Thank you to my Beta Big J <i>Just so you know</i> - Alasdair is a very old and traditional Scottish name another form for Alistair  

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When he awoke the first thing Justin felt was peace. The comfort in which he found himself enveloped was… not alien but different to the one he was accustomed to. The natural light that awakened him every morning was not pouring through these windows. Actually it was inexplicably dark and he wondered what it was that had woken him. That is until he heard Gus crying through the door, which he had left open late last night for exactly that purpose. He had been worried that in his exhaustion he would sleep through any cries of discomfort the baby might make. He got up and half dressed so that if anyone were to see him it would not cause a scandal… well not too much of one. 

Lord Talbot had placed him in Lady Talbot’s chambers and although he had initially disputed this extreme infringement of society’s convention he had not the energy to argue adequately against a man, whom he had discovered quite matched him for stubbornness. He had given in and allowed his Lordship to claim this particular victory. Technically it was more convenient but as he well knew society was built upon propriety and not convenience. 

Lady Talbot’s chambers were surprisingly neutral, lacking the sort of individuality someone usually infused into their personal surroundings. It appeared to him that these chambers were not used. Yet it was clean and just a door separated it from the nursery, so that a doting mother could visit upon their child whenever she should wish.

When Justin entered the nursery he saw that Gus had pulled himself up and his hands gripped the top of the wooden frame of his cot tightly. He stood there while he sobbed and his tears trailed down his soft, fat cheeks. Justin held his arms out as he approached and Gus letting go to do the same, lost his balance and would have fallen on his rump if Justin had not caught him and swept him into his arms. He held the fragile head to his neck as he cooed softly and attempted to rock him back to sleep. Justin walked around, strolling back into his temporary quarters so as to take a closer look at his surroundings. He had been too tired to notice them last night and he was curious.

Lady Talbot’s rooms consisted of a large oak four-poster bed hung with heavy drapes, which matched the curtains which framed the two large windows that looked onto a brightly flowered park. Within its’ walls was a small boudoir or private sitting room where he assumed a lady would take tea or sit with her sewing. Adjoining this was the dressing room, empty, but for a large wooden bathing tub. There was another door in this room but when Justin attempted to turn the handle it was locked and though he looked he did not find a key.

Gus was by now pulling at his hair impatiently and gurgling with the happiness of a child that would not be sleeping in the foreseeable future. Justin sighed and placed Gus in the middle of his large bed, cocooned in blankets to impede his chances of rolling off. He gargled and washed with the fresh water he found on the vanity in a beautiful china bowl. Then he dressed in the spare clothes he had in his saddlebags, which to his relief were completely dry.

He studied himself in the mirror and carefully assessed his appearance hoping that he would make a better second impression. He sighed at his wrinkled clothes, attempted to iron them out by stroking down his waistcoat several times until he gave up and shrugged. At least he looked more alert this morning and he didn’t smell like wet horse. He spent the next forty-five minutes changing, washing and dressing his charge enjoying the few moments of peace that he shared with him. As Justin finished Gus started to fuss with hunger, so he picked the baby up and attempted to make his way downstairs. 

Justin was walking down the main staircase having an intellectual conversation with his charge when a young maid, Jane, accosted him. He was informed that whilst he was meeting with his Lordship Jane would be caring for the young Master. Justin was reluctant to hand Gus over to this unknown person but seeing his hesitancy she gave him a shy smile. She informed him that she was the eldest of eight and had been caring for children ever since she was little more than a child herself, so he had nothing to worry about. Satisfied, Justin handed Gus over and then turned and walked towards his Lordships’ study. The entrance was open slightly and he hesitated before moving his hand up to knock on it, but before his knuckles touched the dark wood of the door his Lordship bid him enter.

Brian looked up as he watched Mr Taylor walk through the doorway into his study and his whole body tensed as he caught sight of an entirely different person to the one he had spoken to a scant few hours ago. Last night or rather early this morning Brian had thought him a shapeless form in dark, wet, unremarkable clothing with a face that held some promise. The man that stood before him was not shapeless and so much improved that for a moment Brian was hard pressed to believe that they were the same person. His tan breeches hugged the curve of his… his legs. They hugged his legs… and ass, Brian conceded, as Justin turned to shut the door and he was allowed to… uh examine it, unhindered by tailcoats. His light blue waistcoat was unremarkable but it enhanced the colour of his eyes and emphasised his slim waist. His soft dark leather riding boots came up to just below the knee and his white cravat, tied simply round the length of his neck, contrasted with the flush in his pale cheeks.

Justin’s eyes widened as he caught sight of the man that he had been too tired to pay due attention to last night casually leaning against the mantel. Beautiful, was the thought that leapt in to his mind immediately as he eyed the sculpted length of the body that was presented to him. He blushed and ducked his head in reaction to the path his thoughts had ventured. It was then he noticed he was hardly suitably dressed to meet with a Baron and he shut his eyes in silent reproof.

“Forgive me. I am not wearing my coat. Gus was fussing and it would have turned into a full out tantrum if I did not feed him, so I came downstairs first to search for his feeding bottle, unwilling to risk waking you but I was interrupted by the…” Brian allowed himself to smile slightly at this outburst and enjoyed it till he decided to interrupt. 

“You talk a lot more I notice, now that you are awake.” Justin blushed again and his eyes shone with chagrin.

“I was tired and I… for…”

“You were.” Brian conceded, “and I do not expect you to apologise. You would lower yourself in my esteem if you did so. Let it rest. After all I found it rather refreshing.”

“Refreshing?” Justin asked with abject curiosity.

“Well yes, of course.” Brian allowed himself a moment to enjoy tormenting his guest.

“What part of me?” he enquired hesitantly as if he were almost afraid of the answer he would receive. Brian managed to stop his almost automatic desire to immediately flicker a pointed look at the boy’s crotch by turning around, approaching his desk and sitting on the corner of it with his legs comfortably outstretched before him.
 
“There is very little of you that I do not find appealing…” Brian said softly his eyes gleaming and then he smiled in such a way that when he corrected himself, “I mean rather refreshing.” Justin was hard put to actually believe that he meant the correction. Justin did not know how to react so he did the only thing he could. He changed the subject.

“I had another reason for seeing you My Lord, another matter to discuss of the utmost importance.” Justin began valiantly.

“Was thrusting a child upon me not enough to occupy you during this particular visit to town?” he replied, obvious sarcasm lacing his voice. Justin opened his mouth to argue with his tone, closed it and pushed on gallantly.

“I have come to speak to you about My Lady’s estate, My Lord.”

“I was under the assumption that last night we had come to an agreement and that you would be calling me by name from now on, Justin.” Brian enjoyed seeing Justin speechless, too much for his own good. If he continued in this way the poor boy would be here all day, he sighed. “<i>My</i> estate!” He pointedly corrected, “What about it?” 

“Well, what should I do with <i>your</i> estate?” Justin said, impatience lacing his voice.

“What do you mean what should you do with it? Nothing. After all it has very little to do with you.” Brian asked puzzled.

“It has everything to do with me, I run it.” Justin’s politeness warred with how exasperated he felt. 

“But you’re a child.” Brian exclaimed quite honestly surprised.

“Who has been running my own estate since I was practically thirteen. Your Lady dismissed your manager and it would not do to let the fields lie. Your people depended upon your management and you were not there. So I did it.” Brian could see the honesty with which Justin spoke but he was some how hard pressed to believe him.

“What of your father?” he asked and saw Justin’s whole body tense in reaction.

“What about my father?” Justin replied curtly.

“Where was he?”

“I am quite sure I have no idea. Around… somewhere… spending my inheritance on his current mistress. I can assure you that you should be particularly grateful for that fact. If he had known that I was in charge of running your estate you would be considerably poorer than you currently are.” Justin replied bluntly, finally giving up on the expected politeness and deciding to approach this man with his usual candour.

“I…” Brian stood up and walked around his desk in an attempt to occupy himself with movement while figuring out what it was he wanted to say. He sat down in the large throne behind his desk, “I commend you.” He said when he finally spoke, “It is very rare that someone manages to surprise me yet you seem to do it with odd regularity.”

“I do not mean to.” Justin said sincerely.

“Well at least you are not apologising for it. It seems that there <i>are</i> more things we need to discuss.” Brian finally acknowledged.

“I'm glad you managed to concede to me.” Justin dared, hoping that his audacity would somehow provoke his Lordship… Brian, he corrected himself… and that this compelling man’s true character would reveal itself. For it seemed to him to change as oft as the wind. Inconsistent was not the word he searched for… almost capricious. That worked! It suited him, yet Justin could hardly imagine this being his natural disposition. He felt singled out… special and it made him simultaneously frown with confusion and shiver in delight.

He approached Brian’s large desk and began to explain the complex workings of the estates. He kept his eyes fixed on a lamp just up and a little to the left of his Lor… Brian’s eyes in an attempt to concentrate on what he was saying. It was too easy to forget what he was talking about when confronted with that face. But as Brian asked questions and demanded more thorough explanations, diagrams and statistics their attraction for the other seemed to take a secondary position as they lost themselves for a while in work.

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Some hours after Justin had left to, as he put it, fulfil his duty and take care of Master Gus, Brian was still seated behind his big desk lost in thought. 

Justin Taylor, he had discovered, was an enigma and Brian needed to sort him out in the same way he normally did - from a distance. He did this silently as was his wont, balancing out all he knew with what he had deduced.

Justin was nineteen years old, yet he looked thirteen and his voice and maturity led you to believe that he could be no younger than five-and-twenty. He was beautiful and he was wholly unaware of it. His pale skin shone with purity and every time he looked at you his blue eyes pierced through you making your heart skip a beat. What Brian had witnessed of his character led him to believe that Justin would never use his beauty as an advantage even had he been aware of it. Justin was excessively honest and for someone who had been surrounded by duplicity since time immemorial this endeared him to Brian. Everything about Justin attracted him but for the first time Brian found himself interested in who the man was and not just what he looked like.

Justin was loyal and took his responsibilities extremely seriously and he had many… responsibilities that is. As Brian had been made aware of the situations that had arisen in Ingstone, his respect for the boy grew and his ability to continue to refer to him as a boy in his head was severely tested. 

Justin was… he was…. simply brilliant. Men that Brian encountered in the upper echelons of society everyday were all educated, they had to be. It was what was expected of them so that in social circles they could converse politely with everyone. But Justin’s utter joy in learning and teaching were evident in his very being. He informed Brian of the state of his affairs in Ingstone without using notes or references but he knew everything. Agriculture and economy, export and import, acreage, planting, every buyer of fruit, vegetable or grain that left their lands, profits, losses, price fluctuations, the predicted weather patterns for the next few weeks. As Brian watched him work his way through everything and anything that concerned his property he realised that it wouldn’t surprise him if Justin knew the name of every man, woman and child who had any association with their estates. One had the impression that nothing happened on either of their properties without Justin’s knowledge and explicit permission. Each of the men in charge of each estate were chosen specifically by him and reported to him alone. His property ran like clockwork and he knew that this boy was the cause of it. Man, Brian corrected himself again, man.

Brian shut his eyes and let his head fall onto the back of his chair. He sighed and massaged his temples in an attempt to will away his encroaching headache.

His line of work had managed to instil in him a deep, unwavering trust in his instincts. He accredited them with his survival in the most challenging of circumstances and as yet they had never let him down. That is, until now, for he was quite certain that every primal instinct that dwelled in his body was telling him that he wanted Justin Taylor. Wanted him with a need… in a way that he had never felt before, for anything, especially not for a person such as Justin. His mind was telling him that he would do best to cultivate him as a friend, a close friend, one of the few honest and loyal ones he had. His body told him there was little chance of that happening. For when those eyes shone their happiness at him the tight reign he kept on his impulses was shot straight to hell. 

Lizzie had been a complicated person and they had never and would have never totally understood each other. They had each provided for the other a service, a haven of sorts and the loss of her as a friend, as a mother saddened him deeply. The men he occasionally took his pleasure from were nothing but a means to an end. Robert Talbot had been a friend, a mentor. He had other friends, colleagues or servants, men he played cards with, men he fenced with. Justin… well how could he be any of those things? Justin was clever and ran his estates perfectly but he was too well born to be a servant or an employee. He was too young to be a friend, too innocent and too unjaded to be a colleague, too important to be a mere acquaintance. Justin would never remain in London for an acquaintance. 

Brian stood up and decided that if he let himself Justin could distract him for hours and that in moments such as these he needed a greater distraction to distract him from his distraction. He smiled at himself, at his own tangled thoughts and decided to make a quick trip to the club to check if any messages had arrived since morning. Maybe Alasdair would be there and they could both share a bottle of good Scotch whiskey and if not Cutter would be around. Maybe in working out his frustration he would actually succeed in bruising his fists somewhere on the big brutes’ person. 

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Brian groaned at his interrupted sleep. He snuck his arm out from under his bed sheets and patted his mattress in search of the pillow that should have been somewhere to his left so that he could bury his head under it in an attempt to continue sleeping. Brian heard crying and he froze until his thoughts caught up with his brain and he sat up. It was a strange feeling, for crying was not a sound he was accustomed to hearing. Yet it seemed natural as if it’s being there were not unfamiliar. 

He got up and put his sleeping gown on to cover his nakedness and left his room. He had returned at around two o’clock in the morning and he felt as if he had just managed to sleep and now he was awake again. He hadn’t been able to actually hit Cutter. Obviously the large man was just as good and just as fast no matter what mood you yourself were in. Brian sighed as he made his way towards the nursery. Going to the club had solved nothing and even though Alasdair had arrived later on, he had been too sombre to enjoy the drinking and Alasdair had left after an hour to enjoy, as he put it, more youthful, willing and female company.

When Brian reached the nursery he paused. He heard soft crooning as he approached the open door and silently pushed the gap wider. Justin was standing by the cot cradling the child. He seemed to glow in the moonlight that came from the open window, ethereal and fragile. He was dressed in a very loose white shirt, which fell open leaving one pale shoulder bare. If Brian had been a romantic he would have described it as billowing but he was not, so he wouldn’t. Justin had obviously tugged on a pair of breeches to walk through the house and they were tight - very tight in a supple tan, which looked almost like a second skin and Brian was hard pressed not to approach, not to touch. 

His breath must have hitched because Justin turned suddenly, their eyes meeting and his pale cheeks flushed. Whether it was from sleep or mortification he knew not, but for the first time in all the hours they had been in each other’s company Brian felt desire he could not suppress jolt through him unrestrained. Brian’s eyes were immediately drawn to the boy’s crotch where obviously in his hurry to dress himself, Justin had not fastened his breeches properly.

Justin’s blond hair was ruffled from sleep and his blue eyes were set large in his pale face, dark with fatigue. His full red lips set in contrast to the cream skin that Brian imagined would be soft to the touch. Once Justin had turned around Brian realised that he could make out a dusky nipple in the gap where his shirt gaped open and his mouth watered as it occurred to him that there was nothing he would rather do then suck at the flavour of it.

Approaching him, his voice husky from slumber Brian said, “I heard him weep and I knew not if you would waken.” He sensed rather then saw Justin’s whole body tense as his eyes swept over his barely clad host. When he looked up their eyes met and held. Brian felt the spark of desire and saw the confusion, which accompanied it. He was not unaware of Justin’s naivety. He understood that Justin could not begin to process desires that he felt, for they were emotions he knew nothing about and was not yet accustomed to. So Brian stopped and allowed Justin to look, to decide that it was possible that he wanted a man, to acknowledge to himself that he was confused by his own emotions.

Justin had been startled when he felt someone approach him from behind and had turned to see something he felt could forever more be pinpointed as the exact moment of his undoing. His Lordship stood in a dark burgundy silk sleeping robe, which left nothing to the imagination. The side of his face was lined with the creases of his pillow from where he had lain asleep and he felt a surge of… need. Need and want and… the sight of this man caused feelings he did not understand to overwhelm him. To want a man in any way would never have occurred to him but for this moment. Faced with such debauched and sexual beauty, he could not deny the rush of pleasure he felt but knew not what to do with it. He felt dizzy and his head ached. He lay Gus back in his crib and took a step back allowing Brian to approach.

As Brian drew near he noticed that Justin’s brow shone with perspiration and his eyes were unfocused. It occurred to him that Justin’s flush might not be associated with the warmth of sleep or desire and he stepped towards him with a question on his lips when he saw the boy start to fall. He reached for him and caught him as he crumbled. He was feverish in his arms and Brian cursed the stupidity of having kept him up on such a cold night in wet clothing to question him twenty-four hours ago. He would have shouted out for a servant but stopped himself before doing so. He didn’t want to wake the baby.

He swung Justin into his arms and took him to his chambers where he called for Jenkins.