The Price of Temptation

by M. J. Pearson

  Stephen stood for several minutes with his hand on the knob of the library door. If only he could open it to find Jamie at the desk, puzzling over columns of figures or sorting the incoming post. The dimple would flash in his cheek as he saw Stephen standing there, and he would offer some pleasantry that would make the earl smile in return. Jamie had spent too much time at that blasted desk. Stephen should have taken him places, given him the sorts of treats the young man would have enjoyed. Not things he didn’t want, but experiences. A few hours wandering the Tower of London. A boat trip to Hampton Court. The city was full of historical sites, museums and galleries, not to mention private collections off-limits to most people but easily accessible to someone of his rank. He ached that he hadn’t thought of this when Jamie had still been in residence.

  No wonder he thinks I just wanted his body. Did I ever show him different?

  He opened the door and entered the empty library, crossing to the desk and sitting down. Where was the household budget? He reached for the ledger, feeling inadequate to the task. Perhaps he should find Mrs. Symmons or Rebecca, see if they could help.

  Out in the hall, he could hear the butler at the door. Julian? He perked up, glancing at the clock. Still time for a few drinks and a hand or two of vingt-et-un at White’s before dinner. Stephen rose from the desk as the actor swept into the library, ashamed at how much he wanted to leave his responsibilities behind yet again.

  “Good heavens, Stephen, what are you doing in here? Ghastly room—all dark and tomblike.” Julian kissed him on the cheek. “I can think of several more cheerful places to take you. Get your gloves, darling.”

  Stephen opened his mouth, fully intending to agree, but found himself staring back down at the papers on Jamie’s desktop. No. It wasn’t fair to just dump a portion of his quarterly allowance on the staff and leave them to fend for themselves. “I really should stay in tonight and take a look at the household budget.”

  “Budget?” Julian’s carefully-shaped brows arched skywards. “Don’t you have servants to take care of things like that?”

  The earl’s mouth tightened. “I had Jamie. And now, I don’t.” He sat slowly back down in the desk’s leather chair.

  Julian was quick to join him, leaning over the back of the chair and kissing Stephen’s neck. “You’re not still moping about that boy, are you?” He gave a little laugh. “I could almost be hurt, if I didn’t know how unsuitable he was for you.” His fingers walked down the front of the earl’s chest.

  Stephen couldn’t speak for a moment. Unsuitable. Jamie, with his warm good sense, quick flashes of humor, that surprising streak of sensuality... “If by ‘unsuitable’ you mean he was too good for me, you’re probably right.” Julian’s hand paused in its journey southward, and Stephen pushed it away gently, waiting for the inevitable explosion of jealousy.

  But the actor appeared unperturbed, settling on the desk just in front of Stephen, and reaching to stroke the earl’s hair. “I sympathize, darling, really I do. But what I mean is that I know what you need. You’re a sophisticated man, Stephen—you need someone who appreciates that. Honestly? I don’t see how your Jamie, no matter how charming he seemed, could have pleased you in the long term. Perhaps it’s best if you just forget about him.”

  Stephen blinked. Julian had turned over a new leaf in earnest, hadn’t he? The actor deserved candor in return. “I don’t know what would have happened in the long term. I never had the chance to find out. But there’s no way I can forget Jamie.”

  “It’s likely that he’s already moved on, found other employment, someone else to... But perhaps he’ll come back.” Julian’s hand, still stroking Stephen’s hair, wrought a soothing magic on the earl. “If he cared for you at all, he will. But if he doesn’t...” The actor’s smile was wistful. “...you’ll still always have me.”

  Stephen reached and caught the other man’s hand, raising it to his lips. “Thank you. I never expected you to be so understanding. If I find Jamie, I swear I’ll do my best to help you out until you can find a new benefactor.”

  Julian’s smile never faltered. “You are looking for him, then?”

  “Charles and Rebecca have started canvassing the boarding houses, but with no luck yet. We may have to try something else.”

  “Poor love. At least I’m here for you.”

  “Thank you, Julian. I so appreciate this.” The earl squeezed Julian’s hand and released it. “But I really have to stay in tonight. Please don’t be angry.”

  Julian leaned forward, kissing Stephen warmly on the lips. “It’s all right, darling. There was someone I was thinking of calling on anyway.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  The actor’s eyes seemed to glow, cat-like, in the cool dimness of the library. “No, just a merchant with whom I’m hoping to strike a deal.”

  Stephen smiled at Julian. “As long as it doesn’t cost me too much in the end.”

  Charles’ feet dragged as he climbed the steps to the servants’ entrance at St. Joseph House shortly after, worn out from a long day’s searching. He opened the kitchen door and gaped with astonishment at the sight of his master in his shirtsleeves at the kitchen table, ink stains all over his fingers, caught in the act of crossing out a list and flipping the paper for another try.

  “I think we’re on the right track,” the earl was saying to Rebecca, seated beside him, as he looked up and saw his valet in the doorway. “Oh, hullo Charles. You might be interested in this: whatever else happens, you’re all getting your quarter’s wages on Christmas Day. We’re trying to figure out the best division between household expenses and outstanding debts after that.”

  Charles stared, fascinated. “Don’t forget your own spending money. And the greenhouse. I mean, if there’s—”

  “There is. That is, there will be. We already have the money I’d put aside for staying home with you and—with you those nights, and I think we can wring out enough to get started if we stick to some of Ja—if we stick to some economies.”

  “Jamie.” Charles looked stricken. “I came so close, but I didn’t find him.”

  Rebecca got up and led him to the table. Maisie and Betsy, who had been cleaning the cook stove, stopped dead to listen, and Rebecca motioned them to join the group at the table as well. “Tell us. Tell us all.”

  Briefly, Charles related his encounter with the self-righteous landlady. “If I’d worked from east to west instead of vice versa, I would have reached that street yesterday. He didn’t leave until this morning.”

  Stephen’s face was pale. “Do you think she really had no idea where he went? Surely a landlady would be aware of the competition.”

  Charles shook his head. “She made it clear she didn’t have any truck with those sorts of places.”

  “Sorts of places?”

  “The sort Jamie can now afford.”

  “Rats.” The whisper came from Betsy, who was staring at something beyond the others’ field of vision. “They come through the holes in the walls, and God help you if you scratch your chilblains till they bleed. It’s cold, and it smells so bad, but you think you can stand that, if only there wasn’t the rats. There was this man that coughed, and his handkerchief was always bloody.” She put her hands over her face, thin hair flopping forward as if attempting to veil her from her memories. “They like blood, the rats. One night, they... they...”

  With a sob, Betsy fled from the kitchen. Maisie rose slowly to follow, blinking back tears.

  Stephen shook his head. “Jamie would never end up in a place that bad.”

  None of the others looked at him.

  Maisie alone spoke up, pausing with her hand on the door. “You don’t know,” she said, pulling her shawl tight across her thin shoulders. “You don’t know where people will end up if they’re desperate enough.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Jamie sat on the edge of his bed in his new home in Lomber Court and wept. There was no bed frame to lift the stained mattress above the things that crawled
on the floor at night, and just one tattered blanket to stave off the bone-deep cold of the unheated Seven Dials tenement.

  “Sheets is extra,” the slattern who had rented him the room yesterday morning stated, her breath reeking of onions and gin. So were additional blankets; a towel; and even a chamber pot, to keep one from having to assay several flights of rickety stairs in the middle of the night to reach the convenience out back.

  But the week in the boarding house in Bloomsbury had eaten up the bulk of his few shillings, and Jamie had no extra.

  “The lock is broken,” he’d observed at the time, fingering the splintered wood of the door frame. Someone had kicked his way into the room—although kicking one’s way out made more sense, he thought, looking around the grim chamber. His earlier lodgings were a veritable palace compared to this. The lack of a window might have been useful in this wintry weather, if the wind hadn’t whistled in anyway between the cracks of the ill-built tenement. A previous occupant had stuffed them with bits of rag and newspaper, at least around the bed. Perhaps he could do better. If he could afford a newspaper. He pictured himself clawing through the gutters in search of stray bits of cloth or paper to chink the cracks with, and shivered.

  “And who needs a lock?” The landlady’s eyes were beady and suspicious. “You bring trade home, the house gets a cut. Them’s the rules, or you can leave right now.”

  It was ridiculous, the speed with which he hastened to assure her that he was not of that kind, especially when her demeanor showed only disappointment that he wouldn’t be paying her additional for the privilege of whoring himself under her roof. But he had dropped the subject of the lock, and that was unfortunate, and the reason for his tears now.

  Because rodents and bugs were not the only creatures of the night to creep into his room in the darkness. Someone with human intelligence had entered while he was asleep, and stolen nearly everything Jamie hadn’t been wearing: his overcoat, spare clothing, and books; even making free with his ancient valise in which to haul them off. Worst of all, the thief had absconded with the portrait of his mother, and that grieved him unbearably. He supposed he was lucky the miscreant had left him his shoes, and was apparently unable to pick his few remaining coppers from his pockets.

  Luck. It occurred to Jamie that today was Friday the thirteenth, notorious for bad luck, and damned appropriate. “Stephen,” he whispered to himself, rocking back and forth. But now that the time had come when he longed desperately to return to the safety of St. Joseph House, by all accounts the earl had forgotten him. Lord St. Joseph was the subject of lively gossip, and current tales depicted him as once again happily infatuated with his companion, the actor Julian Jeffries. The news had hit Jamie hard, and at this moment he couldn’t imagine feeling any lower.

  He swiped at his eyes savagely. “I have to get out of here. I need to pull myself together and make a plan.”

  But he couldn’t, not just yet, not when the release of tears felt so unexpectedly good.

  “Ah, lad.” The voice was raspy with some combination of age and drink, and the old woman’s steps were uneven as she entered the room without knocking, leaning on a stick and dragging one leg behind her. “Poor laddie. Can’t be but so bad, can it? Not whilst ye’re so young and bonny.” She sat heavily on the mattress beside him, skirts releasing a cloud of dust, and patted him on the arm. “Ye be needing a bite to eat, and then ye’ll feel better. Come on, preacher man’s coming with the victuals.” Her smile was as encouraging as it could be, with so few teeth to aid it.

  “I... thank you, Mother. What preacher man?”

  “The one as comes with the victuals,” she repeated patiently, reaching for her stick to rise again. “Come wi’ me, ye won’t want to miss a meal, ye being as scrawny as that.” Her shawl swung away from her skirts for a second, revealing a glimpse of what looked like the blue cover of the book of poems Rebecca had given him, tucked into the old crone’s waistband.

  Jamie wiped his face on the back of his sleeve, not having had the foresight to tuck a handkerchief into his pocket before going to sleep last night. “Tell me, Mother—do you think someone who took a small painting from me, might return it, if he or she knew how important it was?”

  She patted his arm again. “Nay, lad, that’s not the way of it, is it? Not that I would know about such things, but if I were you, once I got back on me feet I’d be lookin’ for her under the golden balls.”

  Jamie blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Askin’ Old St. Nick about it,” she said, lifting her brows. “No? The pop shops, lad, the pop shops.”

  “Pawn brokers.” Jamie nodded. “Again, thank you.”

  The old woman studied him. “Ye’re not from these parts.”

  “No. Yorkshire.”

  “That’s not it, lad. I’ve known Yorkies who fit in just fine at a place like this, and none of ‘em was high-spoken like you.”

  “Trust me, Mother: there are not many places I do fit in. But even a misfit needs to eat, so where can we find your preacher man?”

  “Sinners! Sinners, all of us, shaaamed before God.” The price of a meal, on this fetid Seven Dials back alley, was to be harangued by Holy Joe, the preacher man. Wild of hair and eye, his voice hoarse with shouting, the man was quite unlike any of the clergymen Jamie had ever met, and quite possibly not ordained by any established church at all. Still, steam rose from his soup pot, and a pile of bowls stood on a box at his elbow. Spoons were not an option: those who had received their portion seemed to get along by picking chunks of meat and vegetables out with their fingers, then drinking the broth.

  Jamie’s companion had the timing of the preacher man’s visit down to a science: Holy Joe’s unsavory, rank-smelling constituents were just beginning to crawl from their holes and shake off the effects of last night’s gin, drawn by the shouting and smell of the soup simmering sullenly over a smoldering pile of rubbish. Jamie and the old woman were able to find a place near the head of the line forming for what might be the only meal most of these people ate today.

  “Confess yer sin!” Holy Joe barked at the man just ahead of them in line. This person, swaying on his feet despite the early hour, admitted to drunkenness.

  “Demon rum!” The preacher’s eyes lit up. “It reduces the strong man to infancy, drooling and puking. Unable to walk or speak, as helpless as a babe in arms. Who can drive away the devil in the bottle? Who, I ask you? Who can redeem the drunkard, bring him—”

  “Jesus?” said the man, holding his still-empty bowl in shaking hands.

  The preacher’s eyes spat hellfire. “Of course it’s Jesus, you stupid sod.” He ladled soup into the bowl, and called in disgust for the next sinner.

  The old woman who had brought Jamie to this place, stepped forward. “I been taking the Lord’s name in vain,” she offered, failing to mention anything else she might also have been taking lately.

  This transgression, apparently, held less fascination than drink. Holy Joe exhorted her to watch her bleedin’ mouth, and motioned to Jamie, his demeanor hopeful that the young man’s sin would be more interesting.

  “Confess yerself,” he demanded, stirring the soup with his ladle.

  “I’ve had some unkind thoughts,” Jamie said, having some now.

  The preacher narrowed his eyes. “You think I’m a fool? With young men, it’s sins of the flesh, ain’t it?”

  Jamie felt his color rise, it was inevitable, but he was hardly going to admit any such thing to this suspect pastor of the streets.

  “I said, sins of the flesh.” The preacher rolled the words in his mouth, savoring them. “The animal pleasures of the night. You’re no stranger to them, are you? Confess it!”

  “I’d rather not,” Jamie said steadily, his hackles rising.

  “Shame!” thundered Holy Joe. “Shamed before God, before us all! Filthy and unclean, greedy and lascivious, grunting and groaning like pigs in the trough. The widow’s nakedness uncovered, the lass’s maidenhead beguiled away.”r />
  Jamie wasn’t sure which he wanted more: to laugh, or to hit this false prophet. “I assure you, I’ve ruined no virgins. I admit to sins, sir, and am duly shamed. May I have some soup?”

  “Confess, young man! I smell the stink of it on you, the rank and fetid desire of the youth. When was the last time you wallowed in the muck and slime of unlawful fornication, shivered and moaned all blinded by lust, while God’s eyes bled with sorrow? Slack-jawed and uncaring, defiling the body God gave you—”

  “It wasn’t like that!” Jamie, pushed to the edge, exploded. “I was in love with h—” He bit off the pronoun just in time. “I was in love.”

  The preacher’s lips curved in a smile of satisfaction. “I knew it. Give us your bowl, and be ashamed before God.”

  “Keep your soup,” Jamie said, “I’m not ashamed.” He dropped the bowl on the ground and walked away, curiously lighter at heart. He had loved Stephen—and he still did, and probably always would. And despite his clumsy behavior, Stephen had felt something for him, too. The earl had just been proceeding along the lines he was used to. Now Jamie made a decision: love was too rare and sweet a thing to give up without a fight. He was going to win Stephen back.

  Not yet, of course—he could hardly creep back to St. Joseph House in this condition, and he would never be Stephen’s whore. He would turn his mind to finding a job, bettering his position first, and then he would call on Stephen and see if there were something they could build together. More slowly this time, and with greater care. “Stephen,” he said out loud. “You’re going to be mine, and on my terms, too.”

  “He’ll be all yours.” Julian leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs elegantly. He had been unable to find the merchant at home the previous evening, but had better luck this morning. “To do with exactly as you please. He has no family, no friends, no one to give the slightest damn.”

  “But three hundred pounds?” Mr. Cosgrove raised both brows in incredulity. The merchant was a large man, solid but not fat, dressed soberly in clothing cut from plain but exquisitely-woven fabric. His drawing room reflected a similar aesthetic, the simplicity of the furnishings belying the care and expense that had gone into crafting them.