Iain shakes his head and grins. ‘It was mostly spite,’ he confesses, in the sandpaper whisper that remains of his voice. ‘That ship was supposed to deliver my corpse to Philip of Valois. They assumed I wouldn’t live out the day.’ Iain smirks, a bitter little twist of his lips. ‘But I did.’
He reaches out and laces his fingers in between Harry’s then, and Harry squeezes gently. It’s either that or tackle him to the bed and hold him and never let go.
‘I was unconscious for a long time. I was later told the ship’s captain was horrified to find he might have royal blood on his hands. He patched me up as best he could at sea, and then ditched me at a monastery outside Regnéville-sur-Mer. My recovery took almost a year. Perhaps my voice might have healed if I were elsewhere, but the monks had vows of silence.’
Iain brushes at his cheek and Harry is surprised to see wetness there. ‘I couldn’t come back,’ he says, the words barely understandable, his ruined voice even rougher than usual. ‘Aside from the danger to me, Montagu would have killed you. He wouldn’t have stopped, Harry. Believe me. Even though it destroyed my heart, I had to stay away.’
‘I know,’ Harry says, and on impulse he leans in to kiss the wetness off Iain’s cheekbone. It’s chaste and quick, no more than the touch of a butterfly’s wing, and Iain doesn’t flinch away.
‘Eventually I was well enough to travel. I rode to Paris and presented myself to King Philip.’ His smile is bashful now. ‘I became his rural cousin from a minor branch of the family, who nobody takes seriously: the Comte de Marche, a lush and an idle sybarite. Although,’ he adds, indicating the luxurious chamber around them, ‘Philip was kind enough to give me my mother’s rooms.’
Harry lets go of Iain’s hand and traces up his forearm, to the strong, corded muscles of his upper arm and shoulders. ‘This is not the body of an idle man.’
‘I invented a sickly relative,’ Iain explains. ‘I have to run back and attend this uncle on a regular and unexpected basis. My court friends can imagine nothing more boring than a backwater castle and a sick old man, so none come with me.’ He pauses, and looks down at his hands, at the callouses from sword and shield on them. ‘I practised for war, and I waited for my enemies to come to France. It was all I had. If I could destroy them, if I could avenge my mother and ruin Montagu forever, and if you could just manage not to get yourself killed, then perhaps one day we would be free.’
Harry surges over Iain’s body and places a hand either side of him, boxing him in. ‘That day is now,’ Harry says, his voice thick with emotion. ‘The ransom will bankrupt them. And England will agree to this ransom, if we can prove they’re guilty of trying to kill you. Tomorrow, Iain. Come with us back to Paris. It’s over. It’s all over. It’s all finally over.’
Iain whines and arches on his elbows, pushing himself up to kiss Harry. When they break the kiss, Iain breathes, ‘Will you still have me, Harry? Scars and all?’
‘Now who’s the idiot?’ Harry growls and lays the full weight of his body on Iain, pressing the hot stripe of his erection into Iain’s abdomen. ‘God’s blood, Iain, do you even know how beautiful you are?’
‘Show me,’ Iain whispers, trailing his fingers down Harry’s back. ‘Show me.’
‘This,’ Harry says, twisting his hips so he can cup Iain’s cock through that thin hose of his, ‘you can’t dress like this in front of me. Because I’ll never be able to keep my hands off you. And if anyone else tries to touch you, I will hurt them.’
Iain is arching up into his touch, rubbing himself to hardness against Harry’s palm, the thin membrane of the hose slipping between them somehow making it more erotic than if Iain were naked.
Harry moans, and rolls away from him, standing up to quickly strip himself of his remaining clothes. They fall on the floor next to Iain’s. Then he leans over Iain and hooks his fingers into the tops of Iain’s hose. Iain lifts his hips off the bed and Harry carefully rolls the hose down his legs as if he’s unwrapping a present, which he is. He is.
Harry shakes his head, taking in Iain’s hardening cock, his half-lidded expression, the tongue that wets his lips. ‘It feels like I left you yesterday,’ Harry says. ‘As if the years apart existed only as a terrible dream.’
Then he climbs back up over Iain. ‘I had fantasies about you,’ he breathes, kissing his way up Iain’s body, ‘in that black armour.’
Iain’s eyes are wild now, and he twists his fingers in Harry’s hair. ‘It’s the only time I am myself,’ he says. ‘Here, I am surrounded by idiots, and have to pretend to be the biggest idiot of them all. By all that’s holy, Harry, fuck me. Fuck me until I remember who I am.’
‘I presume the court lush has … ?’ Harry asks, raising an eyebrow.
Iain reaches down the side of the bed with one of his thick arms and pulls a small vial off the shelf of wood created by the mattress frame. ‘The court lush has a terrible habit of not being able to get it up when drunk, but he’s very good with his fingers and he begs the ladies not to reveal his shame,’ Iain confesses. ‘He does what is needed to maintain his image, and makes sure nobody gets any bright ideas about him being a good candidate for marriage.’
‘So you haven’t … ?’ Harry says.
Iain shakes
