CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Duncan
Hawarden Castle (New), (Castell Penarlag, Newydd)
Hawarden, Flintshire, Wales
They returned to Hawarden at half past eleven with the whole house dark and the motorcar smelling faintly of rain, leather, and the bad temper three people had managed to hold in check only by keeping it directed outward.
Archie came in with them, because none of them pretended any longer that tonight was a night for solitary dignity.
The front hall received them in shadow and hush.
Margaret had left a lamp burning low on the table and a tray of cold meat, bread, and a decanter of whisky no one had requested, but all three of them loved her for.
Ceci went straight to the tray, tore off a piece of bread with unnecessary force, and said, “If Hart says national emergency one more time, I may begin one myself.”
Archie took the whisky and poured three modest glasses.
“He is a fool.”
“Yes,” Duncan said, removing his gloves, “but not a harmless one.”
That, at once, sobered the room. They moved into the library by instinct. It had become the house’s true center now, more alive after midnight than many drawing rooms ever were at noon.
Duncan remained standing. Ceci sat on the edge of the table, still in black silk, one ankle crossed over the other, all her tension gathered visibly into posture. Archie took the chair by the fire and drank his whisky in one slow swallow before setting the glass down. Duncan looked at them both.
“Voss now knows three things.”
Archie lifted a brow. “Only three?”
“He knows we found the 1907 clipping,” Duncan said. “He knows the matter has become personal. And he knows the emotional arrangement among us has shifted.”
Ceci closed her eyes. “That phrase should be outlawed.”
“It is the most useful one we have.”
“It is appalling.”
“Yes,” Archie said. “That is why it suits.”
Duncan ignored them.
“He will use it if he can.”
Ceci looked up. “How?”
“By trying to divide us. By turning uncertainty into suspicion, and desire into leverage.”
Archie leaned back in his chair, gaze on the fire.
“Well, he may try. He’s just late to the game.”
Duncan looked at him.
Archie met the look without flinching.
“This afternoon we agreed on no lies,” he said. “I presume the rule still stands?”
“It does.”
Ceci glanced between them, the lamplight catching in her earrings, making her look altogether too beautiful for a conversation about fascists, thresholds, and operational desire.
Duncan said, very evenly, “Then let us be exact. Voss saw enough tonight to suspect that what exists between the three of us is no longer simple.”
A flush rose in Ceci’s face, though her chin stayed high. Archie’s mouth moved faintly. “A master of understatement.”
Duncan paid that no mind.
“If he believes he can threaten one of us through another, he will. If he believes jealousy will make us foolish, he will press there too. We cannot afford either.”
Ceci slid off the table and crossed toward the fire. Her silk whispered against itself as she moved. Duncan had no business noticing that. He noticed it anyway. When she stopped near Archie’s chair, she said, “Then let’s remove the uncertainty.”
The sentence dropped into the room and stayed there. Archie looked up at her first. Duncan very deliberately did not move. Ceci drew in breath.
“I’m done pretending I don’t want what I want because the century is disapproving and the situation is untidy.” She looked at Duncan then, and the directness of her gaze nearly undid him. “I want you.”
Then she turned to Archie.
“And I want you.”
Archie’s whole expression altered, brightness stripped away for a moment by something rawer and much more dangerous. Ceci folded her arms loosely over herself.
“I realize that sounds greedy.”
“It sounds sane,” Archie said at once. Duncan let out a breath. Ceci looked back at him. “You don’t have to rescue me from the statement. I meant it.”
“I know.”
“Do you mind?”
The question was asked of both men, though her eyes remained on Duncan.
He crossed to the hearth very slowly. There were moments when all his life’s caution, all its discipline, all the years of secrecy and measured hunger, seemed to gather in him and wait for one honest answer. This was such a moment.
“Yes,” he said.
Ceci’s face changed.
Archie went still.
Duncan went on before either could misunderstand.
“I mind because I mind everything that touches you now,” he said.
“I mind danger, and Voss, and Hart, and the gate, and the possibility of losing any of this before we have had time to understand it.” His gaze moved from one to the other.
“I do not mind that you want Archie. I would be a hypocrite and a fool if I did.”
The silence that followed felt warm enough to burn.
Archie stood.
“Thank Christ,” he said.
Ceci laughed then, breathless and half shaken, and the sound loosened the room at last.
Archie came to her first, his expression stripped of triumph. He looked almost careful now, as if her yes had given him something too precious to handle badly.
He touched her face.
“Are you certain?”
She nodded once.
Archie kissed her then.
The first kiss was slow, almost searching. Duncan felt it all through his body anyway: the tilt of her head, the soft arc of her neck, the way Archie’s hand steadied at her jaw as though he had been trusted with something holy.
Archie’s hand slid to the back of her neck, his fingers tangling in her hair, holding her not with force but with a focused tenderness.
The soft sound she made when the kiss deepened, a low, surrendered hum, vibrated in the quiet room.
Her hand came to rest against Archie’s chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.
The sight hurt. It also filled him with a terrible, exquisite warmth he had no wish to deny.
He watched Archie’s shoulders relax, the last vestige of tension leaving his body as he poured days of pent-up polite frustration into that kiss.
Ceci’s other hand rose, her fingertips brushing the line of Archie’s jaw, learning the shape of his want.
Archie drew back after a moment and rested his forehead against hers.
“There,” he murmured. “That has been annoying me for days.”
Ceci smiled, flushed and a little stunned. Her lips were swollen, gleaming in the firelight. She touched her own mouth as if to confirm the sensation, her eyes locked on Archie’s. Then she looked at Duncan.
The room narrowed. The fire, the shadows, the worn floorboards, all of it fell away until there was only the space between them, charged and waiting. He went to her because there was nothing else to do. Every step was an act of surrender to a truth he could no longer outrun.
She turned toward him without hesitation.
Her back now to Archie, who watched them with a raw, open hunger of his own.
Duncan cupped her face, his thumbs framing her jaw.
Her skin was fever warm. He saw the pulse fluttering in her throat, saw the trust in her half-lidded eyes, and he kissed her once, deeply enough to make his meaning plain.
This kiss was different. It was not a search.
It was a claim and an answer. It was years of disciplined silence breaking against the shore of her mouth.
He tasted the faint, warm trace of Archie on her lips, and the possessive heat that shot through him was blinding.
He angled her head, deepening the kiss, his tongue sliding against hers.
She made a sound against his mouth, not a hum, a gasp, and her hands fisted the front of his shirt, pulling him closer until their bodies aligned.
The heat of her, the softness, the way she yielded and then pressed forward, seeking more, shattered the last of his control.
When he finally broke the kiss, they were both breathing hard. Her eyes were wide, dazed. He kept his forehead pressed to hers, his eyes closed, fighting for composure. Behind her, Archie had not moved. Duncan could feel the weight of his gaze, a tangible pressure in the warm air.
“Duncan,” Ceci said, his name a whispered plea and a revelation.
He opened his eyes. He looked past her, to Archie.
The understanding that passed between them was wordless, absolute.
The precipice was gone. They were already falling.
Archie stepped closer, close enough that the shape among them had changed from theory to presence.
Archie’s hand found the back of Duncan’s neck.
For one brief second, Duncan closed his eyes.
How many years had he lived with this body knowledge, Archie’s hand there, easy, and dear and ruinous. How many years since he had let himself stand between desire and tenderness without insisting they be separated for decency’s sake?
When he opened his eyes, Archie was looking at him with that old bright gravity Duncan had first loved in the stable yard.
“This,” Archie said very softly, “is either brilliant or catastrophic.”
Ceci, standing between them, gave a shaky laugh. She watched them, her breath shallow.
“That appears to be our family motto.”
The sight of the two men side by side, Archie’s palm grasping the back of Duncan’s neck, united in this silent understanding, sent a fresh wave of heat through her veins. Duncan turned his head, meeting Archie’s look. A muscle flexed in his jaw.
Archie kissed Duncan then.
It was not a young man’s kiss now. It carried too much history for that.
Memory, affection, old want matured into something more deliberate.
Duncan answered it at once. When they parted, Ceci was still there between them, hand on Archie’s wrist, the other against Duncan’s chest, as if she had stepped into a current already moving and decided, sensibly enough, to move with it rather than be swept under.