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I have never felt such pleasure, and I understand now why men desire this. I understand the addiction to this feeling, and I want to do it over and over again. I want to writhe on sheets with him and rub my sweat on his skin, so I mark him for life. I want to do it over and over until our bodies are melded together with sweat, spend, and blood. Even now when my arse is sore, I would have him again.

He stirred a second ago, his eyes fluttering open. For a second, I could see a hazy confusion, and when that cleared, he gave me a smile I have never had directed at me before. It was warm, intimate, and approving.

“I like looking at you,” he said hoarsely.

“And I you,” was my reply.

He lifted one arm. “Come back to bed,” he urged. “I want to hold you, Xander.”

The shortened version of my name sounded so sweet in his rough voice. He fell asleep again, but I lingered for a while, staring at him and committing the beauty of him to my mind. I know this is a moment we have stolen out of time. A moment where we are not Captain Richmond and Lord St Claire. Instead, we are Bran and Xander. Two men who, despite the twists and turns of life, have somehow found each other.

We will never be allowed to live in the sunlight like husbands and wives do, but I find that I prefer the candlelight when the night is dark against the window, footsteps sound in secret passages, and mischief as well as love roams the world. It is my and Bran’s time. I would have no other now.

“We’re here. Levi?”

I blink and raise my gaze from the diary. “Eh?”

Blue’s looking at me, a smile tugging at his mouth. “Wow. That must have been a fascinating read.”

“You could say that.”

“Did they fuck?”

“You could also say that.”

He throws his head back, laughing merrily. “How’s it feel to be a voyeur?” he asks in an atrocious attempt at a French accent.

“Uncomfortable. It’s difficult to be aroused when both parties are long dead.”

That sets him off into more paroxysms of mirth, and I wait him out, smiling. I look around. We’re in a car park by a low-slung granite building. Small windows catch the stormy light, and the inn’s sign creaks noisily in the wind.

The car park is packed full of coaches and cars, and even as we sit, another coach arrives disgorging a load of pensioners who immediately walk into the inn. Their American accents drift through the car window.

“Wow,” Blue says, watching them. “Has a homing beacon been activated for all international old-aged pensioners in the area?”

“This place is very famous. It draws tourists all year round.”

“Why?”

“Daphne du Maurier wrote a book about smugglers called Jamaica Inn like I mentioned. Have you heard of it?”

“No, but it’s an absolute certainty that I’ve shelved it at some point.”

I laugh and carry on. “It was about a young girl who came to live here with her aunt and found out that her uncle was involved with wreckers. Sound familiar?”

He watches another coach pull up. “As long as we don’t have to live here. I’m not built for this level of customer service.

“Tom certainly isn’t.”

“His head would absolutely explode.”

I look at the inn and feel a thrill to actually be here. “Mum would have loved this.”

He reaches out and takes my hand, and I squeeze his, smiling at him. The awful pain of her death has lessened over the years, as if my brain can’t quite remember how to grieve anymore. At first, I was horrified, thinking if I couldn’t cry, then I was abandoning her memory, but now I know it’s the way it should be—the way she would have wanted it.

I still remember her all the time—a song or something usually sets it off—but the memory is sun-washed now rather than teary. My only regret is that she never got to meet Blue. She’d have bloody loved him. Then I think of him seeing her that day in my kitchen. Maybe she did meet him in a way that makes sense in our funny world. The thought is extraordinarily comforting.

“Alright?” he asks, smiling as I nod. He’s been watchful since I came to on that cliff edge. His attentiveness is like embers in a fireplace—banked down but ready to flare up at any point. “So, what do you want to do?”