As Hapton gathered the empty cups and plates and loaded the tray, Arden took the envelope over to the window. He broke the indigo wax seal and slipped out the letter.
My beloved Arden, it began.
He smiled softly as he read the first few lines, skimmed ahead to the bottom because he was the sort who liked to know howthings ended so he could really enjoy the journey, and choked, his cheeks flaming all over again.
“Your Grace? Are you well?” Hapton paused on his way out of the door.
…inside you, my darling, and watch you come apart…
“Yes,” Arden said faintly, flattening the letter to his chest and pressing it there as if the words would fly free and hover in the air for Hapton to see if he didn’t. “I’m fine.”
Hapton’s lips twitched as he nodded and left.
As soon as he was out of sight, Arden bolted across the room, shut the door, and placed his back to it.
My beloved Arden,
It is not three hours since we left you and already I am impatient to see your lovely face again. I write this from our chamber at The Hare’s Rest. You may recognise the name of the inn. Perhaps you stayed here on your way to Greylag?
This letter will be short and, by the time you read it, four or five days old.
And, Arden, by the time you read it, I very much hope that Beckett and I will already be on our way to you, having completed business in Sevennis and set out for Avendene.
Our bed here is vastly uncomfortable, made all the more so by the great lout who takes all the covers for himself, and?—
Here the elegant penmanship cut off in a brief spatter of ink.
It was easy for Arden to imagine what had happened: Jack, propped up against a pile of pillows and stretched out long on the mattress, writing with his travelling desk on his lap. Beckett, leaning over and asking Jack to read back what he’d written, then punishing him for it with a brief scuffle that perhaps ended in a harsh kiss.
—but since this state of affairs is not unknown to me, I shall nobly endure, as I have often done in the past and shall in the future. Tell me, my darling, that you are not also greedy withthe bedclothes? If so, I shall have to heap my bed high with them, just to have a mere handkerchief’s worth of cover in the cold nights of winter.
Although if you and Beckett are with me, I doubt any of us will be cold.
I must go. Tomorrow we start at first light, as the sooner we arrive in town, the sooner we will be able to leave. And I am eager to hold you in my arms once again. To take you as my husband. To be with you, and inside you, and watch you come apart for me as sweetly as you did for our lover.
His cheeks still hadn’t recovered from the first time he read that, when Hapton was bustling about with the tea things.
Our lover, who asks me to add a message from him.
Arden closed his eyes and prepared himself. If Jack was this brazen on paper, he could only imagine what raw thing Beckett would say.
Oh.Oh. Not brazen at all.
Beckett looks forward to walking with you in the gardens and perhaps down by the river or the lake, if his taskmaster allows him the time off.
He is talking of Marl here, Arden, as he knows full well I would have him give up?—
Here the ink spattered again and Arden laughed softly.
Enough. I must say farewell. Know that I long to see you, and send you my love and Beckett’s.
Yours always,
Jack
Arden stood there against the door and read the letter three times over.
He took it upstairs with him to his bedchamber and slipped it under his pillow, bringing it out to reread twice more in the course of the day, and then again before he snuffed his candle.
