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.David drifted along, stopping briefly to chuckle with the other bystanders at a group of four sailors dancing a drunken hornpipe while a fifth tootled on a reedy flute.A battery of guns started thundering from the east.The guns on the Calton Hill, David guessed.More salvoes pounded out from the castle’s guns to the south, and a scattering of cheers went up.“God save the King!” someone called out, a sentiment that was echoed over and over again.When the guns stopped, the crowd began to move again, carrying David farther east.For a while, he strolled along Queen Street with everyone else, till he realised where he was.Standing at last in front of that house he remembered so very well.The crowd behind him pressed at him, but he resisted its friendly push.Instead, he stood there and let people flow around him, like water round a river boulder, as he stared at a familiar door with dark, glossy paintwork and a gleaming brass knocker.“You know where my house is.”He’d entered this house for the first time two years ago, and what happened here had been a defining moment in his life.He had given up something of himself in this place, and the experience had changed him in some way he still found difficult to put into words.Even now he could remember every detail of that night: lying in a bed with another man for the first time, the flickering patterns made by the candlelight on the ceiling while his partner’s mouth pleasured him.His partner—Murdo Balfour.Balfour leaning over him, taking his own pleasure, his dark gaze hot and possessive.David sagged against the iron railings in front of Balfour’s house and looked up at the windows above him, his chest aching.As with all the other private houses on the street, the drapes were open, the windows illuminated.And two floors up, a solitary figure stood at the drawing room window, staring out.It was as though a giant hand gripped David, crushing him till he couldn’t breathe.He stared, his hungry gaze eating up the picture Balfour presented, alone in his elegant castle.Why should that sight make David feel so sad?Why should it make him feel anything at all?Just then, Balfour shifted.He began to scan the crowd on the street below his house, as though he’d felt David’s attention somehow, like a physical touch.Or heard it, a silent call.David watched, waiting helplessly for Balfour to find him, and moments later, he did.His wandering gaze halted on David, and their gazes caught and held—for an instant, no more—before Balfour whirled away from the window and was gone.It occurred to David, somewhere in the back of his mind, that now might be a wise time to leave; that further encounters with Murdo Balfour might not be prudent.But he didn’t move.He leaned against the railings and stared at the glossy front door.And half a minute later, when it swung open, sure enough, there was Balfour, limned in light, a bright, excited smile on his handsome face.“Mr.Lauriston,” he called, lifting his voice against the chatter of the crowd and beckoning with his arm.“Won’t you come in?”David found himself walking towards the short flight of steps that led to Balfour’s open door.He moved like a man in a dream, travelling west against a river of people flowing east, and ascended the steps.When he finally halted in front of Balfour, he had not the slightest idea of what to say, only hesitated, greedily taking in the picture the other man presented.Balfour’s habitual expression of faintly mocking amusement—one lifted brow, a curl to his lip—seemed to have deserted him, and an unfamiliar tenderness warmed his dark gaze.“It’s good to see you again,” Balfour said.“I was afraid…we wouldn’t get another chance.”David frowned at that comment, and for some reason that provoked a smile from Balfour.The lines at the corners of his eyes deepened with gentle merriment.“Come in,” he repeated, this time putting his hand round David’s shoulder and propelling him forward.“Come and take a glass of wine with me at least.”Perhaps it was the dreamlike quality of the evening that made David accept Balfour’s invitation.The night seemed filled with infinite possibility.Infinite magic.He murmured his agreement and followed Balfour inside and up a set of stairs that felt familiar enough to imbue him with an unsettling sense of déjà vu as he mounted them.At the top of the stairs, they turned to walk down a corridor that led to a cavernous set of rooms he remembered all too well.No open drapes here.No, this was very private indeed.“Wine?” Balfour offered, crossing the room to a sideboard that already held a half-drunk glass of burgundy liquid.“Yes, please.”Balfour topped up the glass he’d been drinking from and poured another, handing the fresh one to David.Again that feeling of déjà vu spiked, drenching David in memories of standing in this very room, drinking Murdo’s wine and wondering what he’d been thinking of to come here.Wondering what the night would bring.He took a healthy swallow from his glass, hoping to calm the nerves clamouring in his gut.Balfour said, “I’d just been thinking of you.I couldn’t believe it when I looked out my window, and there you were, looking up at me.”“I didn’t plan to come [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]