Then, somehow, it all went a bit mad.
Wes never knew who moved first. All he could remember later was that one moment they had been staring at each other, and the next their mouths were locked as they stumbled to the small sofa near the window. Vallant straddled him and ground a rock-hard erection against his own aching cock, murmuring eager, breathless approval as Wes fought to undo both their trousers at once.
“Hurry,” Vallant pleaded, sounding deliciously desperate. He dug his fingers into Wes’s shoulders. “Hurry.”
Wes freed their cocks at last, and Vallant began to thrust and moan softly, but Wes stayed him. “W-We n-need a h-h-handkerchief.”
Vallant lifted passion-bleary eyes and scanned around them before pointing to the table. “There. A cloth beside that flower in a jar.”
“C-Careful,” Wes admonished as Vallant leaned over to reach for it. “The orchid.”
“It’s beautiful,” Vallant said.
“It’s d-dying,” Wes replied.
Vallant grinned wickedly at Wes. “But we aren’t, my lord.”
“Wes,” Wes gasped as Vallant took them both in hand. “C-call me W-Wes.”
Vallant paused in his stroke and frowned. “It makes us sound like school chums. No, thank you.” He tilted his head to the side. “Why Wes?”
Odd. No one had ever asked him that before. He even had to think to remember why himself. His father hadn’t come into his title when he’d first been at school, so he was simply George Albert Westin. And yes, school chums, if they could be called such, had called him Wes. Or rather, W-W-Wes to mock his stammer. By the time he came home, he was Lord George—but George was his father. And his brother. At home his father had called him George or George Albert, and his brother called him Brat. In his own mind, he was Wes and had been since his mother had died.
He could hardly sputter all that out, and he wasn’t reaching for his paper when he had Vallant’s cock pressed so tightly against his own. Given the way Vallant had reacted to his father, his Christian name wouldn’t do. Best go with the other one then.
“Albert,” he rasped as his head fell back.
The name made Vallant stop, and so Wes opened his eyes and lifted his head. Vallant was regarding him curiously.
“M-My m-m-middle name,” Wes explained. My mother called me Albert.
“Albert,” Vallant said, as if trying it out. He smiled. “Yes, Albert will do quite nicely.” He bent and nipped at Wes’s chin. “Fuck me, Albert. Fuck hard against me, and I will make love to your mouth.”
It was foolish, surely, to behave so wantonly there with Sir Joshua only a room a way, with no doors locked and anyone able to walk in. Reckless, chasing such fleeting, selfish pleasure that would bring exquisite suffering for them both, should they be caught. Yet as Vallant eased them together, as his hand closed over their shafts, as hips began to buck and thrust and lust pounded in Wes’s veins, Wes thought of nothing, nothing at all but how delicious he felt. When Vallant’s tongue slipped into his mouth, the Queen of England herself could have walked in and he would have barely been able to spare her a nod.
He came first, groaning into Vallant’s mouth as the whore twisted their cocks into a sweet, tight angle, as Wes fucked hard and fast into the towel. Vallant came shortly after. They hovered there, shaking and out of breath, sated and smiling against each other’s mouths.
A loud bleat and snort from the other room stirred them. When Sir Joshua began to murmur and mumble to himself, sounding dangerously conscious, Vallant slid off Wes’s lap and hurriedly did himself up. Reluctantly, Wes did so as well.
Before Vallant left, he turned and pressed one last kiss on Wes’s cheek, so soft and sweet that it melted what remained of Wes’s insides.
“Thank you.” Vallant smiled.
And then he slipped into the hall. Wes did not follow, waiting as long as he could, letting Vallant move far away before he went out as well, heading toward what he hoped was the front hall stairs.
He was sliding into his coat when he realized he had not finished his sketch of the orchid. He paused, momentarily considering going back upstairs to do so, but then he caught sight of Vallant with a dark-haired woman on his arm. Wes remembered that all the pages of his notepad were full, all the room for sketches taken up by his foreplay.
Wes smiled all the way back to Mayfair and tossed the conversation with Vallant into his fire with great reluctance.
Chapter Three
It was shocking how very much Lord George Albert Westin looked like his father.
All the rest of the night, Michael’s mind kept coming back to Lord George’s resemblance to his sire. He thought of it quite a bit as he rode with Clary across town to a masquerade party where he had absolutely no luck finding a client. It flitted through his mind as he wove his way through the crowd at the Kilpatrick ball, trying not to let anyone see how he had to squint to identify people more than fifteen feet away. He even thought of it as he sucked down Mr. Kilpatrick’s thick rope of semen in a dark corner of his study. And back at Dove Street, after enduring Rodger’s angry lecture, he finally sank into his bed in the attic at dawn, still thinking of Lord George and Daventry.
So very alike in looks. So absolutely different in manner in every single way. Michael disliked thinking of him as Lord George, for Daventry too was a George. Only such an arrogant man could name not just his first born but his second son after himself.
Albert, he’d said. Call him Albert. Well, that was how Michael would think of him. It was perhaps a bit intimate for a marquess’s son, but then, they’d been rather intimate, hadn’t they?
Whatever he called him, he couldn’t deny the physical resemblance, so he tried to focus on where they differed. The easiest was that Daventry had an older man’s paunch where Albert was tantalizingly fit, and Daventry had graying, curling hair, where Albert’s dark locks were straight and only slightly mussed even after a good fucking. Daventry had more sense of fashion, though. Albert didn’t dress poorly, but he did dress more conservatively than most of his peers. He dressed like Rodger when he was in his gentleman’s getup, which was what had thrown Michael in the first place. No, Albert and his father dressed nothing alike.
But they had the same eyes. It was so strange to look into the same pair of eyes he had hated more than any other and…not hate.
Eyes and mouth. Same shape of the lips. Even the same sideways curve when they smiled. The smiles were the worst. Michael lay awake a long time, haunted by that smile. Daventry was a cold, cunning bastard, and his smile was a portal to hell. Albert’s eyes were pools of quietness, a little sadness too, and they invited, not lured. His smile was like the sun in England. Rare, dim, but in its full glory, a cause for celebration.
Good Lord, he was becoming a poet over Albert.
God knew he would never wax rhapsodic for Daventry.
Daventry’s son. I have fucked Daventry’s fucking son.
Daventry’s son, the shy botanist. Who had hidden Michael from Sir Joshua, flirted with pencil and paper, and who loved orchids.
Michael smiled to himself at the memory.
He picked up a book to try and distract himself, but his mind would not follow the words. Eventually he simply gave up and lay down, pulling the blanket over his head. It made him think of being under the sheet tent with Albert, and there beneath his linen where no one else would know that he did it, he shut his eyes and relived the moment, that first kiss, the intake of breath…
The sofa…
Michael fell asleep. And he dreamed. He dreamed of kissing Albert, of lying naked for him, of offering up his body. He dreamed of fucking him face-to-face, of Albert sliding in deep, and Michael cried out his name.
“Albert. Oh, Albert.”
But when his lover lifted his head, it was Daventry who leered down at Michael as he thrust inside him.
“That’s right, my darling whore. My sweet little cunt. Moan for me, lovely. Show me how much you love my cock.”
Michael sti
ffened, pulled back and screamed.
He woke in a pool of his own sweat, throat hoarse from shouting, Rodger shaking him violently. When Michael calmed down enough to sag against him, Rodger swore.
“Fucking hell, love.” Rodger bussed a kiss against Michael’s forehead and fumbled at his belt before pressing a flask into his hand. “I thought you was murdered.”
Michael tipped the whiskey back with a shaking hand. “Dream.” He wiped his mouth, forced bile down and added, “Daventry.”
Rodger’s swearing would have taken the paint off the walls, had they been painted. “Fucking ruddy fucking bloody fucking bastard! What in fucking hell did you fucking dream about him for?”
Michael winced, then shivered and pressed tighter against Rodger.
That’s it, my cunt. Moan for me. Just like before.
He didn’t realize he’d started whimpering until Rodger nudged him again. “The dream is over, love. No more, you hear me? Daventry’s not here. He doesn’t have you. He’ll never have you again.” Rodger stroked Michael’s hair. “What brought this on, ducks? Did you run into the bastard somewhere?”
Michael shook his head, then prepared for his confession. “No. But I saw his son.”
“Vaughn? He’s a pretentious ass. I hope you planted him a good one right in the center of his fucking face.”
“No. The other one. The second son, Lord George Albert.” He shut his eyes tight. “I fucked him.”
“What?” Rodger roared.
Michael put the flask Rodger had given him up to Rodger’s own mouth to stop further swearing. “Drink. And listen.”
As Rodger slowly drained the flask, Michael told the story of running from Sir Joshua, of mistaking Albert for Rodger, and all that came after. All of it.
“I’ll be damned,” Rodger said when he was done. “But what did you think I was at the Gordons’s party for?”
“Well, I thought you’d followed me, and I was glad for it, because you were right: I got into trouble. But it wasn’t you, obviously. I swear, Rodger, you and he have the same tailor. And you’re the same height and build. Hair color too.”
Though Albert’s hair was much softer.
“You truly are blind as a bat, you poor sod.” Rodger climbed onto the bed, leaned back against the pillow and put his feet on the mattress. “So this is Daventry’s second son. I think I’ve heard of him. Shy fellow, I thought. Heavy stammer. Didn’t know he was a mandrake. Or is he like his dear da and just likes the power?”
“No. He’s a full-on sod. He knows his way around a cock, and he gives as much pleasure as he takes.”
Rodger lifted his eyebrows. “You sound half besotted, love.”
“I’m not besotted. I’m just telling you how he’s different than his father. And he is. Completely.” Michael tucked himself into the crook of Rodger’s arm and rested his head on his shoulder. “He does stammer. Horribly. He clearly had to fight for every word. And I heard whispers of how he went into pieces just moving through the crush.”
“Why on earth was he there, then?”
“I’ve no notion. Something about an orchid, I think, but that doesn’t make any sense.” Michael stroked Rodger’s shirt. “He fucked with abandon, as did I. Just a heavy rub, but my God, I was shattered. I wasn’t even acting. I was completely lost. I can’t remember the last time I let go as I did with him.”
“And now you dreamed of Daventry.”
Michael stared across the room at his bookshelf. “Yes.”
“You shouldn’t have fucked his boy. Stirred everything back up in your damn head.”
“It was a very good fuck. But you’re right, it wasn’t worth this.” He dug his fingers into Rodger’s chest. “It doesn’t matter. It was just a stupid nightmare. It will fade soon enough.”
Rodger grunted. “Do you want me to nap up here a bit?”
Michael glanced up at him. “Would you mind?”
“Fuck yes. It’s cold as a witch’s tit in your attic.”
“But it doesn’t smell like sweat or sex, and no one moans unless I stub my toe.” Michael shrugged. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
Rodger sighed and nudged Michael with his hip. “Roll fucking over.”
Michael slept without dreaming, face to the wall and Rodger’s strong, hairy arm around him.
But that afternoon as he ran some errands, he discovered the dream hadn’t faded at all.
Twice he thought he saw Daventry on the street. Outside his favorite coffee shop he saw a tall man stepping out of a black carriage, and when Michael lingered to see if he were handsome, his heart nearly stopped as he found it was the marquess staring back at him, dark and hungry. When he stumbled backward into the shop window, banging his head on the glass, he opened his eyes once more and rubbed his stinging head. He saw that it wasn’t the marquess at all. It was a gent, all right, but just some old toff. He didn’t even look like Daventry.
This was with his spectacles on.
It happened again outside the dressmaker’s. One of the girls wanted a new frock to try and catch herself a rich coal merchant, and Michael was leaning against the wall by the window when he saw Daventry again. This time the marquess stood by a lamppost, leaning on a walking stick and grinning like the lecher he was, staring right at Michael. He cried out and knocked over a mannequin, had half the girls in the shop rushing over to see what was wrong—and of course when he stood, Daventry wasn’t anywhere.
“You need to get your spectacles changed,” Rodger said when Michael told him over dinner what had happened.
“There’s nothing wrong with my glasses,” Michael snapped. “Just my stupid head. He wasn’t there either time. I only thought I saw him.” He drew his knees up to his chest and sank deeper into the ratty sofa in the back of Rodger’s office. “You’re right. I should never have fucked Albert.”
Rodger frowned. “Albert? You’re calling him Albert?”
“It’s complicated.”
Rodger grimaced. “Fuck someone else, love. I’ll find you one of your favorites and nudge them to come round. Who would you like?”
Michael shrugged. “Billy Church?”
“Church!” Rodger laughed. “That old horse? What do you want him for?”
“He’s gentle and comfortable.” Michael grabbed an afghan off the back of the couch and tugged it over his legs. “He calls me his precious angel, right before he buggers me silly. Yes, he’s one of my favorites.”
“As you like it,” Rodger said, and left to see to Billy Church’s nudging.
Billy was thin and slight and had a cock as thick and long as a thimble even when erect. There wasn’t any way to mistake him for the Marquess of Daventry, not even dead drunk. When he stumbled hesitantly into the room, smiling his shy smile and mangling his hat in his hands, Michael smiled back and prepared to lose himself with a comfortable old shoe. And yet once Michael’s eyes closed, once he began moaning and gasping to egg Billy on, his mind was full of shadows, and the next thing he knew he was cold and shaking and Billy was pleading in his high, whining voice for Michael to please start breathing again.
Rodger had given Billy a full refund and one of the new boys for free, and then he’d come back to Michael looking very grave.
“I’m fine,” Michael insisted. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have gone with Billy. Find me someone rough and ready.”
Rough and ready that night was a wealthy shipping man, Edgar Trowle, who liked to sing sea shanties while he fucked Michael against the wall. So at seven that evening, Michael was in that very position, gripping a well-placed bar above his head as Mr. Trowle belted out his best baritone and prepared to drive his clipper in to port.
He turned into Daventry before Michael’s very eyes, and Michael began to scream.
Worst of all was that at first Trowle thought it was part of the game, and Rodger ended up coming in and nearly decking the man before Michael could recover enough to explain that no, it wasn’t the very wealthy customer, it was him. Which had only mad
e things worse, and Rodger ended up having to promise Trowle the rest of the month gratis just to keep the peace.
Once that was settled, he came storming back to Michael.
“This has got to stop, ducks,” he said, his voice full of both anger and deep concern. “And if you tell me you’re fine once more, I’ll pin you to that mattress until you tell me the truth of what’s bothering you.”
Michael drew his dressing gown tighter to his body and curled against the headboard, staring sightlessly at a lewd painting on the far wall. Trowle had been gone for twenty minutes, but Michael was still shaking. “I don’t know what’s happening. I honestly feel fine, and then all of a sudden it shifts. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Lord George didn’t do anything unusual to you? Outside of rub his prick against yours, which I believe you agreed to?”
Michael nodded. And shivered. So cold, so very, very cold. “I must be tired.”
Rodger sighed. “Take the rest of the night off. Go read your books and get some sleep.”
Michael did. He didn’t dream, either, and he woke in the morning feeling very refreshed. He came downstairs whistling, and by midafternoon he decided he was ready to work. He gave a few hand jobs in the lobby and sucked some cocks in the private rooms. He even let a fat candle merchant undress him and fondle him in front of his nervous-looking friend in one of the parlors. Relieved, Michael went upstairs with a comfortable old dock worker, stripped naked, put his arse in the air, and got ready for a delicious ride.
And it happened again.
There you go, boy. That’s the way. Spread yourself for me. Show me how much you want me to claim you.
This time when Michael started shouting, his partner stopped, concerned he had hurt Michael, and Michael was able to lie and say that no, he’d hurt himself. They rubbed cocks instead, and he did reach his zenith, gloriously pinned beneath the sweaty weight of a man. But he still felt cold even an hour later, and he didn’t try to take a trick into a private room.
He told Rodger about it, though, because he had to. Rodger wasn’t pleased.
A Private Gentleman Page 4