“My education stopped when I was thirteen, so I doubt it.Also,you didn’t happen to warn me that I’m a prince.”
Lauriegrinned.“Blame Clara.I thought you were just an ambassador’s son.Don’t worry; either way, you look the part.”
“All right!”Sanderson had swung around to face them, pale facealight with the joy of abstractions.Laurie and Sasha sprang apartand into attitudes of polite attention.“This morning, gentlemen,we are going to solve the mystery of trig, I think.I must say Ifeel very optimistic.Laurence, would you like tobegin?”
Wincing,Laurie began where he always did—at what he’d been told was thecorrect place, breaking the equation Sanderson was pointing at downinto its component parts.He could usually get so far as that, butthe trouble was, once he’d done so, he couldn’t see where to gonext.Why it mattered.Nevertheless, he gave his good-natured bestshot.Sandy had his living to make, and he lived in terror of SirWilliam too.
Struggling with values, cosines, and tangents, Laurie wasvaguely aware that Sasha had slid the textbook out from under hiselbow and was running a thoughtful fingertip down the pages—notover the text and explanations but the diagrams.A quick, assessingtriangular dance… Laurie flashed back to the feel of that fingertipbrushing the hair back from his brow, and lost the thread entirely.“Sorry, Sandy,” he groaned.“Clara’s gonna get this before Ido.”
“Nonsense, Laurence.You’ll be fine.Let’s just start with thenext one, or…” Sanderson paused, clearly concerned by the etiquetteof asking a prince to do a sum for him.“Or perhaps your friend—er,Sasha—would you…?”
Sashalooked up.“Not that one,” he said quietly.“I’d need to see it asa diagram, I think.But…” He scooped up a protractor from the desk,got to his feet, and went to one of the two tall windows thatlooked out over the Mayfair rooftops.It was a bleak Decembermorning, but to Laurie, who had stood up and followed him as ifentranced, the grim old slates seemed bathed in light.Sasha leanedboth hands on the sill.“Okay.I can see the Hilton tower fromhere.Laurie, if you go and stand at the other window, which Ireckon is about three yards away…” He waited till Laurie hadobeyed, then smiled at him and said, “You and I are the baseline ofa triangle, A to B.I’m just going to take a rough measure of theangle from my point to the tower, and…” He tossed the protractor toLaurie, who caught it adroitly.“You do the same from yours.Hiltontower is C.So we know the length of one side of the triangle, andnow we’ve got two of its angles, and if you do the tangentequation…”
Lauriewent back to the desk.He grabbed a pencil and notepad and quicklysketched out the line of the roof, the wall, the distant tower.Couldn’t resist, even now, adding an ornamental chimney hood andpigeon strutting on the sill.
Sashagrinned as these additions vividly appeared.“All right, but putthe numbers in too,” he gently admonished.
Lauriedid so.He checked it with a calculator and turned to Sanderson,bright with comprehension.“Yes,” he said.“It fits.”
Sanderson, frozen by the whiteboard, stared at them.Lauriecould not work out if his expression was more impressed orchagrined.It must have come as a relief to him, surely, that hisleast apt pupil had finally understood the point oftrigonometry—that his pupil’s infant sister had just got the graspof it too, to judge from her awestruck little face—but he must bediscomfited too.As if aware of this, Sasha gave a small,deferential shrug and went to sit down again.“I still need tolearn how to state it mathematically, Mr.Sanderson.If you don’tmind.”
Sanderson did not.He laid down his whiteboard marker and satwith his students at the big table.For the rest of that afternoon,he worked through the rest of the exercises in the chapter from thediagrams, as if Sasha’s methods had come as a revelation to himtoo.
Theclass went more quickly than any Laurie had ever known before, fastas the hours he spent backstage at the Twilight.He was astonishedto hear his watch beep four o’clock, and to see his tutor, lookingmore relaxed than ever before, gathering up his books.“Well,gentlemen!”Sanderson said.“I do feel we’ve made progress.”Hehesitated, looking at Sasha, then finished, pale cheeks flushing upat his own daring, “I trust you’ll be joining us tomorrow,sir.”
Lauriefollowed Sasha out.The study-room door clicked shut under hisdampened fingers as he pulled it to.Clara and Sanderson were stillin there, comparing notes on what she thought Sandy should wear forhis dinner party that night.Sasha was at the far end of thecorridor, a graceful, tensely poised shape in the dim light.AsLaurie watched, he pulled open the door to the concrete stairwelland slipped through.
It was not the movement he had made four days ago in the sameplace.Notplease don’t followme.His eyes had met Laurie’s for afraction of a second before he disappeared, dark lashes lowered, asoft brilliance glimmering through.Heart lurching, Laurie spedafter him.
Theyrounded the last flight of steps into the utility room at fullpelt, Laurie hard on Sasha’s heels.Choking with laughter, Sashagrabbed him, whirled him around, and pushed him up against thewall, banging the door shut behind them with one foot.“Help me outof my princely disguise, then.”
Lauriedrew a ragged breath and took hold of the close-fitting blackcashmere—his own, but which became Sasha so well.He pulled it upover Sasha’s shoulders, ran both hands over his finely articulatedcollarbones, the shoulder blades that shifted like wings to seekhis touch.“Oh, God.I thought you were never comingback.”
“I know.”Sasha abruptly sobered.“I’m sorry.I got scared.ButI missed you so much, and…”
Laurielurched forward, silencing him with a kiss.He felt, withdisbelieving, vertiginous pleasure, Sasha’s knee push up to parthis thighs, and pressed himself, gasping, against the invasion.Running his palms down Sasha’s chest, he brushed bothnipples—accident only, but when Sasha twitched and cried out,Laurie repeated the caress, fascinated at how the tissue tightenedand came up against his palms.“Is that good?”
“Yes.Everything you do…” Sasha shut up, and Laurie, who haddared duck down to suck one taut little mound into his mouth, heldhim while Sasha slammed a hand to the wall and muffled a shoutagainst Laurie’s shoulder.“But we can’t do it here, youidiot.”
“No?”Laurie came up for air for a second, then went to attendto the other nipple.His cock was hard and tight inside his jeans,aching where it pressed against Sasha’s firm thigh.He could feelSasha too, trapped and ready.A rush of need swept through him.“Ithink I’ve got to.God, come here!”
Wrappingboth hands around Sasha’s backside, he ground them together, Sashanow kissing him frantically, throwing out a hand to grab at thewashing machine for balance.The imperfect feel of baffled contact,sealed off behind layers of fabric, was at once terrible andbeautiful.They had to push hard, hard, and the touch was packedwith so much promise of how it would be when briefs and boxers,jeans and Savile Row trousers finally got themselves unzipped andout of the way.
“Laurie, stop.”
It wasurgent.Laurie went still at the pitch of one thrust, though it waslike jamming the brakes on at eighty miles an hour.His heartalmost clawed its way out of his chest with the effort, but hewould rather die, he knew, than impose on Sasha one touch he didn’tdesire.“What?What is it?What’s wrong?”
“I can hear someone.”
“Fuck.”Laurie let him go and spun to face the door, listening.For a moment all he could hear was his own blood rushing, andthen…yes, footsteps scraping on the concrete stairs.At the verybest-case scenario, Clara, though she found the old staircasespooky and usually avoided it.Even then, some adjustments wererequired.Handing Sasha his sweater back, Laurie ran both handsthrough his hair and willed his erection to subside.
No.Oh, God.A male tread, slow and heavy.Glancing around, hesaw Sasha bone white—more terrified even than Laurie himself, andin a worse way, as if whatever was beyond the door might not behuman.It’s all right, Laurie mouthed to him, seizing his wrist and drawing himinto the shelter of the old larder cupboard, no place to hide butperhaps enough cover to shield them from a cursory glance into theroom.They clung together, barely breathing.Then Laurie heard theback door open and Charlie call out cheerfully up the stairs, “Backin half an hour, Mabel.Just gonna pick the old goat up from hisclub.”
The doorslammed.A moment later, the garage door creaked, and the Daimler’sdistinct purr began.Laurie subsided against the wall, limp withrelief.“It was Charlie.”
Sashastared at him, eyes so dilated with shock Laurie could notdistinguish sable iris from fathomless jet-black pupil.“Who’sCharlie?”
“My driver.”
