Iain shifts, pulling away from his grasp. ‘Harry,’ he says, his voice serious. ‘If it gets out who I am and Edward goes to war against France, they have to kill me. I have to die for Edward’s claim to be valid. They’ll probably kill me anyway even if we keep quiet, but …’ He sighs. ‘I don’t know. Montagu didn’t kill me when he found me, so he must have some use for me alive.’
‘I think Arundel wants to help us, Iain,’ Harry says, reaching out to pull him back into his arms. ‘I think he wants for there not to be a war. He has the money and power to protect us.’ Harry wants to say more, explain the situation with Alys, but he can’t figure out how to put it into words.
Iain groans, cutting through his still-muddled thoughts.
‘I think Arundel wants to fox Montagu, and we are awfully tempting pawns,’ he says. ‘Look, Harry, the best way for Arundel to discredit Montagu is to bring me publicly to Edward’s attention. Montagu looks terrible, Arundel steps into the void by the King’s side that Montagu leaves, and boom, I still have to die if England rises against France. And if I run to France …’ He shakes his head. ‘Why would Philip of Valois take me in? I’m a threat. I even look like my grandfather. The French barons could use me to pressure Philip into almost anything. Be nice, or we’ll go back to a proper Capet king.’
‘Are people really that awful?’ Harry whispers.
‘Trust me,’ Iain says, tracing his finger up Harry’s ribs, along his collarbones. ‘I grew up having the secret history of my family drummed into me until I could recite it from memory. Three hundred and fifty years of vicious dynastic politics.’ He glances up at Harry, eyes ice-pale under their curtain of dark lashes. ‘A family doesn’t hold onto the crown that long by being nice people, Harry. Or by not learning from their predecessors’ mistakes.’ His voice drops away to almost nothing. Harry can’t tell in the darkness, but he suspects Iain is blushing. ‘My mother never recovered from her shame at being outmanoeuvred by Isabella. She wanted to make sure that fate would never happen to me.’
‘Would that you had been born with any other name,’ Harry sighs, brushing his lips over his lover’s cheekbone.
‘Mm,’ Iain hums. ‘But then I would not be me, and perhaps I would never have met you.’
‘Perhaps you would have been happy, though,’ Harry says, drowsily, for Iain is warm and the night is cold.
‘I’m happy now,’ Iain answers, snuggling against him.
The trip back to Dartington is leisurely; spring is showing herself in the buds of trees and the low, early flowers of the season. Harry feels too as if he is sprouting anew, something green in him pressing upwards through frost-stiff earth towards the sun.
He thinks perhaps the whole world can see how in love he is, but nobody seems to notice, too caught up in their own concerns. They spend their evenings at campsites and inns, hot, silent kisses on strange beds in unfamiliar towns. In public they are still the respectable knight and his scruffy, brooding squire. They’re stared at no more nor less than any other pair of travellers, even with Iain’s Scottish clothes. The only difference is that Iain has to smack Harry’s hands away from trying to help too much.
Harry never lets a hint of Iain’s true title pass his lips again, but he still thinks it. He still looks at Iain with wonder when they’re alone. It’s a cataloguing of little details that he had either missed or misinterpreted before: the way he holds himself. His pride, which isn’t the insecure bravado of someone like Ufford, but a wry, quiet superiority. His education.
Part of Harry wishes they could be on the road forever, in this liminal space between destinations, without responsibilities. But as Harry’s little corner of Devon draws ever closer, they both unconsciously begin to hurry. In their last tavern of the journey, just over the Devonshire border, they rise in wordless agreement and depart before dawn, so they can be home in Dartington in time for dinner.
They don’t make it.
It’s entirely Iain’s fault.
As they turn onto the lane that leads in one direction to the manor, and in the other to Harry’s pond, Iain just raises an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps we should go for a swim before arriving home,’ he says, voice low with promise. ‘Clean up.’
Harry knows Iain’s plans are anything but clean, and he turns Libby towards the forest anyway, anticipation rising in him like a cloud of suddenly awakened fireflies. They tie up the three horses and the cart at the edge of the forest and climb down the wooded slope to the pond.
‘So,’ Harry smiles, unhooking his belt and sword and hanging them over a tree branch. ‘Swimming?’
‘Mm, maybe in a minute,’ Iain says, walking out onto their rock and kneeling down. He doffs his shirt and tosses it onto the leaf-strewn bank, before smirking up at Harry. His belt comes next, but he doesn’t toss it aside. Instead he lays the dagger and sheath on the bank end of the rock and wraps the leather of the strap around one of his hands. ‘I was wondering something first,’ he purrs, glancing up at Harry from under his lashes.
And that look.
That look means trouble.
Harry slips off his boots and breeches and tunic and walks out to Iain, completely naked. ‘And what were you wondering, squire?’ Harry says, looking down at the man. He’s already getting hard, just from Iain’s submissive posture below him.
Iain leans forwards and rests his chin on Harry’s leg, like a good pet, as he looks up at him, his eyes darkening with lust. He blinks those long lashes, as if innocent. Harry knows better. ‘I want to
