Leather and Tea in London

Chapter 1 Traveling with his husband, Ben decided—as he’d decided many times before—had to rank among the most excruciating experiences of his life. More unpleasant than hostile guns in his face. More frustrating than governmental bureaucracy. Just worse. It wasn’t even Simon’s fault. That was the other problem. Kept him rather definitively from being able to mention all the worse. Simon himself was unfailingly polite and kind to harried flight attendants and calm about every airport-related gate-change and delay. Simon flew first class—Ben did too, or at least had when Agency money had paid for it—and appreciated good service, which naturally extended to Ben, as his husband. Simon packed neatly and simply, one bag, and didn’t complain when the woman in the seat behind him squealed, “Oh, that is you!” and demanded he sign her napkin. Ben had turned around too, and glared. She’d sat back down and gone very quiet for the rest of the flight; Simon had given him a reproving headshake, but those winter-blue eyes weren’t really annoyed, so Ben had considered this a triumph. The excruciating part had nothing to do with how completely and thoroughly and madly he loved his husband. It had everything to do with all the stares. Everyone noticed them. Ben, years of Agency subtlety and disguise hardwired into his bones, tried not to twitch every time another person peeked at his face. Some of those persons had phones. With cameras. He’d so far resisted the urge to take them away. He might be officially retired from the field. Didn’t make being the center of attention any easier. Not when it wasn’t part of a cover, a mission, a job. Technically they did have a mission. Simon’s brother. In trouble. A plaintive phone call. Blackmail, photographs, embarrassment. Simon and Ben had looked at each other, sighed, and agreed to come over to London for a few days. Ben was pretty sure it wouldn’t take longer; how much trouble could one generally well-meaning affable viscount get into? The phone call hadn’t been terribly clear; Stephen had been distressed, and distracted. But it seemed personal, not political, which was good; smaller scale. It wouldn’t’ve been political. No one trusted Stephen Ashley with state secrets; he’d rattle them off to anyone interested, not out of malice but because Stephen liked everybody. Ben, who did not like everybody, was aware that this dismissal of his brother-in-law was slightly unfair. Stephen was the definition of an English-heritage jolly good fellow, and perfectly nice, and solid through and through. Ben Smith, former Agency operative and current instructor—in history and linguistics and international relations, or at least mostly those areas—had a lot of cynicism, fought off the occasional past-related nightmare, and currently kept trying not to tense up every time someone got too close, stared too long, recognized Simon. The problem was threefold, and unlikely to simply vanish. First came the fact that he’d married the most attractive man on the planet, possibly on any planet, anywhere. This in and of itself decidedly did not bother him—though he sometimes still wondered how the pixie-sized living artwork had ended up saying yes to him—but meant that heads turned everyplace they went. In an airport lounge. In a bookshop. On a train. It was that kind of beauty. Second was the moderate level of celebrity, which should’ve really been first, but people figured out the celebrity after they did the looking. And that was only about to get worse, here in London. Here, where Simon wasn’t just a bestselling author—with the added titillating thrill that the novels were all historical romance, juicy and delicious, and not shy about s*x scenes—but also technically aristocratic. The second son of a certain duke. A not-insignificant number of steps from the Royal Family. Simon cordially loathed his father, dislike entirely reciprocated. That didn’t make the relation any less newsworthy, whenever he came home. Ben had held his hand, getting onto the plane. Again, disembarking here in London. Simon had wrapped fingers around his, slightly cold and very tight, and summoned up a smile for the next person with a phone held up for a photograph. Third… …well. They’d be attracting attention even without the first two conditions. He sighed, not audibly. The sharp-footed centipede of annoyance scampered down his spine again. Within thirty seconds of disembarking from the plane, Simon had tripped over someone else’s luggage, tripped over a second person’s luggage while apologizing, nearly stepped in front of a cart full of security officers, and then walked into a post. A post. An immovable, plainly visible, post. Ben sighed again. His entire body itched, invisible restlessness crawling under his skin. Simon was currently staring at the airport’s moving walkway, eyes all forlorn bits of sky. “I’m not certain this is a good idea.” “It’s probably not.” He took Simon’s bag away. It could balance out his other shoulder. Plus, no one else would get hit by a random oversized carry-on. “Didn’t you fall off an escalator once?” “Not entirely. Thank you for having such boundless faith in me.” Simon ventured a step. Promptly lost balance at the line between motionless carpet and rolling black vinyl, and managed to catch himself with a small amount of grace plus a helpful handrail plus Ben’s shoulder. “I hate airports.” “How did you ever survive book tours before me,” Ben said, and took his hand again, walking. “Did you anger any witches? End up cursed?” “It’s thoroughly possible that my father insulted an evil fairy at some point. He’s certainly insulted everyone else…oh, sorry, that was your foot…I am capable of walking, I swear. I did function for years without you. I said function, there, not live.” That wasn’t living, said those eyes, so blue when they met his, serious behind all the laughter. “I love you,” Ben said, and put both hands on his face and leaned down and kissed him, deep and thorough and unquestionably firm. They wandered through crowds and shops. They ducked paparazzi—not many, but a few, sharks who’d somehow learned about a duke’s flamboyantly gay and hopefully scandalous son arriving. Simon had had become less newsworthy since settling down and getting married and becoming boring, as he’d put it dryly to Ben; but then again the media kept hoping he’d perform some sort of repeat of nights spent running around nightclubs in mesh shirts and eyeliner, or openly dating two handsome models at once, or any of those true past stories. Simon said this with a fleeting duck away of those blue eyes, an apology in advance before they’d left Virginia; Ben had kissed him in their kitchen and told him it’d be fine. He knew those stories; Simon had told him. He knew about that past, that performance, that determination that, if Simon couldn’t be the son his father wanted, he’d be the exact opposite. In the present, he put menacing shoulders to work. He knew most of the human vultures assumed he was Simon’s bodyguard; every once in a while his name emerged in a paper or a photo caption as Simon’s husband, and then everyone remembered that the quiet generally brown—hair, eyes, skin—and nondescript man at Simon’s side was in fact married to him. Ben would’ve been annoyed about this, but it wasn’t as if anyone knew anything about him. Ben Smith wasn’t the name associated with his career, either. He was learning to live with the exposure. He had to; he wouldn’t give up Simon. Not ever. They found an exit. They found London, or at least Heathrow, sprawling out around them: home, in a sense, though not really, in another sense. Simon had grown up in the glittering heights of upper-class spires, polo matches and Oxbridge expectations, boarding schools and brandy after dinner; Ben had spent a few missions meeting contacts, trading information, and a few times seducing a fellow player in the game, in the back alleys and lofty penthouses of the city. He’d told Simon about those, in turn, early on. No secrets. Nothing held back. Simon had thought this over, then shrugged. “I know what you used to do. I always knew. I expect it’s…well, expected. And you’re retired now, so I’m hardly worried.” He’d bitten that lip, though: not glancing away, meaning every word, but wavering ever so slightly over the saying of them. Ben, who knew how deep some of those old wounds—about worthlessness and rejection and the belief that Simon himself simply wasn’t good enough—had once upon a time cut, had promptly cuddled his other half with every bit of strength in his old battered spy’s body. Had kissed those lips, and had sworn up and down and sideways that yes, he was indeed retired, and Simon was enough, everything he wanted, everything that’d keep his life bright and challenging and wonderful for every single year to come. He meant it. Simon believed it, he knew, or ninety-nine percent did. Working on it, and pretty confident in it, after years and a wedding and the house with the literal white picket fence, at home in Virginia. Home meant Simon’s book-hoard and a merry teakettle and seashells on the fireplace mantel. Home meant them, and Ben having someone to hold onto, and Simon’s collar and some good leather restraints, made to order for Simon’s elegant fine-boned wrists and ankles. He held Simon’s hand. They looked around for their ride. Ben said, “He did say he’d meet us, right?” “Steve has a very particular sense of time, by which I mean no sense at all. But everyone forgives him, because he always means well. It’d be like getting annoyed at sunshine.” “How did anyone even find anything to…” Ben edited that phrase before it escaped, learned caution overtaking the sentence. No sharing information aloud, in public. “To cause trouble for him?” Simon gave him an entertained hand-squeeze. “Thank you for that. And the answer is…he doesn’t always make the best decisions. You know he doesn’t. Hence us being here.” “He loves you,” Ben said, “and you deserve to see him more often, he is your only brother, even if he is causing problems,” and leaned down for a kiss, at which precise moment an upper-class English sports-playing voice yowled, “Simon! Ben! Hullo! Oh, sorry, don’t mind me, go on with the kissing!” and Ben shut both eyes for a second and sighed. Simon was laughing, and let go of Ben’s hand in order to be engulfed in a hug. The towncar’s driver waited patiently in the background. Stephen Lionel Ecclesford Ashley, in full-on older-brother mode, thumped his sibling on the back, released Simon, and waved at Ben. “You’re here!” “We’re definitely here,” Ben agreed. They undeniably were. “Come on, then! Is that all your luggage? I’ve got it, no bother—I don’t know how you manage, I can never go anywhere without at least three bags, and I always forget something I’ve meant to pack. But you never forget things, do you, I wouldn’t think.” Stephen beamed at them. “Good flight?” “Fine,” Ben agreed, smiling. Stephen had that effect: uncomplicated, with a big heart. Except, his brain reminded him, Steve had made things complicated. Relatively, anyway. Why they were here. With an expensive car, and a long-suffering driver. The Ashley siblings did look amazingly alike, all blond-haired blue-eyed handsomeness; somewhere along the way, though, Stephen had stolen all the height and breadth, and only didn’t loom imposingly because there was no way that puppy-dog friendliness ever could. Simon gave his older brother an evaluative once-over. “Have your muscles grown muscles? Honestly, at some point it’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” “You remember that time I tried to get you to play rugby,” Stephen said, “and then you tried to throw a book at me and missed and hit Aunt Lavinia’s Japanese vase? How’s your aim?” But he had an arm flung over Simon’s shoulders now, all good-natured lack of personal space and careless upper-class intimacy. “Hullo, Ben. Arm-wrestled any evildoers into submission lately?” “That was one time,” Ben said, “a decade ago, in the worst bar in Moscow, and it was part of making contact, and why did I tell you that story, again?” It’d been declassified. Long enough in the past. Not even a terribly productive meeting. “How’ve you been?” “Oh, well. Good, actually, up until, you know.” Steve waved a hand, getting into the car. The muscles had to squeeze. “Er. Thank you. For helping out.” “Ben has skills,” Simon agreed cheerily. “And I have plots. You can tell us about it at home.” “With scotch,” Stephen agreed. “How’s the writing? Saw you’d made all those bestseller lists again; totally bought a copy of A Lady for a Season, you know.” He did loyally purchase all of Simon’s historical romance novels, and had even read the very first one, over a period of several months. “My brother the genius. Love that, you making people happy. Want a drink?” Simon smiled at him, held Ben’s hand, and answered, “I love that too. Stories about love, and happy endings.” Ben, settled into expensive leather, being offered expensive scotch, felt that odd shiver of disconnection again: not because he didn’t love his husband—he did, entirely—but because of that answer. Sometimes still unbelievable. Sometimes too amazing. He’d collided with a dazzling English literary genius in an airport lounge, and tumbled into a hotel room, and then into a life together. Simon’s novels and that aristocratic wealth. Casual privilege and a London townhouse and a country estate. And his own unremarkable background, in a peeling-paint apartment with a non-existent father, a mother who loved him but worked three jobs and hadn’t been home much, and a talent for languages and a need to prove himself. And, later, blood on his hands. He hadn’t grown up in painful poverty, or not exactly. But he did have memories of his mother considering a six-dollar grocery-store budget for the week, and sighing, and conjuring up a smile for her small son. That apartment was a far cry from the nice house she lived in now, and an even further long-distance shout from Simon’s and Stephen’s ancestral silver. His mother did like Simon, cautiously so. Ben had had a carefully negotiated relationship with his mother for decades, not precisely close but on good terms. He’d never technically come out to her, at least not in so many words, though she’d certainly figured it out by the time he’d brought Simon home, and on rare occasions he’d mentioned partners of various genders. He knew she’d had to do some hard thinking about acceptance and adjustment of expectations for him, but she did love him, and she’d tried. He never had brought many partners home; he hadn’t had many, at least not that he could talk about or felt deeply enough about. He never had been able to talk about work or the Agency with his mother, not in any detail; he never had let himself fall in love, not seriously, not forever. Not given his profession. Not until Simon. Who’d offered him a pocket-sized blue-eyed anchor. Who wanted to know Ben himself, and who’d never been afraid of anything in his past. Who’d smiled at him like a future. Ben had, over the years, gotten used to pretending. To sliding into roles. To assuming voices, personas, persuasive characters. He’d been whoever he had to be. He’d been good at it. He did not precisely feel uncomfortable in Stephen’s house. That wasn’t the emotion. Stephen, now telling some convoluted story about two friends of his who’d fallen in love while purchasing a racehorse, finished with, “…and they’re planning a Royal Ascot wedding, naturally, and of course it’ll be glorious if a bit tacky, oh that was nearly a good pun about tack, drat, I didn’t think of it!” and laughed at himself. “But I thought you could use it, maybe, in a book? A story, y’know.” “Possibly.” Simon lifted eyebrows, pondering plot developments. “The historical version. With absolutely brilliant hats, of course.” “Oh lord yes,” Stephen said, “you should’ve seen the monstrosity Aunt Lavinia wore to the garden party last week, it had purple lace and pumpkins, of all things…” Ben watched London through a window; watched Simon and Simon’s brother, as they got along and caught up and got dismayed about Aunt Lavinia’s fashion sense; smiled, just a little, to himself. Details and stories. A mission, though not a world-threatening one, merely personal. Family. And happy endings.