Enlightened (6 page)

He was referring to the time David’s father had come upon him kissing Will Lennox when David was sixteen, a discovery that had prompted David’s gentle father to strike David for the first and only time in his life.

David shook his head. “We are not on bad terms. We don’t speak of it at all—my father’s an elder of the Kirk and he worries for my soul, but he believes that if I don’t act on my desires, God won’t punish me, so he is able to live with it, that way.”

“I take it from that, that you give him no reason to believe you act on your desires?”

“No, I never would. I don’t wish to give him any more reason to worry. He’s suffered enough sleepless nights over me.”

Murdo laughed shortly. “God, we couldn’t be more different. Over the years I’ve taken great pleasure in thumbing my nose at my father. I still do.”

David stilled. Murdo never spoke about his father. Not voluntarily.

After a long pause, David said with studied casualness, “He knows you prefer men?”

Murdo gave one of his mirthless huffs of laughter. “My father knows everything about everyone, and—as he has reminded me all my life—knowledge is power. He uses his knowledge to persuade people to act as he wishes them to.”

His tone was bitter, revealing.

“Has he used knowledge about you to compel you to act as he wishes?”

Murdo stared at the empty bench opposite them, his expression grim.

“All my life—or tried to, at least. He was probably rubbing his hands together in glee when he found out about my preference for men—such a good bit of blackmail material.”

“But wouldn’t a son with such preferences reflect poorly on him?” David asked, half-appalled, half-curious. “Surely he has a vested interest in keeping it quiet?”

“You would think so, wouldn’t you? But my father is far more devious than you can possibly imagine. When I pointed out that a sodomite for a son would do his political career no favours—I was seventeen at the time, I believe—he replied that he would never allow my disgrace to be made public. Rather than allow my proclivities to pose a threat to the honour of the family name, he would admit me to an asylum—to be cured, you understand.”

David stared, appalled. “Perhaps he was worried for you and thought the fear of committal would keep you on the straight and narrow?”

Again, Murdo laughed, a hateful sound, harsh and contemptuous. “Oh no, he doesn’t mind about my preferences, you see. Everything serves a purpose in my father’s world. Once we had reached our understanding—my compliance in exchange for his tolerance—he was quick to put me to use. Before long I was tasked with befriending a man he wanted some information on. Someone with the same…interests. In fact—” He paled noticeably and broke off, exhaling sharply. “Never mind.”

David had never seen Murdo so shaken. Carefully, he touched his lover’s knee, stroking gently with his thumb. “Tell me.”

To David’s alarm, Murdo dropped his head into his hands and let out a shuddering sigh. He stayed like that for a long time. Eventually, in a thin voice, he said, “Do you remember me telling you about the first time I was buggered?”

Buggered.
David balked at the ugly word, at the wrongness of it being applied to Murdo. It took him a few moments to think back to another conversation, months before.

“I remember. You said there were two men,” David said slowly. “And that they were rough with you.” Even as he spoke, a kind of realisation began to dawn, and nausea swirled in his gut. “Please tell me that had nothing to do with your father.”

Murdo didn’t deny it. “The one my father had asked me to befriend was called Gilliam,” he said flatly. “Somehow, he found out who I really was. I’d arranged to meet him at a house in the country for the weekend, and they—he and his friend—well, they really let me have it. Threw me in a carriage once they were done, and sent me home as a message to my father.”

Somehow, David managed to keep the hand on Murdo’s knee stroking gently, soothingly, even as a wild animal clawed in his chest to get out. To get out and find this Gilliam and his friend. And Murdo’s father.

Murdo lifted his head out of his hands, though he still didn’t look at David. “It was fifteen years ago,” he said disgustedly. “Yet even now, it affects me like this.”

“Of course it does,” David protested gently. “It would affect anyone like this.” Under his fingers, he could feel Murdo’s tension. The thrum of it was almost like a vibration beneath his fingers, and he couldn’t make his mind up whether all that nervous energy was trying to reject David’s compassion or clamouring for it. Certainly Murdo didn’t reach for him. He rested his elbows on his thighs and held his hands in front of his face, loosely clasped. He’d made a cage of himself, with David on the outside. David’s hand on Murdo’s knee was the only connection between them, but since Murdo let it rest there, David reasoned he must want it to stay.

“My father made sure Gilliam paid for that insult later, but even so, that was the episode that made me realise just how dispensible I was to him. After that, I decided I had to get out from under his thumb. And since he held the purse strings, the only way to do it was to become financially independent.”

“How old were you when this happened?”

The story was pouring out of him now, no hesitation in the answer that followed.

“Almost twenty. I was done with Oxford by then, ready for something new. So I set about learning finance and trade. My Uncle Gideon was only too pleased to help me—he detests my father—and I had the benefit of aristocratic connections galore, of course, which Gideon liked.

“I worked hard, but I’m under no illusions. The thing that really made me successful was that I took advantage of all the privileges of my standing. I used my name to open doors and bring others with me. I built and built my fortune till I was satisfied I’d never need the old man again. Then I kept building it. I wanted an estate of my own, one that my father had no connection to. I wanted to be able to buy and sell him.” Murdo glanced at David over one hunched shoulder, revealing a glimmer of vulnerability. “I’ve spent the last fifteen years plotting to get away from him. It’s what this trip to London is all about.”

David opened his mouth to ask what he meant by that—what Murdo planned to do in London—but when he saw the distraught look on Murdo’s face, he stopped himself. Now was not the time to plague Murdo with questions David already knew he was reluctant to answer. Instead, he leaned in, pressing his side against Murdo’s, his hand still resting on the other man’s knee, musing over what Murdo had just told him.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” David murmured at last, turning his head to press a kiss to Murdo’s neck. The scent of bitter orange from Murdo’s hair pomade filled his nostrils, familiar and oddly comforting.

“No need for you to be sorry.”

“I know, but I’m sorry anyway. Sorry I wasn’t there to stop it. I wish I could make it right.”

“So very like you to want to put things right,” Murdo murmured. He turned his head till their eyes met, and his dark gaze was warm with affection. His lips sought David’s, and their mouths moved together in a consoling kiss that had nothing to do with passion.

“David,” he said, when they broke apart. “David.”

He said David’s name like it meant something all on its own.

Like a vow.

Like a promise.

Chapter Five

It was past five o’clock when they reached Murdo’s Queen Street townhouse. Their arrival flustered the housekeeper. She hadn’t expected Murdo till the following day, and now she trailed them to the drawing room, apologising profusely that the bedchambers weren’t ready yet. His Lordship’s was being aired, she said, and she hadn’t realised that Mr. Lauriston would be joining him.

Although that last observation was offered by way of apologetic excuse, David felt an immediate pang of anxiety. Did she think it odd he was here, and unannounced no less?

Murdo, of course, was unconcerned. He brushed the housekeeper’s apologies aside with a careless smile, saying that some tea and scones would occupy them very well while their chambers were made up, if she’d be good enough to see to it.

David watched as she left the room, an upright, starched little woman, nodding sharply at the footman who held the door open for her, as correct as any sergeant major.

David wondered about the footman too. Although the man’s expression was impassive now, David fancied he’d seen a flicker of curiosity there when they had entered the room. Or perhaps he was being ridiculous.

That was entirely possible. He’d been feeling conspicuous all day—as though he had a sign round his neck that declared him to be Lord Murdo Balfour’s lover. It was, after all, the first time they’d gone anywhere together since they’d begun to regularly share a bed. Suddenly, David found himself wondering what expression he wore when he looked at Murdo, whether he was standing too close to him, whether the casual little touches that Murdo bestowed on him—his hand on David’s arm, or at the small of his back—were unexceptional or entirely betraying.

“I’ve been dying to kiss you,” Murdo said now, interrupting David’s train of thought. Although they were alone and the door was firmly closed, David still felt a bolt of panic. His gaze flickered to the only other possible threat—the window—and he stepped back from Murdo’s advance.

“Not here,” he said. “The drapes are wide open.”

Murdo just smiled. “We’re on the second floor, and there are no houses opposite. No one can see.”

“Nevertheless”—David broke off, looking around, a shiver of unease running through him—“anyone could walk in.”

Murdo frowned. “No one walks in on me in my own house. My servants know to knock.”

David didn’t feel reassured. He moved across the room, his cane tapping on the polished parquet floor, to investigate just how private the window was.

It was, of course, as Murdo had said—and as David already
knew
—entirely private. Just the street below them and, opposite, the broad, green stretch of square after square of private gardens. Not that they looked green right now. Already, it was dusk, and the world was suffused in the half-grey light that prevailed just before full darkness fell. At this time of day, the gardens looked shadowy and vaguely threatening.

Fenced round and locked up tight, these gardens were for the exclusive use of the proprietors of the houses that overlooked them. For some, it was a place to walk and sit, safe from the filth and squalor of the inconvenient poor of the city. There were others, though, who never stepped foot inside the gardens. For them, the gardens were a guarantee of privacy, a protection from anyone building more houses on their doorstep.

If you had enough money, you could protect yourself from most things. You could surround yourself with broad, green stretches.

Even then, though, sooner or later, you had to face the world.

Today David had left the broad, green stretches of Laverock House behind him. It felt different here. Murdo might ignore his servants, but David hadn’t missed their silent, careful interest. They would be speaking about him below stairs now, he was quite sure. The man who had been brought here, injured, months before. The man whose bedside the master had barely left for weeks, and who’d then gone with the master to his new estate in Perthshire.

“They must be wondering about me,” David murmured, turning to meet Murdo’s frowning gaze. “Your servants, I mean.”

“Quite apart from the fact that it’s none of their business, they know who you are. You were here before, after all.”

“That was different. I was injured. I needed help. Now I’m perfectly able to manage on my own.” David paused before adding, “Perhaps I shouldn’t stay on when you go to London tomorrow. I could easily take a room at an inn instead.”

“For God’s sake!” Murdo exclaimed. He stared at David, all impatience and disbelief, then sighed. “You’re in one of your moods, I see. Imagining all sorts of nonsense.” He pinched the bridge of his nose before continuing more calmly. “It’s perfectly commonplace for gentlemen to put their friends up in their homes, David. Sometimes for months at a time.”

David pressed his lips together, resenting the implication that he was being absurd. “That may be the case for men who’re social equals, but we’re
not
equals.”

Murdo sent him another incredulous look, black eyebrows raised. “Are you of all people suggesting you’re my inferior?”

“Of course not,” David replied, irritated now. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t see how other people view us. I don’t want you to be exposed to rumour—not any more than I want to be exposed to it. Our friendship is not without risk, Murdo, you
know
that. We have to take reasonable precautions not to draw suspicion.”

Murdo stared at him for a long moment. “I honestly don’t understand where this has come from,” he said. “What’s prompted all these worries? You gave no hint of any of these concerns in the carriage on the way here.”

David sighed and turned to look out of the window again. Already the sky had darkened further. Soon it would be fully night.

“It’s just—coming here, back to Edinburgh, seeing the servants’ reaction to me arriving with you—”

“What reaction?” Murdo asked, sounding genuinely bewildered.

“Just because you didn’t notice it, doesn’t mean there wasn’t one,” David said wearily.