“You can’t.”
Their eyes held, then Lassit turned on his heel and strode out of the room.
Beckett was the one to break the silence he left behind. “We ain’t trusting him not to try and grab Arden again, are we?”
Jack sounded a little sad when he said, “No, Beckett.”
“Right. You want me to head off today, or wait until morning?”
“You don’t need to go to him at all. He is safe at Avendene.”
Beckett waited.
Jack tugged him closer and leaned his head against Beckett’s side. He turned and pressed a kiss there, ridiculous man. “Stay with me tonight. Go tomorrow.”
BLOOM
CHAPTER 33
ARDEN
Arden sat in the flickering green shade of a vast old chestnut tree on one of the last days of summer, gazing out at the parkland before him.
The weather was hot and fine. A gentle breeze played through the wildflowers growing where the landscaped park blended with the meadow beyond, and tossed the tops of the willows and tall osiers that marked the route of the river. He’d stripped off his coat, stockings and boots, and was crosslegged in his shirtsleeves.
His sketchbook lay open on his lap and his fingers were smudged with colourful pastels. The scene before him, delightful and picturesque though it was, couldn’t hold his attention. Not when his head was full of something else altogether.
Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply of the mild, sweet air, and let his mind wander where it willed.
In other words, he let himself think of Jack, and Beckett, and that wonderful morning on the beach.
It was the happiest he’d ever been.
A warm sun, a sharp breeze, the magical ocean curling around his ankles and up his calves. His heart pounding withexcitement as Beckett chased him and snatched him off his feet, ran him down to the water’s edge and threatened to toss him in.
Jack, strolling to join them with his easy, long-legged grace. Arden wrestling free and rushing over to put Jack between them, laughing and dodging as Beckett gave chase again.
It had been wonderful. It had felt like a beginning.
He opened his eyes and flipped pensively through his sketchbook. He’d almost filled it, and not with trees and flowers and landscapes, either, although most of his sketchesdidbegin that way.
They just quickly morphed into the scandalous images that he was, as it turned out, rather good at.
He’d had no idea.
Before Jack—before Beckett—it hadn’t ever crossed his mind to draw this sort of thing.
He’d sketched figures before. He had many thick sketchbooks crammed with the people back home. Mostly the servants, going about their business, paying no attention to Arden the child, then Arden the youth, then Arden the young man, hovering about, always sketching. They were well aware that he was doing it. Sometimes the local children would scamper up to him and demand a portrait to take home to their parents. He was always happy to oblige.
He hadn’t ever drawn figures like this, though.
The pages were covered with bold, slashing lines that were far from his usual light, whimsical style. Dark, sweeping curves of thick charcoal suggested the flex of heavy muscle. Shadows pooled in intriguing hollows, outlined a cobbled torso, showed the bunch and strain of wide shoulders.
Arden flipped swiftly past the detailed sketches of Beckett’s face at the beginning of the book, of the remembered sneers and the scowls, the lowered brows and the cold light in his eyes, andhe paged on to—oh, gods, he could hardly believe he’d drawnthat.
But he had.
This one was pure imagination.
