Any Old Diamonds

by KJ Charles

  It would be a long journey: two and a half hours to Crewe, then a change to Broughton, where they would use the Castle Speight private line that the Duke had built at heaven knew what expense. He was not sure if he was glad or sorry they couldn’t talk openly.

  He’d brought pencils and a sketchpad, but he felt a little self-conscious taking them out in the company of businessmen. He settled with his new book instead, a collection of short stories, read the first three, confused and increasingly disturbed, and looked up to see Jerry watching him.

  “Are you enjoying that?”

  “I wouldn’t say enjoying, precisely.”

  “Your face has suggested as much. What on earth are you reading?”

  “It’s a new thing. The King In Yellow. Good in its way, but I don’t know if I like its way. Weird and macabre and feels rather like an opium dream. It’s about a play that induces madness in anyone who reads it.”

  Jerry slanted a brow. “Sounds like the author’s been at the St. James’s Theatre recently.”

  One of the businessmen guffawed, and added, “I beg your pardon.” Jerry waved a graceful hand.

  Alec hid behind his book again, feeling rather self-conscious. Jerry’s remark had been an allusion to The Importance of Being Earnest, a smash hit earlier in the year, until the author had been arrested for gross indecency. Taking his name off the programme and advertising hadn’t saved the box office from the taint of scandal, and the play had closed. Wilde had only been in prison two months, the scandal had yet to fully subside, and Alec was rather conscious that The King in Yellow had a similar sort of atmosphere to Wilde’s work. Perhaps he should have brought something less decadent. Perhaps Jerry was angry he’d given them away.

  No, he was being absurd. The book was a legitimately published popular hit that anyone might read, and Jerry wasn’t sniping at The Importance of Being Earnest for any reason other than that he loathed all Wilde’s plays. And yet Alec still felt snubbed, self-conscious, uncomfortable. It was an all-too-familiar sense of nauseous anticipation, dreading the disapproval and rebuke and condemnation he knew would come, and, now he’d recognised it, he knew just why he had it. It was what he’d felt each time he’d come back to Castle Speight—home—from school. He wondered how old he’d be when that dread went away, if it ever did.

  The businessmen left the carriage after Tamworth. Nobody else got on. The guard slammed the doors, the train moved off, and Jerry let out a sigh. “Alone at last.”

  That they were, since the only access to the compartment was the platform door. They would be entirely free from eavesdropping or interruption until the next stop.

  “Is there anything we need to discuss?” Alec asked.

  “I don’t think so. Try to relax.”

  “Of course. We’re off to a marvellous party. What fun.”

  “It will be.” Jerry tipped his head back, eyes narrowing a little. “We’ve a week to play with and a hell of a game to play in it. And I like a challenge.”

  “I thought you liked to be in control.”

  “That, too, but there has to be something to control, doesn’t there? Something that takes effort to master.” His brow tilted in a very familiar way, sending a shiver through Alec. “Do you know what I regret? That I didn’t have you at Lady Sefton’s soirée.”

  “There was hardly an opportunity. Was there?”

  “I could have made one. Taken you upstairs into some room.”

  “And?” Alec asked, holding his gaze.

  “And pushed you against the door,” Jerry said, low. “Pulled your trousers down and your shirt up and had you there and then. No preparation, nothing but spit, and you’d have had to be silent as the grave. Not even a gasp, far less a cry, while I had you as I pleased.”

  “Have you had this in mind for a while?”

  “Since Lady Sefton’s soirée. I’ve had you on my mind since Euston.”

  “The next stop isn’t till—”

  “Stafford. That seems to me long enough for one of us to have his cock sucked.”

  Alec went down onto his knees, between Jerry’s legs. Jerry shifted to make room, and Alec ran his hands over the grey cloth of his light suit, the hard-muscled legs.

  “Forward,” Jerry said softly.

  He wasn’t sure if it was an observation of his behaviour or an order. He leaned forward anyway, pushing his face between Jerry’s legs, mouthing him through the cloth, and felt a hand in his hair. Jerry’s fingers drove down to the nape of his neck, and stroked up against the grain of the small hairs, making Alec shiver.

  He dealt with the buttons, fingers a little clumsy, freed Jerry’s stand. He’d had that in his mouth a few times now, on order, but not had much chance to explore for himself. He stroked the length of it, ridged, smooth under his fingers, a little curved, and felt Jerry’s hand tighten.

  “Right, Your Graceling. I want you to pleasure me like you’re getting paid for it.”

  Good God. Alec leaned in and gently closed his mouth over the head.

  “Yes.” Jerry’s fingers were moving, pressing into Alec’s scalp, not quite pulling his hair but certainly holding it tight. “Oh, yes. We were discussing you getting fucked at the most inconvenient possible juncture, weren’t we? So that you’d have to clean yourself off and rejoin the party with your arse aching and your prick throbbing. I wasn’t planning to let you come, you understand. Are you hard now?” Alec grunted affirmatively. “Good. Don’t touch yourself. Christ, you’re beautiful.”

  Alec looked up sharply. Jerry’s eyes were wide and startled, as if he was shocked by his own words, then his lips curled deliberately. “With a cock in your mouth, I meant to say. I’m not sure if I prefer making you whimper or not letting you make a sound. Yes, like that. Deeper.”

  Alec worked his hands into Jerry’s clothing. Skin on skin, feeling, caressing, stroking as best he could given the constriction of cloth, using his tongue the way Jerry liked, swaying with the movement of the train. Jerry’s hands were moving urgently in his hair. “Dear God, Alec, my noble plaything. I will have you unrelentingly when we next fuck.”

  Alec made a noise around his mouthful that sounded in his own ears like a sob. He leaned in, taking Jerry as deep as he could, his cheeks and jaw burning from the movements, and felt strong fingers tighten on his scalp.

  “Oh God, the feel of you, the way you suck me. The way you want me— Alec!” Jerry came, gasping, in his throat, pulsed once, twice, jerked Alec’s head back, and let the last spurt hit his face.

  Alec knelt, mouth open. The spend was wet on his cheek.

  Jerry leaned forward and wiped it up with one finger. He pressed it to Alec’s open mouth, and Alec closed his lips around it as though it were a sacrament.

  They stayed like that for a long silent moment, eyes locked, then Jerry straightened. He pulled out a handkerchief, wiping Alec’s face first, then tidying himself, all the time watching Alec as he knelt on the jolting floor.

  “We’ve a few more minutes to the station, I’d think.” He sounded raspy.

  “Yes.”

  “Stroke yourself,” Jerry said. “No, don’t touch your buttons. Through your clothes will do.”

  Alec moved his hand between his legs. His prick was trapped and painfully needy.

  “Lightly. Widen your legs.” Jerry was watching, eyes intent. “Christ, I love watching you pleasure yourself. The look on your face. Rub harder.”

  The train lurched slightly. It was slowing. “We’re stopping.”

  “Good.”

  “Jerry—”

  “Don’t stop until I tell you. Keep your hand moving.”

  “Jerry!” Alec didn’t know if he was going to come, if he wasn’t, or what he’d do. His arousal was painfully close; so was the next station. “Please!”

  “Keep going.”

  “I’m going to come.” In his clothing. The humiliation burned.

  “Don’t you dare stop touching yourself until I tell you. Now, or I take my pleasure on you tonig
ht and you get nothing. Understand?”

  “Yes. Oh God.” He was so close, his own hand’s pressure and Jerry’s words reducing him to nothing but sensation, he was reaching the peak—

  “Stop.”

  Alec jerked his hand away. The train whistle screeched, the carriage jolted, his prick throbbed with furious need.

  “Up.” Jerry looked wild. He shut his eyes, and Alec could see his face smoothing back into a calm mask. “Quick. And brush off your knees.

  Alec’s knees weren’t the problem; he could hardly stand. He managed to get his bag on his lap—carefully—before the platform guard pulled open the compartment door with a cry of “Stafford!” The blood was thumping in his ears.

  Jerry had brought him to the edge and made him wait before, but this felt different. A new level of the control he used to reduce Alec to helpless wanting, but also, perhaps, a warning. If you knew a man’s desires, you had him in the palm of your hand. Had Jerry given away a little more of himself than he’d intended?

  Under other circumstances the very idea would have been a thrill. As it was, the thought gave Alec a slightly sick feeling.

  He liked Jerry enormously: he was amusing, intelligent, a good conversationalist, a superb listener. He wanted him physically more than anyone he’d ever known, and not just because he was hopelessly enslaved to dark eyes, absurdly mobile eyebrows, and a wicked mouth. It was the way Jerry fucked that made him irresistible, teasing out Alec’s desires and taking such dark enjoyment in fulfilling them. That intense attention was something Alec tried not to think of, because he wanted it so much. He felt like curling up around it and hoarding it as the Duchess did her jewels.

  In fact, Jerry was like nobody else he’d ever known, and Alec would have counted himself absurdly fortunate if all they’d had was the companionship and the fucking. But when the mask slipped, revealing the man underneath; when Jerry cared what Alec thought and wanted him to be happy; most of all when he startled himself with uncalculated truths...

  That Jerry could break Alec’s heart. That was the man he barely saw, which was good, because every glimpse of him was a danger. There was no happy ever after to be had with Jerry Crozier, there would be no future, and if Alec ever forgot that and let himself hope, he’d be lost.

  He’d known it from the start and if he had any sense he’d have resisted his own treacherous desires—which was about as useful as saying that if a gambler had any sense he wouldn’t have staked every penny he had on the fall of the dice. He’d wanted to play, and by God he’d had value for his stake, but the game didn’t have long left to run.

  There were other men in the carriage all the way to Crewe, and on the smaller train to Broughton. Alec tucked himself in the corner and hid in his sketchbook, not caring any more if it looked odd. He’d drawn Jerry’s face in there, over and over, sketches from memory and doodles in odd moments. Images of Jerry laughing, of that cold, remote expression that betrayed fury, of his eyebrows at a dozen angles. Of his face when he’d looked down at Alec after they’d kissed for the first time. He’d worked on that and made it a full-page piece. It was one of the best things he’d ever drawn.

  They changed again at Broughton to take the Castle Speight spur. A uniformed man ushered them to the private train, informing them that there was one more passenger to come. It was a single car, so Templeton Lane joined them with the baggage, sitting silent and severe in the black garb of a manservant, which Alec noted was cut to diminish his broad shoulders.

  “This is very fine,” Jerry remarked, looking around the upholstered coach with its brass fittings and mahogany. “Is it used for anything but Castle Speight?”

  “I don’t know. It’s after my time really. Father started the work about ten years ago.”

  “Must have cost a few bob.”

  “I expect so. Oh, I think our fellow traveller is here.”

  A gentleman who looked to be in his thirties but was almost entirely bald hurried down the platform, holding a large document case. He exchanged a brief word with the railwayman, and sat down with a gasp. “Gentlemen. Please excuse my heat.”

  “It’s warm to be hurrying,” Alec said sympathetically.

  “Really a matter of some inconvenience,” the man mumbled, mostly to himself as the doors were slammed. “Am I correct in thinking—Lord Alexander?”

  “Yes, and this is Mr. Gerald Vane, my guest, Mr.—?”

  “Merrow. Frederick Merrow. His Grace’s confidential secretary. I, ah, if I may say so, Lord Alexander, I hope that my role in communicating the Duke’s wishes has been, or will be, understood as merely the obligation of my position and in no way an expression of my own opinions. His Grace prefers me to digest, if I may so put it, and express his wishes, which are phrased and communicated entirely in line with his command. I pray I may be understood.”

  Alec shot a look at Jerry, whose face was unhelpfully blank, then worked it out. Merrow, the writer of those casually dismissive letters to the Duke’s children, including the one that had given Cara her death sentence, was feeling uncomfortable at meeting their recipient. That was probably a good sign as to Alec’s increased favour in his father’s eyes.

  He made himself smile at the man. Merrow only did what the Duke told him, like everyone else. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Merrow, and don’t worry in the slightest. I quite understand your role. Oh, we’re moving, marvellous,” he added with hearty meaninglessness in the hope of heading off any further conversation.

  “What a delightful thing.” Jerry came in over Merrow’s reply, greatly to Alec’s relief. “How convenient to have one’s own private railway.”

  “The road down from Castle Speight winds a great deal. I dare say it saves a lot of time.”

  “The railway takes twenty minutes, where the road journey is an hour and a half,” Mr. Merrow interjected. “His Grace’s wisdom and foresight in the investment are remarkable.”

  “And is it just for the Duke and his guests?”

  “There is a goods carriage which His Grace very obligingly permits to be leased for the benefit of the nearby villages if he does not require the line.”

  “Most generous,” Jerry murmured.

  “May I ask, Mr. Merrow, who will be in residence?” Alec enquired. “I believe my father has a few guests present before the grand dinner.”

  “Indeed, Lord Alexander. There is Miss Hackett, the sister of the Duchess. Sir Paul Maitland, chief constable of Cheshire, and Lady Maitland. Two gentleman of industry, Mr. Forbes and his wife, and Mr. Pelham. Tomorrow we also welcome Mr. Ayres, a magistrate and highly respected gentleman of the county and Mrs. Ayres, and Sir William and Lady Cooke.”

  “All the dignitaries, in fact.” Clearly his father was throwing crumbs to useful people with this house party, the better to avoid cluttering up his grand dinner with provincials. “Well. That sounds very... I look forward to it.”

  Jerry’s eyes hooded, indicating near-fatal boredom. Alec pressed his lips together and looked out to admire the view.

  THE CASTLE SPEIGHT station was some five minutes’ journey from the castle by cart. That took Templeton Lane, Mr. Merrow, and the luggage; Alec and Jerry agreed they would stretch their legs. It was a warm afternoon but breezy, without London’s heat, and the grey-green-yellow slopes of the Bowland Fells made his breath hitch. He loved the fells, and it had been too long.

  “I like the railway line,” Jerry observed. “It’s nice to see a rich man make use of his money. I’d definitely have a private railway line to my castle.”

  “It makes the whole business of travelling far more pleasant. It was such a slog back from school for the holidays—you’d get off the train and still have hours to go, and they only ever sent the second-best carriage, not the one with modern springs and proper upholstery. That was reserved for the Duke and Duchess.”

  “Naturally. It’s rather bleak round here.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Alec said. “Or I think so, at least.”

  “Eye of
the beholder. I like landscapes where one can’t be seen for miles. I also like houses that one can leave slightly more easily than by a train that belongs to one’s host, or alternatively a two-hour slow passage down a hill where one may expect to find the police waiting to examine one’s pockets.”

  “I did tell you it was inaccessible,” Alec said guiltily.

  “I already knew, but there’s nothing like sight of the ground to clarify the problem. Don’t worry, I have all sorts of ideas. Are you ready for this?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Mmm.” Jerry didn’t push him. “And is there anything to fear in the guest list?”

  “Death by anecdote, I should think,” Alec said, eliciting a bark of laughter that sent birds flying off the fence posts. They walked companionably up the incline, and Castle Speight came into view. Alec heard his companion’s soft hiss.

  He’d forgotten what an imposing building it was. One did when one grew up somewhere, but he contemplated the building now with fresh eyes, and found himself rather embarrassed.

  “Good Lord,” Jerry said. “How medieval.”

  “Gothic Revival, actually. It’s the fourth castle on the site. The first was Norman. The second was destroyed by the Parliamentarians—we were Royalist—and the third more or less fell down. This one was built around 1794.”

  “Mid-French Revolution. You have to wonder why our peasants weren’t busy at the guillotine as well. Look at it.”

  Castle Speight was, architecturally, something of a monstrosity. The towers on the left of the main hall were broad and squat with stubby crenellations; those on the right resembled a Gothic cathedral with soaring arches, spires, and flying buttresses. Somehow, the heavy side entirely overwhelmed the attempt at grace. The building sat bleakly on the hilltop, glowering out over the valley with grey stone aggression.

  “I don’t think it wants to be robbed,” Jerry said. “Well, life is hard. Do we enter by the steps?”

  “I suppose we must. I always went in through the gatehouse but you are a guest. So am I, really.”

  The great oak door was opened for them by a footman, and the butler was there to greet them with a deep bow. Alec recognised neither, which was no surprise; the Duchess did not retain staff long. He didn’t really recognise the hall, either.