A Wager of Love: M/M Historical Romance

C
opyright
© 2015 by Katherine Marlowe

Cover and internal design by Honeywine Publishing

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

All characters, places, and events in this book are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

H
oneywine
Publishing

Boulder, Colorado

www.HoneywinePublishing.com

A
uthor’s note
: It should be noted that this philosophical romance includes several discussions of theology from a 19th century Anglican perspective, and one of the main characters is devout in his beliefs. His perspective is intended only as indicative of the beliefs of the typical 19th century English nobleman and should in no way be construed as the beliefs or opinions of the author.

T
he party
, Laurie was informed later, was a great success, which was news to him on account of how he had spent the first half of the party bored senseless and the latter half of party in the library with a new acquaintance.

Hovering at the edge of the party, Laurie watched the dancing with longing and dread. From across the room, he could see no less than three eligible young women glancing hopefully in his direction and at least five older women frowning at his inaction. He tapped his fingers along the back of the wingback couch which he was keeping between himself in the party, half in hopes that it might enable him to make a quicker exit, or that it would obstruct any eligible young women who tried to pounce.

His sister had secured his invitation here in hopes of keeping him sociable, and while he appreciated the effort, he was beginning to suspect that either his sister or his hostess had seized upon his attendance merely as an attractive young bachelor. As lovely as the party was, with sparkling crystal lamps casting rays of white light across the colorful dresses and a skilled, enthusiastic musical trio tucked in one corner, Laurie was beginning to consider that he might rather slip away to the nearest gentleman’s club for a cigar and some decent conversation.

“Do you not dance?”

Laurie startled at the voice, which seemed to appear just behind his right shoulder before it solidified into the form of a tall and slender dark-haired young man his own age who sprawled onto the fine wingback couch which Laurie was most certainly
not
hiding behind. The young man was impeccably dressed in a formal suit of more expensive material than Laurie’s own.

They gazed in silence out across the dance floor. When Laurie did not respond to the question, the stranger tipped his head back to look at him upside-down. His hair was mussed and his gray eyes were playful.

“I dance,” Laurie responded.

“It seems you do not.”

Flushing indignantly, Laurie drew his stance a little straighter. He was accustomed to being teased, if only by his older sister, but he was certainly not accustomed to being teased at formal evening parties by handsome young men to whom he had not been introduced.

“I am entirely capable of dancing,” Laurie clarified.

His opponent still had his head tilted back against the couch, looking up at Laurie with mirth. “If you are capable of the theory but not the practice, can you indeed be said to dance?”

Now he was definitely being teased.

“I don’t believe we have been introduced,” Laurie said.

Suitably chastised, the young man rose to his feet and offered his hand, even though he did so
over
the couch between them. “I am Gilbert Heckwith, gadabout nephew to our esteemed hostess.”

They were nearly of a height, although Laurie was a couple of inches taller and brown-haired, with a face that he thought unfortunately pointed and his sister called “elfin”, while Gilbert had curling black hair and sinful red lips, as if a statue of Dionysus had taken life and imposed itself upon a fashionable London soiree.

“Laurence Aberforth,” Laurie responded, clasping his hand stiffly as he attempted to mentally negotiate the reckless breaches of social decorum being perpetrated by his new acquaintance. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“A pleasure somewhat more or less than dancing?” Gilbert asked, causing Laurie to flush and withdraw his hand.

“I enjoy dancing.”

“The evidence suggests otherwise,” Gilbert said, still with the couch between them and his back to the party, two further offences upon proper social etiquette. “You shall have to furnish proof of your claim.”

In desperation to recover the situation, Laurie sat down upon the couch, which induced Gilbert to join him.

“The trouble,” Laurie explained, “lies not in the dancing but in the matter of the several very marriageable young ladies who are all too aware that I am myself a very marriageable young bachelor.”

“That does indeed seem troublesome,” Gilbert agreed, gazing off across the party at the women in question. The young ladies and their various matronly guardians were regarding Laurie with interest, an interest which had become in various cases more or less pronounced with the introduction of a second eligible bachelor to the far edge of the room. “Do you wish not to be netted in matrimony?”

Drawing up his shoulders in dignified offence, Laurie stammered briefly as he attempted to respond to Gilbert’s continued disregard for social convention. “I do not—I am not—it is my
preference
that were I to marry it would be in the pursuit of love, whereas the young ladies in question wish to marry because they require a husband, any husband, and I do not wish to be husbanded for the mere requirement of husbanding.”

“I can see the difficulty,” Gilbert said, continuing to consider their little audience. There seemed to be some manner of conference going on across the room between two lovely and charming young ladies, which Laurie dreaded might lead to one or both of them taking the initiative of asking the gentlemen to dance. “But a young lady cannot husband you without your consent, and I presume you would not propose marriage without amorous sentiment of your own, so your fear must stem from the possibility that you might love a lady who only pretended love in return. Is that it?”

One of the young ladies had risen to her feet, which had caused the conference between her and her friend to become more urgent.

Laurie stiffened in both offence and alarm.

“Sir, you are
very
forward,” Laurie began.

“And like to be more so.” Gilbert seized Laurie’s arm and pulled him swiftly to his feet. Laurie went, more out of surprise than anything. “Come with me,” Gilbert said, steering Laurie firmly around the couch and into the hallway.

Once they were in the hallway, Gilbert pulled him behind a plant in the sort of absurd dramatism which Laurie had only ever seen in stage comedies. Gilbert peered back at the ballroom from behind the cover of the plant.

“We have made a narrow escape. Your admirers—perhaps
our
admirers, depending on whether their need for a husband is greater than their good sense—do not seem inclined to risk following. Let us make good our escape before they invent a pretext upon which to come looking for us.”

That little speech created ever so many questions, none of which managed to form themselves on Laurie’s lips before his arm was seized again and they emerged from the plant in order to essay farther into the house. It seemed that Gilbert knew where he was going, and indeed they promptly entered into a well-appointed library which was quiet and dark.

Releasing his arm, Gilbert found a box of Congreves and set upon lighting the lamps around the central part of the room near a welcoming set of leather-bound couches.

Quite befuddled by their sudden escape, Laurie watched him.

“Shall I apologise for kidnapping you?” Gilbert asked, lighting the final lamp and extinguishing the long match. “I assure you, I shall take no offence if you choose to depart from my company.”

“We may give offence to your lady aunt,” Laurie said. He remained by the library door, uncertain of whether he intended to stay. There was a gentleman’s club not far where he’d had excellent conversation in the past over brandy and cigars, but Gilbert intrigued him, and Laurie couldn’t resist his own curiosity.

“We will not,” Gilbert assured him, sprawling across one of the long couches and hooking his legs over the arm of it. “Lady Agatha is quite inured to my nonsense, and we shall neither of us suffer any consequence but my being mildly scolded for removing two eligible bachelors from the room in a party which was already in excess of young ladies. It shall teach her to invite more young men to her parties. Or possibly it shall teach her to not invite me, which would be the rather more sensible option.”

“Do you do this often?” Laurie asked, enough intrigued by the irreverent mirth of Gilbert’s company that he advanced further into the room.

“Which, the general scandal of my behaviour or the specific scandal of kidnapping my aunt Agatha’s party guests?” Gilbert paused only just long enough for Laurie to take a breath to speak, and then forged on ahead regardless. “Either way, I suppose, the answer is yes.”

Laurie laughed, puzzled but amused by his new friend’s comedic nature, and took a seat on a leather chair nearby. “She should indeed never have invited you.”

“Quite true,” Gilbert agreed, giving him a grin in response to Laurie’s display of humour. “Her generosity of nature and familial affection is entirely misplaced. But I am quite interested in your romantic troubles. Let us speak of that.”

“I am entirely certain,” Laurie said, resting his chin in his hand, “that my romantic troubles are none of your concern.”

“That is very unfortunate,” said Gilbert, “for I would very much like us to be friends, whereupon it seems that the romantic troubles of my friends should indeed be my concern, for I very much wish that all of my friends should be happy and as romantically entangled as they themselves so desire.”

“Do your friends appreciate your concern upon their romantic troubles?” Laurie asked.

“I like to think that they do.”

“Naturally,” Laurie agreed, “but do
they
think that they do?”

“If they do not,” Gilbert said, slowing briefly as he considered the question, “then surely it is my duty as a friend to impress upon them the charitable nature of my concern, and, more importantly, the inevitability of it.”

He said it with such mirthful earnestness that it set Laurie at once to laughing.

“You have a charming laugh,” Gilbert said, getting to his feet and seeking out a crystal bottle of sherry on a side table, which presence in the library rather than or in addition to its theoretical presence in the parlour hinted at either a frequency of thirst from one of the members of the household or an allowance toward Gilbert’s habits of abducting party guests. He poured two glasses. “I should like to hear more of it. Say indeed that we shall be friends.”

Laurie smiled at the demand, deciding that the novelty of Gilbert’s company was far more tempting than the possible alternatives and resolving himself to stay. He felt drawn to Gilbert, as though someone had set a lodestone in his chest, and there could certainly be no harm in following the pull of it into friendship. “Have I a choice in this matter?”

“Indubitably. Or, at least as much as you have a choice in marrying,” Gilbert said, offering one of the glasses to Laurie before returning to his comfortable sprawl upon the couch. “Which is to say that much though unaccepted friends and eligible young ladies may prevail upon you, we still require you to affirm at the altar whether you will or will not have us.”

“Is there an altar of friendship?” Laurie asked, pretending alarm. “Had I known, I would have worn my better suit.”

“The altar of friendship is in all our hearts,” Gilbert said, placing a hand solemnly over his own. “Within which, I shall presume, you are wearing your finest suit.”

“That is a relief.”

“And before this altar of friendship,” Gilbert said, with good-humoured theatricality, “will you take me for your own?”

“Sir,” Laurie said, “I will.” He suspected that this decision might readily draw him into mischief at Gilbert’s side, but felt certain that he should at least never be
bored
, and there were few things more valuable to him than good company, conversation, and the escape from boredom. Gilbert offered all three in spades.

Gilbert got up and seized his hand at once, clasping it firmly. “And so shall I take you for my friend.” His hand was warm, and lingered a moment longer than it had in the ballroom as his fingertips brushed across the skin of Laurie’s wrist. “There,” Gilbert declared, his gray eyes locking upon Laurie’s blue ones, and for a moment Laurie felt both trapped and electric for no reason at all that he could understand.

“It is done,” Gilbert concluded, releasing Laurie’s hand and tossing himself back upon the couch. He lifted his glass in toast. “Now you may tell me of your romantic troubles.”

“Christ preserve me,” Laurie groaned, and drank of his own glass.

“Better indeed for the young men and women of England that a sculptor should preserve you in marble, that your form and figure might be remembered for posterity. Tell me, how stands your disposition to be married?”

Laurie snorted. “It is an honour that I dream not of.”

“But you do will that if you should marry, it should be for love.”

“I do.”

“You do, and shall say so again at the altar.”

Laurie sorely wished that he had a pillow at hand which might be tossed at his new friend. “I’m of no mind to be married.”

“Are you of a mind to be loved?”

“Yes.” Laurie sighed, leaning back in his chair and allowing his own legs to dangle over the arm of it in mimicry of Gilbert’s casual posture. He closed his eyes briefly in thought, mind drifting over all the stories of love and romance that he had read. They all seemed as wonderful--and nigh unreachable--as heaven. “I am very much of a mind to be loved. How does your friendly concern indicate that I should pursue such a thing?”

“Well, should you wish to be loved but not married, I am certain we could secure the address of a brothel.”

Laurie flushed quite red and floundered to sit up. His moral and religious sensibilities were shocked by the thought. “No, indeed, I do wish to be loved
and
married, one and the same.”

“That is rather more difficult,” Gilbert said, none discouraged by Laurie’s embarrassment.

“Certainly, in point of fact,” Laurie added, “there is no love to be found in brothels, but only lust.”

“There is no love to be found anywhere,” Gilbert said, with such straightforward certainty that Laurie could do nothing but blink at him in shock. “All of it is only lust or dependency.”

“That isn’t true,” Laurie insisted. “Love is real.”

“Have you proof of that?” Gilbert asked, with insouciant challenge.

Laurie frowned as he sought for an example. None came to mind, but he felt certain of his premise. He had always accepted love as a constant in his world: the love of God, or the love of his parents. “You cannot prove love. It is an emotion. A concept.”