by KJ Charles
“Jerry.” Alec pushed himself up urgently, staring into the dark eyes. “I want you to rob the Duchess. I will do whatever I have to so that you can do that. I’ve said so all along. You knew I hated them—”
“It makes a significant difference why!”
“It shouldn’t to you. You aren’t sorry, you don’t believe in repentance, you think consequences only matter if you get caught. Why do you care if my father’s a murderer?”
“I—” Jerry broke off. They were very close, his hand still resting on Alec’s back, tension thrumming through it. “For one thing, I have never smothered the invalid mother of my children. That may not be much of a moral high ground, but I’m standing on it. For another, you’ve made me a participant in torture that I had no desire to inflict. I sent you off to do that. We could have played it differently.”
“I doubt it. And it was my idea, my choice.”
“And for a third,” Jerry went on, “I meant what I said. If we aren’t working towards the same end, we’re going to fail.”
“I want you to rob the Duchess,” Alec said as steadily as he could. “I want to bring you into the house where my father killed my mother, and I want you to steal the diamond parure he had made for his wife while his daughter lay dying. He forgot Cara was dead, you know. He kept mentioning her in the present tense, talking about my ‘sisters’, because he doesn’t even care enough to remember one of them is dead, so I want you to take the jewellery that was so damned important to him that he didn’t pay for her funeral away from the wife who was so damned important to him that he killed my mother to get her. Do you understand? I want you to steal the fucking jewels, and if I have to humiliate myself for months to make that possible, then I will do it. You said I was determined. Were you lying?”
“I was not.”
“Then don’t let me down. Don’t make me waste what I did yesterday, what I’ve done to my siblings. I’ve put skin into this. And you said yourself you’ve never been able to get at the Ilvar jewels. Are you really going to let diamonds worth eleven thousand pounds slip through your fingers?”
Jerry narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure how I became the one who needed persuasion to commit a crime. It’s all very well to say you won’t fail, and I’m damned sure it won’t be for lack of effort, but you’re only human. You’ve considered going to the police?”
“I gave up hoping for justice some time ago. And I’m not exacting vengeance either. What kind of vengeance is stealing a necklace and ruining an anniversary, compared to two deaths?”
“Then what is this for, if it’s neither justice nor vengeance?”
Alec shrugged. “Spite.”
There was a brief silence, then Jerry laughed. “Spite. Yes, that’s reasonable. Entirely so.” He lay back, tugging Alec with him, so he ended up lying with his face on Jerry’s hard shoulder. “If you’re determined to see this through—”
“I am.”
“Then we need to make it possible for you to do that without too much strain on the nerves. You might be over the worst, if you’ve had that particular talk with your father?”
“I don’t know. I’m to make my apologies to the Duchess on Monday.”
“Ah.” Jerry’s hand brushed his face. “Unpleasant, unwarranted, humiliating, and degrading.”
“Yes.”
“But, as you indicated, unavoidable. I’ll just have to make it worth your while.”
“Please do,” Alec said. “I’m sure it’s exactly what you intended, and I shouldn’t be surprised, but it did help when I remembered—you know, Waterloo Bridge. If I actually think about what I’m doing—”
“I can quite see why you wouldn’t want to do that.”
“No. But acting Lord Alexander made me remember I’m playing a game. Thank you.”
“I’m not sure why you’re thanking me,” Jerry said. “I’m doing exactly as I choose to a delectably pliant bit of stuff. Did you like being made to wait?”
“Christ, yes. Well, it was agony, but—yes.”
“Fortunate for you. I think I’ve given you quite enough pleasure, Lord Alexander. Next time, you’re going to serve me.”
Alec’s breath caught. He’d never so much as touched Jerry’s body yet. Truth be told, he’d barely seen it, since Jerry seemed strongly to prefer handling him from behind. “What—what would you like me to do?”
“You say that as if you have a choice. How sweet.” His fingers trailed over Alec’s neck. “Let’s say, whatever you have to swallow with the Duchess will be as nothing compared to what I’m going to make you do afterwards. Hold that in mind. Oh, and that will be after dinner, by the way, I won’t have a repetition of tonight. You’ll trot out a lot of meaningless flannel to a stupid, greedy pair of swine that we’re going to rob blind, then come out to some very respectable place for dinner with me, and smile as you do it.”
Alec took a deep breath. “Right. Yes.”
“It’s the least you deserve,” Jerry said. “If people flaunt jewels, they may expect to be robbed; if they attempt blackmail they may expect to be kicked; and if they’re quite so beautifully willing to make themselves my plaything, then...” He flicked Alec’s nipple. “They may expect to be played with. You bring it on yourself.”
“I dare say.” Alec managed a smile.
Jerry’s arm tightened a little. “Now. What else haven’t you told me?”
Alec couldn’t help the jolt. “Sorry?”
“The Duke and Duchess’s alternative to divorce was relevant information. I understand you wouldn’t spread it around lightly, but I needed to know. Have you told me everything? Is there something more troubling you? Because I don’t like surprises. I don’t want to make my plans and then find some new piece of trouble bobbing up like a corpse in the river. If we’re working together—”
“Yes, I understand that. And, uh, nothing. It’s fine.”
“That could have been considerably more convincing. Let me ask you again.”
“There’s nothing else,” Alec insisted.
“I don’t believe you.” Jerry’s voice had an edge to it now. “What is it?”
Alec took a deep breath. “Why don’t you look me in the face?”
“Sorry?”
“This is, what, our fourth time and you haven’t once looked me in the face, still less kissed me. I mean, you don’t have to— I’m not asking—” He could feel himself going scarlet with embarrassment, which, considering the things Jerry had done to him, was ridiculous.
“Right. Yes.” Jerry sounded as though he’d been wrong-footed. It wasn’t a tone Alec had heard from him before. “That’s concerning you?”
“I just wondered why you wouldn’t want to,” Alec said wretchedly.
“If you’re worrying you’re hard on the eyes, there’s a mirror over there. Believe me, there is no possible objection to your face. I assumed—well, never mind my assumptions. You want me to look at you?”
Alec did, desperately, want Jerry to look at him, or see him; he also, at this moment, wanted nothing more than to disappear. He stared fiercely at the ceiling, wishing to God he’d never raised the damned subject. “Really, I don’t mind. If you don’t want to, it doesn’t matter.”
“And you want me to kiss you?”
“I truly don’t mean to be demanding—”
“Alec?”
Alec twisted round at the note in his voice. Jerry took hold of his jaw, light but commanding, lowered his head, and kissed him.
Alec opened his mouth more in shock than anything. Jerry’s lips held his own without pressure for a moment, and then moved, and Alec found himself straining up into the kiss. Jerry’s beard rasped his skin, his tongue tangled with Alec’s, and they were kissing ferociously, Jerry’s hands in his face and in his hair, Alec gripping his back and shoulder. Jerry moved over him, body to body, and there was nothing but closeness, and hungry, open-mouthed kisses, and the slide of hands on skin, stroking and holding, until Jerry broke off and pulled back, propping hi
mself on his arms. His dark hair was tangled; his mouth slightly open, slightly wet; his brows slanting up at an angle that looked for all the world like confusion. He was hard again. So was Alec.
“Jerry?”
Jerry shook his head, a tiny movement. He shifted up onto his knees, and this time when he leaned in to kiss Alec once more, his hand came between their bodies to hold both stands together. Alec made a noise in his mouth.
“If you want it like this, you can have it like this,” Jerry said against his lips. “If this makes you hard.” His hand was moving steadily. “If this is your pleasure.” He licked Alec’s lips, urged them open for a kiss, moved his mouth a fraction away. ”Because if I know your pleasures—”
“In the palm of your hand,” Alec gasped, moving his hips on the words.
“Kissed.” Jerry mouthed his earlobe. “And fucked. And controlled. Is that what you want of me?”
“All of it.”
“Then you’re mine.” They were thrusting against each other, against Jerry’s encircling palm and fingers. “Mine to use. Aren’t you, my beautiful dukeling?”
“Christ, yes. Please.”
Jerry’s mouth hit his again, and this time he didn’t move away. They were kissing greedily as Alec came, in pulses on his belly and over Jerry’s fingers.
Jerry let go and sat up, straddling Alec, his eyes very dark, unreadable, his mouth red. He was still holding his own stand. Alec watched, his chest heaving, and Jerry’s glinting-wet hand moved, stroking his hard length, up and down.
“Please,” Alec said. “Can I—”
“No.”
Alec could feel the aftershocks in his groin still. He watched, silent, watched Jerry bringing himself off and watching him back, and then Jerry knelt up straight so he was off Alec’s supine body. His hand moved faster. Alec licked his lips and opened his mouth, blatantly inviting, and Jerry came with an incoherent noise, splattering over his chest.
Jerry let himself go and doubled over as if something hurt. Alec watched the dark head for a moment, in silence, and a moment later Jerry straightened and sat back on Alec’s thighs. He didn’t speak. Neither of them spoke, their eyes locked in something like shock at what had passed between them, and then Jerry took a very deep breath and exhaled deliberately.
“God.” He sounded slightly hoarse. “I think I startled myself. Christ, Alec, I want to do the most appalling things to you. Are you sure you want to be kissed while I do them?”
“Especially while you do them.”
“Well, in that case.” Jerry leaned in for one more deliberate, open-mouthed kiss, then rolled off him to lie on his back, shoulder to shoulder, and Alec felt fingers tangling with his own. “My God, you go straight to my prick. How are you within my reach? Why is there not a queue?”
The idea was absurd, the compliment enchanting. “I think you might be unusual,” Alec said.
“I’m unique,” Jerry corrected him. “And it takes one to know one. Ah, well, everyone else’s obliviousness is my advantage.” The usual casual confidence was returning to his voice. “I’m starving. Let us leave this den of iniquity before I surrender entirely to voluptuousness, and get something to eat.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next few weeks were some of the best and worst of Alec’s life.
He made his humble apologies to the Duchess of Ilvar, who regarded him with a chilly eye and gave him a lengthy prepared speech of rebuke for his unfilial behaviour. Alec stood through it, eyes submissively lowered, and went to his knees later that evening with Jerry gripping his hair, spending in his mouth and over his face, then kissing him till his lips felt raw. He presented his father, on instruction, with a list of small debts and a wholly fictitious note of hundred and twenty pounds owed at baccarat to one Templeton Lane, and received a banker’s draft via Merrow, Ilvar’s secretary. This he sent to Annabel, who sent it back by return and without a note.
“Don’t try that again,” Jerry said, without sympathy. “You can bend without breaking, but it’s not in everyone’s power. Don’t ask your siblings to do that for you.”
Alec spent the money on new clothes instead. He needed them, since the Society columns had all mentioned the rapprochement between Ilvar and his wayward younger son, and he found himself once again receiving the invitations that had dried up years ago. It was early July now, the social season coming to its close as minds turned to the grouse shooting due to start on the Glorious Twelfth of August. His father would go up to Castle Speight on the first of August, hosting a small group of people for a few days, then there would be a grand dinner for forty, a mixture of politicians and aristocrats who were willing to overlook the Duchess’s origins and manner. Alec was yet to be invited.
“Give it time,” Jerry said.
“I’m not worried.”
“You look preoccupied.”
They were at the races. Alec would normally have attended professionally for the illustrated papers, but that was impossible. People would notice him now, and to be seen working might be construed as a reproach to his father. He felt rather sick at the number of commissions he’d had to turn down, but at least he’d won the fairytale book job, which was something to fill his time. He was here as an idler now, overdressed for the general crowd in his smart new morning suit, with Jerry at his side, but he still couldn’t stop himself looking for faces, scenes, details.
“It’s habit,” he said. “I like doing sporting scenes. Crowds and action.”
“Ah, is that it? I thought it looked like your fingers were itching.”
“Are yours?” This wasn’t Royal Ascot, with expensive finery on display, but Alec still felt the need to say it, to remind himself that his sharp, attentive, understanding lover was a thief.
“Heavens, no. This is all bustle work. The chap over there—soft brown hat, Harris tweed—is dipping. He had a fob watch off the portly gentleman and if he doesn’t take the fuddled youth in the grey suit while he’s passing—ah, there goes the wallet, smooth as butter. It’s a pleasure to watch.”
Alec had never seen a pickpocket in action before, or never noticed one. “Goodness. Are there any others?”
They watched the crowds for a good hour while Jerry pointed out thieves. It was far more interesting than the horse racing, and Alec found himself planning sketches of pickpockets in action, and composing the captions in his head. He wanted a pencil and sketchpad with a sudden, agonised yearning to get to work. Was this meant to be entertaining, drifting around a racetrack, gambling money you could afford to lose, which was trivial, or couldn’t, which was stupid?
Not that they were here for gambling, or at least not that sort. The Duke of Ilvar owned several racehorses, two of which were running today. He was in the owner’s enclosure, and Alec felt a new kind of nervous excitement as they headed off in that direction. He wanted this to work for the sake of the long game; there was no denying that he also wanted to impress Jerry.
He gave his name to the man at the gate— “Lord Alexander Pyne-ffoulkes, with Mr. Gerald Vane”—and they were admitted. The enclosure was all morning suits and finery. Jerry plucked two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter with his usual insouciance and they strolled through the crowd, approaching His Grace of Ilvar as the half-hour chimed.
“Lord Alexander!”
Alec swung round, and smiled as he saw the oncoming woman, her husband in her wake. The Countess of Moreton was tall and statuesque, with thick brown hair pinned in elegant loops under an extremely dashing hat. She was in her early forties, and three children had thickened her figure, but she still had an unmistakably athletic look and a long stride. She had once been a music hall trapeze artist, just as the unassuming man by her side had once been a clerk, before a sequence of family disasters had left him with the coronet.
“Lady Moreton,” Alec said, taking her hand. “And Lord Moreton, how lovely to see you. May I introduce my friend, Mr. Gerald Vane?”
Jerry bowed gracefully. Lady Moreton gave him three fing
ers and a smile, gently passed him over to her husband, and asked Alec about his well-being. He in turn conveyed his regards for Lady Penelope, the oldest Moreton girl, and they were chatting amicably when the Duke of Ilvar came past.
This was the tricky part. Alec hadn’t known if his father would greet him, command his attention, wait to be approached, or acknowledge him at all. He’d kept the portly figure in the corner of his eye, and he noticed as Ilvar slowed. Not stopped—of course he would not stop and wait to greet his son—but definitely slowed.
“Oh,” Alec said. “Sir—”
“Your Grace,” Lady Moreton said, turning smoothly. “How lovely. Is the Duchess with you?”
Ilvar inclined his head, a small movement making his own superiority clear. “She is not, Lady Moreton.”
“What a shame. I met her recently and I was hoping to pursue our conversation. Will you be in London a little while longer, sir?”
“Until the end of the month, when we will return to Castle Speight.”
“Oh, how delightful. I am chafing to be at Crowmarsh for the summer, as are the boys, but there are two more parties that absolutely must be attended lest my daughter go into a decline.” She struck an attitude, eyes brimming with amusement. “On which—may we hope to see you at the Cirencesters’ ball, Lord Alexander?”
“I don’t think I have the honour.”
“You will,” Lady Moreton assured him. “I shall speak to Tommy Cirencester at once, and I’m claiming at least two dances from you on Penelope’s behalf. Now, I will leave you to your father. Delightful to meet you, Mr. Vane—are you of the Cirencester family too?”
“Not a member of whom her ladyship would have heard,” Jerry said with a smile. “The connection is some way up the family tree.”
“Which is exhaustingly large, I know. We will see you at Cirencester House, Lord Alexander. Duke, I will venture to call on Her Grace very soon. And if I don’t have the honour of meeting you before then, may I wish you many congratulations on the anniversary of your nuptials. Moreton and I celebrated our twentieth anniversary last year—a very small event, with our family and dearest friends. Two decades of marital harmony is something of which we Darby and Joans should be proud.”