Bennet steered sharply after his brother, stomach boiling with frustration.
A hand clamped his shoulder, stilling him. “He needs time. Stay here tonight.”
An arched brow. “For some fun fucking?”
Darcy stepped back, flushing furiously. “I meant you can stay in the spare room.”
Bennet bowed his head and laughed at himself. “I’m sorry. That was goading and inappropriate. Fucking would only confuse the situation.”
“Because it wouldn’t mean anything to you?”
Bennet frowned.
The taut silence between them was like wading into water with weights strapped to his chest. Bennet hated it. He wanted to take back his frustrated outburst. Wanted their earlier ease back.
Darcy cleared his throat. Looking up, Bennet met a solid smile and a softly forgiving gaze.
“How do you feel about chess?”
“How do you feel about a series of potentially stupid questions?”
“Come right this way.”
He pulled down the chess box, sending papers fluttering to the floor to rest at Bennet’s feet. Bennet recognized the crumpled handwritten letters immediately. The ones Caroline had seen and teased Darcy about, thinking incorrectly they were his.
Darcy stilled.
Slowly, Bennet crouched and picked one up. He couldn’t help glancing over it, and recognized one line: “Dear Henry.”
Darcy set the game down. “Cameron’s failed attempts to declare his love for my son.”
Bennet read. “In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire—” It was incomplete, and though Bennet knew by heart how it ended, he couldn’t bring himself to voice the words in Darcy’s presence.
He felt hot, flushed. Darcy watched him gather his thoughts, making Bennet shiver.
The paper shook.
“Why do you have these?”
Darcy perched on the table, fingers curled around the edge. “I truly believed Cameron was dating Georgie.”
Bennet stepped closer, facing him directly, and waited for him to continue.
“When I discovered he was with Henry, I jumped to the most horrible conclusion. That Georgie had no idea. That Cameron had been leading her on, or using her to weasel in with Henry somehow. I felt this enormous anger. And it forced me to confront my own attractions. I didn’t want to. I didn’t like it. So I projected my issues onto him.” Darcy shut his eyes. “I found those letters the day after I’d thrown Cameron out of my house. They were balled up and scattered around Henry’s floor. When I realized what they were, something cracked.” A hand went to his chest. “Cameron was just a guy who loved another guy, who happened to be my son.”
Bennet felt the pain and tenderness in Darcy’s voice.
“Cameron was a brave guy, who loved another guy, and was ready to announce his love.”
“So you kept the letters.” Bennet said quietly, thinking he understood.
Darcy gestured to the floor and Bennet’s hand. “He didn’t get it right the first time, or the second, but he kept trying. I kept them because they remind me to keep trying.”
Bennet bent to pick up the others and carefully flattened them against the shelf before slipping them atop the Scrabble box.
He faced Darcy with a little smile. “I’m glad we’ve decided to be friends. There is nothing I like more than honesty and candidness.”
Relief seemed to loosen Darcy’s hold on the table. “Then you’ll like me a lot.”
“Even more once you teach me how to beat you at this game . . .”
It was an unspoken agreement that they’d ride together in the morning, and ride they did. Dramatic slate-gray clouds stretched over farmland and a soft summer breeze funneled up Bennet’s sleeves.
He inhaled the fresh outdoor scents of wet grass, upturned mud, pollen-laced air. “You live on the coast and holiday at the foot of the mountains. Let’s have it, Darcy. Which do you prefer?”
“Mountains versus beaches?”
“Never has there been a more serious conversation.”
Darcy slowed his horse to a halt at the crown of the hill and observed his surroundings, casting gentle smiles toward Bennet. “The rush of waves crashing on the shore, the taste of ice cream while walking barefoot in the sand.”
Bennet grinned. “The sweet brisk air and lush green fields, a powerful mount shifting gracefully under you.”
“Penguins, albatrosses.”
“Kiwi, Kakapo.”
“Sailing over calm waters, swimming with the dolphins.”
“River rafting. Bungee jumping.”
Darcy looked sideways. “You’re kidding.”
“Just one time.”
“What does it feel like?”
“To fall?”
Birds twittered and flapped in a nearby row of poplars, and the first drops of rain splashed on Bennet’s nose. Below them, over the river, Cubworthy nestled in its hook.
“Yes, to fall,” Darcy said softly.
Another drop slithered down his collar. Bennet shivered. “I . . . I don’t know anymore.”
Their horses licked each other playfully.
Darcy’s voice rumbled. “We should get back before it pours.”
Bennet wholeheartedly agreed.
They didn’t make it.
The sky opened and they rode, laughing, through the downpour.
Shoeless and dripping on Darcy’s welcome mat, they peeled off layer after soaked layer and threw them into one big, horse-scented puddle on the floor. They were down to boxer briefs now. The thin material did nothing to conceal the swelling under it.