the room, talking and laughing, a glass of champagne in hand.
Christopher was turned very slightly away, giving Henry an oblique view of his perfect profile. He was dressed with a sober elegance that Henry did not associate with the young man he had once known. His black coat was perfectly tailored, his black breeches very correct, and his high shirt points and cravat were pristine white.
But when Henry stepped forward and said his name—“Christopher”—he turned to reveal a less sedate picture. His gold silk waistcoat was embroidered with an outrageous snarling sapphire dragon, and his beautifully carved lips were touched with vermillion, while the elegant fingers that cradled his champagne glass bore an array of gleaming and glittering rings.
He was breathtaking.
Christopher raised his eyebrows, his tone disbelieving as he echoed Henry’s greeting. “Christopher?”
It was only then Henry remembered his words of earlier.
“My friends call me Kit… you may address me as Mr. Redford.”
Henry’s gaze flitted, unwillingly and uneasily, to the two elegant gentlemen standing on either side of Kit, both of whom were at least a decade younger than Henry, and who were now staring at him with unabashed curiosity.
Clearing his throat, his neck burning with mortification, Henry said, “Sorry, Mr. Redford, I meant.”
One of Christopher’s companions tittered at that, lifting a lace handkerchief to his mouth, though Henry thought not so much to hide his laughter as to draw attention to it.
Christopher glanced sharply at the man, then back at Henry, and Henry feared he was about to be rather humiliatingly dismissed. Or perhaps ordered to his knees.
But in the end, Christopher—Kit—cast a careless smile at his two companions and said silkily, “Do excuse me, gentlemen.”
Stepping towards Henry, he took possession of Henry’s right arm with his free hand and expertly steered him away.
Henry could not suppress the smile that tugged at his mouth, though he tried to bite it away.
“Thank you,” he said in a low voice.
“Don’t thank me too soon,” Christopher said lightly, offering a teasing smile to an elderly gentleman walking past them in the corridor. “You’ve only just arrived.”
“Ah, yes. I’m sorry about that.”
“About what?”
“Being so late,” Henry said. “I had something I had to attend to before I came.”
Christopher seemed nonplussed. “You’re hardly late,” he said. “It’s only just past midnight.”
“But you said to come at nine.”
“I said to come any time after nine.” Christopher cocked a brow at him. “We’re open till four o’clock, so it’s still quite early by my standards.”
Christopher led him back into the room where he’d been talking with Corbett. Henry saw that they were attracting some interest. Numerous gentlemen were glancing at them surreptitiously, then murmuring to their companions. He wondered if there was anyone here who recognised him. There was no sign of Corbett now—he must have gone to one of the other rooms.
Christopher guided Henry over to a quiet corner, pausing on the way to ask one of his staff to fetch more champagne for them both.
“This is where I like to stand,” he told Henry. “I can see everything that’s going on from here.” And it was indeed a good vantage point from which to view the room, especially for Christopher, who was a sight shorter than Henry.
Henry leaned against the wall beside Christopher, reducing the height difference between them a good bit. When Christopher turned his head to look at him, Henry was struck by the strongest sense of familiarity—this was something he used to do in the old days, when they were standing together. Henry had performed the familiar choreography quite unconsciously.
In the soft candlelight Christopher looked younger, and that provocative touch of red on his lips stirred Henry. He used to love the small feminine decorations Christopher employed to enhance his beauty. For Henry, it had never been because it made Christopher seem more feminine—almost the opposite in fact. Something about these decorative little adornments underlined his masculinity in a way that heated Henry’s blood and made him impossibly hard.
He stared at Christopher, and Christopher returned his gaze, his own touched with curiosity—it felt almost as though no time had passed at all, as though Henry had somehow imagined all the years between then and now.
“This feels so familiar,” Henry murmured.
“Yes,” Christopher said. “The memory is a strange thing.”
Henry tried to read what he saw in Christopher’s eyes. An edge of bleakness perhaps, but something determined too. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, how to read him. When he had first seen Christopher this afternoon, the man had been palpably