The Elliot Code of Honour (3/3)
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The gunshot was shockingly loud. Ryan felt as though he was still hearing it, drowning out the distant sounds of exclamation and Brendon's laboured breath. That shouldn't be distant: Brendon's chest was right under Ryan's hands, and above it his eyes were wide and dark and not quite focused on Ryan's face.
"Shut up," Ryan said, and he realised he'd been saying it for a while, muttering it like a mantra, "shut up, shut up, shut up," as though if he could stop Brendon's pained breaths he could make this not be happening. "Shut - you're - why did you just stand there, he had a gun, why did - tell me what to do!"
"Mr Ross, move out of the way," somebody said in a brusque tone, and Ryan stumbled sideways on his knees as the young doctor shouldered him aside. Then it was all quiet competence and quick-moving hands, Ryan hovering dumbly to the side as the doctor worked. Brendon hissed in his breath, then laughed short and abortive, biting down on his bottom lip to hold it in.
"I didn't think - this was the way duels worked," Brendon managed to say.
Dr Godwin, folding back the torn fabric of his shirt and feeling around the wound, shushed him. Brendon's head thumped back against the ground, a distressed sound escaping him. Ryan had to tuck his hands under his knees.
The doctor lifted his head, giving Ryan a piercing glance. He looked very youthful indeed, without even a shadow to need shaving from his cheeks, but Ryan was abruptly convinced that he could see every thought in Ryan's head.
"If you would like to help," the doctor said, the constrained and husky voice he had employed all morning giving the words a particular gravitas, "you might distract the young man by talking to him, or holding his hand."
Ryan blinked at him, a kind of stupor still upon him. Then he nodded and shuffled up to Brendon's head. Mindful of the doctor's words he reached out and lifted Brendon's hand. He wore no gloves. Ryan stripped off his own on an impulse and curled his hand around Brendon's chilled fingers.
"This isn't usually the way duels work," Ryan agreed, answering Brendon's earlier words. Brendon had closed his eyes tight against the doctor's work, his head tipped back. He opened his eyes, but they were foggy with pain.
"That's what I said," he whispered. "A very inf- inferi- inferior way of doing things. Ah!"
Ryan tightened his hand. Brendon was blinking and trying to focus. Sweat had dampened the locks over his brow.
"Although I haven't been to any others," Ryan said, hardly knowing what he was saying. "I don't want you to think that that's what my set does. That we duel all the time. I've never been in a duel."
Brendon made another involuntary sound of pain, shifting his head to the side. Ryan shot a glance down at what the doctor was doing, saw the new gush of blood staining his hands where he worked, and was nearly sick with the fear that clenched his stomach. He dropped his head, breathing harder. Brendon wasn't going to die at Z's duel. The world couldn't let that happen.
"Bet you wish - you never told me about this," Brendon said. Ryan lifted his head again and saw that Brendon's eyes had cleared a little, his eyes bright with strained amusement. "I'm sorry," he said. Then he closed his eyes, his hand clenching and loosing as pain crossed his face again.
"No," Ryan said. "I mean - yes, I wish - fuck. I wish."
Brendon's brow furrowed, and he moved his fingers. "You're holding my hand," he discovered. He opened his eyes, his expression wondering. He shifted his fingers again, experimentally. "Hi," he said, smiling quick and dazed, his eyes not quite able to focus on Ryan.
Ryan's heart beat so hard that it hurt. "Hi," he whispered.
"I thought you only - only did that when you were Miss Elliot," Brendon murmured, closing his eyes once more. "When we danced."
In his own shocked stillness, Ryan was only distantly aware that Dr Godwin's hands had also paused in their work, the young physician momentarily stiffening. Ryan didn't care what the doctor thought, if he understood what Brendon had said at all. He stared down at Brendon, his mind racing. If Brendon knew - if Brendon had known at the park yesterday morning - if Brendon had known when he came out this morning -
"Did you always know?" Ryan asked.
Brendon tossed his head to the side. Ryan tentatively reached out his free hand, trembling, and touched Brendon's cheek. "Brendon?" he asked. "Did you know wh-why I wanted to go to the masquerade?"
Brendon sucked in a harsh breath, his shoulders shaking. "... my hand," he mumbled. "Ah. Ah, I don't ... don't ..."
"He's speaking from delirium," Dr Godwin said in a low voice. "Don't press him." Ryan looked up, reminded again that their conversation had an audience. He wasn't much more concerned with the fact than he had been before.
"Is he all right?" he summoned the courage to ask. He heard his voice come out even more tonelessly than usual.
The doctor nodded, the decisiveness of the gesture again at odds with his youth. "He will need a considerable period of recuperation, but he can be moved now, if you will help me shift him to one of the carriages."
"Mine," Z said, and Ryan hadn't even realised she was standing there. He jumped, twisting to look up at her. She was white faced, her eyes dark and almost burning. Her shoulders were very tight in her black coat. "The Uries live all the way across town - that's an extra forty minutes of jolting in the carriage. Take him to my house. The responsibility of caring for him is mine."
Dr Godwin looked down. He busied his hands tucking in the ends of the bandage he had applied to Brendon's chest. "I understood," he said in a halting voice, "that you were staying with your aunt and uncle in town."
Z's bloodless cheeks flooded with colour. "That was what I meant," she said. "The Berg household."
The young doctor nodded, still not looking up. Z stared down at him for a moment, then turned on her heel, striding back towards the road to speak to her coachman.
Godwin did look up then, his expression distant. He nodded at Ryan to take Brendon's right side.
Brendon had fallen into a restless doze, drugged with pain. He let himself be woken and supported painfully to his feet with only a shocked hiss of pain and a plaintive, wandering mumble as they began to walk him through the trees, one under each arm. He breathed jerkily with each step, small sounds of pain escaping him.
"I will give you some laudanum for the carriage journey," Dr Godwin promised him in a soothing, matter of fact tone. "You have only to walk so far as that."
It felt as though it took forever to reach the carriage, with every stone and tuffet on the way placed there purely to make Brendon's path as difficult as possible. Ryan was breathing almost as hard as Brendon by the end, feeling like a blow every jolt that hurt him. At the carriage Z and the coachman took over, the coachman contriving to seem as though he did not notice anything that was happening even as he competently arranged Brendon's comfort. Ryan was glad for whatever Z had said (or paid, more likely) for such cooperation.
He stepped back from the door, looking around. Rotham and Winterworth, he realised, were still there under the trees.
Winterworth approached, cautiously, when he saw that Ryan had noticed him. Rotham remained a stiffly threatening figure behind him, in the dregs of morning mist that hugged the ground.
"Damned sorry affair," Winterworth said, after a moment of silence.
Ryan didn't answer. He stared in an unfriendly way at Winterworth.
Winterworth coughed. "Yes," he said. "Well. Your young man - Elliot - said a good deal. Don't know if you heard it. He said enough that in ordinary circumstances I daresay Rotham would have - well." He coughed again. "Also got the impression he wished to drop this morning's engagement, and, uh, 'Never see either of our faces again', I believe. Little less civil than that, I'm paraphrasing, but you get the picture."
"And you want to be sure that's true," Ryan guessed, his voice flat. "And that no charges will be laid for this morning's work."
Winterworth lifted his hands, a frustrated motion. "God damn it, you see it's best. Tangling with the law won't do any of us any favours. Shame about the boy, though what he was doing wandering about somebody else's duel - " He broke off, catching Ryan's expression.
"Go," Ryan choked out. "I won't promise what Brendon will want to do about it when he's well, but if Elliot told you he was willing to forget the original offense, then it's true. I hope none of us ever run into each other again."
He didn't trust himself to say anything more. Winterworth looked relieved and dissatisfied in equal measures.
"It's a bad business, that's for certain," Winterworth said at last. "No honour in shooting a stripling in any case, and less in shooting a bystander. I'll be glad to put it behind me." With that he turned to join his companion, brushing his hands against his breeches as though he could actually brush off what had happened this morning in that way.
Somebody touched Ryan's shoulder, and he turned. Z was looking at him, her eyes watchful. "It's time to go," she said. Ryan turned with her to the small cavalcade of waiting carriages.
*
Z stayed in the hall to see Tennessee, as Dr Thomas Godwin, go up with Brendon to the room Z had arranged to have set aside for him, then close the door behind her with such finality that even Ryan didn't dare trespass. He hovered outside, instead, eyes huge and dark in his white face, and Z cast him an anxious look but went up to get changed. Tennessee didn't know yet, not exactly, but Z thought it might be rather too dangerous to linger around her own house in Mr Elliot's guise; there was too much risk of someone questioning where she herself had gone. She would tell Tennessee that Mr Elliot had gone to finalise things with Rotham and Winterworth; or maybe, she thought, with butterflies in her stomach, she would tell Tennessee the truth. Tennessee seemed near enough to discovering it, anyway.
There was a small, hard knot of guilt in her chest, even though she knew, strictly speaking, that it wasn't her fault. She hadn't invited Brendon, and she hadn't made Rotham's guns go off at the wrong time.
On the other hand, if it wasn't for her, there would never have been any need for the duel or the pistols or Brendon being there in the first place.
Her hair arranged as well as she could manage in ten minutes, Z went to find Ryan and coax him downstairs, pressing a cup of tea into his trembling fingers.
He stared ahead, and Z drew in a breath.
"Ryan," she said. "He's going to be okay."
Ryan looked up at her, his eyes still wide and shocked. "He's delirious, Godwin said."
"I imagine that's normal, after getting shot," Z said. "Shock and then whatever drugs T- Thomas Godwin administered, it's - Ryan, he'll be fine. He'll be fine."
"He knows," Ryan said.
"Knows what?"
"The day of the week," Ryan snapped. "Knows about the masquerade, Z."
Z stared at him. "He knows that Miss Elliot was you?"
"Yes," Ryan said. "I - he might know about you too, I don't know, he." He set the tea down and stood up, pacing to the wall and leaning against it. "How long can he have - do you think he knew then?"
"I don't know," Z said. "How do you know he knows?"
"He said something," Ryan said. "When he was." He flapped a hand. "And - thinking about it, he was so weird, the morning after the masquerade, I'm, I'm almost sure he knew then. Just. God." He let out a breath.
"But - Ryan," Z said, and started to smile. "You think that means ...?"
"I don't know." Ryan shook his head, turning away from her. "I don't know what to think, I can't even - I can't imagine what was going through his head, why he - and what if he doesn't get better?" His eyes, when he turned to Z on that last question, were wide and lost.
"He'll get better," Z said. "Godwin will fix him. Wait and see." She considered telling Ryan about Tennessee, but decided that Ryan had probably had enough shocks for the morning. He proved it by sliding slowly to the ground, his back still pressed against the wall.
"What is my life?" he mumbled and Z didn't have an answer to that. Ryan didn't seem to expect one, at least. He sat with his knees drawn up to his chest, looking oddly young. Z sat next to him.
It was easy to sit together in tense silence, their ears strained for any sound from Brendon or Tennessee above. Z wasn't expecting the sudden commotion: a loud, angry voice in the hall, Hedges' mild voice rising above the noise as well as it could. Ryan looked up, blinking, and Z stood and looked towards the doorway.
Hedges appeared, somewhat breathless. "Lady Elizabeth," he said. "Presenting Lady Margaret D'Urie."
*
Ryan straightened, staring up at the sudden, imperious presence filling the room. Abruptly he scrambled to his feet, Z's hand closing on his arm to pull him up. Lady Margaret was tiny - more pocket-sized than Brendon himself - but her enormous feathered headdress and velvet ruffles and imposing skirts gave her the appearance of being able to look down on both of them. Which, granted, was not so difficult when Z was a pixie herself and Ryan was on the floor, but both of them straightening and standing shoulder to shoulder didn't seem to help.
"Uh -" Z began, but Lady Margaret ignored her, sweeping her gaze around to Ryan.
"I knew it," she said. Her voice rang out in accusation. "They told me that you were an intimate of this house, Mr Ross. I knew when I heard that Brendon had been brought here, injured by footpads, that you must have been involved."
Ryan supposed that Z must given the footpad lie to the messenger sent to the Urie residence. Lady Margaret's scorn suggested she attached about as much credence to it as it deserved.
"I hope," said Z, her tone icy, "that you are not accusing my guest of any misconduct, Lady Margaret."
Lady Margaret turned back to Z, reminded of her presence. "And I wonder that you don't blush to claim him as a guest," she said, her nostrils flaring. "Although," she continued, "the stories I have heard about you, Lady Elizabeth, suggest that there is very little you blush at."
Ryan was suddenly very glad that Z couldn't challenge Lady Margaret d'Urie to a duel.
"Where is my nephew?" Lady Margaret demanded, ignoring the white rage on Z's face. "I insist you give him up to the care of my own physician. I will not have him polluted by a moment's more exposure to this place."
"Madam," Z said, and if her voice had been icy before it was now arctic. "I think you misjudge your position here. Your reign over your own circles may be absolute, but in my own house, I do not give up anything that I want." She smiled a glittering smile. "And right now I want your nephew."
Lady Margaret swelled. "You impudent girl." She turned to Ryan, trembling with her own rage. "Mr Ross, I demand you take me to him."
Ryan unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth, speaking for the first time. "Brendon is being tended by the surgeon," he said. "He isn't ... a prisoner here, you know. If he wakes up and wants to go home, we'll send him."
Lady Margaret looked singularly unimpressed by this promise. "Wants to go home," she said. "As if that boy can be trusted in his wants. I suppose he wanted to go out with you and get himself shot." Her face was pinched with distaste. "Brendon has always been drawn to what ought to repel him. I imagine that you, with your family's disgraceful history toward his own, and the scandals of your set, were fascinating and appalling to him in equal measures. Perhaps he accompanied you to see how far you would go." She paused, her eyes glittering. "But make no mistake, Mr Ross. Brendon is not so easily suborned. He might have followed you into one disaster out of curiosity, but he will return to his family."
Ryan was shaking. "I think that you should leave now."
Z, beside him, gave a low growl of agreement.
Lady Margaret's lip curled. "I suppose you mean by this to show you're as much a scoundrel as your father. I will have my nephew."
"I'm not my father," Ryan said. "And Brendon and I have - have no interest in playing along with the stupid feud the rest of you have created out of spite and boredom!"
There was moment's shocked silence. Ryan, flushing, wondered whether it could be true. Or could the feud be important to Brendon? Brendon could easily have walked with Ryan at the park, and come to the duel, because he was fascinated, appalled even, and curious about what crazy thing Ryan and his friends would do next.
Get Brendon shot, as it turned out. Fuck.
Lady Margaret drew in a breath. "Your father -"
"Is not me," Ryan said, lifting his face and speaking through the hard lump in his throat. "My father was - whatever he was, your husband drew just as much disrespect to himself in the encounter, and I am, I am tired of pretending that two old men can dictate who I wish to keep company with."
"That is enough," Lady Margaret said. "I have no intention of listening to a child. Send Brendon home immediately, or I will simply call the law down upon you."
"You will do no such thing," Ryan said, his lip curling now. "You wouldn't risk the scandal. Brendon is hurt. He is - he was - he could have been killed. And Lady Elizabeth and I will make sure he is afforded the proper care, and I do not think that having him shipped across town for the sake of propriety qualifies. If you don't leave now the servants will lift you bodily and take you out."
Ryan glanced sideways at Z, to check how she was taking him throwing people out of her house. She grinned, fierce and pleased, and lifted her chin in agreement.
Lady Margaret had swelled to such a pitch of rage she seemed unable to speak. Eventually she forced out, "I have never been so insulted in my life. I hope you are both torn apart by lions."
With this last unexpectedly human retort, she turned on her heel and swept from the room.
*
When Ryan knocked on the door, his hands still shaking with the rush of that conflict, Godwin opened the door almost straight away. He blinked at Ryan in a surprised manner.
"Oh, hello," he said. "You can go in now, if you like. He's resting, though, so I can't imagine it will be terribly interesting."
"Is he -"
"He'll be fine," Godwin said. "Some blood loss, and he's still fairly woozy. I wouldn't recommend moving him for a day, and the wound will be painful a while yet until it begins to heal. But no lasting damage to the muscle. He'll have a scar, though."
"Right," Ryan said. He breathed in, rubbing his face with his hands. "Thank you. I - thank you very much."
"You're welcome," Godwin said. His eyes darted about. "Is Mr Elliot still here?"
Ryan took a moment to remember Z's instructions. "No, he had to leave," he said. "Further business with Rotham, I think, settling things. Lady Elizabeth Berg is downstairs, though, if you would like - tea, or something."
Godwin held his hat in his hands, still, Ryan noticed, hadn't given it to Hedges at the door. It wasn't something a gentleman would normally forget to do; but then, Godwin had been distracted with Brendon.
Now, Godwin twirled the hat in his hands and said, thoughtfully, "I think I might, yes."
"Well." Ryan smiled nervously at him, and stepped aside so Godwin could pass. Then he slipped through and closed the door carefully behind him, his hands lingering on the doorknob, the smooth wood.
In the bed, Brendon seemed smaller than usual, his hair falling dark and messy over his pale face. For a moment, Ryan stood frozen to the spot, not daring to draw any nearer; Brendon was hurt, and it was Ryan's fault, the whole damn thing was Ryan's fault.
Godwin had said he would be fine, Ryan reminded himself. It didn't matter that Brendon looked unnaturally still in the bed, didn't matter that Ryan could barely see the rise and fall of his chest, because Godwin was a doctor and Ryan was just an idiot with a habit of getting himself and his friends into scrapes they weren't so good at getting out of.
Ryan took off his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair, unbuttoning his collar and loosening his neckcloth. Then he drew the chair over to Brendon's bedside and sat watching Brendon quietly. He wanted to reach out and take Brendon's hand, pick it up where it was resting on top of the blanket and keep it warm, but didn't quite dare.
Instead, he reached out and touched Brendon's hair. It was still a little damp with sweat, matted in dark curls to his skin, and Ryan bit his lip. He had a moment's warning when Brendon's eyelashes fluttered, just enough to snatch his hand back, then Brendon breathed in a gulp and jerked awake.
"What?" Brendon said, his eyes darting around the room.
"Sorry," Ryan said quietly. "I didn't mean to startle you. Or wake you."
"Oh." Brendon licked his cracked lips. Ryan looked away. "I thought I heard my aunt."
Ryan laughed, short and humourless. "Yes, she was here for a while."
Brendon closed his eyes. "I hoped I was dreaming."
"She's gone now," Ryan said. He studied Brendon's face carefully. "She wanted to take you home."
"She would," Brendon said, and nothing more.
After a moment, Ryan asked, "Should I have let her?"
Brendon shuddered as if the thought gave him a headache.
Ryan bit his lip. "Can I, can I get you anything?"
"Some water," Brendon said, "if you would."
There was a pitcher on the dresser. Ryan went and poured a glass, then had to support Brendon as he sat up. Brendon winced, taking in quick, pained breaths, and Ryan hurried to fluff the pillows and set them up so Brendon could lean back against them. Brendon's hands were shaking, so after a moment Ryan helped him hold the glass to his mouth. He tried not to pay attention to the way Brendon's throat worked as he swallowed.
Ryan was impartial, tending to a patient. The fact that he was most of the way in love with the patient didn't have to mean a thing.
"How are you feeling?" Ryan asked, taking away the empty glass. Brendon wiped the sleeve of his good arm across his mouth, looking absurdly young for a moment. Ryan stood uncertainly by the bed.
"A little like I've been run over by a carriage and four," Brendon said, "which isn't quite what I would have expected."
"Right, no."
"Thank you for bringing me here."
Ryan flushed. "It's Z's - Lady Elizabeth's house."
"Oh. Well, thank her, I suppose."
Ryan nodded dumbly. Brendon looked up at him.
"What's wrong?"
Ryan laughed, shaky and incredulous. "You got shot."
"Yes." Brendon grimaced. "It's not fun. I won't do it again."
"It was my fault."
"What?" Brendon frowned and made an attempt to sit up straighter, wincing. Ryan stepped forward and smoothed his hand over Brendon's shoulder automatically, soothing, and then Brendon's eyes dropped to Ryan's hand and Ryan flushed and straightened. "It wasn't your fault," Brendon said firmly.
"If I hadn't -"
"I was the one who tagged along," Brendon said. "Uninvited, even."
Ryan shook his head, unable to meet Brendon's eyes. "This whole thing was my idea. It wouldn't have happened otherwise."
He darted a look at Brendon and found him watching Ryan, something cautious in his eyes.
"How long have you known?" Ryan blurted.
"That night," Brendon said. "After you went inside, I stayed a while, and, and then Mr Elliot returned, and you came out as, as yourself, and you had the rose."
"Oh," Ryan said numbly. Not till after the kiss.
"What made you do it?" Brendon asked. "I mean. I know - I know that you and your set do crazy things for fun, and maybe you wouldn't care that every hostess in town would blacklist you if they found out, if you weren't run out of town completely. But it seemed as though you sought me out particularly when you got there." He was staring at his hands, but he looked up at this.
Ryan thought about making something up, then thought, fuck it. "I wanted to talk to you," he said.
"Except no," Brendon said, and he sounded almost angry, "you didn't. You didn't want to talk to me. At the Monroe ball last year, my sister pulled me aside to tell me who you were and when I turned back you'd just walked off! In the middle of a conversation, the moment you realised who I was -"
"I left because you wanted me to!" Ryan said, startled. "I saw the way your face changed -"
"I was surprised!" Brendon said. "But you just ... walked away."
"Well, I - well -" Ryan was beginning to feel ridiculous. "Well, then, what? I can't tell if you're mad at me or not!"
Brendon tried to cross his arms, then winced again when it pulled the wrong muscles. "I can't tell whether you even like me," he said, his voice rough. His mouth pulled down and he looked to the side, embarrassed, as soon as he'd said it.
Ryan leaned forward in the chair, barely conscious of what he was doing. "I wore a gown to a masquerade just so that I could spend time with you," he said. "I'm not sure how - that could be ambiguous."
Brendon turned back to look at him. His eyes had widened, and they looked very dark. "That was why you did it? The whole thing?"
Ryan nodded. He couldn't look away.
Brendon's hand moved on the bed, half lifting as though he was going to reach out to Ryan. "I thought you hated me, for a year," he said, and he wasn't looking away either.
"No, I -" Ryan had to clear his throat, his voice too hoarse to go on. Somehow his hand had found Brendon's hip under the bedclothes. He wasn't sure when he'd leaned forward so far.
Brendon bit his lip, then smiled, something irrepressible and glad. He shook his head. "All right, then," he said. He tugged at Ryan's elbow, pulling him closer, pulling him down.
Then he was kissing Ryan, soft and not quite aligned properly. He pulled back, his mouth pulling into an uncertain expression. "So we could ... start again, maybe." His eyes searched Ryan's.
Ryan laughed, low and incredulous. "Yeah, okay," he said quietly, and he leaned down to kiss him. It was gentle because of the bandages and the bullet wound and the stiff pain in the set of Brendon's shoulders, but it made Ryan's heart hammer and thud in his chest.
*
Z was staring into the depths of her teacup, wondering whether it was too early in the day to introduce a dash of brandy to it, when Tennessee came down. She signalled her presence with a light drum of her knuckles against the doorway.
Z tightened her fingers around the edge of her chair, rising to her feet. Part of her wanted to jump up, but the rest of her was nervous of this solemn-eyed version of Tennessee, her boyish figure somehow right in her physician's clothes. Z had needed four times as much attitude to carry off her gentleman's clothes for the masquerade and the duel.
Tennessee set her hat down on the low table by the door, and came a little way into the room. Her long hair had been turned up and tucked ingeniously into the back of her neckcloth, Z saw. Even now, Z could only tell because she was looking for it.
Z's courage failed her at the last minute, and instead of flashing Tennessee the conspiratorial grin and confession she'd planned, she dropped a polite curtsey. "Dr Godwin."
Tennessee's mouth turned down a little as she returned the bow. "My patient is resting," she said. "I think he'll make a full recovery, in the comfort of your house."
Z bit her lip. "I'm glad. It seemed the least I could offer him, after ..." She trailed off.
Tennessee inclined her head. "It's to your credit that you think so. But you could hardly be held responsible, could you? It wasn't you who shot him."
"O-oh," Z said. She had the uncertain impression that Tennessee was toying with her. Then she rallied. She wasn't the only one with outrageous escapades here: Tennessee could speak as solemnly as she liked, but she was still standing there dressed as a gentleman doctor, from her boots to her dove grey coat.
"Is this the first duel you have attended, sir?" she asked. "Professionally, I mean."
Tennessee didn't smile as she answered, "I hope you don't think I have attended many duels in an unprofessional capacity. They're not exactly my line."
Z gave her a small grin. "No, I thought you might have mentioned it, if you had. It would have to count as more outrageous than letting the Duke of Wellington kiss your stained hand, I think."
Tennessee's eyes went bright and hard. "More outrageous than cheating at cards in Moscow, too."
"Ha!" Z clapped her hands together. "I knew that you knew!"
Tennessee made an inarticulate sound of frustration, turning on her heal and pacing the room. She wheeled back to Z in a controlled little motion, her chin raised and her eyes still bright and upset. "Well, you needn't sound so pleased!"
"Why not?" Z came closer, her steps skipping and tripping a little. She was laughing and almost giddy. "Tennessee. Dr Godwin. Young Thomas. This is great." She spread her hands. "Don't you think this is great?"
Tennessee crossed her arms, her brow furrowing. "You nearly got somebody killed."
Z stilled.
"You could have been killed yourself," Tennessee said. Her voice thrummed with feeling. "You think this is the most marvellous joke, but because of your irresponsibility I've just finished digging a bullet out of some boy I don't even know."
Z wet her lips, cold inside. "I'm - I know," she said. "I didn't mean - Urie wasn't supposed to be there. Nobody was supposed to get hurt, except maybe me. Or Rotham, perhaps, but I don't care what you say, I couldn't care if he got himself winged." She tacked the last on in a violent tone, then subsided back to her earlier penitence. "I didn't ... want anyone to get hurt."
Tennessee shot a quick look at her face, then looked away. "They did."
Z straightened, getting some spirit back. "And it wasn't irresponsible of you to impersonate a surgeon?"
"I know how to tend a man who's been shot!" Tennessee said, flushing. "I may not have a degree, but I've more field experience with gunshot wounds than almost any London doctor you could name!" She pushed back a lock of hair that had begun to escape her neckcloth. "And, and I did this for entirely different reasons! I was concerned about you, about you getting yourself shot. That was why I dressed up as a man and came to the duel. Not as some kind of joke."
"Well," Z said, throwing herself across the room and leaning against the window. "Well, and so I was reckless! So it was my fault somebody got shot today!" She looked at Tennessee, stilling again. "I know that. Do you think I don't know that?" She clenched her fists, her eyes pricking. "Do you think I don't know it every time I go too far?"
She turned away, pressing her palms against the window sill. "I'm not excusing myself," she said in a low voice. "I never forgive myself any of the deluded mistakes I make, especially when - when they get people hurt."
She heard Tennessee shuffling behind her, perhaps uncomfortable, but Z kept staring into the glass until there was no danger of her vision swimming anymore. Then she sniffed, spinning around.
"Anyway, that won't do," she declared.
Tennessee's face had settled into a reluctantly sympathetic expression. Now she frowned, stiffening.
"You were there when I made the challenge," Z said, "and you can't have been as disgusted with me as all that, because you cared enough to come and try to talk me out of the trouble I'd got myself in, the next morning. And to pretend to be a physician, too, today! I don't think this is about my recklessness at all."
Tennessee narrowed her eyes. "You were reckless," she said, and her voice shook with something that sounded like hurt. "And you were cruel."
Z's thoughts shuddered to a stop. "What?"
Tennessee was flushed bright pink, now. She seemed to be having trouble holding Z's gaze. She made the effort. "It was cruel of you to involve me in the joke you and Mr Ross were playing," she said steadily. "I knew - I never imagined the th-things we said at the masquerade were serious, or that Lady Elizabeth, that you were serious in the - the style of flirtation you - in anything you said when I came around the next morning." She got to the end of her floundering sentence and looked Z more directly in the eye. "But I didn't think you were laughing at me."
Z's stomach clenched. She took a step forward. "I wasn't," she said.
Tennessee cut her off with a look. "Of course you were," she said, something lost in her voice. "You -" She started pacing again. "Do you know how charmed I was after the masquerade? I knew it wasn't serious, but I still spent the whole trip home, and the morning after too, breaking into ridiculous smiles, and then the next moment feeling as if my heart had been squeezed with ice when I remembered that the wonderful Mr Elliot had signed up to get himself killed in a duel."
Z sank onto the window seat. She gazed at Tennessee, her eyes wide.
"And then I came here," Tennessee said, too much on a roll now to stop, "and I met Lady Elizabeth Berg, and do you know, I remember thinking - you and Mr Elliot were so similar, of course, but I remember thinking that as charismatic and appealing as Mr Elliot had been, it was as if he was a - a less formed imitation of the character that Lady Elizabeth inhabited easy as breathing. I thought he must be younger than you! Because he was more outrageous and he tried harder, to, to inhabit his own dashing personality, whereas Lady Elizabeth was - was somehow settled and lively inside her own skin, and, and her personality sparked out of every glance and every movement of her hands, and even the ways she was outrageous and ridiculous were somehow more conscious and more laughing than her cousin's, as though she was laughing at herself."
Z rested her chin on her hands. "Oh my God," she said quietly. She felt hollow inside with the degree to which she was in love with this girl.
Tennessee dropped onto a couch, all the energy gone out of her. "Except that you weren't, of course," she said in a dull tone. "You were too busy laughing at everybody else."
Z got to her feet and crossed to Tennessee. She sank to her knees, looking up at her. Partly for effect; partly because her legs were shaking. "I wasn't laughing at you," she said, all the words in a rush.
Tennessee jumped in her seat, her hands clenching in the material of her breeches. "What?" she said. She seemed to want to lean away and lean forward at the same time.
Z smiled brilliantly. "I mean - I mean, I do laugh at people, and it was fun, dressing up with Ryan, fooling people, that - I loved that. I hope you don't want me not to laugh at anybody, because I - that's a morally upright position but I probably couldn't do that." She stared anxiously at Tennessee, who gave her a blank look in return.
"But I wasn't laughing at you," Z said, rising up on her knees and seizing Tennessee's hands. "I didn't want to fool you at all, except to get you to dance with me, maybe. The only thing that could have made the masquerade, the joke, more fun would have been if you'd been in on it with me!"
Tennessee looked down at her hands, imprisoned in Z's. Z could feel them shaking a little. "I think you're still joking," she said.
"Why?" Z demanded.
Tennessee tried to draw back her hands, but Z wouldn't let them go. "Because - because why me?" Tennessee said. Her voice was shaking too. "I'm a surgeon's daughter. I move in completely different circles to your - fashionable dining rooms and balls."
Z scowled.
"And you only met me for the first time the night before last," Tennessee continued.
"And you're wonderful," Z said simply.
Tennessee's face at that was so uncertain and overwhelmed that Z couldn't help herself. She surged up, catching Tennessee's face between her hands, and kissed her.
When she drew back, Tennessee's eyes were wide and searching. She was close enough that Z could have counted each eyelash as it brushed her cheeks. Tennessee licked her lips, her breath hitching, and made a soft, confused sound that didn't quite manage to be a word. She swayed forward.
Z cleared her throat. "I make up my mind about people very quickly," she said. "And I'm always right, you see." She frowned. "And," she added, aggrieved, "of course I was serious at the masquerade, and when you met me as Lady Elizabeth. I've never told anybody that story about Moscow before, even if it wasn't true. And I've never lied about somebody being a slave trader because I was jealous of them before, either! Especially not myself. And I've never met a girl who would dress up as a doctor just because she was worried about me. Or danced with a girl in a glade at a masquerade, and wanted to keep on dancing with her all night."
"Oh my God, stop talking," Tennessee said breathlessly. She pulled Z up and kissed her, sweet and fervent. Z threw her arms around Tennessee's neck, kissing her back, and stopped talking.
Epilogue
Brendon's eyes were very dark, like this, and his eyelashes looked longer than they usually did, framed by dark tumbled locks. Ryan stared, fascinated, and Brendon smiled crookedly at him, a nervous quirk in the corner of his mouth. Ryan leaned up to touch his lips to it.
"Ryan," Z said crossly. "Man your oar!"
Brendon laughed and shoved Ryan's shoulder, and Ryan sighed, sitting upright again.
"I don't see why we couldn't get a proper gondolier," he said. "And a proper gondola, come to think of it. We're meant to be seeing the sights."
"Oh, we'd have to be all proper, with someone listening in," Tennessee said, fanning herself idly, skirts spread across the wooden bench she was perched on next to Brendon. "It gets tiresome."
"And I don't want to pitch my voice up all day," Brendon added. He wriggled, making a face. "Tenn, can't you loosen my corset? Just for a while?"
"No," Tennessee said serenely. "That would look ridiculous."
"It's too hot," Brendon complained. He smoothed out his skirts, shifting his shoulders back uncomfortably. The corset did do amazing things for his figure; Ryan always forgot how amazing. The drape of the white morning gown accentuated the curve of hips, and the bodice threaded with fuchsia ribbons, complete with the parasol he kept forgetting to hold up, made him the perfect picture of a lady on a pleasure cruise. If he would stop wriggling.
"We can go back to the hotel and swap, if you want," Ryan said. "You haven't worn a corset in hot weather before."
"But, Mr Ross," Brendon said, pitching his voice up alarmingly high, "however will you escort me to the ball?"
Ryan grinned. "You could escort me to the ball."
"But it's my turn," Brendon said, sighing and fluttering his eyelashes.
"Okay, you need to stop that," Z said. "You sound ridiculous. Ryan, your oar."
"Right," Ryan said hastily, picking it up. "Sorry, I'm doing it."
"Good," Z said, "or I'll relegate you to fan duties."
"Oooh," Tennessee said, voice hopeful. Her own gown was perfectly arranged, and the blue ribbons perfectly colour matched to Brendon's, because Tennessee had been in charge of wardrobe coordination herself. Which also meant that Ryan and Z were both impeccable in morning dress, even though Z had made a try for her riding coat and spurs.
"No," Ryan said. He scowled at Z. "You're a jerk when you're getting into character as Elliot, I hope you know."
"I'm a wonder, darling," Z said, her voice dropping low and husky.
"You guys aren't going to get into another duel with each other tonight, are you?" Tennessee asked, leaning forward. "Because the last one was a nuisance to fake."
"Depends whether Z can restrain herself," Ryan said wryly, and Z drummed the heels of her boots on the boat, stretching her legs out in front of her to admire the shine of her boots.
"Look," Z said, "if Ryan didn't cut me off on the dance floor, this wouldn't be a problem."
"It was an accident," Ryan said for the twelfth time.
"Yes, yes," Brendon said. "Let's not have this argument again, shall we?"
"When does your friend come?" Tennessee asked. "Is he joining us at the ball tonight?"
"Yes," Z said. She grinned at Ryan. "I told him you'd be there. How long do you think it will take Alex to spot me?"
"About half a second," Ryan told her, and Z laughed.
"We'll see," she said. "I bet I can challenge him to fisticuffs before he does get it, though."
Tennessee laughed, leaning down to loop her arms loosely around Z's shoulders.
"Really," she said. "No duels, tonight. For me."
"Oh, well. If you're asking." Z leaned back against her, tilting her face up for Tennessee's kiss.
"Hey!" Ryan protested. "Why are you allowed to fool around in the boat?"
"We don't capsize it," Z said, and Ryan sighed, turning around to look at Brendon, who was mostly preoccupied with shaking out his skirts again.
"Brendon."
"Life's full of hardships," Brendon said. "Can you help me get this ribbon straight?"
Ryan squinted at him. "Sometimes I think you don't appreciate me properly."
Brendon laughed, and twirled his parasol above their heads. It was the pink one, the second best, but the best parasol had been lost in an unfortunate incident in Paris that involved Ryan, Tennessee, and Z climbing out the hotel window in all their skirts while Brendon shinned down the drainpipe.
They should try and replace it here, Ryan thought, add it to the enormous trunk of outfits that went around with them. Maybe they could get matching parasols again, and he and Brendon could play dark-eyed, silent sisters on the girls' arms. That would be fun, and Ryan rather liked the idea of wearing a skirt next to Brendon, of them helping to lace each other into the corsets. Sisters could stick together all evening, too. Maybe they could go to an opera or something like that, where no one would notice Ryan's hand on Brendon's knee. He shivered.
"Mmm." Tennessee sighed, soft and content. "I like Italy best, so far."
"We haven't even been to Greece yet," Z said. She sounded drowsy; Ryan thought he probably wasn't going to get told off about the oar again for a while. "We'll go down by the coast. Stay in one of the fishing villages, maybe. I'll make you a necklace out of seashells."
"I should probably like that," Tennessee said thoughtfully.
Ryan rested his arms on Brendon's knees, blinking up at him.
"Hi," Brendon said, smiling.
"What are you doing here?" Ryan said, low and wondering, and then he shook his head and laughed. "Sorry."
Brendon didn't stop smiling, but his gaze softened. He reached out and touched Ryan's cheek, his hand cool in the dainty white gloves.
"Looking exceedingly foolish," Brendon told him.
Ryan shook his head. "You look beautiful," he said, and Brendon kissed him.
Neither Ryan nor Z were paying much attention to the oars anymore, Ryan found when he next looked at them. He could feel the boat drifting a little in the current, until it bumped up against the side of canal. Ryan liked Venice. He liked who they were here. When he glanced over at Z and Tennessee again, Tennessee was stroking her hand through Z's hair, completely ruining the neat way Z had tied it back out of sight. They would fix it later. They could be late, if they wanted. There was no one here to keep them to any schedule or timetable save their own.
The boat scraped noisily against the stone wall of the canal, stuck there, and Z sighed, sitting up straight.
"Come on, Ryan," she said.
"I think I want to be someone else tonight," Ryan said. "Maybe an exiled poet. Or a duke."
"I'd like to be a duchess," Brendon said, brightening.
"I'm not sure you're serious enough to be a duchess," Ryan told him, turning around to grin.
"Oh, sure he could be," Z said. "Just channel your aunt, Brendon."
Ryan shuddered. "Or don't."
"You be a duke," Z told Ryan, her eyes brightening, "and I'll be your illegitimate half-brother, come to challenge you for your title."
Tennessee grinned. "Oh, Venice is going to love us."
The gunshot was shockingly loud. Ryan felt as though he was still hearing it, drowning out the distant sounds of exclamation and Brendon's laboured breath. That shouldn't be distant: Brendon's chest was right under Ryan's hands, and above it his eyes were wide and dark and not quite focused on Ryan's face.
"Shut up," Ryan said, and he realised he'd been saying it for a while, muttering it like a mantra, "shut up, shut up, shut up," as though if he could stop Brendon's pained breaths he could make this not be happening. "Shut - you're - why did you just stand there, he had a gun, why did - tell me what to do!"
"Mr Ross, move out of the way," somebody said in a brusque tone, and Ryan stumbled sideways on his knees as the young doctor shouldered him aside. Then it was all quiet competence and quick-moving hands, Ryan hovering dumbly to the side as the doctor worked. Brendon hissed in his breath, then laughed short and abortive, biting down on his bottom lip to hold it in.
"I didn't think - this was the way duels worked," Brendon managed to say.
Dr Godwin, folding back the torn fabric of his shirt and feeling around the wound, shushed him. Brendon's head thumped back against the ground, a distressed sound escaping him. Ryan had to tuck his hands under his knees.
The doctor lifted his head, giving Ryan a piercing glance. He looked very youthful indeed, without even a shadow to need shaving from his cheeks, but Ryan was abruptly convinced that he could see every thought in Ryan's head.
"If you would like to help," the doctor said, the constrained and husky voice he had employed all morning giving the words a particular gravitas, "you might distract the young man by talking to him, or holding his hand."
Ryan blinked at him, a kind of stupor still upon him. Then he nodded and shuffled up to Brendon's head. Mindful of the doctor's words he reached out and lifted Brendon's hand. He wore no gloves. Ryan stripped off his own on an impulse and curled his hand around Brendon's chilled fingers.
"This isn't usually the way duels work," Ryan agreed, answering Brendon's earlier words. Brendon had closed his eyes tight against the doctor's work, his head tipped back. He opened his eyes, but they were foggy with pain.
"That's what I said," he whispered. "A very inf- inferi- inferior way of doing things. Ah!"
Ryan tightened his hand. Brendon was blinking and trying to focus. Sweat had dampened the locks over his brow.
"Although I haven't been to any others," Ryan said, hardly knowing what he was saying. "I don't want you to think that that's what my set does. That we duel all the time. I've never been in a duel."
Brendon made another involuntary sound of pain, shifting his head to the side. Ryan shot a glance down at what the doctor was doing, saw the new gush of blood staining his hands where he worked, and was nearly sick with the fear that clenched his stomach. He dropped his head, breathing harder. Brendon wasn't going to die at Z's duel. The world couldn't let that happen.
"Bet you wish - you never told me about this," Brendon said. Ryan lifted his head again and saw that Brendon's eyes had cleared a little, his eyes bright with strained amusement. "I'm sorry," he said. Then he closed his eyes, his hand clenching and loosing as pain crossed his face again.
"No," Ryan said. "I mean - yes, I wish - fuck. I wish."
Brendon's brow furrowed, and he moved his fingers. "You're holding my hand," he discovered. He opened his eyes, his expression wondering. He shifted his fingers again, experimentally. "Hi," he said, smiling quick and dazed, his eyes not quite able to focus on Ryan.
Ryan's heart beat so hard that it hurt. "Hi," he whispered.
"I thought you only - only did that when you were Miss Elliot," Brendon murmured, closing his eyes once more. "When we danced."
In his own shocked stillness, Ryan was only distantly aware that Dr Godwin's hands had also paused in their work, the young physician momentarily stiffening. Ryan didn't care what the doctor thought, if he understood what Brendon had said at all. He stared down at Brendon, his mind racing. If Brendon knew - if Brendon had known at the park yesterday morning - if Brendon had known when he came out this morning -
"Did you always know?" Ryan asked.
Brendon tossed his head to the side. Ryan tentatively reached out his free hand, trembling, and touched Brendon's cheek. "Brendon?" he asked. "Did you know wh-why I wanted to go to the masquerade?"
Brendon sucked in a harsh breath, his shoulders shaking. "... my hand," he mumbled. "Ah. Ah, I don't ... don't ..."
"He's speaking from delirium," Dr Godwin said in a low voice. "Don't press him." Ryan looked up, reminded again that their conversation had an audience. He wasn't much more concerned with the fact than he had been before.
"Is he all right?" he summoned the courage to ask. He heard his voice come out even more tonelessly than usual.
The doctor nodded, the decisiveness of the gesture again at odds with his youth. "He will need a considerable period of recuperation, but he can be moved now, if you will help me shift him to one of the carriages."
"Mine," Z said, and Ryan hadn't even realised she was standing there. He jumped, twisting to look up at her. She was white faced, her eyes dark and almost burning. Her shoulders were very tight in her black coat. "The Uries live all the way across town - that's an extra forty minutes of jolting in the carriage. Take him to my house. The responsibility of caring for him is mine."
Dr Godwin looked down. He busied his hands tucking in the ends of the bandage he had applied to Brendon's chest. "I understood," he said in a halting voice, "that you were staying with your aunt and uncle in town."
Z's bloodless cheeks flooded with colour. "That was what I meant," she said. "The Berg household."
The young doctor nodded, still not looking up. Z stared down at him for a moment, then turned on her heel, striding back towards the road to speak to her coachman.
Godwin did look up then, his expression distant. He nodded at Ryan to take Brendon's right side.
Brendon had fallen into a restless doze, drugged with pain. He let himself be woken and supported painfully to his feet with only a shocked hiss of pain and a plaintive, wandering mumble as they began to walk him through the trees, one under each arm. He breathed jerkily with each step, small sounds of pain escaping him.
"I will give you some laudanum for the carriage journey," Dr Godwin promised him in a soothing, matter of fact tone. "You have only to walk so far as that."
It felt as though it took forever to reach the carriage, with every stone and tuffet on the way placed there purely to make Brendon's path as difficult as possible. Ryan was breathing almost as hard as Brendon by the end, feeling like a blow every jolt that hurt him. At the carriage Z and the coachman took over, the coachman contriving to seem as though he did not notice anything that was happening even as he competently arranged Brendon's comfort. Ryan was glad for whatever Z had said (or paid, more likely) for such cooperation.
He stepped back from the door, looking around. Rotham and Winterworth, he realised, were still there under the trees.
Winterworth approached, cautiously, when he saw that Ryan had noticed him. Rotham remained a stiffly threatening figure behind him, in the dregs of morning mist that hugged the ground.
"Damned sorry affair," Winterworth said, after a moment of silence.
Ryan didn't answer. He stared in an unfriendly way at Winterworth.
Winterworth coughed. "Yes," he said. "Well. Your young man - Elliot - said a good deal. Don't know if you heard it. He said enough that in ordinary circumstances I daresay Rotham would have - well." He coughed again. "Also got the impression he wished to drop this morning's engagement, and, uh, 'Never see either of our faces again', I believe. Little less civil than that, I'm paraphrasing, but you get the picture."
"And you want to be sure that's true," Ryan guessed, his voice flat. "And that no charges will be laid for this morning's work."
Winterworth lifted his hands, a frustrated motion. "God damn it, you see it's best. Tangling with the law won't do any of us any favours. Shame about the boy, though what he was doing wandering about somebody else's duel - " He broke off, catching Ryan's expression.
"Go," Ryan choked out. "I won't promise what Brendon will want to do about it when he's well, but if Elliot told you he was willing to forget the original offense, then it's true. I hope none of us ever run into each other again."
He didn't trust himself to say anything more. Winterworth looked relieved and dissatisfied in equal measures.
"It's a bad business, that's for certain," Winterworth said at last. "No honour in shooting a stripling in any case, and less in shooting a bystander. I'll be glad to put it behind me." With that he turned to join his companion, brushing his hands against his breeches as though he could actually brush off what had happened this morning in that way.
Somebody touched Ryan's shoulder, and he turned. Z was looking at him, her eyes watchful. "It's time to go," she said. Ryan turned with her to the small cavalcade of waiting carriages.
*
Z stayed in the hall to see Tennessee, as Dr Thomas Godwin, go up with Brendon to the room Z had arranged to have set aside for him, then close the door behind her with such finality that even Ryan didn't dare trespass. He hovered outside, instead, eyes huge and dark in his white face, and Z cast him an anxious look but went up to get changed. Tennessee didn't know yet, not exactly, but Z thought it might be rather too dangerous to linger around her own house in Mr Elliot's guise; there was too much risk of someone questioning where she herself had gone. She would tell Tennessee that Mr Elliot had gone to finalise things with Rotham and Winterworth; or maybe, she thought, with butterflies in her stomach, she would tell Tennessee the truth. Tennessee seemed near enough to discovering it, anyway.
There was a small, hard knot of guilt in her chest, even though she knew, strictly speaking, that it wasn't her fault. She hadn't invited Brendon, and she hadn't made Rotham's guns go off at the wrong time.
On the other hand, if it wasn't for her, there would never have been any need for the duel or the pistols or Brendon being there in the first place.
Her hair arranged as well as she could manage in ten minutes, Z went to find Ryan and coax him downstairs, pressing a cup of tea into his trembling fingers.
He stared ahead, and Z drew in a breath.
"Ryan," she said. "He's going to be okay."
Ryan looked up at her, his eyes still wide and shocked. "He's delirious, Godwin said."
"I imagine that's normal, after getting shot," Z said. "Shock and then whatever drugs T- Thomas Godwin administered, it's - Ryan, he'll be fine. He'll be fine."
"He knows," Ryan said.
"Knows what?"
"The day of the week," Ryan snapped. "Knows about the masquerade, Z."
Z stared at him. "He knows that Miss Elliot was you?"
"Yes," Ryan said. "I - he might know about you too, I don't know, he." He set the tea down and stood up, pacing to the wall and leaning against it. "How long can he have - do you think he knew then?"
"I don't know," Z said. "How do you know he knows?"
"He said something," Ryan said. "When he was." He flapped a hand. "And - thinking about it, he was so weird, the morning after the masquerade, I'm, I'm almost sure he knew then. Just. God." He let out a breath.
"But - Ryan," Z said, and started to smile. "You think that means ...?"
"I don't know." Ryan shook his head, turning away from her. "I don't know what to think, I can't even - I can't imagine what was going through his head, why he - and what if he doesn't get better?" His eyes, when he turned to Z on that last question, were wide and lost.
"He'll get better," Z said. "Godwin will fix him. Wait and see." She considered telling Ryan about Tennessee, but decided that Ryan had probably had enough shocks for the morning. He proved it by sliding slowly to the ground, his back still pressed against the wall.
"What is my life?" he mumbled and Z didn't have an answer to that. Ryan didn't seem to expect one, at least. He sat with his knees drawn up to his chest, looking oddly young. Z sat next to him.
It was easy to sit together in tense silence, their ears strained for any sound from Brendon or Tennessee above. Z wasn't expecting the sudden commotion: a loud, angry voice in the hall, Hedges' mild voice rising above the noise as well as it could. Ryan looked up, blinking, and Z stood and looked towards the doorway.
Hedges appeared, somewhat breathless. "Lady Elizabeth," he said. "Presenting Lady Margaret D'Urie."
*
Ryan straightened, staring up at the sudden, imperious presence filling the room. Abruptly he scrambled to his feet, Z's hand closing on his arm to pull him up. Lady Margaret was tiny - more pocket-sized than Brendon himself - but her enormous feathered headdress and velvet ruffles and imposing skirts gave her the appearance of being able to look down on both of them. Which, granted, was not so difficult when Z was a pixie herself and Ryan was on the floor, but both of them straightening and standing shoulder to shoulder didn't seem to help.
"Uh -" Z began, but Lady Margaret ignored her, sweeping her gaze around to Ryan.
"I knew it," she said. Her voice rang out in accusation. "They told me that you were an intimate of this house, Mr Ross. I knew when I heard that Brendon had been brought here, injured by footpads, that you must have been involved."
Ryan supposed that Z must given the footpad lie to the messenger sent to the Urie residence. Lady Margaret's scorn suggested she attached about as much credence to it as it deserved.
"I hope," said Z, her tone icy, "that you are not accusing my guest of any misconduct, Lady Margaret."
Lady Margaret turned back to Z, reminded of her presence. "And I wonder that you don't blush to claim him as a guest," she said, her nostrils flaring. "Although," she continued, "the stories I have heard about you, Lady Elizabeth, suggest that there is very little you blush at."
Ryan was suddenly very glad that Z couldn't challenge Lady Margaret d'Urie to a duel.
"Where is my nephew?" Lady Margaret demanded, ignoring the white rage on Z's face. "I insist you give him up to the care of my own physician. I will not have him polluted by a moment's more exposure to this place."
"Madam," Z said, and if her voice had been icy before it was now arctic. "I think you misjudge your position here. Your reign over your own circles may be absolute, but in my own house, I do not give up anything that I want." She smiled a glittering smile. "And right now I want your nephew."
Lady Margaret swelled. "You impudent girl." She turned to Ryan, trembling with her own rage. "Mr Ross, I demand you take me to him."
Ryan unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth, speaking for the first time. "Brendon is being tended by the surgeon," he said. "He isn't ... a prisoner here, you know. If he wakes up and wants to go home, we'll send him."
Lady Margaret looked singularly unimpressed by this promise. "Wants to go home," she said. "As if that boy can be trusted in his wants. I suppose he wanted to go out with you and get himself shot." Her face was pinched with distaste. "Brendon has always been drawn to what ought to repel him. I imagine that you, with your family's disgraceful history toward his own, and the scandals of your set, were fascinating and appalling to him in equal measures. Perhaps he accompanied you to see how far you would go." She paused, her eyes glittering. "But make no mistake, Mr Ross. Brendon is not so easily suborned. He might have followed you into one disaster out of curiosity, but he will return to his family."
Ryan was shaking. "I think that you should leave now."
Z, beside him, gave a low growl of agreement.
Lady Margaret's lip curled. "I suppose you mean by this to show you're as much a scoundrel as your father. I will have my nephew."
"I'm not my father," Ryan said. "And Brendon and I have - have no interest in playing along with the stupid feud the rest of you have created out of spite and boredom!"
There was moment's shocked silence. Ryan, flushing, wondered whether it could be true. Or could the feud be important to Brendon? Brendon could easily have walked with Ryan at the park, and come to the duel, because he was fascinated, appalled even, and curious about what crazy thing Ryan and his friends would do next.
Get Brendon shot, as it turned out. Fuck.
Lady Margaret drew in a breath. "Your father -"
"Is not me," Ryan said, lifting his face and speaking through the hard lump in his throat. "My father was - whatever he was, your husband drew just as much disrespect to himself in the encounter, and I am, I am tired of pretending that two old men can dictate who I wish to keep company with."
"That is enough," Lady Margaret said. "I have no intention of listening to a child. Send Brendon home immediately, or I will simply call the law down upon you."
"You will do no such thing," Ryan said, his lip curling now. "You wouldn't risk the scandal. Brendon is hurt. He is - he was - he could have been killed. And Lady Elizabeth and I will make sure he is afforded the proper care, and I do not think that having him shipped across town for the sake of propriety qualifies. If you don't leave now the servants will lift you bodily and take you out."
Ryan glanced sideways at Z, to check how she was taking him throwing people out of her house. She grinned, fierce and pleased, and lifted her chin in agreement.
Lady Margaret had swelled to such a pitch of rage she seemed unable to speak. Eventually she forced out, "I have never been so insulted in my life. I hope you are both torn apart by lions."
With this last unexpectedly human retort, she turned on her heel and swept from the room.
*
When Ryan knocked on the door, his hands still shaking with the rush of that conflict, Godwin opened the door almost straight away. He blinked at Ryan in a surprised manner.
"Oh, hello," he said. "You can go in now, if you like. He's resting, though, so I can't imagine it will be terribly interesting."
"Is he -"
"He'll be fine," Godwin said. "Some blood loss, and he's still fairly woozy. I wouldn't recommend moving him for a day, and the wound will be painful a while yet until it begins to heal. But no lasting damage to the muscle. He'll have a scar, though."
"Right," Ryan said. He breathed in, rubbing his face with his hands. "Thank you. I - thank you very much."
"You're welcome," Godwin said. His eyes darted about. "Is Mr Elliot still here?"
Ryan took a moment to remember Z's instructions. "No, he had to leave," he said. "Further business with Rotham, I think, settling things. Lady Elizabeth Berg is downstairs, though, if you would like - tea, or something."
Godwin held his hat in his hands, still, Ryan noticed, hadn't given it to Hedges at the door. It wasn't something a gentleman would normally forget to do; but then, Godwin had been distracted with Brendon.
Now, Godwin twirled the hat in his hands and said, thoughtfully, "I think I might, yes."
"Well." Ryan smiled nervously at him, and stepped aside so Godwin could pass. Then he slipped through and closed the door carefully behind him, his hands lingering on the doorknob, the smooth wood.
In the bed, Brendon seemed smaller than usual, his hair falling dark and messy over his pale face. For a moment, Ryan stood frozen to the spot, not daring to draw any nearer; Brendon was hurt, and it was Ryan's fault, the whole damn thing was Ryan's fault.
Godwin had said he would be fine, Ryan reminded himself. It didn't matter that Brendon looked unnaturally still in the bed, didn't matter that Ryan could barely see the rise and fall of his chest, because Godwin was a doctor and Ryan was just an idiot with a habit of getting himself and his friends into scrapes they weren't so good at getting out of.
Ryan took off his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair, unbuttoning his collar and loosening his neckcloth. Then he drew the chair over to Brendon's bedside and sat watching Brendon quietly. He wanted to reach out and take Brendon's hand, pick it up where it was resting on top of the blanket and keep it warm, but didn't quite dare.
Instead, he reached out and touched Brendon's hair. It was still a little damp with sweat, matted in dark curls to his skin, and Ryan bit his lip. He had a moment's warning when Brendon's eyelashes fluttered, just enough to snatch his hand back, then Brendon breathed in a gulp and jerked awake.
"What?" Brendon said, his eyes darting around the room.
"Sorry," Ryan said quietly. "I didn't mean to startle you. Or wake you."
"Oh." Brendon licked his cracked lips. Ryan looked away. "I thought I heard my aunt."
Ryan laughed, short and humourless. "Yes, she was here for a while."
Brendon closed his eyes. "I hoped I was dreaming."
"She's gone now," Ryan said. He studied Brendon's face carefully. "She wanted to take you home."
"She would," Brendon said, and nothing more.
After a moment, Ryan asked, "Should I have let her?"
Brendon shuddered as if the thought gave him a headache.
Ryan bit his lip. "Can I, can I get you anything?"
"Some water," Brendon said, "if you would."
There was a pitcher on the dresser. Ryan went and poured a glass, then had to support Brendon as he sat up. Brendon winced, taking in quick, pained breaths, and Ryan hurried to fluff the pillows and set them up so Brendon could lean back against them. Brendon's hands were shaking, so after a moment Ryan helped him hold the glass to his mouth. He tried not to pay attention to the way Brendon's throat worked as he swallowed.
Ryan was impartial, tending to a patient. The fact that he was most of the way in love with the patient didn't have to mean a thing.
"How are you feeling?" Ryan asked, taking away the empty glass. Brendon wiped the sleeve of his good arm across his mouth, looking absurdly young for a moment. Ryan stood uncertainly by the bed.
"A little like I've been run over by a carriage and four," Brendon said, "which isn't quite what I would have expected."
"Right, no."
"Thank you for bringing me here."
Ryan flushed. "It's Z's - Lady Elizabeth's house."
"Oh. Well, thank her, I suppose."
Ryan nodded dumbly. Brendon looked up at him.
"What's wrong?"
Ryan laughed, shaky and incredulous. "You got shot."
"Yes." Brendon grimaced. "It's not fun. I won't do it again."
"It was my fault."
"What?" Brendon frowned and made an attempt to sit up straighter, wincing. Ryan stepped forward and smoothed his hand over Brendon's shoulder automatically, soothing, and then Brendon's eyes dropped to Ryan's hand and Ryan flushed and straightened. "It wasn't your fault," Brendon said firmly.
"If I hadn't -"
"I was the one who tagged along," Brendon said. "Uninvited, even."
Ryan shook his head, unable to meet Brendon's eyes. "This whole thing was my idea. It wouldn't have happened otherwise."
He darted a look at Brendon and found him watching Ryan, something cautious in his eyes.
"How long have you known?" Ryan blurted.
"That night," Brendon said. "After you went inside, I stayed a while, and, and then Mr Elliot returned, and you came out as, as yourself, and you had the rose."
"Oh," Ryan said numbly. Not till after the kiss.
"What made you do it?" Brendon asked. "I mean. I know - I know that you and your set do crazy things for fun, and maybe you wouldn't care that every hostess in town would blacklist you if they found out, if you weren't run out of town completely. But it seemed as though you sought me out particularly when you got there." He was staring at his hands, but he looked up at this.
Ryan thought about making something up, then thought, fuck it. "I wanted to talk to you," he said.
"Except no," Brendon said, and he sounded almost angry, "you didn't. You didn't want to talk to me. At the Monroe ball last year, my sister pulled me aside to tell me who you were and when I turned back you'd just walked off! In the middle of a conversation, the moment you realised who I was -"
"I left because you wanted me to!" Ryan said, startled. "I saw the way your face changed -"
"I was surprised!" Brendon said. "But you just ... walked away."
"Well, I - well -" Ryan was beginning to feel ridiculous. "Well, then, what? I can't tell if you're mad at me or not!"
Brendon tried to cross his arms, then winced again when it pulled the wrong muscles. "I can't tell whether you even like me," he said, his voice rough. His mouth pulled down and he looked to the side, embarrassed, as soon as he'd said it.
Ryan leaned forward in the chair, barely conscious of what he was doing. "I wore a gown to a masquerade just so that I could spend time with you," he said. "I'm not sure how - that could be ambiguous."
Brendon turned back to look at him. His eyes had widened, and they looked very dark. "That was why you did it? The whole thing?"
Ryan nodded. He couldn't look away.
Brendon's hand moved on the bed, half lifting as though he was going to reach out to Ryan. "I thought you hated me, for a year," he said, and he wasn't looking away either.
"No, I -" Ryan had to clear his throat, his voice too hoarse to go on. Somehow his hand had found Brendon's hip under the bedclothes. He wasn't sure when he'd leaned forward so far.
Brendon bit his lip, then smiled, something irrepressible and glad. He shook his head. "All right, then," he said. He tugged at Ryan's elbow, pulling him closer, pulling him down.
Then he was kissing Ryan, soft and not quite aligned properly. He pulled back, his mouth pulling into an uncertain expression. "So we could ... start again, maybe." His eyes searched Ryan's.
Ryan laughed, low and incredulous. "Yeah, okay," he said quietly, and he leaned down to kiss him. It was gentle because of the bandages and the bullet wound and the stiff pain in the set of Brendon's shoulders, but it made Ryan's heart hammer and thud in his chest.
*
Z was staring into the depths of her teacup, wondering whether it was too early in the day to introduce a dash of brandy to it, when Tennessee came down. She signalled her presence with a light drum of her knuckles against the doorway.
Z tightened her fingers around the edge of her chair, rising to her feet. Part of her wanted to jump up, but the rest of her was nervous of this solemn-eyed version of Tennessee, her boyish figure somehow right in her physician's clothes. Z had needed four times as much attitude to carry off her gentleman's clothes for the masquerade and the duel.
Tennessee set her hat down on the low table by the door, and came a little way into the room. Her long hair had been turned up and tucked ingeniously into the back of her neckcloth, Z saw. Even now, Z could only tell because she was looking for it.
Z's courage failed her at the last minute, and instead of flashing Tennessee the conspiratorial grin and confession she'd planned, she dropped a polite curtsey. "Dr Godwin."
Tennessee's mouth turned down a little as she returned the bow. "My patient is resting," she said. "I think he'll make a full recovery, in the comfort of your house."
Z bit her lip. "I'm glad. It seemed the least I could offer him, after ..." She trailed off.
Tennessee inclined her head. "It's to your credit that you think so. But you could hardly be held responsible, could you? It wasn't you who shot him."
"O-oh," Z said. She had the uncertain impression that Tennessee was toying with her. Then she rallied. She wasn't the only one with outrageous escapades here: Tennessee could speak as solemnly as she liked, but she was still standing there dressed as a gentleman doctor, from her boots to her dove grey coat.
"Is this the first duel you have attended, sir?" she asked. "Professionally, I mean."
Tennessee didn't smile as she answered, "I hope you don't think I have attended many duels in an unprofessional capacity. They're not exactly my line."
Z gave her a small grin. "No, I thought you might have mentioned it, if you had. It would have to count as more outrageous than letting the Duke of Wellington kiss your stained hand, I think."
Tennessee's eyes went bright and hard. "More outrageous than cheating at cards in Moscow, too."
"Ha!" Z clapped her hands together. "I knew that you knew!"
Tennessee made an inarticulate sound of frustration, turning on her heal and pacing the room. She wheeled back to Z in a controlled little motion, her chin raised and her eyes still bright and upset. "Well, you needn't sound so pleased!"
"Why not?" Z came closer, her steps skipping and tripping a little. She was laughing and almost giddy. "Tennessee. Dr Godwin. Young Thomas. This is great." She spread her hands. "Don't you think this is great?"
Tennessee crossed her arms, her brow furrowing. "You nearly got somebody killed."
Z stilled.
"You could have been killed yourself," Tennessee said. Her voice thrummed with feeling. "You think this is the most marvellous joke, but because of your irresponsibility I've just finished digging a bullet out of some boy I don't even know."
Z wet her lips, cold inside. "I'm - I know," she said. "I didn't mean - Urie wasn't supposed to be there. Nobody was supposed to get hurt, except maybe me. Or Rotham, perhaps, but I don't care what you say, I couldn't care if he got himself winged." She tacked the last on in a violent tone, then subsided back to her earlier penitence. "I didn't ... want anyone to get hurt."
Tennessee shot a quick look at her face, then looked away. "They did."
Z straightened, getting some spirit back. "And it wasn't irresponsible of you to impersonate a surgeon?"
"I know how to tend a man who's been shot!" Tennessee said, flushing. "I may not have a degree, but I've more field experience with gunshot wounds than almost any London doctor you could name!" She pushed back a lock of hair that had begun to escape her neckcloth. "And, and I did this for entirely different reasons! I was concerned about you, about you getting yourself shot. That was why I dressed up as a man and came to the duel. Not as some kind of joke."
"Well," Z said, throwing herself across the room and leaning against the window. "Well, and so I was reckless! So it was my fault somebody got shot today!" She looked at Tennessee, stilling again. "I know that. Do you think I don't know that?" She clenched her fists, her eyes pricking. "Do you think I don't know it every time I go too far?"
She turned away, pressing her palms against the window sill. "I'm not excusing myself," she said in a low voice. "I never forgive myself any of the deluded mistakes I make, especially when - when they get people hurt."
She heard Tennessee shuffling behind her, perhaps uncomfortable, but Z kept staring into the glass until there was no danger of her vision swimming anymore. Then she sniffed, spinning around.
"Anyway, that won't do," she declared.
Tennessee's face had settled into a reluctantly sympathetic expression. Now she frowned, stiffening.
"You were there when I made the challenge," Z said, "and you can't have been as disgusted with me as all that, because you cared enough to come and try to talk me out of the trouble I'd got myself in, the next morning. And to pretend to be a physician, too, today! I don't think this is about my recklessness at all."
Tennessee narrowed her eyes. "You were reckless," she said, and her voice shook with something that sounded like hurt. "And you were cruel."
Z's thoughts shuddered to a stop. "What?"
Tennessee was flushed bright pink, now. She seemed to be having trouble holding Z's gaze. She made the effort. "It was cruel of you to involve me in the joke you and Mr Ross were playing," she said steadily. "I knew - I never imagined the th-things we said at the masquerade were serious, or that Lady Elizabeth, that you were serious in the - the style of flirtation you - in anything you said when I came around the next morning." She got to the end of her floundering sentence and looked Z more directly in the eye. "But I didn't think you were laughing at me."
Z's stomach clenched. She took a step forward. "I wasn't," she said.
Tennessee cut her off with a look. "Of course you were," she said, something lost in her voice. "You -" She started pacing again. "Do you know how charmed I was after the masquerade? I knew it wasn't serious, but I still spent the whole trip home, and the morning after too, breaking into ridiculous smiles, and then the next moment feeling as if my heart had been squeezed with ice when I remembered that the wonderful Mr Elliot had signed up to get himself killed in a duel."
Z sank onto the window seat. She gazed at Tennessee, her eyes wide.
"And then I came here," Tennessee said, too much on a roll now to stop, "and I met Lady Elizabeth Berg, and do you know, I remember thinking - you and Mr Elliot were so similar, of course, but I remember thinking that as charismatic and appealing as Mr Elliot had been, it was as if he was a - a less formed imitation of the character that Lady Elizabeth inhabited easy as breathing. I thought he must be younger than you! Because he was more outrageous and he tried harder, to, to inhabit his own dashing personality, whereas Lady Elizabeth was - was somehow settled and lively inside her own skin, and, and her personality sparked out of every glance and every movement of her hands, and even the ways she was outrageous and ridiculous were somehow more conscious and more laughing than her cousin's, as though she was laughing at herself."
Z rested her chin on her hands. "Oh my God," she said quietly. She felt hollow inside with the degree to which she was in love with this girl.
Tennessee dropped onto a couch, all the energy gone out of her. "Except that you weren't, of course," she said in a dull tone. "You were too busy laughing at everybody else."
Z got to her feet and crossed to Tennessee. She sank to her knees, looking up at her. Partly for effect; partly because her legs were shaking. "I wasn't laughing at you," she said, all the words in a rush.
Tennessee jumped in her seat, her hands clenching in the material of her breeches. "What?" she said. She seemed to want to lean away and lean forward at the same time.
Z smiled brilliantly. "I mean - I mean, I do laugh at people, and it was fun, dressing up with Ryan, fooling people, that - I loved that. I hope you don't want me not to laugh at anybody, because I - that's a morally upright position but I probably couldn't do that." She stared anxiously at Tennessee, who gave her a blank look in return.
"But I wasn't laughing at you," Z said, rising up on her knees and seizing Tennessee's hands. "I didn't want to fool you at all, except to get you to dance with me, maybe. The only thing that could have made the masquerade, the joke, more fun would have been if you'd been in on it with me!"
Tennessee looked down at her hands, imprisoned in Z's. Z could feel them shaking a little. "I think you're still joking," she said.
"Why?" Z demanded.
Tennessee tried to draw back her hands, but Z wouldn't let them go. "Because - because why me?" Tennessee said. Her voice was shaking too. "I'm a surgeon's daughter. I move in completely different circles to your - fashionable dining rooms and balls."
Z scowled.
"And you only met me for the first time the night before last," Tennessee continued.
"And you're wonderful," Z said simply.
Tennessee's face at that was so uncertain and overwhelmed that Z couldn't help herself. She surged up, catching Tennessee's face between her hands, and kissed her.
When she drew back, Tennessee's eyes were wide and searching. She was close enough that Z could have counted each eyelash as it brushed her cheeks. Tennessee licked her lips, her breath hitching, and made a soft, confused sound that didn't quite manage to be a word. She swayed forward.
Z cleared her throat. "I make up my mind about people very quickly," she said. "And I'm always right, you see." She frowned. "And," she added, aggrieved, "of course I was serious at the masquerade, and when you met me as Lady Elizabeth. I've never told anybody that story about Moscow before, even if it wasn't true. And I've never lied about somebody being a slave trader because I was jealous of them before, either! Especially not myself. And I've never met a girl who would dress up as a doctor just because she was worried about me. Or danced with a girl in a glade at a masquerade, and wanted to keep on dancing with her all night."
"Oh my God, stop talking," Tennessee said breathlessly. She pulled Z up and kissed her, sweet and fervent. Z threw her arms around Tennessee's neck, kissing her back, and stopped talking.
Epilogue
Brendon's eyes were very dark, like this, and his eyelashes looked longer than they usually did, framed by dark tumbled locks. Ryan stared, fascinated, and Brendon smiled crookedly at him, a nervous quirk in the corner of his mouth. Ryan leaned up to touch his lips to it.
"Ryan," Z said crossly. "Man your oar!"
Brendon laughed and shoved Ryan's shoulder, and Ryan sighed, sitting upright again.
"I don't see why we couldn't get a proper gondolier," he said. "And a proper gondola, come to think of it. We're meant to be seeing the sights."
"Oh, we'd have to be all proper, with someone listening in," Tennessee said, fanning herself idly, skirts spread across the wooden bench she was perched on next to Brendon. "It gets tiresome."
"And I don't want to pitch my voice up all day," Brendon added. He wriggled, making a face. "Tenn, can't you loosen my corset? Just for a while?"
"No," Tennessee said serenely. "That would look ridiculous."
"It's too hot," Brendon complained. He smoothed out his skirts, shifting his shoulders back uncomfortably. The corset did do amazing things for his figure; Ryan always forgot how amazing. The drape of the white morning gown accentuated the curve of hips, and the bodice threaded with fuchsia ribbons, complete with the parasol he kept forgetting to hold up, made him the perfect picture of a lady on a pleasure cruise. If he would stop wriggling.
"We can go back to the hotel and swap, if you want," Ryan said. "You haven't worn a corset in hot weather before."
"But, Mr Ross," Brendon said, pitching his voice up alarmingly high, "however will you escort me to the ball?"
Ryan grinned. "You could escort me to the ball."
"But it's my turn," Brendon said, sighing and fluttering his eyelashes.
"Okay, you need to stop that," Z said. "You sound ridiculous. Ryan, your oar."
"Right," Ryan said hastily, picking it up. "Sorry, I'm doing it."
"Good," Z said, "or I'll relegate you to fan duties."
"Oooh," Tennessee said, voice hopeful. Her own gown was perfectly arranged, and the blue ribbons perfectly colour matched to Brendon's, because Tennessee had been in charge of wardrobe coordination herself. Which also meant that Ryan and Z were both impeccable in morning dress, even though Z had made a try for her riding coat and spurs.
"No," Ryan said. He scowled at Z. "You're a jerk when you're getting into character as Elliot, I hope you know."
"I'm a wonder, darling," Z said, her voice dropping low and husky.
"You guys aren't going to get into another duel with each other tonight, are you?" Tennessee asked, leaning forward. "Because the last one was a nuisance to fake."
"Depends whether Z can restrain herself," Ryan said wryly, and Z drummed the heels of her boots on the boat, stretching her legs out in front of her to admire the shine of her boots.
"Look," Z said, "if Ryan didn't cut me off on the dance floor, this wouldn't be a problem."
"It was an accident," Ryan said for the twelfth time.
"Yes, yes," Brendon said. "Let's not have this argument again, shall we?"
"When does your friend come?" Tennessee asked. "Is he joining us at the ball tonight?"
"Yes," Z said. She grinned at Ryan. "I told him you'd be there. How long do you think it will take Alex to spot me?"
"About half a second," Ryan told her, and Z laughed.
"We'll see," she said. "I bet I can challenge him to fisticuffs before he does get it, though."
Tennessee laughed, leaning down to loop her arms loosely around Z's shoulders.
"Really," she said. "No duels, tonight. For me."
"Oh, well. If you're asking." Z leaned back against her, tilting her face up for Tennessee's kiss.
"Hey!" Ryan protested. "Why are you allowed to fool around in the boat?"
"We don't capsize it," Z said, and Ryan sighed, turning around to look at Brendon, who was mostly preoccupied with shaking out his skirts again.
"Brendon."
"Life's full of hardships," Brendon said. "Can you help me get this ribbon straight?"
Ryan squinted at him. "Sometimes I think you don't appreciate me properly."
Brendon laughed, and twirled his parasol above their heads. It was the pink one, the second best, but the best parasol had been lost in an unfortunate incident in Paris that involved Ryan, Tennessee, and Z climbing out the hotel window in all their skirts while Brendon shinned down the drainpipe.
They should try and replace it here, Ryan thought, add it to the enormous trunk of outfits that went around with them. Maybe they could get matching parasols again, and he and Brendon could play dark-eyed, silent sisters on the girls' arms. That would be fun, and Ryan rather liked the idea of wearing a skirt next to Brendon, of them helping to lace each other into the corsets. Sisters could stick together all evening, too. Maybe they could go to an opera or something like that, where no one would notice Ryan's hand on Brendon's knee. He shivered.
"Mmm." Tennessee sighed, soft and content. "I like Italy best, so far."
"We haven't even been to Greece yet," Z said. She sounded drowsy; Ryan thought he probably wasn't going to get told off about the oar again for a while. "We'll go down by the coast. Stay in one of the fishing villages, maybe. I'll make you a necklace out of seashells."
"I should probably like that," Tennessee said thoughtfully.
Ryan rested his arms on Brendon's knees, blinking up at him.
"Hi," Brendon said, smiling.
"What are you doing here?" Ryan said, low and wondering, and then he shook his head and laughed. "Sorry."
Brendon didn't stop smiling, but his gaze softened. He reached out and touched Ryan's cheek, his hand cool in the dainty white gloves.
"Looking exceedingly foolish," Brendon told him.
Ryan shook his head. "You look beautiful," he said, and Brendon kissed him.
Neither Ryan nor Z were paying much attention to the oars anymore, Ryan found when he next looked at them. He could feel the boat drifting a little in the current, until it bumped up against the side of canal. Ryan liked Venice. He liked who they were here. When he glanced over at Z and Tennessee again, Tennessee was stroking her hand through Z's hair, completely ruining the neat way Z had tied it back out of sight. They would fix it later. They could be late, if they wanted. There was no one here to keep them to any schedule or timetable save their own.
The boat scraped noisily against the stone wall of the canal, stuck there, and Z sighed, sitting up straight.
"Come on, Ryan," she said.
"I think I want to be someone else tonight," Ryan said. "Maybe an exiled poet. Or a duke."
"I'd like to be a duchess," Brendon said, brightening.
"I'm not sure you're serious enough to be a duchess," Ryan told him, turning around to grin.
"Oh, sure he could be," Z said. "Just channel your aunt, Brendon."
Ryan shuddered. "Or don't."
"You be a duke," Z told Ryan, her eyes brightening, "and I'll be your illegitimate half-brother, come to challenge you for your title."
Tennessee grinned. "Oh, Venice is going to love us."