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“Prepare a bottle of Madeira as well.”

A fleeting smile ripples across his lips.

I wave my hands impatiently. “Hurry.”

I am left alone, Étienne having just departed, and my gaze inevitably falls upon Lord Dorian’s envelope.

A strange sensation mounts within me, a subtle irritation that runs through my shoulders. Perhaps something else.

I grab the first object within reach, determined to cover that letter, but my fingertip rests on the spine of a book, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, his gift.

I run my fingers along the cover and stop at the corner where a dark stain persists: blood.

His blood.

The memory rushes before me, the blow, the book, his reaction.

I rub gently at the now-dry residue. Instinctively, I bring it to my nose. The metallic, acrid scent makes me close my eyes for an instant, and Dorian’s voice echoes in my mind.

“Every thought of mine seeks you... you are the background noise that annuls duty, the only silence I seek in sleep.”

I detest the tone with which he uttered them, the way his gaze burned. As if he were sincere, as if he knew the weight contained in the words he spoke with such ease.

I reopen my eyes and jerk away from the book. I run a hand over the nape of my neck, inhaling deeply, trying to disperse the knot tightening in my stomach.

The fireplace before me crackles, the flames flickering as if laughing at me. I reach out, my fingers gripping the envelope and the book with force; the wax of the letter imprints into my palm as I lift them both. The weight in my hands seems to grow, and for a moment I feel the heat of the fire reflected on my skin.

A step forward, my arm rises, ready to let them fall into the flames, but something holds me back. My hand trembles, the flickering light makes the name written on the envelope stand out.

A shiver crawls down my spine and hits my groin, hardening into a thick, heavy pulse. My cock strains against my trousers, a filthy, sudden hard-on that I can’t stop, and it’s fucking humiliating.

Have I become a pervert too?

I close my eyes for a moment, trying to banish that impulse, but my will cracks.

The image of him on his knees on the floor materializes behind my eyelids.

I hurl the book and the envelope onto the table with a sharp thud.

“Je dois le briser, avant qu’il ne me brise.”1

1. “I must destroy him before he destroys me.”

19

Viridis Griseus

Evander

Houghton Hall emerges from the gray without any ostentation. It is a familiar vision that makes the muscles in my shoulders relax by a few millimeters.

The driveway is straight, flanked by bare trees, at the door, a servant notices me and stands aside with a sober bow. I hand him my gloves.

The interior smells of warmed wood, the domestics move with that efficient calm I have always appreciated in this house.

No superfluous rustling, no voice out of place.

They guide me to a side parlor. Dark green dominates the room, deep and clean, interrupted here and there by the gold of the details.