“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at them without remembering that,” he gasped.
Cameron stiffened, but then he laughed, too. A deep, pleasant, rasping sound. Robert realized he’d never heard him laugh before.
“I don’t think I’ll ever stop wondering what it was that she did,” Cameron said. “I thought his heart might have given out.”
Robert laughed harder.
“Is your head all right?”
Robert took a few deep breaths to slow his laughter and brought his fingers up to touch his forehead. No blood, but when he pressed, it hurt. “Bruised, I think.”
He knew he should climb out from underneath the bed, but he was having a difficult time getting his limbs to move. What would Cameron do, he wondered, if Robert pressed forward, into him, if he gripped his face and kissed that thin, hard mouth?
But that was something he wasn’t prepared for.
Aside from the rather pertinent fact that Cameron was his brother’s employee and looking at him with anything other than polite friendliness would be a transgression, there was also the small matter of Robert never having approached another man before.
He didn’t know how it was done. Was there a code word of some sort? A secret handshake?
One couldn’t just go about these things in their society without some forethought, unless one wanted to risk ruination, arrest, or physical violence. The only thing he’d ever been absolutely certain he’d seen in Cameron’s eyes was disdain, which didn’t exactly give him confidence.
And anyway, even if he was more confident that Cameron was attracted to him, would he really want to ruin this moment with an uncertain outcome?
Cameron’s laugh still echoed in his mind. He’d never shared this sense of camaraderie with him before, this easiness, this almost friendship. It seemed a shame to do something there was no going back from.
“Townsend?” A hint of worry.
“What?”
“I thought ye might have fainted.”
Robert snorted. But he felt…happy. And it was a different sort of happiness than he was used to. It was like wings beating against the inside of his chest—uncomfortable, but thrilling at the same time. He was thinking too much, about things that probably wouldn’t happen. This had always been his downfall—around acquaintances, he was relaxed and friendly and at ease…but it was an act. Or, if not an act, exactly, it wasn’t all of him.
Alone, he tended to get caught in his own mind, to mull things over too much, to worry.
But right now, he just wanted to let himself dwell in the strange lightness of the moment for a little while longer.
“It takes more than a head injury to keep me down,” he said. “Truly. I was hit in the head once playing pall mall…I was bleeding, and it left a scar. I bounced right back up and finished the game.”
Cameron made a small, derisive noise. Robert couldn’t see the look on his face, but he could picture it. “Who hit you?”
“Theo. He felt awful about it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ha,” he said drily. But inside he was thrumming like the plucked strings of a harp. Because Ian Cameron was there, and he’d been worried about him, and Robert was quite sure they’d just been joking with each other.
He hadn’t thought the other man had much of a sense of humor, but he was relieved to find out he was wrong.
“Do ye think the corridor is clear?”
Robert cocked his head to listen. “I don’t hear anything.” He—somewhat reluctantly—slid out from underneath the bed and dusted himself off. The sunlight streaming in through the window was harsh against his eyes.
He squinted at Cameron, who’d stood as well. His hair was tousled, his dark-blue coat crumpled. He looked like he’d fallen asleep in his clothes. This should have made him seem vulnerable, but somehow it only underscored the cool, hard planes of his face. It made him more untouchable, not less.
Five minutes ago, Cameron’s hand had been pressed to his mouth. Less than five minutes ago, Robert had been laughing against the other man’s shoulder. The knowledge caused an instant of disorientation.
Had we but world enough and time, he thought wistfully, and then felt a little ridiculous for quoting poetry to himself. And Elizabethan poetry, at that, which was even more embarrassing, for some reason. He shook his head.
“Tomorrow,” he blurted out.
Cameron stared at him.
“We need to finish this room and look at Hale’s. Tomorrow?” He’d meant it to be a statement, but the word lilted at the end and turned to a question, an uncertainty.
He didn’t breathe until Cameron nodded.
“Aye.”
His relief was far too disproportionate for that one little word.
…
“Mr. Townsend!” Mrs. Worthington exclaimed. “What on earth happened to your head?”
Robert felt his face heat. Across the library, Cameron, who had been cornered by Miss Hale, suddenly went very still.
“Careless of me, really. I was reclining while I read—a very dangerous thing to do, I assure you—and I dropped my book.”
Mr. Worthington peered at him. “A book caused that bruise? Must have been a heavy one.”
“It was a lively one, certainly.”
Mr. W frowned slightly at that before turning to a more interesting topic. Robert gazed past his shoulder, and saw, with a tinge of disbelief, that Cameron was grinning, broadly, with teeth and all. Miss Hale looked as dazed as Robert felt.
Cameron met his gaze briefly before looking down at Miss Hale again, and Robert found his own lips curving in response.
Chapter Eight
Sometimes when he was having trouble writing, Robert would go to an abandoned outbuilding—a stone structure open to the sky because its roof had crumbled away long ago—and drink some whisky and listen to the sounds of a Highland night—the hush of dying wind, the distant sound of the ocean, occasionally the caw of late-flying birds.
This didn’t always work. Sometimes his thoughts were too persistent to quiet. But sometimes it did work, and all he was left with was peace.
He picked his way carefully over the muddy terrain, whisky bottle in one hand and an oil lamp in the other. Though summer, the air was cooled by the sea, even more so at night. When Robert breathed deeply, he could smell the smoke of distant peat fires and the scent of heather.
He made his way up the stairwell and then stopped in his tracks, nearly dropping the oil lamp and shattering it all over the stone floor.
“Cameron.”
The other man was sitting in Robert’s usual spot in the center of the circular tower, knees bent, one arm slung across them. The posture was casual, more casual than usual, but his face was impassive as he watched Robert.
They stared at each other for a moment in the dim haze that spilled from the lamp.
Something had changed between them, shifted subtly since that morning. Robert supposed it was impossible to be crammed together beneath a bed while listening to a couple’s boisterous lovemaking and not form some sort of bond. At least that of a shared secret, if nothing more substantial.
And Cameron did seem more tolerant of Robert than he’d been before, though he looked like he was far from welcoming him with a pat on the back or spilling his deepest secrets for the sake of friendship.
Robert tilted his head. The best thing would be to turn around, walk down the steps and back to the castle, and go to bed. But he didn’t do the best thing.
Instead, he did what he wanted to, lifting the bottle as an offering. A voiceless question.
There was a pause, a fraction of a second, and then Cameron silently reached out and took it.
Robert’s heart leaped. He forced himself to move forward calmly. Seating himself a foot or two away from the other man, he mirrored his negligent posture.
“You discovered this place, too?”
He kept his voice quiet, unwilling to completely shatter the silence that had settled like a blanket around them.
Cameron put the bottle to his lips, and Robert had a hard time tearing his gaze away as he swallowed and the muscles in his throat moved.
“Put the lamp away.”