Free An Improper Holiday by K.A. Mitchell

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    Charlotte, do you have any say in the matter?”
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    An Improper Holiday
    “I have a brother’s say and that is to refuse the honor.”
    “And what will your brother say?” The new Earl of Rayne wouldn’t have been more delighted with the match than if he’d learned to piss gold, and they both knew it. Nicky gripped Ian’s arm, holding tight enough to keep him from fleeing. “Ian, I swear to you, on my honor, I will not marry unless you approve my choice.”
    “Then it will never be Charlotte.”
    Hiding a smile felt at least as difficult as standing in for Sisyphus and taking a turn with his rock, but Nicky managed it. “Just as you say.”

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    Chapter Six
    Though Simmons appeared hale and hearty each morning when he brought Ian a cup of tea and
    helped him to dress, it was no surprise that Nicky claimed to be aiding an ailing Simmons by taking his place each night when it was time to prepare for bed. Ian accepted the pretense, though he did not know why Nicky insisted on maintaining it. Each night Nicky had barely locked the door before they were
    divesting each other of clothes as if their very speed would bring about the release they sought in each other’s arms.
    Ian tried not to think about how easily he had been converted to hedonic pursuits. Somehow he had
    managed to convince himself that this indulgence was only for a week’s time, and if they refrained from actual sodomy no one’s soul or life would be irreparably harmed. What was hardest to banish from his
    mind was consideration of how painful the inevitable separation would be.
    Their parting would sting less if a physical release was all they shared, but after that exquisite
    moment, they still lay together, talking. Nicky seemed to delight in lavishing kisses and caresses on Ian’s scars.
    “Tell me what it’s like,” Nicky whispered one night, thumb rubbing gently across the folds of skin at
    the end of Ian’s stump.
    Some sensitivity had returned, an odd patchwork, so that Nicky’s touch danced in and out of Ian’s
    awareness.
    “War?”
    Nicky nodded.
    Ian settled more firmly on his back. “The smell gets you first. And you can’t see from the bloody
    smoke. If you aren’t deafened by cannon, you’ll wish you were when the screams start. Half the time you don’t know where you are or where your men are or what they’re shooting at.”
    “And this?” Nicky’s warm kiss tickled across the wrinkled skin. “Tell me.”
    “I don’t remember much.” And sometimes he remembered too much. Lieutenant Archer’s surprised
    face. A sensation of movement. The gut-wrenching separation from earth. Pain and red-tinged darkness.
    “We were ordered to the breach in the walls. To take out the defenders. The escalades were soaked with blood from the last company to try. I slipped. The mine went off. I woke in a field hospital.”
    “Thank God you slipped.”
    Ian doubted Lieutenant Archer’s family would say the same.
    An Improper Holiday
    Nicky shifted and looked down into Ian’s face, moving the arm so the stump rested over the beat of
    Nicky’s heart. “Did they ask you about taking it? Did you have to decide?”
    There were flashes of it. Hearing the discussion. A tiny protest buried under the cowardly majority
    that prayed he would bleed to death and be done with it. The blessedly uncaring embrace of opium. He was far more aware when they removed the fragments imbedded in his chest.
    “I never really was conscious enough. Even after, I had a fever. It was more than a week before I truly knew.”
    Nicky leaned down to kiss the lump of flesh over Ian’s heart. As he did so often, Ian reached out with his missing hand, seeking the softness of Nicky’s curls. Pain shot up Ian’s arm, and he clenched an
    imagined fist.
    So real, the memory of it, he could see it, knuckles, tendons, fingers. “I still feel it. As if it’s there.”
    Surprise widened Nicky’s eyes.
    “I