Enlightened (10 page)

“Just gone five.”

“I slept three hours, then,” David exclaimed, shocked.

“Did you see Chalmers?” Murdo’s gaze, dark as pitch and soft with concern, was so reminiscent of the nightmare that David’s heart began to race again. Breaking eye contact, he burrowed closer in, needing the physical reassurance of Murdo’s body, warm and alive and close to his own. He slid his arms round Murdo’s waist and pressed his face into the other man’s neck, breathing in his familiar, heady scent.

For a moment, Murdo was very still, as though surprised. Then his arms tightened round David’s cold body, and he turned his head to press a kiss against one temple.

And right then, David felt a bolt of unexpected gratitude. Gratitude that he and Murdo were alive. Alive and here, together, now.

A profound understanding settled on him of what it meant to be alive. What a privilege it was. What it meant to share the moments of his life—even the difficult moments—with someone he loved.

Someone I love.

Murdo.

The revelation remained unspoken, the unused words even harder to utter than
Will you hold me?
Easier by far just to stay where he was, holding on to the flesh-and-blood man, imperfectly communicating his feelings by touch.

After a long while, he realised he hadn’t answered Murdo’s question.

“Sorry, I’m still half-asleep, I think. I did see Chalmers. He made a request of me. I’ll need to talk to you about it later.”

“We can talk about it now, if you like.”

“No, first I—” David paused, struggling again to find words. The ones he picked sounded raw and desperate. “First, I need you.”

He lifted his head, knowing his face would give everything away. He didn’t even try to disguise his feelings, though. He just let Murdo see it all, the despair and the grief, and the sharp, pressing desire. Because what was the point in hiding it? What was the point of having the gift of life—and the gift of knowing how precious it was—if he couldn’t share it all with this man?

Murdo met David’s eyes, and his own gaze gentled. “I need you too,” he whispered, and he dipped his head to capture David’s lips.

It was just breathing at first; their lips resting together, the air from their mouths mingling. Impossible intimacy. Impossible tenderness. So unbearably sweet it was a barb in David’s heart. He felt it like physical pain, like physical joy.

They broke apart briefly, staring at one another, then David leaned in and took Murdo’s mouth again, but this time his kiss was hungry, devouring, and after a moment’s hesitation, Murdo returned his passion. Their tongues twined, Murdo’s clothed body moving against David’s naked one, his big hands tracing over David’s cold skin.

As good as Murdo’s hands felt, David was glad when the other man finally pulled away long enough to shed his clothes. He watched Murdo hungrily as the man quickly stripped, moaning his gratitude when they were finally skin to skin, loving the satiny drag of flesh on flesh and the prickle of Murdo’s chest hair against his own mostly smooth torso. He loved the breath-stealing pleasure when their cocks first met, the prod of Murdo’s blunt cockhead against the base of his own shaft, the firm press of all that heft as Murdo canted his lean hips up. They ground their shafts together, their mouths meshed in a deep, desperate kiss—breathing the same air, moving to the same frantic rhythm—and it felt like mere moments till David was crying out his release, Murdo’s answering groan following a heartbeat behind.

Afterwards, they lay in companionable silence for a long time. At last, though, Murdo turned his head on the pillow.

“So, what did Chalmers want?”

David repeated what Chalmers had told him about Kinnell’s visit to Charles Carr, and his request that David deal with moving the trust administration.

“I have to get to London as soon as possible,” he said when he was finished. “I want you to take me with you tomorrow.” He noted Murdo’s faint frown and added, “I cannot rest easy until I’ve fulfilled my promise, Murdo.”

“David Lauriston to the rescue once again,” Murdo observed, his tone very dry. “You’ll be wanting me to saddle my best white horse for you, will you?”

“I’m merely undertaking the duties of my office as trustee—” David began, breaking off when Murdo sighed.

“All right, all right,” the other man said. “I know better than to try to dissuade you once you’ve made your mind up. You’ll have to pack your things this evening though. We leave at first light.”

Chapter Eight

Another carriage journey. This one, though, was farther than David had ever travelled before. Until now, he’d had no cause to go anywhere that involved more than two days by carriage. London was taking the better part of a week, and it felt like the longest week of David’s life.

Murdo had assured David that if the inns Murdo had reserved had no spare bedchambers, no one would blink an eye at the two of them bunking together. David had almost looked forward to the prospect, only for it to turn out that, by some twist of fortune, the inns
all
had spare bedchambers. Not to mention nosy landlords and fellow guests who traipsed the corridors at all hours of the night. Consequently, David and Murdo had spent the last five days in torturous proximity—together all day in the swaying, closed-in carriage, knowing they could be interrupted at any moment, only to be separated each night.

They’d passed the time talking. At long last, Murdo began to break some of the careful conversational rules he’d set months before, when David had first gone to Laverock House. Not that David could really call them rules. Murdo had never explicitly said there were things he would not discuss. He was just good at making it plain when he wasn’t happy talking about a particular subject. And he was never happy talking about his family.

Until now, it seemed. On this journey, he finally began to speak about them—about his siblings, anyway. About his older brothers, dutiful Harris and pompous Iain, neither of whom Murdo much liked, and about his three younger sisters, all of whom were married to men handpicked by Murdo’s father. He learned about Murdo’s late mother too, a kindly but distant figure from Murdo’s childhood who’d had no time for her youngest son as she coped with pregnancy after pregnancy, a succession of new babies and stillbirths, until she finally succumbed to the rigours of childbirth when Murdo was thirteen.

He barely mentioned his father, though, beyond alluding to him as the strategist of each of his children’s dynastic marriages or as the architect of his sons-in-law’s political careers. Murdo didn’t need to say much, though, for David to understand that the Earl of Balfour cast a long shadow over his son’s life. Nor to realise that the earl had something to do with this journey. He’d worked that out weeks ago.

The earl was a prolific letter writer. Each week, at least one, sometimes two letters arrived at Laverock House. David had quickly come to recognise the heavy, off-white paper, the lavish seal and the precise pen work that marked the earl’s correspondence. Whenever David arrived at the breakfast table and saw one of those distinctive letters waiting, he knew that Murdo would take it away to read it privately. And that soon after, the subject of Murdo going to London would crop up.

“Susannah’s far too young for Lansbury,” Murdo was saying now. Susannah was his youngest and favourite sister. “She never got the chance to go to balls and have admirers, and, of course, now she wants to do it as a young matron, except Lansbury won’t have it.”

“Why did your father select a man so
much
older than her?” David asked. “Surely there must’ve been at least one man closer to her in age who would’ve been suitable?”

Murdo snorted. “It wouldn’t even have crossed his mind to wonder. He wanted to align himself to Lansbury, and Lansbury wanted a wife. Why not his eighteen-year-old daughter, even if Lansbury was thirty years older?”

“I’m surprised he’s not managed to marry you off yet, if he’s so ruthless,” David said. He’d begun mentioning the earl more directly over the last day or two, curious to see if he could coax Murdo into saying more about his father.

As was usual when David mentioned the earl, Murdo’s jaw tightened and he looked away, out of the window of the carriage. But just when David thought that was it, that the conversation was at an end, Murdo said, “It’s not for want of effort.”

“What do you mean?”

Murdo kept his gaze trained on the flat, dull landscape outside. “My father’s like a spider,” he said eventually. “His web goes on and on. I’ve been snipping at the threads all my life.” After a pause, he turned his head to look at David again and smiled, though it was no more than a tightening of his lips. No warmth reached his eyes. “Let’s not talk of him. It makes me peevish.”

It made him more than peevish, David thought. It made him unhappy.

To distract him, David began to ask questions about their surroundings and soon enough Murdo was telling him all about the county of Buckinghamshire, reciting the names of the local families who owned the greatest tracts of land in the area. He did it almost by rote, as though he’d learned it a long time ago. David listened, occasionally asking a further question, more interested in Murdo’s immediate yet oddly disinterested way of answering than in the answers themselves.

He’d been tutored in this.

After a little while, the carriage began to slow. David stuck his head out of the window, ascertaining they were approaching their next stop, an old, rambling coaching inn. Its roof looked recently thatched, and it had a sturdy, prosperous look about it. It was by far the nicest inn they’d stayed in since they’d left Edinburgh. Curling wisps of wood smoke trailed from the chimneys and hung in the darkening sky, not seeming to know where to go.

As though alerted to the proximity of food, David’s stomach let out a tremendous rumble, making Murdo chuckle.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“I’ve had nothing since breakfast,” David pointed out, his tone faintly defensive. He’d refused food at their previous stops, nauseated by the long hours in the swaying carriage. The afternoon leg of the journey had been easier on his stomach, though, and now his belly was complaining at its emptiness. Loudly.

The coachman expertly swung the team of four and the broad carriage through the inn’s narrow gate without so much as grazing a corner. And then it was the same routine they’d followed for the last few nights. They got out of the carriage while their trunks were unloaded by the inn’s servants and the ostlers unhitched the horses, and headed for the main body of the inn in search of the innkeeper.

They found him in the hallway, on his way out to meet them, a small, wiry man of indeterminate age, his thick, nut-brown hair belied by a deeply wrinkled face. David wondered if he wore a wig.

He had an obsequious manner that grated on David. It was probably necessary in his line of work, given the number of well-to-do customers he’d have who’d expect to be treated with proper respect, but there was something about his manner that verged on grovelling.

He introduced himself as Mr. Foster, and his eyes lit up when Murdo confirmed his own identify.

“Ah, Your
Lordship
,” he said, with relish. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“You’ve been expecting myself and my coachman,” Murdo corrected. “But not Mr. Lauriston here. Are you able to assist us with an additional bedchamber?”

Foster smiled, displaying a set of strong-looking, yellow teeth, and, disappointingly, confirmed a second bedchamber presented no difficulty all. Murdo—ever accustomed to giving orders and expecting them to be carried out—demanded that hot baths be prepared for both of them and dinner served in a private parlour. Foster smoothly agreed to all of Murdo’s commands.

Within twenty minutes of their arrival, David was stripping off his travel-rumpled clothes and lowering himself into a blessedly hot bath, his first in days. The heat eased his pinched knee—always made worse by inactivity—making him sigh with pleasure and relief.

He stayed in the water till it was practically cold. When he finally got out, he quickly dried himself off, then gave his leg a brisk rub with liniment before dressing again. When he ventured out of his room, he felt cleaner and more relaxed than he had in days. He made his way to the private parlour Murdo had reserved, sniffing appreciatively as he went—the scents emerging from the kitchens were very promising—to find the innkeeper himself waiting outside the parlour door.

When Foster saw David, he greeted him with the same servility that had made David shudder earlier, even tugging at his forelock before opening the door for him. David gave him a curt nod and passed him.

The parlour was a cosy room, twee even. Murdo looked quite out of place in it, surrounded by floral china and Toby jugs and framed needlepoint pictures. He was too big, too male. A wolf in a woodcutter’s cottage. David smiled at his own whimsy and walked farther into the room, noticing with pleasure that Murdo’s expression warmed when he saw David. He suspected his own did the same.

The door closed behind them and immediately Murdo’s expression became less guarded. He quickly stepped up to David and captured his mouth in a quick but thorough kiss, his big hand resting at David’s waist. When he pulled back, his eyes were dancing.

“We shouldn’t,” David said, as though Murdo had posed a question. Despite his reluctant words, though, he was grinning, almost dizzy with happiness at Murdo’s brief, seemingly helpless show of affection. They’d shared little more than a few such kisses since they’d left Edinburgh, and this was the first night they’d managed to secure a private parlour for dinner. The closed door and drawn curtains made their privacy feel more secure than it possibly was.