Chapter 45 #2
“But don’t you see how things are changed now?
” Charles pressed. “You could inherit and be worthy of Madeline in a way I never could be. She has all her attention on me because she doesn’t know you are the greater prize.
Christ, I was crawling out my skin the other day, listening to her throw herself at me.
I wanted to tell her the truth about us, about our positions.
I nearly did. It was on the tip of my tongue, but I knew you would never forgive me if I did. It is not my truth to tell.”
“You’re damn right, it’s not,” he growled.
“But don’t you see? I am not worthy of her, John! She deserves someone of her sphere, not a lowly vicar.”
Warren laughed, but the sound was hollow. He hated the way Charles was dragging all this to the surface once more. “You don’t get to run scared for this, Charles. You don’t get to shove us at each other just so you can be the long-suffering martyr once more.”
“Go to your father,” he went on. “Tell him about Madeline. Tell him that she is ready to make you an offer of marriage. Sir John might see his way to naming you his heir if you are married to a viscount’s daughter. Then your match could be one of equals—”
“No.” Warren shook his head, heart thundering in his chest.
“Have you even told her it’s on the table? Does she know who you really are?”
“I am exactly the man who sits before you,” he replied. “She wants me as I am, Charles. I don’t need to put on airs to win her, to make her mine. If you’d stop being such a damned fool, she could be yours. She could be ours.”
Charles just shook his head. “But you could be so much more.”
Warren huffed, his irritation simmering. It wouldn’t take much to have him boiling over. “Classic Charles. I point out a flaw in you, and you run scared again, turning it all around on me.”
“Fine, say what it is you’re so desperate to say! Tell me your great truths!”
“Goddamn it, you work for Christ, you’re not the man incarnate!”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means stop hanging yourself on all these bloody crosses! You are the most tortured soul I’ve ever met, but you are your own tormentor.
It’s maddening. We are not damned, and this is not a sin,” he said, gesturing between them.
“If you would get that through your thick skull, then all the other pieces of your life could fall neatly into place!”
“What pieces?”
“You would marry Madeline for one,” he argued, pointing a finger at him again. “She’s beautiful and kind and perfect for you—for us!”
Charles shook his head. “We don’t—I can’t drag her down. I can’t ruin her life—”
“She doesn’t want that life! How many times in how many ways must she say it?
She doesn’t want to marry a lord. I could not hope to lure her interest by claiming myself as Sir John’s bastard son.
If anything, I think it would push her away, for she is done with that life.
She wants you, Charles. That’s all she wants.
She wants me to fuck her. She wants you to marry her. ”
“And you’re content with that arrangement?” he said incredulously.
Warren just shrugged, burying his true emotions deep. Did it hurt to always come up second? To always be the afterthought? Did it hurt when Charles left without a backwards glance?
Is there a word in English for such pain?
“I take what I can get,” he muttered. “I’ve always taken whatever I can get.”
“John—”
“And you need to accept the duke’s offer,” he urged, pointing a finger at him.
“I know you’d rather chew glass than move up to Bredbury.
Take up the position here in Finchley. You belong here, Charles.
You deserve to make a life surrounded by the people who love you—people you love in return.
And I don’t just mean me,” he added quickly.
“You grew up with these families, Charles. They know you. They trust you. That goes a long way—”
“And what, move Madeline into the parsonage?” He scoffed. “The vicar and the viscount’s daughter. We’ll have Molly serve us our breakfast in bed, I suppose. And where shall you be in that little picture, our bastard baronet’s son? Curled up on the floor before the fire?”
But Warren just smirked, seeing through his falsity. “I’m telling you right now that if I’m in this picture, I’ll be in the bed too, curled up around you with my hand on your cock.”
Charles groaned, closing his eyes. “Stop.”
“I’m only saying what you’re already picturing,” he needled. “You could have it all, Charles. Stop being a martyr, and take what is being offered. I have been yours since that first kiss in the garden. I will never stray from you. Hurt me, leave me, cut me down, I am lost to you.”
Charles groaned, dragging a hand through his hair, “John—”
But he didn’t want his apologies. Not now.
Not when he was feeling so on edge. He hated talking of his father, of his past. Charles knew that.
Warren wanted to see him squirm too. “Madeline’s offer sits before you now.
Can you really mean to turn her down? You could slide your cock between her legs every night, burying yourself to the hilt in that sweet cunt.
Meanwhile, I’ll take you from behind. My every thrust will sheath you in her until she’s crying out both our names—”
“Oh, fuck,” Charles whimpered, pushing away from the table.
“Is that what you came here for, Charles?” he growled, punching the table again.
“You still think I’ll play the game where I call you a dirty whore and fuck you senseless?
Rut you until you forget it’s a sin? Until you forget your own damn name?
Only now you’re hoping I’ll add her to the fantasy too, right? ”
Charles shook his head, turning away.
“That game is finished for me,” Warren called.
“You left me, Charles. You ripped my fucking heart out, leaving me broken and bleeding on the goddamn floor. I will not play your games anymore. I will not be the man who fucks you quietly in the night, milking your passion from you as you pretend to fight me. There’s only one thing I want now.
And unlike you, I’m not afraid to say it out loud, to own it with my whole damn chest.”
Charles turned, a glimmer of hope flickering in his amber gaze. “What, John? What do you want now?”
He squared his shoulders at him. “Well, to quote Madeline: I want everything.”
Before Charles could voice a reply, there was a second knock on the door.