A Private Gentleman

by Heidi Cullinan

  Chapter Eight

  Daventry House was aglow the following night when Wes arrived. He was on foot, as he lived only a few blocks away, and he was early, because he did better at highly populated functions if he was able to stake out a place in the drawing room first and watch people arrive. Even so, the house was already afire with light, inside and out. He could hear the gaslights’ quiet pops and hisses as he stepped into the main hall. It was an eerie sound, but he rather liked it. It felt modern and oddly safe.

  “Good evening, my lord,” the butler greeted Wes as he took his hat and coat. “Your father is in the ballroom with your aunt, overseeing the finishing touches of the decorations. Lord Vaughn is not at home but is expected within the hour.”

  Wes inclined his head in thanks for the information, then geared his mouth up for a question. “L-L-Lord Alten?”

  The butler’s eyebrows rose briefly, but he replied, “In the schoolroom, my lord.”

  Inclining his head again, Wes headed up the stairs.

  Wes braced himself for accusing looks and tender pleadings from his nephew over the promised outings to the gardens which had not come to pass. It would be very easy to tell the truth and blame his brother, but that wouldn’t help father and son’s already greatly strained relationship. He decided best would be to blame the Society, saying they had refused to allow a minor onto the premises, even supervised.

  It would of course make Wes appear the weakling, incapable of convincing his peers of a small, simple favor. The thought made his shoulders heavy and sent his hand to his pocket to press against the extra pills he had brought with him. He resisted the urge, reminding himself that at least in this way he could serve his family, however inglorious the deed.

  However, when he stepped into the small library-turned-schoolroom, he found his preparations were not necessary.

  Edwin sat bent over a table, and he did not look up when Wes entered, not until the tutor rapped the boy on the back of the head to acknowledge his visitor. When Edwin’s hollow eyes looked up and saw Wes, some brightness went back into them, and he rose and threw his arms around his uncle.

  “Oh, Uncle George!”

  “Master Edwin,” the tutor chided, “you must not behave in such a wild manner.”

  Edwin stiffened and tried to pull back, but Wes stayed him with a hand on his shoulder. He leveled his gaze at the tutor.

  “Th-Th-Thank you. Th-Th-That will b-be all.”

  Even full of stammer, it seemed, he held enough gravitas to be obeyed. The tutor stiffened angrily, but he also inclined his head and left the room. Once the door shut, Edwin’s posture relaxed somewhat. Wes led the boy to the sofa and sat beside him.

  For some time they simply sat in silence. Eventually Edwin’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry,” he said almost in a whisper.

  Wes frowned. “Y-You ha-have nothing to be s-s-sorry for.” He clenched his hands once before forcing them open again. “Edw-win, I kn-know they t-t-ell you to k-k-keep a st-stiff upper l-l-lip, but I m-m-must know if y-your t-t-t-utor is hur-hur-hurting you.”

  The boy slumped further and shook his head.

  Wes ached. “P-Please. W-What is w-wrong?”

  “What’s wrong is that he’s done nothing but throw temper tantrums and behave like a spoilt child,” Lord Vaughn said from the door, his voice booming out over the room. “His behavior is appalling, and I’ve told him so. He’s even more of a disgrace to the family than you are, Wes.” Vaughn stopped in front of the fireplace and glared down at his son. “Note well your uncle, boy. If you fancy ending up as pathetic as he is, then by all means continue this behavior. And as for you—” He shifted his glare to Wes. “You can leave my son alone and let the men of the family bring him in hand without your nannying.”

  Wes had begun to blush at the first insult to his honor, but by the third he was positively fuming. Words filled his heart and spilled into his mouth, and he lifted his chin to spew them at his brother. But though his lips were parted, his whole soul ready, even now they tripped at the gate.

  “P-P-P-P-P-P—”

  Vaughn sneered. “God’s teeth, Wes. Listen to yourself. P-P-P-P-P-what? What is it you want? Spit it out, please do. Make something of the thousands of pounds father sunk into fixing you, all for nothing. But you won’t, will you? Because you’re damaged and broken. Well, you won’t break my son. You’ve already done more than enough. This isn’t going well. He’s only getting worse, despite all Father has done. It’s because of you, I know it. Because he wants to be like you.” His face was red, his eyes dark and shiny with his rage. “I won’t have him stammer like you. I won’t have my heir turn out like you. They coddled you, and that’s what did it. It won’t happen again. Not to my son.” He aimed his finger at the door. “Go. Get out.”

  Wes went.

  He rose to his feet, crossed the room and exited the door, all as if in a dream. In the hall the tutor passed him, looking superior and smug. Wes kept on walking, oddly numb, all the way to the stairs and back into the main salon.

  Daventry House felt masculine and somber, full of hush and the whisper of power and money. This sensation only increased as the guests arrived. Dukes and earls and the Prime Minister himself were here, as well as their wives. Oh, there were others, nobodies with power or money but not both, not enough. They hovered as they were meant to along the peripheries of the walls, watching the play of the others respectfully, whispering and admiring from afar. Waiting to be summoned for their moment of utility.

  Wes stood with them.

  He took up a station near a window in the farthest part of the second drawing room. It had the advantage of being both beside a window and a doorway. The window was for illusion of escape only; the doorway was literal in its promise of freedom, if only into a quieter part of the house. Only half the guests were here, but already he was feeling the panic of the press of bodies, the pressure of the din, the stench of too many exotic perfumes mingling with scorched silk and sweat.

  His pouch of pastilles lurked in his pocket, inviting him to swallow the lot of them and escape into calm. He’d already taken several, and even a week ago, he wouldn’t have hesitated to take more. But Miss Brannigan’s warning still rang in his ears. He would not end up like that from his pastilles, would he?

  Yet all he had to do was think of how delicious the feeling was of sliding away, and he decided it didn’t matter, just so long as he was able to escape.

  His hand slipped into his pocket, feeling the tin case where the pills lay.

  “Are you hiding again, George?”

  Wes straightened and turned to his father, who was smiling but looked weary, as he always seemed to do with Wes.

  “N-no,” Wes lied, flushing at the stutter. “Just w-w-watching.”

  Lord Daventry looked at Wes soberly. “I don’t ask much from you. I am content to leave you to your plants most of the time. But tonight I have need of you. Indeed, your country has need of you.” He nodded across the room at a sea of men. “Come. I will introduce you now.”

  The trip across the room was unbearable. Noise, so much noise, and so many bodies. Only the threat of shame should his father see his panic kept him from running or fainting or simply standing there and screaming. That and the memory of his brother holding Wes up as the warning of what would become of his son if he did not come about. Though thirty-seven years of trying had taught him otherwise, he tried to come about himself as well. He could do this. It was as they all told him, all in his head. There was nothing to fear here. He was fine. He was safe and fine, and he would be fine—

  But just to be sure, he reached for his pills, took three and popped them quickly into his mouth. He chewed them, gagging on the bitter taste, but the trick worked as it had before. Within seconds he felt the beginning of the drug overtaking his system.

  Almost without warning, he stood before a small, sour-faced man with beady black eyes and a well-greased mustache.

  “Daventry,” the man said coolly. “Such a cha
rming home. Thank you for your invitation.”

  Wes’s father inclined his head. “I am glad you approve, Presley. We discussed, earlier, my second son, the botanist? This is he. Lord George Albert.”

  Presley’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “I see. But I’ve heard, my lord, that he also has a stammer. Quite a nasty one. I’m not certain I want to trust the acquisition of something so important to me with someone not right in the head.”

  Daventry’s hand on Wes’s arm tightened, as did his smile. Wes stared into Presley’s beady, suspicious eyes and tried to keep himself from casting up his accounts. “My son is merely shy. When it comes to his plants, you can do no better than he. Isn’t that so, George?”

  Wes opened his mouth, but terror kept him from so much as making a squeak. It was so loud, so hot, and Presley glared at him, almost sneering—

  “We must greet more guests,” Daventry said quickly, his grip on Wes’s arm nearly cutting off his circulation. “But when the women retire after dinner, perhaps the two of you may discuss your…options.”

  “Assuming your son can find his tongue by then, of course.” Presley smiled flatly at Daventry. “I shall look forward to it as I have little else,” he said, clearly indicating he looked forward to it not at all.

  Daventry laughed nervously. “Nonsense. George Albert, explain to the man there’s nothing wrong with you but a scholar’s quirky disposition.”

  He nudged Wes hard in the small of his back. Wes tried to smile, but he didn’t dare open his mouth. He’d taken too many pills. He wasn’t relaxed; he was ill.

  Another laugh, this one almost dangerous. “Come, boy.” Daventry nudged him harder and lower in the center of his back.

  Wes’s mouth came open as he cried out in pain—and then vomited all over Presley’s shoes.

  Daventry hauled Wes away, weaving him through the crowd, the painful grip on Wes’s arm the only thing that kept him from being sick again. Once they were in the hall he didn’t let up, only dragged Wes to his study. As soon as the door shut, he shoved Wes away and paced angrily across the floor.

  “God’s teeth, but I don’t know what to do with you.” He stopped at the window and stared out at it. “All the years I have supported you and allowed you to slip into the shadows of life. I need your aid for this one small thing, and yet you are so self-centered, George, that you cannot give me even this.” He turned enough to look wearily over his shoulder. “Or perhaps it is me who has failed. Failed to believe them when they told me you were broken. Determined in my pride not to let my son be so.”

  Wes had to work harder than ever to form words. “I-I-I am s-s-s-s-s-sorry.”

  His father wasn’t listening. “Power and control. It is everything. And yet you’ve never had it. And heaven help your brother, but I think we have another one of you in his son. He started to stammer this week. I’ve been telling Richard we can aid him, but perhaps I’m only fooling myself. He is as worthless as you, it seems.” Daventry pushed off the window, shaking his head. “Rest assured, George Albert. I won’t ask favors of you again. I shall call a carriage for you and have it take you back to your apartments, and I will make your excuses at dinner.” He sighed, then nodded. “Excuse me.”

  His father left, and Wes stood for some time in the dark room, shaking, feeling angry, feeling guilty, feeling deep pits of despair expand before him.

  Once in the carriage, he rallied. He thought of Michael, of Dove Street. He thought of going there, of dragging him into a bedroom and losing himself inside the beautiful whore. He thought of how good it would feel to hear Michael shout out his name.

  Unless, of course, he recoiled from him too.

  Wes pulled the pill case from his pocket, emptied the remainder of them into his hand and swallowed them down. He was unconscious before the footman so much as opened his door.

  He had no idea how he came to be in his rooms. All he knew was that one moment he was in the carriage and the next he was lying in his bed, soaked in sweat, the taste of vomit in his mouth and a worried maid whispering to the butler beside him.

  Wes grunted at them, rolled over and went back to opium-soaked dreams.

  As he had the night before, Michael woke in the middle of the night in a puddle of sweat, voice hoarse and still ringing with a scream. He stared into the shadowy darkness, cold, shaking hands clutching at the covers.

  Then he threw the covers back, reached for his dressing gown and stumbled toward the stairs.

  Three girls were giggling and whispering to one another as they fussed at the mirror in the bathroom, but when they got one look at Michael, their smiles died. Michael tried not to think of what new gossip they would spread and slammed around as he drew his bath and heated water to fill the great porcelain tub. He had just bathed the day before, but he felt gritty and filthy from head to toe, as if he’d slept buried in a heap of dirt crawling with bugs and worms. While he waited for the tub to fill, he paced the room, trying to outrun the feeling of unease and mild nausea that kept creeping up behind him like a shadow. It was with a great sigh of relief that he sank into the water at last, leaning all the way back against the rim and tipping his face up to the ceiling. He shut his eyes.

  He saw fine white linen and tasted bitter male seed on his tongue. Pressing his forehead to the bed, he reached back with cold, shaking hands and parted his cheeks.

  “That’s the way,” a smooth, darkly sensual voice praised him, as if he were a very good dog. “Yes. Open yourself for me, Michael, and let me see my prize.”

  Michael’s eyes were open and he was scrambling desperately to get out of the tub even before he realized what he was doing—he fell twice, choked on a strangled sound, then landed in a heap on the rug beside the bath. Wet, bruised and shaking, he curled into a ball and stared at the dirt caked against the clawed feet of the tub until the terror faded.

  He climbed back into the tub, but he did not relax. He took vicious hold of the cake of soap and scrubbed himself vigorously from head to toe with it, rubbing and scrubbing until his skin throbbed with heat. As the water drained, he toweled himself off with the same angry determination. After storming upstairs to dress, he tucked his hair into a queue, stuffed it under a cap, and reached for his spectacles and his purse.

  It was raining and cold, technically morning but still so early the sun hadn’t even begun to peek through the clouds, so Michael hunched into his coat and kept himself under eaves as much as he could as he made his way down the back streets and out onto the main roads. For almost an hour he simply wandered aimlessly, shivering and drenched now to the bone. Eventually he saw the call sign of a pub he knew well enough to enter, and after ordering a plate of breakfast, a pot of tea and a paper, he tucked himself into a corner by the fire, and before his order even arrived, he fell asleep.

  The barkeep had been kind enough to serve him again with hot food once he’d woken, and Michael ate gratefully and sipped his freshened tea. He was still slightly damp from his walk in the rain, but he was mostly dried out now, which he supposed was something.

  There were still shadows in his head. They were just ghosts now, dull images that made him uneasy: soundless, tasteless, colorless old dreams. But they upset Michael as much now as they had when he’d been dreaming, because he’d thought he was rid of them. He’d been fine. What had happened? What had made them come back?

  How could he make them go away again?

  When a figure slid into the booth across from him, he startled, then averted his eyes and focused intently on his plate as he saw who it was.

  “Why the devil didn’t you come and get me?” Rodger asked, sounding weary and frazzled. “Been looking for you for an hour.”

  Michael pushed a lump of potato into a puddle of runny egg. “You needn’t have.”

  “What, you want me to leave you alone?” When Michael didn’t answer, Rodger sighed and reached for Michael’s tea. After draining it, he picked up the pot to pour the cup full again. “Do you want to head back or stay out for a
while?”

  “Out.” Michael pushed his plate away and tried to give Rodger a hard look, but he was afraid he appeared mostly dull. “You treat me like your virgin cousin you don’t dare let out of your sight. I was only taking a walk and having something to eat.”

  “You ain’t my cousin, and you sure as hell ain’t a virgin.” Rodger speared the potato and snagged the crust of Michael’s toast as he rose. “Come on. I’ll take you over to that shop you like in Cheapside.”

  Friar’s Bookshop. Michael’s spirits rose in delight before sinking in guilt. “I can’t. I haven’t earned in a month.”

  “You brought in eight hundred pounds,” Rodger reminded him.

  Michael felt the dark that had never fully left him close over his head, and he shrank back into his shadows.

  Rodger grabbed his hand. “Come on, love,” he urged in a quiet whisper.

  “I don’t want to keep having the nightmares. I don’t know why they’ve come back.” He huddled into himself. “Maybe I shouldn’t see him again. Except we’ve taken his money.”

  “We’ll give it back,” Rodger promised.

  Michael tried to bite his tongue, but it was no use. “Except I think I want to see him again,” he whispered.

  “Come.” Rodger tugged Michael to his feet and led him through the maze of tables toward the door. “I’ve a yen to see you smile, ducks, so I’m taking you to go play with your books.”

  Memory caught up with Michael—he saw Albert stepping forward in the dim light of the bedroom, and he saw Daventry smile his wicked smile in the shadows.

  Shaking his head to clear out them both, he pulled free of Rodger and reached for coin to pay his bill and extra for the barkeep’s trouble.

  “I just want to go home,” he said.

  Rodger nodded and rested his hand briefly on Michael’s shoulder before he turned and headed for the door. Anxious and confused, Michael lifted his heavy feet one after the other and followed Rodger out into the morning London fog.