talking about my cowardice in sending Parkinson with a letter instead of going to see you myself.”
Kit stared at him, his heart twisting painfully.
“There was barely any time to do anything before we left for Wiltshire,” Henry continued, his gaze anguished, “but I should have made time. You weren’t so very far away from Curzon Street, and if I’m honest”—he broke off, taking a deep breath before he continued—“perhaps I used our hasty departure as an excuse to avoid doing the right thing. The difficult thing.” He shook his head.
“Only perhaps?” Kit asked, and he was shocked by how clipped and angry his own voice sounded. He had no right to feel so aggrieved by this—he’d just been Henry’s whore for God’s sake.
But he did feel aggrieved, he realised. He felt aggrieved and hurt and angry.
“I don’t honestly know,” Henry said, and he sounded frustrated. “It was so long ago, I can’t remember how I reasoned it out to myself. I don’t think I deliberately avoided you, but perhaps I allowed the events of that day to sweep me along in that direction because seeing you—telling you I had to end our contract early—would have been so painful.”
Kit’s heart ached. Henry would have found that painful? He wanted to demand to know why, but instead he just stood there, with his heart in his mouth, watching Henry.
“I can’t stop thinking that if I’d just taken the time—an hour—to go and see you myself, Parkinson would never have been able to do what he did.” Henry shook his head. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, and he sounded utterly lost. “I wouldn’t blame you if never forgave me for that. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive myself.”
Kit didn’t know what to say. Would Henry even believe him if he said he forgave him now?
And would it be true?
He realised that he didn’t know the answer to that question. Today had already been far too eventful and Kit needed to let everything just… settle.
“It’s been a strange day, for both of us,” he said tiredly. “Full of revelations that I’ve scarcely taken in yet.”
Henry nodded.
“Go home, Henry,” Kit said gently. He paused, weighing his next words carefully before he uttered them. “We can talk again, if you like. I’m here most evenings.”
Henry said tentatively, “Could I return tomorrow evening?”
Kit was taken aback by that—both the request and his own desire to agree to it.
Slowly, he shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I need to reflect on all of this—and so do you.” He paused. “Give it a week.”
“Next Friday then?” Henry pressed, his gaze hopeful.
Kit’s heart was racing now. He suspected this was not a wise course of action. That even a week from now was too soon.
But he did not voice any of those concerns.
“Very well,” he said. “Next Friday.”
16
Henry
Henry slept better the night after he visited Redford’s than he had in a long while.
Perhaps it was being intimate with someone again. The physical release he had experienced had been powerful. But no, it wasn’t just that. He wasn’t celibate—he had regular assignations with likeminded men—but none of them ever made him feel like this. Echoes of the deep sense of wellbeing that had suffused him as he and Christopher came together still pulsed through him.
That wellbeing was a feeling he had forgotten, one that came not just from finding release, but from holding someone very dear to you, and touching that person freely. Henry hadn’t realised how much he had missed that. How wonderful it was.
The whole of the next week seemed to drag interminably, and all Henry could think of was Christopher.
To distract himself from his thoughts, Henry immersed himself in duty, attending to the pile of outstanding correspondence that had accumulated since he’d come to town and paying a number of long-overdue calls.
Finally, though, it was Friday again.
Henry took his breakfast in his room that morning, then called for a bath, taking a long time over his ablutions. He scrubbed himself till his skin was pink, already anticipating the evening ahead. Of undressing in front of Christopher.
Kit.
By the time he made his way downstairs, Marianne, Jeremy and Freddy had all gone out, and Henry found himself at something of a loss. For the first time in a long while, he was entirely free to do what he wanted. It felt both liberating, and at the same time, strangely empty. For the last number of years, his life had been shaped by the needs of his