by KJ Charles
“It’s only a matter of time.”
“When I start, you can remind me that I chose this path,” Marianne said. “We may be sold, but at least we can set our own price. Why don’t you?”
“Why don’t I what?”
“Set a price with Hartlebury. Extend your arrangement. You like him, it’s what he wants, why not try? Four thousand a month is a bit steep—"
“If we’d wanted to be whores, we could have stayed at home,” Robin pointed out.
“That was cheap whores.” Marianne rose. “I intend to be very expensive indeed. Have you plans for the evening?”
“No. I was expecting to go to Hart. I might go to my club, I suppose. I paid a fortune for the place, I should probably use it. Do we need money?”
“We always need money. Why don’t you come to Lady Rule’s with me? She is rather fast, so you can be sure Alice will not be there.”
“Would the Dowager approve of you visiting a fast woman?”
Marianne indicated, crisply and vividly, where the Dowager could put her opinions. “Anyway, Lady Rule is visited by the most respectable.”
That was true, Robin knew. For example, Giles Verney was a very respectable man, and he was a friend of the Rules. He was likely to be there, and where Verney went in London, so did Hartlebury.
Robin knew both those facts. Marianne knew both those facts. Neither of them, apparently, intended to discuss them further.
“Good idea,” he said.
LADY RULE’S EVENINGS were a minor legend. She opened the tall house in Mayfair for dancing downstairs, music, conversation, and gaming on the first floor. It could not be called a hell, or even a club, but the play was always high, and since it was a private home, there was no risk of a raid for illegal gambling. Robin had been a couple of times, but had not wanted to give the impression of a hardened gamester amid general society while he was pursuing Alice, so had kept to the salon. This time he joined the play.
It was the first time he’d picked up the cards since his spectacular loss to Hart at Lady Wintour’s and he felt a moment’s trepidation. No piquet, he decided. He found a game of whist where the stakes had not yet risen too high, and settled in.
He wasn’t going to cheat tonight. If Marianne didn’t catch her prize after all this, he intended to spend a couple of hectic evenings clearing out the pockets of every member of the ton fool enough to sit at the tables with him and then disappear; until then, with victory within their grasp, he would be impeccable, even if it meant losing a little. That virtuous resolution was immediately repaid by a run of good hands. Chance, not luck, he reminded himself, and smiled at the thought of Alice’s earnest interest.
He played for a couple of hours, until one of his opponents mumbled his excuses and left the table, pockets lighter than they’d been on arrival. Robin was still winning, but he recalled Alice’s dictum that it all averaged out in the end. He might as well stop now, before he started losing. So he smilingly announced that he should find his sister, rose, turned, and all but walked into Hart.
“Oh,” he said.
“I beg your pardon.” Hart’s terrifying brows were set in their usual scowl, but the eyes under them were uncertain. “Have you finished playing? Or would you care for a game?”
“I’ll give you a partie or two of piquet,” Robin said. “For chicken-stakes. I have learned my lesson there.”
They took a table in the corner, next to a noisy game of hazard. Hart shuffled the cards and said, low, “I owe you an apology.”
“You do, yes. More than one, really.”
“I wasn’t fair to you, and I should have thought before speaking. The truth is, I am leagues out of my depth in this matter and I don’t know how to think of it. Of you.”
“Deal the cards,” Robin said. “I realise that, and I also realise you have no reason to trust my good intentions. But I don’t see how we can carry on our agreement unless you do.”
“I do have reason. I asked Alice. She told me your bargain, and that you made her promise she would give Edwina another chance to listen. Thank you for that.”
He’d checked the story, rather than taking Robin’s word for it. Well, that was fair enough, and at least he had checked.
“Edwina is, if not happy, at least resigned to the scheme. Alice is positively luminous with excitement,” Hart went on, scanning his cards. “And I...I can only reflect that she didn’t come to me.”
“Well, it is a very unconventional proceeding, and I don’t suppose she sees you as an unconventional man,” Robin pointed out. “Whereas she could expect me not to be easily shocked.”
“She trusted you. I asked her why, and she said that she believed she could. I might have been tempted to call her rash, but she was right.” Hart played a seven, apparently at random. “She is wiser than I. I’m sorry. I hope you can accept my apology.”
Robin let out a breath. “Yes.”
“Which leaves us where?”
“That’s up to you. I’m at your disposal, remember?”
Their eyes met. Hart’s were hungry, and hopeful. “Will you come back with me?”
“I’d prefer that to piquet.”
Hart left first. Robin went to find Marianne, couldn’t, and left after five minutes’ fruitless search. Well, she was a grown woman. He bade farewell to his hostess, who gave him the vague wave of a lady with no idea who he was, and slipped outside, joining Hart on the next street where he had secured a hackney.
The journey only took a few minutes at this late hour. It felt longer, with neither of them speaking, or touching.
There was a good fire in Hart’s rooms. He stoked it while Robin shed his coat in silence, then straightened, looking into the flames.
“Is the arrangement still in force?”
“Of course.”
“Because I want—I would like—” Hart made a frustrated noise. “This feels like an unfair demand, especially under the circumstances, and I wish you will refuse. If you want to, that is, not otherwise. I mean, I want you to feel absolutely free to refuse, without any more justification than that you’d rather not, and I shan’t take it amiss. But you said—you told me you wanted this, and I am attempting to take you at your word, so I am going to ask.”
“Go ahead,” Robin said, wondering what this could possibly be leading to. “You have my word I’ll refuse if I don’t like whatever it is. Though I’ll be impressed if you come up with something I can’t stomach. What on earth is it?”
“It is not—it’s rather that— Oh, for Christ’s sake. May I kiss you?”
Robin had to adjust his mind to that, it was so far from his expectations. “Sorry? You want to kiss me?”
Hart was still looking away, but Robin could see his ears redden. “You need not, if it is not to your taste.”
“Jesus wept. Of course it is to my taste. I thought it would be spikes and a dildo.”
Hart made a spluttering noise. Robin came up, took his shoulder, turned him firmly, took his face in his hands to avoid awkward bumping of noses, and kissed him.
Hart didn’t respond for a second, long enough to make Robin wonder, and then his lips parted, and his hand came round the back of Robin’s head, and Robin found himself thoroughly, inexpertly, overwhelmingly kissed.
Hart’s lips were hot and hungry, but he wasn’t using his tongue. Robin licked into his mouth, felt the quiver run through the body against his, and then Hart’s tongue met his, and their mouths locked together as completely as bodies could.
Hart was desperate, and he was also strong, his arm tightening round Robin’s waist and pulling him close. The only possible response was for Robin to hook a leg over Hart’s hip, and that eventually led to them both sprawling on the rug in front of the fire, still kissing, slowly and deeply, then wildly, then almost lazily, for the pure pleasure of closeness and reconciliation. Perhaps they weren’t lovers, not really. It still felt like it.
He wasn’t sure how long it lasted, and was in no hurry to stop, but eventua
lly Hart pulled away a little. Robin was on his back by then. Hart propped himself on his elbow, looking down, and traced a finger over his lips. “These look bruised.”
“Merely well-used.”
“I would like to kiss you while I make you spend,” Hart said softly. “May I?”
“Do you think I might conceivably want that?” Robin enquired, nudging his hips a fraction to press his stand against Hart’s thigh. “Can you spot any evidence to support that theory?”
Hart’s eyes met his with a faint, rueful smile. “Subtle hint?”
“So very subtle. What are you going to do, Hart?”
“I’m going to lie over you and pleasure you, and feel you moan in my mouth when you come. I think you will enjoy that.”
“Correct,” Robin whispered. “Do.”
Chapter Fifteen
They lay in front of the dying fire some time later, in a tangle of bare limbs. Hart had been as good as his word, and then brought himself off fucking Robin between the thighs, kissing still. Robin felt sticky, sated, and dizzy with foolish optimism.
You care too easily, Rob.
Hart’s dark head, spangled with threads of early grey, was heavy on his chest. He stroked his fingers through the thick hair. “May I ask something?”
“Mmm?”
“Why did you not think I would want to kiss you? Did someone not want that before?”
“No. Or rather, yes, they did not. The first simply pushed me away; the second voiced his revulsion more strongly. I assumed there was a convention I had not understood.”
“The convention that you have failed to understand is the one whereby we don’t fuck horrible people,” Robin said with some heat. “It is an excellent convention and I commend it to you for the future.”
Hart’s shoulders shook. “I think I am learning that.”
“Tosspots. Them, not you.”
“Thank you for that clarification.”
“I am going to speculate,” Robin said carefully, “that you have not had a lover before. Not just the act, I mean, but someone who cares for you.”
“No.”
“And, possibly, that you cared for someone who did not return your sentiments and let you know it.”
A long pause. “Yes.”
“And that he was a prick with no taste.”
“Er—”
“Well, he must have been. Because you are not—that word you once said, which I never want to hear again, and whoever made you believe it was a swine. I’m very glad you wanted to kiss me, Hart. I’ve been hoping you would.” And could have asked for that himself, he realised, with a pang of something—guilt, maybe, or a sense of lost opportunity. “I didn’t want to presume.”
“Nor did I.” Hart reached for his hand.
Robin squeezed his fingers, feeling their strength, their urgent grip. “I don’t know who persuaded you to feel undesirable. I do know that you can tell a lot about people by what they attack you with.”
“How do you mean?”
“I have noticed that when people want to hurt someone very much, they often reach for the thing that would hurt themselves most deeply. Someone who calls other people cowards is probably terrified of being found out as one, do you see? People who lash out at others for low morals are usually stinking cesspits inside.”
“You say that with feeling.”
“Experience. And someone who might tell a good man who cared for them that he was unlovable or repulsive—I wouldn’t want to be that person,” Robin said. “I think that person might have a pretty face, but they’d have very little else to boast of, and I suspect that deep down they’d know it. Beauty is all very well, but if the best thing you can say about yourself is that you have a pleasing arrangement of features, that’s a sorry state of affairs.”
“You have a pleasing arrangement of features,” Hart observed.
“I do, yes, which is how I know exactly what that’s worth. You, on the other hand, have strength, and loyalty, and a heart that cares for people and looks after them and—” Christ, Robin, stop. He wanted Hart to believe him; he really didn’t need to blurt out his own painful longings. “And beautiful eyes and utterly magnificent thighs, may I add, although I’ve just been arguing those don’t matter, but I feel I should point them out anyway. So I don’t want to hear any more nonsense from you, because you really are a very desirable man, and I’m sorry for the fool who couldn’t see it. His loss.”
There was a long silence, long enough to make Robin start to feel rather stupid, before Hart broke it. “Thank you for saying that, Robin. It—it means a great deal.”
“I hope you believe me. Well, you have to, because as a professional fortune hunter and amateur courtesan, or possibly the other way around now, I am an expert on masculine attractions.”
That got a chuckle, which felt like a victory in the circumstances. “I bow to your experience.”
They lay together in silence a while longer. Robin wasn’t quite sure what to say now. Everything felt a little raw, or perhaps just naked, feelings stripped bare when it was more comfortable to have them safely clothed. Still, Hart seemed to be comfortable with the silence, or possibly to be thinking, so he let the silence run until Hart broke it.
“Robin? May I ask you something?”
“Go on.”
“When we argued, earlier, you said you weren’t brought up a gentleman. How is that, when you sound and look and sometimes behave like one? How is it you are obliged to be a fortune hunter at all? Who are you, really?”
Robin had not expected that, or anything like. He stared at the ceiling. Hart pushed himself off and up on an elbow, into a position where they could see one another’s faces. “I dare say that is a great deal more than I am entitled to ask, and of course you aren’t obliged to tell me, not at all. It was merely that I might understand you better if you did. I don’t understand you, that much has become clear to me, and I would like to. I want to know you better.”
Robin grimaced. “Maybe you would know me too well.”
Hart didn’t say anything more, and after a moment, Robin sighed. “I need this to be in absolute confidence. Not for me, but for Marianne.”
“You have my word already that I will not stand in her way.”
“Absolute confidence, Hart?”
“My word of honour on it.”
That was a puff of air, an insubstantial thing to hang Marianne’s ambitions on. Robin well knew that gentlemen lied, that the honour on which they prided themselves was porcelain-fragile, and as easily disposed of when broken.
Not everyone betrays, he told himself, needing it to be true.
He took a deep breath. “You remember I told you a ruined not-actually-earl taught me to play cards?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s how. We called him Lordship. He taught the three of us—me, Marianne, and Toby, his son—how to speak and how to behave. How to hold ourselves, how to pass for gentry. Drills. Accent. Vocabulary. We learned to mimic him. If he wasn’t an earl, he certainly knew how to ape one.”
“What was your relation to this man?”
Robin shrugged. “He was Marianne’s father. My stepfather, I suppose, at least in common law. He took up with our mother when I was very young, after Toby’s mother had died.”
“And he was a gentleman?”
“I think he must have been. He got an allowance from somewhere because we had money four times a year, after quarter day.”
“Who was your father?”
“No idea. My mother sometimes said he was the squire’s son, but that was to make me feel better, with the other two being Lordship’s children. She may not have known.”
“And this man, Lordship, he wasn’t married to your mother?”
“Certainly not. He was far too far above her in birth, as he pointed out frequently. Above all of us except Toby. Toby was his lawful son, born in wedlock, and should be a real gentleman.” He made a face. “That didn’t happen.”
“And
was that his aim in teaching you all to speak well? To achieve a better station in life?”
“Hardly.” Robin exhaled. “Lordship never did a day’s work in his life, you will be amazed to learn. Our mother earned the money, and then us, when we were old enough.” They’d begged, picked pockets, cozened, disguised by borrowed speech and stolen clothes. “He taught us to play at Quality because, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, rich people are generous to other rich people and miserly to the poor. Well-spoken children are terribly persuasive, especially pretty ones. He taught us to make money one way or another, and to be fair, he taught us well. We had a good living for a while, before it fell apart.”
“That sounds...”
“Sordid? It was.”
“You spoke yesterday of letting people down.” Hart said that tentatively, not quite making it a question. “Of betrayal.”
There was a cobweb in the corner of the room, covering the plaster cornice. Robin glared at it and listened to the clock tick, Hart breathe, his life dwindle away second by second. “Toby left us. Up and vanished one day. He was our big brother, our best friend, the one who stood in front of us when Lordship was free with his fists, but he didn’t even say goodbye, and we have never heard from him again. He’d fought with Lordship every day of the five years before that, you’d have thought they hated each other, but Lordship was never the same once he’d gone. Well, he was worse, and by then our mother was drinking too. They slid steadily downwards, and he wanted us to slide with them. Marianne and I had become an affront to Lordship, you see, because he’d lost Toby, and because he’d brought us up to be better than our birth, when he was so much worse than his. He resented that; he wanted us to share in his degradation. That—well, it came to a head eventually, and we left.”
The last sentence covered a multitude of sins, all of them better left unspoken. Perhaps Hart guessed as much, because he paused a moment, then asked only, “Have you heard from them since?”
“Both dead. Things ended poorly.”