Marl’s expression blanked. “I’ll see to it,” he said, and whisked himself out of the room.
Jack drank two cups of coffee, freshened up at the washstand, and headed down the stairs. The moment his boots hit the bottom step, Mrs Foley appeared in the doorway of the morning parlour. “Good morning,” he said.
Mrs Foley stalked across the hall, small hands bunched into fists, and glared up at him. She had to crane her neck to do it, especially standing as close as she was.
“No?” Jack said. “Not a good morning?”
“You horrible,awfulman,” she said shrilly, grabbed hold of him and shook him, and then stalked off in a brisk swish of skirts.
Marl came to stand beside him and they watched her disappear through the door to the servants’ quarters, closing it behind her with notquitea slam.
Jack looked down at Marl. “I must have been even sicker than I thought.”
Marl pressed his lips together and said nothing, but his nostrils flared.
Jack was itching to go up to the main house and see how Arden and Beckett were faring after their second night together. He was sad to have missed it. Unfortunately, Mrs Foley refused to let him leave until he sat at the table in the breakfast parlour and ate every last bite of the enormous bowl of porridge she’d made him. She’d smothered the gelatinous mound of beige in brown sugar and cream.
It was exactly how he used to eat it in the nursery.
And so even though it was the last thing Jack felt like doing, he manfully picked up his spoon and choked it down under her angry supervision.
In an effort to clear the lingering headache and to burn off some of the heavy porridge that had landed like a stone, he elected to walk up to the house, and it was still quiet when he let himself in through one of the side doors. He took the narrow servants’ stairs two at a time to the second floor, and strode through the corridors that led to the ducal apartments.
Setting a hand on the door, he paused. There were no sounds coming from inside the room. Jack quietly turned the handle and opened the door.
As before, the covers and pillows had been thrown off. They lay in a wild spill of silk and linen on the floor beside theenormous bed, like fallen petals. Jack’s heart swelled at the glorious sight before him.
As did other parts of him.
Arden and Beckett lay together, a picture of everything Jack had ever wanted. Beckett was behind Arden, with one arm tucked beneath Arden’s head and the other curled around his waist, holding him close. One of Beckett’s thighs was between Arden’s legs, and Arden was clutching the thick arm around his waist with both hands.
Jack’s appreciative gaze traveled lingeringly over them, cataloguing the evidence of the night they’d had while he was unconscious in the Lodge.
Arden’s fair skin held a light flush; even from the doorway, Jack saw small patches of red on Arden’s thighs and high up on his arms, where Beckett had held him tight, or had perhaps dragged his stubbled jaw over the soft skin as he strung ravenous kisses over Arden’s body.
Arden’s chest rose and fell in quick, shallow breaths, and it was that which made Jack finally look up into his face.
Arden was watching him with wide eyes. Jack smiled, and was hit with a disconcerting sensation of vertigo, as if he’d missed a step on the way down the staircase, when Arden tried to smile back.
It was an awful thing—wobbly, on bitten-red lips, and utterly, unmistakably insincere. He blinked rapidly, and tears spilled over onto wet, sore-looking cheeks.
Jack didn’t stop to think. He crossed the room, reaching out.
Arden shook his head, a tiny gesture that said he didn’t want to wake Beckett. Jack fought hard to hold himself back. From demanding what was wrong. From snatching Arden from the cage of Beckett’s embrace.
The big arms holding him so tightly took on a whole other cast, now that Arden wascrying.
Jack crouched beside his bed, gaze locked on Arden’s, and said in a low, desperate voice, “Arden.”
Arden caught his breath. “J-Jack,” he whispered. The profound relief in it made Jack feel even worse. “Shh. I don’t want to wake him.”
Jack spared Beckett a quick, assessing glance. “He won’t wake. He’ll be out for hours. As should you be.” He reached out again and, when Arden didn’t shake his head, rested his fingers lightly on the back of Arden’s hands. Hands which were clutching Beckett’s forearm. He stroked gently over the icy cold skin. “You have to let go,” he said.
Arden’s breath hitched again. “I know,” he said, sounding desolate.
What in the seven hells had gone wrong?
Arden’s hands flexed on Beckett, tightening before he finally let go. The very second he did, Jack rose from his crouch and scooped him to the edge of the bed.
