“So,” Flor said at last, “I am like a sugared plum, or a dance, or a glass of wine?” He put a hand to Clematis’s face, perhaps feeling the heat of his blush. “I don’t understand why I’m a treat for one night only… but I find I don’t like the idea of denying you anything, either. You do not smile enough,” Flor explained, brushing his thumb over the apple of Clematis’s cheek. “I would like to see you happy.” His voice and touch were so soft. “I can see why someone would make you such a list.” His thumb came to rest at the corner of Clematis’s lips. “Will you do it? I will not say no.”
Clematis fell toward him as if pushed, bending his head to press his mouth to Flor’s before pulling back. His skin was stinging and hot. He pulled in a breath when Flor licked his lips, and watched him, and waited, and then Clematis returned, slow and curious.
He tilted his head and put a hand to Flor’s cheek. He let his eyes close. He didn’t know much beyond putting their lips together, but that was thrilling in itself. He was scared and tender and protective, although how he could ever protect Flor, he did not understand. Flor granted him short, tentative kisses that merged into longer, softer ones, and smiled against Clematis’s mouth when Clematis huffed in frustration. Clematis could not name the reason for his frustration, only that it was there.
Flor curved a hand over the back of Clematis’s neck, but did not direct him. Perhapsthatwas the reason.
“You may be pushy now,” Clematis told him at last, breathless and altogether too hot with no obvious cause.
Flor tightened his arm to pull Clematis to his chest and placed a kiss beneath Clematis’s chin when Clematis shivered for it but did not protest. He touched Clematis’s buzzing lips with the tips of two fingers and then kissed that spot while Clematis slowly burned from the inside out. Clematis’s hands were in Flor’s hair. He could not apologize, since Flor was busy kissing him again, purposeful and determined, as if Clematis’s sighs of longing gave him the greatest pleasure.
Clematis was someone else. Someone relaxed even as his blood simmered. Someone languid and pliant. A sweetheart to be plundered by a man who adored him.
With both hands now at Clematis’s waist, Flor kissed him again, though Clematis had stopped counting the number.
“Oh,” Flor whispered, drawing away for a breath, to stay close and wait until Clematis slowly woke from his dream to look at him. Flor seemed to forget whatever he had been about to say and stared at Clematis in slightly frowning wonder. “I have seen those eyes before. I’ve seenyoubefore.”
Clematis’s blood became ice.
He was out of Flor’s arms and fleeing the balcony in moments. He put his hands to his face as he ran, trying not to hear the gasps of shock or see the outraged glares that followed him as he dashed to a servant’s corridor.
He was not due back for hours, but when alarmed servants directed him outside to the lines of waiting carriages, he did not wait for Lord Hyacinth’s coachman to be called. He ran until he found the coach and threw himself inside.
Adam discovered him not long afterward, where he was curled beneath the windows so no one might see him. When Clematis signed to him that he wished to go home, please, immediately, Adam looked upon him kindly and didn’t question it.
IN THE MORNING, Clematis was in the library, going over old accounting ledgers to learn how to use them. Lord Walter was with him, tactfully silent as he gazed out a window. Clematis had not told their Lordships everything, but he had not had to. Notes had arrived with the dawn, messengers from Lord Hyacinth’s friends spreading gossip about the masked ball. Some of it had been about the Prince—who had been polite and kind to everyone, but taken no clear favorites yet—and some had been about the odd behavior of Flor de Maga.
“Searching the rooms high and low for some exquisite creature dressed as a dragonfly,” Lord Hyacinth had delighted in relaying the words until Clematis had ducked his head and been unable to look at him. “You should have let him find you,” Lord Hyacinth had added, but softer, and with a suggestion. “You still could.”
“For what purpose?” Clematis had asked, equally soft, and Lord Walter had shushed his husband and that had been that—for the time being.
Clematis knew Lord Hyacinth, and the matter would not be settled until he thought Clematis was happy.
Clematis was, in a way. He had gotten more than he had ever dreamed, could even have gone further if he had not been so foolish. But it was one thing to be the mysterious man once kissed by Flor de Maga on a dark balcony. It was another to be found out as a mere servant, perhaps remembered as the odd one who hid behind curtains or rolled in ashes and kept his face turned away. He cringed from the thought. Flor would have been kind, but Clematis did not want his pity.
“Well, well,” Lord Walter abruptly spoke, “it appears we are to have visitors. And a royal one at that. You would think Prince David would be too busy searching for someone to marry to pay us a call, and yet there is his banner atop that carriage.”
If Clematis hadn’t been at the window a moment later, heart loud in his ears and his hands shaking, he might have commented on the lack of surprise in Lord Walter’s voice. Instead, one glance to the flag depicting Prince David’s unicorn rampant and he mumbled, “Forgive me,” before bolting for the kitchens.
Cook’s assistants and a maid asked after him, concerned, but didn’t attempt to stop him as he headed for the scullery. They knew him too well.
Clematis caught his breath there, beneath the drying herbs, the steam curling his hair, watched only by Kate, the scullery maid, who rushed out again with her apron full of beetroot. She knew him well, and nodded toward the full ashbin. She never teased the way some did.
Clematis was safe in Lord Hyacinth’s house, but sometimes he still needed to hide himself and not be seen.
The Prince should not be here. Yet he was. It was too much to hope that Flor wasn’t with him. This was exactly what Clematis wanted, to be left alone and to be found in equal measures. He had not slept a wink, reliving every single moment from the night before. He wanted more, which he could not have. Lord Hyacinth should not have encouraged him to use his voice. Now what was he to do with it in the cold light of day?
Kate had shut the door behind her. Clematis went to the ashbin, filled to the brim with ash and cinders, and went through the other door to dump it in the ash pile for her. It left his hands covered, and he hesitated before running one through his hair to dull the shiny brown.
Returning to the scullery, he froze.
Flor waited for him.
An odd sight, Flor de Maga in a scullery. He was restless, already, and seemed to fill the room with sparks. The steam left his skin and clothing damp, made his cheeks darker. Without a mask, his eyes were black and bright at the same time, and they held Clematis in place and made him forget to look down until it was too late.
Clematis stumbled all the way into the room. The outside door closed behind him.
They were alone.
