He knew what Robert had decided. Hadn’t missed Alice Worthington’s hand on his arm, light but somehow possessive.
And it was what Ian had expected, wasn’t it? Hell, it was what he’d wanted, even. If not for himself, then for Robert, at least.
So why did it feel like his heart had been ripped from his chest?
Through some strength of will, some edge of iron that had been forged through isolation, and absence, and longing, and moving through life alone, Ian didn’t let the pain show. He wasn’t affected by Robert. Not at all.
The silence was loud between them, filling in the spaces between his heartbeats.
“Well?” he finally said.
Robert swallowed and then nodded at the cottage. “You’re making good progress,” he said.
Ian forgot, sometimes, that Robert was young. He hid it behind confidence and charm, but he couldn’t hide it now, when words failed him, and like a shield in front of him, his hand was clasped so tightly around his forearm that Ian worried he might bruise himself.
But Robert was young. He was younger than Ian in years, yes, but in other ways, too. Robert might have known loss, but he had never known abandonment. It cut, but in a different way, more jagged, a wound that couldn’t heal completely. Because it was not simply the way the dice had fallen, it was a choice, and no matter how strong one was, some part of them would always wonder why they hadn’t been good enough. Robert didn’t know what it was like to be rejected by the people who were supposed to love him more than anyone else. He’d never tasted that bitterness at the back of his throat.
And Ian prayed that he never would.
As sick as he felt when he saw Robert with Miss Worthington, he was relieved, too.
Robert could keep his innocence. It wouldn’t be Ian’s fault if it was ever taken away.
“Is that all you wanted to say to me?” he asked. “Should I congratulate ye?”
Robert flinched, and Ian had to use every last bit of strength he had left to keep from reaching for him.
“No, that’s not all,” Robert answered hoarsely. “I did agree to marry Miss Worthington…I didn’t feel like I could do anything else. But Hale is in love with her, and I suspect she feels something for him. I think with some maneuvering, a different marriage could occur.”
Everything inside him stilled. He stared into Robert’s dark eyes, so open and hopeful. He shouldn’t be so open and hopeful, so idealistic, Ian thought, feeling curiously numb, or someday the world was going to tear him apart. That was just what the world did, what people did—they latched on to a weak point and pressed down until it broke.
Finally, Ian laughed. “Hale? Good luck with that.”
“What?”
“Hale isn’t going to ask her to marry him. He’s terrified of her father. If that’s what you’re hinging your hopes on, ye might as well give up before you start.”
“But it’s our only chance.”
“Townsend…just…just stop,” Ian said. He could see the hitch in Robert’s chest when his breath faltered and Ian felt like he’d dealt him a physical blow, but he didn’t relent. “You rushed into this. You rushed into it with blind faith that everything will fall into place, but it won’t.”
Robert’s fingers were taut against the fabric of his coat. “Is this…is it because of what you said, about me not being happy keeping secrets? I’ll tell them.”
A cold chill ran along Ian’s spine, and suddenly, though the day was warm enough, it felt like winter. “No. You won’t.”
“I will…they’ll understand. We’re not like your family…after our parents died, all we had left was one another. We’re closer than most siblings. Telling them won’t break anything between us, I’m sure of it.”
Ian had no idea how Robert could be sure of anything. Hate was something that came without warning or thought. It wasn’t reasonable, so it couldn’t be predicted.
Before he knew what he was doing, he had a fistful of Robert’s coat in his hand, and he’d pushed him against the stone wall.
The other man blinked at him, looking a little dazed.
“I’m not going to let ye take that chance,” he growled.
Robert’s eyes narrowed, a flash of something hot. Anger. Good, Ian thought. Being angry was better than being vulnerable. He could take his anger; he could take all of it. But he couldn’t take his hope.
Hope wasn’t a language Ian knew. It had failed him, for too long and in too many ways.
Robert’s gloved hand wrapped around Ian’s where it was latched on to his coat, and he simply held him there, warm leather against bare skin. It was the first contact they’d had in days and Ian wished…he wished… It didn’t matter what he wished. None of his wishes ever came true.
Ian’s wants were as useless as a boy throwing pennies in a wishing well, longing for his dead parents to give him some sign that they were still there.
“I’m starting to wonder if this is about me at all,” Robert said quietly.
Of course it was about him. What did he think they’d just been talking about?
“You haven’t spoken to your family in over ten years. If you reached out to them now, things might be different.”
Ian laughed harshly, and the sound grated against his own ears. “I doubt it.”
“But you don’t know, do you?” His voice was low and even and relentless. Ian felt it striking against something inside him, sharp and merciless. “You don’t know. Maybe they said those things to scare you into changing. Maybe, if they knew you wouldn’t change, that you couldn’t, they would have changed their minds, instead. Maybe it was a bluff.”
“And maybe it wasn’t.”
“Maybe it wasn’t,” Robert agreed. “But you’ll never find out, will you? And it doesn’t matter anyway. You’ve clung to your resentment all this time; you’ve kept their betrayal alive. You started inflexible and you’ve only become more inflexible. It’s fine if you can’t forgive them; I wouldn’t, if I were in your place. But you won’t let yourself forget, either. Bitterness is your weapon, and you think it makes you stronger, but it only makes you weak.”
He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to hear any of it.
“I’m not weak,” he snarled. And then, because he felt like a cornered animal and he didn’t know how to protect himself, he turned on Robert, instead, stringing together more wasp-edged words than he sometimes said in a full day. “And look at you. I was fine, alone. I was fine, before you. And you come to me. You come to me and weasel your way into my life and you ask more and more of me. You take more and more until you have my friendship and you have me in your bed and you still want my heart on a silver platter. And what use do ye have for it? Hale isn’t going to change anything. He doesna have the bollocks to go after what he wants.”
“Oh?” Robert said, his voice edged and sharp. “Is that how it was? You’re a liar. You were right there with me every step of the way. I didn’t take a thing.”
Ian didn’t respond. He had a feeling that if he looked too closely, he would be proved a liar.
Robert took a deep breath, as though trying to calm himself. “And Hale will come through, if I can persuade him.”
But Robert was right, about him, about everything. Ian didn’t know how to let go of the things that hurt him. He didn’t know where he would draw his strength from if he didn’t have that. He would be a boy again, abandoned and frightened and wounded.
He never wanted to be that boy again.
“And if ye can’t? What does that leave me? Will you give me your body, even when someone else takes your name?”
In the shelter of the cottage wall, in the open air but hidden from view, Ian dragged Robert against him and kissed him, a desperate, hard press of lips to lips.
Heat swept through Ian like wildfire, filled him, burned him, left him reeling. Why was it always like this? Why couldn’t he protect himself against this? Why did touching Robert make him feel like he’d flown too close to the sun and somehow emerged on fire but alive?