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  They were handsome children, everyone said as much, and Aunt Cecily turned her attention to them, doting on them as she had never doted on me.

  Shortly afterwards, there was a period of subdued excitement.

  “Aunt Cecy is in an interesting condition,” Robert said knowledgably.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “You aren’t very bright, are you, Awful? She is expecting a baby.”

  “A baby?”

  The three brothers burst into laughter and walked out of the room, shaking their heads, murmuring to each other of my stupidity.

  But truly, were not babies born of love? And there was no love lost between my uncle and his wife. I was aware of that if the brothers were not.

  Aunt Cecily was so happy for a time, but then she retired to her rooms for a number of weeks, and when she emerged, she was once again wan and melancholy, although the Hoods managed to make her smile upon occasion.

  Two years later, Arabella Marchand, a cousin’s daughter, another orphan, arrived. Aunt Cecily smiled and clapped her hands. “How splendid! I have a daughter now, and the family is complete!”

  An angelic-looking young girl, Arabella had glossy golden ringlets and eyes of cerulean blue, and everyone loved her on sight, spoiling her as no one had ever thought to spoil me.

  It hurt, for I missed the affection my parents had so lavishly showered upon me. I determined, since I had already been given the appellation “Awful,” that I would show them how very awful I could be, and so I became as obnoxious as I knew how in revenge.

  Robert insisted I be included in their games—after all, who would be the villain? I, as the heir to Fayerweather, should have been the leader. However, Robert claimed the role of Robin Hood for himself—“Am I not called Robin?”—and wore the jaunty green cap with the sweeping feather he had cajoled Aunt Cecily into giving him from one of her bonnets. And of course John was Little John, while William assumed the role of Will Scarlet.

  I, on the other hand, was deemed worthy only of being the Sheriff of Nottingham, or on occasion, Guy of Gisbourne. At any rate, none of the brothers would have followed my orders anyway.

  On that day in particular, William, the youngest Hood, had taken an ugly splinter in his leg from the stick that substituted as my sword, and Robert had glowered at me. “This is your fault!” he snarled. “Little John, fetch something to remove the arrow.”

  John scampered off, and I crossed my arms and glared at Robert. “That is not an arrow.”

  “It is if I say it is!” He turned to his injured brother. “Now, Will Scarlet, I shall cut the arrow out of your leg!”

  “Yes, Robin.” The stupid little git would no doubt say, Yes, Robin, even if his brother told him, William, I am going to take off your leg.

  John returned before too long with a penknife I recognized as Uncle Eustace’s. “I’m telling Aunt Cecily!” I declared. One of us needed to use common sense. Aside from which, if it was discovered as missing, I was the one who would catch bloody hell.

  “You’d cry rope on us?” Robert’s face darkened, and he took a threatening step toward me. I forced myself to stand fast.

  Arabella exhibited her displeasure by kicking me in the shins, and the three brothers laughed.

  Robert dismissed my presence and unfolded the blade. William’s eyes grew huge, and his lower lip trembled, for it suddenly looked as large as Cook’s carving knife.

  “None of that now, young William. You’re a Hood! Here, take this piece of wood and bite down on it if the pain becomes too much. Not that it should.”

  “Yes, Robin.” William obeyed him, and I curled my lip in disdain.

  Robert nodded in satisfaction, then said, “Chin up, stout fellow,” and began to dig out the splinter.

  Arabella clutched William’s hand. “You are being so brave, Will Scarlet!”

  “It… it does not hurt very much. Honestly, Belle. I mean Maid Marian.” He bit down hard on the wood, his complexion turning green.

  “Got the bugger!” Robert exclaimed triumphantly. Arabella clapped her hands over her ears, but she giggled.

  The blood flowed freely, and I sat down abruptly, feeling lightheaded.

  Arabella tore off a strip of her petticoat, dabbed at the wound, and then bound it. “Are you feeling better, Will?” She petted his arm.

  He nodded, but Robin Hood gave a dramatic moan. “No! Too late! We were too late! The arrowhead must have been dipped in poison! You’ll pay for this treachery, Sheriff, you and your dastardly Prince John!” He shook his fist at me, then turned back to his youngest brother. “But for now—Will Scarlet died an honorable death. We must give him a hero’s funeral!”

  “Dying from a wound gone putrid isn’t heroic!” I grumbled.

  “None of that, Sheriff! It was through your actions…. Hold on a tick! John, we need… no, you already risked all to fetch the knife for the field surgery. I shall go in search of the valiant warrior! You lot dig the grave!”

  “I don’t see why I should have to!” I kicked at a tussock of grass.

  But Robert raced off, and as usual, the others paid me no heed, instead scraping out a shallow hole in the ground near the pond’s edge.

  It seemed Robert was gone a good three quarters of an hour, but perhaps I had that wrong. I grew bored and wanted to visit the stable, where at least the grooms treated me well and one of the stable boys was friendly to me, but I was shouted down.

  Eventually Robert came jogging out of the Hall.

  “Sorry, chaps. Had to go… er… searching. See what I found!” It was a lead soldier with the Tarleton helmet of the Light Dragoons, his coat painted madder red and his collar royal blue.

  “I say, that’s… that belongs to me!” A friend of Aunt Cecily had given the set to me one Christmas, before the Hoods arrived and he realized he preferred the brothers to me.

  Robert sneered, not a pleasant expression, and he placed the soldier into the “grave” and tossed a handful of dirt into it. “I am the resurrection and the life, sayeth the Lord…,” he intoned with righteous zeal. His eyes took on a faraway look, and I curled my lip in disdain, but he was so wrapped in his visions of nobility that he didn’t see. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death….”

  Arabella sniffled. Being unable to stand, William sat to attention. John stood beside him, his bugle in hand.

  I sulked. It was my soldier, after all, and it had been commandeered without even a “by your leave.”

  At William’s other side stood Robert, his eyes lit with almost militant fervor. “Wouldn’t it be wizard to fight a final, desperate battle against overwhelming odds, chaps?”

  “As Father did, Robin?”

  “Yes, just as Father did!” His expression became wistful. “Father… he lies buried in a mass grave at the crossroads of Quatre-Bras. When I fall….”

  “I shall see to it you have a hero’s send-off, Robin!” John rested his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

  “I, also!” William chimed in.

  “And I imagine you’ll visit his grave each year on the anniversary of when he fell and leave flowers?” I scowled, hunched a shoulder, and turned away. “What rot!”

  But it would have been as well if I’d spared my breath.

  “Thank you, chaps.” Robert cleared his throat. “Now, bugler, if you will?”

  John raised his bugle to his lips and began to play Last Post, and I came to a reluctant halt, taken by the haunting notes in spite of myself. He drew in a breath and blew, drew in a breath and blew, and he did it so earnestly, never once hitting a sour note.

  He had toyed with that bugle often and often, but this time…. It occurred to me how very beautiful he was, with his thick brown hair falling haplessly into astonishingly blue eyes, and it was then that I tumbled helplessly, hopelessly in love with him.

  But it was not until six years later, on my seventeenth birthday, when we were all down from school, that I made lo—had John Hood the
first time.

  Chapter 2

  A strange groom presented himself at the kitchen door, and I was sent for. “Yes?”

  “You be Mr. Laytham? I’ve a message for you.” He handed me the slip of paper. I unfolded it and read the words with widening eyes. It seemed that during an unprecedented run of luck at a faro’s den, Uncle Eustace had won a prime bit of horseflesh.

  However, the message went on to state, since the animal was under his weight, he was passing the colt on to me. The action surprised me, and I wondered what was truly wrong with the horse; Uncle Eustace was not usually so generous.

  “Where is the colt?” I asked the groom.

  “Right outside t’door, sir.” He stamped his feet and blew on his hands.

  “Cook, see he has something to warm him.”

  “Thankee, sir. I could do with sommat.”

  “You may as well stay the night. After you’ve eaten, I’ll have one of the grooms show you where you can put up your horse.”

  “Already acting lord of the manor, Awful?”

  I scowled at Robert Hood, who seemed to have appeared from nowhere, and opened my mouth to inform him that when I indeed became the seventh baronet, my first act would be to evict him from my home, but John was standing there, as well as William and Arabella, because of course they were always together, and I bit back the words.

  “Haven’t you anything better to do than annoy me, Robert?”

  “No.” He grinned. “Cook, my own heart’s delight, would you mind providing us with tea? We’re famished!”

  John looked at him as if his beloved brother had uttered deathless prose, and I hunched a shoulder and stalked out of the kitchen and into the December afternoon.

  The colt standing there was small, not much above fifteen hands high, ivory-colored, with a long, thick mane and tail, and with unusual blue eyes. Uncle had written that his previous owner had named him for them—Blue Boy. “Of course you’re to change the name at once. Something not as fanciful. Arthur, perhaps, or William after our gracious king.”

  The large, liquid eyes observed me, curious and intelligent. No, I would not change his name.

  “Come along, Blue Boy.” The weather was chill, but not unseasonably so, and I thought I would take him for a turn in the paddock behind the main stable. “Let’s see how you move under a saddle.”

  I finished putting the colt through his paces and walked him to the stable. Once there, I dismounted, giving his neck a pat.

  The air in the stable was warm from the numerous animals and redolent of horse and hay.

  “Blue Boy is a handsome animal, Master Ash.” Jem, the young groom, removed Blue Boy’s tack and set about rubbing him down.

  “He is that, Jemmy, and a sweet-goer as well.” I wondered if I dared grow too fond of the horse, lest Uncle Eustace withdraw the gift, an act he had been wont to do when he felt that with one more turn of the cards or toss of the dice he would see the end of a losing streak. He saw nothing wrong with wagering away a gift he had bestowed upon someone.

  I sighed and patted Blue Boy a final time. “The most wonderful birthday gift Uncle has ever given me.” Truthfully, the only gift he had ever given me.

  Jem gave me a sideways glance. “It’s your birthday, then, Master Ash?”

  “Yes.” It was John’s as well, but for once I’d gotten the better gift.

  “I’ve a gift I’d be liking to give you, sir.” The corner of his mouth tilted in a grin.

  “That’s very kind of you, Jemmy, but not necessary….”

  “I think it is, sir. You’ve been very good to me and my Mum.” He looked around to make sure we were alone, then took my hand and led me to an unoccupied box stall. “Close the door, if you please, sir. Mr. Ruston is away for the afternoon, and the boys are in their quarters, warming up after exercising the horses, so we should have time enough if we’re quick about it. Here’s something that will make it easy for both of us.” He handed me a jar of some sweet-smelling lotion, and his fingers became busy with the buttons of his breeches.

  “Jemmy! Where had you this?”

  “It’s some of Mum’s store, what she makes for Lady Laytham. She has plenty, and I thought….” He looked uncertain. “Do you not want me, then, sir?”

  I thought briefly of John. He would never look on me thus, nor offer me his body. “Yes, Jemmy, I want you, and thanks.”

  A happy smile flooded his face. He stripped his breeches down enough to bare his arse. “Then have at me, sir!”

  I took care with him—my prefect at Eton had taught me well, and among certain of the boys there, I was known as a generous lover. I saw no reason to treat Jemmy with less than care because he worked as a groom in my uncle’s stable.

  Once I felt he was prepared enough, when his hips rocked backward, taking my fingers deeper into his fundament, I coated my prick with the ointment and slid in, finding his back passage hot and clinging.

  Jemmy gasped, and I ceased my movements. “Have I hurt you, Jemmy? Have you not done this before?”

  “Aye, a time or two, although none so large as you, sir!”

  “Sweet words, Jemmy.”

  “True words, sir.”

  “Do not call me sir when I’m buggering you, Jem.” I nipped the side of his neck.

  “No, sir.” I could hear the grin in his voice, and I pinched his arse.

  We could not take too long about this, for we could be walked in upon at any moment, so I sped up my movements.

  He bucked like an unbroken steed under me, panting and moaning, and I was breathless, fast approaching the brink of climaxing, when sure enough, someone wandered into the stable.

  “Jem Stableboy, I want my horse saddled!” It was John Hood, of all people.

  I froze, my prick deep in Jemmy’s arse, my hand firmly around his own weeping erection.

  “Please, Master Ash! Please don’t stop!” Jem begged in a hoarse whisper.

  “Of course I won’t stop, Jemmy, pet,” I assured him, “but hush. Perhaps he will leave!”

  “Oh ho! What’s all the noise about then? Sounds to me like someone is having a right time!” John poked his head into the box stall. “Oh, my God! Ashton!” His eyes were enormous, fastened on the empurpled head of my prick, which I had withdrawn from the heated passage that had gloved it like velvet. My shaft glistened with the lotion I had used. I thrust it back into the young groom, and he whimpered in satisfaction as I stroked across his sweet spot. All the while I stared at the burgeoning arousal in John’s trousers.

  John could not seem to tear his fascinated gaze from the sight Jemmy and I made. “Care to join us, John?”

  He was torn. The Hoods were always so honorable, so noble, so pure of heart. And I… I was Awful Ashton: dishonorable, ignoble, impure. John looked torn, as if he wanted to bolt from the stable, but more than that, as if he did, indeed, want to join us. Perhaps he had got a taste for a prick in his arse at Harrow. His face grown flushed, his hand was in his trousers, rubbing himself furiously.

  “Ahhh!” Jemmy cried out softly, filling my hand with his seed. Two more hard, swift thrusts, and I spent as well.

  Never looking away from the middle Hood brother, I brought my hand to my mouth and delicately licked at my palm.

  John trembled and moaned and bit his lip, and a dark stain appeared on the front of his trousers. With a horrified groan, he stumbled from the stable.

  What had I expected, that he truly would want to join us, or better still, pull me away from my playmate and demand that I keep myself for him?

  “Well,” I murmured, “I hope he manages to get to his chamber before anyone sees him.”

  “Will he tell on us, Master Ash?” Jemmy sounded nervous. It could cost him his position, and any future positions, if he were turned off without a reference.

  “No. You need not be concerned. Master John might not have a care for me, but he is too honorable. He would not put a servant in that position.” I dropped another kiss on the young groom’s neck and c
arefully pulled free. “Let’s get cleaned up, shall we, Jemmy?”

  “Aye, Master Ash.”

  He gasped when I turned him, dropped to my knees, and carefully licked him clean.

  “Master Ash, this is not right!”

  “Hush, Jemmy.” It was more right than he knew. In this little way, I felt as if I were getting some of my own back from John, who would never think to give me a birthday gift like this, who would never think to give me a gift of any kind.

  Later that same evening, just before the supper tray was brought in, John came looking for me in the billiards room.