The Great Grey

Archibald had never been so accustomed to rejection, for though he had always respected the answer he had rarely been afforded it. Mostly everyone had only wanted him in turn, as such Archibald had never been given the opportunity to act with decorum or even to be upset. When Philippa had made it clear upon the hillside that she would not simply be a lover, nor even a wife, unless actual heart-swallowing love was involved, Archibald had only agreed and gave way with the nod of his head as if he hadn’t thought about it. In truth, it was as clear as day that the Duke had wanted her, to be her friend of course but to also lay with someone so statuesque would’ve been the ideal circumstance. Alas, Archibald did not fight to shift where the pieces fell, and as such escorted her back to the House itself, that loomed out in the middle of a mass of forestry.

With the house being so very large for a family of five, Archibald could go some time without even seeing the Carringtons. Mostly he was kept to the stables, his study or his rooms whilst writing missives on orders for the Christmastime celebrations (presents for the girls, charity to be given to the surrounding villages and lump sums to be handed out to the staff from one property to the next… no one could say that Archibald wasn’t generous).

He also sent for Arthur, the valet he normally left in London, so he could go through his wardrobes in the countryside and find a worthy selection for the upcoming season in order to look the part as not only a fashionable Duke but a well presented father due to Hermione’s imminent debut. When in the country, it was often the case that Archibald remained a different version of himself, a side presented to his family as someone more caring, quiet and somber than he actually was — perhaps it was the seriousness of children that pushed all other virtues and vices aside, but whatever the case, he had refrained from fucking Arthur as much as he had recently come to doing at Somerset House, for he had found that the valet was good company when he needed someone, and he had since made it evident that he was quite up for, well, any pinch of attention that Archibald could offer him.

Though he had hoped the countryside, with the Baroness, would open up another venue, the rejection and henceforth lack of fucking had riled him. Behind closed doors, and before Arthur had arrived at Stourhead, Archibald would stroke himself almost insistently, as if he could not abide being untouched even for a moment — like a boy finding pleasure for the first time he was drawn almost to madness in the flurry of arousal, it was a surprise that the head steward himself did not break in to slap the Duke back into reality.

As night fell around Stourhead, and the new guest who would stay at the house whilst tending to the horses was settled by Archibald’s instruction, the Duke could undress from his fine things to what was leftover (an undone white chemise, woolen pyjama trousers made to combat the cold and a pair of darned socks). With his clothes loose around his person, he went to his rooms with a small glass of whiskey within his grasp, wondering over to the large window that overlooked the back gardens lit by the moon and the moon alone. Stourhead was a wonderful place yet to be marked by Death, but there remained the worries. Philippa. Little Teddy. Hermione. It all seemed far too much, for Archibald was not one well used to troubles or queries that would later draw him thin, so, as if reverting to his immaturity and lack of wish to take control of the situation, he called for Arthur to overlook his wardrobe and to arrange tea to be brought to his guests, and a nightcap to be offered to him in turn.

If Arthur finally arrived, Archibald was found by the window, staring out as if transfixed by something unseen.

The crates had arrived at the same time as the valet, and there had been unpacking and ironing and polishing, tucking sachets into pockets that would remain unused until spring and trimming of wayward threads that had worked free in transit. The day had been long and would stretch into the next — And for all that Arthur had spent a not insignificant amount of his solo carriage ride to Stourhead imagining two distinct mouths upon him (both separately and together), there had been little time to consider more than work until the sun had long dropped past the horizon and he had been personally requested.

Still pin-perfect from the hair on his head to the shine on his shoes, Arthur entered the Duke's suite not from the main doors, but the smaller one off the bedroom itself. For a moment he stood silently on the threshold with the dressing room at his back, his spine yet stiff and chin lifted. Watching Archie's moonlit profile across the room, he resisted the urge to do anything so ridiculous as step up behind the older man and nuzzle against the back of his golden neck. Instead, he gave way to the simpler impulse to slouch against the door frame as if such a thought had never entered his pretty little head.

"Your Grace."

The matter of the Duke and his valet failed to cement itself as utterly and totally important, especially since it seemed that despite it being a break from the city, Archibald had found himself embroiled in the success of his oldest daughter’s debut — having drawn out his papers to his long standing peers, Archibald yearned to relent and relax, to give way to those familiar primal urges that had for so long comforted his ego back into submission. It was cruel perhaps for Archibald to treat Arthur as he did, but in the same way, was he not a generous liege? With ample days and hours to spend as he wished, Archibald asked for one thing. Secrecy and discretion… The latter being somewhat questionable, for Arthur was not a quiet lover at any sake, and it was Archibald who had to, so often, cover his open mouth with the palm of his hand.

Standing by the moonlight, Archibald watched as the groundskeeper made his rounds across the front lawn with a faithful mutt of his own — one of those hunting dogs that had grown too old and slow to go out with the pack and had, as such, found comfort at acting the man’s companion — he huffed and smiled as he watched the man kick aside the toys that had been left out on the grass by the hands of his own daughters and their visiting friends, absently trying to etch a note into his memory to bring the matter to Victoria, to tell his second daughter that she ought to act with the servants in mind, and to keep her ego in check if she did not want to evolve into a splendid creature such as him.

Still, he was happy to hear the valet’s greeting, a voice that tugged him back into his lazy leisure as he kept his back to the door. He would have preferred Philippa, overcome with sexual desire for him, lunging herself into the bedroom that smelled of beeswax candles and the slightest undertone of a dwindling fireplace that broke into small gasps of noise whenever the wood cracked and hissed beneath the last embers of a day’s burning. Alas, it was not a statuesque Athene but rather Arthur, and so he would simply have to find pleasure elsewhere.

“Took your time, were you enjoying the view?” Archibald asked somewhat teasingly, turning his head to the side to look at him from the corner of his eye, cocking his head to silently invite him over to the window. If he had been a quicker man, perhaps he would have realised and taken stock of how Arthur had entered the room from an adjoining secret hallway that ran through the house like a secret labyrinth, but Archibald was not that kind of man… So he overlooked it.

He thought to mention the house itself, to say how grand it was compared to what Arthur had known at Bradley Park (of which was still large and similar in prestige, yet less impressive when compared to the expanse of land that came with Stourhead) but there remained the line he didn’t wish to breach. Arthur represented London and all of those delicious sins that came with it, so he did not think to mention the house, the family or even the Carringtons who lay their heads on the other side of the house. So, instead, he took a last gulp of his drink before sliding it against a chestnut drawer, allowing his hand to drop to his crotch that had long since stood on end since he had left for the night hard and painfully rejected.

Arthur had, in fact, been enjoying the view — Not simply for the trim picture Archibald made in his underthings, but the quiet and solemn aspect that was only enhanced by the cool light of the moon. There was a line between their professional relationship and whatever this was becoming, and its edges were blurry at best — Arthur stayed silent as he approached, more of a saunter than the crisp and efficient movement that marked their typical exchanges.

The hardness of the presented erection was not on account of himself — In this Arthur was laboring under no delusions. He was more than capable of inducing and maintaining a stiff prick in his employer if he cared to, but it seemed unlikely that Archie was imagining his valet in his moments alone, regardless of Arthur's pains to create for him memorable debauchery. Rather than reach for the prick in question, Arthur gathered the back of the duke's shirt in his hand and then slipped his fingers beneath to skim over the warm skin of Archie's back, fabric gathered at his wrist. He bit back the impulse to ask whether he'd been missed, expecting a disappointing answer.

Met with silence, Archibald kept his eye upon the horizon. Having always been spoiled and selfish, it would surprise no one that Archibald had hoped for Arthur to say something funny, to coax out a laugh or, better yet, transform the seriousness of Stourhead into the luxury of Somerset House. Having failed in his hopes, Archibald could have turned sour and refer himself only to the caress of his hand in some muted annoyance of not playing the game he wished to take part in.

Alas, Archibald was more malleable out in Stourhead than he was in Somerset, by the single presence of his daughters and his oldest’s upcoming debut, he simmered and went to tilt his head as the valet made a tender advancement with his eyes firmly closed — not to imagine Philippa or someone more willing, but perhaps to return to the side of him he found more natural and welcoming than the one he was forced to wear as the Patriarch of the house.

A part of him wanted to talk about his new guest, to ask whether Arthur had met him and taken care of the unfortunate mishap that had taken place on the ride. But mostly, Archibald refrained from being the one to speak again, and so like a toddler sulking he manoeuvred his shoulders in order to slip out of the shirt that Arthur held onto, exposing a well looked after torso and the slight hairs that coloured his pits, a few inches of his chest and the happy trail that ran down past his stomach to what lay beneath his underwear.

Still, despite his selfishness, Archibald needed a release if he was to think clearly the next day, if he was to sit down and begin that slow tedious work of writing letters to men he knew by title and grace alone. Dundee. Argyll. Grafton. The list went on. So, with the puff of his cheeks, he turned himself to face Arthur, staring at him as if he were a statue or some figment of a dream that he had to make sure was real before he pushed him toward that merry, near magnificent bed, that was not his for certain but rather some past owner who couldn’t carry it with him, as he pointed to the valet’s shirt, silently telling him to take it off with the direction of a single finger.

The darkening, mottled map of love bites along the junction of Arthur's neck and shoulder practically burned beneath the fine linen of his shirt. Nearly seven years he'd been in the Duke's employ, tending him in every possible circumstance, and never had Arthur known the man to be the jealous sort. Perhaps this development would be met with as much indifference as the anonymous encounter that had prepped Arthur for Archibald's cock that first night. Perhaps, with his advances thwarted elsewhere and working his way into a proper sulk, Archie would want something exclusively his own.

Arthur bit against the urge to lob a provoking remark in his lover's direction, and instead began to shrug from his jacket and waistcoat with familiar efficiency, laying the items across the bench at the end of the bed. His fingers remained steady as they worked open the buttons of his shirt and parted the fabric over his chest and down slender arms. As soon as it, too, was laid aside, he closed the distance between them and found Archie's impossibly soft mouth with his own — Not an apology, but a pointed segue, and an invitation to something a little gentler, perhaps, if Archie would allow himself to accept.

Archibald watched in a slovenly nature as Arthur did his bidding, to remove his jacket, waistcoat and shirt. Against all odds, Archibald was not a cruel man, in fact was he not ever so generous to those he claimed as lovers and friends? But there was a cruelty when faced with those beneath his rank, a power that he took as his own and weighed above the heads of those who all but adored him like a medieval liege.

So, he did not offer his affection, and only watched as Arthur made his way closer, closer till he could feel the heat of a warm body against him — his mouth set upon him in one tender kiss that almost caused the Duke to flinch. Archibald had only really reserved such kindness to his wives, to the brides who had hoped to change Archibald from a man of hedonistic privilege to someone more chaste and becoming of their new found matrimony. So, to be kissed like that, well Archibald was shocked to say the least.

As such, he moved himself away, raising one hand to hold Arthur’s shoulder before his fingers extended and shifted to touch along purple love bites that tattooed the valet’s skin like shining medals. Archibald was not a jealous man, if only because no one had given him cause to be so, so against perhaps Arthur’s hopes, the Duke sniggered and admired those pinched works of art. He knew Arthur was not his, and was happily taken to the fact as long as it remained a two-way street, but Arthur represented the family — so he better have had a good choice in fucks.

“Now, who did this? They better be kept off-display, I can’t have the girls see them,” Archibald warned slightly, tilting his head as if to transition from playful to quite deadly serious, pressing a finger into those celebrated love bites. “Also if its the head butler, I’d be overjoyed, that sly dog…” he added, his gregarious smile spreading across his face before he went, in an uncharacteristic act perhaps, lowered himself to brush his mouth against Arthur’s shoulder.

The rejection twisted in the pit of Arthur's stomach despite that he'd known to expect it, despite that he'd understood what sort of man Archibald Seymour was long before the Duke deigned to accept his valet as a bed partner. Still, Arthur tipped his head obediently aside to better allow for inspection of his neck, and lifted the opposite shoulder in a shrug.

"I could not begin to possibly count the number of days you never knew I had love bites on any part of my body because they were all kept below the collar," he pointed out. "You didn't care then and you don't care now, so let's dispense with the facade."

Arthur felt good about the way he'd said all of this: Insouciant but firm, as if this were any nameless encounter and with as much expectation attached. And then Archie had to shatter it all with the press of his gorgeous mouth to Arthur's skin.

The two of them fucked, in the most vulgar, crude sense of the word — Rough and with vigorous capacity, with sweaty limbs and the hot slap of skin. Tenderness had never really been on the table, not for Arthur, regardless of whether he felt emboldened enough to initiate it. And yet, Archibald Seymour's mouth was skimming soft and slow across the mottled skin of Arthur's shoulder, and Arthur could not help but shiver beneath the touch.

He would bite him next, Arthur prepared himself. He would bite to make a point, and then bend him over the edge of the bed but probably not in it. At best, this was a feint, an attempt to provoke exactly the sort of breath-shuddering reaction it had instantly earned.

Some whispered behind closed palms that the Duke had hired Arthur because he had known his mother, some said that he had been found by the hand of the steward at Somerset House, and had as such not earned his place but rather luckily had found himself fallen into the role despite himself. Whatever the truth, Archibald was not known for being a cruel master, if anything he had given his household ample days off and the sort of freedom previously unseen in a Duke’s staff. But his generosity did not white-wash his personal grudges, nor did it cleanse the truth that was his engorged ego. However, what was to be expected of him? Born and raised as a boy who was meant to become a Duke of a grand and ancient Duchy, Archibald wasn’t going to be anything else, so perhaps we should thank our lucky stars that his character was realised with a sense of benevolence — even if such a virtue was small and trimmed to the quick.

He laughed a little at Arthur’s back-bite, the evidence of an annoyed tone almost an entertainment after dealing with the polite manners of his house guest. Still, what did he care if Arthur had fucked many a man? Archibald, despite the time and the place, was quite free-thinking in how a person spent their time in the company of flesh, at any rate he was as easy as they came with his hard cock and constant taste for the exciting vices of life itself. When Arthur had come to the kitchens of Somerset House fucked and smelling of sex, it had only appealed to him, as a light did to a moth. So, he chuckled, eyeing the marks on Arthur’s neck as one did when admiring something pretty. The craftsmanship was sloppy, but evidence of a proper affair. At least someone was getting fucked, he thought in his dismay for Philippa and the question of whether or not he was in the position to feel anything more for a dead friend’s widow.

“So it was not the steward?” He asked without commitment, without the weight of a man longing for further conversation. Slowly he cast his hand down the side of Arthur’s body to curl around one of his hips, twisting him from front to back so as to map the marks at the back of his neck, his entertainment gilded and made obvious by the hardness of his prick before his free hand caressing the front of Arthur’s trousers, either to find his hardness with an eager touch or to coax him into one throbbing reaction.

Was there true interest in the question? The tone would suggest not, but part of Arthur wanted yet to cling to the notion of it being asked at all. He had no intention of confessing — It would benefit no one, and it had been a single impromptu romp — but he could discern the ghost of Archibald's machinations, intentional or otherwise.

The only answer he provided was in a sharp inhalation and the stirring of his cock beneath Archie's hand.

His mouth opened, and despite the flood of sensation, he wanted to say, 'you're quite cruel to me.' But for all that it was and had long been the truth, his deeply-seated sense of professional propriety kept the words suppressed. This ought to have been a different realm, a space where he was not a valet, was not the help, but Archibald had bled of the two worlds together long before he had put Arthur in his bed.

How wrong he had been to imagine the Duke might bite him; the man had no need. His ownership was implicit.

Stepping even closer, the front of their bodies all but aligned, Arthur reached for the smooth weight of Archie's shaft and afforded it a slow, easy pull. "Are you going to fuck me hard tonight, Your Grace?" he asked, the words brushed across Archie's lips, knowing quite well that the title under these circumstances was a pet peeve.