stroked him with my thumb, making him groan. “You love your career, and to be with us, you must give it up, along with your esteemed position in the beau monde. You will become a Royal Navy deserter, a lowly status so far removed from your stalwart character. I understand the quandary, and I’m not making light of it.”
“It’s a difficult decision,” Priest said, his voice a low growl. “But not an impossible one.”
Ashley slid his arm onto the table and sank his head upon it. “You’re wasting your time.”
Priest watched me steadily, his eyes burning with the same ire I felt. But there was something else there. Beneath the anger lay years of disappointment. A man could only be rejected so many times before parts of him started chipping away. He’d lost this fight with Ashley again and again, and he didn’t expect this time to be any different.
But it was two against one now. Priest wasn’t alone.
“The third concern,” I said to Ashley, “is the one that troubles you the most. Choosing us comes with grave danger. Priest and I are wanted for many crimes, sodomy being the least of our offenses.”
“Your concern about the gallows doesn’t go away if you leave us.” Priest shored up his hold on Ashley’s flexing arms, driving his point home with the intensity of his breaths. “Bennett and I will be hunted for the rest of our lives.”
Ashley stopped struggling and stared at nothing, his eyes unfocused as he absorbed our words.
“I told you my parents’ story.” I removed my hand from his groin and bent over the table beside him, mirroring his pose. “In my mother’s stubborn sense of duty, she forsook my father and left him desolate and forlorn. She thought she was protecting him, that if he stayed with her, she would make him weak and distracted. She believed their relationship would lead to his ultimate execution.” My voice broke on a pained whorl of breath. “In the end, my father hanged anyway, and she followed him.”
“We’re not your parents.” With his face inches from mine, his blue eyes pierced, sharp and unyielding. “This manor is isolated, secure, and the staff is loyal. Priest and I have been meeting here for fourteen years without discovery.”
“So that’s your plan?” I pushed away from the table, my shoulders quaking with rage. “You intend to marry the virgin and keep your immoral lovers on the side?”
Pain burrowed into Priest’s features. “He’ll expect us to meet him here, in his stronghold of debauchery and filthy secrets, year after year.” He leaned down, seething in Ashley’s face. “Meanwhile, your viscountess will be oblivious to your unseemly manners while she remains in London and breeds your heirs. Is that your solution?”
“Yes.” One syllable, issued with the unrelenting chill of propriety. “It’s all I can offer.”
I saw red, forced myself to blink, and slowly reined in my temper.
“When you chose the Royal Navy over Priest, you fucked him and left him.” Pacing along the back wall, I eyed a row of kitchen knives and plucked a heavy one from its hanger. “I’ll be honest, Ashley. I charged in here a moment ago with visions of Priest fucking you over this table and leaving with me afterward. Perhaps a dose of your own medicine would send you running after us. But we don’t need any more hurt in this relationship. The three of us have experienced enough pain and loneliness to last a lifetime, don’t you think?” I looked at Priest. “Let him up.”
They rose at the same time. Ashley straightened his shirt and retreated a few steps, putting his back against the wall. Priest lowered his hands to the table, slightly bent, watching us both from beneath his dark brow.
Ashley wasn’t even trying to argue or state his case. His English nobility and fealty to his king were so deeply ingrained he wouldn’t turn against it to fight for his own dreams. He would let Priest and me walk out of his life because he genuinely believed he wasn’t allowed to have us.
In a way, I was equally narrow-minded and stubborn, for I saw no other plausible future than living on my ship with him and Priest at my side. I would threaten Ashley, and if that didn’t work, I would capture him the same way he’d captured me. But first, I would try to reach him with my voice.
Standing beside Priest, I gripped his fingers with one hand and held the knife at my side