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‘I owe you an apology as well,’ Robin said into the quiet of the bedroom, some time later.
He had barely moved other than to roll off Edwin. Now they lay on their backs, side by side on top of the rumpled sheets, their breath evening out, sweat cooling on their bodies. Between them, they made lazy exploration of each other’s hands, fingers slowly twining, untwining, retwining. Robin traced small callouses from Edwin’s string and the delicate bumps of each knuckle. He felt Edwin’s fingertip brush the half-healed cut on his palm.
They’d closed the curtains rather hastily earlier, and the afternoon sun shone through the gaps. One thin beam fell across Edwin’s body, turning his skin to pale gold, and Robin let his eyes follow the line of it all the way up his bare thigh and stomach and chest, to where it landed on one sharp cheekbone as Edwin turned his head towards him.
He didn’t open his eyes, but his brow furrowed in confusion. ‘For what?’
‘For—’ Robin hesitated a moment. He didn’t want to make Edwin uncomfortable, and he certainly didn’t want to make him retreat in on himself again. But he also wanted to do this right, and he was, as ever, honest, especially about things that really mattered. ‘For not realising why you couldn’t tell me to stay, when I left Penhallick.’
Edwin’s eyes opened, and he looked cautious, but not as though he wanted Robin to stop, so Robin pressed on.
‘I was so caught up in my own hurt, thinking I’d misunderstood what was happening between us. Is happening between us,’ he amended, squeezing Edwin’s hand when Edwin smiled, small but no less real for it.
‘But it turned out I’d misunderstood something else entirely,’ Robin continued. ‘Something important about you.’
‘You’d only known me a week,’ Edwin reminded him. ‘You’re hardly to blame for not knowing my innermost feelings.’ Now his smile turned self-deprecating. ‘Especially when I’m very well-practiced at hiding them. If I’d thought you had figured out how terrified I was, I’d probably have fled for the hills.’
Robin drew Edwin’s hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of it. ‘I would like to figure you out, if you’ll let me,’ he murmured. ‘I won’t demand anything of you that you’re not ready to give. But I would love it if one day you felt you didn’t have to hide from me.’
‘I—’ Edwin started, and then stopped, eyes briefly closing again. ‘I was going to say I don’t feel I have to hide from you,’ he said. ‘But the truth is—’
He stopped once more and swallowed, adam’s apple visibly bobbing in his throat.
‘The truth is,’ he continued, and though he was very careful to tamp down his emotions, Robin was getting vastly better at sensing what lay just beneath the surface, ‘I’m so used to hiding that I might need to work at it. I know it’s a lot to ask you to be patient with me. But I don’t want to hide from you. I meant what I said before. I want to try.’
‘It’s not a lot to ask,’ Robin told him at once. ‘It’s not. You’re worth it.’
Again, Edwin took a moment to answer, blinking hard at the ceiling. When he did speak, his voice was barely above a whisper. ‘I’m not sure anyone’s ever thought that about me.’
‘Well, then, more fool them,’ Robin said fiercely. His grip on Edwin’s hand tightened, protective. ‘And lucky for me. Imagine if I’d met you and you were already happily coupled up with Lord Hawthorn.’
Edwin snorted. ‘Perhaps there’s someone out there that Hawthorn would happily couple up with, but it certainly isn’t me.’
‘If you were with some other fellow, then,’ Robin said.
‘I suppose you’d have had to challenge him to pistols at dawn.’
‘And I would have done it,’ Robin insisted. He rolled onto his side, cupping Edwin’s face and tilting it towards him, thumb stroking along his cheekbone. ‘I meant every word I said, too, and a lot more besides. You’re brilliant, and beautiful, and I’m sorry more people haven’t seen it before now.’
Edwin’s blue eyes searched his face for a few seconds. Then he turned fully onto his side too, splaying his fingers against Robin’s jaw and kissing him.
It was such a lovely novelty, kissing someone like this: leisurely, sweet, with no intent beyond the kiss itself. Robin thought he could be perfectly satisfied if this were the only way Edwin wanted to touch for the rest of their lives. Just the soft press of Edwin’s lips against his, their loosely tangled legs, the touch of each of Edwin’s fingertips against his cheek, his own hand resting on Edwin’s hip, thumb stroking softly at the crest of it. He could be happy with just holding Edwin like this, with getting to be close to him.
The runaway train of his thoughts—his hopes—for what this might turn into, and for how long, should have scared him, or at the very least startled him a little. It wasn’t as though he had any past attachment to look to as a frame of reference.
But they didn’t scare or startle him. They felt like a simple, observable truth of the world. The sky was blue, and water was wet, and Robin had waited for Edwin Courcey for an eternity and would keep hold of him an eternity more.
He pulled his mouth from Edwin’s to breathe, almost trembling with sincerity, ‘I like you so much.’
Edwin let out a sort of hitching gasp and, in answer, kissed him again as if drawn by a magnet. Robin suspected, heart breaking a little, that no one had ever told him that either, and he set about showing him just how much he meant it.
Perhaps there could be intent beyond kissing, he thought, as he tugged Edwin closer, rocking their hips gently together, lips curving against Edwin’s as he felt him stir against his thigh once more.
Edwin mumbled, ‘We really shouldn’t,’ though he sank back into the kiss immediately and tightened his hold on Robin’s body. ‘Lunch will be—’
‘Ready whenever you are,’ Robin cut in. He smiled against Edwin’s lips again. ‘It’s your house, after all.’
‘Mm. I keep forgetting about that.’
But all the same, Edwin gentled the kiss and then pulled back enough to look at Robin, who barely felt the pang of disappointment—there would be time later for sex.
Edwin ghosted a fingertip over Robin’s chin. ‘I’d duel for your hand as well, you know,’ he said. ‘Though I’d lose rather spectacularly.’
‘I’d appreciate the effort all the same.’
‘Enough to abandon your hypothetical lover for me?’
‘Enough to abandon him twice over,’ Robin assured him, kissing the tip of his finger as it made its way up to Robin’s lip.
Edwin smiled. Then he was silent for a moment, finger trailing now to Robin’s cheek.
‘You’ll have to tell me if you change your mind,’ he said quietly.
‘About letting you win my favour in a duel?’
‘About me. You have to tell me if I’m doing something to ruin this, or—’
‘I won’t change my mind,’ Robin interrupted, gentle, ‘and you couldn’t ruin it if you tried.’
‘Robin,’ Edwin sighed. He didn’t pause in his careful exploration of Robin’s features; it was as though he was committing them to memory, his eyes following the path of his finger. ‘You’ve still not known me very long. I could turn out to be an enormous disappointment.’ He said it with studied lightness, and went on before Robin could protest. ‘And aside from that, I’m not always good at knowing when I’m doing something… frustrating. Or rude. I could drive you away and not even realise I was doing it. I’d prefer to be prepared.’
It spoke to more old fears, to past experiences. It wasn’t going to be enough to simply tell Edwin that would never happen.
He would make this a personal undertaking, then, he told himself, in addition to thwarting Walter Courcey. From this point on, Robin would do all he could to show Edwin that here, finally, was someone who thought him important, who thought him worth time and care, who wanted to stay for as long as Edwin would have him.
‘All right.’ Robin caught Edwin’s hand as it trailed down Robin’s neck, just as his fingers reached the mark the knife had made earlier. ‘Well, now I know that, I promise I’ll tell you. And I keep my promises. So if I’m not telling you there’s anything wrong, do you promise to believe it?’
‘Hm.’ Edwin’s expression was solemn, but in his gaze there was a hint of a smile. ‘I suppose that’s a fair enough exchange.’
‘Good,’ Robin said, turning his grip on Edwin’s hand into a sort of handshake. It was silly for a moment, both of them amused at the awkwardness of the angle, the mock formality. And then it turned again to something serious, the squeeze of his fingers a further promise. ‘Because I’m ready whenever you are, too.’