He’d removed himself politely and efficiently from the picture, and now Jack and Beckett could continue happily on as they had been, before Jack had nobly sacrificed himself on the altar of matrimony.
Jack had said that all he wanted was for Arden to be safe. Arden was safe now at Greylag.
He was more than safe. It was everything Arden had ever dreamed of.
He couldn’t be happier.
Greylag was a small, grey stone house perched atop a headland, with spectacular views across to the sea from one side of the library, and across the moors from the other. A farmhouse with ideas above its station, the housekeeper cheerfully informed him when she bustled down the front steps to welcome him to his new home.
Arden spent his days there roaming about and exploring the countryside at his leisure. He thought of his father often, and mourned him. He didn’t think of Lassit at all.
He made sure he didn’t.
A few locals popped in to make his acquaintance and ask after his husband the duke, but on the whole, the only people he saw were the friendly, competent servants.
Just as he’d always wanted.
It was wonderful.
Apart from the fact he yearned to be back at Avendene with Jack and Beckett.
Jack wrote to him almost every day. Arden adored it, even though sometimes, it was little more than a line or two on lovely, thick cream paper, to say good morning, and that he was thinking of Arden.
Arden liked to run his fingertips over the paper, imagining Jack touching it with his large, powerful hands; pretending that the warmth of his husband’s touch lingered, and was transferred to Arden.
He hadn’t had anyone to correspond with before, other than his journal, and his journal never wrote back.
Every day, Arden waited eagerly for the post to arrive. He tucked Jack’s letter into the little satchel he took with him on his daily walks, along with a flask of tea, his sketchbooks, and his own writing case, and set out.
He had a favourite rock where he’d sit and pen a reply, including a sketch of some small thing if he had time. A fat bee swinging on clover blossom, pale pink clematis tangling over the hedgerow, an interesting cloud, or the large hare who liked to sun himself in the sandy grass at the edge of the beach. He made sure to return home in time to send it that same day.
Jack didn’t mention Beckett.
Arden didn’t know how he felt about that. He didn’t quite have the nerve to ask after him, either.
A handful of weeks passed, and then another. Jack’s notes took on a teasing tone.
He wrote things that made Arden blush and send shifty looks all around, although he was alone on the beach and there was no one to see him getting hot and bothered, other than the odd gull. He read and re-read all of Jack’s letters. Those ones, though, the teasing ones, he’d sometimes take to bed and read over again before he blew his candle out to sleep.
And then, after another handful of weeks, Jack wrote to say that he was coming to see Arden, if Arden would permit it?
If he’d suggested it earlier, when Arden’s body and heart were still echoing with the demands of his heat and all the ways it had gone wrong, he’d have been a coward and said no.
But as it happened, Jack had waited the perfect amount of time.
Arden’s response was a clear and eager yes.
Arden woketo rain on his window and, while he usually didn’t let poor weather stop him from taking his morning constitutional through the small park, onto the downs and all the way to the beach where he liked to stand and watch the waves, that morning he did.
He was feeling somewhat out of sorts, and not just because today was one of the days Jack hadn’t sent a letter.
He’d been dreaming again.
He’d been shocked the first time he’d woken up, hips thrusting lazily into the mattress, his breathing ragged and loud in the otherwise silent room, his heart thundering in his hot chest. He’d rolled over, sat up in astonishment, and realised that he’d orgasmed in his sleep.
He did it again.
More than once.
