Band Sinister

by KJ Charles

  “Spend on me,” Guy whispered, moving his hand faster. “Please spend on me. I want you to.”

  “Christ Jesus God,” Philip said, face contorting, hips jerking, and Guy felt the splatter on his skin with a surge of pure triumph. Philip grunted with something like pain and came down hard, hitting Guy’s mouth with glorious clumsiness. They rocked together, sticky and sweaty, and kissed and stroked and mumbled incoherencies until Guy found he was thrusting up against Philip once more, his stand rising inexorably to attention.

  Philip propped himself up on an elbow, hips heavy over Guy’s with delicious pressure. “How’s the debauching?”

  “I think it’s coming along quite well.”

  Philip snorted with laughter. “God, you’re marvellous. You have no idea. My uncertain virgin, begging for my spend. I’m going to be thinking about that every solitary night for years.”

  Guy couldn’t help a whimper at the picture that conjured up. Philip grinned down at him. “Do you like the idea? Me, bringing myself off, thinking about you with my hand on my prick?”

  “Oh God.”

  “As I thought. And in the meantime, what are we going to do about this?” He moved his hips indicatively, thrusting against Guy’s stand. Guy gasped; Philip all but purred. “Ah, the joy of youth. You’ve got a lot of time to make up, don’t you? Two possibilities leap to mind. You could see how you feel on top of me. Put your cock between my legs, and get a sense of how it is to fuck a man. Or, alternatively, you could recline like the prince you are, and let me get my mouth to your prick.”

  “Your mouth?”

  “You don’t think I’m good with my mouth?” Philip leaned down, tongue flickering over Guy’s ear with much the effect of before, mercilessly tormenting. “You wouldn’t like that on your prick?”

  “Do you really want to do that?”

  “I’d love to do it, and I’d put a substantial sum on the probability that so will you, and on no very distant day. Why don’t you think how it might feel to take me in your mouth while I show you how delicious you are?”

  “I don’t know how you say things like this.” Guy felt almost envious as Philip slid down to the floor. To be so shamelessly free, so confident in saying such outrageous things, as though there was nothing embarrassing in doing that—

  Then Philip’s tongue curled around the head of his piece and Guy stopped thinking altogether. He stared down at Sir Philip Rookwood, baronet, performing an act for which he only knew the Latin name and even that was omitted from most dictionaries, mouth wet, with that look of intense absorption that Guy had wanted so much, and it was truly all for him. Philip kneeling, one hand on Guy’s thigh, the other exploring between his legs with tantalisingly light strokes to untouchable places. Philip’s lips closing over his member, and his head moving, so that Guy’s piece slid into his mouth in a movement so obscene and animal and glorious he couldn’t look away. He thrust up without meaning to, and felt Philip chuckle around his stand.

  And dear God, yes, he wanted to do it. He wanted to kneel and let Philip do that to his mouth—no, he wanted to do that to Philip, take him in his mouth and make him feel this rising, burning need, the banked fire building and building as Philip tormented him until it erupted in a surge of heat that remade the world.

  He lay back, chest heaving, Philip’s mouth still on him, barely touching. He could feel Philip’s throat work, and realised with a disturbed thrill that he was swallowing.

  “That was wonderful,” he said. “At least, for me it was.”

  “Oh, the same, believe me. I’ve been thinking of doing that for some time.” Philip manoeuvred himself back onto the couch to lie by, or over, Guy. “It was a privilege. May I make an observation?”

  “Um...yes?”

  “You’re probably going to start worrying that you made an almighty fool of yourself, said or did terrible things, and looked ridiculous. Accept my assurance now that you didn’t.” Philip brushed a kiss across his lips. He tasted odd, slightly astringent, and Guy realised with a shock that must be the taste of his own seed. “You have been generous and open-hearted and truly lovely, and please remember that I said so. I would like to stay in here with you doing nothing else for several days. Or weeks. I’m not suggesting your sister break another leg, but if she wanted to—”

  “Philip!”

  “But you hear me, yes?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  Philip rested his head on Guy’s shoulder. They lay in silence a moment, skin to skin, the rise and fall of chests coming into time. Lying with a man as with a woman, the Bible called it, and said it was an abomination. Guy had never lain with a woman, but he couldn’t really see how the experience could be like at all, except in the closeness, and if it was wrong to lie close to someone and feel beloved—

  Philip had called him that. Beloved. It was just a word, just the way he spoke, as he had spoken to Corvin, and doubtless others. Still, he’d said it, and Guy had felt it, and he was damned if he was going to let his habit of worrying spoil this charmed, forbidden interlude.

  THAT RESOLUTION LASTED until he was back in his room tidying himself up for dinner. Philip had helped him adjust his clothing, assuring him that he looked very well and it didn’t matter if he didn’t. Guy had accepted that blithely, gone back—thankfully without meeting anyone—looked at himself in the mirror, and almost had a conniption. His hair was a tangle, his face marked with the tracks of tears and saliva and the dust of the road, he was feverishly flushed, and his eyes bright. He looked different, he was sure. He looked as though he’d eaten the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and everyone would be able to tell it on sight.

  Oh dear heaven, they’d know. What if Lord Corvin jested in the coarse way some men did? What if Philip was wrong and his other lover took offence? Why had he even done those things with a man who had another lover staying in the same house?

  Guy grabbed the mantel. Philip had told him he’d feel like this, and given him words to remember, and Philip knew what he was about. He’d said, Consider yourself shielded. He wouldn’t let Guy twist in the wind, having got what he wanted. Surely he wouldn’t. Would he?

  He managed to restore himself to decency and be down in Amanda’s sickroom before the dinner gong was struck. She was sitting alone, absorbed in a book, but looked up with a smile that made him feel a swine for having all but forgotten her. “Guy! I thought you’d disappeared from the face of the earth.”

  “I’m sorry. I went for a walk.”

  “With Sir Philip, I know. David—Dr. Martelo told me. And I’m only teasing, it’s marvellous you’re making friends. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we stayed on terms whenever he came down? You may take some time to yourself, Jane,” she added at the maid’s audible snort.

  “Such nonsense,” Jane said, rising. “This is a wicked house, and the sooner you’re home and away from these people the better.”

  “It is not a wicked house and you’re being very rude about our host and his friends,” Amanda said.

  “I’ve heard how they talk, miss. It’s not right and it’s not Christian.”

  “You don’t sound very Christian yourself, talking that way about people who’ve been nothing but kind. Go and take some air.” Amanda regarded the departing woman with a darkling eye. “Ugh, Jane is trying my patience. I’ve had one or another of the Murder in here most of the day, just to keep me entertained—Mr. Raven was here for an hour or more and he says I could draw perfectly well if I tried and he’ll bring me some pencils—and she just sits in the corner and sniffs. I’m so tired of judgemental people. I don’t think I realised how much until we came here. One feels as if one could say almost anything to Sir Philip’s friends and they shouldn’t disapprove. They might argue or say one was an idiot, but they wouldn’t shake their heads gravely and sigh about one’s character. It’s such a relief. Guy? Are you all right?”

  “Yes, of course, why?”

  “You’re quite pink.”

  “It was hot. We went up to t
he Gallows Tree.”

  “Oh, lovely. Oh, I wish I could walk. Is that all? You look rather— I don’t know. Unsettled.”

  “Well, it’s unsettling,” Guy said. “I’ve had more to think about here than I’ve had in my entire life till now.”

  “That’s true. What did you talk about with Sir Philip?”

  Do not blush. Do not blush. “Oh, this and that. Beetroot.”

  “Was that unsettling?” Amanda asked doubtfully.

  “No, but it was very interesting,” Guy said, thankful for the escape, and launched into Philip’s grand plans for a domestic sugar industry. Amanda listened with surprising attentiveness, asking for more detail, and that took up the time until the gong struck for dinner, and there was no avoiding it any more. He would have to face the Murder, and dine with Philip, with his guilty knowledge upon him.

  Consider yourself shielded, he told himself, and did his best to walk in with his head high.

  “Frisby,” Raven said, lifting a glass of wine in salute as he entered. “I hope you had a good walk? I spent the time teaching your sister to draw, and I’m telling you now, you had the better of that bargain. I don’t know who she had as a drawing-master but I’d like ten minutes with him and a sharp pencil.”

  “Oh, she loathed him. She wanted to draw knights and castles and he only let her paint watercolours of flowers. Not even any flowers; they had to be things like daisies or blossoms. Low and gentle, he used to say, without thorns or long stems. He thought those were unladylike.”

  Raven choked on his wine. “Are you serious? No thrusting stems— Oh my God. Corvin! Come and hear this!”

  Guy didn’t understand for a second more, and then he did. Well, that was a childhood mystery solved, albeit not in a way he could share with Amanda. It was perhaps the last subject he’d have wanted to raise in the entire world, but Raven was repeating the drawing-master’s edict to the others now, and the room erupted in laughter.

  “Glorious,” Philip said, shoulders shaking. “It takes a truly special gift to find indecency in flowers.”

  “Not at all,” Street said. “They’re disgraceful things. Notoriously promiscuous with bees and butterflies.”

  “I quite agree with the drawing master,” Corvin said. “One only has to look at a daffodil to be consumed with inappropriate thoughts. And don’t soil my ears with talk of goldenrod.”

  “Nobody needs to know about your goldenrod,” Raven said.

  “I recommend mercury treatments for that,” Dr. Martelo offered, and that had them all howling again, even Guy. It was unseemly, perhaps, but—well, they were all gentlemen, and it was more silly than anything else. The coarse jests one heard in inn-yards tended to carry so much contempt for their object, but it was hard to be offended by people talking nonsense about flowers to make each other laugh. And he had a glass of wine in his hand, congenial company around him, people laughing at his comments but not at him, and it was, in fact, possible that he might be enjoying himself.

  “Where did you walk to?” Corvin enquired once they were seated. “I heard rumours of some great exploration.” He gestured at Guy to fill his glass again.

  “About eight miles roundabout here.” Philip graciously acknowledged the cries of disbelief. “Yes, thank you, my feet are very well apart from just a few blisters. I also climbed a tree.”

  “You did not,” Street said. “You never climbed a tree in your life.”

  “He did it very well,” Guy put in. “Considering.”

  “I suspect ‘considering’ hides a multitude of sins,” Corvin said.

  “And rents, and scratches,” Philip added. “I dare any of you idle swine to do the same. In fact, there are some rather marvellous views around here, in their way. It’s not Italy, or even Wrayton Harcourt, but it has its charms.”

  “Who knew that Philip would find the English countryside so full of beauty,” Corvin said. Guy felt a pulse of instinctive alarm, but the Devil’s Lord sounded teasing rather than mocking, and there was a distinct laugh in his eyes.

  “What’s Wrayton Harcourt?” he asked, hoping to change the subject anyway.

  “My estate in Derbyshire,” Corvin said. “There’s a certain amount of jagged mountainous...ness to the view—”

  “Not a word,” Raven told him.

  “—and the weather is only tolerable three months of the year. We’ll be going up there soon enough. John is remodelling my gardens.”

  “I’m not taking any responsibility for this,” Raven said firmly. “I’m drawing damn fool things for you only because if you draw the damn fool things, they’ll fall down as soon as built.”

  “It’s going to be a garden of pagan follies,” Philip said, grinning. “Which should conclude Corvin’s programme of distressing the neighbours with an impressive flourish. Are you doing an Indian temple?”

  “No, he is not,” Raven said on Corvin’s behalf. “If he’s doing this bloody stupid thing at all, it’s going to be follies that look right for the landscape in materials that’ll survive the weather. Northern Europe and Ancient Briton. Roman if we must. Not Hindu ones.”

  “A stone circle,” Corvin said. “Druidic. I might purchase a robe.”

  “No.”

  “With a sacrificial altar?” Street clasped his hands. “Please have a sacrificial altar.”

  “Just like the book. I wonder if copies have yet reached the circulating library.”

  It was like a slap, a blow from nowhere just when he was relaxing. “Which book?” Guy asked, every muscle in his body tense.

  “The Secret of Darkdown. Have you read it? I believe we had it from your sister.”

  “It’s a Gothic romance, the usual nonsense, but it’s set in a hellfire club,” Street put in. “A hellfire club led by a red-headed rake—”

  “Russet,” Corvin said.

  “With his best friend, Sir Peter Falconwood, who happens to look exactly like Phil. They go around with their sinister band sacrificing people to Satan and in the end Corvin, sorry, Darkdown murders Phil by accident and throws himself off a roof in remorse.”

  “The entire thing is a slander beyond all bearing. Do we know the author yet, John?” Corvin’s smile curled as wickedly as any Amanda had ever imagined on Darkdown’s face. Guy stared at his plate of perfectly cooked veal and wondered if he was going to be sick.

  “I’ve sent to a friend who writes these things himself. He’s got an entry with most of the publishing lot. Shouldn’t take him long to winkle it out.”

  “What are you going to do?” Guy asked. His voice didn’t sound quite right in his own ears, and he saw from the corner of his eye that Philip’s head turned, but he couldn’t meet the eye of the man he’d betrayed. “When you find out who wrote it, what will you do?”

  “In the name of God, don’t bring a lawsuit,” Salcombe said. “You’ll end up telling the court you are a devil-worshipper after all, just to annoy them, and find yourself gaoled, if not burned at the stake.”

  “You could horsewhip the author. It’s all the rage,” Raven suggested, somewhat sourly.

  “I’ll write you an opera based on the book,” Penn said. “Don Corvino.”

  This met with general hilarity and various suggestions of how to refine the plot. Guy had to stop himself from shouting at them all to be quiet. “But will you go to law?” he asked again, as the riot died down. “Or—or ask for the book to be withdrawn?”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Corvin said. “Actually, I think I’ll send a threatening letter to the publisher. John, can you write me a threatening letter?”

  Raven shook his head despairingly. “A viscount, and you can’t write a letter for yourself.”

  “But you’re so much better at it,” Corvin coaxed. “Excoriating rage, denunciation, and vows of revenge. With copies to all the newspapers, and you could have a satirical print ready.”

  The conversation moved on. Guy couldn’t make himself rejoin it; he couldn’t swallow another bite of food. He sat and pretended the
world, which had been so briefly bright, wasn’t collapsing around him, and as soon as the meal was finished he mumbled an excuse, pretending not to hear Philip speak his name, and hurried to see if Amanda was awake.

  She wasn’t. The old woman who would sit the night in the room looked up with a smile and put her finger to her lips as though Amanda were a baby, not to be disturbed. Guy backed out obediently, and bumped into Philip, who was waiting with a frown.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes. Of course. I just...I want to go to bed.”

  “Guy.” Philip’s hand closed on his elbow. “Whatever alarmed you, whatever distressed you, will you please speak to me? If it was one of my friends, I’ll deal with it. And if you’ve had second thoughts—”

  “It’s not that,” Guy said wretchedly. “Honestly. Please, I just need to go.”

  Philip released him. Guy more or less ran, feeling the gaze on his back like a touch.

  He collapsed face down on his bed, wishing he hadn’t had the second glass of wine. This was a calamity. He’d persuaded himself that it didn’t matter, that the Murder would simply laugh off the absurd nonsense as they seemed to do everything else. He hadn’t thought that Corvin might find himself in serious trouble if he allowed such implications to pass unremarked. He hadn’t thought that they’d take the absurd plot, rather than the characters, as an affront.

  But Corvin and Philip had been lovers for years. Philip had been in love with his friend, and Corvin adored him, and that thrice-damned book had Corvin killing him, and how would they not want revenge for that?

  The guilt and self-reproach hammered in his gut. Philip had taken them in and paid for Dr. Martelo and the attendants, let them upend his party, directed his friends to entertain Amanda, and made love to Guy so kindly that he hadn’t even thought to fret. And all the while Amanda’s book had slandered him, and Guy had deliberately hidden his knowledge. Why had he not admitted the truth earlier, before Philip had lavished him with so much care? How had he persuaded himself that the accursed book would go away?