by KJ Charles
“Possibly,” Alec said. His voice was a trifle high.
“Give it some thought.” Crozier stepped back. “I, meanwhile, am going to do a little digging. Meet me at the Cafe Royal, two days’ time, eight o’clock. Have your approach to your father made and sent by then, Lord Alexander. Don’t fail me.”
He took up his hat and turned on his heel. Alec stared at the door long after it had closed.
In over his head didn’t even begin to describe it. That conversation ought to have been a humiliating agony—Cara, the plain awfulness of what he intended to do—and instead it had become the thing it had, and now it felt almost like a game. A wicked game with stakes he didn’t want to consider, but still a game, and he wanted to play. He wanted to win this round, to meet in two days’ time with the letter written, to prove to Crozier that he could manage his hand. As it were.
Oh God.
Alec walked over to the door and threw the bolt. He leaned on it, bracing himself with his right hand, unbuttoned himself with the left, paused.
Crozier had clearly wanted to leave him in this squirming state of shameful arousal. He’d seemed to feel that would fuel Alec’s ability to create his character. And he might even be right, because if three-quarters of Alec’s mind was on his painfully tight cock, perhaps he could manage his more distasteful duties without thinking too much.
He released himself, buttoned his trousers again, and went to the table, but hesitated over a pen. He took up a pencil instead, twisting it in his fingers, thinking about Lord Alexander. A weak-willed aristocrat, a spineless clothes horse, easily bent to another’s commands...he let the pencil drift over the page, creating something not his own face but not so far off as to be unrecognisable. A character that would instantly strike an experienced viewer of the melodrama as a third rank villain, never to be trusted, though liable to repent in the final act. A weak mouth, a petulant curve to the slightly open lips, a sulky, evasive look to the eyes...
He could do this. He could create a version of himself that resembled his truth as much as the sketch did his face and write the letter without staining his own soul, because it wasn’t him. Lord Alexander would submit to the Duke of Ilvar’s will, and grovel far more than Alec could stomach, and Alec would stand back and laugh as he did it.
And as to Crozier, and what the devil he’d been playing at talking Alec into this state of desire and humiliation and pretence...he’d just have to find out on Friday night at their assignation. He only knew that if Crozier had been acting in character, he’d been sufficiently immersed in his role to have sprung a very substantial bit of stiff. Crozier had been as caught in that moment as Alec, and if he was being toyed with, at least it was by a skilled player.
He let his mind dwell on that thought as he reached for the pen.
CHAPTER THREE
Alec sat in the Earl of Hartington’s drawing-room, knees pressed together, carefully holding his teacup. The clock ticked. He felt unwell.
“What...” George’s lips moved as though he were trying out phrases, or his brain wasn’t quite connecting to his mouth. “What do you mean you’ve written to Father?”
Alec felt a stab of guilt. George looked so worn. His cuffs had clearly been turned, his furniture was faded, his wife was swelling with her third child and obviously not enjoying the process any more than the first two because she looked pallid and drawn. Alec had made a vow not to add to George’s burdens and had prided himself on achieving financial independence, about which his brother had been vocally disapproving and privately relieved. He didn’t want to make things worse now. He wished Melissa and Annabel weren’t here.
“Written to say what?” Annabel demanded. She was looking well in a dress that wasn’t too obviously last season’s and was decidedly fresher than Melissa’s voluminous garment, reused from her previous interesting condition. “What do you mean, Alec?”
Alec exhaled. “I wrote to ask him for a rapprochement. To get back into his good books. That’s all.”
“You wrote? To him? After Cara? After everything, you actually wrote—” Annabel’s voice was rising rapidly up the scale.
“You cannot be serious,” George said. “Does the gross insult he offered our sister mean nothing? Do you propose to call that woman mother? Have you run mad?”
“No, I haven’t. The fact is, I need rather more money than I can earn. That’s all there is to it.”
“You said you were doing well. You said you didn’t need my help.”
“I’m doing perfectly well,” Alec returned without thinking. He’d made that assurance so often. “That is, I have been, but I have encountered some unexpected expenses and I’m tired of scrimping and saving and struggling to keep my head above water.”
“Don’t you think we all are?” Annabel struck in. “Haven’t we been for years? Do you think I enjoy appearing at the minimum possible of parties in a dress that’s been refurbished for the fifth time—”
“Then maybe you should follow your brother’s example if George can’t keep you to your liking,” Melissa said furiously. “Considering he supports you as well as his own children, all of whom go without for your adornment—”
“I wasn’t complaining!” Annabel cried, going scarlet. George shut his eyes.
Alec said, loudly, “But that’s the point, isn’t it? That we’re not keeping our heads above water. We’re not managing.”
“But you were,” George said. “You told me you were.”
“Well, I’m not,” Alec snapped. “Or not enough. I’ve got some bills I can’t pay and—”
“Then give them to me.” George sounded exhausted. “You know very well I never wanted to turn you into a tradesman.”
“Hartington,” Melissa said, shooting Alec a look of startling viciousness. “May I remind you your son is to start at Eton next year, and your second son will also require an education.”
“I will support my family. All of it.” George spoke with determination that was as heartfelt as it was threadbare.
“How?” Melissa almost shouted. “You’re already stretching every penny until it snaps! Will we turn off the cook next, or should you like me to black the grates myself to save the housemaid’s wages?”
“Alec has never asked me for a penny before now and if he needs help this once—”
“It’s not a case of this once and Melissa is quite right,” Alec said. “There’s no reason you should be responsible for my gambling debts.”
There was a tiny silence, then George, Melissa, and Annabel all said, “Your what?” in a discordant chorus of fury. Alec’s nausea rose; he could hardly have felt more guilty if he had indeed run up bills at baccarat. Be Lord Alexander, he told himself. Play the part.
“How can you gamble when you know damned well you can’t pay?” George thundered over the two women. “What sort of irresponsible, stupid, dishonourable way to behave—?”
“Do you have any idea how hard George works?” Melissa was demanding. “Do you have any idea how much he already has to do for your family as well as his own?”
“How could you?” Annabel cried. “Haven’t we been made enough of a disgrace already? Alec, how could you?”
Alec let his shoulders rise into a defensive hunch and adopted a petulant tone to match. “I’m Lord Alexander Pyne-ffoulkes. As George says, I oughtn’t be a tradesman.”
“You said you enjoyed it!” George protested.
“You promised you wouldn’t ask George to pay your bills,” Melissa added over him.
“Well, I’m not, and I don’t see why you’re all shouting at me as though I am. I don’t have any intention of hanging off George’s sleeve. I simply want to live according to my station, and I’m tired of this endless fighting with Father. Where did it get Cara?”
George’s mouth dropped open. Annabel said, “Alec!”
“Well, it’s true.” The words came with surprising ease now, almost as though part of him believed them. “If Cara had given up fighting with Father she migh
t be alive today, because she’d have been living by the sea instead of coughing her lungs up in London. She’s dead, and we couldn’t even send her off with flowers, and for what? It’s not as though she persuaded anyone outside this room to take her part, or as though Father suffered in the slightest by her stand. It’s all a stupid waste of time. I’ve only got one life and one chance to enjoy it and I’m going to take it.”
“How can you?” Annabel whispered. “You know what he did.”
“I know I’m a duke’s son and I’ve spent eight years scraping a living where my peers are enjoying their youth,” Alec said. “I know I’m twenty-eight and I don’t have any prospect of more than a single room and drudging at the draughting table for the next thirty years and I’m embarrassed by my wardrobe when I mix with gentlemen. And I know that we’ll never get the victory Cara wanted. Well, I don’t propose to keep fighting a war I can’t win for no gain at all. I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but I don’t much like living this way either.”
Annabel had gone white. George was going red. Melissa looked between them, and at Alec, and he prayed with everything in him, Don’t agree with me, please, please don’t agree...
“You can’t mean it,” Annabel said. “You made a promise. Have you—have you been waiting for Cara to die so you can go back on your word?”
It was a dagger-stab, and Alec flinched. Play the part, he told himself fiercely. “Well, I do mean it, and I don’t see that a promise is binding when the person one made it to is dead, and the fact it, it wasn’t a fair promise in the first place. We only had Cara’s word for the whole thing.”
Annabel gasped shrilly. George rose. “Leave,” he said, and the harried household manager sounded like a peer of the realm then. “Get out of my house, Alec. I hope you will think again but don’t come back until you do. Cara—your promise— Get out. Get out of my sight.”
“There’s no need to be like that,” Alec said, through lips that hurt, and that was when George started shouting.
ALEC WAS STILL STIFF with misery the next day, filled with it so that every thought he had floated on a dark churning sea of unhappiness. He dressed for the evening with automatic movements and felt like an observer of the whole proceeding, as if he were watching himself on the stage. The Second Villain, weak and vile, cast out by his family.
He hadn’t even heard back from his father. He’d cast every relationship that mattered into hazard, bet it all on a single card that wouldn’t be turned over for God knew how long. If Father had his secretary write back to signal his lack of interest in his second son...
He did not want to go out with Crozier now. He wanted nothing less than to pretend friendship with the vicious devil who was escorting him down a path he should have rejected out of hand the moment it was proposed. But he was the one who’d started this, he’d thrown away the love and respect of his siblings by his own choice, and he might as well carry it through. So he dressed with no enthusiasm at all, and dragged himself wearily to the Cafe Royal.
Crozier was waiting at a table. He rose to greet Alec with a smile that turned to a look of concern in which Alec didn’t believe for a minute. “I say, old fellow, are you all right?”
“Not marvellous,” Alec said, sitting. “I’ve done that business of which we spoke when we last met. Wrote my letter. Spoke to my brother and sister."
“Have you had a reply to the letter?”
“No. It was entirely as you’d have wished,” he added bitterly. “I crawled on my belly with all the unctuous phrasing at my disposal.”
Crozier’s brows rose. “You look like you need a drink. Waiter!” He lifted a finger. “We’re in urgent need of a bottle of champagne here. Lord Alexander requires a hair of the dog that bit him before his respected father does the same. Talking of whom, is the Duke of Ilvar expected in tonight? Find out, will you?”
The waiter bowed and removed himself. Alec blinked. Crozier had suddenly become the epitome of the affable, confident, very nearly vulgar man about town, the character shift total and somewhat unnerving. “Are you serious? Is my father coming here?”
“I doubt it. I just want your presence noted. So, an unpleasant conversation with your siblings. What did you tell them?”
“That I’d decided to give in because I had gambling debts and I was tired of fighting.”
Crozier nodded. “Well done.”
“Is that all you have to say?” Alec demanded. He wasn’t even sure what he thought Crozier should say; he simply wanted to hit back at someone in this miserable mess he’d created. “I’ve alienated my brother and sister, and for what?”
“In the larger sense, don’t ask me,” Crozier said. “From my point of view, you’ve taken a temporary loss to play for a very substantial gain.”
“If it happens.”
“Granted, but this is how you’ll make it happen. It’s a long game. I told you that.”
The waiter reappeared with a bottle, which he uncorked with a loud pop, adding a bow to Alec and a murmured regret that His Grace of Ilvar was not in fact expected. Crozier thanked him, and slipped him a generous tip once the glasses were filled.
“Your health.”
Alec made himself raise his own glass. “I’ve no desire to get drunk again.”
“Very wise. But I’d rather you didn’t look like a man on the way to his own execution. Can you cheer up, do you think?”
“I doubt it, since I’ve alienated the people I most care for,” Alec said, low and savage. “You told me you weren’t sorry for anything you’ve done. I’d like to know how you manage that.”
“Practice helps. So does enjoying the fruits of your actions, which you won’t do for a while. So, also, does reminding yourself that shame is merely society’s weapon, used to keep us obedient.”
“Sorry?” Alec said. “I wasn’t expecting political philosophy.”
“It’s not complicated. I’m sure you’ve done things of which you’d be utterly ashamed if they were made public, while feeling perfectly content with the actions themselves. Therefore, shame isn’t about what you do, just what gets found out.”
“Rubbish,” Alec said. “Of course we ought to be ashamed of things we do. I am.”
“And will you withdraw your letter and tell Hartington and Lady Annabel you’ve changed your mind? Go back on yourself with nothing achieved?”
Alec snorted. “You sound like Macbeth. ‘I am in blood stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er.’ Nobody would ever repent based on that argument.”
“People repent when they fail,” Crozier said. “‘But screw your courage to the sticking-place and we’ll not fail.’”
“You know your Shakespeare. So you must know that attitude didn’t go well for Macbeth.”
“He was infirm of purpose. Are you?”
“I’m disgusted with myself.” Alec tossed back his champagne in a gulp. Crozier reached across with the bottle to top up his glass. “If you’re interested in how I feel, that’s how. I feel dirtied and degraded in my own eyes—”
“I told you to create a part and act it.”
“I did. But it’s no good saying that my grovelling to Father was false if my brother’s anger and my sister’s disgust are real.”
“But they aren’t,” Crozier said. “Or, at least, they aren’t based in reality. They’ve formed a mistaken impression of you, admittedly because you’ve deliberately given them that wrong impression, but it’s still wrong.”
“And they still won’t want to speak to me.”
“How fortunate that you’ll be preoccupied.” Crozier’s brows angled invitingly. “You’ve a lot of ground to make up with the Duke in a short time. I’ve got things in hand but you, my friend, will need a smile on your face. Tell me, what would put one there? You didn’t seem a particular aficionado of the music hall. The opera? The theatre? Sporting events? No? Then what?”
As though Alec gave a damn for fashionable entertainments. “I don’t care. W
hatever you want.”
Crozier picked up his glass and took a deliberate sip. “You’re not listening. I want you looking significantly less doom-laden, so we’re going to talk about things you enjoy. What are those?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I like the theatre but I haven’t seen anything recently, so I can hardly make conversation about that.”
“Then I shall procure tickets for something. Melodrama or the nobler heights of Shakespeare?”
“Whatever you choose.”
Crozier exhaled audibly. Alec hunched a shoulder. “You want to exhibit me in public as part of your ‘long game’. Forgive me if I don’t find that an enjoyable prospect.”
Crozier’s facial expression didn’t change, but his eyes did. They hardened, or chilled, so that he looked quite suddenly like a man who broke the law for a living, and Alec felt a pulse of sudden alarm. He knew damned well he was behaving like a sulky boy over a fate he had brought on himself, and it seemed as though Crozier’s patience with that had come to an end.
Crozier leaned forward over the table, wearing a pleasant smile that didn’t touch his eyes. Alec knew an impulse to blurt an apology, if it would only head off whatever was coming.
“Lord Alexander,” Crozier murmured in a confiding tone. “Apparently I need to make myself clear. The purpose of this excursion is to establish that you’re charmed and delighted by your new best friend, so you will be charmed and delighted or I will fucking make you. I suggest you fix your thoughts on eleven thousand pounds’ worth of shiny stones, and the chance to stick it to the Duke in a way he won’t forget.” He smiled with a clubman’s practised warmth. “And if you still want to wallow in self-disgust and degradation, I will happily take you into a back alley and give you something to be really ashamed of. Anything to cheer you up.”
Alec felt his mouth drop open. Crozier lifted his glass and tilted it as though making a toast. “I don’t care how you approach your role, Lord Alexander. Willing or not, you’re going to do what I want, so you might as well take it with grace. As it were.”