Chapter 6 #3
That’s exactly how their Oxford days had started.
And ended. Whenever Ezra thought back on that time, he felt heat creeping up through his chest all the way into his cheeks.
How brazen they’d been with their kisses, their fights, which, during one memorable instance, had echoed around the Bodleian’s dome.
Why can’t you just be honest with yourself, Bright?
Hm? Or at least with me… You’ve got more layers than a trifle at Fortnum’s!
I’m not a dessert, Vincent. I’m—
You’re scared, is what you are. Scared to dig in and find something real.
Real? Ezra had laughed then, a sound that had hammered its way through the library. You think this is real?
I had…
Even now the argument echoed in the crisp air of the Cotswolds. Ezra could hear it in Vincent’s breath as he relished his cigarette. Real. The irony was… it had all been real. And Ezra was terrified. And he still wasn’t safe…
He didn’t know how long he could keep standing next to his old flame without igniting.
“It wouldn’t kill you to have a bit of fun for once, Bright.” Vincent sighed, releasing a plume of smoke. “You’ve spent so many years with your nose in a book that you’ve forgotten how to live.”
Ezra sucked in a bitter breath. “I’m not sure books are to blame.”
“The war. Yes. The war fucked everything up for everyone, didn’t it?
” Vincent took a long draw of his own cigarette as he nodded toward the open French doors.
“This is a silly performance, certainly, but silliness is all they have—the world they should have inherited was smashed to pieces on the Western Front. Their fathers and brothers and countless marriage prospects are dead. Why shouldn’t they make themselves a fake desert to dance in? ”
Ezra could think of one or two reasons. “There are sarcophagi in there, Vincent.” The group of sparkling girls was still knocking about the casket. Ash stuck to his tongue while he watched. “Real people’s real coffins. And your friends are playing parlor games with them!”
Vincent followed his gaze, lips puckering. “That is in poor taste, I suppose.”
“All of it’s in poor taste,” Ezra countered. “You’re making a mockery of something you never bothered to understand.”
There was a hurt look in the other man’s eyes—broken-glass blue. “I did try, Bright.”
Sharp silence settled between them.
Ezra swallowed another bitter breath.
Vincent looked back at the coffins. “I didn’t realize you’d feel so strongly—”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“It’s just, well, you never seemed that attached to your Egyptian side. One would never think it, to look at you.” Vincent sighed another cloud of smoke and started to tug the linen wrappings from his head. “But if it makes you feel better, I’ll change into a bedsheet too.”
Fabric unwound from Vincent’s neck and shoulders, yielding to bare skin. The burning Ezra felt in his stomach suddenly started to spread. “You don’t have to—” he said hastily.
“Don’t I?” His old friend arched an eyebrow. “I’ve been watching you all day. Standing at arm’s length. Watching us. We all have our ways of coping with existential dread, but Biz worries that you’ve become a bit too… what’s the word…”
More bitter smoke filled Ezra’s lips. He let out a dragonish exhale. “Mad?”
Vincent tilted his head. “Well, you’d have to be mad to become a doctoral student, wouldn’t you? But no, I was going to say lonely.”
This word hit far harder than Ezra expected.
As if Vincent had punched him in the chest, while really the young man was watching him with moonlit eyes, taking in every invisible scar.
He couldn’t hide this. He couldn’t even argue.
How could he, when this definition was so entirely true?
Ezra had lived his whole life in exile. Of course he was lonely.
But to have it spoken by someone else, so plainly?
That somehow made the loneliness worse.
“It doesn’t have to be this way, Bright.
You just have to make a bit of an effort.
” The golden boy was still holding Ezra’s stare with alarming intensity.
“You aren’t going to change colonial attitudes by brooding on a patio.
Especially Hugo’s. The man is an ambitious ass who can’t tell champagne from prosecco.
You’ll have to spell his transgressions out for him.
All that’s to say: Stop pushing us away. You deserve it.”
How would you know what I deserve? Biz’s question from earlier came back to Ezra then. He could see the young woman through the French doors, her Cleopatra gown a long and weeping white.
In the window’s reflection he could see their cigarettes bobbing in the dark glass.
Close.
Quite close.
He could feel the ash of Vincent’s cigarette when the man flicked it.
“Be careful with Biz,” Ezra said softly.
“Are you saying that for her benefit or ours?”
He wasn’t entirely sure. His reflection also wavered as he watched the cigarettes’ glows draw even closer. “Marrying her won’t make you a lord, you know. That’s not how the peerage works.”
“Do you think me so shallow?”
“Why else would you marry her, then?” Ezra turned to the other man. Half of his face was in shadow, the other side in shine. Both were striking.
“There’s merit in the pageantry,” Vincent told him calmly.
“The world won’t take us as we are, Bright.
You know that. Hell, you were the one who taught me…
our truest selves must stay hidden. And it’s far easier to hide behind something beautiful than not.
You see?” He waved toward the prop pyramid, where women with kohl-struck faces and sparkling gowns snacked on handfuls of plucked dates.
“Like moths to a flame! No one’s looking at us, now, are they? ” The back of his hand brushed Ezra’s.
“But I, too, tire of being alone,” Vincent whispered.
Lavender and ash braided through the night air.
Ezra’s skin felt as if it were glowing, where it met Vincent’s, but he saw no light when he glanced down.
Just an old flame. The other man’s touch was as thrilling as it had been all those years ago…
His thumb was now running along the tender skin of Ezra’s inner wrist, causing blood to rush and hairs to rise.
Every muscle in his body went taut with memories of what happened next.
And then, behind those French doors, Biz started to turn.
She was only reaching for another drink, but Ezra snatched his hand away—as if he’d been burned. The movement was pure reflex.
Vincent stiffened. “Still?”
“Biz isn’t a stack of books,” Ezra murmured. “Your ring is on her finger, and rumors spread fast. She’d suffer too.”
“It’s a very big ring,” Vincent said coolly. “She knows what it cost.”
“There are some things Biz doesn’t know. And I’d prefer for it to stay that way.”
More linen unraveled from Vincent’s shoulders—a pained expression taking over the lit side of his face.
There was so much more there than Ezra could read.
Had Vincent really expected him to reach back?
The heir to Cain Munitions could fancy himself above the law, certainly, but Ezra couldn’t afford to get slapped with an indecency charge and tossed in prison to rot.
The young man ground out the remains of his cigarette in the potted geranium. “I should go check on my fiancée, I suppose. She’ll help me make sure nobody else desecrates the sarcophagi.”
Back through the doors, Ezra could see Biz laughing.
It wasn’t just dresses glittering around her anymore.
Hairs were starting to shine as well. There were other signs of magic—the potted date palms had grown all the way to the ceiling, where existing paintings of cherubs were starting to flit in and out of overhead clouds.
As wondrous as it was to watch, Ezra didn’t think it was a good idea to follow Vincent back inside.
Hugo was clearly determined to use his translating skills again…
and Ezra wasn’t in the mood to list out his host’s egregious cultural erasures. The mere thought exhausted him.
“Oh look!” Vincent paused, loose linens fluttering. From the tone of his voice, Ezra expected him to point out the swooping ceiling angels, but the young man pointed to one of the guests instead. “Your new friend finally arrived!”