Winner Takes All

Fandom: Highlander, Georgette Heyer's "These Old Shades"

Category/Rated: NC17 Slash

Year/Length: ~33,050 words

Pairing: Cory Raines/Justin Alastair and Dominic, his son

Disclaimer: The characters here belong to Georgette Heyer, a wonderful writer and heroine of our adolescent years, and to Highlander, the TV series, which is a lot worthier than it ought to be.

Warning: Historical prose... flowery and verbose

Author's Notes: This story involves Cory Raines, a character from the Highlander TV series. He is one of a group of immortal men, who can only be slain by beheading. By profession he is a thief, rather like Robin Hood but not as boring. Justin Alastair, Duke of Avon, is the hero of the book "These Old Shades" by Georgette Heyer. The first part of the story takes place in the months leading up to when he meets Leonie, whom he will marry and who will be the mother of his son, Dominic. The year is about 1750. The second part of the story takes place when Dominic is grown, and has been married for about two years. His wife, who appears very briefly, is Mary. Their story is in Heyer's book "Devil's Cub".

Beta: To Jennie, Terri, Lily, Ursula C and Jami... for assorted beta, comments and interest.

Sometimes the cards ran against you, and sometimes you had to improvise, thought Cory. C'est la vie. Once again he was out of luck and out of pocket, and his purse would feel all the better for a few gold pieces chinking inside it. Tripping adeptly past the oily puddles that made the cobbled street an obstacle for all and sundry, he grasped the ungainly pistol that weighted the pocket of his cloak and listened intently for the sound of drunken carousers.

Robbery was an option of which he'd made use many times in the past, and no doubt, he mused, it would never outlive its usefulness. Paris, and the riches enjoyed by the elite under Louis, made this a city of rich pickings for an adventurer with wits. Of course, it was undeniable that the majority of the population were too starving or pox-ridden to cope with a profitable life of crime. Dull-witted and downtrodden, their squalid life impinged on the rich merely as an odour to be avoided, or as an occasional beggar that was bold enough to tackle the solid ruthlessness of a well-paid footman.

But there was always a drunken fool who would risk the nighttime streets. Wine-sodden, tricked out in satin and lace, an effete fop would stagger from the gaming house or brothel convinced he was lucky enough, or man enough, to come safely home. Most often they were right, he realised, smiling. All the better, they aren't scared off, and I can harvest them myself.

Hearing a soft echo of voices in the quiet street, he slid into the shadows of a deep doorway to await the passers-by. He was, he admitted ruefully, as likely to be a victim himself as a perpetrator of this evening's crime, and though injury was of no significance to him, having his few remaining belongings stolen would be inconvenient.

The two men whose footsteps came mincing down the rain-sheened street seemed ideal prospects for a speedy profit, however. From their lace-trimmed hats to their exquisite high-heeled shoes, each was a veritable showcase of valuables, the jewels sparkling on their clothes like tiny raindrops. The prospect of a fat purse beckoned.

Dragging the heavy weapon from his pocket he stepped into the path of the men. One stopped short with a curse, the other continued on for a couple of paces, his haughty face betraying no sign of discomfiture. Raising his quizzing-glass, he peered down his nose at the footpad, a slight flare of his nostrils the only hint of annoyance.

"I fear I must inconvenience you, messieurs. A moment of your time, a willing donation to my funds, and we can all be on our ways."

"I fear that I should not like to encourage those who do not earn their bread by honest, er... toil," responded the man with the quizzing-glass. He was tall and slim, with thin, cruel lips set in a wickedly handsome face.

He studied the polite rogue briefly. The scoundrel was well spoken, and his impudent smile revealed a set of even white teeth, an unusual sight even amongst the nobility, in those days. Tall, well formed, his hood was thrown back to reveal a high forehead, dark hair gathered back from his face, and a pair of eyes that flashed green even in the dimness of the lamp-lit street.

"I have a pistol, m'sieur. Regard that as an inducement to encourage where otherwise you might not."

There was a lightning glint of steel, and Cory's pistol span from his hand and clattered across the stones.

"You had a pistol, M'sieur Thief. Now you do not." The lips curled into a devilish smile. "It would be inconsiderate of me to allow you to inconvenience others in this fashion. Permit me to relieve you of the necessity." He lunged, and his needle-like rapier transfixed Cory's chest, plunging straight through his heart.

Startled, Cory staggered backwards, tripping over a kerb and sprawling on the filthy pavement. It was a thrust that would have killed an ordinary man instantly. The immortal lay still, wondering whether the men's belongings would justify revealing that the fatal blow was no more than a gnat bite to him. It hadn't been so many years since he'd have been burnt at the stake for witchcraft if he'd been caught... not in itself serious, but a damned nuisance, especially if a cosy home or buxom lass had to be abandoned because of the persecution.

But already his killer was turning away.

"Come, Hugh. I fear a chill if I stay longer in this damp atmosphere." The man spoke to his friend in English.

"Gad, Justin, you can't leave a body lying around."

"I do not propose to take it home with me. Is there something you feel I should do with it?"

"The authorities...?"

"I cannot face the ennui conjured by that word, my dear. Come, let us return home and have a hand of piquet before bed."

"And your sword?"

"Is soiled. It is of no consequence." A fine silk handkerchief was pressed to the patrician nose. "This neighbourhood becomes offensive. There is a certain miasma..."

"Damme, Alastair, you are impossible," came the reply, with a deep chuckle. Their footsteps faded into the night.

The cobbles were cold under his feet, slimy with dew, and as he tucked his heavy shoes and cloak into a shadowed corner he thanked God that the weather was more clement; that the freezing slush that greyed the streets had melted into the damp of an early Paris spring. Pressing to the safety of the building's dark bulk, he peered up at the windows again. It was safer to enter on an upper floor, avoiding the porter - probably vigilant, in the Satanic duke's employ - to use an unlocked window, rather than forcing one at ground level. He glanced at the sky... clear with a sliver of moon. Enough to illuminate, too little to reveal. His teeth flashed briefly in a wide grin.

And up the building like a squirrel; easy enough with the jutting coigns, and no fear of injury. Immortality brings in its wake confidence, balance, when a fall is nothing to fear. Then his stockinged feet felt the smooth paves of the narrow balcony, and a closed casement faced him, shuttered tightly within 'gainst the treacherous night breeze. The next balcony was an easy jump, and the long window open a crack, unshuttered, the drapery allowing a weak glimmer of light to cast a weak yellow ribbon down his smooth cheek and over his strangely fine hand.

The damask was pulled aside, gently, silently, and the thief sidled into the warm room, and stood, poised, immobile, to study his environs, to listen for quiet snores. The orange embers of a fire were dying in the grate, a single candle burnt near the stately bed, its flame wavering, disturbed by Cory's entry. A long shape banked the bedcovers, a single body, the head all but invisible in the mound of thick white pillows heaped against the ornate headboard. It was still, no catch in the sighed breathing to suggest the sleeper was disturbed. A tall press loomed against the wall to his left, beautifully inlaid, ormolu filigree catching the feeble light. The thief tiptoed toward it, pulling a large cloth bag from his pocket, and eased an upper drawer open with practised care.

An array of fine silk stockings met his gaze, ornamented fantastically with tiny flowers, curlicues, butterflies. He glanced round at the sleeper, the candlelight glittering in his clear green eyes, and then delved into the drawer, tossing the stockings aside to drift to the floor in a pale tide at his feet.

"I assume that you have lost your way, and are merely searching for the correct route, sir." The voice was light, mocking. The thief spun round, startled, and stepped back involuntarily, rattling the open drawer. Unerringly to the Duke's bedchamber, thought Cory. 'Tis fate. He smiled shamelessly at the nobleman in the bed, still imposing, still disturbing, despite his garb of nightcap and linen nightshirt, and gave a deep bow, sweeping his sack round before him in place of a hat.

"Dear me," Avon continued. Cory was pleased to note that there was no fear in his voice. His seemed amused, patronising, as an adult to a small child disturbing his rest. "You seem strangely familiar. No doubt you are one of a vast tribe. How fortunate I am that you are apparently granting me your attentions."

"Your pardon, Milord, I did not intend to disturb your slumbers." The Duke had a striking face, he'd remembered that from their brief encounter the previous evening, but now he could study the flaring brows, the narrow, patrician nose and the sardonic mouth, he realised it had a sensuous, evil beauty, well suited to the corrupt soul that was supposed to lie within. "But I hesitate to suggest that I have missed my path... your bedchamber was my destination."

The lazy scrutiny of the man in the bed passed over the intruder, taking in the apparent strength of the newcomer, and nodding slightly. The lip curled in a sneer. "Of this I have little doubt. I trust that my arrangements are not proving discommodious." The Duke cast a swift glance around his room, taking in the disordered state of his drawers and the empty sack that lay on the floor beside the window. "You do not appear to have found that which you seek."

"Not yet, Milord," grinned the ruffian, apparently unrepentant as he stood over the recumbent figure of the Duke. "You are inordinately keen of hearing, I fear. I have not had the time, and I doubt that I will now be permitted the time, to complete my search."

His Grace gave a heavy sigh, and a slender, white hand made a gesture that encompassed the depredations that had occurred within the room, almost as though he were unconcerned. A rather more pleasant smile lit the patrician features for just one moment, a flicker, no more, soon gone. "I very much fear that I must stop your further exploration of my closet. Any more and my valet will have a fit of the vapours"

Cory bowed again with a theatrical flourish. "It is only to be expected, sadly. The Householder is rarely sympathetic to the poverty-stricken thief, such as my humble self, and needs hide his valuables so secretly it is often a night's work to discover them." There was an undeniable laugh in the scamp's voice, and the Duke's brows furrowed briefly. This was a most unusual ruffian. Something inside the Duke wished to know more, although this was an unrepentant criminal, and a member of the canaille that he scorned.

"So tell me, my fine rogue, why is it that you have ceased to desire life? You appear in good health. What makes you seek out my chamber when there is all of Paris that you might pilfer?" He sat, gathering his voluminous nightgown around him so that it didn't encumber him. His fan and quizzing glass were nowhere within reach, and he was temporarily without artifices, but the cool composure didn't alter. This was a man who was used to command, and his inquiry compelled an answer. Cory's response took him aback.

"Your wealth, Sir, is legendary. Your taste is exquisite. Your profligacy unbounded. Carelessness was the fault I had hoped for in you, this evening." The self confessed thief stepped toward the bed, and for a second, there was a frown on my lord's noble brow as he contemplated the rapscallion's behaviour. "Now many conceal their jewels beneath the mattress, or by their bedside... "

The Duke's reply cut through Cory's wordage with the force of a musket. "My jewels, sir, are no concern of yours. I advise you that you remain still. Your..er... odour is one that I prefer remain as far distant as possible." As he spoke, he raised a scented kerchief to his nostrils. "I would have you know that it will not be a problem for me to shoot you dead. I believe that I have already exterminated one member of your race this night."

"Faith, it would be... tedious to make a habit of killing thieves, think you not? I know, Milord, that you have a fine skill with the sword, and I have heard that you are deadly with a pistol, but have a little sympathy, I prithee, for a poor man whose clothes are suffering from... unusual wear." Cory, still grinning, held out his coat. The hole made by my lord's sword was plainly visible through the rough frieze. There was no apparent bloodstain due to the red-brown of the cloth and the poor quality of the light. Cory took another step forward, smiling still, awaiting a reaction from his noble audience. He was disappointed. The Duke yawned a little, and raised a sardonic eyebrow.

"Unusual wear, sir? I think not. It seems most usual for a man in your profession." He removed his sleeping cap as he drawled the last sentence, and then, almost as an afterthought, he asked, "How came you by this present tear, sir? It appears strangely familiar to me."

"Its position, no doubt, echoes a thrust your pretty sword made not two hours back. A good aim, Sir, and one that commands my admiration. Sadly, as you see, it failed in its purpose." Cory spread his arms and twirled about to reveal a lean, strong body, completely innocent of wounds. For the first time, a hint of puzzlement crossed the noble brow as the Duke recognized his assailant from earlier that evening. His eyebrows went up.

"Indeed, my pretty rogue. All apologies for the inconvenience. I had thought that I spitted you fairly." At Cory's chuckle, the Duke began to climb out of bed. "Permit me to redress the wrong now. I have only to find my sword."

Cory took a further step, reaching the bedside to stand looming over the Duke. "Perchance your skill is not so fine as rumour has it. I have no injury now, and suspect that you will be hard pressed to achieve one at all. Do you suggest that you would fight me, sir? Surely it is beneath one such as yourself to engage a common criminal?"

"I suggest no such thing, my man," drawled the Duke, mildly. " Merely that you might as lief die by my sword as my pistol, for die you shall, if you do not immediately remain still." He reached toward the bell-rope with the intention of summoning retainers to his room, upon which Cory laughed and jumped at him, bearing his hand down onto the pillow away from the rope.

"Oh, no. This is no sport. Leave the servants, they need their rest, Milord."

"I grow fatigued with this." Indeed, the sneer on the face of my lord Duke had grown pronounced, and the dark eyes glittered beneath the frowning brows. For all that, he remained calm, merely flicking his fingers over the wrist that Cory was manhandling, and shaking out his ruffles as he straightened up. His soft voice seemed to achieve several degrees of menace without actually increasing in volume. "Pray unhand me. While I admire your daring, I deplore your smell. You forget yourself. Be so good as to remove your grimy hand from my person before I am forced to remove the hand itself." Once he had been released, the Duke slid his hand beneath his pillow and brought out a small duelling pistol, which he levelled at Cory's head. Cory's face betrayed irritation for a moment, but then he laughed once more.

"My apologies, living in the stews does not facilitate obtaining a good laundress." Cory's eyes were twinkling with appreciation for the Duke's calm under attack. "I will go, and leave you to your slumbers... your dreams of the dainty ladies and the balls, the lights and the music; all for a small sum, just a jewel from your cravat, or a buckle from your shoe, which would serve one such as I as sustenance for a six-month or more. Come Sir, this need not be unpleasant. Let us settle this quickly. I thought you merely a powdered dandy, but I realise you are a man of courage and a fine gentleman, most certainly, now that I see you without the frills and ribbons." Moving very quickly indeed, Cory forced the Duke's hand back onto the pillow as he inspected the pistol with an air of fine detachment. "You have but one chance, Milord. Should you miss..."

"Should I miss, my man, I believe that I will still have the advantage over you. I am not the delicate fop you seem to think I ought to be. You would do well to bear that in mind. Why is it that you feel that my belongings should be yours? Have you never considered earning honest pay?" They might have been making small talk at a soiree for the amount of concern that either of them seemed to pay to the situation.

"Very briefly, Milord, but I felt it better suited those of little imagination and a more settled disposition. I do my best to husband my resources, to stretch my purse at the gaming tables, but the skill and the luck often escape me. So, I steal. I try as a rule to be discreet, to be quick, but sadly you have resources that I cannot ignore, or I would have been gone from your window as soon as I was discovered. Loath as I am to inconvenience you, Your Grace, I must insist." Cory renewed his attempts to knock the pistol from my lord's white hand and pin him down.

His Grace struggled wildly, only to become tangled in the voluminous bedclothes; finally, he ceased to struggle, his face a mask of disdain. His sleeping cap had fallen off to reveal thick and glossy black hair, cut short to facilitate the wearing of a wig. "Are you quite mad, sir? Release me this instant. You compound your felony with this assault upon my person."

"Pretty in your silks, Milord... and irresistible without." Cory's face was very close to that of his Grace. An idea suddenly crossed his mind, and he chuckled. "A kiss, then, and I'll be gone, and you can keep your jewels... for tonight." Small wonder my lord's jaw dropped open. Cory chuckled again as he felt the stiffening of the body beneath him. At last, he thought, he had succeeded in disconcerting this annoyingly omniscient nobleman.

"A strange rogue indeed. Methinks that you should rather look to your own jewels, for I shall be seeking to remove them from your person should I see you once more within these chamber."

The smile was of pure delight. He regarded the duke playfully, arching an invitation with one fine black brow.

"Your hand on my jewels would be an honour worth the risk, Sir." Jade eyes duelled with Avon's ghost-grey as Cory dreamed the heady wine that would be those lips. "Now, that kiss... will you give it, or shall I take it?"

The Duke's mouth twitched. Of a sudden, the ennui vanished, and a smile, and then a reluctant chuckle transformed his cruel face. Nonetheless, his eyes held questions.

"Be very sure that it will not be my mouth that kisses you the next time we meet, sir," he promised, coolly.

His fine pale face, with lips red as poppy petals, tilted back in silent invitation, and the thief shuddered as spider footsteps darted an uncanny glissade on his nape. A risk, but one many men would think worth taking, admit it or no.

"May I hope that it will be... your sword, Milord." he quipped, the words a soft caress. As if pillowed on an angel's wing, his face floated to the perfection below. The fine skin shamed the pure drift of bed linen, the lips glossy, blood-plump with unvoiced desire. Cory's tongue-tip hinted a tap at the portal, and the doors opened, the strange visitor a welcome guest... for the moment. The thief sighed, and cushioned himself on Avon's form, whose hard lines, though hazed by the coverlet, still hinted at the strength and fire within.

If there was a means of knowing where he ended and his Grace began, Cory was baffled to discover it. Avon, having bargained, paid his debt with no reluctance, no haggling. It was a kiss that plummeted into his being, from the very first slip of his tongue 'gainst Avon's.

Cory feared nothing mortal... what price fear when your fate is so favoured? Yet this kiss gripped an icy rapture round his heart, a terrible yearning that vied with his free spirit that he could take this man forward into eternity with him. Come, Cory, this is a moment's amusement, an interlude, and soon you would tire of him, he chided himself. With each year they are more as mayflies, fluttering on their fairy wings in a few brief hours of glory. Take what you can, let the future be a surprise.

Cory knelt back, and grinned merrily at the Duke's apparent composure. He would take odds it was a lie, but he had received his price, and would ask nothing more that night. "A rich treasure, Sir, to take to my bed, tonight." Nimbly he sprang to his feet and raised his brows speculatively. "The outrage was a little lacking, I vow. One might ask if Milord is a stranger to such kisses. That thought and this memory will add spice to my dreams until we meet again." With a bow, he added, "Adieu, Milord. Until... tomorrow?" and slipped through the open window.

Justin rose, and pushed aside the billowing curtains to look out on the moonlit street. Though his face was inscrutable, for long minutes his fingers rubbed the wrist the villain had gripped before he returned to his now chill bed.

The unerring eye of Pierre, the under-footman, had marked the Duke's carriage as it swept into the cobbled courtyard of the Marquise's imposing mansion. Even before that nobleman had arisen from his seat within, her ladyship's major-domo was at the door to receive him and a page dispatched to alert milady of his arrival. His Grace's presence boded well for the evening; there would be high play, and a tidy profit for the house. The hostess herself sallied to the head of the stairs, to have her hands captured and kissed extravagantly as Avon made his bow.

"Ah, my dear Marquise... My very dear Marquise, how have I managed to keep myself from the glory of your exquisite countenance for these past days?"

The dame simpered, drawing him toward the gaming room, waving her fan gently as she cooed, " M. le Duc, it is such an honor to have you with us. We have been desolate each day of your absence. What is your pleasure? Would you try your hand at cards, or would you prefer to play at dice?"

The main room was a handsome size, lit by a myriad of candles. There was a welter of colour, and white powdered heads, and glittering jewels; the hubbub of a hundred voices and the swirl of groups of players round the many tiny tables created a scene of rich confusion. To each side heavy gilded doors were thrown wide, affording a glimpse of smaller salons, and an elegant and exotic buffet.

Mme la Marquise led Alastair into the room, her fan drifting gently as she fluttered and babbled. He looked around at the company with disinterest. Suddenly he stopped, and frowned faintly.

"Dear me." He turned to his hostess. "I believe I perceive a very dear friend of mine, if you will permit, madame?" With a bow, he threaded his way slowly across the room, an odd smile tugging at his thin lips.

Cory squirmed, but the gilded chair seemed intended for torture. 'Tis hard to enjoy a fleecing, he thought ruefully, when one's posterior is aggrieved. Even the pile of gold Louis multiplying on the tiny table in front of him could not distract him from the discomfort.

The last few weeks had been generous to Cory Raines. A carriage accident had all but thrown a strongbox at his feet, the confusion and the plunging horses making its removal child's play. Thus the thief had become, for a space, the man-about-town.

The cards and dice had showered their bounty upon him, too. So M'sieur Raines, supposed newly arrived in Paris, had taken rooms and a manservant, and found in the landlady's daughter a talent for laundering equalled only by her buxom beauty. He had obtained a small entre as well, but he was unassuming, polite, carefully charming, not wishing to make a name for either boorishness, or to be a sudden craze. He lived carelessly, but had learned over centuries the value of discretion.

He pursed his lips, considering the cards carefully. The good Comte, spawn of an upstart merchant's daughter who had married into the nobility, had a fortunate taste for brandy and a deep purse. Once again the deal had gone well, his hand was fair, and with care another few coins would be added to the gathering pile before him. Cory had been amused; his opponent had some skill, and the tussle had proved interesting.

Still, the room was hot and the chair uncomfortable. Cory tugged at his cravat surreptitiously. Though he wore his silks with an air, and knew his clothes fitted him to perfection, he preferred less formal attire and less formal company. He leaned back in his chair, glancing round. Perhaps it was time to bring the game to a close, then seek a little dalliance with one of the charming and none too respectable ladies who graced the salon.

The Comte was hovering over his choice of discard. Cory smiled.

"Another glass of Canary, Sir? This noise is somewhat excessive, this evening, I think. I fear I am growing a little hoarse"

The Comte nodded curtly, studying his cards owlishly. Cory beckoned to the small black page hovering nearby. "A glass of Canary for milord, and... Burgundy..."

Cory's thoughts were of the play, and gold, as he considered his cards. The Comte had discarded and was subtly more relaxed; likely he held a good hand. He was unaware that Avon had strolled over to stand behind him until a soft voice said, "I see that you are come up in the world, my dear."

Avon waved his fan languidly, and smiled sweetly as Cory's startled face looked up into his own.

"Mon Dieu," he gasped under his breath. Belatedly Cory realised that it was wondrous that their paths had not crossed before. Slowly, his thoughts awhirl, he placed his cards face down on the table, pushed back his chair, and stood. Taking a deep breath, he smiled boldly and bowed deeply.

"Your Grace! Why, what a delightful meeting; I cannot express my joy at seeing you once more. May I present M. le Comte de Nivre?"

"Ah, my dear sir, I am gratified that you recall making my acquaintance? I need hardly say that the memory of your visit to my humble abode will live on in my memory for some time." He closed his fan with a snap, then exchanged a polite bow with the seated Comte. "We must renew our acquaintance once your game is done."

Daring fought with prudence as Cory watched the elegant form draw away.

"M'sieur?" The little page, with his tray of wine, interrupted Cory's abstraction; he dragged his eyes back to the cards and his partner, with a blush. That kiss, so rashly taken, lay on his lips still. Now too, he knew that the Exquisite was thought a dangerous and omniscient figure, rejoicing in a reputation spoken of only in whispers.

Quite put off his concentration, although he continued to ply the Comte with wine, Cory absently drained several glasses in nervous anticipation and bungled his cards. Before the game was over, he had lost quite half of his winnings. With relief, he rose from the table in search of food to quell the flutter in his stomach. The last half hour of play had seemed to crawl past; though Avon was nowhere in sight, he had felt the man was still at his shoulder.

The buffet was laden with tempting dishes, but Cory's appetite had vanished in a trice. He found himself near sick with excitement, awaiting the Duke's next move. The heat and noise were becoming overwhelming, and his head began to spin. Abandoning his plate, he slipped through one of the long open windows to stand on a balcony under the bright, cool stars.

A giggle, and a silken rustle, brought a smiling damsel from the shadows to Cory's side. The tiny brunette's trim figure was clothed in a rich robe of blue-striped bombazine, skirts la polonaise, a ruffled ribbon at her throat drawing the eye to the peach of her shoulders and lush breasts.

"You too could not resist the beauty of the night, M'sieur Raines?" she said, holding out a dainty hand to the immortal.

"Were it a thousand times as fine, it could not eclipse your own, Sophie," he replied, bowing deeply, and kissing each tiny finger. She chuckled, and he soon found himself laying ever more outrageous compliments at her feet as she flirted with expert grace.

The tall, well-made man was a favourite in the salons, his smiling dalliance having an edge lacking in the polished homage of the usual gallants. Cory, however, found most of the young girls vacuous, but Sophie's wit was as bright as her sparkling glance, and drove his Grace of Avon far from the thief's mind in moments.

Now he was admiring the bracelet encircling her slender wrist, its bands of plump pearls hooked by a bejewelled clasp. She fanned herself lazily as he inspected the bauble through his quizzing glass, then turned her wrist to drop a lingering kiss on the inside.

"But the ivory of your skin, ma chre, puts these pearls to shame, and the fire from those sapphire eyes mocks the dull gleam of these envious gems," he said with an extravagant sigh, bending to kiss her wrist once more, then looking up to gaze into those very orbs. With a jolt he was startled to see Avon framed by the open window, his sardonic smile fixed on the scene before him.

Cory straightened. It could have been sensible to run, he told himself; he risked humiliation, exposure. Of more consequence was the risk of boredom, however, and the loss of a promising encounter. If the wine had not given him courage, then his own impudence and the challenge of Avon's look would have made him imprudent. He raised a brow questioningly, and waited for the Duke to speak.

Avon had been amusing himself - the toss of a dice here, and the occasional conversation with a friend there. He had kept an eye on Cory throughout the evening. Now he approached bearing a glass of wine for each of them. Handing one to Cory, he eyed Sophie through his quizzing glass.

"Most attractive and worthwhile to be sure, but I'm convinced that we can do without her for the time being. You may go, child." Sophie had heard many tales of Satanas, and was only too pleased to leave the two men to their own devices.

Cory watched her departure in some surprise, and then turned to the Duke, irritation written large on his features.

"You are a little abrupt, Sir, with my sweet Sophie. She seemed positively frightened by your... dismissal." The Duke's shoulders shook slightly as he inclined his head. He watched Sophie's departure with a mocking smile on his lips.

"Ah, but into each life a little rain must fall, must it not, my fine thief. I believe that we have not been formally introduced. Your name, sirrah?"

Cory tilted his chin up and smiled thoughtfully. "I have had many, Milord. It is the way with thieves. My father named me Corwin... our family name is Raines, but it is an ancient line, and obscure, unlike the upstart nobility that infests England, and the degenerate creatures that regard themselves as the aristocracy, here at Louis' court. When I have a friend, or a lover, they call me Cory, but my existence is... unsettled... and I regret such people pass quickly through my life."

The smile didn't waver from Avon' lips; he had instantly recognised the sally for the bravado it was. When he spoke at last, it was through gritted teeth. "Have a care, my dear Corwin. You are not, I think, in a position that many would envy. All that is required is for me to recollect where last I saw you, and you, sir, will be no more." The gesture that accompanied this last speech was florid and all encompassing. My Lord lounged at ease against a wall, one hand on the hilt of his sword.

Cory grinned, sweeping the skirts of his coat back, strutting up to him like a cockerel. "A threat, your Grace? Amusing, but unoriginal... Exposure would discommode me. I am comfortable," He indicated his clothing, so different from that of their prior meeting. "Even affluent, at the moment. You would take this away... for what? An embarrassing... encounter. I did you no harm, Milord."

"Let us say," drawled the Duke, "That I have a natural antipathy to being bested by a petty rogue. I believe that you owe me some redress."

Eyeing his sword, Cory then raised his head to look him in the eye. "You would call me out?"

"There would be some difficulty inherent in a duel. You are not of a rank to face my sword. By rights I should have you tied to a cart and horsewhipped, my pretty thief, but I find your company strangely... stimulating. You may remain, for the time being." My lord placed his hand on Cory's shoulder and gestured towards the gaming table. "A wager, my dear. Your exposure against something that you desire. What do you say?"

Cory followed, taking the opportunity to study the Duke properly for the first time, in good light. His dress was impeccable, and although remote, his aspect was handsome. He was tall, slim but powerful, his air of disdain something that was attractive to Cory, for whom heat and passion were understood, and who rarely succeeded in premeditating anything. Cory knew that he would really like to see his Grace the Duke of Avon lose that air of cool detachment, even if the achievement of his aim meant having to abandon Paris for a few years. It would be worth it; after all he had forever. On the other hand, he liked this Paris, and, temporarily at least, had found himself a man of substance, something that had not been his lot for the past little while. It was a pleasant situation, and one which he would like to hold on to, were it possible.

The Duke led him inexorably towards the gaming tables. "Come, Raines, why hold back?"

"You would be believed, I have no doubt, my lord Duke. I care not what you do, but I have no wish to scurry away from the little comfort I enjoy at present, paltry as it may be to one of your... elevation." Tilting his head, Cory raised his quizzing glass, looking at him. "I have few material needs, at the moment. Wealth can be a burden; friendship dangerous, when one's friends hold power... But some treasures are priceless. Your kiss, Milord, was one such treasure. My exposure, Milord, against another such jewel."

There was a strange stirring in the nether regions of My Lord the Duke of Avon. A lazy smile escaped him for a second as he raised his own glass again to take in Cory's aspect. The man seemed well made. Avon shrugged.

"It matters not to me. So be it, then." He gestured for dice to be brought, and seated himself, waving Cory into a seat opposite to him. As the dice arrived, several of Avon's associates drifted over to watch the two men.

"This wager is important to me, your Grace." A look around, taking in the interest shown. "Possibly too important to expose to... the public eye, or judgement. Maybe a private room?"

"Oh, come now, Alastair, would you deprive us of the only interesting happening so far on a very slow evening? Stap me, but the play runs poorly tonight!" A ruddy-faced gentleman spoke, peering with curiosity at Cory as he did so.

"My dear Giles, much as I love you, I doubt I would rather have your room tonight." The fan waved languidly in dismissal.

Cory picked up the dice, rolling them from hand to hand, not wanting to meet the Duke's eye, in case the other man realised how much he wanted to win. Looking at the people who had gathered around, he felt a blush start. He was idiotic to have started this. He shook himself mentally. "Mayhap we should play for a lesser stake, at first, Milord, to see how the dice roll, tonight. I fear the stake may be too high... for you?"

"Shall we say, the best of three, my dear Raines? We don't want such a trifle to take up more time than it warrants, do we?" Cory watched him shake back the ruffle of lace at his wrist, noting the fine bones and slender fingers as he did so. "There is no place for cravens in this room. Have done."

Cory looked at him sidelong, licking his lips, feeling in his pocket to make sure that he had his other dice. His heart was racing. It had been a long time since something had been so very interesting to him. He smiled, hoping that he appeared unconcerned, and suspecting that he did not. "Very well. As you wish... a trifle, as you say."

"You will roll first, Milord?" Cory hoped to win fairly, saving his special dice just in case. The Duke's hands were the whitest he'd ever seen, ghostly against the baize-topped table and he fancied that the spots on the dice looked almost like tiny, bottomless holes.

The Duke called for more wine and then turned his attention to the play. His smile had returned, and a dangerous glitter in his eye betrayed the possibility that he might be a little intoxicated.

"My throw, Raines. Let us see." The Duke tossed the dice onto the table, throwing a ten. It was a respectable score, one that would be difficult to beat. "It seems that I am in luck tonight. Your turn, M. Raines."

Taking the dice, Cory threw. They took what seemed like an eon to roll to a stop. A six, and a two. "Again, Milord," he said, pushing them towards my lord with his left hand, and feeling for the others in his pocket with his right.

"My ten beats your eight. My condolences, Mr. Raines." Avon scooped up the dice and replaced them in the leather cup. This time his throw was less fortunate. A two and a three rolled face up. "Dear me," murmured the Duke.

Cory was feeling a little sick. He didn't like cheating in front of so many interested spectators, but he knew he couldn't afford to lose. He was actually far more worried about being exposed as a cheat than losing. How he wished that this little duel had taken place in private; honour was so very important. Anguished, he decided to risk honesty, even though it meant that he could lose. His hand shook just a little as he put the dice in the cup. He threw them. A two...and a four. He felt faint, and gulped down his wine.

"It seems we are even, Sir," said Cory, quietly. "Please, your Grace, the last throw?" He proffered the dice, placing them in Avon's hand, with the lightest of touches..

The Duke gave a slight bow and gathered the dice, hefting them in his fingers for a moment prior to replacing them in the cup. "My felicitations, my dear Raines. You are surprising me. You are no ordinary rogue." He shook back his ruffle once again and tossed the dice with exquisite negligence onto the table.

A pair of twos were on the table for all to see, and my lord Duke bowed once again. "It would seem to depend on your final throw, sir. I await your pleasure."

Picking up the dice one by one, Cory dropped them from a few inches into the cup. They made a hollow sound as they hit the base. The audience was silent; excited even though they did not know what the bet might be. It seemed that they had all forgotten that, at least temporarily. Cory's hand dropped to his pocket, but he could not do it. It appeared to him that there was a good chance of winning, and the gamester in him was calling the odds. It was not his life he was playing for... just a kiss, Avon's kiss...

Someone wagered that the Duke would win, and the book was produced as more people bet on Raines.

Cory grabbed the cup and threw before he could change his mind. A three... and the last dice rolled forever... it could be a tie... a five. He closed his eyes, feeling unaccountably dizzy.

" Victory is mine, your Grace." Cory felt a little guilty now, although aroused at the thought of the prize he had won. Somehow it meant more than a cheeky kiss from an anonymous thief. "It is indeed," said the Duke, and with a snap of his long, white fingers he summoned his cloak and his cane. "Do you have a cloak, sir?"

For a moment or two, Cory wondered whether to slip away, not to collect the prize, and glanced at the Duke, hoping to gauge how he felt, but as usual, the man was inscrutable. "Y - yes, Milord." Cory delivered his instructions to the lackey, and settled to wait for his cloak

As they waited, Avon was surrounded by friends, asking him the nature of the bet, but the duke was darkly evasive. Cory tried to pull himself together. He was acting like a maiden, as if he'd wagered for something more than a mere kiss.

When finally they left the club, Avon tucked his hand into the other man's arm. "Walk with me, sir. The Hotel Avon is but a stone's throw, and you had do well to beware of the footpads that infest the streets of Paris." There was a gleam of humour in the words as he said them.

"I will be happy to accompany you, your Grace. Why, but two weeks back, I had an encounter with just such a one, who attempted to run me through. I was afraid you would give me a note of hand, Sir, and send your banker to settle the account," Cory responded, recovering, now that they were no longer in the public gaze.

"The Alastairs are men of honour, my friend. We do not welsh on our debts." With his hand resting firmly on Cory's arm, there was now no escape possible, even were it desirable. "I find you...interesting."

His arm felt strong through the rich, shiny cloth, and warm, as they walked with long strides along the echoing street. Cory felt so wound up; he was scared that he'd make a fool of himself when he tried to collect his prize, hoping that the Duke would want more, but afraid that it would be merely a kiss... and no excuse for another game between them.

"'Tis true, I've had an interesting history, Milord, but mostly a sorry tale of poverty, and hurried flight, and ignominious discovery. Interesting, but not... noble, sadly."

Upon their arrival at the Hotel Avon, Walker was waiting to take the cloak and hat, bearing them off to perform whatever function a valet did. The Duke minced into his parlour, and gestured Cory to follow.

It was strange, walking through the door, welcomed, after his last visit. His shoes tapped across the marble floor in the Duke's wake. It had been a few years, maybe as many as five, since he'd last bothered to enter the 'polite' world... living in semi-poverty was easier... carefree and easy to be secret, unnoticed for his 'special' abilities.

The butler brought in a tray that contained decanters of brandy and port, and then withdrew. The Duke turned to Cory. "So, my dear Mr. Raines? Where do we begin this experiment?"

Cory looked around with interest, almost bumping into a chair as he studied the paintings on the silk clad walls. The Duke's voice made him jump.

He met the Duke's gaze boldly... such fierce, piercing eyes. "I will release you from your promise, Milord," he heard himself say, "If you wish, but, if it is not your wish, then, why, it is easy to begin." Walking up to the Duke, and, shaking back the lace ruffle of his shirt, Cory put the tips of his fingers on the Duke's cheek. He looked at my Lord's mouth, then back up at his eyes, feeling breathless, and leant slowly towards him, wondering if he'd flinch away. Cory could feel Avon's breath puffing gently on his face. His hand drifted down to my Lord's neck, touching the vein, the pulse.

The Duke was smiling still - did he ever stop? As Cory approached, he raised one white hand to lay it alongside the high cheekbone, long fingers ruffling the hair, dislodging a slight shower of the powder that covered the Duke's locks. Bringing up the other hand, Cory held the Duke's head carefully, like a crystal bowl, and touched his lips to those of the man he was holding. It seemed that his heart stopped for an instant as he waited for Avon to move, to push him away - but he didn't, and Cory's tongue dared to touch Avon's lips, hoping they would part.

As the tender mouth brushed his, My Lord the Duke gave a little chuckle and turned his face, parting his lips slightly in an invitation that was subtle but definite. The kiss began whisper soft, and suddenly, Cory had to take him, pulling Avon's head towards him, pressing their mouths together, his tongue pushing inside, daring the Duke to forbid him. He could hear himself making a noise, almost a whimper. It's just a kiss, he thought as his heart pounded, why should it mean so much, be so good. One kiss is all I have won. The feel of warm lips on his, the faintest brush of beard stubble scratching the aristocratic face, and Cory felt centred as the languor of a thorough kiss permeated his system.

His hands slide down the ducal shoulders, and his head tilted, his lips working against Avon's, his tongue sweeping around My Lord's mouth, finding his tongue, and caressing it. But... that was it. His prize. He knew that he must stop; the Duke owed him no more. Cory pulled back, panting, trying to think of some words, anything to say, but nothing would come.

"Oh, no, my fine rogue, I believe not."

Cory looked at the Duke, then his eyes sank, embarrassed. Clothes? Why should they make a difference? Yet, dressed as a gentleman, he was suddenly ashamed for forcing this bargain, this wager on his companion. It was not the act of a gentleman. A rough thief, a peasant, with no sensitivity, just the urgings of his own animal spirit, would have had no compunction. Cory had been this creature, and now felt a pang of regret.

But, Cory thought, he accepted my kiss; though he hadn't had to. All the loss would have been mine if I'd failed with the dice. Cory studied the Duke speculatively. I didn't... I couldn't force him. He's chosen this option. Why? He took a deep breath, and decided to push it further.

"Sir," the word was drawn out, viscous, and Cory's smile was knowing, inviting. "My payment is complete. Nay... a cornucopia, overflowing with bounty. Yet the kiss was a mere harbinger of what could be... The pleasure that you... could bring me, that I could weave for you, that I could show one whom I suspect may be unaware of the possibilities of ... " His voice failed, as he drank in the sight of Avon's icy beauty, his arrogance, his uncanny calm in the face of what, Cory suspected, was an unknown, unexplored territory.

The Duke smiled a slow and somewhat cruel smile as he observed Cory's discomfiture. One hand raised his glass to observe the thief, and he remained standing much too close for Cory's physical comfort.

"You perhaps have a suggestion to make, my rogue?" His lip curled, and a pink tongue extruded to flick at the corner of his mouth.

Cory sat, picked up a glass, and stared at the fire. After a few moments, he begin to speak, deliberately. "I am... well travelled, Milord. I have explored customs... peoples... that lie far from the experience of men in these Christian countries. And I have learnt to appreciate the pleasure, the beauty that can be found in..." His voice died once more, and he rose to stand again, nervously. "Between men, Milord. Between one man and another... " He ran the back of his hand down the Duke's cheek. "Between ourselves... perhaps."

Cory turned away again, unable to look at the Duke. Were I still the thief... a ruffian, I know I'd have tried to take him. It's annoying. Too late now by far. I can't go back to that situation, now.

The Duke's facial expression did not alter. "Love in the Grecian fashion, I believe, is a celebration of masculinity that omits the beauty of the distaff side. Do I understand, my rogue, that you are confessing some tender feelings for me?"

He crossed to the chair where Cory had resumed sitting and stood before the immortal, the picture of elegance in his silk and his lace. Cory's mouth was suddenly dry. He smiled wryly. "Tender, your Grace, for one who is known as Satanas? More intrigue, interest, say... or shall I be honest? An honest thief? Would that appeal to you Milord? Shall I say it is lust, eh?" Taking his courage firmly, he stood and put his hands on my lord's silken waistcoat and ran them round to Avon's back, under his coat, pulling him close, boldly. "I find you beautiful, Milord Justin. Exotic... dangerous, and beautiful." He kissed him again.

This time, the Duke responded ardently, seemingly intrigued at this upstart who slipped so easily betwixt peasant footpad and gentleman of the ton. Cory felt Avon slide his arms around his back and return the kiss with surprising amount of passion. They were of a height, and although Cory was somewhat heavier built, the Duke's arms were undeniably strong as he encircled the thief, pulling him in towards the whipcord body. "Your reaction amuses me. Did you think that I would not have experienced these passions?"

There was a moment, a long moment, in which Cory couldn't think what was happening... that my lord was responding: that the kiss, the wager wasn't merely a test of his daring or his indifference to the impudent suggestions of an inferior; that there might be feeling there, desire, perchance. He began to allow himself a little hope.

For a few seconds, Cory's hands gripped the Duke's sides, his fingers digging in, and then he moved them round, up to Avon's chest, pushing his coat off his shoulders. But we're in a parlour, he thought. The servant could walk in to make up the fire... refresh the brandy... the unobtrusive anticipation required by their position. This was not the place to take this further.

"Milord, you are tempting me to acts which are... not... " His words stopped. He was at a loss to say what he wanted to a nobleman, somehow feeling crude. The Duke was still smiling at him, and he realized that perhaps his overtures were not such a shock. Maybe he really had done this before? It was uncommon, and definitely not to be talked of, but Satanas had a certain reputation for sin.

Cory shrugged. It was Avon's house, his honour at stake, no other. He finished sliding the Duke's tight satin coat off his shoulders, and pushed it down his arms, to fall on the floor

"Might I deduce from your ...ah... interest in my person that you are sympathetic to the Grecian persuasion?" Avon's drawl was still soft, but his words jolted Cory. The Duke seemed to be considering this. Cory paused to choose his words with care. It felt important to give My Lord a route whereby he could withdraw from the discussion if he wished.

"If you imply, Milord, that I appreciate a well-made form, as the relics of the ancients reveal to us, why yes. But, perchance, Sir, you imply their philosophies...?" Cory raised mobile eyebrows and smiled at the Duke's answering gleam of humour. We are fencing after all, he thought. This has become a duel with words.

"Their philosophies, ah yes. I had in mind Ganymede. Perchance you know the name?" And there was the nub of the matter out in the open between them.

Cory ran a hand down the jewelled buttons of Avon's waistcoat... "Yes. I know the name." He grinned widely. "But, I hesitate to mention, sir, that Ganymede was a callow youth, and your charm is more... sophisticated. Complex." Looking guilelessly up into Avon's eyes. "Exciting."

"And I do not mistake you, sir," the Duke leaned a little closer to Cory. "This conversation is one of negotiation. I declare a main." He shook the ruffles back from his wrist and reached with his hand to pull Cory in, cupping the back of his head. "You had best have a care to yourself. I always win."

"In matters such as this, Milord, it matters little who is the winner, or who the loser, I vow. The game is all." Cory reached to Avon's cravat, and tugged it slowly, pulling it loose and dropping it to the floor alongside the discarded coat.

The Duke meanwhile was loosening Cory's hair, pulling the lace away from his neck and then moving in close to nip. "Methinks that you are far more fragrant than the first time we met, sir. The improvement likes me."

Cory laughed. "One blends with one's surroundings, for an easy life. Would you have me a dandy in the sewers, a vagabond in Milady's salon? Disguise, and dissimulation are essential to a rogue's survival, and I can live with either, sir. However, if you ask my preference..." He took a tiny waistcoat button in his hand, twisting it, then tugging it off with a laugh, "why, purity of person is of less moment than a slight... stain... in the soul."

"Egad, my rogue, you have a nimble tongue. You feel that your soul is stained? You are a fitting companion for Satanas then?" The Duke applied his mouth to Cory's, relishing the softness of his lips as his fingers worked the tiny pearls that held Cory's waistcoat closed.

Cory sighed, happy that the Duke at last was taking initiative. He had begun to worry that Avon was playing with him, and he was not the sort to force himself on anyone, even dukes with very black reputations. Released from the kiss, he snapped off another of the Duke's buttons, and it rattled on the polished wood floor. "My soul is its own master, and writes its own testament, Your Grace. As for yours, it is your affair how you nurture it, and your choice to seek its salvation. I care not, so long as this night it is inclined for lovemaking." He pulled Avon close, and kissed him wildly. The Duke's strong white hands pulled the billowing shirt out from Cory's breeches, and slid beneath.

"You are strong," he pushed the fine muslin over Cory's head and twisted it, locking the thief's arms together behind his back while he stooped to suck on a nipple. "Your strength is mine for the taking. Behold, I plunder you."

Cory gasped and leant back, "Take what you wish, Your Grace, and, if you are inclined, well then, I shall treat you likewise. Tonight we can be simply Cory, and ... You have a name, Milord, no doubt? But if you choose not to hear it on my lips, well, maybe I shall have the honour of being ploughed by Satanas, parbleu?"

A low chuckle shivered past his grace's lips as they sought to draw pleasure from Cory's flesh. "Faith, it is a bold rogue, but I see no reason you should not know my name. I am one Justin Alastair, and my name is there for the taking."

Cory pulled off the remaining buttons like petals from a daisy, shivering under the touch of the Duke's lips. "Justin... I like it, Your Grace. Well, by your leave, tonight we shall be Cory and Justin. Tomorrow, no doubt, it will be Milord and scoundrel, once more. In truth, it is an amusing situation, is it not?"

The waistcoat slithered to the floor, and Cory tugged at Justin's shirt.

"Have a care to my doublet, child. Walker will be seriously displeased if it be forever ruined." My lord ran his hands down Cory's bare sides, and his agile fingers plucked at the fastening to his breeches. "Were I wont to break and enter, I believe I would do this... so." He gave a smile of satisfaction as Cory's breeches slipped to the floor.

Cory caught hold of Justin's hands and studied them. "Nimble fingers, sir, for thief's work." He brought one to his mouth and licked at the tips of the fingers, sucking one in briefly. "Let me see if I can also work the latch." He yanked Justin's shirt off, laying his hands on the waistband of Justin's breeches. "Do I force entry, or use my skill, Justin? What say you?"

Kicking off his shoes, and stepping in close, Justin pressed his body against Cory's, his mouth to that of the thief, slowly encircling him with his arms as he increased the pressure of his kiss. When he drew back, he murmured, "I fear for my poor garment. Go softly, Cory. Use all the skill that you possess, and I will match you in the picking of any lock."

"It is a charming garment, Justin," laughed Cory, "but to me its charms are wholly in the form it clothes." He ran his palms over Justin's hindquarters, which were covered tightly in the warm rich satin "I shall have a care to it, then, and take time to unlatch it skilfully." Dropping to his knees, he crouched at Justin's feet, and slowly unfastened the buttons that held the satin closed. .

With a low laugh, Justin stood, arms folded, to watch as Cory delved within the fabric, loosening the garment to reveal his smooth, white pelt, the dark tangle of curls at his groin, and springing from them, the solid, silken shaft which trembled and jerked as it gained freedom from its confinement.

"It seems that I too have the wherewithal to effect a stolen entry, master Cory."

"And it seems I have access to the jewels with which you tantalised this poor thief not many nights gone, Duke." He dropped a kiss on Justin's prick, and then looked up into the Duke's eyes, asking, "Do I continue, Justin? Or will you take me to your bed-chamber? This room, though elegant, offers scant comfort for our tryst." He was wondering as he knelt whether the Duke was merely looking for a fast encounter, following which he would be sent packing.

"Come." Justin offered a hand, drawing Cory back to his feet and into his hard embrace once more. There was a pause as the two locked mouth to mouth again, and then Justin pulled away, turning to kick his clothing to one side and make for the stairs. "You have the right of it. A soft bed would be more convenient than the unforgiving floor."

Cory looked at the discarded clothing, and then at Justin. "The servants? You are bold, Sir, and shocking, even to a reprobate like myself." He walked to the door, and opened it, smiling. "But this is your home, Satanas, and no doubt the people that dwell here are in your thrall. I beg you, lead on."

"My servants well know to whom their loyalty is given. You need have no fears. Come." Justin took hold of Cory's cock, leading him to the stairs and up to the room that he had seen before.

"And now, Cory..." Justin turned to Cory, eyes glittering wildly as his hands roamed over the strong body of the thief. "There are certain pleasures that are the better for seclusion. Stepping up again, he took Cory's penis in his hands once more, squeezing it gently. "This is the key to any lock you care to name."

Cory took Justin's head between his hands and kissed him, pushing him back towards the four-poster. The room was lit by candles, and by the fire that flickered in the grate. The hands on his prick were firm, insistent, and he found that he had become excited as much by the banter as the other's touch. They reached the edge of the bed. Cory's hands ran up and down Justin's back, over his tight buttocks, and he appeared to be a little breathless.

Justin was smiling a little. He too was enjoying the verbal joust, and he allowed Cory to cover him as he lay back. His one hand held Cory's mouth to his own, tangled in the long hair, the other had slipped down to find and manipulate Cory's dick, sliding his foreskin to and fro over its length.

Cory rolled over, dragging the Duke on top. "Well, Milord? What will you? The aristocrat as master, or the serf?" He spread his thighs to feel the hand pressing between them, and Justin's prick against him. He could not quite believe how this encounter was going, even if the duke leant towards male companionship, Cory had expected him to be above tumbling a robber whose origins were completely unknown. Making love to Cory was definitely not the same as tupping a whore, whom one would expect to know which side their bread was buttered and be discreet. He found the duke incredibly attractive, and admired his confessed depravity wanting desperately to see more. He pushed his hips up to grind into the duke, feeling his excitement become almost too much to bear. "Stop, Justin, 'tis ecstasy, and I dread that the pleasure will pass too soon." He drew a deep breath. "Tell me, my Duke, how I may serve you, I beg."

Falling back to lie at Cory's side, his Grace began to toy with the empurpled cock that jutted from the cluster of tangled curls at the other man's groin. His fingers traced the curved length, sliding back the foreskin to reveal the shiny, glistening head with its welling moisture.

"You may serve me best by holding still. Your body interests me. I will explore its... talents at my leisure." He bent to the inside of Cory's thigh and began to nip along the translucent flesh up towards where his hand toyed with the length of Cory's penis.

Cory's breath came in tiny gasps as he waited to see what the Duke would do, watching his quiet face studying his body like some statue, or rare piece of porcelain. His fingers were cool, gentle, and Cory gripped the coverlet in breathless anticipation.

The pinch of his teeth startled a yelp from him, but he tried to stay motionless, fascinated at how the Duke was exciting him so much with his careful scrutiny.

A low chuckle greeted the small sounds of protest that emanated from Cory.

"Stay, good thief. You will be more comfortable presently." Justin traced the smooth skin gently, his long fingers pausing here and there to add further, more lingering caresses to places that seemed to draw response from his subject. Each intake of breath seemed to be inventoried as the Duke explored Cory's flesh.

He had eschewed direct contact with the penis, which now bobbed and pulsed unattended against Cory's belly, and was working his way around the strong, muscular body, occasionally stooping to nibble or to lick.

Cory found he was moving, shifting under Justin's fingers and mouth, trying to bring sensitive regions... his neck, his nipples, his groin, to lie beneath that exquisite touch. His whole body was tense, yearning, and every single breath had to be remembered as his whole being was focussed on each tiny region that Justin favoured, and caressed.

It was unbearable. Gasping, "Milord!" he seized Justin's head, and forced his lips against the Duke's as he bucked upward to press his body against the other man's.

"Patience, child," was the reply. "It will be something to anticipate, and all the better for the wait." He forced Cory back, steel in the slender fingers and began to work again on the tender flesh that strained to reach him. One white hand slid between Cory's thighs, pressing them apart, as the other stroked the ridged skin of his scrotum, pressing the balls upwards as he began to bring his attention to the genitalia that seemed so desperate.

Shuddering, he lay back, concentrating to sketch Justin's face and body in his memory as the smooth, strong hands made free with every plane, every crease of his body. His eyes, first, grey, shaded by lids just pearled with pink... and the hands were sliding down, down past his groin, easing his legs apart...

The brows. They were fine, black; slightly curled now in concentration, and there was the finest of creases between them as Justin studied... ahhhh...

The hands stroked at his sac, and Cory's flesh tensed in anticipation. Justin laughed again and reached out for the candle that flickered at his bedside, pulling it over to where Cory lay and holding it up to illuminate the man who lay, quivering and aroused on the silk of the coverlet.

"You are well shaped, sir." Justin stooped momentarily to flick his tongue over the slick and glistening head of Cory's cock before drawing back once more with a smile at the moan that arose from his victim. "I feel that a little ornamentation is in order." So saying, he tilted the candlestick, spilling a stream of wax the length of Cory's erection. As it dribbled onto Cory, Justin smoothed it with his fingers, spreading it out to solidify on the proud flesh.

Cory gave a desperate moan, and bucked up into Justin's touch. For a few seconds, he could not think what had happened, there was a furnace on his prick... a heat like the breath of the devil himself. And then it faded to a hot clasping grip, pulling at his skin. He hardly dared look. Dragging his eyes away from the duke's sardonic mouth, he glanced down at his penis, and tried to pull away from the duke's grasp. Where there had been rosy flesh was a white, dripping cap, encasing his manhood... turning it into the marble of a Florentine statue. His eyes flew back to the duke's face in anguish... in melting desire... in lust, searching for reassurance, or amusement, and seeing only knowing satisfaction.

His Grace had reached for the pomatum that rested on the stand next to his bed, and now he unscrewed the lid of the crystal container, dipping in to coat his fingers.

"And now, Mr. Raines... And now..." Fingers, slick with the sweet smelling compound, delved between his buttocks, parting them and then broaching the entry to his anus as they made small circles on his needy flesh. As Cory relaxed, one finger slipped home, inserting itself to the first knuckle. Justin's other hand continued to smooth his wax-coated penis.

Unbidden, Cory's hands reached for the duke's shoulders as he gazed disbelievingly into the duke's eyes. This was like no other encounter, no other tumble... of man, or woman, that Cory had ever known in a long, and eventful life. No hurried groping, or long lazy, corn-field coupling in the August sunshine. He was in rapture, a toy in the hands of this practised aristocrat. He could remember only to flick a smile at his tormentor before Milord's hand was at his most private opening, breaching him, gentling him like a skittish horse. "Justin... gods... take me, Milord. Make me your whore... I can support no more of this torture..."

Deftly turning his fingers inside Cory, Justin began to stretch and work the muscle loose. "Very well." He stooped again and sucked briefly on Cory's cock, his tongue darting to draw sensation from the tip as he slowly peeled away the wax. Climbing over Cory, he knelt between the immortal's legs and drew his knees up higher.

"I will take care, Cory. Stay relaxed and it will be pleasant in a few minutes more." So saying, he withdrew his hand and placed his penis at Cory's anus, thrusting forward, pulling Cory back towards him as he did so.

"Justin... you give me... such bliss." The words fell piecemeal from his lips as the thief braced against the silken coverlet, intending to thrust himself to the very core on Justin's sword. The weapon slid, greased with need and joy, deep into Cory's entrails, and he whimpered, all abandoned, surrendering like a maid to her betrothed on their nuptial night.

"Kiss me, milord... I beg," sighed Cory, his fingers digging deep into Justin's arms, and pulling him down. "Use me, lord... and kiss me."

For a moment, Justin gazed down on Cory, face saturnine, calculating the feelings that the other was experiencing, and then he smiled, and his face lost its apparent boredom, revealing a boyishness behind the man, and something that might have been tenderness vying with the casual cruelty that dwelt habitually in his sneer.

He swooped in on Cory, sucking on the plump ripeness of his lips as he took possession of his mouth, his tongue darting in to probe, to master. As he began to kiss Cory, he pressed home until he was completely buried inside Cory's body.

Though this was an experience which Cory had ventured on many times in the past, this time it was as if it were new as the dawn, and the duke possessed him totally, as David did Jonathan, as Caesar did the lowliest of his slaves. The duke had such presence, such command... and Cory hesitated to think, such beauty; that he wished the man were as himself, one of the immortals, so that this coupling could be repeated for eternity.

The shaft that pierced him filled him with wonder; every inch, every pulse inside him magnified until he could think only of clinging to his lord, and begging for more.

Justin pressed Cory back into the pillows as he began to fuck him. He moved slowly at first, his body steady and controlled as he thrust up into Cory's willing body. He was smiling now, no longer stern as he ploughed the furrow beneath him. The sounds that Cory were making seemed to jolt through him, and aroused him more with each successive cry.

"Fair Cory, I fear that this engagement may be over too soon." Justin paused, biting his lip as he tried to stave off the approach of orgasm. "Stay quiet."

Cory's right hand moved to Justin's chest, stroking, then the fingers clenching, gripping, as the rolling pleasure swept through him. His other hand slid to his own organ, to fondle and gentle, to create a counterpoint to the music that the duke was flooding through his being. The Duke's words were barely heard, yet such was the hold that Justin had created in this brief time that he stopped, and throwing his head back in abandon, stuttered, "As you will, Milord."

A short pause, and Justin resumed his onslaught, moving purposefully now, leaning back as he angled to pump himself dry within Cory's bowel, his body jerking rapidly. His hand moved down to cover Cory's as he stroked, gathering speed until their joined hands were a blur.

"Yes. Let it take you, master thief. Let the pleasure flood you."

"Justin...!" The word was an anguished cry as the Duke seemed to take him from his body, transport him to a place where there was but rapture, and a jolt like lightning passed through him as his prick pulsed in his hand and his seed pumped from his body, a libation to the goddess of love.

The power of Cory's climax was galvanising. My Lord was unable to hold back as the ripple of muscle contracted, clasping his member, sending through it the delicate frissons that built and built until his entire body was aflame. Thrusting home with his cock, he gasped out, "Touch," as his own flesh pumped in response to Cory's. Then he collapsed, breathing raggedly, to lie across Cory's chest.

Peacefully, Cory lay beneath the Duke's body, basking in the warmth and completeness of the moment. Save for the crackle of the fire, and their breathing, all was quiet, and happily, Cory would have slept, yet he did not know whether Justin would desire him to stay. His passion spent, doubtless he would gladly see the back of the thief, and Cory wondered whether he should take his leave before the Duke made it clear he was not welcome any longer in his bed.

At last, His Grace bestirred himself; rolling clear of Cory, who lay with tumbled limbs gleaming white in the candle-light. Smoothing the man's silken skin with a hand made gentle by exhaustion, my lord desired him to move a little, placed one proprietary arm about Cory's waist, and then pulled the eiderdown over them both.

A golden shaft of sunlight had crept as far as the heavy curtains on Milord's bed before a discreet scratching on the door heralded Avon's man, Walker, awakening his master. As usual, there was no response, and Walker carefully opened the door and placed the silver tray on a side table before approaching the Duke to rouse him. This morning, there were two heads on the tumbled pillows, and Walker wondered if he would recognise the light o' love that the Duke had taken to his bed, or if a new damsel had taken his fancy.

A yawn and a stretch heralded My Lord's awakening. He languidly gestured for Walker to leave the tray.

"Good morning, sir," said Walker, his eyes resolutely on the far horizon. Was that...?

"Ah, Walker. Pray be so good as to provide me with more refreshments. As you can see, I have a guest." Walker betrayed no curiosity in his well-bred features, and only as he was turning to leave did his eyes flicker to the still sleeping companion. It was indeed... a man. Walker raised his eyebrows as he left to fetch more refreshment for his lordship and guest.

Cory's eyes blinked open as the door clicked shut behind the departing valet. He surveyed the room, momentarily bewildered, then sat up, smiling down at Avon.

"Milord, I thank you for your hospitality. I swear I have not slept so comfortably, nor so soundly in many a night. Mayhap I should now make my departure? Yonder window has a familiar look, and I would not wish to discommode you by scandal."

"My dear Cory, my very dear Cory, I give you good morning, and press you to stay a while. I rarely emerge from my chambers before noon, and Walker is the soul of discretion." My Lord drew his finger down over Cory's lower lip, smiling back at the man. "There's no need at all to leave via the window. Stay and take breakfast with me, and then we may decide how to proceed in the future."

"So? Well then, it is a fine morning sir, and your servant the finest in the land, I swear." He kissed the Duke's hand, then pressed it back into the pillow, bending to take the Duke's mouth, to kiss the new day in. Slipping his tongue between the Duke's lips, he reflected on his strange fortune... and his rise in status as bedmate to My Lord. Though the comely lass who scrubbed his shirts had a certain charm, he wished that he could spend many a night with the duke, drinking again of his passion, and feeling the rapture that only such a forbidden coupling could engender. " I will gladly share your breakfast, an' you are sure it is your desire."

Taking Cory's hand, Justin moved it down beneath the covers to place it against his morning erection. "My desire is plain, sir thief. I would have you remain as my guest."

"You know little - nothing - of me, Justin." Cory stroked the warm shaft with appreciation, reaching down further to fondle his balls, and part his thighs gently. Delving beneath the bedclothes, he buried his nose in the Duke's groin, and took in the heady scent. Sliding back up, he grinned. "Apart from my liking for your body, and your jewels... all of them. You cannot trust me yet, I know. You are taking a risk with this invitation, Milord."

A rare smile of genuine amusement played upon Justin's lips. "But then, fair brigand, you know very little of me. How sad, how infinitely boring it would be always to be safe. I am confident that, even should your weapon run me through, yet will I survive." He ran his fingers through the tousled hair, seizing it in a fist that was suddenly rough. "I believe that you and I will suit, and as for the jewels, they are nothing."

Cory knelt up on the mattress, pushing the bedclothes back, and shivered a little in the chill air. The morning was bright, but frosty, and all that remained in the grate were now dull embers. He gave a little bow, and said seriously, "Well, then, I thank you, Justin. I should like to be your guest, and to enjoy discovering you. As for the jewels... those that men value, are but toys to me too. A means to an end. I gather, and I scatter. I am somewhat of a wastrel." He bent to kiss the Duke's cock lightly and sat up again, chuckling. "Other jewels are prettier, though I'll admit not as useful when one's tailor is eager for his payment."

The doorknob rattled loudly, and he dived back down, drawing the bedclothes up over his head.

With a brief snort of something that was midway twixt laughter and frustration, Justin called to admit Walker, who was bearing a platter of rolls, and a further cup of chocolate. "Thank you. You may have my morning dress laid out for me in one hour. Pray have M. Raines garments gathered and brought to my dressing room." Walker bowed, his carriage stately as he departed, with only the faintest twitch of his aloof brow a token of his confusion.

Raising the bedclothes to reveal Cory's laughing face, Justin indicated the chocolate that had arrived, and grinned back at him, for one moment not a Duke, but merely a man.

Cory emerged and jumped from the bed to fetch the cups of chocolate. As he handed one to the Duke, he said, "While it would be paradise to share your bed, Milord, and though your man be as closemouthed as an Ursuline, yet there are your other servants. This... liaison could bring you trouble, should it be known. You must know, this, sir. It is more risk than you have from me. Riches can be recovered; a reputation, once gone, cannot."

That made Justin laugh. "My Cory, it has been my joy to despise the prattling of mortals who can only gossip rather than live. My reputation has ever been far worse than any you could guess at. They call me Satanas, and they are not wrong. It is possible that you - not I - need to heed the warning that you utter." My Lord sipped at the chocolate, lounging at his ease within the dishevelled bed, and considered Cory, who had seated himself on one corner, and was biting into a croissant with strong white teeth.

"I had heard the name, Justin. But some commit such trifling sins to earn a reputation for evil. And those that are really evil often have a reputation as pure as swansdown. Should I fear for my purity?" He laughed, and licked off his fingers. "I shall hope to learn some new vices, then, sir. It will be amusing. It is many a year since I have been shocked, I vow." He wiped his hands on a linen napkin fastidiously. Mind your manners, Cory-lad, he thought. 'Twould never do to make Milord sticky. He climbed back in beside the duke, and kissed him on the ear. "That device with the candle was new to me, as you saw. You have already shocked me. When you have finished your breakfast, Justin, perhaps we can continue with my education?"

In Cory, the Duke found a more interesting companion than he had envisaged. At first he was circumspect with his new lover, taking him to the play, or cock-fighting, gaming, or the opera, fearing that Cory would be awkward or unhappy in the society in which he moved.. But the man was like a mirror, reflecting the manners and mores of the people he was with. Justin could not fault his demeanour. He lacked only one social grace; he was unfamiliar with all but the simplest of country dances, and the Duke found himself, to his amusement, acting tutor, teaching Cory the niceties of the gavotte and the minuet.

The thief's knowledge was far ranging. He had travelled extensively, Justin discovered, and, to him, the past was as yesterday. He was full of curious detail and anecdote about those long dead, but reticent about himself and his family. The Duke realised that he had lived on his wits for many years and had no ties; he seemed a restless soul. He had anticipated that he would have to provide his guest with funds and he had been prepared to do so. A thief's resources are, perforce, slender, or he would doubtless live a safer life, he thought, and abandon that perilous and often barely profitable means of making a living. However, Cory had not asked and he suspected that Master Thief had not been tempted by the thought of his Grace's largesse to abandon his propensity for regarding other people's property as his own, for he was rarely out of pocket.

In time his suspicion turned to certainty. The more unlikeable of his acquaintance became mysteriously prone to the depredations of house-breakers and footpads. At length he felt he would have to rouse himself to remonstrate with Cory. A reputation for evil was all very well, but he had his dignity, and his guest, revealed as a felon, would be an embarrassment.

But, before he could speak, a strange encounter caused him to let it lie. Springtime had come at length, and the two were taking the air in the Tuilerie Gardens with Milady de Courchille and her daughters. The grass was starred with anemones, and downy leaves were unfurling on the limes and the carefully trained chestnut espaliers.

A rotund priest broke away from his companions, and came up to Cory, preventing his progress. He seized his hand, and, in effusive terms, began thanking him for his munificence and his generosity to certain orphans that the priest had in his care. Cory pulled away, trying to break into the flood of praise to tell him he was mistaken. Over and over he assured the cleric that he was in error, and backed away from the man, looking discomfited, and eventually drawing him aside to speak privately with him. The Duke raised a brow. It might have signified interest, but he walked on with the ladies, brushing the subject aside, and making light of their teasing reception of Cory when he rejoined the party.

Later however, he sent Walker on a mission, and the information that his most discreet of retainers brought gave him a little surprise, and a new respect for his dishonest friend.

"You have been scribbling for an hour, Justin," protested the grumpy voice, peering over His Grace's shoulder at the closely written letter that had now reached nigh on seven pages. He threw the book he'd been reading onto the floor, and ran a strong hand up Justin's leg, to his thigh, tilting the writing tray, and earning himself a blob of ink on his nose for his interference. "Gad, you make me feel like a long married wife," he chuckled. "This sudden interest in your estates, and refurbishments... surely this letter to your agent can wait 'til the morn? Now, I am thinking your diligence corresponds to the arrival in the household of Leon, n'est-ce pas? And, deny it all you will, Justin, if that boy is a boy, why then I am a... canary."

Justin frowned, suddenly haughty, but laid the quill and paper aside, turning to Cory with a saturnine expression.

"The page is my own affair, dear Cory. Pray think you no more of him." The last word was stressed just a fraction, and Justin turned, wiping the ink from his quill before returning to run the feather teasingly around Cory's nipples. "He is outside of our relationship, my dear. He is not to be disturbed in any way, do you understand?"

Cory looked under his lashes at the Duke. "Disturb the pretty little scamp? Not I, Milord. 'He' is successfully disturbing the whole household." He tweaked the feather from the long white fingers, and rolled to straddle the duke, sat above him and looked into his eyes, stroking his stern face thoughtfully. "He... is disturbing you, too, Justin. What is it... do you desire to take the... lad... to your bed? You wish me gone, eh?"

Sighing, Justin studied the body that had given him pleasure, met the eyes that were so brilliant, and intelligent, and wicked with laughing thoughts. He didn't know. He had divined Leon's secret almost in the moment of their meeting, and now he was beginning to become enthralled by his imperious little page - by this boy who was no boy. He who saw all and had a reputation for omniscience, didn't understand his own responses to the young girl who was masquerading as his page.

"I... never that, Cory." The words sounded false, even to himself, and he pulled Cory down to kiss, obliterating them with heated caresses.

For quiet minutes there was no sound save the slip of skin on fine sheets and soft endearments from the two as they mapped again the landscape of their desire with lips and fingers. "It will be that, my beloved duke, if I take no heed, and linger until you understand what has befallen you. I have seen how you regard him, and the way her... his eyes return your fondness. I have lived long, and known and lost many loves, and seen others as they became love's vanquished, all unknown to themselves. I think she has become dear to you, and you must have him ... Damn this, Duke! You must have her as your mistress, soon, or there will be anger between us, or resentment."

Once more the cold distance that Cory had never seen before today cloaked Justin's expression. "I do not think so," he said shortly, pulling away slightly from Cory's embrace as he spoke. "She is going to be taught to be a girl again. I intend to make her my ward. We will not speak of this again, Cory."

Moments passed, slick and honeyed kisses exchanged, but in the air was a threat of estrangement that both sensed and neither wished to mention.

Cory was shocked. The supposed boy had been dragged from the gutter, and, though obviously of refined parentage, was doubtless some noble's by-blow. She would think herself fortunate to gain Avon's notice for even a short affair... and the love that Cory saw in Justin's eyes for the fiery child would certainly burn itself out in mere months. Meanwhile, Cory knew he would be de trop, and, dear as Satanas had become to him, he knew he himself was becoming restless. He would soon wish to be on his adventures again, and better to leave now, on good terms. Maybe, in two years or maybe five, he would return, and relive this passion once more, should Justin desire it.

He was loath ever to leave this bed, and Justin's arms, though, and the lovemaking that transported him to an incomparable paradise.

"As you will, sir." he said, and knew he had to take Justin once more before they parted, and leave him to his maiden with the memory of the love only another man could offer.

The husky murmur of acquiescence caught at Justin. Cory's voice had ever been a tantalising sound, promising with a smoky intimacy delights that were as intimate as they were perverse. The combination of throaty passion and lush, lowered lashes made him groan. He reached to taste the gleaming flesh, tracing circles around the navel and drawing his fingers over sensitive skin to part Cory's thighs. Straightening for a moment, Justin smiled down at Cory.

"You will always have a place in my heart, my brigand."

"That is more than most would think possible," he grinned. "Satanas, with a heart? Fie, Milord, surely it's a secret you wished to take to the grave?"

He pulled the handsome duke down to his mouth, and drove his tongue between the thin, cynical lips with ardour born of memory and farewell. Clutching the velvet scalp in one hand, he reached down with the other to feel the hardness of Justin's lust, pressing his hips and shaft up against his own fist, and into Justin's groin in wanton invitation. Sliding his hand behind his lover's sac, he reached to stroke the tight hole beyond, hoping that the Duke would admit him, and let himself be impaled, this time, on Cory's own blade.

Moaning and spreading his thighs to permit Cory access, My Lord Duke abandoned the retort that had sprung to his lips and gave himself over to pleasure. Cory was insistent, and although gentle, would not be denied. As the long, elegant fingers broached him, he shuddered, awaiting the curve and flex of them that would begin the dazzling spiral upwards towards the delights they shared. A pang shot through his heart. He would miss this; miss Cory, the joyous, honest wickedness of him, and the beauty of him too. He returned Cory's kiss desperately at the thought that there might be no more.

Reaching over to root amongst the scattered trinkets on the side table, Cory's groping hand located the tiny bottle of scented oil which had replaced the makeshift grease which had eased their first encounter, and breaking from the kiss, he pulled out the cork with his teeth. Withdrawing his fingers from the heated entrance to Justin's body, he rolled him over onto his back, and, slicking them with the oil, eased them back past the gate, first two, then three, his whole body flushing with blood, with need for this man. Would he find another as beautiful, and imperious, with such a dry wit? He doubted it. His companionship, so much more than the sex, had in the end been what Cory had valued most.

His weapon now anointed also, Cory smiled down at the Duke, and slipped the fingers from his body, pulled his hips up to a good angle for breaching the Duke's defences, and prepared to lay siege. The tip of his cock slid in, un-opposed. "You are mine, Milord, tonight. My prisoner, my lover, and all that I desire." Working his way deeper, he continued, "Tomorrow I will take my leave, and part with regret, and gratitude, but with anticipation of new adventures. I will not look back. Maybe, and I hope, this time will come again. But for tonight, you are mine." With a final thrust, he buried himself in the paradise of his lover's body, and shuddered in pleasure.

Their coupling was slow, as if neither wished ever to see it end. The movements gentle, surging as if borne on the tide. Each man offered the other the most delicious touches in his repertoire as though to sear on him the memory of what they'd shared together. Mouth sought and ravaged mouth. Hands clasped, twined and pressed. Cory, anxious to make his lovemaking memorable, moved with infinite care, memorising each thrust inside the clinging heat of his lover, each shudder he evoked, and each surging thrill of feeling that resulted from his delicious activity.

Never was a joining more blissful, or more prolonged. Never had Cory wished more to please his lover, or to prove his skill. Never had the Duke appreciated that it could be so tender, and so poignant, to lie with a man in sweet, and utter surrender. At length their delight turned to rapture and from rapture to heavenly release, and they clung to each other in a daze of sleepy content.

Bathed in the sweat of utter contentment, Justin found himself clinging to Cory, holding him tightly, as if he would keep the footpad there forever after all. He studied anew the elegant form, strong shouldered and long legged, and traced the expressive mouth with one white finger. Cory turned his gaze onto Justin, and his eyes were dark, shining with words that would never be said, yet which were understood completely.

"I will never take another man to my bed, Cory."

"You will, Milord, I have no doubt," replied Cory, softly. "Should, one day, you find another that pleases you. Such words are nectar to me, but I live with few regrets, now, and I would not have you find that you are burdened with them. If you have enjoyed me, I would not have you think another would be less pleasing. You have but one life, and it is too short to waste on sadness, or nostalgia. I will go adventuring, tomorrow. Make your life an adventure, too, so that when we meet again, we may laugh, and surprise each other with our tales. I love you, my Duke, and I wish you happy. But I will not let sadness at our parting spoil the new day."

There seemed nothing more to say after that. They kissed once more, with all passion slaked their mouths met tenderly, and then lay, each relishing the warmth of the other as the night drew on. Sleep did not come easily to Justin. He lay awake, feeling the press of Cory's body against him, and the strong arms that surrounded him.

Change was coming, and although it promised a new excitement, he found himself regretting the loss of the old. It was only with the dawn poking inquiring fingers around the heavy brocade of the curtains that Justin fell asleep at last.

Cory slept soundly. Mayhap it was that he had made many such partings, or else that a warm, safe bed was to be enjoyed when the next few weeks were with the Gods.

When he finally awoke, a warm sunbeam had caught the glittering crystal of the chandelier, and as it swayed minutely in the soft spring breeze, tiny rainbows danced and chased over the white linen of the bed, and the smooth marble curves of his lord's strong chest and shoulders. Justin slept on. His black lashes were lush on his pale cheeks, and his grey eyes moved restlessly under the delicate skin of his lids. Cory drank in the image, knowing that they might never again meet, and, despite his brave words, letting a teardrop fall on Justin's hand. He smoothed it away with gentle fingers, touching the heavy signet that Justin habitually wore. The antique ring was set with an emerald, a smooth cabochon that must have been centuries old. With sudden determination, and a mischievous smile, Cory eased it from the Duke's finger. He would have his jewel from Milord, at last.

Carefully, he slid from the bed and clothed himself. His leather satchel was in the press. He filled it with a few requisites for the next few days, added a small bag of gold... last night's winnings... and, blowing a kiss to his lover, slipped through the open window.

As the curtain fluttered with his lover's departure, Justin brought his hand to his lips. His ring was gone, but the salt residue of that one tear burned as brightly, and was treasured more. Tasting the place where it had fallen, Justin permitted himself a single tear of his own as he contemplated the loss of his friend.

He did not go out that night.

A quarter century passes...

Chubby hands clutched at the shifting gleams of sunlight that highlighted the rich, rustling blue satin that the petite woman wore. Mary suppressed a warning to her tiny daughter. What point in chiding the child, when her grandmre counted her finery as naught, if her little Barbara was amused? She bent to her stitchery, trying to concentrate on the tedious task, and listening with half an ear to her mother-in-law's gossip about the pompous and foolish.

Lonie, with her irreverent views, and French upbringing, was droll; Mary enjoyed her company, her fresh cast on the, to her, still incomprehensible behaviour of the British 'Ton'. She was in town for a couple of days, visiting her milliner and bestowing her company on her sister-in-law, and her beloved son's wife and child.

"And Monseigneur is in Ireland," she was saying. "Ce mchant Rupert dragged him there to look at horses. He swears that is the place to buy them, and Justin agrees. Me, I think there are plenty here to choose from."

"The Irish have always had a good reputation... "

"Bah!" Lonie interrupted. "Spanish horses are good... and Arabians. But Justin does not go to those places. It would be an adventure. I should like to go to Arabia. But I do not at all wish to visit Ireland; I have heard that it rains still more than this dreadful country."

Mary looked up and smiled warmly. "The sun is shining today, Lonie."

The huge violet eyes looked over at the tall window and blinked. "You are right, ma chrie." She bent to retrieve the baby from its inspection of the hearth, and plopped her down on her lap, wiping her tiny palms of soot with a lacy handkerchief. "Later we will take you to the park, petite chou, and you may chase the ducks." She dropped a kiss onto her grandchild's soft curls, and dimpled mischievously at her daughter-in-law. "When Mama is not watching."

"Monseigneur is wondering what keeps Dominique busy in town, lately, Mary? He has been so diligent, since you were married. The estates, the farms... Justin swears that his son has him measured for his coffin." She giggled. "I think it is too much, me. From dissipation to diligence, overnight. It is unhealthy."

Mary laughed. "Most mothers would be grateful, Lonie." She became more serious, and her lip shook a little, as she wondered whether to speak out. Of all people, Lonie was her confidant these days, the mother she would have never dreamed possible. "I think it has been too much," she said quietly. "He has re-found some of his old friends, I think, and has been away from home quite a lot."

She looked over at her little daughter wistfully. "I love to be with the baby, and I have been neglecting him, ma mre... It is not that he has not asked... but I have urged him to accept invitations without me." She looked over at the Duchess with a little frown. "The measles have been endemic, this winter, and before, there was scarlet fever. I must protect Barbara, so I haven't visited much since she was born. I was content, but it chafes him."

"He amused himself for a while by learning to be the 'lord of the manor' you think?"

"He tried to do it all at once, Lonie, you know that. And now he has kicked over the traces. I think he will take up his responsibility again, but in a more measured way. He is so impetuous."

Lonie put down the child and, in a drift of cobweb-fine petticoats, knelt beside her daughter-in law, and took her both her hands in her own tiny ones. "But there is more, n'est ce pas? What is it that troubles you, ma petite?"

Mary sniffed, and chucked shakily. "I fear... that there is another, Lonie," she whispered. "There is no evidence, and when he is here, he is attentive, and loving. But there is something... " She straightened, and cleared her throat. "I am being foolish. He loves me dearly, and I am being selfish. In a few months, when I can persuade myself not to be so doting, all will be well."

Lonie's hands tightened on Mary's. "He has a mistress, you think?" She looked into Mary's eyes with sympathy. "I feared this might happen. His age... he is young." She gave a little knowing laugh. "Monseigneur was much older, and I was such a handful. I think I exhausted him. Mon cher Dominique is so much younger, so much a boy still. He loves you, Mary, and does not mean to hurt you, I am sure. Please forgive him, and be patient."

Mary drew a deep breath and smiled determinedly "Forget what I have said, please, Lonie. Now that the words have been uttered, I feel happier, relieved. I am sure I am mistaken. He is merely reacting to over-indulgence in his bout of husbandly duty."

In their hearts, however, neither woman thought there was any mistake. Mary's sadness was now tinged with apprehension that her impulsive mother-in-law might speak to His Grace, and that she might cause a rift between the cold Duke, and the son who loved him so much.

But when Lonie visited her sister-in-law, Fanny, the next day, and carefully pumped that flighty gossip for information, she was mystified. If Dominique had a mistress, then Fanny, who knew all, knew nothing.

The summer afternoon lay thick on the countryside, and the scent of meadowsweet cloyed the palate as the racing curricle jounced along the rutted, dusty road. The two men perched in the carriage seemed at ease with each other as they laughed and joked, the one occasionally pointing his leaders with a practiced flick of his whip, the other laughing and leaning against him as they joked.

"My pockets are the richer by several hundred. The day has been a good one." Cory, eyes a-sparkle, gestured expansively as he recalled the excitement of the day's activities.

"And poor Merton all the poorer, dear Cory. His face, when the Frenchman fell... gad, I swear I was almost sorry for the fool." He looked about him briefly, and his lips twisted. "Curse it! I should not have taken this road. I had thought we would have arrived by now. Mine host will have been eaten out of house and home by our friends, and nothing but crusts for us. "

"Do you hunger, my Dominic?" Cory's soulful expression belied the twinkle in his eyes as he seemed to console his companion. "With my own eyes I saw you consume a brace of fowl at nuncheon." He paused, shooting a measuring look at my lord Vidal. "I find myself hungering also, but not for a fat capon. 'Tis another kind of flesh that has me craving." This time, Cory's grin was unmistakable.

Vidal slowed his horses to an easy trot, and looked through slitted eyes at the other man. He smiled, and drawled, "It is amazing what hungers a fight can give a fellow. The struggle... the sweat... the noise of the blows." He licked his lips slowly, and gazed at Cory, letting the team slow to a walk. "Perhaps we should stop, for a moment, and discuss the bill of fare?"

"My lord, I have in mind a banquet." Cory returned Vidal's hot gaze, his face gone slack with easy lust. "Look yonder." In the distance one could see the newly mown field, and to the side, a haystack, its colours vibrating in the liquid gold of the late afternoon sunlight. "Methinks our table lies there; what say you?" His hand, fine boned, and wearing a large emerald ring on the middle finger, stole to lie on Vidal's buckskin-clad thigh.

Vidal grinned, and moved Cory's hand up to lie on his groin. "Fit for a king, damn it. Though I would rather sup with you than His Majesty any day." He stopped the carriage. "Jump down, man, and open the gate quickly, before I starve to death on this cursed lane. I think you can feel that my appetite will brook no further wait. " He covered Cory's hand with his own and then indicated the moss-covered entrance with his whip. "We'll tether the horses, and go and try the delights of that haystack. But I warn you, Cory, if I find myself with fleas..."

"They'll keep good company, my fine Marquis." Cory gave a shout of laughter. "Surely there are no fleas so daring but that they would feed upon your noble self, sir." He sprang down from his perch on the curricle, and strode to open the gate, fumbling a little with the lock as he did so, then held the gate wide as he bowed Vidal through. The horses moved as one, hooves treading down the cow parsley that grew in the gap, and Cory watched as Vidal passed through, then closed and re-fastened the gate, turning back to look up at Vidal as he did so, catching his breath anew at the dark curls and delicious face of his lover.

Dominic was watching the horses, alert for rabbit holes that might trap his matched team's legs. "Take their heads" he ordered, not thinking to whom he spoke as he halted them, and jumped to the ground. He dropped the whip in its sheath at the side of the equipage., and walked round to where Cory stood, looking at the nobleman with a raised brow.

Vidal laughed at his mistake, and grabbed the man, kissing him roughly. "You are beautiful, Cory," he growled. "I want you... now. For soup... and meat... for dinner and breakfast." He tied the reins to a nearby hazel, and dragged his lover, helter-skelter, towards their rustic couch.

As they arrived at the stack, Cory pulled back on Dominic's hand, turning him back to face him and stepping in until they stood toe to toe.

"And now, my lord..." he said, his eyes glinting. "And now..." He reached for Dominic and slid his arms around the man, disregarding the fine cloth coat and the artfully tied cravat. There was a smile on his face, and Dominic answered it, eyes alight as he leaned in for a kiss.

Dominic ran his fingers over the other's soft hair, a little dishevelled now after the excitement of the morning, and the breeze from their mad drive. Vidal liked to travel swiftly, and had found in Cory a devil-may-care attitude to danger that matched his own. He looked into the sparkling eyes, and pulled Cory's head forward to crush his mouth against the other's, forcing his tongue between the pretty lips to take possession of his lover's mouth.

Heaving on Cory's coat, he let himself fall backwards onto the soft hay at his feet, pulling the other down on top of him.

Laughing, Cory sprawled on top of Dominic, his member straining within the buckskins as he ground himself against his companion. Sliding his hand to the large, shining buttons of Dominic's fine serge coat, he slipped them open and began to push it from his shoulders. Tearing the cravat from around his neck he tossed it over his shoulder to lie amid the stubble as he licked along Dominic's jaw and down to the throat that arched ready.

Vidal stretched, cat-like, on the rustling carpet of sweet hay, looking up at the pale blue sky with its scattered, bright clouds, and let Cory's kisses transport him away from the world to a blissful paradise. He felt as if he was floating. The soft lips on his neck sent wave after wave of sparkling pleasure down his spine, and his cock, already plump with anticipation, hardened between their bodies. He groaned, and rolled over, straddling Cory, and dragged his coat and waistcoat off, then began an assault on Cory's garments. There seemed to be altogether too many buttons, and his long fingers fumbled in his desperation to reach Cory's flesh, and to feast on the promised banquet.

Naked but for their smallclothes, the two men rolled and laughed amongst the soft, sweet smelling hay as they kissed, each one vying for the upper position. At last, Cory stood, pulling off the last garment to stand naked and straight in the sunlight.

"I am a faun, a thing of Nature. Worship her with me here." Then he dropped to his knees, began to divest Dominic of his pants, and stooped to take his lover's rosy erection between his lips.

"You are a rogue, and a thing of lunacy, methinks," gasped Dominic, bracing his shoulders against the ground to arch his hips upwards to facilitate Cory's efforts. The slick tongue was teasing his engorged flesh, and Vidal knew that he would be done within mere minutes, if he let Cory continue. At last, naked as his lover, he pulled him back up to lie over him once more. Crushed into the thick bed of hay, he let his legs part, to feel the other's shaft against his own.

His mind drifted back to the fight this morning... the straining muscles of the boxers, their quick movements, the deep eager panting as they strove to land their blows, and suddenly he wanted to take Cory, mount him and fuck him hard, there, like an animal in the fields.

Cory felt the change in his lover's breathing, and drew away, snickering softly at the whining sound that emanated from Dominic's lips. Plucking a long stalk from one of the bales, Cory turned to glide it down over the dark fur that covered his chest, pausing to circle the indent where his navel lay, and then travelling to trace the length of his member.

Raising Dominic's leg, he nibbled kisses along the inner thigh, drawing ever closer to his goal as he plied a nimble tongue.

"God, Cory, must you forever tease," grated Vidal through clenched teeth, torn between letting his lover pleasure him at his own pace, and the need to take matters into his own hands, and bury himself in Cory's body. But...

Curse it, he thought, who would have thought such preparations would be needed for an excursion to a mill? The tiny bottle of oil was in his dressing case, and, short of anointing his lover's arse with filthy axle-grease...

"Turn, and crouch above me, Cory," he ordered. "I can't reach you, and if you are determined to goad me so, why then, you must suffer too."

Deliberately, Cory laid down the leg that he had been petting, and reared up on his knees to look down at Dominic, sprawled wantonly in the hay with legs akimbo. Taking hold of his own, oozing penis, he held it thoughtfully, smoothing the slick that leaked from the tip along the shaft with nimble fingers, then coming to a decision, he scrambled to kneel astride Dominic's head before leaning forward to resume his tantalising journey nearer and nearer the Marquis's cock.

Dominic took a deep breath of the warm, musky scent of his lover, and, extending his tongue, ran its tip appreciatively along the length of the silky shaft bobbing above his head, lifting a pearly droplet from the wrinkled foreskin with a flick, just as Cory pulled his hips tantalisingly out of reach.

Vidal snarled, and seizing the well-shaped cock in a firm grip, bent it downwards and strained towards it, engulfing the end in his mouth, then moved his hands to Cory's back, to hold him in place. Maybe a little encouragement would persuade the scoundrel to service him more quickly.

Cory's laugh was a trifle strained. Dominic's heated caresses were taking their toll. Pressing down on his hips to hold him still, Cory dove between the parted thighs to lap first at the balls in their furrowed, corduroy covering, and then lower, at the man's perineum and the small pucker that marked the opening within which he wished he could plunge. Pulling Dominic's legs open wider, Cory looked his fill on the wanton body sprawled for his delectation, and then plunged his tongue in to pierce it.

The Marquis gasped, and bucked up against Cory as warm rivulets of delight sprang from the places touched by his clever lips and tongue. As each new area was explored, he signalled his need with gentle caresses to the heavy balls brushing against his face, and eager sucking and licking of the solid shaft that strained his mouth.

The moist heat of Cory's skilled suction descended at last onto his eager dick, and Dominic cried out as Cory drew him rapidly up towards climax. The seductive warmth of the afternoon sun, the drowsy buzzing of insects in the stubble, and the melting tingle of pleasure coiling low in his belly combined to drive all thoughts from his head. Cory's low, seductive laugh vibrating around his penis added a frisson that caused him to clutch at the other man. Cory knew all the tricks, and he was using them on him, one after the other.

Pulling away from Cory a little, Dominic whimpered as the wonderful heat gathered in his groin, until the only thing left in the world was the pleasure that Cory was so cleverly creating. For a minute he held his breath, frozen by the need to let it build and build, then suddenly he recalled that Cory was waiting too, and drew him down, pulling his buttocks apart, so that he too could caress the tiny puckered muscle with his tongue. His strong fingers wrapped round Cory's throbbing organ and he began to stroke, ever harder, faster, panting and gasping with need and effort.

Locked as he was around Dominic's cock, Cory could only moan as he felt the intrusion of Dominic's tongue. He'd remained under control until then, but now he was done for. He re-doubled his efforts on the salt-tasting instrument between his lips, driving his head down until he could swallow against it, feeling his concentration slipping and his breath becoming ragged as his own orgasm rushed down on him.

Surrounded by heat, the sear of his lover's mouth, the warm balmy summer breeze, the hot smooth muscle under his hand, the solid flame of Cory's shaft, Vidal felt as if he had been cast into a bonfire of ecstasy. He drew a deep breath of Cory's wondrous male scent, and, thrusting into his body with his tongue, urged the other with his whole mind and body to feel the pleasure that he himself was bathed in. The heat rose and sparked, a roar of sensation that seemed to lift him heavenward on a roiling inferno, higher and higher, as if the sun itself were calling to him.

The explosion of sheer joy that suffused Cory left him limp and breathless. He rolled to slump backwards in the clean, fragrant, summer-smelling hay. Dominic was gasping alongside of him, and he felt a warm affection flood him for this young man who was so rash, so strong, and so intense.

"You know, we should do that far more often. Methinks my heart was like to burst."

Vidal chuckled. "Rustic pleasures. Tumbling a milk-maid in the hay."

A skylark rained golden song from the endless sky, the world wheeled about him. It was a perfect moment. He rolled onto his side, and rubbed his palm over Cory's sweat damp skin. Such a strong chest, sleek, firm, muscular.

"My first time was in a hay-stack," Dominic murmured. "She was the gatekeeper's daughter... nineteen, and a minx. I was just fifteen."

"Yes?" Cory chuckled, wriggling beneath Dominic's touch on his over-sensitive skin. "My own first experience was a long time ago. We were out in the forest. She was much older than I was, and sent me home astonished." Cory struggled up onto his elbow and cupped Dominic's chin, bending to steal a kiss from the swollen lips.

"You taste... of lust," said Vidal, his lips moving over Cory's as he spoke. "It is delicious. You are delicious. The flavour of your skin, your sex, the succulent aroma of your loins... this banquet would be fit for Bacchus himself, fit for the gods. You make my mouth water, Cory, every time I encounter you."

He rolled to pin Cory to the earth, and spoke passionately, demanding fierce kisses as he spoke. "I longed to take you at the mill. I needed to drag you from your perch and throw you over one of the hay-bales and possess you. If the crowd could have been blind, seen only the fight, I would have taken you then, amongst them all. You make me wild, you make me an animal, insatiable for your body."

Laughing, Cory permitted the wild caresses, melting against Vidal as the two of them thrashed about in the hay.

"Methinks that there would have been many a wager resulting from such an encounter. Shame it is that we deprived them of their spectacle." Cory wrestled Dominic around until he was once more atop him, and grinned down at him. "But there would never be any doubt of the outcome. You would be vanquished, my lord."

"That sounds like a challenge, you knave," snarled Dominic playfully, and braced himself against the other man, trying to throw him off. But, despite the Marquis's strong, limber muscles, and forceful struggles, he was no match for the experience and power of the heavier, older man. Finally, he lay back, panting, on the soft hay. "I am defeated, Cory," he said with mock anguish. "Take me, do with me as you will!"

But the opportunity was lost. There was a creaking, a jingling, and down the lane plodded a swaybacked nag dragging a cart full of brushwood. Both men leapt to their feet, and scrambled to hide their nakedness behind the stack.

The lower end of the table was quiet. One heavy head was snoring contentedly amongst the remains of the repast, another of the party had drawn his chair over to the embers of the fire to doze, and puff on a long, clay pipe. Moreton had, rather unsteadily, assembled a teetering house from the scattered playing cards. At the other end, however, the brandy was disappearing apace, with a lively argument in progress about half remembered fights, racing, and the achievements of the five debaters themselves. One of the number had been amongst those present when Dominic had fought the duel that so nearly exiled him, and rattled on about the record the rash Marquis had set the following morning, driving his curricle from London to Newmarket on no sleep, and half drunk.

"Gad, and he said that he was 'more drunk than he knew' because he hadn't killed the fellow. Damn lucky that you were, Vidal, or you'd still be living amongst the Frenchies. What was his name... ?" He blinked at Dominic, and tossed back the contents of his glass. "You must recall, eh, Vidal?"

The Marquis twirled the stem of his glass, and smiled sardonically. "The name escapes me, my dear. A dead bore, as I recall. I had near forgotten."

Cory had been sitting a little back from the others, abstractedly watching the play of the candle light on his lover's face. As the words sank in though, he leaned forward and laughed, inviting their companion, Winslow, to enjoy the joke.

"Gad, you ruffian! You brawled in a gaming hell? Whatever possessed you, Vidal?" He looked to Winslow to elaborate. "I would hear more of My Lord here's peccadilloes. Entertain me, I pray you."

Winslow, a trifle castaway, laughed boisterously. "Oh, Vidal here shows us all the way, but even I don't believe that he can culp a wafer as bosky as he was that night." He signalled to the porter to bring another bottle of claret.

With mischief alight in his eyes, Cory tweaked the knave of hearts from the hand of the dandy who had been attempting to place it atop the tower he was building.

"This should suffice. Come, Vidal, let's see you shoot me this fine knave." A faint scream at his words arrested all the company, as the landlady, skirts kilted and arms akimbo, came flying out from the bar to protest.

"You will not, sir. Not in my house. 'Tis a respectable inn, and I won't have it disturbed with nasty pistols. Take your guns outside, sir, if you please." Cory laughed, encircled her ample waist with one strong arm, and kissed her soundly on the cheek.

She blushed. "You won't get round me that way sir. There's old Mrs. Thorne upstairs, a-trying to sleep. You'll give her an apoplexy, so you will. Take your games out into the stableyard, I pray."

The men laughed. Vidal called his groom from the tap-room to fetch the duelling pistols from his chamber, and they filed out into the cool summer twilight.

Cory walked to the far end of the yard, by the arched entrance, and held the card aloft.

The sun was low, casting a warm, orange light. It made the old brick of the inn glow, and cast long, deep shadows across the cobbled yard. "This is no use, Vidal. Damnation, the sun is impossible. You'll be blinded, man. Raines will be the knave with a hole in him, not the card."

"Make it worth my while to choose the right knave, then, gentlemen. A wager would go far in keeping my hand steady. You are not worried, are you Cory?"

"Devil a bit," called back Cory, cheerfully. "A hole in me will save the surgeon the trouble of bleeding me should I become feverish. No need of a wager."

The two who had followed them laughed uproariously at the jest, and Mr. Fox held up a many branched candelabra he had brought with him, and brushed a splash of wax from his perfectly tailored superfine coat with an air of languor. "Vidal, if you mean to put an end to Raines here, by all means let's hurry. The dice grow cold, and the burgundy is quite the best I've tasted in years."

"Put an end to him? I think not. The thought of his next encounter with Merton suffices to make his survival of interest. Cory won today, as he does every time they bet against each other, and still the ninny-hammer comes back for more. I wait with interest to see him lose his very shirt."

He strolled over to Cory, adjusted the position of the card a little, and smiled into his eyes. The last rays of the sun gilded Cory's dark hair with ruddy light. Standing so that the others could not see their faces, he said quietly, "I am drunk, my dear, but I promise not to harm you. But I know you care naught for the risk anyway. Do you wish to try your skill, when I am done? Shall I hold a card for you?" He mouthed a kiss at the other, and said, mischievously, "Should I hit you, it will be because I am dazzled by that damn ring on your hand. Let that be my prize."

He turned to the others and asked, "What say the rest of you? Cory's ring as the prize? And he to have a chance to win it back immediately, in the same fashion."

Cory's smile died. "I value the ring, Dominic. 'Tis a memory of long ago that I cherish. I pray that you might choose another stake and let this one be." His eyes glittered, oddly bright, and the plea was there, naked before the company. He waited, body tense, card still held aloft as Dominic walked back to the line that the others had agreed would mark the distance for the shot.

"Then I shall value it too for the brief time it is mine." Vidal laughed. Though he seemed capable, the wine had made him impatient, and he did not see his friend's distress. "It will spur you to make your aim true, in a few minutes. And if, by chance, you should put a ball through my brains, let these gentlemen witness that my last wish was that the ring should be returned to you forthwith." With a single, almost careless motion, he turned, and fired.

The card fluttered from Cory's hand to lie on the ground at his feet. Where there had been a solemn face, was now a charred, neat hole.

"That's the dandy! Pay up!" James Fox had set down the candlestick and was already at Cory's side, waiting to receive the great emerald that adorned Cory's middle finger. "I'll hold the stake until you've had your turn." With a sigh, Cory fumbled the ring from his hand and dropped it into Fox's outstretched palm.

Vidal had taken a card, the king this time, and gone to stand in Cory's place, and as the immortal looked at him, he smiled a little cynically. Cory swallowed, and took the silver embossed pistol that Fox was holding out to him, then looked back at where his lover stood, straight and clean limbed, beautiful in the dying light.

"Pistols are not my forte, Vidal. I'd as lief not blast a hole in you." The mocking sound of their audience's laughter stung, and he raised the pistol, took aim, and fired wide. He snatched the ring, Justin's ring, from Fox's hand and thrust it roughly into Vidal's pocket. "There, keep the ring and be done with it." He threw the gun to the ground, pushed past them all, and strode jerkily back into the inn.

Dominic took the ring from his pocket and stared thoughtfully at it as his friends returned to the abandoned meal. The groom gathered up the pistols and hurried inside. A thundercloud seemed to be gathering above his master, and it was time to be invisible.

The nobleman didn't know whether to be angry with his lover, or contrite. Resentment at Cory gnawed at him; the more so as he heard his father's voice mocking him, telling him his behaviour had been boorish, and inconsiderate. He slipped the ring on his finger. It would compound his fault to try to return it now, but he wished with all his heart he hadn't acted so precipitously. With dragging feet, he went in to face the others.

Cory sat alone, his coat and boots had been removed, and his nightshirt lay on his bed, ready. He appeared abstracted, deep in a brown study as the candles burnt down and the sounds of the household gradually ceased. He was sick at heart. Dominic's light-hearted appropriation of his ring had affected him deeply, stabbing hard at a place within him that bled, even though he tried to deny its existence.

"Fool!" he apostrophised himself. "Damned fool!" He was a fool to care. He had long since realised that there was no sense in expending emotion on mortals, so why did the loss of Justin's ring affect him so deeply?

The decanter of brandy sat half-empty on the table by Vidal's bed. He tossed down another glass defiantly. He had noticed Cory's ring. His lover habitually wore it, but never had his friend told him that it was important, of any significance whatsoever. He turned the jewel round in his fingers, watching the light striking green sparks in its depths. There was no inscription on the worn gold band; no maker's mark. The emerald was smooth, rounded, not faceted in the modern fashion. Half-drunk, he mused lazily on the ring's origin - a family jewel, or maybe it had been a gift from one of Cory's lovers? Whatever its history, it must mean much to Cory, and again he regretted his arrogance.

He tossed the ring into the air, fumbled a catch, and thrust it onto his finger. He had to see Cory, had to make amends. How he could wasn't clear to him, but brooding and drinking wouldn't achieve a reconciliation.

Moments later a dishevelled, and far from sober Marquis was leaning against Cory's door, knocking in what he believed was a discreet fashion.

For a few seconds there was silence, and then the low door to Cory's bedchamber opened to reveal Cory himself, still clad in breeches and shirt sleeves, a frown crossing the top of his nose as he admitted his visitor.

"You should not be here." The husky voice was firm, and Dominic's eyes widened. He'd come with the expectation of finding his lover saddened, hoping to stroke and cozen him until he was happy once more. Cory's forbidding aspect was unforeseen, disquieting; Dominic, despite his good intentions, became defensive.

"I came to return your ring to you, my love." As Dominic watched, Cory's complicated eyes softened in relief. Dominic felt a sudden pang of jealousy. The ring was a lover's token - it had to be - and Dominic suddenly wanted to grind his teeth - to strike out at whomever it was that had possessed Cory before him, a mystery figure that Dominic wanted to erase from Cory's memory. As Cory held out his hand for the ring, Dominic took his fingers and turned over his hand to lay a kiss on the palm.

"The ring is yours if you will only share with me its origin. Whence had you it, my Cory, and why does it mean so much to you?"

Cory's lips twisted into a grimace, and he snatched his hand back from his lover.

"You expect too much, my lord." He span round and marched across the room to lean on his arm against the high mantle and look into the embers of the fire. "You won the ring, not my confidences. Those, you will have to earn."

He thought back to the long, enchanted nights with Justin; the scent of roses in the summer dusk, rain clearing the heavy air, his lover's pale skin washed with silver moon-light. He thought of evenings filled with music, with dance and frivolity, with passion. Even if he had not been enraged by Dominic's cavalier attitude, he would not have betrayed Justin's love, whether or no this was his son.

"Come," mocked Vidal. "What is it? Your first schoolboy romance? A married woman? You are touchy, Cory. It promises to be a good tale, and I would hear it."

He sprawled on the bed, crossed his stockinged feet and stared up at the canopy thoughtfully. "Let me see - the ring is of an old style. Some matron, maybe, who fell for your pretty eyes, and showered you with gifts to reflect their glory?"

Cory's fist thumped down on the mantle-shelf, and he glared at Vidal.

"The ring means much to me; leave it be, Dominic. The tale is not for you and jesting about it does not amuse me. Keep the ring - but guard it well. I have had it for many years. One day, some day, I may tell you how I came to possess it, but you will have to have patience."

He sat on the bed beside Dominic and looked down into his face. So like Justin - perhaps how Justin would have been in his youth. He smiled at Dominic's drunken pout, and placed a finger on his arrogant lips. "I will keep my secret, and you my ring, for now. Do not lose it, I beg you."

There was a pause. Dominic sprawled at ease across Cory's counterpane and Cory gazed at him, thoughts chasing each other across his face like shadows in the firelight. As the moments passed, Dominic found it harder and harder to bear Cory's scrutiny, until at last he struggled up to his elbow and reached for the immortal, pulling at the fine cambric of his shirt until the lace at his wrist covered his hand, and a single white shoulder, dusted with golden freckles, showed at the open neck.

"Have a care for my shirt, child," murmured Cory, disinclined to release his arrogance and grant Cory his favour quite so readily.

"Child?" Dominic shot from his position at ease on the bed and stood nose to nose with Cory, indignation painting the lines of his body. Cory's eyes glittered speculatively.

"Aye, child. Wilful, spoilt and not completely beyond the... " His sentence was not completed. Dominic had listened to Cory's mocking utterance with increasing irritation and finally he seized Cory, and pressed his mouth against the mocking lips, forcing them to part and admit his tongue as Dominic attempted to re-assert his mastery over him. Cory gave a smothered chuckle as he melted into Dominic's embrace, and then slipped willing arms around him, one to slide down into the small of his back, pressing his body in tight, and the other to toy with the nape of his neck, loosing the riband that confined Vidal's dark hair and allowing it to fall free about his shoulders.

He drew back to study Dominic's face once more, thumbing his brows, then carding fingers through his hair to draw it tightly back from his face. Though he'd discovered the Marquis was Justin's son soon after their liaison had begun, it was that night that the memories crowded him, rippling forth like a golden stream from the ring on Dominic's slender white hand.

Dominic smiled quizzically. His lover looked into his eyes, yet somehow he was looking through and beyond. The brandy muzzed his head now and he leaned heavily against Cory, neck arched, taut, stretched by Cory's grip in his hair.

Lips brushed his throat, and then Cory's teeth nipped at his ear. Dominic groaned, smoothed his hands over Dominic's tight arse and squeezed the firm flesh through his breeches.

"Forgive me, Cory?" he breathed, pressing into his lover's cruel embrace. "It was an impulse - a game."

"Forgive you, boy?" Cory's hand twisted in his hair and Dominic hissed with pain as the other's mouth drifted slowly up and down his throat. "No, I'll not forgive you 'til you've been punished. You are a brat."

"So I am told." His heartbeat was jagged against Cory's chest. "You would whip me for my sins, love?"

Cory toppled Vidal onto the bed. His body lay heavily on the Marquis, potent, real, a force to confront, to dominate or to yield to. Every encounter set Vidal's nerves on edge, made love a battleground, the outcome uncertain but always exquisitely pleasurable.

"Your punishment is to wear my ring, Dominic." The husky voice brooked no argument. "The matter is closed." Sitting back, he hooked strong fingers in Dominic's shirt, and ripped it through to the hem. The white skin was soon covered with kisses and bites, and Dominic was squirming helplessly on the wide mattress, begging Cory to take him.

Cory was rough, his hands marking as he gripped, his white teeth sharp and demanding as he devoured Dominic, pulling him this way and that as he stripped the white body, exposing whipcord muscle, fine-boned and lightly furred. His hands and mouth left a tracery of blue as the delicate, pale flesh bruised beneath Cory's assault.

Words of love, of desperate need filled the air as Cory set himself to reducing Dominic to mindlessness. His voice, ordinarily lazily articulate, became hoarse as he responded to the attentions Cory was lavishing on him, as Cory brought him again and again to the brink of orgasm without ever once permitting the tumble over into bliss.

Cory's eyes glowed wildly, his face saturnine as he concentrated on the body that writhed beneath him. He had buried the fingers of one hand back into the dark locks once more, and now he glued their mouths together as he sought oblivion in the feel and taste of his lover, every part of him longing to forget how soon Dominic would grow old and be left behind.

At length, maddened with need, Dominic wrestled Cory to his back and straddled his thighs. Cory smiled up at Vidal's flushed face, the haughty expression replaced by dark, hooded eyes and lips kiss-bruised and soft with desire. His sweat-sheened chest spasmed with half-formed breaths.

"Damn you Raines, enough!"

Cory reached to take Dominic's prick in a firm grasp, chuckling as the young man strained into his grasp.

"I say when it is 'enough' tonight, my lord."

"Then say it and be done, curse you."

Cory squeezed his handful gently. Dominic dug his teeth into his lower lip as his hips bucked against the blissful grip.

"Say it, Cory, I beg you." There was desperation there, and a little compromise. Cory swung over to take a small vial from a bag by the bed, and passed it to Vidal.

"You lack patience, child. Prepare yourself for me, and quietly. Anticipation is part of the joy."

"Philosophy sits ill with me at this pass," gritted Dominic, raising his haunches to slick himself with the scented oil. "And I say again, I am no child."

"You have the impatience of a child." Cory grinned to feel the tremor in Vidal's hands as the Marquis burnished the hot, sleek flesh of his lover's shaft.

"You, Cory, I want you." Dominic tugged at Cory, stroking his cock with long, squeezing pulls as he attempted to hurry him. A moment more and Cory, grin still firmly in place, removed the urgent, grasping hand, and reached to pull up Dominic's knees, pressing them against his chest until his cheeks were spread and his anus was plainly visible.

Cory drizzled a little more oil down between the Marquis's buttocks, and then drove a finger inside him, stooping as he did so to lick and suck at the furred testicles, feeling them draw up, ridging and tightening under his tongue.

As Dominic groaned, Cory sucked once at the head of Dominic's cock, and then knelt between his parted thighs.

"Put me inside you, my lord. 'Tis time to feel the pain of my displeasure." As Dominic centred Cory's hard, oily cock against his slick anus, Cory drove forward, gripped Dominic's thighs and plunged deep inside him until Dominic believed that he might be torn in two.

Cory's hand was over Dominic's mouth, muffling the cries as Cory drove into him, but still the air was filled with muted gasps and moans as Cory began to fuck him slowly, pulling out almost to the limit and then driving slowly home until his thighs slapped Dominic's arse.

The muffled cries became hopeless whimpers and Dominic reached to touch Cory's lips with his fingers. His lover's tongue curled round them, his eyes stabbing the Marquis with cruel awareness.

Vanquished, Dominic reached for his own member. He needed to end it, end the agonising rapture, complete the circle of bliss that Cory had woven so skilfully around him.

Cory did not spare him. Mercilessly, he slapped Dominic's hand away, giving his oozing prick a sharp tap to fix the lesson in the young man's mind. Dominic heaved against him, his mouth opening in a silenced scream under Cory's palm.

Leaning forward, the thief grabbed his lover's wrists, pinning him to the bed and thrusting, lifting, twisting into him, he fucked harder and still harder until he surprised a squeal from his lover.

"Silence," he growled, "Or I stop."

Vidal's eyes widened in surprise. Holding his breath, he concentrated on the shocking pleasure his lover was building in his body, on Cory's face, bright with wicked lust, and abandoned himself to the other's whim. Hot claws of bliss crawled from his groin, tore at his gut, and inched up his spine to stab into his skull. All he was, all he could be, at that moment, was what Cory demanded, what Cory had created. With a sob, at last the end came, roaring, rushing past him like a cataract of molten, sparkling wonder. He wrapped his legs tightly round his lover's body, and let tears of joy trickle slowly, unheeded, from his eyes.

As Dominic clung to him, Cory drove still more forcefully into his lover, until at last the hot fluid jetted from him, and the slight sounds of his orgasm caused Dominic to tighten his hold on Cory, to savour the hard body that lay against him, temporarily helpless and complete.

For a few moments they lay together, a tangle of tumbled limbs, and then slowly Cory began to withdraw, separating himself from Dominic's arms, even though Dominic tried to hold him.

"Your eyes, my Cory, are brighter by far than any emerald." Vidal's voice was wondering, and for an instant there was tenderness in the smile that Cory directed at him. Then a veil passed over the handsome face, and Dominic felt as though the sun had retreated as Cory frowned.

"You should not be here, my lord. Get you to your own chamber."

Vidal started, and would have spoken, but Cory turned his face away. Pride dashed, Vidal's chest clenched with hot shame. He scrambled into his breeches and, catching up his other clothing, made for the door, not realising he had wound his shirt tightly round his hand to cover the ring.

"Goodnight, Cory." He stood at the door a moment, but there was no reply.

The return to London was a little subdued. Dominic, always inclined to spring his horses, set a breakneck pace on the road, and few words were spoken until they arrived at Cory's lodging, there to set him down at his door.

"Cory... " There was a wealth of longing in Dominic's voice as the immortal sprang down from the carriage and stood, a hand raised in farewell. Cory vouchsafed no response, save a slight gesture from his ringless hand.

Driving on, Vidal's mood soured as he approached his home. The reins were thrust into his groom's hand at the steps, and he stalked into Avon House, brows drawn together. A footman approached, and coughed nervously to attract his master's attention. He offered the Marquis a salver, upon which lay a sealed wafer. Sighing, Dominic recognised his father's seal on the message, and prepared himself for another unpleasant meeting.

~~~~~~~~

My Son,

I find myself in town upon the 15th. No doubt you will have returned from your sporting engagement by then. Kindly await me.

Avon.

~~~~~~~~~

Dominic's love and respect for his father was boundless, yet, disturbingly, his elder could reduce him in a few words to a defiant, stuttering boy. Uncanny, too, how he was constantly aware of Dominic's companions and activities.

Cory and he had been discreet, to all appearances no closer than fast friends, yet Vidal had a premonition that his father knew of their intimacy, that this note concerned his unnatural desires. He picked over a solitary nuncheon in the echoing dining room, aware of the weight of silent disapproval from the painted visages of his ancestors looking down at him. It was foolish - foolish to worry and speculate; yet he was conscious that since Cory, he had neglected his new duties, and, he supposed guiltily, his wife.

Yet Cory was wild, unfettered excitement. Being with him set his whole body, his being, aflame. Still, young as he was, he suspected his infatuation with Cory would wane; the lust would abate. It had none of the feeling of deep contentment he felt with Mary. Sometimes he wondered whether Cory held himself back, too; that if his lover had given more, allowed more emotional closeness, his own loyalty would be troubled, torn, and his marriage threatened.

Before the baby, Mary had been everything to him. However, with motherhood, she had changed. She had involved herself so thoroughly with the child that Dominic thought himself ousted. Unconsciously, he now believed that he was second in her affections, and he was too selfish, too inexperienced to wait, and understand. He needed Cory, wanted him for the attention that Mary had diverted.

He spent that evening at a musical soire held by a lively widow. The company was bright and interesting, but Vidal's heart was elsewhere. He was desolate without Cory, and aware now, without the distraction of his lover, of a deep ache where once had burned the warmth of Mary's love and concern. The ring clutched his finger heavily; he could not bring himself to remove it. There it would remain at Cory's bidding.

The fifteenth found him, attired correctly in morning dress, waiting upon his father.

My Lord Justin Alastair, Duke of Avon, was still, at the age of five and sixty, as straight and perfectly turned out as he had ever been. Dominic found him discussing breakfast and smiled fondly at the patched and painted face from which the shrewd and brilliant eyes glowed.

At Justin's languid gesture, Vidal helped himself to coffee, and refilled his father's cup, but did not immediately seat himself, choosing instead to wander to the window and stand gazing at the activity on the street below. It was some time before Justin spoke.

"I trust that I find you in good health, my son? It would seem that you are rarely to be seen in our company these days."

Bowing slightly, Dominic frowned. "I am, of course flattered, sir, that you should desire my poor company."

"For myself, it is of no moment, Vidal. However, your mother is disturbed, and that I will not permit."

"Sir?" Dominic was surprised; his mother, though fond, rarely fretted over her wayward son's activities.

"She visited your wife last week." The two locked eyes for an instant, then Dominic lowered his lashes, and looked away.

"You comprehend, I see."

"Perfectly sir." Vidal's handsome face twisted into a grimace.

His heart was in his mouth. Somehow, his father must have discovered he had a male lover. He knew that, in itself, it would be of little moment to his Grace. His father's reputation as a young man was of the blackest - though Dominic himself had heard only the merest rumours of his exploits. However anything that smelt of bad Ton, of sordid scandal, was anathema to his father. He despised gossip, and would not permit any stir which would upset Lonie, his mother.

"You surely understand, Dominic, that a mistress, discreetly kept, is socially acceptable, but to neglect one's wife cannot be but vulgar. It is not open knowledge yet, which is why I have allowed you this warning. Rectify your behaviour, and I shall not be forced to act."

The menace in his voice froze Vidal's blood. Justin mopped his lips delicately with his napkin. "Children are so fatiguing," he remarked. He glanced at his son, and smiled gently. "But you do not eat, Vidal. Please, join me."

Near swooning with relief, Dominic fell into a seat, and drew a dish of cold meats towards him. He had no appetite, but knew he should tarry, to speak with his father about his marriage.

"Mary has no time for me, Sir. I admit my fault, but neglect is on her side, as well. My... mistress... gives me attention, that Mary is now bestowing on our baby."

"Surely, Vidal, you do not expect a homily?" His Grace's voice dripped with honeyed scorn.

Dominic glowered at him, and declared, "I shall not give... her... up, Sir."

"I cannot recollect asking you to, my son. Merely make her invisible." He took a sip of his coffee, and leant back. "This subject bores me. Tell me, boy, what's this I hear of my brother, and some portrait painter?"

"Rupert?" Dominic laughed as he reached for the sirloin. "The man was dunning him for a portrait that my esteemed uncle said made him resemble a fresh baked ham. He came to Rupert's chambers, and my uncle was so enraged he threw his wig at the interloper." His long fingers broke off a piece of bread and raised it to his lips. "When I arrived, he was standing at the head of the stairs hurling imprecations down on the unfortunate artist's head."

My Lord Duke's eyes, fixed on his son during the recounting of the story suddenly widened. There was an emerald on Dominic's finger, and he knew that stone well. He said nothing then, as Dominic continued to speak.

"In my opinion, my uncle Rupert does in fact closely resemble the ham he so despises. The artist caught him to a nicety. What think you, sir?"

"He has the look of my maternal grandfather, now he is older." Justin's lips twitched. "I am eternally thankful that I did not suffer the same fate. But, tell me, Vidal, whence had you that ring? A little... flamboyant, for the modern style. Your attire is lamentably casual, as a rule."

Dominic flushed, and coughed, choking a little.

"I won it, it was the prize in a wager, Sir."

His Grace was silent a moment. Vidal's neckcloth felt tight, and he wanted to squirm under his father's gaze. He held himself rigid, wishing the desire to babble unasked for explanations would go away.

"Really?" Avon's tone was uninterested.

Relieved and thankful, Dominic turned the conversation to another topic.

Leaning back into the opulent upholstery of the carriage, his grace the Duke of Avon curled his lip at his companion, and steepled his fingers thoughtfully beneath his chin.

"My dear Hugh, Vidal may have made this hell a fashionable spot, but the modern taste for faro has me baffled. I had rather play piquet than stand mumchance, watching for the fates to deposit a small ball into a random compartment. Why do you even wish to go?"

He didn't listen to Davenant's murmured response, his thoughts slipped inexorably to the ring that his son had been wearing when he'd seen him last.

Cory - where are you? Whatever became of you? The laughing eyes of the man, his suddenly tender smile had sprung to life in Justin's memory, and he felt an unaccustomed lump in his throat at the thought that Cory might be dead and buried somewhere. His marriage to Lonie had been full and rich, but he had loved Cory.

They drew up outside a smart but unassuming building. The porter was soberly dressed, and took their cloaks impassively, indicating that they should ascend to the rooms on the first floor, from where a murmur of voices, and occasional burst of laughter, drifted to their ears.

"Such lack of style. Such narrow concentration on gaming. Think of those days in Paris, Justin. The brilliance, the company." Davenant sighed.

"Nostalgia, my dear?" His Grace raised his quizzing glass, and regarded his friend. "It will be gout, next, and I will be forced to eschew your company."

Davenant laughed, and walked ahead of his friend into the crowded room. Vidal's dark head was easily visible, as he stood, inches taller than the men around him, and next to him another man equally as tall, as dark-haired, was speaking intimately into his ear.

"I could swear I recognise that fellow, with your son," remarked Hugh. "Do you know him, Justin?"

Justin almost staggered. His tall frame shuddered for an instant, and it was a few seconds before he responded to Hugh's innocently asked question.

"Know him? How could I know him, my dear? He cannot be older than Dominic there. He bears a remarkable resemblance to someone I once knew, however. I am trying to recall the name..." My lord frowned in an apparent effort, and Hugh glanced at him with interest. Avon was not noted for forgetting things.

Striding forward to the table where Dominic was watching the fall of the cards, the Duke accepted a glass of Madeira from the silver salver that was borne by one of the footmen, nodding his thanks and raising it to his lips as he took in the play.

"Well, my son? I thought that I should spare an hour to visit your new hell and see just what the attraction might be. I don't believe that I have had the pleasure of meeting your companion." His voice was light and disinterested, and Dominic had not caught any of the overtones in the words that his father had uttered.

"Pray pardon sir. Permit me to introduce my friend Cory Raines. He's recently sworn off gambling, and we are attempting to pique his interest in the game once again." Cory bowed with great elegance, and flashed a strained smile in Justin's direction.

"How do you do, sir? I'm honoured to make your acquaintance." The words were polite, but perfunctory, and Cory turned to return to the play taking place at his back. Avon's silky voice arrested him as he was making good his escape.

"Mr. Raines? Ah, yes, I knew that I had the name in my memory. I believe that I knew your father, Mr. Raines. He and I were friends in Paris, some years ago." The skin around Cory's eyes tightened as he listened to the words that the Duke was saying. He thought furiously about how he should respond, and then, as ever, decided that boldness was what he needed.

"My father spoke of you often, sir. He was happy to know you. He died treasuring your memory."

"Damnation, of course!" exclaimed Davenant, seizing Cory's hand, and shaking it vigorously. "You are the image of your father, my boy. I am so sorry to hear that he is dead. Such a fine fellow." Davenant's bluff words died as he caught the tension in his friend, the Duke. He looked over at Dominic, who seemed astonished to hear that his father knew of his friend.

"Died? I am desolate," murmured Justin, his eyes on the ring on his son's hand. "We were... close, but I have not heard from him for many years." The resemblance was uncanny, too uncanny. Justin's habitual calm was disturbed; he was agitated, but was determined not to reveal to the company that the man had affected him so. What humiliation, to show his feelings this way, or, still worse, to become infatuated with this young man simply because he was the picture of his sire.

"You bear your father's name, as well as his face." Avon took a deep breath, and turned to Hugh. "My dear, show me what it is you find so entertaining about this particular establishment. I confess. I am baffled." He could stand no longer to look at Raines, to feel the sweet memories choke him. A little time for reflection, and he would be able to face his son's friend with dignity. "Your pardon, Sir. I disturb your game." He sketched a bow, and looked at Dominic. "Bring your friend to visit me, Vidal. I would like to hear more of his father, if it is possible, and you," he turned again to Cory, reluctantly, "have the time, Mr. Raines."

Cory bowed once more, unsmiling, and murmured what was proper, before turning again to watch the play. As Justin sauntered away on Hugh's arm, he let out a heavy breath that he had not been aware he was holding. Turning once again to Dominic, he summoned a smile from somewhere.

"My heart's not in the game this evening, my lord. Pray hold me excused." With that, he had gone from the room, leaving Vidal speechless.

The Marquis would have plunged through the throng after Cory, to demand an explanation, but he saw Cory's face turn to his father's form, to the regal figure clad in rich burgundy, standing deep in apparent concentration at a faro table with Hugh at his side. His lover's glance was melancholy, and Dominic wondered if he was thinking on his dead parent. Better to let him be and join him later, rather than embarrass him with questions, and trivialities.

For an hour he played at dice, chattered with his friends and with the pretty lightskirts that frittered away their patrons' generosity at the tables. His father seemed to have put him from his mind, and had gathered with some cronies, to form a table to play whist. He felt restless; the voices were shrill, the company tedious, and he thought of a quiet bedchamber, cool sheets, and Cory's powerful arms wrapped around him. He needed Cory's love, needed to make amends, to coax his affection and his carefree nature back from the dark place he had driven it into with his insensitive prank.

Suddenly decisive, he bade his father a curt farewell and almost ran from the building, to call for his carriage and head, pell-mell for Cory's lodging.

When he arrived, he found Cory seated in an armchair, no lamp alight to shine on his sombre thoughts. He lounged as though relaxed, and one hand held a goblet from which the wine was almost gone. He had been sitting like that for hours, and when the servant admitted Dominic, he merely glanced upwards and groaned.

"Cory, what is it?" Dominic strode to him to fall to his knees beside him. "I missed you. Let me help you."

Sitting in the chair, dressed in a fine cambric shirt and satin breeches, his shoes kicked to one side to expose his stockinged feet, Cory seemed absurdly young and utterly desolate. When finally he turned his head to look at Dominic, the bleakness in his eyes made the Marquis shiver.

Dominic reached a shaking hand to touch the gossamer fabric, and pressed gently against the warm muscle beneath.

"Will you tell me, or can I help in some way?" Cory took a deep breath, but was silent.

The candlelight sent a shaft of green light from the emerald ring on his hand, and Dominic had a disquieting thought. He tugged the ring from his finger, and held it out to his lover. "Was this your father's, sweetheart? Tell me I may return it to you, my love. I am an insensitive wretch - I didn't listen to my heart, or notice your feelings. Please say my punishment is over, and let me make amends. Or, if the sight of me brings back the sadness of your loss, tell me to go, but promise I may return on the morrow."

He lifted Cory's hand, and slipped the ring onto one strong finger, kissing it tenderly. "I would pledge myself to you, my love, were I not already promised. Say you forgive me, I beg."

Cory shivered, and his hand clutched convulsively around Dominic's fingers. There was a pause, and then he raised his eyes once more.

"There are things that I may never tell you. There's nothing to forgive, believe me." He smiled suddenly, and Dominic leaned forward as Cory's face lit up inviting a kiss. "Hold off, my lord." He kicked the coals in the grate until they blazed, and then reached to lay his palm against Dominic's face, holding it back so that he could study it in the light from the fire. "You are like your father, but he has the haughtier bearing, methinks."

For a moment, he held Dominic so, and then at last, he gathered the young man into his embrace, and took his mouth in a long, slow kiss that made both of them gasp.

"Cory, thank God... " murmured Dominic, his breath gentle on Cory's pale cheek, "I feared I had angered you beyond any reconciliation." He looked mischievously at his friend. "Maybe I shall be haughty, too, when I am older and wiser, like you, my dear? You called me child... "

"Yes," Cory said, reflectively. "A child, in many ways, and in some ways, wholly a man. And if I am haughty, why then, you are blind, My Lord."

"You are never haughty, Cory. You pretend not to be wise, but I know you are. Wise, mysterious, and enchanting. I never tire of your company, your tales, and your... skill." His fingers traced the shape of Cory's chest, and smoothed over his powerful shoulders, looking lovingly at his face in the flickering light.

Cory laughed indulgently, his abstracted mood apparently forgotten, and slowly began to undress Dominic, pressing open-mouthed kisses onto firm muscle as his hands ranged over the solid body of his young lover. He hadn't been able to shake the vision of Justin from his mind since his encounter with the Duke earlier that evening, and his heart was uncharacteristically heavy as he recalled the things that he had lost. Time had stolen them from him, and the weight of his immortality lay heavy on him tonight.

"I fear you flatter me, my love," he whispered, his smoky voice seductive as he buried his face in Dominic's neck. "You and I should meet on level ground, as mere men. I won't be more - or less - than you."

Dominic shivered, letting his lover take his time, allowing him to turn him and undress him, until he stood naked before Cory. The flames were warm against his back, and his cock stood proud, evidence of Cory's seductive beauty, and Dominic's longing for his lover's touch. His breath came in shallow gasps as he reached down, and ran a finger over his own burning flesh, drawing a diamond bead from the tip. He slowly sucked the finger into his mouth, his eyes fixed on Cory's.

"I am mistaken." Cory's smile quirked. "You are no man, you are a faun, sent by Dionysus to drag me to my downfall. Unclothe me, Dominic, and show me what your god has taught you."

Tender for a change, Dominic worshipped Cory's strength, lapping and nibbling, kissing and teasing until the immortal had no words left. Gently, he took him in his arms, pressing his hard body to the one that lay beneath him, his open mouth to the one that gasped out his name. Cory filled his senses. Breathy little sounds, the scent of his sweat, and the sight of him pale in the firelight made Dominic shiver.

The embers crackled and flared, and the new flames warmed his haunches as he roved over Cory's body once more, turning his lover over to stroke the long curve of his spine, to palm his firm buttocks and bury his nose in the luscious fragrance of the soft skin between. As Dominic's hand brushed over his thighs, reaching to stroke between them, Cory found his legs parting, opening to the young marquis as a flower in the sunlight.

Dominic's long hair brushed his leg, and then a soft breath whispered against his arse. "Beautiful, Cory. So strong, so perfect. I would worship you," and Dominic eased him open, and licked first softly, and then with eager strokes between his cheeks, sweeping round his anus, and teasing with little thrusts and pokes as the tiny hole quivered under his tongue.

It was heat, and a warm, syrupy flow of sensation from the point of Dominic's tongue to his puckered anus, and around, igniting sparkles along his cock and drawing up his balls in an impossibly sweet overload. Cory struggled to his knees in an attempt to hold back his arousal. Dominic just carried on lapping at him until he couldn't recall his own name, and could only whimper incoherently that he wanted to be fucked, here, now, by this man.

If a vision of Dominic's father floated before his eyes, he didn't say so, merely spreading himself wide so that the Marquis could enter him, split him.

Dominic looked down at the man beneath him, and grinned ferociously. Something about such a fine, powerful man, so wanting, so abandoned to his lust, sent a surge to his groin that was frightening in its demands.

Never was it like this with a woman. They brought out tenderness and flirtatious play in Dominic. This was a meeting of equals. To take or be taken, to give himself, abase himself, or, as tonight, triumph over the other's senses, his pride, and feel like a conqueror, loving in his victory. Somehow, he couldn't connect the two. Two different loves, exclusive, each in their own way as sweet.

He couldn't bear to leave Cory, even to cross the room to search out the oil. Gathering the viscous juice seeping from his cock-head, and slicking himself with spit, he brushed his member against the well-licked arse-hole, and with a long sigh carefully eased himself within.

Cory let out a deep sigh, and pushed back against Dominic's invading presence until he felt the stretching, burning that meant his lover was buried deep inside him. He could feel hot pleasure licking at his groin as the Marquis pressed home against him, and he pushed himself up until he was pressed hard against Dominic, flesh on flesh as they began their dance of arousal.

"Hard, My Lord. I want you to do it hard. I need you to make me totally your creature tonight." Cory's voice was a bare whisper, gasps threaded together to make words. "Stop me from thinking, just for tonight."

Dominic gave a chuckle, and wrapped one arm around the older man's hips, tugging him closer. He brushed his other hand down Cory's spine, over his flank, feeling him shudder beneath him like a spirited horse. He rocked slowly against the firm, muscular behind, enjoying the slide and clasp of Cory's hot, tight body around his throbbing member, then, able to hold back no longer, brought his hands to clasp Cory's hips in a bruising grip and drove into him fiercely.

"Is this how you want it, Cory Raines? Cory... my secret, secretive passion, my nameless vice." Vidal's voice was cruel, harsh, but beneath there was a passion so deep that Cory's cock leapt up, painful almost in its arousal as it swayed with Dominic's onslaught.

"Cory, lover, beloved, dark and dangerous, my tease, my darling." The words, pointless, meaningless, yet a poem of devotion, tumbled from Vidal's lips as he thrust over and over into Cory's willing body.

"Harder, harder, harder..." Cory's voice was hoarse with the demands as Dominic thrust into him. He'd passed the ability to speak, and was now incoherent in his cries as he felt himself invaded and brutally possessed. He had seized his own organ to stroke himself to completion, and as Vidal thrust home inside him each time, he pulled on himself, head thrown back and neck arched as though offering his head, in a gesture that only another immortal would know.

When the climax began to bubble through his veins, sparking down his limbs and causing them to blush rosy in the firelight, he cried out again. The words he spoke were seemingly not English, and Dominic frowned to hear, before forgetting himself in the fierce joy of possession.

Reaching beneath Cory, he wrapped his hand over his lover's, demanding the end be at his pace. It was quick to come; hot seed spurted, thick, rich, anointing their joined hands as the intense spasms juddering through Cory seized Dominic in an irresistible slide, an avalanche of delirium tumbling his soul into a sparkling pool of wondrous pleasure.

He collapsed, all energy spent, against his lover's back, kissing the heated skin with languorous tenderness as Cory slowly slumped to lie, blissful, on the thick, deep-piled hearthrug.

"Let me take you to bed, Cory? Let me wrap myself around you; let me dream in your strong arms? I sleep ill, these days, without you, and worse still these last nights, when we have been estranged." Vidal's soft voice was tentative; all confidence, all brashness gone.

Cory laughed deep in his chest. "You'll be with me this night, boy. You'll keep me warm, my little lord, and in the morning I'll take your sweet body, as you have taken mine but lately."

Arms entwined round each other, they stumbled to the bed, and soon were fast asleep.

The hands of the clock seemed leaden as the minutes passed by. The darkness hid the face, but each tick seemed a spike to skewer Cory's soul as he lay, wide-awake and dry-eyed staring into the night. Beside him in the bed, Dominic lay, sated, and impossibly young. He seemed to have laid aside all the frustrations of the previous days, and Cory's heart went out to him briefly. He was so very young, after all. What could he know of heartbreak?

His mind buzzed, the cloud of half formed, barely acceptable thoughts pulling him this way and that, but at the centre of them all, Justin -- Justin, as he had been on that first evening they had met, a tall, slender flame that burned his eyes, stole the breath from him, and made him rash -- Justin radiating the arrogance that came with the droit du seigneur.

And he had seen his love again, seen what time had done to him. Justin was old now, and shame on Cory that the desire for him should remain. He knew he would not rest until he had seen Justin once more; there was no need to speak, to raise questions in Justin's mind that he could not answer, or excuse. He had to go to him, be in his presence, gaze on him as he slept. It would suffice.

He was shocked that, after these long years, the passion should flare so quickly and so strongly. He slipped from Dominic's side, and rose from the bed. Within minutes, he had clothed himself and, taking up his coat and shoes, tiptoed from his bed-chamber. Avon House was a mere mile from his lodging; within an hour he could be back in bed, his heart soothed, and no-one the wiser.

He did not notice Vidal's dark eyes open, and watch narrowly the surreptitious departure. Dominic suspected Cory was on some adventure - his friend could be mysterious, and evasive. With a mischievous smile, he waited until Cory had left the room, and scurried into his own clothes to run silently after his lover.

It had been Paris, not London where Cory had first breeched the defences of the Hotel d'Avon, but as he shinned up the drainpipe and pried open a window on the upper storey, he felt a sense of dj vu steal over him, and his heart leapt within his breast.

Gaining entry to the house was simplicity itself. Cory felt a surge of excitement as his body slid over the sash and into the darkened room. The chamber itself proved to be unoccupied, but Cory knew where Justin was to be found, and stealthily padded away in search of the Duke.

The Marquis could not believe his eyes when Cory's path led him to his own family's London home. He was about to accost him, before Cory had had a chance to ring the bell, and demand to know what was important enough that his lover should require to visit his father in the depths of the night, when Cory looked up at the windows, took a firm hold on a pipe, and climbed dextrously to an upstairs window.

Dominic was shocked, and appalled. His father had recognised Cory, through his resemblance to his sire. What could have passed between the Duke and Cory's father to induce this strange behaviour? Was there some old feud to be avenged, some slight or insult, that Cory needed to have out with his father? Indeed, was the Duke in danger?

He kept a key to the kitchen door in his pocket. It was often that he came home in the small hours, and when he was younger, had to endure the disapproving frowns of the matronly housekeeper, whose husband, the Duke's night-porter, would relay the young Marquis's hours, and state of inebriation, and, indeed, description of the lightskirt on his arm, to the formidable dame. She kept her silence, but her look would make the devil quake. The obliging cook had provided the tearaway youth with a means of avoiding this censure.

He slipped quickly to the side of the house, and within the next minute was inside, and rushing to his father's chambers.

Meanwhile, Cory had found his Duke.

He stood in the shadows at the side of Justin's bed, gazing down at the thin face of the man he had loved so long ago. Justin still wore a wig in defiance of the newer styles, and his once dark hair was cut short, revealing the fine, patrician features that had barely changed in twenty-five years. Cory felt a lump come into his throat at the sight of him. He was about to turn and leave the room, all thoughts of solace gone from him in an unpremeditated upsurge of grief, when the well remembered voice arrested his retreat and sent the blood rushing to set his face aflame.

"How now, master thief? I perceive that your father has taught you well, unless the instinct to migrate to Avon House is bred in the bone." Turning slowly, he retraced his steps to the bed where Justin lay.

"'Tis a thing one inherits, My Lord."

Justin's hand shot out, seizing Cory's own. "Along with his... memento, I see."

The voice broke into his grief like smoke parting in a fresh gust of wind. Suddenly, he found himself back in Paris, as if the years had never been as he recalled the Duke's acerbic wit and observant contempt for his fellow men. His hand gripped Justin's involuntarily and he hung his head, and blushed, trying not to chuckle.

"The ring, your Grace? I swear, 'tis a family heirloom."

"That you let your friends borrow? Or... let me see... Vidal said, a wager? Not of any great value to you, Mr. Raines, I think."

Cory drew himself up proudly. "Would you rather your son were dead, Justin? It had not left my hand until he challenged me so rashly... "

In shock, he snatched his hand back, and turned to go.

"Stay, Cory. It is Cory, is it not?" Cory could get no idea from the voice as to whether Justin had divined his secret or not, but he was beginning to believe that his urge to see the Duke one last time had been a serious lapse in his judgment.

"If you wish to call me that, sir, feel free. How may I..." his voice faltered a little as his eyes met the Duke's, "How may I serve you?"

"Serve me?" Justin's brows rose. "May I remind you that 'twas you that burst unbidden into my home. I'd know why that might be before you leave."

Cory sighed. What answer could he possibly give? He frowned for a moment as he pondered, the crease between his brows a demonstration of his deep thought, and then he shrugged. "My... um... father told me of you." A swift peek from beneath lush lashes as he tried to verify how this statement had been received gave him no comfort. The Duke knew his secret, he was sure.

"And you decided to see if my son resembled his father as much as you do yours? You saw me yesterday, Cory, and I extended an invitation to you, I believe. I did not expect it to be accepted so quickly, and at dead of night. Or maybe you regarded my invitation as leave to rob me, as your father did?"

"I never robbed you, Justin," he said hotly. "I... oh... "

The rise of a brow was all the response Cory needed to know that he had indeed made a grave error. "My father would not... I needed... " He shrugged, and grinned. "Curse it, Justin. I am a damned fool."

"Like your father?" drawled the duke.

Cory took the step back to the bed, took Avon's hand and kissed it. "Like my father, my dear Justin."

A faint chuckle from the bed made him look up again, and the thin hand he was holding moved to seize Cory's wrist again, the strength in it - a band of steel - had not altered as Justin had aged.

"It is you, isn't it? I know not how or why, but I know that it is you. How can this be, Cory?" Justin had raised himself to sitting, and was now prompting Cory, through the hold on his wrist, to take a seat beside him. "Come, there are still hours to go before daybreak. Tell me how you came to be here, with my son, unchanged."

With a resigned smile, and shaking his head at his own weakness, Cory lowered himself to sit on the mattress and said, "Tell you? Tell you it is indeed the same man? And you not think us both mad? It has been more than twenty years, my friend."

He looked into the duke's eyes, and thought wistfully of how it could have been, had Justin not found Lonie. But, he chided himself, he has been happy, and Dominic, for all his faults, is a fine boy, and will be a man to rival his father one day.

"There are hours, Justin, but they mean nothing to me. Mine is a strange story, and not just my own secret, so, if I speak, you must understand that you carry it with you to the grave."

There was a pause. Justin's face was hidden in shadows but for the gleam that was evident in the keen, dark eyes. As he released Cory's arm, the immortal reached forward to find a candle and kindled it, shielding it from the breeze until it had caught fire in earnest. Turning back to the Duke, he sat, looking at the well-loved face, wondering where to begin his tale.

"I was born in the year 1461. It was 1485 when I was hanged, and discovered that I just could not die."

"An advantage, I suspect, when one chooses to embrace a less than honest calling."

Cory inclined his head in acknowledgement of the Duke's instant grasp of his situation. "Just so, your Grace, though disconcerting the first few times one... perishes. One keeps count, at the start, wondering if one's luck will suddenly cease, or the devil will appear to claim his own."

"And he did not, it seems?"

"You are cool, sir, I should have expected no less." Cory smiled warmly, and squeezed Justin's hand, which still rested lightly on his wrist. "In a way, he has. It becomes a lonely, hard life... when one ... loves, and then watches one's dearest... grow old, and die. One becomes... playful, and it is rare that an ordinary person will grip one's heart enough to give up the detachment needed to survive."

He looked at Justin, and shrugged. "I let you in, Justin. It was a mistake to come here. It is painful, for both of us."

"There is no pain to the heart from being loved, Cory. You were ever in my thoughts, although my care was given to another. Society frowns on the love of man for man, my thief, as you well know." Justin leaned back against the massed pillows, and surveyed his visitor from beneath heavy eyelids. "I never regretted our time together."

Cory leaned forward, his lips brushing Justin's in a tiny salute.

"I knew that I could not keep you. I had to let you go, but now..." He turned his face away, the glitter in the green eyes betraying emotion that he couldn't disguise. "Now, I wish that I had fought to keep you."

"What would you, my pretty scoundrel? Challenged my wife to a duel? She has some skill with the sword, the vixen!"

"It would have been an unfair match, sir. I am... unstoppable."

"I still have the sword, with which I pinked you, my dear." The Duke waved at a closet nearby. "Look, it is there."

Cory got up and walked over, shading the flame of the candle with his hand. "Your aim was true, Justin, you know. Straight through my heart. I applauded your skill, though I cursed your damage to my coat."

He peered into the shadow, and pulled out the bejewelled sword, deadly, despite its adornment. The blade swished through the air, supple and elegant in the hand of the immortal.

"It is a fine blade, Justin," he observed. Walking over to the bed, he feinted a couple of passes, bringing it to rest at Justin's throat.

"Now, if Dominic had chosen swords, rather than those damned pistols, he would not have had your ring from me... "

"You are sure of yourself, Cory, but I recall that I..." The door burst open, and both heads turned. Justin's speech was never finished as Dominic burst into the chamber, pistol clasped in his hand. Taking in the tableau beside his father's bed, the Marquis' face grew thunderous, and he raised his pistol.

"You used me, Cory. You used me to get to him, but you won't hurt him." He fired, his face twisted in anguish, and struck Cory in the chest. Cory's arms flung wide as he gasped and collapsed onto the floor. The jewel encrusted sword he had been holding arced through the air to land on the floor beside the washstand.

He turned to his father, not understanding what he had done, or even why. Emotions that had run like quicksilver through his veins, the bliss that Cory had shown him, and then, the deep, all-encompassing love and respect for his father, they had struck a flame that permitted no rational thought. Jealousy, doubt, all the feelings that love drags in its wake had clashed with the strange meeting his lover had had with the duke in the gaming room, and this subsequent visit. He saw a threat; he acted. Now he could not believe the consequence. The pistol clattered to the floor.

"My God... " Justin threw aside the bedclothes, and ran to Cory's side, pulling open his coat and shirt, and baring the wound. Blood, crimson and rich, bubbled and frothed across his pale skin, and Justin held his stained hand up to Dominic.

"Father," cried Dominic, "Are you unharmed? He had a sword; he was poised to run you through. I loved him so, and he has betrayed me."

Justin didn't speak; he merely bowed his head and leaned down to look at Cory, ignoring the red that spattered his nightshirt as he leant to cradle Cory's head in his arms. Looking up at last, he surveyed Dominic, for the first time in the young man's memory, his father appeared helpless and lost, his face awry with grief.

"Father?" he said again, his voice uncomprehending as he attempted to make sense of what had happened - was still happening. Justin turned away, returning to the dead man who lay now in his arms.

"Cory? I wish that it had been truth you told to me. You should not die." A single tear fell from Justin's eye to spatter on the smooth, motionless face of his precious and well-loved vagabond.

Dominic crouched by his father's side and looked down at his lover. "Have I killed him, father?" he said, desolately. " I did not mean... He was... "

"Was what, Vidal?" His father was absent, looking sadly at Cory, and added, "Your enemy? Your rival? Do you know what he was to me? Did he ever speak of me?" His voice grew hard. "What was he to you, Vidal?"

"Father, you are crying," said Cory, putting a hand on his sire's shoulder. Justin shrugged him off, and bent to look more closely at the dead man, smoothing the soft dark hair from his brow.

"Cory, Cory. I wish... I wish that we had never met, and I wish that we had always known one another. I wish... Why did you come back, only to leave me forever? You could have lived, like a flame of joy, forever in my heart."

He leaned closer, pulling Cory to him, and pressed a kiss on his beloved's lips. There was a coughing sigh, and suddenly, arms snaked around Justin's neck, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss, while Dominic looked on in astonishment at the sudden movement, and the sight of his lover, but lately lying dead at his hand, in a passionate embrace with his father.

"I don't understand." Dominic was shaking now, frowning at the two men who still clung together, and seemed very young in his confusion.

The Duke pulled back from the kiss, and looked down at Cory, shaking his head in wonder. "I do not understand either, Dominic, but I am pleased to find my dear Cory no liar, despite his other... unfortunate moral lapses."

"Your dear Cory?" Vidal fell to his knees at his father's side, and gripped his shoulder hard, forcing his father to look at him. "Curse you both... what in God's name is going on? Who is Cory? What is Cory?"

Justin raised his brows superciliously, and glanced at Dominic's hand. "Vidal, you forget yourself. May I enquire also your business in my bed-chamber, at this hour? Compose yourself, and let us help Mr. Raines to his feet."

Cory looked between father and son, and swiftly stood between the two of them.

"I would not have you come to blows on my account. The House of Avon has been my pleasure to serve." He turned to Dominic, and laid a hand on the Marquis' shoulder. "I knew your father long before I ever made your acquaintance, my lord. He was to me a friend, and something more, as are you." He faltered. Dominic's face was still thunderous.

"What?" said Dominic incredulously, backing away from the two men. "You... "

Justin's lips twitched. "It seems that Mr. Raines, having found my company so congenial, has sought out that of my... family. Should I be flattered, or appalled, I wonder?"

Cory laughed, and took Justin's hand once more. "It was unwitting, Justin, at the first. I would expound on your son's charms, but I fear it would not be de rigeur... Then when I discovered who he was, I was amused, and pleased to find you had been blessed with such a son. He is a hot-head, but at heart he is a good man."

"Father, I cannot believe this. I know of your reputation, but it was in the past. You have been so true to my mother... it is almost legendary... And yet, you and Cory? When? I would have heard... "

"Before you were born, Dominic," said Cory, mischievously. "You were not, perchance thinking that it was... now?"

"I do not in faith know what to believe," replied Dominic. "How can it be that you knew my father so long ago? You seem to be my own age, and I refuse to credit that you are a man of sixty or more years." The Marquis shook his head as if to clear it, and turned to his father, who stood grinning at the interplay between the two men.

"Not sixty, my lord, never that!" Cory was smiling now as he surveyed the confusion that his lover displayed. "I am closer to three hundred years old. What think you of that?"

"I would think you mad, had I not seen you rise from the dead. And, were I not a rational man, I would cry 'witchcraft' and burn you at the stake, Cory Raines."

"Not so rational, Vidal. You put a bullet through his heart, not five minutes since. The... congealing stain on my carpet bears witness to your intemperate behaviour."

The Duke smiled slowly at Cory. "And, it seems, we are both guilty of destroying Mr. Raines' attire."

He looked over at his son. "The sword at my throat was the one with which I introduced myself to Cory, in Paris, before I met your mother. I ran him through with it, and left him for dead. I shall take care next time I rid the world of a footpad, to linger a few minutes to make sure that he is truly no more."

"If you had not annoyed me, Justin, I would not have come to your house that night."

"That would indeed have been a shame, my dear."

Cory looked down and twisted the ring on his finger. "This was a parting gift, Dominic," he said, biting back laughter.

"It was as well you took it, Cory," said Avon, thoughtfully. "And left, as you did. I... saw you go, and was pleased that you wished a reminder of our... love."

"It was love, Justin. I did love you - I love you still, although our hours together are so far removed in time. That's all my reason for coming here this night." Cory turned to Dominic, "And my warm regard for this man has been a joy to me. You need never doubt my feelings, Dominic." He stood waiting, wondering what next would befall. Justin seemed amused, as Cory would have predicted, but Vidal's stormy expression told a tale of hard feelings. He took Vidal's hand. "All that I spoke you has been true. I've loved you too, Dominic. I would not see us part angrily for the sake of an old love affair."

"We must speak privately, Cory. My thoughts are in a whirl. I will go to my rooms, and await you." He turned to his father, and bowed. "By your leave, sir. May I go, and if you wish, we will talk further of this tomorrow?"

"Reluctant as I am to revel in family... intimacies, I fear it may be unavoidable," replied Justin with distaste. Seeing Dominic's distress, his face softened, and he said, "Go, my boy. I shall send Cory to you shortly. I must take my leave of him."

Dominic nodded to the two men, and departed hastily. Cory looked at Justin ruefully, and sat down on a chair nearby, looking at the Duke to join him. When they were both seated, he said, "I should be rushing from your home, ashamed, I suppose, or you should be showing me the wrath of an outraged father. It seems we are both to be censured for our unnatural feelings."

"How can I blame Dominic for succumbing to the very temptation I myself could not resist, my dear rogue?"

"How could I, when faced with your son who has so many of your graces, resist the need to revisit a time long gone when I held the most precious gift ever bestowed on me - that of your love? I love him well enough, Justin. He's a bright flame in a time that lacks warmth, but you were the love of my life, and it pained me to lose you." Cory's eyes were bright again with moisture, shining in the low light from the candle as it flickered low.

"Vidal is the heir to my title, Cory," Justin's voice had changed. The softness of a moment prior was gone, leaving the grand seigneur that Cory had seem so many times, although never 'til this day turned upon himself. "He has a wife and a child. He may not disgrace his station, whether for the love of you, or any other. I would have you part."

"I care not for title, and position, Justin, though I could have both, I dare swear." He shrugged. "For most of those such as I, such things become of no importance. But I understand that for mortals, it is a form of immortality, and I would not compromise his loyalty to you... or to her."

Biting his lip, he looked away. "He has not spoken much of Mary, his wife. I confess to a little jealousy, and some guilt. From what he has said, he loves her dearly, and she would seem to be a woman worthy of deep regard. I have sought at all times to be discreet... I am a passing fancy for him, I think, a fling... he is so young, and full of fire, and passion. We have deceived her, but I hope, not hurt her."

He looked back at Justin, decision hardening his lips. "You are right, Justin, we should part. To take this further would lead to grief. It is as well we met - I am a careless scoundrel, and forget what is of importance to ones such as yourselves. I will tell him, and right away. But first, my love, my dear Duke, kiss me, and say you will always remember me, for this time, to my sorrow, it is goodbye forever."

A pause followed. The candle flickered, guttered and failed, plunging the room back into the darkness that was barely lit by the half moon that shone pale through the window. Justin did not speak, and Cory found that he dared not. Then at last, Justin's voice fell, soft and regretful.

"With all of my heart I would that I were young again, my Cory." He suddenly reached, catching Cory by the shoulders, pulling him in against the blood-spattered nightshirt to enfold him, kiss him hard, and finally to release him, chest heaving. "Where will you go?"

"That I know not. I have a desire to seek out a new place. This England has been my home for far too many years, Justin." Cory rose to his feet. A hand reached to cup Justin's cheek, and he swooped again to kiss him softly, then with a faint sound that might have been impatience, he had withdrawn to the door, and beyond it to seek out Dominic.

Cory's inclination was to run, to leave the house and both of his lovers and to nurse the wound of Justin's mortality alone. It was as though his Duke were already dead to him, and the heartache was nigh unbearable. But he had promised...

Taking a deep breath, he ascended the stair to Dominic's apartments.

The young Marquis was in his breeches and shirtsleeves, sprawled on the bed. His face, stormy with anger and injustice, made Cory's heart lurch with desire. He longed to take him, make wild, rough love to this beautiful man, fight out their anger in the throes of dangerous passion. If he did, he knew he would never have the courage to say farewell, he would betray Justin and his family. He had to steel himself, feign some indifference, some enthusiasm to travel once more.

"I have to go, my heart. You know that I have to go now?" Cory's husky voice seemed to fill the space between them, and Dominic flung himself over onto his belly, his shoulders shaking. He didn't reply. Cory's heart sank, and he sat down on the edge of the bed and extended his hand to lay upon the young man's hair. "Please, Dominic, don't feel so unhappy. It will break my heart to leave, and yet I have to go."

Dominic remained motionless for a long time, and then, as Cory caressed the long, black hair, he finally raised his head, turning it to lay a kiss on Cory's wrist.

"I can't... I won't... Take me with you, Cory, please?"

"You would bring shame on your name, and break the hearts of those you love, Dominic?" Cory strove to keep his voice steady, but in his dreams he could see them both, together, on some glorious adventure. Determined, he banished it. "You would regret it ere the month was out. You would be unhappy, because you are, withal, an honourable man, and care above all for your family. It is just the wonder of the unknown, and the transitory passion we share that speaks for you. Your wife and child are far more important, far dearer to you than I can ever be."

"It is not true... you are all to me, my Cory!" He sat up, and hugged the immortal fiercely. "I have never known such a desire, such a happiness, as I have with you. I love you, with all my heart."

"Not so, friend," replied Cory, with a chuckle. "I have proof." He indicated the blood on his shirt, and raised a brow. "When it comes to a choice, my lord, your instinct chooses correctly."

Dominic hung his head. There seemed to be nothing left to say. Cory was going to leave, and it was all his fault, he knew it. Had he not made that stupid wager...

Shaking his head, he reached to thread his fingers through Cory's hair.

"I do truly love you, Cory. I won't forget you." Pulling the immortal in for a long, sweet kiss, Dominic held him close, and then reluctantly let him go, watching as he slid gracefully to his feet and backed away.

"I could never forget you, my lord. Your marksmanship was perfect." He bowed, and was gone, leaving Dominic to stare at the shadows until dawn arose.

The End

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