His Heart's Obsession Read Free

though seeing something that dazed him. For a moment he hadn’t known he was awake, had thought the dream had shifted into stranger paths, unexplored but intriguing, and then the fear had stabbed him through the stomach, as it so often did when he found Hughes’s eyes upon him. Does it show? My vice, my affliction, does it show?
    No. No, it must not, for Hughes had smiled.
    “Nothing of the sort. I came only to view the races. And…and I have an invitation to Miss Chapman’s ball and no wish to go back to my lodgings in between to change.”
    Isobel gave him a sly look concealed from the shop doorway by the top of her fan. “Of course. I have often found that a day spent sweating into my ballgown in an environment of ever-present dust and horseshit is the best way to give it that recherché touch for the evening. Miss Chapman will be pleased.”
    Her teasing amused him at other times. Now, not so much. He could feel his mouth go hard, like a horse stubborn against the bit. Seeing it, her expression softened in sympathy. And then it touched, briefly, on revelation, as though she had understood all, before she curtseyed for someone behind him. He had only started turning, a kind of painful delight leaping in his throat, when Captain Hamilton took him by the elbow—actually touched him, closing a strong, square hand around his forearm—and bent down—he was so tall!—to say, “Hal. I might have known you would be with a pretty young woman.”
    He called me by my name , Hal thought, despising himself for the fierce joy he felt at the fact, yet still trying to concentrate all his thought on that, and none of it on the second sentence, the captain’s assumption that he and Isobel had been flirting like any normal couple.
    Why should the captain not assume such a thing? He was the epitome of a man, and he did Hal honour by assuming that Hal was as normal as himself. It was certainly safest that he should continue to assume it. But…
    Oh, dear God, the man was so beautiful, slender and refined as a sword blade, turned out with a perfection Hal could not hope to mimic despite all his efforts. He even looked cool and fresh, with his shirt crisp and his wig gleaming, and his grey-green eyes bracing as a northern sea. His lower lip was plumper than the upper, and Hal felt instinctively that the slight irregularity must vex him. He’d offer to push it back inside, to even them up with his tongue, if only Hamilton would give him a single sign the gesture would be welcome.
    Hal shook himself. The captain had said something and was looking at him now with a polite gaze, waiting for a reply. His lips tilted upwards with amusement as the seconds went by, and those stormy eyes filled with genuine warmth. “I shall not blame him for being distracted,” Hamilton said, bowing to Isobel gallantly, “but we have a matter of some delicacy to discuss, so I will ask you to cede him to me for today.”
    “Be kind to him,” she replied, with an almost maternal expression, strange on such a young face. It was a look compounded of fondness, worry and something secretly bleak.
    Hal wondered what it was and determined to ask—another day. Not now, when she was all that stood in the way of himself and William spending a day together, not as commander and servant, but as friends.
    “He will tell you otherwise, in some proud attempt at stoicism, but he is a little under the weather today, and I’m sure would appreciate your solicitude.”
    I do not appreciate yours, madam! Hal would have kicked her, had she been a man, for drawing attention to his weakness. He had to hope that the heat at least would be blamed for his flush.
    “Farewell then,” she said, “until this evening, for I am at Miss Chapman’s ball too. Mark me down for the third dance and don’t forget this time. I am owed it after the embarrassment of last week.”
    She seized a crossing sweeper to make her a way across the crowded street and was instantly swallowed up in