Mab's Fanfic Site

Cards on the Table

by Mab

James Ellison, Captain, lately retired from the army, surveyed the lower ten acre field with a certain satisfaction. A year of attentive husbandry had noticeably bettered his small estate, and he enjoyed a little pride in his achievements.

"There's been a great improvement," said Joel. As always, the contrast between Joel's correct words and the lilt of the West Indies in his voice pleased Jim.

Jim urged his horse on. "Decent drains make a difference wherever they're to be found." Joel grinned in unspoken reminiscence. They were both veterans of many indecently drained situations, especially on the Peninsular. However much Jim sometimes regretted the secluded life he lived now, he had no regrets that inadequate latrines overloaded with human filth were well in his past; except, he thought, for rare visits to the great cesspool of London. Such visits were a trial - he had been in London once since his return to England - and he had fought illness, headaches and the humiliations of his fits throughout.

Today, he felt well. The natural smells of the country were within the bounds of his endurance, and he took satisfaction in being able to look out and see most of his land laid out before him and note small details that he knew his companion could not.

"I'm glad of country hours and an early dinner, Joel. Shall we see what Mrs Burgess has prepared for us this fine evening?"

"Does this mean that you will indeed eat?"

"I believe that I have an appetite."

"Good. For I believe that your cook will grow offended if the master never eats what she provides." Joel's voice was disapproving, although there was a glint of humour in his eye.

Jim spurred his horse into a canter, taking simple enjoyment in the physical sensation of it all; the smooth bunching of his horse's muscles, the feel of the bridle in his hands, the way the wind of their movement ran across his skin. He was in a good mood when he entered his house. However, the presence of a letter on the table in the hall deflated that mood. He was familiar enough with his father's handwriting, for all that he seldom saw it. He opened the letter impatiently - it would sour his dinner whether he discovered its contents now or later, and he saw no point in waiting.

"James," it began unpromisingly.

"I trust that your rustication has made some improvement in your health, as I require your presence as soon as you may.
I have advice from friends that your brother sees fit to make a fool of himself. I might endure this if I did not fear that he will shame the family name also. There is a woman (a fact that I suspect will not surprise you) and your brother has spoken of marriage. She is not suitable, and I will not have it.
I have no need of a reply so long as you bring yourself".

It was uncompromisingly signed, 'William Ellison'.

Jim restrained the urge to send off a reply heartily stating that he would rather walk London naked than respond to such a summons. But his indignation was tempered by curiosity as much as any other emotion. The old tyrant must be genuinely panicked to write such a letter, as he usually was content with leaving his dirty work to various minions and agents, manipulating from his chair as best he could. Jim went in to his dinner, for which he did indeed have an appetite, and thought over what exactly Stephen might be up to cause the old man such concern. He had seen Stephen precisely once since he left home, after he sold his commission, and he still remembered his shock that the scrubby, awkward youth he remembered had grown into a blandly sophisticated man about town. It had been foolish of him. After all, Jim had changed more than a little since he was a raw boy of eighteen.

He felt the regrets of the years fall upon him, as he wondered what lay beneath Stephen's mask of society manners. He knew his brother less than the merest acquaintance, and with that thought in his mind, after dinner he advised Joel that they would be travelling to London.

Sally hurried out of the spare room and nearly bumped into Stephen in the hall. "Oh, my dear, I am sorry, but I'm in such a bustle. Just think, your father tells me that James is coming. At last. I barely saw him last time, ill as he was."

Despite the sudden twist of suspicion in his heart, Stephen smiled gently at his cousin. A distant relation, she had kept house for his father since Stephen was a small boy, and he was fond of her.

"And why does Jove the junior choose to honour us with his presence now?"

"Well, I'm sure that I don't know." Sally's expression grew exasperated. She was not foolish enough to believe Jim's visit an exercise of familial affection. "A more close-mouthed group of men than the Ellisons is unknown in nature, that I'm sure of. But I'm just glad that he's coming."

Stephen took and kissed her hand in exaggerated gallantry. "My dear, you are fonder of us all than we deserve."

"Undoubtedly," she replied dryly. "Your father is waiting on you."

"Indeed, I have received my orders."

"Stephen, whatever it is that you are up to, I wish that you might reconsider. He is very angry."

"I'm thirty years old, Sally, and much as I enjoy his financial indulgence, I can live without it. I fear that my father will just have to be angry. Although I regret it if his anger falls on your head."

"It's a bit of muslin, I suppose."

"Sally, ladies do not discuss such things. Ladies do not even know about them."

"Fustian," Sally declared roundly, before she was distracted by the arrival of one of the maids. "Oh, for mercy's sake, Meg, don't slop the water like that."

Stephen made his way to his father's door. He had for all the years of his majority accepted that his father's excoriating tongue was the price he paid for a generous quarterly allowance, but he also knew that the small competency he had from his mother kept his father's worst excesses in check. William was afraid that he might completely slip his control as James had done. He took a breath and squared his shoulders. Time to pay his debts once again.

"Enter," his father called, in response to his knock. "Ah. Took you long enough to travel from that den of yours. What's this nonsense I've heard about this Sandburg woman?"

Stephen shrugged. "As I'm not privy to your conversations, Father, I'm sure I couldn't say what you'd heard."

William Ellison sat upright in his chair like a magistrate giving judgement. "Word is that you're visiting that hell of hers all too often and not for the play."

"Mrs Sandburg is a charming woman."

"High priced whores often are."

Stephen flushed in anger. He had not enjoyed Naomi Sandburg, even if rumour occasionally suggested that she could be enjoyed. He had simply found her a charming flirtation, even an odd sort of friend. Her house was frequented by a good quality of person, and he had recommended it to several of his friends. But he knew what his father was about. The last time he and his father had been in accord, Stephen had wistfully suggested that he was thinking of seeking out a wife, and the old man was letting suspicions run away with him. Stephen thought that, aside from the little matter that Naomi wouldn't see forty again, he might do worse. But there was a sour amusement in watching his father worry that he wasn't paying proper attention to what was due the consequence of the Ellisons.

William tried to be less peremptory. "Stephen, tell me that you're not considering anything foolish."

"Father, you must give me leave to arrange my own private matters. My plans for my future are my own concern, and I will continue to arrange my own affairs, which I will do regardless of involvement from you or anyone else." Such as my brother, he thought.

"If I don't agree with those plans, I don't have to finance `em," his father growled, "and that coat and waistcoat won't be paid for on the annual income from 5,000 pounds."

"Then I'll just have to live on my expectations like half the young men in London, Father. You might choose to rewrite your will in James' favour, but I've been a dutiful son in my way. And I have always wished to learn the estate, but you prefer me to kick my heels about town. So be it. I shall go and kick a little more. Good day, sir."

His father put out a hand, whether to call him back or to impotently express a wish to strike him, Stephen neither knew nor cared. He left, his conscience wickedly assured that he had not lied to his father. He had no intention of marrying Naomi, and he had never said he did. Now, if only he could find a suitable lady.

The stage-coach journey was just as bad as Jim had feared it would be. The vibrations of the coach itself irritated his entire body into an angry thrumming. He could not sleep at the inn. The sheets were rough against his skin, he heard every noise from the taproom two floors below, and his sensitive nose reported every whiff of stale ale and tobacco, every unwashed and sweaty body. He then endured another disgusting day in the coach.

By the time the hackney had taken him to his father's door, he was exhausted and angry with himself and William and Stephen and most of the unsatisfactory world. Joel recognised the signs and made quietly efficient plans for his employer's comfort.

Sally was there to greet him. Jim hadn't seen her in ten years, when he had taken leave in London and had written to her. She had come to his lodgings and they'd had a comfortable gossip. Now he dutifully embraced her, and tried not to let the lavender water she wore irritate his nose.

"My dear, I'm so glad to see you again. It was wicked of you not to come before. Nor would I have turned down an invitation to that little house of yours. Inconsiderate boy." Her face beamed with a smile, but there was a hint of tears in her eyes.

"I couldn't have looked after you properly. It was all bachelors' quarters. But it's good to see you again, too." Sally bustled him into her little parlour, and Jim sat down in the sturdiest looking chair with a sigh of relief.

"You're still not well, are you?" Sally asked.

"I have my days. I fear this is not one of them."

"Tea will be the thing."

Jim shuddered. He didn't want to maudle his insides with tea as if he was an old grandmother.

"No, thank you. Perhaps it might be wiser to beard the lion in his den. I was summoned after all."

Sally stood and put a hand on his shoulder. "You always did jump your fences directly. Perhaps you had best go up, Jim. Maybe you will tell me what's going on." Sally's voice was plaintive.

Jim smiled despite himself. "You must know more of Stephen's adventures than I do, my dear."

"Not at all. Far too much is deemed unsuitable for my elderly spinster ears. It is most annoying."

Jim grinned and stood, then winced as the movement worsened his headache. But quite aside from the discourtesy, he could not rest in this house without appeasing his father, and discovering what was going on. He walked up the stairs to what he thought of as the old man's eyrie. When he was crippled in a fall from a horse, William had refused any accommodation to his injury. His bedroom was where it was, and there he would rest. He also refused the indignity of being carried about by footmen like a baby, and so had barely left the room in years. Instead, he sent his servants on myriad errands, and invited (or commanded) visitors to him.

Jim knocked and entered.

"James."

Jim stood by the door and inclined his head in stiff courtesy, but no more. His father sighed pettishly, and said, "Jim, sit down, boy." His name was an old battle and one in which his father still attempted rear-guard attacks. Jim picked up a chair and brought it closer to his father. The room was stiflingly hot.

"I knew you would come," his father said with satisfaction. And this was all the greeting there was between them after long absence.

"I'm here," Jim said, "although I don't know why."

"You're here because despite that stiff-necked independence of yours, you still care about our name. And because you're curious."

"So, perhaps you'd best satisfy my curiosity, Father. There's plenty of business to keep me busy at home."

His father laid out the business - Stephen's apparent infatuation with a woman (a damn Jew) and William's concern that he might do something foolish.

"He's been restless, and difficult. Maybe he's only teasing me, but I won't take the risk. You must be my agent. Determine his intentions toward this woman. If he seeks to irritate me, so be it. But if he's serious, she must be bought off. She'll not turn down cold hard coin against the threat of losing it all if she does plan to snare him."

Anger flared in Jim. "You'd threaten to disinherit him? In whose favour? I already know that I won't be the fortunate one."

Discomfort crossed the stern old face. "You won't go without when I die. But Stephen has lived with a promise of the bulk of my estate for a long time now. It's not a threat I'll make to his face, never fear."

Jim stood. He'd told himself for many years now that his discovery that his father had named Stephen his heir didn't matter. He had enough from his mother, and he had always chafed at his father's haughty ways. But the reminder still hurt, and he was indignant for himself and his brother at the way the old man tried to use purse strings to strangle any independence.

"I should leave you and Stephen to untangle your own coil. I'll find the truth of the matter for you, but I make no promises of being your agent." He was overcome with a spirit of provocation. "Why shouldn't Stephen marry her if he wants?"

William looked as if he might have an apoplexy, before he recovered himself. "Insolence and folly," he snapped. "Even you can't wish to see your brother married to a Jewess at least ten years older than he is. A woman out of a gaming house! It would ruin him."

Jim shrugged. "I know, I know. I'll let you know what I discover. Sir." He stood up and left, and realised that they had neither of them asked after the other's health. He enquired as to his room and went there, to discover Joel busily putting his belongings away. Joel took one look at him and made the awful pronouncement, "Tea."

Jim surrendered to the inevitable.

"Not Wilson's chandlers, my dear," Naomi protested. "Their wicks spit dreadfully."

Blair surveyed the column of figures before him. "They are cheaper, Mama. But I take your point. Perhaps a slightly smaller number of candles then?" He sighed. They were solvent enough still, but they'd had to dip into their capital to cover recent losses. The losses irked him. The hope that that he and his mother might have enough to live in an independent manner without the inconvenience of earning their bread had begun to take on substance, and the setback irritated him. One day. Of course, he would still gamble, but for pleasure, and he would have time for far more reading; and his mother, who adored any and all company, would be able to gather an acquaintance which she enjoyed as well as one which was purely useful.

"Not too few. We wouldn't want our dear friends complaining that they cannot see the cards." Naomi smiled. "In view of our planned economies, I had best confer with Mrs Hitchens. It would never do to spend too much feeding our guests."

Blair smiled back and put the accounts aside. "Did Sarah repair the seam in my coat?"

"But of course. She's a most efficient creature, and completely wasted on us."

"Nonsense. You're a ravishing credit to her. If she ever wishes to leave, and she needs a reference, she need only gesture to you."

Naomi stood - his still beautiful and deceptively fragile mother. "You're a glib flatterer," she declared.

"I'm keeping in practice for our dear friends," Blair replied, and went to inspect his coat.

The coat hung pristinely against his door. Sarah was indeed a most efficient creature, whether she was taking care of clothes, or offering her body. Blair ran his hands over the fine wool material, imagining her hands on it, just as they had been on his skin. He shook his head. Enjoyable as their liaison had been, he had grown tired of her. He had never been foolish enough to fully take her. He would neither breed bastards nor be trapped into marriage; not even the memory of Sarah's wand-slim pallor could tempt him to break that resolution. His one fear now was that she would leave, and that his casual lust would cost his mother the inconvenience of seeking a new abigail. So far, Sarah's pleasure and pride in dressing a beauty held her to the Sandburg household, and Blair accepted the occasional barbs thrown his way as due punishment for an error.

There were a couple of hours yet before the evening's guests would arrive. Blair settled comfortably on his bed with a book of Rousseau. He should really remember that his intellectual passions were far less trouble and all too often far more rewarding.

Joel surveyed Jim with satisfaction.

"I meet your high standards, then?" Jim asked. This was an old joke between them.

"Luckily I have never aspired to dress a leader of fashion."

Jim made a quick inspection of himself in the fine mirror in his room. He looked well enough. "Luckily, indeed," Jim said, flexing his shoulders inside his coat. At least he could do that without being at risk of splitting a seam, unlike some dandies, and the movement distracted Jim from the headache that had never really gone away. He had spent the afternoon in his darkened room, dozing in snatches and trying to decide how he should go about his task. Should he approach Stephen directly, attempting to ally against their father as they had done so many years ago? Too many years had passed with too much bitterness for that. Should he simply approach la Sandburg directly? If she was the mercenary his father thought then simply implying that Stephen stood in doubt of his inheritance might scare her off. But he revolted at revealing that suggestion of his father's to a stranger. Finally he resolved merely to visit the gaming house - a simple reconnaissance. If Stephen was there then Jim would see him and the woman together, and if Stephen guessed his purpose - well, so be it. He acquitted his brother of stupidity, if not folly.

A friend of his father's, a Mr Charles Spring, called in his carriage to transport Jim. It seemed that he also was a habitu of the Sandburg house. Spring was short and stout, with a countenance marked by anxious good-nature. He offered a little nervous conversation which Jim hardly heard. The aches and pains, the occasional piercing sensations that his excessive sensibility brought him - he was prepared to accept those things, but he prayed that he might avoid a fit tonight. He preferred not to stare blankly like a statue, to the amusement or consternation of those around him.

The house was at the very fringes of the fashionable area. Lights glowed from behind curtains, and the buzz of conversation could be heard from the street even with the most ordinary hearing. Mr Spring nervously introduced Jim, vouching that he was no officer of the law, and they entered.

The noise and smell struck Jim like a blow, and he stood still a moment, shaking his head. Then he overcame the shock and stepped forward. There were several games in play, faro, piquet, whist even. Mr Spring led Jim forward, and with an odd pride, introduced Jim to his reason for coming to London.

Mrs Naomi Sandburg was tall for a woman, but of a delicate frame. She was clearly not young, but a startlingly beautiful bone structure and a warm charm of manner made her maturity immaterial. The high cheekbones and red hair reminded Jim painfully of Veronica. Veronica of the brittle wit, and welcoming arms, and a certain carelessness as to whether she favoured the British or the French. He put all thoughts of Veronica aside, and attempted to judge Naomi on her own merits - or lack of them.

"Captain Ellison? A relation of Mr Stephen Ellison?"

"His brother, ma'am."

Naomi gave no sign that she thought this significant. She merely offered a dazzling smile, and asked Jim as to his favourite game.

"Piquet, ma'am."

She laid a white hand upon his forearm. "I am guarding the faro bank, but my son can offer you a most skilled game."

Jim nodded. "Thank you, but I believe that I may simply watch for now."

"Enjoy yourself," she said sweetly, and returned her full attention to her table. Jim could see that she might captivate a man, but he still found it hard to believe that Stephen would commit the idiocy of marriage to her.

Mr Spring led him on, introducing him to other `guests'. Jim, absent from England for much of his career, knew none of them although some names were familiar.

"I'll introduce you to young Blair, but I'd watch him if I were you," Mr Spring murmured. "He has a cherubim face and the devil's own luck at cards."

Jim muttered some assent. He was growing alarmed that he might make a scene - he felt strange, as disconnected from the scene about him as if he was a ghost walking unseen among the living. The light of the candles was too bright, and all the hubbub of conversation ceased to be myriad sounds, became one brown turgid river of noise, which was startlingly cut through by a clear and silver stream of sound.

"How can we help him?" he heard, and startled, he looked down into the face of an excessively attractive young man.

"I'm all right," Jim said, as humiliation scalded his skin. He had done it again, and hardly knowing where to look, he glared at the man before him, who was of no particular height, with a handsome, frank-looking countenance and the most intense blue eyes Jim had ever seen.

The young man ignored Jim's protestation. "I believe that the library is empty." He looked up at Jim. "You can rest there."

Jim was about to declare that he didn't need to rest, and then restrained himself. He felt an idiot, and peace and quiet might help him to regain some balance. He allowed himself to be ushered into the library, a very small room for such a grand name, and studied the young man who grasped his elbow, and was asking 'if Captain Ellison would prefer madeira or port, or would coffee be more appropriate'. This clearly was Naomi's son, and Jim attempted some calculation as to how old he and his mother must be.

Jim permitted himself to be seated upon a sofa, uncomfortably aware of the warmth of the hands which settled him there. The young man, hardly more than boy, really, left the room. Jim tried to occupy his mind with mundane ideas. His father had suggested that Naomi Sandburg was ten years older than Stephen, and he could well believe that she was a youthful forty, maybe even forty-five. That put that young man somewhere around twenty to twenty-five - assuming, of course, that he was truly her son. Jim had seen some odd menages maintained in some very strange places.

The young man, Blair, returned with a glass of port. "You must excuse me, sir," he said with a charming smile, "but I must take care of my mother's other guests." Jim nodded, and barely restrained a snort. Guests indeed! But clearly everything was of the most discreet. That discretion included the look of admiration that young Sandburg sent his way. Jim refused to acknowledge the increased beat of his own heart. If he could keep company with Blair Sandburg then he might have a better opportunity to fulfil his father's requirements.

Jim sat quietly for a half an hour or so, sipping his wine. The door opened and he looked up, hoping that it was Sandburg. Instead, his brother stood there.

"Good evening, Jim. Spring said that you were here, but unwell."

Jim stood, embarrassed all over again. He had told himself that he was ready for this meeting, that Stephen should expect concern when he acted unwisely, but his arguments lost their force in the light of his brother's eyes.

"I'm well enough, except for my pride."

"But then," Stephen said softly, "your pride always was strong enough for any ten men; no doubt it will survive."

Jim bit back a retort. He was to some degree in the wrong, but he was seized with a desire to pummel his brother as if they were small boys.

"How are you, Stephen?"

"Well enough, brother mine. And you?"

Jim smiled. "Well enough."

Stephen looked him up and down, while gently tapping the head of his cane against his jaw. "Had you a chance for introductions before your indisposition?"

"Some. I met Mrs Sandburg."

Stephen smiled. "I don't doubt that you did. Do you wish to rejoin the company with me?"

Jim nodded. "If you're agreeable."

"But of course." The two of them walked back to the public rooms and Stephen said quietly, "If you didn't insist that Father pay any debts you amass this evening, you were a fool, and I don't think that you're a fool, Jim."

Jim suppressed urges to parricide. Father or brother - he decided it didn't really matter which.

"I do believe that Mr Spring has set the dogs on Stephen Ellison."

Naomi looked at Blair sternly. "That was both inelegant and unkind."

Blair was unrepentant.

"But not untrue, Mama."

Naomi sighed. "So ridiculous. Stephen is charming, and certainly an ornament to our little gatherings, but Mr Spring is being foolish."

"Indeed - I don't want us to lose a charming but merely competent card player with contacts among all the deep dippers in the town."

"And," Naomi's face dimpled in a teasing smile, "I do not think that we can really describe Captain Ellison as a dog."

"You," Blair said heavily, "will have an eye for a handsome man when you're eighty."

"He seemed to recover from his indisposition easily enough. Does he suffer from Tommy Singer's difficulty do you think?" Tommy Singer was the much younger brother of Henry Singer, Naomi's `patron' through much of Blair's youth.

"I don't know. It was something like, but he recovered far more quickly than Tommy ever did." But Blair wasn't really considering Captain Ellison's health. Blair had earned a useful sum in vails with men when he was younger, even if he usually preferred women for his leisure, but it didn't stop him having as acute an eye for a handsome man as his mother. He sighed. Captain Ellison had raised his eyebrows at the level of play, but his real concern was reserved for any display of Stephen's attention to Naomi. A pity. Blair had felt a flicker of sympathy, as well as attraction, for the tall man with the sternly handsome face.

James Ellison might well return, but only until he was satisfied that he had nothing to fear from his brother's affection for Naomi. Blair tried to dismiss regret at the thought. From what Stephen had said in passing to Naomi, Captain Ellison was comfortable enough, but not really the sort of guest that they needed. Younger men, richer men, who fancied themselves clever hands at cards until they met their match in Blair Sandburg. They were what were required, not a well-seasoned former soldier who spoke with a rich, deep voice that Blair had listened for all evening.

Stephen took pity on his brother and departed the Sandburgs' house somewhat earlier than his wont.

"Do you wish to stretch your legs a little, Jim? I can walk with you as far as Father's house, and if I grow tired the chair-bearers wait nearby."

Jim nodded, surprised and a little wary at his brother's desire for his company. He made his thanks and good-byes to Mr Spring, who was staring at Mrs Sandburg in a manner that fully explained his desire to assist William in detaching Stephen from her. Jim sighed.

"Are you still unwell?"

Jim smiled. "No. Merely considering the tricks that the heart and the body play on us."

The two of them walked together in silence for a while. The streets were narrow, but a bright moon shone down, casting enough light to see by.

"So, Jim, what will your report be?"

"Mrs Sandburg is a charming woman, but I wonder why Father is so concerned that you will marry her."

"I am thirty. It's an age where a man should consider taking a wife."

"Stephen..." Jim's voice held a warning tone.

"Tell him whatever you wish," Stephen said sulkily. There was silence. "Yes, I misled him a little. But I chafe, Jim, I chafe. It's hardly so desirable being the favoured son as you might think."

"Then you are well served, are you not? I recall that you sought his favour out often enough."

"For God's sakes, Jim! I was fourteen - and our father was never an accommodating man. I will not be held to account for your actions - or his. I cannot believe that my adolescent follies forced you away."

Jim looked down a very long avenue of years. "I'm sorry, Stephen. It's been a long time, and things have changed."

"Some of them more than others. Did you truly join the army as a common soldier?"

"Until I turned twenty-one I had little choice. When I had control of Mother's money I bought a commission, but I fear that my peculiar beginnings affected my chances." Jim had achieved brevet promotion in the field on several occasions, but somehow it was never confirmed.

"Bless our mother, eh?" Stephen's voice was bitter.

"I remember her better than you, little brother. She and Father, they should never have wed."

"Other women accommodate themselves."

"I believe that we are altogether a stiff-necked family," Jim said wryly. Stephen burst into a loud peal of laughter.

"Jim, I will be visiting the Sandburgs' again the night after tomorrow. May I meet you there? I'm sure that you can tell Father that I'm being recalcitrant. After all, if he can't drag the truth out of me, then you must surely have to investigate further. And I should like to play you at cards. It's not a pleasure I've enjoyed yet." Stephen laughed again. "Father's money will be lost in the Sandburgs' house whichever way we turn."

Jim chuckled, but shook his head. "After tonight, I can hardly play with Father's money, although I'll pretend a little longer if you insist. It's foolish, Stephen."

"You are independent to a fault. I envy you."

Jim shrugged. He could hardly approve the way that Stephen was baiting William, but he couldn't deny a certain sympathy with his brother, and enjoyment of the idea that were in accord with each other. Besides, it might be pleasant to make the acquaintance of Blair Sandburg again.

Whatever Mr Spring's feelings might have been, the Sandburgs were delighted to have the company of both Ellison brothers twice within a week. Stephen gambled and drank just enough to justify his presence and spent as much time as he could indulging Naomi in conversation. She sparkled under the attention of a handsome man, but made a point of being equally charming to all her guests.

Jim indulged in a trivial amount of play. He enjoyed cards and in the Peninsular had often added to his income in a small way. So far as he could judge these things, the play was hard and dangerously deep on occasion, but not obviously dishonest. He had played a few games with Blair on occasion, and both men had vastly enjoyed themselves.

Blair feared that he was becoming dangerously fascinated by Captain James Ellison. He had seen the brothers come in together Jim's second visit and had lowered his head to hide a smile. Stephen had not merely slipped his watchdog's vigilance, he had convinced him to join him on the prowl. Blair had played three games of cards with Jim and acknowledged him nobody's pigeon for plucking. Indeed, he felt that Jim might have made an excellent sharp. Jim had a habit of seemingly prudent play which he occasionally punctuated with reckless and often successful risks, and Blair appreciated the challenge. Jim suffered no more fits, in fact seemed much at ease in his visits, especially the time he spent with Blair.

Blair suffered with a dilemma. Jim was an attractive ornament to Naomi's little gambling salon, but he didn't bet heavily, and he had no acquaintance in London that he might introduce to the Sandburgs. Blair, however, admitted to himself that he very much enjoyed Jim's company, and wished to see more of him. To that end, he decided to risk a set-down. His heart thumped nervously, but he set his face in a blandly pleasant expression.

"Captain Ellison, you strike me as more of a sportsman than a gamester. Do you take any interest in boxing?"

"Some," was the unpromising reply.

"Only, there's a match at the King's Head on Wednesday afternoon. They're both newcomers but Briggs at least strikes me as likely. Might you wish to accompany me?" Jim's face was unreadable as he looked at Blair across the baize of the table, and Blair struggled to maintain his politely non-committal face. `Say yes, say yes,' chanted in his head.

Blair warmed in relief as Jim smiled. "It's been a while since I saw a battle without cannonades. I accept your invitation, Sandburg." Blair smiled back and returned his attention to the game. They were playing whist with two over-confident gentlemen, and with Jim as his partner, Blair hoped that he might make a useful sum.

The two of them met at a hackney stand on the Wednesday. Between his excited anticipation of the bout and his pleasure at having Jim's undisputed attention, Blair hardly needed the assistance of the carriage springs to bounce him along London streets. He had no idea whether Jim felt the same spark of friendship that he did, or whether he merely had a taste for low company. Blair had no illusions about his station in life, and so long as James Ellison sat squeezed next to him making dry remarks about the changes London had seen since he last spent any time there, Blair found he didn't much care.

The yard at the King's Head was abuzz with noise and crammed with men of all classes come to see the fight. Blair eyed the combatants sitting in their corners.

"What do you think?" he said, quite content with the chance to stand close and lean up to speak into Jim's ear.

"Briggs might be your favourite, Sandburg, but I wouldn't bet on him today. His friend with the water bucket is berating him for being in his cups last night."

Blair stared at Jim in astonishment. "How in God's name do you know that?"

Jim looked down at him in confusion, and then a flush crossed his cheeks. "I heard him," he said, and then looked at the crowded hubbub surrounding them, clearly as surprised as Blair.

"What else might you hear?"

An odd look crossed Jim's face, and then a more recognisable expression of resolution, followed by distraction. "Briggs is telling his friend to leave off. The other fighter is making a short prayer to the Almighty. The man in the doorway over there," Jim's eyes indicated the entrance to the tavern some fifty feet distant, "is telling his friend about the girl he had last night..." Jim's voice trailed off, his head tilted, and the blank expression that Blair had seen that first night at the house came over his face.

"Captain Ellison. Captain." Blair took Jim's upper arm and shook him a little. There was no response. Blair felt more than a little guilty. He had encouraged Jim and now he was lost in this strange trance. Moved by he knew not what impulse, he said softly, "Jim." Jim returned from his abstraction, and looked down at Blair. "You fell into one of your fits. But only for a few moments. Nobody noticed."

"Except you," Jim growled.

Blair grinned. "I've seen you do it before, and we both survived." There was a roar as the boxers stood up. The noise subsided only a little as the landlord shouted out the terms of the fight and the two men danced forward to engage each other. It was a short contest. Briggs' length was laid on the mat, and Blair sighed in disappointment.

"Not the entertainment I led you to believe, Captain Ellison."

"Not a great moment in the annals of sport, but it's been a pleasant outing. I've seen portions of London that I've not seen in years."

Blair shrugged in apology, grateful for Jim's courtesy, and they prepared to leave. As they passed through the entrance gate, he asked, "Doesn't it drive you mad, hearing as acutely as you do?"

Jim was silent for a moment and Blair feared that he'd given offence.

"Sometimes. But I would manage if it didn't all drive me to the distracted fits."
"All?"

"It's just not my hearing, Sandburg, it's everything. My sight, taste, touch, all of it. It's all too much, and I fall into the fits. Not a wise action on campaign. " Jim spoke brusquely. "The sickliness I could ignore - but not the fits."

Blair walked on, thoughtful. "It sounds as if it ought to be a blessing as much as a curse, especially for a soldier. You would have warning of the approach of the enemy, be able to scout so much more efficiently - so many things."

Jim's voice was bitter. "Except that I couldn't control it. I had to resign my commission, leave my men behind. I hid in the country where it was quiet. This last week is the first time I've managed anything like a normal life in over a year."

"It was something new, then? You couldn't always do this?"

"If it's a freak show you desire, I suggest you wait for Bartholomew Fair," Jim said angrily, and quickened his stride. Blair stood stunned for a moment, and then found himself forced to run to keep with his friend - or perhaps he was so, no longer.

"I meant no offence, Captain Ellison," Blair said stiffly.

Jim stopped. "I know. I fear I'm a little touchy about this. In part because I've learned too many secrets that perhaps I would be happier not knowing"

The small confession only further roused Blair's curiosity. "Such as?"

Jim took a deep breath, and cast such a piercing look at Blair that he felt himself blush.

"I know that you want me."

Blair rallied against the hot and cold sensation that chased across his skin. "You might have guessed that from the longing looks I gave you, Captain Ellison." He tried to chuckle, with no great success.

"I might have guessed from that," Jim said dryly, "but I didn't have to. The hackney smelled like a stews."

Blair's face felt terribly frozen, so that his lips and tongue stumbled over the apology he tried to force out. Jim cut it short with a small gesture of his hand. "It's no matter, Sandburg."

Blair recovered his sorely tried nerve. "It's no matter because you're great-hearted enough to ignore my perversity?" he asked softly. There was no answer. "Or it's no matter because you share it?"

Jim turned his head, scrutinising the street in all directions. "I am occasionally - perverse."

Blair wondered if that acute hearing of Jim's could hear the thundering of his heart. He raised his voice to a more conversational tone. "Are you at all interested in natural history and philosophy, Captain Ellison?"

Jim's expression was warily amused. "I've done little reading outside of some military commentary."

"Did you notice our library?"

"I noticed that there were a great many books crammed into a very small room."

Blair was glad that he had to walk quickly to keep up with Jim. The sudden excess of nervous energy needed somewhere to go. "I keep quite a few in my bedroom also - for leisure reading."

Jim's eyes narrowed. "I see."

Blair observed that Jim hadn't turned on his heel in disgust, or knocked him down, or even expressed a distaste for natural history and philosophy. He continued, his tongue going like a runaway horse. "Of course, I fear that any vigorous discourse might disturb the household, but I'm sure that if we exercise due discretion that we will upset no-one."

"And when do you wish to - enjoy - this discussion?" Jim's face was stern, but Blair discerned humour in his eyes, along with the light of other emotions

"As soon as possible," Blair declared, throwing both caution and dignity to the winds.

Jim smiled. It was a surprisingly sweet expression. "Then we had best find a hackney."

Much as Blair loved his mother, he was delighted to discover her just about to leave on an outing to the drapers, accompanied by Sarah. Naomi kissed Blair's cheek, smiled prettily at Captain Ellison and left a sweet cloud of scent behind her. Sarah had kept her eyes demurely downcast, but Blair saw a spark of anger when she looked at him and Jim. Blair smiled sunnily at her. She might think that Blair was having ideas above his station, but he didn't care. He didn't desire Jim's company for the social cachet it might give him.

The two of them walked up the stairs. The hallway smelled of beeswax and the bowl of rose petals that sat on the tiny windowsill, and Blair was glad once again that he had risked inviting Jim here rather than seeking out some molly house. Jim's tread was soft on the stairs. He moved very quietly for a big man, and Blair smiled in anticipation at discovering other skills.

The door was barely safely locked behind them when Blair felt Jim pressed hard behind him, those big hands that Blair had admired across the card table gripped tightly on his shoulders. Jim nuzzled along Blair's neck and cheek, nosed his way through Blair's unruly hair. Blair laid his cheek against the cool, painted wood of the door while Jim's warm breath travelled across his face.

He moved to turn in the close embrace, and Jim's mouth immediately sought his. Blair tilted his head back as if to wash himself in a storm, and stroked his hands across the broad back under its woollen coat. Jim broke away, his chest heaving, and stripped off his coat. Blair did likewise, and then sat Jim on the bed. "I think that I had best valet you," he said and dragged off Jim's boots and stockings, while Jim pulled away his cravat before reaching to do the same to Blair's.

Blair surveyed the linen now lying on the floor and laughed giddily. "I hope your own valet doesn't spend too much time in dressing you. I fear I'm not trained to it."

"You talk too much," Jim muttered, pulling off his waistcoat to add it to the drift of clothes. Blair sat on the bed and dragged off his own waistcoat and shoes and stockings but was distracted from further undressing as Jim pulled his shirt over his head. He had leaned forward, and Blair ran one hand across the smooth expanse of back while Jim leaned elbows on thighs, his eyes shut and the shirt hanging to the floor, still not entirely removed from his wrists. Blair continued to trace the lines of Jim's skin, ran one finger firmly down the spine, twisting himself to nip and lap at the skin of Jim's shoulder and neck.

Jim endured this and then with some incoherent noise finished stripping the shirt and knelt before Blair. He hauled the hem of Blair's shirt up with his hands, and anchored both hands and shirt with another hold of Blair's shoulders, before licking with great delicacy at first one nipple, then the other. Jim lifted his head for one precise, biting kiss to Blair's lower lip before returning his mouth to Blair's chest to suckle more vigorously. Blair stroked his hands over Jim's cropped hair, and dazedly noted that, once successfully wooed, his friend was a most direct lover.

Jim abandoned his grip on Blair's shirt to work long-fingered hands at the fastenings of his breeches. "Very direct," Blair murmured unthinkingly. Everything in his small bedroom was somehow more real, more sharply defined. He propped himself by leaning his arms behind him, the weave of the bedcover coarse against his palms. He felt strangely splayed by the mass of Jim's body between his thighs, vulnerable, even though it was Jim on his knees. When Jim's hands tenderly drew out his cock, when Jim's mouth took him in, Blair bit his lip to keep back a cry. It was too much. It was nowhere near enough.

Jim's eyes were shut, the long lashes a delicate shadow against his skin. His face was calm, even as he worked Blair's body to a climax that shot starbursts across Blair's now closed eyelids, that left him feeling like a honeycomb left to melt in the sun. He took a shuddering breath and tried to sit up a little. Blair realised that Jim was now working his own cock, and he leaned forward, protesting, "It's all right, let me..." Jim shook his head, his face no longer calm. He buried his face in the crease where Blair's thigh met his hip, the hand on his cock moving almost frantically, the other hand rubbing haphazardly as his arm reached around the base of Blair's hips. He was silent but he shook as if ague-stricken, and Blair arched over him, trying to soothe him, stroking his skin and hair, crooning nonsense and reassurance as if Jim was suffering some spasm of extreme pain rather than pleasure.

When it ended, Jim looked up at Blair. "Dear God, what was that?"

Blair restrained his inclination to tease. Jim looked and sounded so lost. Instead, his own mind fogged by a glow of pleasure, he asked, "How do you mean?" Jim moved to sit with his back against the bed-frame, and Blair flopped onto the mattress but summoned the strength to put a hand on Jim's shoulder. "How do you mean?" he repeated. "You've done this before?" Surely Jim must have. He was far too aware when they made their oblique arrangements on the street.

"I'm no blushing virgin," Jim snapped, before speaking more quietly. "I've not enjoyed a partner for a while. Abstinence does strange things." He sounded more as if he was talking to himself than Blair. They stayed in their positions in silence for a minute or so, and then Jim shifted across the few feet of mat to run gentle fingers over the spines of the books in Blair's small bookcase, to pick up one the ones sitting on the floor. Blair knew the authors and the titles well enough - works by Rousseau, Diderot, De Freville, Hawkesworth, Monboddo.

"I really do study natural history and philosophy." He grinned at the absurdity of discussing such things in their half-naked, undone state.

"So I see," Jim said.

Blair got off the bed and crouched beside Jim. "I begin to suspect that you truly expected a discussion of the nature of the social contract," he joked.

Jim took his palm and pressed a brief kiss to it.

"Only one or two clauses," he replied.

Blair was muttering to himself again, and making notes with a pencil in the small journal he carried with him. Jim didn't see how he would ever understand his writing given the wild sway of the coach, but Blair persevered, apologising occasionally as his racing sheets encroached on the other passengers. The spring day was no more than mild, which Jim was grateful for. Warmth would have substantially increased the discomforts of the journey, although Jim coped well enough. The well-being he had enjoyed since he came to London continued.

Jim had taken a seat opposite Blair in the coach. He knew how to school his face, but he enjoyed taking in the view. Blair's face was no more at rest in his concentration on racing form than it was in any other circumstance. One of the sheets resting in Blair's lap dropped to the floor, and Jim bent and looped an arm down and handed it back to him. Blair thanked him with an affectionate smile that both warmed Jim and led him to flick his glance over their fellow passengers. He saw nothing that suggested any dangerous observations had been made, and the anxiety that had flared in him eased.

They weren't the only passengers heading to Newmarket races. There were two young men dressed to the nines, with coxcomb ways that were beginning to irritate Jim. There was an elderly man, who had requested the window seat, "on account of his stomach" but there was a very pale and motion-sick woman sitting in the middle who looked far more likely to be ill. She surveyed the crowded road and moaned, yet again, "If my sister had only told me it was a race day, I'd have come another time."

Newmarket was achieved without catastrophe, and Blair and Jim made their way to the inn where Blair had apparently bespoken beds for the night. Jim looked around the busy town in some doubt that the rooms wouldn't already be taken. He'd slept in the open many times, but was hardly prepared for it today. Besides, on this busy day, no-one would think twice about men sharing a room or even a bed. He was looking forward to a whole night sharing a bed with Blair.

It was a small place, just a tavern, not even a posting house or stables. A man of perhaps forty came to greet them, and he and Blair shook each vigorously by the hand. "A busy day for you, Peter?' Blair asked. It struck Jim that there was an emphasis to Blair's question.

"Indeed, Blair, but it's all right and tight," Peter replied, and to Jim's considerable surprise, heartily bussed Blair's cheek. "Pretty as ever, I see."
Blair grinned. "I'm nearly five and twenty, Peter, have some respect for my advancing years."

"Aye, I can see the wrinkles starting. And this is your friend?" Peter looked at Jim in a shrewd but not unfriendly way. Since Peter was clearly more to Blair than merely some hosteller, Jim held out his hand, and it was taken in a quick, firm grasp.

"Peter, this is Jim."

"Pleased to meet you and to have your custom, sir." Peter turned towards the stairs. "Let me show you to your room."

Jim looked around the small room. The ceiling was low. If he stood on his toes his head would brush the ceiling, but it smelled clean at least. After Peter had left, Jim turned to Blair and asked, "Have you brought me to a molly-house, Sandburg?"

Blair laughed outright. "In the New Sodom of Newmarket? I don't think so."

Jim smiled. "It was an unusual greeting, you'll grant."

"Peter provides for kindred spirits, shall we say. Sometimes there are guests he doesn't know, casual travellers, but today all is well. Besides, Peter was brought up Methody, and he keeps a little austerity still. We must keep proper manners in the taproom."

"He's departed some distance from the ways of his forebears, I would say," Jim said dryly.

"It's true that he's as good a Methodist as I am a Jew." Blair's expression was roguish. "I had hoped for a full house of this persuasion."

"Tired of my company already, are you?" Jim spoke teasingly, but he was aware of a tiny sting, well-buried within.

Blair embraced Jim, his palms cupping his neck. "Never," he said, and kissed Jim. "But I have wondered if your admirable silence in the act of love is entirely due to discretion or natural restraint. Since discretion will not be quite so important tonight, I thought I might make some study." His teeth gnawed pleasurably along Jim's jaw. "Do you moan, Jim, or whimper, or cry out?"

"Why wait until tonight to find out?"

Blair's dismay was only partly feigned. "I can't miss the races; it's an important supplement to my income."

Jim's hands moved to the buttons of Blair's waistcoat. "The army taught me how to act with despatch."

Blair was clearly in his element on the race course. They wandered the crowd, inspected the horses and jockeys, and Blair indulged in friendly and knowledgeable chat with the touts taking bets. Jim had always loved horses beyond their utility. He enjoyed their grace, and grieved over the waste of them in war, which seemed to him nearly as poignant as the loss of men. At least the men had chosen their place. Wandering the course with Blair, he wondered again at the young man's life and experiences.

"Where did you learn so much about horses?"

"I was apprenticed as a groom when I was twelve. For a while, I even served as a tiger for Sir Anthony Newley. I was small and looked well enough on the back of his curricle. And I'm good with horses. One day, I hope I might afford one of my own."

Jim tried to reconcile the idea of Blair as a servant with the books in his bedroom. It was yet another strange contrast, to go with the glib deference in the card room and the enthusiastic, occasionally gauche passion that Blair had for both his books and his physical relationship with Jim.

"You're a man of contradictions, Sandburg."

"I've had a chequered career."

That remark brought back Jim's last discussion with William. He had tried to reassure his father that Stephen wanted nothing more than an agreeable flirtation with Naomi, while trying not to say anything that might emphasise Stephen's misdirections as to his intentions. His father was not deceived and was irritable, and not just with his younger son.

"And how can I trust your opinion when you've fallen into company with that woman's son? I would watch my step - if those two don't know how to play a deep game, I'm a greenhorn. It's already plain that we can't trust Stephen in this matter."

Jim had controlled his own irritation. If Blair had angled for money or gifts, such suspicions might be acceptable, but he was independent in his dealings with Jim. The only machinations Jim had observed in him were his activities at the card tables and in race betting, and even there, he took a boyish pleasure in trusting Jim with the details, as if it was all some enjoyable prank. Granted that all these things were a continual reminder that the two of them came from vastly different experiences, but...

Jim pushed away such thoughts. He enjoyed Blair Sandburg, both his body and his company, and he would enjoy this brisk spring day, and the mood of excitement that ran through the crowd as the horses and riders moved to the starting line.

"How far do you think you'll be able to follow the riders?" Blair asked.

"Interested to find out as soon as possible whether you're going to win or lose? It won't be settled until they cross the finishing line."

Blair snorted in exasperation. "Have you no curiosity about yourself? You are blessed with god-like gifts and you don't even think to use them."

"My god-like gifts removed me from the army and my men at a crucial point of the campaign. Forgive me if the chance of a bird's-eye view of the Second Spring race hardly seems a fair exchange."

Blair looked up at him with an annoyingly encouraging expression, as if Jim was some nervous child mounting his first pony. "By your own admission, your health has improved. You strike me as a man who has always tested his physical skills. Why not these? I'll watch for any sign of your fits."

"If I must," Jim said in long-suffering tones, canting a sideways look at Blair who was shaking his head but smiling.

The riders set off, to a murmur of appreciation from the crowd, and Jim set to using his `god-like' gifts. It was almost frightening how easy it was to see every little detail of the bunch of men and horses - the way that the pale sun gleamed on the silks and harness, the deceptively easy movement of man and horse together. The wind blew towards the watchers, and Jim could catch the pungent smell of nervous sweat on both jockey and horse, the moist scent of turf and earth churned beneath the horses' hooves. Blair was a warm presence by his side, scented with his own excited and nervous sweat, his voice a rich pleasure to Jim's ears and a buffer against the increasing noise of the crowd.

With a confidence that he had never thought to feel, Jim gathered up as many sensuous threads of sensation that he could; sight, sound, the feel of the air, the vibration of the earth beneath his feet. When the runners crossed the finishing line he was almost with them, in the midst of the cursing, straining men and triumphantly exhausted animals. Blair erupted into cheers along with the rest of the crowd, and Jim felt vastly and enormously alive, both in his own right and as something attached to the entity that was Newmarket.

As the horses slowed as they passed the line, so Jim returned to a less exalted state. Blair was looking at him, his face flushed and enthused. "You're all right, you had no trouble?"

Jim looked at his friend. He had always appreciated that Blair was an attractive man, but the reach for sensuous feeling now turned to a more sensual, carnal desire. He wondered if the brief passion at the inn had primed him for what had been an extraordinary experience. Certainly he felt primed to enjoy more physical sensation, especially with Blair.

"No trouble at all, it was..." He stopped, finding no words for what he had just felt. "Perhaps I can tell you about it later."

Blair smiled, using the excuse of the jostling crowd to lean against Jim's side. "I shall look forward to it."

The food offered by Peter's inn was plain, but fresh and properly cooked and Jim and Blair made a good dinner in the noisy taproom. At first sight, it was a normal tavern scene, such as might be found anywhere, but perhaps the patrons sat more cosily together than was usual. Blair's sharp eyes had already noted at least three assignations made between men that evening. His awareness of those arrangements both amused and aroused him. When he added to that the subtle touches and not so subtle glances Jim was directing his way, bed became a most attractive idea.

Jim had tried, with halting words, to explain how it had felt to consciously use those heightened senses of his. Blair had been moved by wonder and a little envy. What must it feel like, to be so physically aware of the world? He was more than ever grateful that Peter had been able to accommodate them. It was as safe here as it could ever be for two men together, and he planned to make the most of it.

"Are you ready to retire?" he asked Jim.

Jim smiled with lazy amusement. "I thought that I might enjoy the atmosphere of the public rooms a little longer." He indulged a lingering glance at Blair, who returned the stare wholeheartedly. Jim chuckled. "First one to blink loses, Sandburg."

"What forfeit had you in mind? I ought to know if the struggle would be worth it." Blair shifted on the bench, letting his feet once again tangle with Jim's under the table.

"Perhaps we should retire. Given that you informed me that our host doesn't countenance impropriety in his tap room." The two of them stood, and Blair reflected that the fashion for cut-away coats and light-coloured trousers offered little camouflage to a man's desire.

Once properly up the stairs, Jim placed one arm across Blair's shoulders, while Blair twined an arm around Jim's waist as they made a sweet, slow promenade to their door. Once in their room, Jim moved surely in the dark to the candle by the bed, and lit it from the small sconce in the hallway.

"There," Jim teased, "now you can see properly." He sat on the bed, and Blair, having bolted the door, moved to stand between his legs.

"I'm glad," he said. "The prospect is grand." He took Jim's face between his hands, and bent to kiss him, obscurely moved by the way those narrow, sensual lips opened to him. Jim had such a hunger for touch, and Blair determined that this night he would do his best to glut it. He began to undress Jim, letting his hands smooth over the broad shoulders and long limbs, intermittently removing his own clothes. He was no more than half-undressed when Jim was naked, sprawled on the bed while Blair anointed his skin with kisses.

Jim was running his hands through Blair's hair when he asked, "Am I to presume that you want your way with me?" It was no complaint, rather an indirect invitation.

Blair lifted his head. "I - I had thought that you might fuck me - this time." He hadn't done it in years. He couldn't deny his physical enjoyment of the act, but his pleasure had grown sour on the casual expectations of `gentlemen' he had known; now he wanted it with Jim, very much. There was, he realised with a small pang of fear, nothing casual here.

Jim must have seen something in his face. "What is it?"

"Nothing," he replied, and kissed Jim again, while Jim's hands fumbled with the fastenings of his breeches and drawers. Blair gasped as strong hands dragged material over his hips, lingering on his skin as they travelled. His clothes were halfway down his thighs before he thought to help, wriggling a little awkwardly because he really did not want to relinquish Jim's mouth. Jim muttered a curse, and moved away and down the bed to speedily finish stripping Blair.

He returned to blanket Blair with his body, and Blair stretched out under his cover, happily gratifying the urge to try to merge every inch of his skin with Jim's.

"You've done it before?"

Jim's face twisted in amusement and simple lust. He bent his head to lick gently at Blair's throat. "Occasionally. Your careful strategy included something to ease the way, I hope."

"Damn."

"Sandburg..."

Blair grinned at Jim's air of irritated desperation. "No, no, it's just that one of us is going to have to move. That pomade of mine - that should serve." Jim had vetoed the pomade's use in Blair's hair, claiming that it felt unpleasant. As Blair liked it when Jim's hands gently tangled among the curls, he had conceded.

"Simple enough," Jim declared, and gave Blair yet another example of soldierly despatch. Blair rolled to his side and watched the movement of Jim's body in the dim light, the way the shadows flickered across his skin; he saw one of the pagan natives of his books rather than some civilised Englishman.

Jim drew out the jar with a small noise of triumph and returned to the bed. He stroked Blair's hair, before he leaned down, his face to Blair's throat, and inhaled deeply.

"Jim..."

"Hush. You're about to let me fuck you, you can certainly let me smell you." Blair shut his eyes. Jim's breath whispered warmly against his skin, and the weight and heat of his body changed without warning as he moved over Blair's body. Armpits, groin and the crease of Blair's arse all received some attention. Blair would have loved to ask what this meant, but he enjoyed Jim's attentions too much to risk making him self-conscious. Jim looked a little abashed when he finished his exploration, but no less aroused. He made no explanation but put a dollop of the pomade into his hand, and rubbed it slowly over his cock, holding Blair's gaze all the while, then spooned up behind him.

"Like this?"

Blair nodded. He knew he should be calm, let his body be at ease to aid Jim's entry, but he couldn't help the tension in him as he felt Jim's cock push into him. He made a small noise, pleasure and protest combined. Jim murmured "Hush," but he stilled his movement, and stroked one hand gently across Blair's belly and chest. His other arm rested under Blair's neck.

Blair let out one long breath, and his body accepted a little more of Jim's. "It's all right, I'm all right," he muttered. It wasn't quite true - it had been a while since he had done this - but it gradually became more true, until he had the confidence to seek his own pleasure by moving back against Jim. Jim gasped, and made a small noise that a less generous man than Blair might have said was a whimper. "It's all right, do it, do it," Blair commanded.

Jim needed no other encouragement. The hand that had stroked across Blair's belly took a grip on his cock, as Jim moved, pushing Blair into something closer to a prone position. He mouthed at Blair's shoulders, saying over and over, "sweet, sweet skin, sweet." Blair lay with his cheek pressed into the pillow, his world only this bed, only Jim within him and over him, both of them entering their kingdom together.

Bliss ended, as bliss had a tendency to do. Jim's weight rolled away, and the cool air flowed unpleasantly over the swelter of Blair's skin. His hand scrabbled for the discarded bedcovers as he turned back towards Jim, who lay with an arm covering his eyes.

"Jim?"

"You'll be the death of me." Jim's voice was rough.

"Not truly, I hope." Blair's heart sank a little at the words. Sodomy was a hanging offence. Jim understood his meaning, and gathered Blair into an embrace.

"It would be worth it." Jim's forehead leaned against Blair's. "Besides, I'm gentry. I should merely be ostracised. With my father granting the first cut direct." He looked into Blair's face. "It's you I fear for."

Blair smiled. "I have influential friends."

They lay quietly for a while. Jim shut his eyes, dozing a little, but Blair was content to watch his lover. He traced the lines of Jim's face, the patrician features that so seldom, in Blair's observation, accompanied patrician lineage. He wondered what the hell he was doing in this man's arms.

Jim's eyes opened, and Blair blurted, "I'm a bastard, you know."

"I wondered. Your mother didn't come from the gutter, and such a person doesn't end in her situation unless she has fallen." Blair tensed, and Jim added, "I mean no disrespect. I'm expressing it as the world judges these things."

Blair sighed. "Naomi's father was a silversmith in Bath, and he dabbled in banking in a small way. Not acceptable of course, but he could have bought and sold some of the smaller gentry several times over." He found his hand stroking over Jim's shoulder; it wasn't so much sensuality as an effort to soothe his nerves. Why should this matter? Jim already knew he was a nothing in the eyes of Society.

"She fell in love with a young man, Gervase Blair, a gentile. I believe he was all of nineteen, and she was sixteen. The relationship was absolutely unacceptable to both families, and the lovers eloped to Gretna. It's at best a two day journey, and they let their passions overcome them." Blair grinned wryly. "It wouldn't have mattered, except that my father fell down the stairs the next morning and broke his neck."

"Unfortunate," Jim said. His tone equalled the detachment of Blair's, but he shifted to settle Blair more securely in his arms.

"Yes. To save what shame was possible, my grandparents put it about that Gretna had been achieved and that Naomi was married. This became important when it became clear that she was with child. The Blairs entered the fray at that point. They wished to have darling Gervase's child - except that Naomi couldn't produce her marriage lines. So the Blairs retired."

"How in God's name did your mother keep you? Most families would have seen you farmed out as far away as possible, if they didn't intend to cast the daughter off as well."

Blair shrugged. "They were trying to keep up the sham that she was a widow, I suppose. And Mama can be persuasive. We lived with my grandparents for perhaps a year although not in amity, I understand. And then Harry Singer offered her a carte blanche. She was eighteen and he was forty-two. And that was the point where Naomi and my grandparents cast each other off."

Jim stroked a hand down Blair's cheek. "And so began your chequered career."

"Indeed."

That was the end of speech for a while, although neither of them slept. Then Jim said, "I've been giving thought to a few things. I should go back to my estate - I've been acting as my own bailiff and there'll be business to attend to."

Blair tried to suppress his disappointment. Jim continued. "And if I'm to spend more time in London I must hire some rooms. Living under my father's roof is not conducive to my good temper." Blair's heart lifted at that. "Would you care to come and visit me? In the country?"

"What, Jim? An invitation to your kike fancy-boy to visit your estate?"

Jim gave Blair a small shake. "You're in a strange mood tonight, Sandburg. Perhaps you'd best fuck me next time if you mope like this afterwards." He leaned up a little. "An invitation to my friend to visit my home. Will you accept?"

"I'd like to accept, but - the house, the evenings. I'll have to talk to Mama. And it could only be a short visit."

Jim kissed him. "Make your arrangements, and let me know."

Naomi enjoyed a vigorous walk, with or without the company of her maid. Her exercise wasn't usually punctuated by young women hurrying around corners and nearly knocking her down. Naomi's was startled and her parcels went flying.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I do beg your pardon," the woman stammered, reaching out to steady Naomi and retrieve the dropped items.
"No matter," Naomi assured her. Her accidental assailant was perhaps a little shorter than Naomi, and would usually be pretty in a way of olive skin and warm brown eyes. But the girl's skin was sallow and her eyes were red, and she seemed far more distressed than was appropriate even given the humiliation of falling over a stranger in the street. On an impulse, Naomi said, "I fear my nerves need a little reviving. There is a very pretty tea house nearby. Come with me and make your apologies properly."

The young woman looked around nervously. "Oh, I couldn't, I..."

Naomi's curiosity was well aroused. "I insist." The stranger's shoulders slumped, and she permitted herself to be escorted to the tea house. Naomi discreetly chose a seat with a view of the window, but not close by. Tea and pastries were ordered.

"I am Mrs Sandburg," Naomi said, "and you are?"

"Louise Sedgewick, ma'am." Naomi's main contact with the quality was almost always with gentlemen, but Louise had the stamp of a well bred young woman; although not one of means, if her darned gloves were any indication.

Louise apologised once again, and Naomi assured her that the little accident was of no account. She watched as Louise sipped her tea, noted that the girl's hand trembled a little.

"My dear, I hope that you will not think me rude, but you appear to be distressed. May I be of assistance to you?"

Louise started to say, "You are very kind..." before her voice shook and her eyes filled with tears. Naomi removed a handkerchief from her reticule and offered it.
"I'm very sorry. I really ought to go."

"Go where?"

Louise's voice shook again. "To my employer. If she will still employ me after I've played truant this afternoon. I'm a companion."

"Is she a tartar, is she?"

"It's not her, it's her son." Louise pressed the handkerchief to her mouth in shock at her admission.

"I see," said Naomi. And she did. "He is importunate."

Louise sat upright in her chair, and said with softly vehement disgust, "He spoke in the most vulgar terms, even for a man attempting to achieve a mistress. I was shocked, and to be honest, ma'am, more than a little afraid." Her voice broke again. "My door does not even have a bolt."

Naomi did not share her son's taste in reading. She enjoyed novels and poetry, and she had long had a fondness for Don Quixote.

"My dear girl, I believe that I am going to take a tilt at a windmill. I want you to come with me."

Naomi led Louise back to her house, wondering if her agreement was a sign of innocence or desperation. She drew a little more information out of Louise and discovered her history, her lack of money and her lack of friends. Naomi thought that she detected distinct intelligence, especially when Louise balked at entering the house. Clearly, she had been thinking during the walk.

"It's all right. While I'm not quite respectable, I'm no procuress." Louise blushed at this straight talking, but still hesitated. "You have a choice of houses," Naomi said firmly. "Which will it be?" Louise took a deep breath and stepped inside Naomi's door. "There you are. Now, let us have another cup of tea, and then we will arrange a room for you - one with a key. And I will send a man to collect your things."

Blair was most satisfied with his trip to Newmarket. He was ninety-seven pounds and a miscellaneous number of shillings the richer. He planned to treat himself to a couple of books before adding the rest to his bank balance; yet more money for the day that he and Naomi would be able to live in quiet leisure. He had had two uninterrupted days of Jim's company, and a night with him that would stay fresh in his memory to the end of his days. He had an invitation to visit Jim's home, and that would be problematical, but he and his mother would work out something.

Blair was more than a little surprised when he entered the dining room on his return. Naomi had always collected the oddest acquaintance, but even so, the pretty, dark-haired girl sitting at the table was something quite out of the usual in her obvious and utter respectability. He kissed Naomi's cheek and waited for an explanation.

Naomi smiled. "Louise, may I present my son, Blair. Blair, this is Miss Sedgewick, who is our guest for a little while."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am."

Louise blushed a little, and Naomi smiled. "There is a little story behind Miss Sedgewick's visit to us, and I will tell it you once you're more settled."

"Somehow, there's always a story wherever you are, Mama. I look forward to hearing your news, and I have some for you, myself."

"Well, in that case, I will help you with your things, and we'll gossip together." Naomi turned to Louise. "My son has both a good nature and a sense of discretion, my dear. And I must explain things to him."

"Of course, ma'am. I will find myself a book, or perhaps you might find some task for me later."

Naomi accompanied Blair up the stairs and told him Louise's history, and her hope to find the girl a congenial position. Blair couldn't help but be amused.

"Mama, you don't think it a little incongruous that you are trying to find this girl employment?"

Naomi was serenely unconcerned by this filial lack of faith.

"It must be done in a round about way, I agree. But I plan to communicate with such gentlemen as I trust, and whom I know have female and family connections. I live in hope. And she's a pleasant, intelligent girl, and good company. Perhaps I might give her a reference."

Blair laughed at this, and Naomi shook her head. "I fear that I sadly neglected your upbringing."

"My upbringing was charming, as are you."

A small shadow crossed Naomi's face. "You, my son, are a charming liar. But you haven't told me your news."

Blair explained about Jim's invitation. Naomi pursed her lips a moment and made her pronouncement.

"Nothing could be easier. I shall reduce the evenings for a few weeks, and Louise can help me. Not in the gaming room of course, that would be most improper, but she can assist in the arrangements, and I'm sure that she can keep accounts just as well as you. I shall manage."

"You're sure?"

"Blair, people like you and I associate with a great many acquaintances, but friends are harder to find. Enjoy your holiday and your friend."

With that settled, Blair made his arrangements. He left a letter for Jim at his father's house, and Jim called on him to confirm arrangements before he left for the country. They had chanced a lingering farewell kiss in the library, and Blair watched Jim striding down the street from the window and acknowledged to himself that he was a moonstruck fool.

As usually happened, Sarah was called upon to make some small repairs to his clothes and she brought them to his room one afternoon.
"They'll never accept you, you know," she began.

Blair sighed. "I don't expect them to."

"So you follow Captain Ellison about like a dog? He presumably enjoys the toadying!" she snapped.

They were new words but an old song. "Sarah, my friendship with Captain Ellison is my own affair. As is how Mama and I choose to live."

Her voice lowered, became wistful. "I hoped once that you might choose to live with me."

"My dear, you and I share intelligence and ambition and sensuality," Blair lightly stroked her cheek with his finger, "but otherwise we are far too different. We'd drive each other mad."

The bite returned to her tone once more. "And look what you do with your ambitions." She stalked out in a bad temper. Blair shook his head. Sarah saw the small but comfortable house and Naomi's pretty things, but she had no idea how precarious their existence had been sometimes. They had the beginnings of tenuous security now, but Blair wanted more for his mother's future than two small rented rooms in a back street, and there had been times when that had seemed the very best to which they would come.

That thought led to a spasm of guilt. He shouldn't really leave for so long, or at all for that matter. But he very much wanted to see Jim, and Jim's home.

The day before Blair left, the little house-maid told him that Mr Ellison was there to see him. His heart leapt ridiculously before he realised that of course it was Stephen come to pay his subscription and debts and maybe indulge in Naomi's company. He heard voices from the library and realised that Louise was there as well, and hurried to the rescue.

It appeared his chivalry was wasted. Louise was indeed a little flushed, but the sparkle in her eyes was not embarrassment. Stephen turned to Blair with a look of both curiosity and amusement.

"Sandburg. Perhaps you or your excellent mother can introduce me properly to this lady?"

Blair grinned. He had learned the hard way that nothing was certain in this world, but it struck him that maybe Naomi had another choice than trying to find employment for Miss Sedgewick.

Jim found it disappointing and a little strange that in the relatively wholesome atmosphere of the country some of the well-being he had known in London should desert him. But even so, he was still better off than before. He reached sometimes for the memory of the control he remembered, especially at Newmarket, and it helped. He put up with the occasional spike of sensation, and there was only one fit, which happened in the privacy of his room when he somehow became lost in exploration of the lather on his shaving brush. He had felt a fool over that, but only Joel saw him and Joel had seen worse of him. Would indeed see worse of Jim in the future by the standards of what society expected.

"Mr Sandburg and I will keep close company," he'd said stiffly. Joel had been valet to Jack Pendergrast, and had on two occasions been left in no doubt as to the nature of the friendship that Jack had offered the young lieutenant that Jim was then. But he had not gossiped, and on Jack's death Joel had willingly accepted Jim's offer of employment. Jim had wondered as to his preferences but Joel had assured him he was a man for women.

At the end of Jim's awkward explanation, Joel had nodded and said, "I should attend on both of you in the mornings then, sir?" before leaving to ensure that the bedroom next to Jim's was properly prepared.

So, knowing that he had a willing conspirator, Jim had looked forward to Blair's visit with a clear heart. He spent a pleasant enough hour in the village waiting for the coach, drinking ale and sharing small conversation with the innkeeper and passers-by. He heard his name whispered once or twice, and shook his head at the subject matter. When Blair stepped off the coach in the village, he came forward with a broad smile on his face, and vigorously shook the young man's hand, while Blair thumped him on the shoulder in return. Blair's luggage consisted of a very shabby leather bag, and four books tightly bound with a strap.

Jim picked up the bag and placed it on the tray at the back of the gig. "Fearful of the tedium of the countryside, were you?" he asked, gesturing at the books.

Blair clutched them a little tighter. "They're new, and you may not wish to entertain me twenty-four hours a day." He walked around to stroke the horse, a sweet-tempered brown mare that Jim enjoyed driving. "Hello, my pet. Aren't you pretty? But surely you should be drawing something grander than this?"

Jim climbed into the gig. "If I'd known you were so concerned for consequence, I'd have brought a crested coach and four in hand."

Blair grinned and retorted, "A high-perch phaeton, surely? That's a sporting gentleman's equipage."

"The point is moot, since I own neither. Get in, Sandburg, or you'll be walking."

Blair climbed in, and they set off. The late afternoon was fine and warm, the spring settling and showing evidence of giving way to summer. Blair's sturdy weight leaned against Jim in the narrow seat, and they indulged in petty conversation - Blair's journey, the subjects of his books, the prettiness of the countryside.

Blair looked around enjoying the view, which included Jim often as not. "I take it the absence of a groom is proof of your lack of ostentation?"

"I like to drive, and I'm not so effete I can't put a bag up by myself."

Blair's hand rested lightly on Jim's thigh. "No matter. This is most pleasant."

Jim looked at Blair's city-pale hand resting on his leg. "Yes. Yes it is."

They crossed a small stone bridge and Jim said, "This is my land from here on. It's mainly tenanted, although there's a small park attached to the manor itself."

"I'd like to compliment you on your management but, alas, I don't know good farmland from bad."

"It's not bad," Jim conceded, "but it could be better. It's had managers and the hall itself has had tenants, but no real care until I came back from Spain. I saw enough waste and disorder there without tolerating it on my property."

Blair's expression was droll. "Captain Ellison, terror of dairymaids everywhere. Your virtue is safe, fair ladies, but have you properly scalded out your buckets?" Jim's answer was to transfer the reins to one hand so that he could cuff Blair across the head.

The sweet brown mare was broken to saddle as well as harness, and Blair rode her when he and Jim went riding together. It was an enjoyable exercise for them both, and rubbing out Blair's saddle pains gave Jim a pleasant excuse to touch him - not that he needed one. Blair had been at Ashford perhaps a week when Jim led them to a farm towards the north of his property. There was a woman working in the yard there, and her hands fluttered nervously at the sight of Jim.

"Good afternoon, sir."

"Don't worry yourself, Mary; I've just come to ask after Prue."

Affection and exasperation made their place on the woman's face. "She's well, thank you, sir." She strode to the door of the house and called, "Prue, Prue, come and pay your respects to Captain Ellison."

A girl of maybe ten years emerged, and dropped a curtsey with a mischievous smile.

"Your mother says you're recovered now."

The child's expression was pert. "Yes sir, thank you."

"Then I trust that you'll stay out of old badgers' sets from now on."

"Yes sir."

Jim nodded to Mary, and they rode on.

"And the story to that is?" Blair asked.

"She's a hoyden, that child," Jim replied.

Blair brought his horse around in front of Jim's.

"And?" he demanded, raising his eyebrows in annoyance.

"She crawled into an old set, and it collapsed over the top of her. When her parents couldn't find her they sought help from the house and the other farms."

"And you found her, didn't you," Blair proclaimed triumphantly

"Buried alive and half-smothered, but yes."

Nothing would satisfy Blair but a full description of events.

"You see," he told Jim, "this heightening of your senses does have its good side."

"If you say so."

Blair's voice became thoughtful. "Some of my books, they discuss the true spiritual character of mankind, whether society is a corrupting or improving influence to our original natures. I wonder if you're a return to a truer physical type, usually lost to the experience of social order."

"I see that I should call you 'professor'," Jim said dryly, and was startled by the wistful look on Blair's face.

"One day perhaps, but I'm nowhere near enough educated for that." Blair indicated a spinney ahead. "That looks a pleasant spot to rest the horses." He grinned. "And we could discuss whether you are a corrupting or improving influence to my original nature."

"Oh, corrupting, I should think," Jim growled. "Definitely corrupting." And within the shelter of the trees, he proved that to the satisfaction of them both, handling Blair with rough caresses and, on the promise that there was nobody else within a mile, inciting him to a wild outcry.

Dinner that evening was a simple supper on the lawn, where they lounged in their shirt-sleeves. Joel served them - he was well on the way to becoming the de facto butler of Ashford as well as Jim's valet. Blair had made no secret of his curiosity about Joel, and he was convinced to sit with them a while. Given the chance, Joel was an entertaining story teller, and Jim enjoyed watching Blair's eyes widen with mingled horror and amusement at the tale of civilian Joel's tuition by a reckless grenadier of another regiment.

"Why he never killed himself, or at the least, lost a limb, is beyond me. But I certainly found his information fascinating. And now, if you'll excuse me, I must take the dishes back to the house. Mrs Burgess will not thank me if the kitchen cannot be tidied in good time."

"I'll help you," Blair said. Joel shook his head at this evidence that Blair had no experience of proper servants, but made no demur. Jim walked behind them back to the house, watching his tall, burly Negro servant and his smaller, wiry Jewish lover deep in conversation - questions about the West Indies by the sound of it. Dear God, but he had a strange household - and no regrets about it.

Their sleeping arrangements were in the nature of a farce, but one that both men were prepared to be amused by. The first morning after Blair's arrival, Joel had appeared with two cups of coffee and the information that he had disarranged Blair's bed. Blair had blushed at that implied rebuke, whereas the fact that Joel had discovered him naked in bed with Jim had worried him not a whit.

Some nights they simply both went straight to Jim's room. Other nights Blair might go briefly to his own room and then knock softly at Jim's door. Blair owned neither a nightshirt nor a dressing gown. Money was amassed for the future and for books. He would appear at Jim's door dressed in a shirt and breeches, bare-footed, looking unnervingly like a mischievous boy about to go apple scrumping. The transformation from prankster youth to debauched, tender satyr was in general a swift one.

This night - this night, Jim writhed under Blair's weight. The room was dim, lit only by a full moon. Blair had insisted on blowing out the candles and drawing the curtains back, claiming that such a moon never shone over London. Jim had no objection. He could see Blair clearly in the pale light, the lights and darks of his skin and body hair. He had drawn Blair to the bed, toyed for a while with his circumcised cock, which always looked to Jim terribly naked and strangely vulnerable, even when erect, even when Jim was asking to be fucked. Blair's weight pressed Jim down, and his voice murmured against his skin, chanting pleasurable incantations that caught both of them up in completed magic.

When they were finished Blair remained over Jim, his lax cock still inside him. Jim lay unmoving beneath Blair, unwilling to lose their connection despite the dead-weight sprawl of him, enjoying the way that Blair continued to sleepily lick and nuzzle at his neck and shoulders.

Joel had told him that there was still gossip in the village, not about Blair's relationship with Jim, but about the way that Jim had found Prue. Some of the folk had named Captain Ellison a cunning man, barely one step away from a warlock. Jim had snorted at the news but he supposed that he was indeed a sort of witch, although he knew that Blair would strenuously argue against that, claiming that whatever else Jim was he was a being within nature like any other. Jim wondered what that made Blair.

He had an idea, which he hadn't voiced out of pride and uncertainty, that Blair was the cause of Jim's new found health and control of his senses. He had come to London and suffered all the usual discomforts, until Blair's voice had cut through the confusion. He had left London and Blair, and found some of that health and control decrease, although admittedly not as badly as before. Blair had come to Ashford, and once again Jim enjoyed a fullness of vigour that he hadn't known for over a year. He shifted beneath Blair, who grumbled, but moved.

Jim watched as Blair climbed out of bed and moved to the wash stand. Blair had questioned Jim about how delicate his sense of smell was, and was fastidious about cleanliness. Jim stood also and joined his friend. They washed and dried each other in silence, before Blair leaned against Jim, his curly hair ticklish against Jim's skin. Blair was half-hard again, and Jim stroked the back of one finger gently across his length. Blair shivered. "Come back to bed," Jim whispered. He wouldn't tell Blair of his suspicion. He wanted Blair bound to him, yes, but by ties of affection, by the desire that he could see in Blair's face. Not by pity or the needs of Jim's recalcitrant body.

They slept eventually and morning came, grey rather than silver, and the mood of the night was lost. Blair got up to look out the windows at the world lightening outside, while Jim watched him as he stood framed in the window. Blair turned back to Jim with a wry expression.

"Standing naked at your window isn't so discreet, is it? I'll go and put on some clothes. Seeing me up and dressed will give Joel a pleasant surprise."

"He doesn't mind."

"He doesn't exactly approve either, but he's fond of you. I'll sluice with some water and come back to you in a moment." He leaned to kiss Jim, his morning beard rough against Jim's skin, before he dragged on his breeches and caught up his shirt.

"Is my way clear?"

Jim didn't even have to think about it. If he tried just a little he could hear kitchen sounds, Joel collecting hot water so that he could shave before attending on Jim and Blair, but nobody was about in their part of the house.

"You're safe enough."

Blair was gone about five minutes and returned in breeches, a fresh shirt and even stockings and shoes, which contrasted with his still unshaven face. He was rubbing something between his palms, before he flicked his hands and threw a pair of dice down on to the bedcovers.

"I almost forgot I had those in my coat pocket."

Jim grinned. "I doubt that I can encourage you to gamble with my tenants and neighbours. You're a dangerous man in games of chance."

"I wonder if maybe fate isn't making up to me for being born illegitimate. Although dice is truly a game of chance. Cards and the horses - not quite so much."
Jim idly picked the dice up from where they lay. They were prettily made, and on reflex almost he rubbed his fingers against them. There was something about the way they lay on his hand, and he looked up sharply at Blair.

"Dice may usually be a game of chance, but not with these." Jim held each die separate in his palms, as if he was judging their mass. Impossible for a normal man to do such a thing with such small, light items. "These are shaved, as well as weighted." He had seen men of his class ostracised over cheating, and he sounded as shocked as some prim maiden aunt. But of course, Blair wasn't of his class. "Tell me you don't use these in your house."

Blair frowned in offence, before recovering his temper. "I have my follies, Jim, but that's not one of them. The play in the house is honest enough - on my part at least, although I'm keeping an eye on Alfred Fensham."

Blair reached to take the dice out of Jim's hands. "I wondered if that fine sense of touch might discern their secrets. They're beautifully made, and most people never know."

"Until they start to wonder why the luck always runs your way."

"Trust me to arrange things better than that. Although I was over-confident when I first obtained them. I was sixteen, and a fast runner, and once or twice I needed to be." Blair sounded more amused than anything, and Jim was reminded once again of the space of ten years between them. Running for his life from enraged tavern patrons was remembered, or at least presented, as a grand adventure.

Jim recalled Tom Amesbury, who had shot himself when an unscrupulous gamester had taken him for a sum far beyond Tom's ability to pay. "You should throw the damn things away," he said roughly.

"I don't use them where anyone that might patronise the house would see me. They're useful when I travel to race-meetings."

"I doubt that Peter would thank you for fleecing his patrons."

Blair's face flushed. "I don't fleece anyone. Little and often is the way to avoid notice." He sat on the bed next to Jim. "You know what I am. I'm not a gentleman, never will be. But I wouldn't cheat you or anyone that you know."

"But you'd cheat strangers."

Blair stood and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Pacing the floor he said, "Not all of us have family legacies and good birth to fall back on. Why shouldn't I do more than merely survive? Why shouldn't my mother?" He looked at Jim with a combative light in his eyes. "I've done worse than game with loaded dice, and I don't desire your judgement on that either." He took a deep breath and turned to look out the window. "It's a pleasant morning. I'll go for a walk, and when I return I'm sure that we will both deal better together."

He left. Jim's hearing followed his progress out of the house and out into the park. He stood and looked out the window then. At one point Blair turned and looked back at the house, and then he took a route that took him out of Jim's line of sight. He stayed at the window, though, until Joel knocked on the door, bearing cans of hot water and towels.

They made the quarrel up, of course. Blair returned from his walk and Jim met him in the hall. The two of them had breakfast together and smiled sheepishly at each other and made no more mention of the matter. Three days later, Blair returned to London and Jim returned to his home and sat quietly in his bedroom, trying to pretend that Blair was merely somewhere else in the house. Jim would be spending more time in London it seemed. Blair's obligation to his mother meant that there was little hope of convincing him to visit too often but given that London was much easier to bear in Blair's company, that wasn't such a problem.

About a week after Blair's departure from Ashford, Jim received a letter from Sally. She wrote to him periodically, short letters of gossip and affection. She always did have trouble with his name, but her tendency to call him James didn't offend him the way it did with his father and he settled down in a chair in his study, happy enough to discover what his family was about.

`My dear James,' He smiled at that.

`I hardly know how to express this to you, so I shall be to the point. Stephen is married and everything is in uproar. He came and saw your father and left shouting that his wife would be treated with respect, by G-d, and your father was in a fury to the point where he made himself ill. He is in no danger, but he has exhausted himself. Stephen left the house in a rage, and barely spoke to me. Your father is now in what I can only describe as a sulk, and he also will barely say a word, except to say that Stephen has married some woman out of a gaming house, and that he always knew those d---ed Sandburgs were playing a deep game.

My dear, I am in a fury with them both, not to mention I am nearly dying of curiosity for of course nobody has told me a thing and I hardly know any of Stephen's acquaintance. I presume this is the business you originally came to London about and I beg you to return, so that you can enlighten me and perhaps assist me in knocking some heads together.

Yours with affection and considerable exasperation,
Sally.'

Jim stared at the letter in his hands in a state of profound shock. He could not comprehend the news. Stephen had assured him that he had no intention of marrying Naomi Sandburg, and now this? Some woman out of a gaming house? If Stephen had honestly told him his intentions, Jim would not have been happy, but he could have accepted Stephen's plans. This lying intrigue disgusted him, but it was of a piece with their childhood. And how much more did he know of him? Jim had been too busy whoring after Naomi's son. So much for Stephen.

Perhaps Blair hadn't known. Jim immediately felt contempt at his folly. He thought of the comfortable way that Blair and Naomi had with each other, Blair's deference to his mother in various matters. Of course Blair must have known. Blair must be delighted. His mother would be provided for. And no doubt by his own lights he thought that he had played fair with Jim. He had never looked him in the eye and lied, never made any claim about Naomi or Stephen's intentions. Jim's invitation to Blair must have been seen by all in the light of a Godsend. Jim wouldn't be visiting the house, and Stephen and Naomi would have been free to make whatever arrangements they thought fit.

Jim thought of his conversations with his father, his attempts to soothe the old man's concerns. He had been gulled like the merest flat; fooled by his wish for reconciliation with his brother, and by his lust for a bright-eyed young trickster. The day was cool, and there was a small fire lit. He threw the letter into the grate and watched in fascination as the flames consumed it, as the glowing shell of the crumpled paper finally collapsed into ash and the fire leaped and played and devoured the logs. Joel was at his elbow and he realised that he had been staring at the flames in a trance. He pushed himself out of the chair and tried uselessly to relax the tension in his shoulders, before he turned to Joel.

"We're going to London. Immediately!"

Joel's professional restraint slipped a little at Jim's tone.

"Is something amiss?"

"My brother is wed but I fear I cannot wish him happy. He has married Blair's mother. A charming game."

Jim was in no mood to find the look of surprise that crossed Joel's face amusing. Joel looked as if he wanted to say something but he thought better of it in the face of Jim's obvious anger. Instead he bowed and left the room.

It was an uncomfortable journey. They had no opportunity to bespeak seats and instead took their chances. The first stage of the journey they were forced to sit on top of the coach. The weather was still cool. There was occasional rain, not heavy but penetrating and Jim's hands and feet were numb enough by the end that it was a tricky business disembarking. But he nurtured anger enough to keep him warm. They had better luck with the next transfer. They both obtained seats in the coach, although the foul, rotten-teethed breath of one of their fellow travellers was a torment to Jim the entire journey. Joel watched Jim for much of the trip, but Jim could only be irritated by the concern. Everything caught him on the raw.

In London, Joel attempted to delay Jim in going straight to confront Blair. "If I may be permitted, sir, you would do better with rest and food before you..."

"You are not permitted." Jim took a breath. He shouldn't take out his anger on Joel. "I know that you would like to find an excuse for Sandburg, but there is none. I will deal with this and get it over with."

Joel shook his head, his eyes sad. "Sir, there will be some explanation."

"Oh, I don't doubt that there's an explanation. Take yourself and the baggage to my father's house. I'll be there soon enough." He contemplated the humiliation of meeting with his father in these circumstances. Well, it was no more than he deserved. And it would be no more than Stephen and his wife deserved if William truly did change his will.

The hackney deposited him in front of Blair's house both too slowly and far too soon. Jim curtly instructed the driver to wait and walked up the steps to rap at the door. He wondered if the little servant girl who answered was always that nervous, or if his appearance was as thunderous as he might suppose. The girl moved toward the door of Blair's tiny library and Jim said, "I'll announce myself. I'm sure you have work." The untrained girl scampered away, and Jim strode forward and let himself in.

Blair was sitting in front of a small fire. He was coatless and wearing a very shabby pair of slippers. He stood, a fatuous smile on his face. Well might he be pleased, Jim thought, and grimly determined to wipe the smile from his face as soon as possible.

"I've been told of Stephen's marriage."

"It's charming isn't it? Naomi's in transports over her cleverness." The smile faltered as Blair came forward only to have his approach forbidden by a gesture from Jim.

"Folly, more like. You two could have had both Stephen and me on a string. A family business. If your mother knows as many bedroom games as you she must be most entertaining. But she's no longer young. You must be relieved to finally see her established."

"Established?" Blair's face had darkened with anger. He drew himself up with angry formality, and Jim took spiteful gratification in his advantage of height. "What are you talking about?"

"My cousin wrote me. 'A woman out of a gambling house' was her expression. I hope that my brother rewarded your efforts to distract my attention from his little amour."

Blair's face was white, although angry patches of colour stained his cheeks. "I see," he said, as if having a revelation. He ducked his head a moment, rubbed his hands across his face, and then looked Jim in the eyes once more. "And having accounted your wrongs you are here to - what? Seek satisfaction of me?" Blair's face was drawn, and the angry flush had drained away.

"As you so often reminded me, Sandburg, you're no gentleman. And I think that you overestimate any - satisfaction - that you might offer. I only hope that your mother has more to offer Stephen." Jim invested his tone with insolent lewdness.

Rage crossed Blair's face, and Jim forged on in sickly pleasure. "Can she still breed, do you think? Legitimate children should be a novelty."

"Get out." It was barely audible, but Jim heard it clearly. Even in this dreadful moment, he was aware that his contemptible body sought after Blair, and it filled him with fresh fury. More than ever Jim was grateful that he hadn't told him of his effect upon his senses. The idea of Blair knowing that he had such a hold over him was unbearable.

"Get out!" Blair shouted. Jim turned on his heel and left. He climbed into the tiny hackney enclosure, feeling as if he could burst it asunder with the power of the anger that still rode him.

When he reached his father's house, Sally came out to meet him. "Oh, my dear, you didn't have to bustle to me in quite so speedy a fashion."

"And what else did you expect when you wrote me such a letter?" Sally opened her mouth, but Jim cut her off. He had endured as much as he could for the moment and sought some excuse. "Please, the journey was a poor one and I should probably rest. I'll talk to you and father later."

She looked up at him sharply, and then nodded. "You do look knocked about, and all to my account. Go up and rest." Gratefully he made his escape. He reached his room and tiredly let Joel take his outer wear and his coat.

"And you have the full story now?" Joel enquired, looking, to Jim's eyes, oddly relieved.

"I have as much of it as I would ever need, but I'll have to brace myself for later, I suppose. Dear God, I'm not looking forward to facing Father."

"I suspect he'll come round now that the first shock is over. And has Mr Sandburg forgiven you your misunderstanding?"

Jim stared at Joel. "What misunderstanding?"

"Why, as to Mr Stephen's marriage. I was talking to Mistress Sally's abigail and..." Joel's face became doubtful. "Mr Sandburg did explain?"

"Mr Sandburg was given a rake down and for once in his life barely got a word in edgeways," Jim said in bitter perplexity.

Joel's veneer of perfect gentleman's gentleman broke in honest horror. "Oh my God. You don't know."

"Don't know what?" Jim enquired uneasily.

"You must go and talk to your cousin at once." It was a command, and Jim looked at Joel in utter confusion. "Jim, it's not my place to tell you. Go and see her at once."

Jim left the room, unease turning to anxiety. What new tangle was there to this coil now? He found Sally in her little parlour.

"Joel has convinced me that I was rude to ignore you," he began. Sally gestured him to a chair.

"No more so than I to write to you in such a hubble-bubble. Stephen came back when he'd regained his temper and explained it all to me and I wrote you again, but obviously it didn't catch the first letter. I'm sorry for the journey that you had."

"It's no matter. A pretty muddle."

"Ah well," Sally said comfortably. "It has turned out not so badly in the end. I cannot approve of the havey-cavey manner of the marriage, but I can hardly blame Stephen for wanting to have a care for Louise's reputation. It was very good of the Sandburgs to help her, but hardly appropriate for her to be under their roof, for all that."

"Who is Louise?" Jim asked stupidly.

Sally burst out laughing. "Oh, all this, and I haven't even told you her name. Louise is Stephen's bride, of course."

Jim couldn't get his breath. "Stephen is married to - Louise? Not Naomi?"

"Of course not Naomi." Sally covered her mouth in astonishment. "Where would you get such an idea?" The light broke over her face. "She was Stephen's light-skirt? Well, if you men will persist in thinking my ears too delicate for such information..." She spoke in exasperation.

Jim stood, even though the room was reeling around him. He still couldn't catch his breath, but his visit to Blair was recalled as clearly as if he were there again, and his mind put a new and appalling interpretation on his remembrance. He must go back. He must go back now. Sally's scandalised voice floated behind him, barely acknowledged. "James, where are you going? Your coat! Your hat!"

He hurried down the streets with the long, quick stride of a forced march, barely noticing the chill. His haste brought him to Blair's home soon enough and he looked up at the door, before he ran up the steps with the same despairing energy with which he would have led a hopeless charge into battle, and once more knocked at the door.

Naomi knew that Sarah was sometimes frustrated by the way that she was obliged to help with the ordinary domestic duties. She suspected that her maid would move on soon. But until she did, she would just have to accept that sometimes a linen closet needed tidying. There was little room in the closet, and Naomi took out some of the tablecloths and napery, to sort through it in the wider space of her bedroom. She returned to the closet with a tidily folded burden to see Sarah just standing there, the sheet in her hands cascading neglected to the floor. Naomi was about to ask what was wrong when she heard the murmur of voices

There was a vent from the library running between the storeys of the house, to funnel a little heat from the fire there and try to prevent the worst effects of dampness in the winter. Blair must have a visitor and Naomi was about to reprimand Sarah for her eavesdropping when she truly understood the words she heard. "`A woman out of a gambling house' was her expression. I hope that my brother rewarded your efforts to distract my attention from his little amour." James Ellison's voice, speaking with venomous malice.

Blair spoke, sounding hurt and dazed, "...you are here to - what? Seek satisfaction of me?" She listened on, as thunderstruck as her maid, hot and cold by turns, as Ellison used her to shred her son to pieces. There was no need of the vent to hear Blair's outraged shout of "Get out!" It reverberated through the house, as did the slam of the door as Ellison left. Naomi tried to gather her wits. She gripped Sarah tightly around her arm. "You will say nothing of this. You understand me? Nothing!" Sarah stared at her, big-eyed, but with an assessing look that Naomi liked very little. But Sarah's assessment of what she had overheard was nothing now.

Naomi turned to the stairwell. She could hear Blair coming upstairs, walking with a heavy, dragging tread, so unlike his usual quickness. He turned onto the landing and stopped as he saw her there.

"Mama? Are you all right?"

She made a helpless gesture with her hands and then drew strength for a brief explanation. "The vent in the library - I was in the linen closet. Oh, my dear, I am so sorry."

"Ah." Her mind travelled back more than fifteen years, to remember a bruised and tear-streaked child, angry and grieved that the other boys had called his beloved mother a whore.

He smiled weakly. "You have nothing to be sorry for, Mama. I, uh, I think that I'll go to my room. Read for a while." She ached to hold him. No doubt if she hugged him, he would burst into weeping, but he wasn't nine years old anymore. She left him with the little dignity not already stripped from him by James Ellison.

Instead, she went downstairs and paced the large salon a while, cursing under her breath with gutter phrases. How on earth had Ellison made such an incredible error? And how dare he upbraid her son in that manner? She tried to calm herself, ordered little Ginny to make tea for her. It was no use. She might have swallowed a gallon of tea, of laudanum for that matter, and nothing would have soothed her. She started violently when she heard the knock on the door, and upset her cup all over the table. Then she stood. Etiquette be damned. She would send whoever it was away herself.

She stalked into the hallway, to see Ginny by the door looking at her with vast relief. "It's Captain Ellison, ma'am."

"Thank you, Ginny. You may go."

She walked to the door, holding herself arrow-straight. James Ellison stood there, coatless, hatless. It would seem that he understood his error. The lines of his face stood stark against bone-pale skin, skin that was very nearly as pale as Blair's when he trudged up the stairs. He made a handsome penitent, and she had to resist the urge to fly at him like an enraged cat.

He flushed, and sketched a bow on the doorstep. "Mrs Sandburg."

"Captain Ellison." Then, with both purpose and a frisson of malice, she said, "Please come into the library."

He stepped forward reluctantly, tall and as rigidly held as she was. Once in the library she turned and faced him.

"The architect of this house had several useful ideas." Ellison stared at her in incomprehension. "Do you see the grille in the ceiling? It leads to a small closet, to use the heat of the fires in this room to keep linen aired in winter. It conducts sound excellently well."

He looked at her in horror, but she had no pity. "Even a demimondaine such as myself must occasionally attend to household duties, Captain Ellison."

He swallowed. "I owe you an apology, madam. I had no business saying what I did."

"No, you did not."

He looked at her, arrogant and despairing together. "I came to see Blair."

"To offer your apologies to him."

He nodded.

"You wounded my son greatly, Captain Ellison."

"I understand that. I just wish to see him."

"Blair isn't here, and even if he were, I doubt he would wish to see you at this time." And that last was no lie. Blair always retreated when he was hurt, and she was sure that he was nowhere near ready to emerge yet. She took a deep breath.

"I appreciate that you know you were mistaken. But now is not the time. Another day, or even if you wrote to him. Give him time to recover a little."

Ellison looked at her, and she understood that he knew she was lying about Blair's presence in the house. She indicated that he should leave and went to stand by the foot of the stairs, not caring if he realised that she was standing guard. He looked up the stairway and his eyes blazed, bright and feral. For a moment she thought that he would break all bounds of courtesy and convention and push past her. Instead, he left.

Exhausted, Naomi turned to go up to her room. Her ragged nerves were further abraded when she heard Blair shout, "For God's sake, let me be!" There was the slam of a door, and Sarah came towards her, her eyes bright with humiliation and anger. She saw Naomi and wheeled around, to run up the narrow attic stairs to her own room. Naomi had no energy to reproach her. Instead she bitterly reflected that neither of her son's lovers had any sense of proper time and place. She locked her door behind her, and tried to cool her cheek against her pillow as she wept.

Blair seldom saw his mother nervous. She was nervous now. He sat back down on his bed, unshaven, unwashed, still in yesterday's clothes. No wonder she was anxious for him.

"Blair, about yesterday."

"Mama, please. I don't really want to talk about it, except to say that I'm sorry that you heard that. And don't worry for me; I do plan to stop this sulking." He laughed, but it sounded unconvincing.

"Blair, Captain Ellison came back to the house."

"What!"

Naomi grimaced. "He came back. He must have found out the true state of affairs, and he came to apologise. I stopped him from seeing you. I'm sorry, but I - I didn't think that you were in a fit state to see him."

A wave of uncomfortably contradictory emotion flowed through Blair. Anger, relief, and guilt. Because if he'd known that Jim was there, yes, he would have seen him. Despite what Jim had said, despite the offence and injury that he had offered Naomi, Blair still would have seen him.

"I told him that you would see him later. Or he may write; I don't know his intentions."

Blair rubbed his face. He hardly knew what to think.

"Mama. I don't know..."

"It is your choice how you deal with him now. I meddled yesterday, but no further."

"You had every right to meddle. How could he think such a thing of you? Of his own brother?" `How could he think such a thing of me?' went miserably unvoiced.

"Sweetheart..."

"Something tells me you have more bad news, my dear."

"I only overheard some of the quarrel. Sarah was helping me. She heard it all."

"Damn." He looked at Naomi, smiled in reassurance. "Don't worry. Whatever conclusions she draws, the law needs more than hearsay."

She looked gravely at him, and he had to ask the question.

"You don't - mind?"

"I will never mind anything that you do in the name of friendship and affection." He ducked his head. "That includes reconciling with Captain Ellison. If that is what you want."

He couldn't lift his head. He would disgrace himself. "Mama. Even if I wished it..."

"He was harsh and cruel but he believed he had cause. At the least, don't make his mistake and refuse him the chance to explain himself. If you cannot forgive him, then let it be for the offence against you, rather than the offence against me."

Blair's throat was tight. "The two are entwined, love."

Naomi kissed his temple. "Perhaps you and I are too entwined, my son. Do what you think best." She left him.

Blair stood and looked out his window to the street below. He felt guilty and distressed at how ready he was to accept any apology from Jim, how he regretted that his mother hadn't let Jim see him the day before. But even if Jim did apologise - he couldn't take his words back. Blair leaned his hot face against the window glass. He would just have to see. First, he had to see Jim. And Jim must make the first move. Blair's respect for his mother, if not for himself, demanded it.

He haunted the house that day and the next. On the morning of the second day, he heard a knock and charged down the stairs. Sarah had answered the door, and she stood with a letter in her hand. "Is that for me?"

She looked up at him with the mix of anger and pity she'd shown these last few days. "Mr Spring's footman delivered it. It's for your mother."

Blair pressed his lips together in annoyance. Mr Spring's infatuation with Naomi irritated him at the best of times, which this was not. He turned back to his room. He had no wish to advertise his crushing disappointment to Sarah, especially when he had made it clear to her that she had no consolation for him. The third day, he realised that he had to get out of the house and get some air, simply move. He left instructions with anyone who might open the door that if Captain Ellison called he was to be assured that Blair would be back soon, or else would return his call if he couldn't wait. These instructions were in vain. He returned after a brisk walk to find that there was no word or letter, and after two weeks went by, Blair bitterly acknowledged that there was unlikely ever to be.

He spent quite a lot of time lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and trying to discern why there was no approach from Jim. Was it simple humiliation on Jim's part? Blair had tasted enough of humiliation that it griped him but he doubted that he would die of it; but he imagined that such an experience was very different for James Ellison. Did Jim begrudge him that he hadn't mentioned Louise at his visit to Ashford? But he'd had no idea what might come of that spark of attraction between Louise and Stephen, and he and his mother had agreed that they would mention Louise to nobody. However good their intentions for her, her reputation would not survive it being bruited about that she lived under their roof. Had their disagreement finally brought home to Jim that they were too different, that Blair's company was unsuited to a man from a long line of gentlemen?

Whatever Jim's thoughts, Blair didn't know them, and he was conscious of a deep disappointment. Whatever the end result of their quarrel, Blair had expected better of Jim, expected more of that upright sense of propriety that had been so horrified by his dice. But in the meantime the year was wearing on, and gaming evenings must be arranged and account books must be written. Sarah moved on to another employer, to nobody's surprise.

Blair gradually regained some sense of equilibrium, albeit ballasted by grief. The news that Naomi told him in mid October nearly over-turned that.

They had just finished dinner and she said, "Mr Spring has made me an offer."

Blair looked up at her. "Has he now?" he growled. "And did you send him to the right abouts?"

"Not at all. I told him yes."

Blair stared at her, before he stood up from his chair and lost his temper at the same time. "For God's sake, Mama! I thought that far behind us. The whole purpose of the evenings was that you should be independent of ..." he sought a word that was not offensive, "demands." Blair had a healthy disinterest in the details of his mother's affaires, but he had a repulsive vision of the portly Mr Spring pawing at Naomi. "Why would you do such a thing?"

"Blair, listen to me. An offer. Of marriage."

He sat back down again with a thump. "Marriage?" he exclaimed.

"I am not flattered by this display," Naomi retorted, but there was dry amusement in her voice.

"Mama, you cannot tell me that you love him."

Sternness crossed Naomi's face. "And what good has love ever done you or me, my son? Charles is a good, kindly man, and I hold him in considerable esteem."

"But, the house, the evenings," Blair stammered.

"I'm no longer young, and you wished to see me secure. I will be. I signed papers of settlement today. They are all that is generous. So, you will come into your inheritance as of the date of my marriage, my dear, this house and such money as we have gathered. I will have no need of it."

His heart hammered in his chest. He had an uneasy suspicion that this event could be indirectly laid to his quarrel with Jim, but he also knew that his mother would never admit such a thing. He felt foolishly adrift. He and Naomi had stood back to back against the world for a very long time.

"Mama, are you sure? I - I have never liked Mr Spring," Blair confessed.

"You have never liked his attentions. But now that you know they were honourable, I think you will find him none so bad."

A completely ridiculous question came to Blair's mind. "How is it that Mr Spring's credit will survive marriage to you, where Stephen Ellison's could not?"
His mother looked prim, an unlikely expression for her. "Well, he is older than Stephen, nearly fifty. And he has had a reputation as an eccentric for many years now. And of course," her smile curved in entirely feline lines, "he is much richer than the Ellisons."

Blair laughed at that, and tried not to dwell on the idea that his mother had merely found a more acceptable carte blanche. Marriage to a kindly, rich man a sacrifice? He knew that the rest of the world would think such thoughts folly. He would stand up at Naomi's wedding with a smile on his face, whatever his internal misgivings.

Naomi Sandburg and Charles Spring were married with quiet pomp. Mr and Mrs Stephen Ellison were invited and Blair spent most of the reception avoiding them, which was easy enough in the crowd. He had nothing against them personally but the associations were painful. Stephen looked once earnestly as if he was about to say something and Blair retreated at awkward speed. He wanted no second-hand apologies, and he was relieved when Stephen didn't press the matter. Blair did take some sour amusement in one facet of his mother's new status. Louise had persisted in friendship with Naomi, apparently somewhat to the concern of her new husband. Naomi Sandburg was no fit companion for Mrs Ellison, but there was no difficulty in her being entertained by Mrs Charles Spring.

Blair kept up the gaming evenings, although their nature changed without his mother's presence. He gave up the faro bank, and reflected ruefully that Naomi had had far more of a controlling influence on the mood of their visitors than he'd realised. He hired a tall middle-aged man called Silas, and stationed him at the door with a stout cudgel; another man assisted with serving food and drink. He certainly couldn't ask poor little Ginny to come into the gaming room. Blair played harder, taking pleasure in the distraction of risk-taking which often included a little carefully planned cheating. It wasn't so much greed, as a desire to see what he could get away with. He got away with a surprising amount.

Otherwise he spent much time with his books, especially his atlases. He would spread them out on his bed and wonder if he might not sell the house and travel somewhere he could see strange people with strange customs. Much of America was still unexplored. Or there was Australia or New Zealand. Tahiti. He might go anywhere really, but he found himself tied to England instead, running his finger along thick paper to trace the route to Ashford, and shaking his head at his idiocy.

The end of November was cold and dreary and Blair's mood matched it. He was wrestling with the accounts when he heard the knock at the door, and Ginny's voice welcoming the visitor. He sighed, fearful that he would be forced to start at the beginning with the figures if he was interrupted. He put them aside, just as he tried to put aside dismay when Ginny announced Stephen Ellison.

Stephen looked tired and he shook his head at Blair's offer of refreshment.

"Blair, I'll not beat about the bush. I know that you and Jim parted badly and I know why, but I wish you to come with me to Ashford."

"And why should I do that?"

Stephen fidgeted with his hat. "Jim has been ill. I fear for him."

Blair tried to ignore the cold that flowed through him, the sickly buzzing that sounded in his head. "Sad news, but what use would I be?"

"Joel and I hope that you might soothe that accursed sensibility of his. You have done it before after all."

Blair looked bemusedly at Stephen. "I've done what?"

Stephen muttered irately under his breath before he spoke again to Blair.

"Joel noticed that Jim seemed to be better in your company. And I questioned my dear brother about it, and while he wouldn't admit it in so many words, he was evasive enough about it that I think that there's some truth to it, however unlikely it sounds."

Blair looked at his account books on the table - complicated sometimes, but orderly and understandable in the end, unlike this conversation. Stephen and Joel seemed to think that he had some influence on Jim's senses, some sort of healing touch? Ridiculous! But Jim was ill. "You said that you feared for him? How bad is it?"

"He took one of the autumn fevers - not usually fatal, but he was troubled by everything - his eyes couldn't cope with light, noises irritated him unreasonably - everything. He never really recovered his health and then contracted an inflammation of the lungs. Things reached such a crisis that Joel sent for me and Sally. Even Father came. That crisis passed, but left him very weak. Too weak to deal with the stimulation of this damned curse of his."

Blair struggled with the news, and with his feelings. Jim needed him. At least, Stephen and Joel thought that Jim needed him.

"Blair, I know that Jim offended you deeply. But, please. He lives as an invalid, in pain all the time. If he falls ill again - he has very little strength."

Blair ran his hand through his hair. He had no choice, not really.

"Of course I'll come. Although I really don't know what you expect me to do."

"Just come and see him. I have a post-chaise hired. We can be there late tomorrow, if we leave now."

Blair nodded and went to pack a bag. He was folding his shirts when his hands started to shake. Jim had been ill enough that he might have died. He might have died and probably the first Blair would have known of it would have been via Naomi when Louise visited her wearing mourning clothes. He stuffed clothes into the shabby bag and refused to dwell on any differences between this and his last visit to Ashford. Lastly he shrugged into his great-coat, fumbling a little with the buttons, hunted up his gloves and returned downstairs.

"I'm ready," he told Stephen, which was a vast exaggeration. He was nowhere near ready to see Jim again, but no matter. He was on his way.

The journey was cold and uncomfortable. Blair and Stephen made little conversation other than banalities. Stephen tried once to open the subject of the quarrel between Jim and Blair, and Blair had turned that conversation in no uncertain terms, threatening to leave the chaise and make his way back to London. He couldn't civilly discuss the issue with Stephen of all people. He doubted he could civilly discuss it with anyone.

It was nearly dark when they reached Ashford. The rough road from the village was rutted and muddy from the rain, and their progress had been slow. Blair sat in the carriage in increasing anxiety. What was he doing here? One thing he was sure of - he should be prepared for almost any reaction from Jim. He had noted that Stephen had never suggested that Jim wanted him here. Indeed, his explanation had rather suggested a conspiracy between Jim's brother and servant. Blair tried to gather some calm. He would see Jim, and either he would be of use, or he would not. And once he had done what he could, then he would leave again. He would not be a cause of vexation or embarrassment to Jim.

The entrance hall at Ashford was little less draughty than the carriage. Joel came forward, along with a young man whom Blair didn't know. "Mr Stephen. Mr Sandburg. It's good to see you again. There's a fire in the red salon, and some food." Blair thought of that longingly, especially the fire. He could barely feel his feet within his boots.

"I think that I had best see Captain Ellison first. That's why I'm here after all," he said briskly. However much he wanted to rest, it was quite impossible when he knew that Jim was upstairs. Besides, given his friend's capabilities, he might realise that Blair was in the house, hear him or for all Blair knew, smell him. The idea that Jim might know that Blair had delayed announcing himself...it wasn't to be borne. He would not skulk downstairs.

Joel bowed slightly, correctly formal as if he had never seen Blair wake up in Jim's bed. "Of course, sir." He led Blair up the wood-panelled stairs that Blair last remembered seeing in the light of early summer. They looked quite different lit by candle, with rain beading against the leaded window.

"Joel," Blair said softly. "What should I expect?"

Joel looked back at him, his face unreadable. "Captain Ellison - is not well. Mr Stephen would not have approached you if we didn't think it necessary."

"We? Joel, I understand that you and Stephen are distressed. You must be to grasp at straws like this idea that I can help Jim. I don't have some sort of magic wand to wave over him."

Joel simply shrugged. "You don't believe in magic, Mr Sandburg? I must tell you some more stories of the West Indies." He led Blair down the corridor. Blair felt his eyes burn a little. The last time he had seen these walls, things had been very different. Joel didn't knock at Jim's door. Instead he opened it with care and said quietly, "Captain Ellison. You have a visitor."

They both stepped inside, and Blair gasped in shock. The room was suffocatingly warm. Jim lay on his bed, covered only by a sheet to his waist. He was far thinner than Blair remembered. The piercing blue gaze directed at him and Joel had not changed, however.

"Oh for..." Jim's face was gaunt and shaken. He clawed at the sheet in an effort to cover himself. "I ought to dismiss you on the spot. Send him away."

Blair took a deep breath, and stepped a little closer to the bed. "That would be very discourteous of you when I've travelled so far, Captain Ellison." He kept his voice soft, mindful of what Stephen had said of Jim's lack of control.

Jim ignored him, wouldn't even look at him after that first startled glare. "I won't have it, Joel." The harsh rasp was all the voice that Jim had strength for. Blair shut his eyes. This had been an idea hatched in Bedlam from the start, and he turned back to the door. Joel had already shut it, and he looked at Blair with a look that did not belong on a servant's face. He lifted one hand in a staying gesture, and then walked to the bed, cat-soft.

"You spent half your delirium calling for this man. Now he's here, and you will at least make your peace with him."

Jim muttered, "Damn servants think that they own you," before he turned to Blair and said reluctantly, "Sit down, Sandburg. As you said, you've had a long journey." Joel moved a chair to Jim's bedside on the side away from the fire, and bowed himself out of the room.

Blair sat down, a little heartened by Jim addressing him without any formality, although his first name would have encouraged him even more. Jim sat propped up on pillows. His head was inclined towards Blair, but his eyes looked elsewhere.

"So. Jim. I'm sorry that you're unwell."

"No more so than I am," Jim replied wryly. " I'm sorry that you had the trouble of travel at this time of year."

"It was no trouble," Blair said, and then blushed at the sceptical look he received. "No, truly," he said stalwartly. "Stephen arranged everything, and all I did was pack a bag."

"He was a meddlesome brat when he was fourteen. Some things don't change."

This was not an encouraging remark, but Blair carried on.

"He and Joel hope that I may be able to help you."

Jim's distant expression sharpened, and his eyes flicked to look at Blair before finding another view once more. "Joel has refined too much on coincidence." There was a pause. "Not that it's not pleasant to see you," Jim added by way of obvious afterthought.

"It's good to see you, too," Blair replied.

"I doubt that."

Joel had said that Jim had called for him when he was ill enough to be out of his mind. That information enabled Blair to hold on to both his hope and his temper. Jim was being difficult. He had reason, after all. But Blair couldn't help feeling that there was an uncomfortable disparity between Joel's revelation and what Jim seemed to want now that he was in his right mind.

"Since I'm here, I may as well make myself useful." Blair looked around the room, which was clean, but very bare, and dimly lit. "Perhaps - perhaps I might read to you. You must find the time in bed tedious."

"If you'd like." It was the tone of a man humouring an irksome but well-meaning stranger.

"I'll take a little refreshment, and see what I can find in the book-room." Blair stood, and looked with concern at Jim's thin body stretched out on the sheets. The contrast between that sight and Blair's memories of his previous visit was painful. "I won't be long."

Jim nodded, but again he was looking anywhere other than at Blair.

Blair went downstairs to the red salon, so named for its Turkey carpet and hangings. Joel and Stephen were both there, and they both looked questioningly at Blair, who wilted a little under the scrutiny.

"Not so much peace as an armed truce," he told them, trying to sound amused rather than depressed. "I offered to read to him, and at least he didn't refuse."

Stephen tried to respond lightly in kind. "Where there's a truce, we can consider the possibility of parley." Neither he nor Blair gave any sign of hearing what might be described as a snort from Joel.

"Yes," Blair replied, before falling upon the food on the sideboard. Bread, cold chicken and wine revived him a little, but he was very tired, and his feet were tingling and smarting as the circulation returned to them.

"It's all right if I go and see him again? I don't know what your arrangements are - to care for him, I mean." He'd meant it as a simple enquiry, but his distress at Jim's condition and his exhaustion caught up with him and roughened his voice.

"Joel does most of the work. I'm sure he'll let you know."

Blair nodded and went to the book-room. It was mainly filled with sermons, religious tracts and obsolete treatises on agriculture, but there was some Shakespeare and a few books of poetry by Donne and Herbert. Blair wondered who was the ancestor who had placed those amongst the rest. He ran his hand briefly along the shelf where the newer books of agricultural theory rested - well looked over by Jim in better times. Blair gathered up such lighter reading the room offered and returned to Jim.

Joel was there. There was a small tray lying on the table next to the bed but the food looked nearly untouched. Joel's manner was gentle and completely correct, except for one concerned look that he gave to Blair.

"Shakespeare or Donne?" Blair asked.

"Your choice." Jim's eyes were shut, but no mood of rest hung about him.

Blair sighed, and began reading from `A Midsummer Night's Dream'. He felt foolish and superfluous, but at least he was in Jim's company. He read for perhaps an hour, in which time Jim took a few mouthfuls of food, and a few sips of wine, subsiding back onto the sheets as if those meagre actions exhausted him. He lay with his eyes shut and Blair suspected he'd fallen asleep. He felt himself beginning to nod off, and eventually he stood. He bent, and placed his hand over Jim's hand lying closest against the mattress.

"Good night, Jim. I'll see you in the morning." Jim's eyes opened briefly to stare in sleepy surprise, as if he'd forgotten that Blair was there, before they closed again without him saying a word.

Blair went to his own room. The servants had been busy. The fire was ember hot, and the bed was turned down with a warming pan between the sheets. Nightshirts were still not on Blair's list of essential things, and he went to bed in his shirt and drawers. But he was cold enough that it took him a while to drop off to sleep.
He awoke in some confusion to see Joel hanging over him, shaking his shoulder.

"He's in one of his fits. The more help we have to manage him the better. Hurry." Joel left and Blair could hear his speedy stride down the corridor. He wasn't sure why Joel should be so urgent over one of Jim's fits, but he dragged on his breeches and made his way to Jim's door as quickly as he could. Even before he went in he heard Jim coughing fit to strangle himself, and Stephen talking to him, his voice anxious in his exhortations to Jim to calm down.

He walked in to see Jim writhing in Stephen's grip, half sitting, half lying. The covers of the bed were twisted and pushed back in his struggle. Joel stoked the fire with amazing silence and energy before he rose, looking at Blair with something akin to desperation.

"I think the fire smoked - not enough for me to notice it, but..." He spread his hands.

"Then why don't we open a window?"

Stephen gasped in outrage, "You don't let fresh air into a sick room," before returning to the struggle to calm his brother.

Blair looked at Jim and understood Joel's desperate expression. Jim could barely catch breath among the spasms. "Just a crack, Joel. Do you have a screen you could use to shield him from the draught?" Joel nodded and took action.

Blair carefully climbed onto the bed and tried to brace Jim into a sitting position from behind. The ghastly suffocated coughing continued, as did the frantic movement. Finally, Jim made a sort of choking noise, and caught in his breath with a whoop. But the restless movement continued, as Jim panted heavily. Finally, he spoke in barely audible tones, "Up, let me up."

Blair tried to support him a little more vertically. "You are up, Jim."

"No," Jim wheezed. "Up, out of bed. Please."

"What, to the chair?"

"Just up," Jim moaned. "The sheets... I can't..."

Blair didn't know if Jim was capable of getting out of bed in his state, but he gently moved across the bed, helping Jim to move until he was sitting sideways on the edge. Jim was naked as a baby, but Blair barely noticed, except to gently rub along one thigh where tremors ran up and down the muscle. He set himself at the side of the bed, one arm under Jim's elbow. Stephen moved to do the same the other side, and they hoisted Jim up into a standing position. Without warning Jim turned from Stephen and draped long arms over Blair's shoulders and back, bracing himself against Blair's body. Blair nearly stumbled but caught himself - even thin as he was, Jim was no lightweight like this.

Joel came closer, his voice low and soothing. "Are the sheets too rough?"

Jim was silent, but he nosed through Blair's hair as if he was a mastiff hunting a scent. Blair blushed a little, aware that Joel and Stephen were watching, but he steadied his stance. "Jim," he whispered.

"Not rough. But - God, greasy and - disgusting." There was appalled revulsion in his voice.

Joel frowned and looked at Blair, who was near engulfed by Jim's hold on him. "Those sheets went on only three nights ago. There are more in the drying room, but with this weather..."

"Get the ones from my bed," Blair suggested. His mouth twitched ruefully. "I've only been in them a few hours, and I presume they were clean on." He did grin then at Joel's offended expression. Naturally a guest at Ashford would have clean sheets. Joel walked swiftly out and returned just as swiftly, the sheets from Blair's bed bundled in his arms. Stephen hunted in a drawer and threw a nightshirt over Jim's shoulders as a make-shift shawl, no more concerned by his nakedness than Blair. He and Joel stripped the bed, and there might have been some amusement in watching the servant instruct the gentleman in the finer points of bed-making, if Blair hadn't been busy supporting Jim, who was starting to tremble again, although Blair suspected that this time it was from tiredness rather than distress.

"Didn't want you to see me like this," Jim muttered. "I'm sorry, Blair. I'm sorry."

Blair swallowed the lump in his throat. "It's all right," he murmured, "It's all right, hush," until Stephen and Joel relieved him of his burden, and gently put Jim back into bed.
"Better?" Blair asked. The only answer was a sigh. Blair couldn't leave. He pulled a chair to the bed and sat down and grasped Jim's hand. Jim made no sound, but his grip tightened around Blair's, and then gradually loosened as he dropped back into sleep.

"I don't believe it," Stephen whispered. Blair turned his head to see Joel and Stephen wearing mutual looks of relief, even smugness.

Joel looked at the clock. "From crisis to sleep within half an hour."

"Time to celebrate, I think. I take my hat off to you, Joel," said Stephen, rubbing his hands.

"Celebrate?" hissed Blair.

The two men toned down their glee. "I'm sorry, Blair," Stephen said apologetically, "but you don't understand. It's been quite usual for these sorts of episode to go on for hours."

Blair looked at Jim in dismay. "Hours? How could he bear it?"

"I don't know. First one sense would be irritated, and then the other would follow. So, I think Joel and I may be excused a little pleasure."

"Some wine, gentlemen?" Joel looked at Blair with a light of pure devilry in his eye. "Or perhaps I should bring your magic wand, Mr Sandburg?"

"Oh, no. This was just chance - coincidence. Not me."

"Joel and I beg leave to differ, Blair. In another age you would have died as a witch, I'm sure."

Blair shrugged helplessly, and returned his attention to Jim, carefully stroking his thumb across the sleeping man's knuckles. All three of them did indeed take a glass of wine. Stephen returned to his bedroom, and Joel to the truckle-bed in Jim's dressing room. Blair remained where he was, still holding Jim's hand. He leaned down and rested his head on the bed, telling himself that he'd get up and wrap himself in his blankets in his bedroom soon. He never did, instead dozing by Jim's bedside all night. A gentle hand stroked his hair at one point. Dream or truth, he couldn't say.

The next seven days saw Jim improve to the point that he could bear the seams of a night-shirt and the weight of a dressing gown. He managed a little more food. His mood, however, became more dourly distant as he physically gained strength.

Blair had wakened the morning after Jim's attack of illness, feeling more at ease than he'd been for weeks, despite the cricks in his back and neck. He looked into a face as yielding as a graven image.

"Joel shouldn't have disturbed you last night. My apologies, Sandburg." Blair's repose fled in the face of this chilly courtesy and he smiled back with a stiff, false formality of his own, and assured Jim that it was no matter, before he escaped to his own room to wash and shave and dress.

The week dragged. Blair read to Jim sometimes, as he had that first night, or conducted distressingly one-sided conversations. He interspersed this activity with lengthy walks over the estate. Whether or not Blair's presence was a physical comfort to Jim, it was clearly a gall to his feelings, and Blair found himself growing more and more frustrated with Jim's manner, even angry. He would look back at the house and snarl and mutter to himself about `folly' and `pride'. He would drag his boots out of mud and hunch his shoulders within his great-coat, and guiltily wonder if it was his own pride he should address; he knew the insults to his mother still sat sourly in his stomach. But since neither of them chose to acknowledge their original quarrel there could be no resolution.

Blair understood Jim's scheme - he hoped that by making his behaviour insupportable that he would force Blair to leave. There were times when he was highly tempted. But even though he wasn't convinced of Joel and Stephen's belief that he offered relief to Jim's heightened senses, he had a superstitious fear of leaving and then hearing that Jim was ill once more, or even worse news. He would stay a little longer, whatever Captain James Ellison's distempers. He went indoors wearing a serene face and wilfully suggested some readings out of the more obscure and dull books in the book-room.

Perhaps Jim recognised Blair's renewed determination. The next morning he gave up guerrilla warfare and turned to a frontal attack. Jim was seated in an armchair where could look out his bedroom window, and he pronounced as if from a throne, "Ashford isn't much in the winter. You'll wish to return to London soon."

Blair schooled his face as best he could. "As you say, Ashford isn't much at this season. I thought I might stay a while longer, and relieve Joel of some of the tedium of diverting you."

"I don't need diverting. Nor do I need your pity."

"That's as well, for I have none at this time," Blair snapped.

"That's plain enough. If you did, you would be long gone." Blair turned away at that. "Damn it, Sandburg, I know what I said was unforgivable. I don't want you here because you're too good-natured to abandon a bed-ridden freak."

All the distress of the last few days, the heavy weeks, surged from Blair's heart to his mouth. He whirled around to face Jim once more. "You're a moon-calf! A simpleton! The only thing freakish about you is this assumption that good nature and - and - pity play any part in my presence here."

Jim was pale as milk, and Blair remembered that for all his choler he was still unwell.

"If you cared for any reason other than pity, you would have been here long before. You would have answered my letter." The last sentence was miserably low.

Blair stood as if stunned. "What letter?"

Jim's head lifted abruptly. The pale skin was marked with red blotches "The letter that Joel delivered for me. The one that he gave direct to a servant's hands because you would not receive him. That letter, Sandburg."

Blair was lost in a memory. Sarah, standing in the hallway with a letter in her hand. `Mr Spring's footman delivered it. It's for your mother.' A piece of information well calculated to ensure that Blair didn't enquire any further "That - bitch!" he snarled. "My God, I could take a horsewhip to her. How dare she do such a thing?"

Jim's face was blank with confusion. "You never had it?"

It was unmannerly and quite lower-class to gesture when speaking. Blair's hands waved wildly regardless. "Whatever gave you that idea? Of course I never had it. That slut - I swear, I could kill her."

Jim's voice shook. "Unwise, Sandburg. I've no great desire to see you on the gallows."

Blair tried to collect himself - a sick-room was no place for his display of emotion; but he was still overcome with astounded rage.

"Sit down. It's tiring me out just looking at you."

This was no exaggeration for effect. Jim looked as drawn and as shocked as Blair felt. Blair dropped onto the bed.

"You really did write?"

"I sent Joel with it the next day. I wasn't well for some of the day, and I owed Stephen and Louise a wedding visit - and an apology." Jim's mouth quirked. "The trimming I received from Stephen was quite remarkable. I visited you once, too. Your interfering maid told me you weren't at home, and not likely to be, either."

Blair tamped down on another surge of anger. "I thought - I thought any number of things. If I'd had any sense...I'm sorry, Jim."

Jim spread one hand in a resigned gesture. "Given the opinions I had just expressed of you and your mother, I can hardly blame you if your own were none too high of me. I am sorry, Sandburg."

"Oh, I know that, now. You wrote to me." Curiosity overtook Blair, and he asked, a little tentatively, "What did you say?" To his amazement, Jim blushed. Blair approached him and knelt on one knee beside his chair. "That's a fascinating response to the question, but not much of an answer."

Jim looked out the window, red still staining his cheeks. "I said what you might expect - that I regretted my suspicions and my temper; that I was sorry for the insults that I'd offered you and your mother." Jim swallowed. "That I loved you and hoped that you would forgive me."

Blair reached to grasp Jim's hand. His ready tongue seemed to have deserted him, until another realisation came to him.

"You knew. That's why you were so insufferable."

"Knew what?"

Blair was filled with wonder and irritation combined. "That Joel was right. This - this thing between us. Your senses." Jim's expression hardened, and he gently withdrew his hand from Blair's. Blair refused to be offended, nor did he move from his position from beside Jim.

"Yes. I knew - or suspected it, at least."

"But why didn't you say anything?" Blair demanded.

Jim sighed in vexation. "Why do you think?"

"The last week, I understand. But before. You must have guessed then."

"I didn't want you with me out of obligation."

"I don't want it either - I don't want to be here just because you need me for your comfort. But I wouldn't be. Joel serves your comfort - he looks after your clothes and your bath, he tends to you. But you don't value him simply because of those things, do you?"

Jim gestured hopelessly with his hands. "He's been with me a long time."

Blair recaptured the restless hands in his. "I would like to be with you a long time."

"That's as well. Because I doubt I can let you go now."

Jim was determined to go down, properly dressed, for Christmas Eve. "The carollers will come seeking vails, and it would be rude not to receive them properly."

Blair smiled. "I will take your word on the rural traditions. So, I take it this means that I must stand between you and Joel's concerns."

Jim's mouth turned down in disgust. "I swear that he mistakes me for some infant with the croup."
Blair hunted through his drawers for his hairbrush. "Be fair, Jim. You were very ill, and Joel with the care of you. I can't blame him for a little anxiety."

"I'm well enough now."

"You still tire easily."

Jim's mouth twitched. "I don't recall tiring easily last night."

Blair laughed. "You were dead to the world no more than a minute afterwards."

Jim lightly gripped Blair's nape. "No more than any man would have been after such an occasion."

Blair turned gently without dislodging Jim's hand and looked up at him. Biased he might be, but he thought that Jim looked very handsome. He was wearing a waistcoat that Louise and Stephen had sent him as a gift, embroidered in shades of blue from peacock to azure, and Blair ran a finger down one panel of it.

"All you need now is one of the newest neck-cloth styles and you'll be bang up to the mark."

"So long as I can still move my head in the damn thing."

Blair gave up looking for his hair-brush and instead opened the drawer where his cravats were kept. "I have an idea. Sir Peter Fairley was wearing a much admired style one night, and he was a little in his cups, and dismantled it and gave the assembled a lesson in tying it. And I have a good memory..."

He advanced on Jim, grasping a handful of linen. "Sit down, and let me see if I can manage this."

Jim retreated as if in the presence of a snarling dog. "Sandburg..."

"Oh, for God's sake, Jim, it's just a neck cloth. Sit down."

Jim sat.

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