A Seditious Affair

by K. J. Charles

  “Coming on a bit strong, Tory.”

  “I kneel for two reasons only, and the other one is prayer. It’s not how I am, not usually.”

  Silas snorted. “Think I didn’t know that?”

  “I know you did. That is one of the many reasons…” He didn’t know whether to say it. Whether Silas, with that dreadful look of shaken ground on his face, needed to hear the words or whether truth would just add to his burden.

  Get on with it, Frey. “Listen to me,” Dominic continued. “I would very much like you to stop breaking the law of the land, particularly if these damned bills pass. I know why you do it, I—damn it—I respect why you do it, and I don’t want to see you lessened in your own eyes. You are an extraordinarily courageous, dedicated, wrongheaded sod. I know you love your country as much as I, even if it is a different country that we see.” He was staring into Silas’s eyes, willing him to hear. Nobody could call those eyes pretty, that nameless muddy mixture. “If you want to change your battle pitch to firmer ground, as it were, to stop risking your neck like the pigheaded oaf you are, it would be nothing more than good sense. But if you do not…I understand.”

  “Aye, you do.” Silas’s mouth twisted. “That’s the worst of it; that’s what I can’t let go. You understand.”

  “So do you.” Dominic didn’t know if it was an accusation or a declaration. “And I do understand, none better. Sometimes one must cleave to what one knows to be right in the teeth of all opposition. Sometimes it comes at an unbearable price. Sometimes one must even face the fact that one’s wishes may be wrong—”

  “We still talking about politics?”

  “It’s all the same,” Dominic said. “You’re going to get yourself transported for your seditious libels, and they won’t make a damned bit of difference in the end. And I will lose you, and I know it, but I have lost my dearest friend because I cannot lose you yet.”

  Silas’s arms tightened around his waist. “Then he’s a fool. Dom—”

  Dominic rested his forehead against Silas’s, closed his eyes. “Richard tells me I must be mad. I sometimes feel as though this room is the only sane place in the country.”

  Silas gave a huff of dry amusement. “You think so?”

  “We disagree without hatred, and fuck as we choose. If I were to give my idea of utopia…”

  “Aye. Aye, that’s true enough.”

  “There is no fine gentleman for me,” Dominic said softly. “I had the finest gentleman in the land once, and I didn’t want him. I want my firebrand. And I want no after. I will fight against after with everything at my disposal, and if—when—there is an after, it will be bleak indeed.”

  “Tory…” Silas whispered.

  “Ssh.” Dominic kissed him gently. “I know it is not your habit to lean on anyone. You are the tower of strength out there, aren’t you? Always taking the brunt of it all. But in here, at least, let me bear your weight.”

  Silas made a little noise in his throat. His chest heaved, just once, and they stood in silence as Dominic held him.

  “Christ,” he said at last, into Dominic’s shoulder. “You know how to unman a cove.”

  “Not my intention.”

  “No. Ah, Tory.” He took a deep breath and straightened. “I got you the book.”

  Dominic accepted the change of tone, because Silas needed it and because he’d been hoping to hear that ever since he’d asked Silas to act in his capacity of bookseller rather than revolutionary. “Thank you. May I see?”

  It was a slim volume of medium size, the pages stitched together but not yet bound. Silas handed it over with something like reluctance. “Just look.”

  Dominic opened it and gave a little gasp. “My stars.”

  “Ain’t it?”

  They sat on the bed together, since there was nowhere else for two to sit in a room designed for fucking, and leafed through the pages. “My stars,” he repeated, awestruck. “It’s stunning.”

  The printed text was not set in type but in a flowing hand, cramped at points and irregular. Dominic brushed a finger over the page, felt the slight contours of the letters under his skin.

  “You can feel it, can’t you? It’s what he calls relief etching,” Silas said. “Most engravings are what you call intaglio, right? You cut into the plate, and the cuts hold the ink, and that goes flat onto the paper. He uses a stuff that acid can’t burn and then burns away the plate round it so the printing surface stands proud instead of being carved in. So when the plate meets the paper, as well as the inks you get debossing, the sunken-in effect. Gives it a feel.”

  The technicalities of printing were not Dominic’s area of interest, but he’d listen to anything for that intense fascination in Silas’s tone. “So he prints back to front, as it were?”

  “Well, all printing’s back to front. His is back to front and inside out.”

  I can see why it speaks to you, Julius had said. Dominic smiled to himself, leafing through images of a gloriously orange-red tiger, a worm-eaten rose. “Remarkable. How would you recommend it bound?”

  “However you like,” Silas said gruffly, and, after a moment, added, “But if you want to treat it well, Morocco. Proper goat leather, none of your imitation. Shows off the gilding. Citron, maybe; that would look very fine.”

  Dominic committed citron, Morocco, goat to memory. “And this is his collection of poetry?”

  “Makes more sense than the other, I reckon you’ll say.”

  Dominic stopped at random on an illustration of a severe, kneeling monk, and read aloud.

  “I went to the Garden of Love.

  And saw what I never had seen:

  A Chapel was built in the midst,

  Where I used to play on the green.

  “And the gates of this Chapel were shut,

  And Thou shalt not, writ over the door;

  So I turn’d to the Garden of Love,

  That so many sweet flowers bore.

  “And I saw it was filled with graves,

  And tomb-stones where flowers should be:

  And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,

  And—”

  His voice cracked. Silas finished the poem, with unusual gentleness:

  “And binding with briars, my joys & desires.”

  “That,” Dominic said. “That is…”

  “Aye.”

  “Have you met him? Blake?”

  “Few times. Bit odd.” Silas coughed. “He, uh, reckons he talks to angels.”

  Dominic could well imagine it. If he could write like this, draw like this, think like this, he would probably believe he had been touched by God too. He turned a few more pages, needing to keep handling this lovely, wild thing, to be sure he owned it. “Anything he’s written, any of these illustrated books, I’ll take them. Can you get them for me?”

  “Dare say. They get odder.”

  “I’m sure they do.” He had read The Marriage of Heaven and Hell over and over again since Silas had given him a copy. Half of it made no sense, and what he did follow he mostly disagreed with, and the whole thing made him quiver with a sense of terrible possibility. A whirling cloud of madman’s words, ringing with half-understood notes of something that resonated within.

  …the enjoyments of Genius, which to Angels look like torment and insanity.

  “Thank you for this,” he said quietly. “For the books. For Blake. For the ways you have changed me.”

  Silas took the book from his hands and put it on the table, then came back to stand over Dominic as he sat on the edge of the bed. “Ah, Tory. Lie back. Arms out.”

  Dominic did as bid. Silas looked down at him. “Right. You stay there, and you don’t move without I tell you, understand?”

  Dominic nodded. Silas knelt with the ungainly movements of a bulky man and brushed his hands over Dominic’s spread thighs, over his breeches, up and down.

  “Pretty eyes,” Silas said, meditatively. “And a pretty mouth. And you know how you look when you do what I say
?”

  “No.”

  Silas smiled. A little, almost shy smile, not the snarling one Dominic was used to. “Love seeketh not itself to please.” His palm over Dominic’s groin, gently massaging his growing arousal. “Nor for itself hath any care; But for another gives its ease.” Other hand freeing the buttons of his breeches. “And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.”

  Silas was only quoting. Blake’s words, by the cadence, not his own. Dominic still took them and held them, deep within.

  Silas ran a finger along Dominic’s length. “Heaven in Hell’s despair. You’re mine, understand? Mine to the bone.”

  “Yes.” Too true, hopelessly true.

  “I own you, Tory. Nobody else. No lackwit gentry-fuckster who doesn’t know how to treat you right.” His hand was around Dominic’s prick, fingers just touching, making him wait. Dominic’s fingers were clenched on empty air. “Like it’s a hardship to have those pretty eyes pleading. Like I wouldn’t want that pretty mouth telling me I’m the master here. Christ, the way you give it up to me. I own you.”

  Silas was still scarcely making contact. Dominic held himself rigid against the urge to squirm and thrust and plead. Fully clothed except for the open breeches, sprawled, exposed.

  “And I know you want me to fuck you right now, make you squeal like a cat,” Silas murmured. “But I ain’t going to, and you know why? Because there’s nothing gets you harder than me taking what I want. So I’ll just use you to please myself, and you’ll love it, Tory, you know you will.”

  Dominic made an incoherent noise. Silas grinned. “Now. Don’t fucking move, and don’t spend either. You spend, you’ll regret it.”

  He dipped his head and took Dominic in his mouth.

  Dominic went rigid, nails digging into his palms. Silas had never done that before, had handled him often enough, but this was new. This would never, ever have been right, except that he was crucified by his own obedience, pinned on the bed. Silas’s breath was rasping, interspersed with little grunts, fingers hard on Dominic’s hips. Tongue curling, lips working—

  “I said don’t fucking spend,” Silas said pulling his mouth off. “So why can I taste you’re about to? I said, why?”

  “Because you’re making me,” Dominic managed. “Because—God—please, please, don’t make me—” Silas was sucking harder, fingers digging into tender flesh, other hand applying near-painful pressure to Dominic’s balls as if warning him to hold back. “Please! I can’t—” Silas gave a warning growl, even as he took Dominic deep into his mouth, almost to the root, and Dominic cried out in shock and pleasure and alarm as he came, hopelessly obedient and disobedient at once.

  He lay back on the bed, gasping. Silas swallowed, coughed, and moved away to take a gulp of wine.

  “Not done that in a while,” he muttered. “And I fucking warned you, Tory.”

  “Not fair.”

  “Never said I was fair. Strip.”

  Dominic swung himself off the bed, undressing quickly. There was a glint in Silas’s eye that made him want to laugh, a pure, impish spark of enjoyment.

  Silas had always treated him with terrible seriousness before, dark pleasures taken in a dark mood. Now he had an almost conspiratorial look on his face, and Dominic felt a bubble of happiness that put nothing in the way of his nervous tension.

  He lay on the bed, naked and spread-eagled on his back. Silas moved around, chaining him down with the padded iron cuffs attached to each bedpost. The cuff around his left ankle gave trouble, and Silas swore under his breath as he forced it shut.

  “Right,” he said, and came over to sit by Dominic’s head, pulling off his neckcloth. “Can’t have you distracting me with those pretty, begging eyes of yours, can I?”

  A blindfold. Dominic swallowed. “Please don’t.”

  Silas ran a finger down Dominic’s face. “No? Why not?”

  “I don’t like it.” It terrified him. To be at the mercy of an unseen figure, not to know what was coming…The blood thumped in his ears.

  “Afraid of the dark?” Silas asked. “And what if I want you to be afraid, Tory?”

  Dominic licked his lips. He wanted, truly wanted, to say no, and that awareness had his whole body shaking with arousal, poised at that exhilarating point between pleasure, pain, and fear. This was the torment and insanity, the enjoyment of angels, when he was helpless in Silas’s hands.

  “Frighten me,” Dominic whispered.

  Three hard, quick raps rang out. Dominic couldn’t even tell where they came from for a second, and then the door was thrown open. He pulled, uselessly, against the chains as Silas sprang up, protectively shielding Dominic’s face from whoever was coming in. “What the hell—”

  “Raid.” Mistress Zoë’s voice, but without the usual calm courtesy. “Get out now.” An urgent command.

  “The devil!” Dominic jerked at his bonds, careless of his nakedness in front of a woman, of anything except the very real fear.

  Silas was already undoing his left wrist cuff, clumsy with urgency. Zoë hurried to Dominic’s left ankle. Silas got his cuff undone first and scrambled over the bed, down Dominic’s body to his other ankle. Dominic lunged underneath him to free his right wrist, fumbling with the unfamiliar mechanism.

  “Go!” he barked at Silas. “You’re dressed. Don’t wait.”

  “Piss off,” Silas said through his teeth as the ankle cuff came loose, and moved back to take over freeing his wrist.

  “Get out of here!” Dominic glared up at him. “Just go.”

  “Silas boy, listen to him. If you stay in this room, he is a fucked man.” Zoë was still struggling with the left ankle cuff, the one that had given Silas trouble when he shut it. “Because this ain’t coming off.”

  “Hell and thunder.” Dominic pulled against the cuff. No give. Of course there was no give in the iron around the sturdy oak. He jerked harder, feeling the bond cut into his skin.

  Zoë slapped his ankle. “Stop that. Not helping.”

  “Buggery,” Silas said. “Let me—”

  Zoë shoved him physically, backward to the door. “Fuck off now, before you put him in the pillory. Get out!”

  “Go on!” Dominic put everything he had into it, frightened now beyond anything he’d known in a long time. “Silas, go.”

  “I’m not leaving you tied to a fucking bed!” Silas snarled. He grabbed the bedpost, desperately exerting his strength against it. Dominic sat up, hampered by the chain, ready to help against the solid, seasoned wood.

  Zoë glared. “Don’t be stupid. Go! Ah, hell, they’re through the main door.”

  Dominic had heard it too, the sudden increase in noise that meant someone had the heavy, padded downstairs door open. There were screams, feminine ones, mingling with masculine shouts and the tramp of feet.

  Silas’s eyes were wild and wide. “Run,” Dominic begged him. “Please!”

  “No,” Zoë said. “Too late now. Get behind the screen.”

  “What?” Silas said incredulously.

  “Do as I say. Me and the gentleman will handle this. Now, fuckster!”

  Silas gave Dominic a last look and ducked behind the screen that stood in the corner, as if that would stave off discovery for more than thirty seconds. Dominic opened his mouth and received a powerful shove in the chest from Zoë’s hand.

  “Back on the bed, sir. Ah, the things I do for your man.” She hitched up her skirts, revealing frilly drawers, climbed onto the bed, and swung a leg over him.

  “What are you doing?” Dominic yelped.

  “Nobody ever tell you it works with ladies too?” Zoë pulled down her bodice, exposing an extremely ample bosom, grabbed his hands, clamped them to her breasts, and started bouncing over him. Her skirts covered most of the bed. “Well, I’d say that was a shame, but truth be told, there’s enough stiff-standers to keep business good and every one of ’em much like the rest. So between us, you can keep yours for Silas, but as far as everyone else is concerned, you and me are doing it St. George
style right now. Got it? Here they come, sir. Give a girl a smile.”

  They. A thundering of boots in the passage, doors slamming open—

  “Come on, try and look like you like it, pretty eyes,” Zoë snapped, heaving her hips over him. “It’s my reputation too.” She threw back her head, rolling her shoulders to jiggle her already impressive bosom, and let out a loud cry of what Dominic could only assume was the sound of female satisfaction. “Oh, sir! Oh, what a monster you’ve—aawk!” Her shriek as the door crashed open was authentically earsplitting, so much so that the men who shoved their way in recoiled. “What the devil’s this? Get out, you whoreson peepers!”

  “It’s the madam, sir,” said one of the men over his shoulder. He turned back and his eyes focused on Dominic. “Oh Jesus!”

  Home Office. Work. His men.

  He took a deep breath, calling on his memories of all the bullies and braggarts he knew, from Lord Maltravers downward. Red-faced, loud of voice, trampling lesser men with contemptuous disregard. “What the devil do you louts think you’re playing at?” he demanded, at full volume. “Who the hell’s in charge here? Get out! Can you not see I’m busy?”

  There was a frantic stir in the ranks, and an all-too-familiar lanky form appeared. He stared at Dominic naked on the bed under an angry, half-clothed, huge-breasted woman.

  “Mr. Frey?” Skelton said blankly.

  “What the blazes is this?” Dominic shouted. “Have you turned flashman? What business have you here, sir?”

  “I, ah, we had information—” Skelton glanced at Zoë, who wobbled her chest at him with a shameless leer. He blinked, and forced his eyes away. “It’s a private matter, sir.”

  “So is mine,” Dominic said meaningfully. “And I should like to get on with it, and I will speak to you tomorrow.”

  “I beg your pardon, Mr. Frey. We had reports this was a house of ill repute—”

  “What does it look like, a fucking nunnery?” Skelton flinched, as well he might: Dominic was not known for raising his voice, let alone for foul language. “Have you any other brilliant insights for me?”