by KJ Charles
“Me too,” he said. “Don’t know about you, but it’s been a while since I enjoyed myself. I’m up for some fun.”
He met Kim’s eyes, saw them widen with recognition of the hint. Awareness crackled through him, of Kim’s proximity and the curve of his mouth, and the length of time since he’d had a hand on his cock that wasn’t his own.
Kim parted his lips, but no words came, just the tip of his tongue flickering over his lower lip. Nerves, invitation, both? The tingling moment held them, stretching out like warm toffee, neither moving.
The hell with it. Will shifted, moving a casual hand to brush his companion’s leg, and Kim rose in a swift movement that jolted the bed. “I have to go.”
“What?”
“Sorry. I forgot, I have to meet a friend. I’ll be back tomorrow. Lost track of the time. Don’t worry, I’ll let myself out.” He took up his hat and was gone, whisking out of the room without ceremony.
Will leaned back, banged his head gently against the wall, and waited until the shop door chimed to release a grunt of frustration. He was, on the whole, grateful that Kim had made his excuses before Will done anything irrevocable, but it was a bit trying the man couldn’t make up his mind what he wanted. Will was more used to the exigencies of wartime, where you didn’t have the luxury of dancing around the subject.
“Back in the trenches we just got on with it,” he said aloud in the tone of a crusty veteran, and laughed at himself as he rose to lock up.
Ah, well, never mind. Maybe Kim would, maybe he wouldn’t: Will could wait and see. In the meantime, he still had his right hand and someone to think about, plus a sense of exciting possibilities that he hadn’t felt in so long he’d almost forgotten what it was like. A fuck, a fight, a friendship: he’d take any or all.
“Thanks for the inheritance, Uncle,” he said into the shadowy silence of the books. “It’s a treat.”
IT TOOK FAR LONGER than Will might have thought to shake out a shelf’s worth of books. You had to riffle through each one, opening it wide to be sure you hadn’t missed anything stuck inside, plus the time to check the surprising amount of paper that fell out, and to shake off dust and dead spiders. Allowing twenty seconds per book overall, if he worked eight hours a day to check forty thousand volumes...he got as far as pulling over a pen and paper, then decided that he’d rather not know.
He’d checked one whole bookcase by eleven the next day when Captain Ingoldsby turned up yet again. The pink-faced chap, Price, was with him this time.
“Mr. Darling,” Ingoldsby said. “I understand you’ve had visitors.”
“I’ve had a few customers,” Will said. “One of them was very keen on this information you’re after. Big chap, very threatening. Was he from you?”
“If I want to intimidate you, I’ll do it myself. No, your large and disruptive guest was not from me.”
“My— Are you having me watched?”
“Yes,” Ingoldsby said without embarrassment. “You are in possession of information you refuse to hand over, despite being told its importance, and your shop has been visited by a number of extremely undesirable individuals. You want to consider the company you keep, Mr. Darling.”
“I don’t think it counts as company when they smash the place up,” Will pointed out. “And I can’t hand it over this blasted information when I don’t know where it is. Moreover, you still don’t have a warrant or you’d be waving it. I find that very interesting if this business is so important.” He wondered whether he was obliged to show Ingoldsby the letter. The man didn’t seem to have Kim’s quick intelligence but he might reach the same conclusions, and Will wasn’t sure he wanted that. “I’ll say again: I might be more inclined to cooperate if you tell me what this about. I’m not buying a pig in a poke from you, the tattoo people, or anybody else.”
“Aren’t you?” Ingoldsby said. “You seem to have got very thick with Secretan.”
“You do watch closely.” Will’s chest held a growing bubble of anger. “I wasn’t aware Britain was a spy state. I thought we left that sort of thing to those Bolshevists you’re so upset about. I’m a British citizen with nothing against my name and it’s none of your damned business who I mix with.”
“You’re right that you’ve nothing against your name. In fact you have an excellent war record. The Military Cross with three bars, and two Mentions in Dispatches. Your employment since is less impressive, but these are difficult times.”
“Have you been investigating me?” Will demanded, incredulous and enraged. “What the devil is this?”
“A warning,” Ingoldsby said. “It would be a great shame if that record was besmirched now. We got off on the wrong foot, Mr. Darling. I take full responsibility for that—”
“Good of you.”
Ingoldsby’s jaw set but he kept his calm. “And I should like to amend it. You are clearly a man of strong principles; you served your country faithfully for four years. I’d like you to do that again. We have need of good men in this new world with which we find ourselves faced. Men who understand what loyalty is, and where it should lie. I’d like to count you as one of us.”
Will leaned back against a bookshelf, folding his arms. “And does that extend to telling me what this is about?”
Ingoldsby opened his hands and said, “My hands are tied.”
Will just looked at him. Ingoldsby scowled and put his hands behind his back. “That is, I cannot disclose classified matters of national security. Not yet. Prove to me that I’m right to trust you, Mr. Darling.”
“I don’t see you trusting me.”
“I’d like to. I spoke to Major Chandos, who remembers you well. He had nothing but praise for you, told me I’d be fortunate to have you on my side. You aren’t a man who should spend his life in a dusty heap of books; you need to be back in harness.” He put a card on the desk. “Give it some thought. And then come and see me in Horse Guards Parade.”
He nodded and turned on his heel. Price, hitherto silent, waited until the door bell had jangled, then gave Will a smile. “He means it, you know. And he’s a fine man to work with. I owe him a great deal.”
“Nice for you,” Will said absently. His mind was racing. Had Ingoldsby meant his offer, or was this a lure to get what he wanted?
“You can trust him, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Price said. “He’s absolutely reliable. It’s more than I can say of Lord Arthur.”
“Who?”
“Lord Arthur Secretan. He may have called himself Kim.”
Will stared. Price nodded as if he’d spoken. “No, I didn’t think he’d introduce himself truthfully. It’s not his habit. Friendly warning, Mr. Darling: you might want to ask Lord Arthur what he did in the war before you decide to trust him.”
“Conscientious objector? I’ve no problem with those.”
“Nothing so honest, I’m afraid. No. The fact is, if Lord Arthur was the plain Mr. Secretan he likes to pretend, he’d have faced imprisonment in 1916. Not over matters of conscience, either.”
Will thought he could guess what had got Kim in trouble with the law. He shrugged. “Well.”
Price raised a brow. “That’s a very relaxed attitude to what some might call treason.”
“What?” The hair prickled unpleasantly on his neck. “Are you serious?”
“As I say, he was never tried. But he’s still not widely received in good company, and that’s a feat, given how keen people are to forget about the war.” Restrained anger sharpened Price’s voice. “Profiteers get knighthoods, heroes get the dole queue, and disloyalty to one’s country is an upper-class peccadillo that gets brushed under the carpet. It disgusts me.”
“What are you saying he did?”
“Lord Arthur was a known and active Bolshevik who worked against his country and was lucky to escape gaol,” Price said crisply. “Supposedly he is no longer a believer. Changed his ways when he thought better of it—or, you might think, when it became apparent his actions might have consequences
for himself. If you place your trust in him, you’ll be disappointed.”
Will had absolutely no idea what to say to that. Price shrugged. “The past is the past, of course. Some people believe in repentance and reformation and letting bygones be bygones. I’m afraid I’m not so forgiving, and to my mind that gentleman is a very nasty piece of work, for all the charm. Watch your back, Darling. I’d be sorry to see a man with your record fooled by one with his.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Will didn’t do anything right away after Price left. He searched more books, dozens of them, including those few bought by customers, which got him some funny looks. It was mechanical work, which was useful because he needed to think. He hoped to God Kim didn’t come round.
He shut up shop early and went to Lexington Street to wait for Maisie when she knocked off work. She came out with three other girls, all in very smart hats, who greeted Will with a chorus of giggles. Maisie bade them a firm farewell and linked her arm with his. “You’re going to give me a reputation, turning up like this.”
“I’m not, am I?”
She gave him a nudge. “Not while that Susie Allcott is going to a different club with a different fellow every night of the week.”
“Should I be taking you dancing?”
“Not in those clothes. I’ve standards.”
“You girls live it up.”
He was trying for banter, but it clearly didn’t ring true, because Maisie shot him a frown. “What’s up? Is it that business you talked about?”
“Sort of. It’s all got a bit odd. Here, Maisie, you read the society papers. Have you heard of a chap called Secretan? Lord Arthur Secretan?”
“Secretan. That’s the Marquess of Flitby’s family name.” Maisie consumed the gossips avidly, she claimed in order to see the fashions and keep abreast of her clientele. Will was fairly sure she just enjoyed them. “Oh yes, Lord Arthur. He’s the second son, but he goes by another name.”
“Do you have a picture?” Will blurted.
“I can find one at home, I expect. What’s wrong? You look sick as a dog.”
“I thought I had a handle on this business and it’s all gone up in the air. I don’t know what to do. And I need to know about Secretan.”
“Come back to mine,” Maisie said firmly. “I’ve biscuits.”
Maisie’s landlady was an artistic, Bohemian type who allowed male guests. Will hadn’t been a frequent visitor in the hungry days because he hadn’t wanted to scrounge, but sometimes Maisie had overruled his objections and he’d spent a few life-restoring evenings here, cocooned in care, before plunging back into the cold world outside. It was a useful reminder of what real friendship was.
He made the tea and put out the biscuits while Maisie delved into her stacks of London Life and Smart Set. “Here,” she said at last, emerging with an expression of triumph and a flimsy magazine printed on already-yellowing paper. She handed it over and claimed her cup of tea with the air of a job well done, while Will stared at a slightly fuzzy photograph of Kim with a young lady on his arm.
Lord Arthur ‘Kim’ Secretan at the Cafe Royal with his fiancée, the Hon. Phoebe Stephens-Prince.
“Kim,” Maisie said. “And how you get to that from Arthur, I’ve no idea.”
Will didn’t care. “Fiancée,” he said aloud.
“For what that’s worth.”
“What do you mean?”
Maisie leaned forward conspiratorially. “No better than she should be, is what people say. Not in the magazines, of course, but in the shop—the ladies might as well be sucking lemons when they talk about her. She was a mannequin for the House of Worth one season, which upset lots of people. Well, it would, with her father a viscount.”
“Is she one of, what do you call them, the Bright Young People?”
“I think so. She’s friends with Elizabeth Ponsonby and Bubby Fanshawe and that sort.”
Will had no idea who they were, except that the newspapers treated them as people of interest. The interest seemed to lie in the fact that they frequently appeared in newspapers. “Is Secretan one of that lot?”
“You’re supposed to call him Lord Arthur,” Maisie said. “And when they get married, she’ll be Lady Arthur, just imagine. No, I don’t think so. He doesn’t seem to draw attention to himself. Well, he wouldn’t. I don’t suppose anyone would talk to him if he wasn’t Lord Flitby’s son.”
“Why not?”
“Do have a biscuit, they’re awfully good,” Maisie said, as if this didn’t matter at all. “Oooh, now, let me get this right. I had it from our ladies in the shop when the engagement was announced. You’d be amazed what they talk about when they come in together, as though we’re all deaf as posts. I could fill a gossip column, except that they couldn’t print half of it. Anyway, what I remember is, he didn’t go to the war.”
“Conchie?”
“White feather. He was given enough to stuff a pillow, apparently, after it happened. I’m getting to what,” she added, at Will’s protest. “Let a girl tell a story. Now, I’m not sure of the details—this is the problem, you have to pretend you can’t hear the ladies, so you can’t ask them to give you the background or spend more time on the good bits. But what I remember is, Lord Arthur was a Bolshevik, a proper Red. Didn’t sign up, talked about the immorality of the war, spoke at meetings calling for revolution. You know the sort of thing. And of course with those people, the first son gets the title and the second one goes into the army and that’s how it’s always done. But Lord Arthur didn’t, so his younger brother signed up as soon as he turned eighteen, and then he was killed in his first week out.”
Will had seen a lot of new men killed. It had never seemed fair. Maisie nodded at his wince. “I know. And what they said was, Lord Arthur put on a black armband but kept on talking Bolshevism all the same—and going to parties too—and if you did that in Cardiff near the docks you’d have had a knock on the door, or the head, but I suppose a marquess’s son can get away with more. Oh, they didn’t like him at all, our ladies. Are you all right? You look a bit sick.”
“I’m shocked, to be honest,” Will said. “I met him. I thought he was a decent fellow. Helpful.” He’d certainly inserted himself into Will’s business very thoroughly and asked a lot of questions. He put down his half-eaten biscuit. “Is he still a Bolshevik?”
“I’ve no idea, love. They don’t put that sort of thing in the magazines. If he is, he can’t be a very good one, with the Honourable Phoebe on his arm. They got engaged this summer, that’s why everyone was talking about them.”
“Is he rich?”
“I suppose he must be,” she said dubiously. “I don’t hear about him running up bills like a lot of them, and she isn’t an heiress.” She contemplated the printed page. “I don’t know if she’s so pretty as all that, mannequin or not. What do you think?”
“I don’t know how anyone tells anything from photographs. They never look like people to me.”
“Is this like him?”
Will contemplated the printed Kim’s bland smile. He wore evening dress much as Will had worn his uniform, and his striking eyes were reduced to a dot of black. “Not really. No.”
“Well, there you are. All that said, some of our ladies are the most dreadful cats with never a good word about anyone, so it may not be true. And if it is, well, people change. It was a funny time back here while you were over there. A lot of people did odd things.”
“People do change,” Will agreed. “Not always for the better, though. Thanks, Maisie, that’s been a big help.”
“That’s all right. Keeps me on my toes. I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me the real reason you’re upset about this, are you?”
“I don’t entirely know yet. I thought he was helping me, but it sounds like I’ve been played for a fool.”
“Ooh.” She made a face. “That’s unkind, with everything you’ve had on your plate.”
Will hoped it was only unkind. Kim had been very keen to interpolat
e himself into the whole business. If he’d had an ulterior motive, Will was going to have words. “It is a bit, but at least I have more of an idea now. I owe you one.” Propelled by something he wasn’t quite sure of, except that it included a lot of anger with Kim, he added, “Why don’t we go dancing soon, when I’ve kitted myself out properly?”
Maisie gave him a long, examining gaze, then a decided little shake of the head, softened by an affectionate smile. “Buy me lunch when you know what’s going on, and tell me all about it.”
HE DIDN’T SEE KIM THE next day. He didn’t knowingly see anybody involved in the Draven business, in fact, though he had a suspicious number of browsers in the shop. That made him twitchy, and reluctant to riffle through books, since he didn’t want to give anything away.
He had a number of conversations with Kim in his head, which he attempted to drive out with ferocious concentration on his book-dealing guide and making lists of customers to write to. At least he got some work done.
It was Saturday when Kim arrived, at lunchtime. He was wearing a sporting sort of check, a rakish hat, and a smile that made Will’s skin prickle like nettle rash, because it was full of excitement and promise that were a bloody lie.
“Good morning, Will,” he said cheerily. “Or even afternoon. Can I tempt you to a spot of lunch?”
“We’re closing,” Will announced to the two men who were browsing the shelves. “Sorry, no, I’ve to go out, don’t have anyone to mind the shop. Another time, thank you very much, sir.” He shut the door behind the disgruntled customer, flipped the Open sign to Closed, and shot the bolt.
“Firm of you,” Kim said as Will brushed past him to return to his desk. “At least you didn’t fling him out by the seat of his trousers. Would you like to know what I found out?”
“I’d like to know a lot of things.” Will parked his arse against the edge of his desk and folded his arms.
Kim’s brows drew together. “Is something wrong?”