back in my seat. Gavin wasn’t fond of his mother and often lamented how she kept him under a stern thumb. Without her support, he wouldn’t be accepted into polite society; thus, he toed the line where she was concerned.
“I presented the note, but not to his mother. To his father.” A grin spread across Colt’s handsome face. He hadn’t combed his hair or shaved. His new devil-may-care persona pricked my cock and my imagination. Every second drew me deeper in love with him.
“I never met his father.”
“Sure, you have. Plenty of times. You just didn’t realize that he poses as a she.” Colt nodded at his own confession, his amusement more pronounced.
Lillian glanced from me to him, her mouth agape. “Are you telling me his mother is actually his father?”
“That is exactly what I’m telling you. He’s been singing under the pseudonym this entire time. When Henry confessed the secret, I was as shocked as you, although I’m uncertain why. Under Kendrick’s employ, I thought I had seen it all. This unusual household opened my eyes to a whole new world. A world that is hidden on the fringes of polite society. You now live in that world, Lady Lillian.”
“I suppose I do. My book has been selling well, and I owe it to the, um, the queer world,” she said. The bashfulness was back. “It is a shame I’ll never meet my readers.”
“But you’ll know they are out there, anxiously awaiting your next endeavor,” Colt said.
“Someday, we will dress you as a man and take you about the town. Would you like that?” I asked. The idea of Lillian’s longlimbs encased in a pair of trousers appealed to my base side. I would get Henry right on procuring the garb.
“It would be a great lark. When can we go?” she asked with enthusiasm.
“As soon as Henry can get your suit made. Now Colt, how did you get Gavin to agree to leave us alone? I know his mother, er, father has great influence over him, but he could easily tell everyone his father’s secrets.” Secrets were only as safe as the one keeping them. I had to hide my true self or risk exposure. My mother hid my father’s abuse from me until she could no longer protect me from the truth. Like a house of cards, the family secrets fell, and I faced the harsh reality of his abusive nature. I had survived by avoiding situations where I would be entrapped in entanglements. It was a vicious cycle that I vowed to stop.
Colt crossed his feet at the ankles and tapped his toe in the air. He was every inch the relaxed gentleman. “People like Gavin live on the fringes. He would lose everything if he spoke out. I merely presented him with an alternative. After his father learned of the circumstances, he made Gavin honor the agreement. I put him on the first ship to New York City with enough money to get him started in a new country. The caveat is he can never come back to London.”
“You paid him off?” I asked, uncomfortable with the notion. I took a bite of the peach. Men like Gavin would take that as a sign of weakness. Once he’d been paid off, he would keep coming back for more. I was sure of it.
