Page 19 of An Earl's Bet
“No.”He didn’t have to do it.He needed to do it.“I need to know that if I do something wrong, then bad things won’t happen.”He couldn’t let himself believe it without plenty of evidence.
“It’s probably hypocritical of me to try and talk you out of doing something dramatic but maybe you could start with something smaller, like swapping the sugar for salt in the kitchen?”
“Earnest.I’ll never be free of him in this house.He built it and his memory is everywhere.I want to start again.”
“Then burn it down if you truly think it will help you.”
Hugo spun Earnest around and pulled him into his arms.“I am probably going to rue the day I asked a free-spirited poet for advice.”
“When you say it like that, it does sound disastrous.”Earnest kissed him on the chin.
“More disastrous than having you camp on my front lawn with the press hovering all around and writing all manner of nonsense.”
Earnest kissed him on his left cheek, and then his right, then stood there, his mouth still close enough to kiss again, but with a wide grin spreading that Huge wanted to drink in.“They wrote that about me, not you.”
“They wanted to know what I’d done to you.”He breathed out and pushed Earnest away to continue his march towards doom, no, towards revenge.“How did you make them go away in the end?”
“My friend Adam told them all it was publicity for my new book and nothing to do with you.You were picked at random for the size of your ...lawn.”Earnest winked at him.Maybe it was the dread pooling in Hugo’s stomach but he didn’t believe Earnest’s lackadaisical wink.Was he hiding something?
He gulped.“I don’t understand.”
Earnest laughed, although Hugo thought he heard a tightness in Earnest’s joviality.“Neither did they.”Earnest dragged his gaze lower and stared at Hugo’s groin, sending a rush of heat up his spine and across his cheeks.
“Oh.”He hadn’t meant that; he’d been asking about the book or the rationale for camping on his lawn—was it just Earnest being dramatic after Hugo told him to leave, or something more—but now he couldn’t see anything except the promise in Earnest’s twinkling gaze.If he was brave enough to contemplate burning down his father’s house, he could swallow down the rising panic and ask for the thing he really wanted.
No son of mine could be a molly.His father had said that when Sir Charles Price and his lover had been tried for sodomy and it was all through the newssheets.Hugo had been only ten years old, and he’d assumed his father was angry at Sir Price for running off to Paris and leaving his lower-class lover to be convicted alone.Abandoning a lover to such a fate was cruel.It wasn’t until later that he realised his father thought loving another man was a sin to be avoided.Once he worked that out and realised that he was just like Sir Price and his lover, he’d hidden those thoughts very carefully from his father, deep down inside him, and now the truth threatened to burst out and he wanted to be brave enough to let reality fly free.“I’ve changed my mind.”
Earnest raised one eyebrow but said nothing.
“I don’t want to burn down my father’s house, at least not yet.I want to do something that would horrify him first.And if nothing bad happens after that, then I’ll be free to demolish this ostentatious palace and build something more tasteful.”
“What could possibly horrify your father more than the notion of burning down his house?”
“I want—” He swallowed, his breath all shaky.“I want to impale you on his desk.”
Earnest’s smile lit up his whole body.“Lord Horden.I knew you were hiding something amazing under that stern exterior.”
“Is that ...yes?”
Somehow Earnest’s smile got even bigger.“It’s a yes please, absolutely, right now, this minute, please and thank you, yes, yes, yes.Drag me to this den of horrors and eradicate all the terrible memories with one brilliant fuck.”
Hugo wished he had as much confidence in his own abilities.He’d never fucked anything except Earnest’s mouth.A mouth that currently said the most wonderful things and if he ignored the anxiety flocking in his stomach, swooping like seagulls over a net filled with fish, he might just be able to let himself give Earnest what he begged for.The idea of Earnest impaling himself was so hot, aided by the notion that he could let Earnest take charge and then no one would know that he didn’t have any experience.
“Come on then.”He grabbed Earnest by the hand, uncaring that anyone might see—although no one came to this part of the house now anyway—and marched towards his father’s office.He kept his gaze on Earnest, so that he couldn’t see the pattern in the floorboards or the familiar paintings lining the hall or the way he used to imagine the wallpaper getting darker the closer he walked towards his father’s office.No.He wasn’t that scared little boy anymore.And then Earnest curled his fingers through his own.He wasn’t alone.He threw open the door, heart in his mouth, as his body remembered.But it was different.
He stopped in the doorway, staring at the way all the furnishings were protected by sheets.
“Someone has been in here.”He had told the staff that no one was to go in there, but someone had covered the furniture.The books on the shelves weren’t dusty.He blinked, suddenly uncertain and not knowing why.
“By the looks of it, your staff have been cleaning in here.”
“Yes.”He probably should be annoyed that they had defied his instructions, but seeing the room covered in white sheets gave it a ghostly feel that was completely different to when his father had dominated the space.He swallowed.
“How nice it must be to have staff.”Earnest slipped his hand away from Hugo’s and he watched him saunter towards the sheet-covered desk.“I take it this was your father’s desk?”
He tried to say yes, but the word stuck in his throat.Earnest tilted his head, considering him for a second and Hugo wondered what he saw, then Earnest grabbed the sheet and tugged.It flew up in the air, billowing, just a ghost might, revealing his father’s desk underneath.It was much smaller than he remembered.In fact, everything in the room was smaller, less significant than how he remembered it.Earnest sneezed, apologised, and then, as if to prove ...something, Earnest twisted around and sat on the desk, his legs dangling over the side.
“I would never dare do that.”