Chapter Nine #2
As his knowing gaze raked over Rollo, it occurred to him that he might gain a little more from this evening than simply sore feet and some new friends.
Even though a little voice at the back of his mind warned him his father wouldn’t approve, and discretion had been drummed into him since his very first episode with the stable boy.
But then his father was at Rossingley, wasn’t he?
Three days ride away from a rural Norfolk barn dance. What he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.
“Yes, perhaps we could share a cup later,” Rollo agreed. “Somewhere…um…quieter?”
The man’s lips twisted into a slow smile. “I might just hold you to that.”
Being flung around the dancefloor in Cook’s sturdy hold reminded Rollo of when he was a young boy, placing his feet on his father’s bigger, booted ones and whirling across the ballroom at Rossingley whilst one of his father’s chums bashed out a tune on the harpsichord.
He thirstily tossed back his new friend’s fruit punch, already quite giddy from it.
After keeping Cook occupied for two dances, he moved on to the Simpson girls, who were a veritable delight.
As were their cheery coterie of pals, especially as they pursued curmudgeonly Lord Lyndon with the determination of a pack of starving terriers cleaning out a henhouse.
They all had first names like Ann and Emma and Jane and Mary.
And Ann and Ann and Ann. He quite lost track after his third cup of punch, though it mattered not a jot.
Rollo himself wasn’t immune, especially as he’d been grandly introduced to them all, but when it came down to it, the main prize was the wealthy, brooding lord of Goule Hall.
“He’s frightfully dark, isn’t he?” gasped Nancy as Rollo swung her in a pirouette. “I am not sure there is a single lady on this earth capable of taming him.”
“He is untameable,” agreed Rollo. He glanced up to where Fitzsimmons stood, arms folded across his magnificent chest, and quite alone.
He’d watched their progress across the dancefloor since the dance had begun, his sulky gaze stroking across Rollo’s skin like a living, visceral thing.
He shivered. “Ensnaring him would be like caging a panther or a lion. Turn your back on him for a second, and he’d devour you whole. ” How wonderful.
Nancy sighed. “Though my father wishes it other, I fear he is not the marrying kind. Perhaps that is a blessed relief.”
*
WITH ALL HIS dancing duties thoroughly executed, Rollo stepped outside for air. Resting his back against the barn wall, he breathed in the cool night. As much as he adored a decent rout, he was melting from the fearsome heat.
After a minute, another fellow appeared, no doubt bent on the same. They nodded to each other, and Rollo started. What with Cook and Fitz and entertaining the girls, he’d quite forgotten the man who’d offered him a refreshing punch.
“Jolly warm in there, isn’t it?” Rollo declared, dabbing at his forehead with his silk pocket square.
“That it is,” agreed the chap, doing the same with a cotton rag. After a beat, he added, “Enough to make a man want to unload a layer or two.”
“Quite.”
There followed a pregnant pause during which their eyes met and held as if the man had posed a question and now waited for Rollo to answer more fully.
Rollo’s belly lurched with a flutter of anticipation.
One of those types of questions. Probing and suggestive but wrapped in a bland pleasantry, just in case the situation had been misjudged.
For all he was young, Rollo was an old hand at this game.
The man’s appraising glance transcended both social class and location, a glance understood by Rossingley stable boys, Rollo’s Latin master at Eton (before pushing Rollo to his knees), and thruppenny bit mollies, as well as high ton nobs.
Men sharing Rollo’s tastes were everywhere and ripe for the picking if one knew the signs.
And this country chap had properly mastered the art with just the right degree of heat not to attract unwanted attention. An unspoken invitation.
Behind his trouser fastening, Rollo’s cock swelled, a pleasant reminder that, since the stable boy incident, one of his basic human requirements had been wholly overlooked.
“There’s a nice little copse up that slope yonder, you know,” the man murmured with a jerk of his chin.
Very deliberately, he tucked his rag away, drawing far more attention to the pocket near his groin than strictly necessary.
“Views stretching across the Broads for miles. With a lovely cool breeze coming over the ridge.”
“Local, are you?” Rollo queried.
“Familiar with this land as my own name,” the man confirmed. “Always a fresh breeze up in that copse. Quiet, too.”
Rollo knew better than to ask that name, in the same way he knew better than to offer his own. That wasn’t how these things worked.
His mouth watering, Rollo drank in his new friend’s spade-like workman’s hands and the strength in his thick, scarred forearms. What with Lord Lyndon looking good enough to eat but regrettably not on the menu, and more weeks stretching ahead than he cared to record without the relief of another man’s attentions, only a fool would look this gift horse in the mouth.
“Is that so?” he replied. “How appealing.”
The man nodded. “I reckon.” He stared straight ahead, a few coarse whiskers on his chin outlined against the moonlight.
Though possessed of a fine, strong shape, his profile was far from classical; at some point his nose must have been broken and never reset.
Pockmarks littered his cheeks, and he had the thick ears of a fighter.
In summary, he was nowhere near as tempting as a certain ill-tempered lord, but comely enough.
And Rollo was desperate. “A popular beauty spot, is it?”
“Nope.” The man made a deliberate popping sound on the p, drawing Rollo’s attention to his moist, ripe lips. “Nobbut me goes there this time of night.”
Neither spoke after that, the gauntlet well and truly laid down. Now it was simply a matter of waiting for the other to make the first move. The man smoothed his hair whilst Rollo adjusted his cuffs. Then, without turning, the man subtly inclined his head.
“I might take a look now,” he said, “before the sun totally sets. It only takes three or four minutes to get there.” He doffed his cap. “Good evening to you, sir.”
“And to you I extend the same,” offered Rollo pleasantly.
Rollo’s gaze was lazy, his body relaxed and unmoving, as the man, hands thrust in his pockets, sauntered away from him. When he was nearly out of earshot, Rollo called, “Three to four minutes, you say? I might follow and take a closer look.”
As darkness descended, he shadowed at a distance, taking his sweet time.
For all the world looking like a man with nothing more on his mind than seeking cooler air or a quiet spot for a leisurely piss.
Ahead, the man ascended the shallow grassy slope, his sturdy arse filling his breeches.
By now, Rollo’s cock was leading the way, and he gave it a discreet rub.
Summer country dances had a lot to commend themselves, he decided.
“Psst.”
Waiting behind the first thicket, the man was of the same mind.
With a low chuckle, he grabbed Rollo and hauled him up against him.
“I like me a bit of class. Chance don’t come along very often.
” His rough voice filled with need as he ran one of his coarse hands over Rollo’s bulge, giving it a firm squeeze.
“And the class around these parts is rarely as pretty as you.”
“Then you’re in luck, my friend,” breathed Rollo, his own hands busy at the man’s breeches. “And if you care to look, you’ll find that I’m pretty everywhere.” His hand landed on its objective—thick and stubby and ready to go.
God, he’d missed this. As his senses filled with the bitter scent of sweat mixed with arousal, he ground against the warmth of a firm thigh.
The length of the man’s hard cock thrust into Rollo’s hand; he hummed his approval as the man’s thick fingers eagerly pushed inside Rollo’s drawers.
Out of both necessity and desire, it would be quick.
Already Rollo’s mind had placed his shaft against the man’s, already he imagined their warm, wanting bodies pressed up close, that big, callused hand clasped around the both of them.
If he held back his crisis, then the man might even be willing to drop to his knees and—
An unexpected flurry of cold air gusted against Rollo’s privates. At the same moment, a strong hand clamped around the scruff of his neck, slicing through his shriek of protest and nearly lifting him off the ground. Like a rag doll, Rollo was tossed aside.
With an indignant yelp, he staggered back into the undergrowth. “Hey! What—”
He tripped, landing on his arse with a hard thud.
“Ouch! What…what the blazes?”
A few feet away in the dark, a short scuffle ensued. From his agonised yell, Rollo’s new countryman friend was on the losing end of it. A thumping noise, a harsh curse, another pained grunt, and it was all over.
“Be gone with you,” a deep voice thundered. An all too familiar one, unbidden, unwelcome, and unneeded. Not that its owner gave two shakes of a duck’s tail about that.
Another sharp thump heralded another pained curse, and then Rollo’s brief companion was off, crashing through the brush and swearing as if he’d trodden on an ant’s nest.
“And if you show your face up at the Hall,” the voice thundered again, “there’ll be hell to pay!”
A profound quiet ensued, during which Rollo recovered his breathing, picked spikey blades of grass and twigs from the seat of his trousers, then crossly clambered to his feet. Dismayed, humiliated, and damned livid enough to kill came nowhere near to mining the depth of his annoyance.
“Gods teeth!” he hissed, seeing as the other was in no hurry. “Care to explain why you chose to spoil my evening’s diversions?”