He couldn’t imagine what it would be like living for love. It had been made plain early on in his life that such things were rare amongst the nobility.
“I trust there is an explanation to my hurried escort out of your room,” Darshan said, knowing he could easily be setting himself up for a volatile response. Please, don’t be the whole ‘not you, but me’ dribble. “I must confess, I do not understand. Did I do something wrong?”
Hamish shook his head. “I was hoping you’d nae ask.” Sighing, he tugged at his beard. “And you didnae do anything wrong. I did. I should nae have led you to believe we were free to rut in me room.”
Darshan frowned. There was that word again. The one the man back in the pub had uttered, or something that sounded very close to it, at least. He hadn’t been given the translation and he had thought it was derogatory, but for Hamish to say it… “What do you mean we were not? It is your room, correct?”
“Aye.” Hamish hung his head, his shoulders hunching like a chastened hound. “But the guards—the ones who escorted me after we kissed?—they are under orders to search me room if they’ve any reason to believe I’m nae alone.”
“Search?” Darshan echoed, scarcely believing the man. “Like you are some sort of delinquent? Rather indecent of them.”
Hamish nodded. “It’s been that way ever since I was seventeen.”
He could almost understand having an eye kept on a young man still fumbling his way through the final years of adolescence. “But you are a grown man, now.”
“Nae according to me mum. I’m nae married. I have nae bairns of me own. As far as she’s concerned, I am still her wee lad.” He peered at Darshan out the corner of his eye, an act Darshan was rather envious of—glasses had always made judging things on his periphery hazy at best. “I’m sorry I led you on. That’s actually what I came here to say. That and yesterday is as far as we can take this.”
Darshan wrinkled his nose. The act dislodged his glasses, forcing him to push them back into their normal place. “Sorry?” he mumbled, recalling old words his father had spoken to him decades back. “I do not know how it is in Tirglas, but in Minamist, little boys apologise, men make amends.”
Hamish leant on the parapet. He clasped his hands, resting his lips against them. But not before Darshan caught the twitch of a smile and the faint snort of laughter. “And how would you have me do that?”
“Well, as satisfying as yesterday’s appetiser was, I will admit to a… mild disappointment. Stopping now is hardly fair when we barely got anywhere.” He pressed closer. “And I had rather been looking forward to the main course.”
The spark of amusement that had illuminated Hamish’s eyes suddenly fizzled. “As much as I’d like to—and, believe me, I want to a lot—the risk that she’ll exile another ambassador isnae worth it.”
“Another? You have done this before?” Small wonder Queen Fiona was upset with his arrival. She had probably guessed everything they’d already done, and then some.
“Once,” Hamish confessed with a brief bob of his head. “The last time I set foot in the ambassadorial suite was when we entertained a visitor—a man, to be precise—from Dvärghem and…”
“Let me guess,” Darshan supplied. “Your precise entertainment involved tumbling the man into bed?”
Hamish nodded. “Those guards found me bed empty and searched the castle. Once they discovered us, I was dragged back to me chamber.” He hung his head. “It wouldnae have been any more embarrassing than if they paraded me through the halls as naked as the day I was born.”
Darshan mentally shook himself, scattering the image of Hamish being bodily hauled through the castle’s tight corridors whilst stripped bare. “I beg your pardon, but did you just admit to getting a hedgewitch into your bed?” Even he hadn’t been successful there. Dwarven hedgewitches tended to be very serious about remaining celibate. “You naughty man.”
Shock took Hamish’s face for a moment before a wide grin split it. “Well, I wouldnae say into. And it was quite a few years ago. Thirteen, if we’re being precise. I was cocky and foolish back then. Dinnae think me mum would do anything about it.” His gaze dropped and he picked at his nails. “She had me locked up for three days. By the time I was allowed to leave, the ambassador had been sent away. I spent the next month under house arrest. I’ve nae been with anyone since.”
Darshan’s brows shot up in astonishment before he could control the expression. “Not in thirteen years?”
Hamish vigorously shook his head, his hair bobbing behind him like a pennant snapping in the breeze. “Before yesterday, that was the last time it’s been anything other than a solo affair.”
Darshan took a deep breath, his cheeks puffing as he exhaled. The very idea of going without sex for so long weakened his knees. “Yesterday evening? When you said it had been a while? I did not expect it to have been so long.”
The man grunted.
He silently stared out at the harbour for some time in some vain hope that the deep blue waters would hold an answer. His father might have made a number of attempts towards convincing him to lay with a woman—conceding from him having a wife to just long enough to sire an heir—but not once had he been made to feel that he couldn’t enjoy himself with another man. “I think I understand now. You do not wish to repeat the error of getting caught?”
“Amongst other things,” Hamish muttered. “I willnae lie, yesterday was fun. But I wouldnae blame you if all this is more than you planned on dealing with.”
It would’ve been, if Darshan had been back home where he had a myriad of options. If Hamish had been any other man beyond one from his darkest fantasies. If the man’s reaction
