CHAPTER ELEVEN
Friday, 23rd August, 1822
David wore his usual evening clothes for the Peers’ Ball: black evening coat and trousers, pristine white linen and an ivory satin waistcoat. This last was the most luxurious item of clothing he’d ever owned. When his fingers brushed the fabric, the heavy silkiness reminded him of when he was small and used to pet Fletch, his father’s sheepdog, in front of the kitchen hearth. The dog’s ears had felt like that, only warm. Warm and satiny.
His father used to say, “You’ll spoil that dog.”
He checked his appearance in the looking glass—the knot of his cravat looked all wrong. He loosened it and began again, but his second and third attempts were no better. The linen was all wilted now, the starch gone out of it. Impatient, he tied a simpler knot on his fourth attempt and decided it would do. It wasn’t as though he was a fashionable young buck. Far from it. He was exactly what he looked like: a solid, professional man, overly sober in his dress and predictable in his habits.
Who would look at him and guess what he was? A sodomite. Or almost a sodomite. Certainly in thought, if not quite yet in deed.
Not quite yet.
He went out the front door and locked up, trying hard not to dwell on the fact that he may not return this night. A dozen things could get in the way of him spending another night with Murdo, and he dared not get his hopes up. Instead he thought of what he’d say to Elizabeth if he saw her. How he’d phrase an invitation to dance with her husband looking on.
He had plenty of time to ponder it. The walk to Murdo’s house took longer than usual thanks to the crowds in George Street. The whole area around the Assembly Rooms was already congested with milling spectators and soldiers, and this over an hour before the ball was due to begin. Once past George Street, though, the streets were emptier, and soon enough, he was rapping on Murdo’s front door.
He expected to be shown the way to Murdo’s rooms, but this time the footman ushered him into a drawing room on the ground floor, taking his greatcoat and hat away and murmuring that his lordship would be with David presently. The man’s accent gave him away as one of Murdo’s London servants.
This room was much more formal than Murdo’s private sitting room, the furniture more elegant, less comfortable. David brushed his hands over the tails of his coat before perching on a chair upholstered in black-and-gold-striped silk that looked far too fine to sit on.
His gaze wandered over the room, taking in the spare, masculine style of the décor. The furnishings were largely monochromatic, with just a few touches of gold here and there. Above the black marble fireplace hung a portrait of Murdo, standing in an improbably classical grove of trees, a pair of hunting dogs at his feet. Curious, David got to his feet to take a closer look. Though it was a good likeness, he didn’t think it quite did Murdo justice. It missed his spark, the quick brightness of his gaze.
“There you are.”
David started and turned on his heel to discover the subject of the painting in the flesh, standing in the doorway in full highland dress.
No tartan trews this time, but a full kilt in the Balfour colours of dark green and blue, complete with rabbit-fur sporran and matching tartan stockings gartered at the knee. Murdo had added a bit of reserved London style in the form of a black, short-waisted jacket, albeit with lace spilling from his throat and cuffs. With his height, broad shoulders and dramatic colouring, he looked like the hero from some romantic novel of Sir Walter’s, right down to the silver sgian dubh protruding from his right stocking.
Before David could speak, Murdo strode into the room. “What are you wearing?” he said, coming to a stop an arm’s length away, his frowning gaze taking in David’s sober garb. “I’m sure I told you it was highland or court dress this evening, and you insisted you’d be fine.”
David’s irritation overcame his nerves. “You did, and I am,” he said shortly. “I told you I had formal evening clothes. These are they, and they’re perfectly adequate for the Assembly Rooms.”
Murdo glanced up at his snappish tone, meeting David’s gaze with an amused look “I should’ve known,” he said. “I don’t suppose the thought of looking out of place even troubles you?”
David stared at him, bewildered, and Murdo seemed to take that as confirmation of his point. He sighed. “I suppose I’ll just have to persuade the Ball Committee to let you in notwithstanding.”
“I didn’t ask to come tonight,” David pointed out.
“No,” Murdo conceded, his tone even. “You didn’t.”
“And doesn’t an invitation from the King himself count for anything?” David asked. He raised a teasing eyebrow, hiding the sudden concern that gripped him—that he might miss out on the chance to speak with Elizabeth purely because of his own stubborn refusal to comply with the dress code imposed by the Ball Committee.
“I suspect the King’s personal invitation will get you in, if it comes to that.” Murdo smiled, his gaze travelling over David again, more slowly this time. “And you look very well, I must say, in your black and white. Beau Brummel himself would approve, though”—he stepped closer and flipped the limp knot of linen at David’s throat with one long finger—“I don’t suppose he’d think much of your cravat.”
David couldn’t suppress the smile that sprang to his lips at Murdo’s sudden nearness. “No,” he admitted. “I don’t suppose he would.”
“Ironically enough, you’ll be the most English-looking Scot in the room.”
“I’ll be the most modern-looking Scot,” David corrected. “A professional man of the modern age.”
“Ah. Is that why you don’t want to wear tartan?” Murdo asked, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Doesn’t it fit with your advocate persona?”
“That’s not the reason at all,” David retorted. “I don’t want to wear tartan because my people don’t wear it. I’m a lowlander. A Scots lowlander.”
Murdo rolled his eyes at that. “David Lauriston,” he sighed. Merely that, as though it was all the explanation he needed.
David’s brows drew together with irritation. “It’s a serious point.”
“If you say so.”
“It is. For me to wear a kilt—it would be…” He thought, trying to pinpoint what it was that troubled him about it. “An…an insult.”
Murdo sent him that mocking, amused look that David was so familiar with. “An insult to whom? To you?”
Perhaps it was the dismissive tone in Murdo’s voice that riled him. Or perhaps it was the fact that Murdo was done up in a set of decorative regalia that, handsome as he looked in it, might have been designed by Sir Walter himself. Whatever it was, David felt a sudden stab of pure annoyance. He looked the other man over, from the tumble of snowy lace at his throat to the toes of his satin dancing slippers, then back up to meet his dark eyes.
“Yes,” he said. “An insult to me. And to the people it means something to—not people like you, but the ordinary highlanders it was taken from. The people who were forbidden to wear it for such a long time.”
Murdo’s smile faded, and that fortified David.
“Come on, Murdo,” he continued. “You must all know about that. You’re a highlander, aren’t you? The son of the laird himself. Did your father evict any of his tenants from their homelands to make room for sheep? Burn down any houses? Most of the chiefs did, I believe. In fact, some of the ones who are the most—”
“Stop it—”
“—sentimental about the old highland ways were the worst. We were lucky in the lowlands, by comparison. It was industry that cleared our lands and sent our people overseas. Cold comfort I suppose, but marginally better than being burned off the land by troops to make way for animals—”
“David, stop! Please.”
David fell silent, his words dying in his throat as he took in Murdo’s white face and distressed expression. For a moment, they just stared at one another, and David wanted to ask what made Murdo look so stricken, but somehow the words were unutterable.
At last Murdo said quietly, “My father has one of the largest stocks of sheep in the highlands. Most of the people that lived at Kilbeigh when I was a boy were cleared off the land a decade ago.” He paused, then added, “Two villages were burned down altogether.”
When he was finished, he looked calm, but a muscle leapt in his cheek, betraying his tension.
David didn’t know what to say. He searched Murdo’s face, looking for some clue as to how the man felt about what had happened on his father’s lands but he seemed to have control of himself now and there was nothing to see but that cool, impassive expression the man so often wore.
Murdo turned away, heading for the door. “Come on. I’ve ordered some supper for us. We don’t have to leave for the ball for a while yet.”
“Supper” consisted of a bewildering array of small, perfectly cooked dishes. Cold roast meats, game terrine, small salad, dressed vegetables. Murdo served a plate out for David, as proper as any footman, and pressed wine upon him. Throughout the meal, he was unfailingly polite, making none of his usual barbed, mocking remarks. David guessed that, for Murdo, perfect manners were probably a sign of displeasure.
David tried to eat, but he had no appetite. He knew, somehow, that his angry words about the clearance of the ordinary highlanders from Murdo’s family’s lands had touched a nerve, and now he regretted the burst of venom that had prompted him to speak so impulsively without knowing anything of Murdo’s circumstances.
After a lengthy silence, Murdo let out a huffed breath.
“Damn it all,” he muttered. He set down his wineglass with a sigh, and David looked up, meeting his gaze.
“This isn’t what I was hoping for,” Murdo said by way of explanation, his tone terse.
David stared at him, taking in the glowering gaze and unhappy expression.
“What were you hoping for?” he asked.
“To talk with you,” Murdo replied, the dark flush over his cheekbones showing that this was not an easy admission for him. “To persuade you to come back here with me, after the ball and spend the night again.”
David didn’t say anything in response to that. But he watched Murdo steadily and thought, I want that too.
It wasn’t an especially comfortable realisation. There was a world of difference between enjoying the pleasures Murdo Balfour offered as and when the opportunity arose and actively admitting that was what he wanted. Planning to do it in advance and going out of his way to make sure it happened.
“Most of all,” Murdo said in a husky voice, “I want you in my bed again.”
David swallowed, and he knew that Murdo noticed his reaction.
“This is unwise,” David said weakly.
“Is it? How can it be unwise to see the chance of pleasure and to take it?” Murdo replied. “Surely that is the very opposite of being unwise?”
David felt a brief rush of impatience at Murdo’s deliberate blindness. “You know why. There are consequences. Pleasure has a price.”
“You’re talking about regret, and I’ve told you before, I have no time for regret. I don’t believe in it.”
“Well, perhaps I do.”
Murdo leaned over the table and grasped David’s forearm. “Do you regret any of the time you’ve spent with me, David? Would you undo it if you could? Because let me tell you this, I would not lose a second of it.” He paused for a long moment, his dark gaze boring into David, then added, “Why do you think I came back to Edinburgh in the first place?”
David returned Murdo’s gaze, arrested by what he saw there, held in place by the hard hand on his arm.
“You came for the King’s visit,” he said at last. “Your father—”
“My father asked me to come to Edinburgh and nearly fell off his chair when I agreed,” Murdo interrupted with grim amusement. “I know for a fact he had at least two different blackmail ideas to use against me when I refused him, as I usually do.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I think you do,” Murdo said gently. “But let me make it plain so there’s no misunderstanding: what we shared two years ago wasn’t enough for me. What we’ve had this time isn’t enough either. I want more.”
Well, that was plain. Plain as could be.
David sighed. “You know that, at some point, this has to end.”
Murdo’s grip on David’s arm loosened. “Yes, I know. Just—not now. Let’s just allow this to run its course this time.”
Run its course? Murdo spoke about this thing between them like it was a fever, an infection that just needed to rage for a while before it inevitably burnt out. He didn’t seem to share David’s fears at all—that it was more like a maiming. More like lining up to voluntarily have a limb removed that you’d never get back.
“Tell me,” Murdo said. “Will you come back here with me tonight, David? Will you come to my bed again?”
And somehow, despite everything, David didn’t hesitate. He couldn’t have refused the man had his life depended on it.
“Yes,” he said. “I will.”
To hell with the consequences.