A Private Gentleman
Page 27
“This is all a mad stunt,” Daventry said, calm and cool. “I am sorry you have all been exposed to such chicanery, but I promise you, this man and all his associates will hang.”
“We have proof, of course,” Rodger replied calmly. “Beyond the witness.” He motioned to Michael. “A journal.”
The room went quiet. Michael withdrew the book from inside his jacket.
Daventry, for the first time, seemed afraid.
His eyes met Michael’s, and though the book was in his hands, though he was but a moment from exposing the monster, Michael was caught.
He was a boy again. He was in his mother’s house, and Daventry stood there smiling, as he was now, and he was holding out his hand—
“Give that to me,” Daventry demanded.
Michael faltered. No, he tried to reply, but his throat would not work.
Vaughn stepped between them and took it from Michael’s hand. He closed it in disgust. “It’s nonsense.”
“As I assured you,” Daventry drawled. “These men are frauds.” His gaze sharpened on Michael. “I promise you, they will be dealt with.”
You’re such a good whore, young man. Such a very, very good whore.
“Code.”
The word burst out like a shot through the room, and it took Michael almost a full minute to realize it was his own voice he heard.
“The journal is written in a code.” He looked at Daventry, so terrifying, still, in the face of this, so confident, and he said, “I can read it to you.”
And he did. He read with Vaughn holding the book open for him when Michael’s hands began to shake, as the earl comprehended the code and read along with him—then Michael held the book alone, reading as if from far away, the voice not for himself, not for the boy within him, but the boy who was still in this house, the boy—
“My lord! My lord!” The housekeeper burst into the room, her face white, her cap askew. “My lord—Lord Vaughn, he has taken a knife! He has cut himself—”
It all turned to madness then—people ran everywhere, Vaughn chief among them, bolting up the stairs, shouting, “Edwin! Edwin!” The servants wept, the women fainted or screamed. Some of the men slipped quietly out the front door. Rodger stood still beside Michael, not touching him, but holding him up all the same.
Daventry stared at him, his eyes burning with hatred. Did he recognize him, Michael wondered? Did he know he was looking at another boy he had ruined, or had he pushed him cleanly out of his mind? Would it matter?
Would he, as he appeared to suggest, find a way to destroy them, to use his power he wielded so confidently, and simply continue on?
Daventry was moving. He walked toward Rodger and Michael, and Michael tried to withdraw, but now Rodger grabbed his arm and held him. Inside, the boy flinched; outside, Michael was wooden, trying desperately not to let him see how frightened he was.
Daventry smiled a cold, terrible smile.
“I will ruin you,” he whispered. “I will throw you to the wolves, all of you, and I will teach you what happens to those who dare oppose me.”
“No,” a voice said behind Michael—a voice quiet but strong and sure. “No. You won’t.”
Albert was there. He was rattled, battered and half held up by one of Rodger’s men, but he was there.
He looked into his father’s face, his own full of fury.
He spat at his father.
Gasps from the far sides of the room made Michael turn away from the scene, and he remembered they weren’t alone. He didn’t recognize the other guests by name, but he knew they were all important. They were leaders of the community. Peers of the realm.
And they were all looking at Daventry, uncertain.
Daventry saw them too. He had turned away from his son and back to his crowd, ready to reassure them, but it was too late. They were already doubting.
“What is this?” he sneered. “You would believe my damaged son and his whore over me?”
“Your undamaged son charges you too,” Roger pointed out. “And several maids and scullery boys will attest to it.” He rocked back on his heels and smiled at Daventry with savage glee. “I have kept tabs on you a long time, my lord. You’ve dallied with a number of young men over the years, some of them from very well-to-do families. How will you explain it away should they come forward?”
“This is all lies,” the marquess hissed.
Rodger had to be making some bald guesses, for surely he hadn’t tracked the marquess all this time. Though perhaps he had. Michael supposed it didn’t matter, for once again, Rodger proved himself the master of manipulation—his proof was immaterial. The marquess’s peers were watching him carefully, watching him with new eyes.
Eyes full of concern—and doubt.
The marquess saw it too. For a few minutes he seemed to be trying to think of something to say. Finally, Daventry calmly wiped the spittle from his face, turned and headed down the hall toward the kitchen.
The remaining guests, murmuring to each other, quietly filed out.
Michael moved. As the door shut behind the last of the marquess’s guests, Michael ran to his love and, swallowing the sound of his cry, threw himself into Albert’s arms.
Chapter Eighteen
Vaughn and Wes sat together by Edwin’s bedside, not speaking. The boy’s arm was bandaged, tucked beneath the blanket. On the mantle a clock ticked, and hushed voices could be heard in the hall.
Outside, the wind rustled in the trees.
Inside, the brothers kept silent.
Eventually Vaughn said, in a hoarse voice, “Wes, what do I do?”
Wes didn’t answer, only reached out and stroked his nephew’s sweat-damp forehead.
Vaughn stared at his son, looking hollow and beaten. “What do I do? How do I help him? What—what do I tell him? How do I explain that I—that I—” He broke off and buried his face in his hands, bent double over his knees.
Wes put a weary hand on his brother’s shoulder. “It’s n-not y-your fault,” he whispered. “N-no more th-than it is Edwin’s.”
“It is my fault,” Vaughn insisted, despair tearing at his voice. “I am his father. I should have protected him. I should have known—I should have believed you when you—” He broke down again.
Wes sat with his brother for several minutes. Then he sent for Penny.
Wes didn’t know what she told Richard, but whatever it was seemed to ease him, and he tried to hire her as a nurse on the spot. She politely refused, but she gave him several names and promised to work with him.
Lord Daventry. For that was his brother, now. His father had gone up to his study and put a bullet through the back of his head. There would be that to deal with too, but their father could do no more damage now. Edwin needed them.
And Vaughn needed Wes, and his friends.
For Michael met with Vaughn—now Lord Daventry—too. Uncertain at first and with Wes at his side, Michael told the new marquess what their father had done to him. Calmly, succinctly, but he gave Wes’s brother the truth. Wes sat beside him as he did so.
“Is that why—?” His brother turned to Wes. “Is that why you are the way you are? Did he—to you—?” He paled.
Wes shook his head. “N-no.” He held out his hand. “I d-do not ask th-that y-you accept us. Only that y-you do not p-p-persecute us. W-we will stay f-f-f-far away—”
Daventry looked crestfallen. “Good God, man—you want me to tell his mother on my own? Not about the two of you—she could never understand that, and no, I won’t persecute you, for heaven’s sake. But—” He gestured upstairs to the room where Edwin rested. “He adores you. Why would you leave him now?”
Wes paused. “I th-th-thought—” He turned to Michael.
Michael took over for him. “You don’t think we would be a poor influence on him?”
“What—for being sodomites?” Wes’s brother made a face, though at himself. “God’s teeth, isn’t there a better word? For being lovers, then. Oh, yes, it’s deuced odd, but�
��” His expression turned hollow. “I don’t know. I should say I never thought Father could do such things, so I suppose…” He sank back in his chair.
Wes swallowed the bile in his throat. “I would n-never,” he whispered, “n-never h-h-hurt Edwin.”
“Nor would I,” Michael said.
Daventry was a ship lost at sea. “The Brannigan woman said she thought you could be a help, having gone through the same.” This was directed at Michael. “And I would welcome it. Even with this—” He gestured at the two of them. His eyes were damp. “I don’t know how he shall ever be normal again. How he can ever be the heir I need him to be.”
“We will help,” Michael promised.
“Would you come with us to the country?” Daventry asked, glancing between the two of them. “Both of you? Perhaps you could stay at Ballyglen. You could have the run of the dower house, and I don’t care what people say. It’s humble, but it’s not far from London. You could turn the gardens into whatever you like, Wes.”
Wes smiled, wanting to laugh, his spirit felt so full. “Ballyglen—yes. I would l-love to.” His smile went so wide it nearly broke his face as he turned to Michael. “Would you st-stay with me there? In a ch-charming cottage just outs-side of Oxford?”
Michael’s eyes danced, his face shining as bright as the sun. “Yes.”
Within a week they had retired to the family estate, Daventry and his wife and Edwin at the main house, Michael and Wes in the dowager cottage. Rodger had found them a small cache of servants who wouldn’t blink at two men sharing a bed together, and that had been that.
Edwin, once the doctors Penny had sent him declared him well, was almost always in their house. If he wasn’t reading with Michael, he was out in the garden with Wes. The boy was still skittish, and he wasn’t exactly the same as he had been before, but his nightmares had stopped. And, as Penny had pointed out, he was living his life.
“He isn’t hiding, and he isn’t dwelling on it.” They watched from a distance as Edwin played with a paper boat in a pond.
Wes shook his head. “I h-hate that it had to happen at all.”
Penny shrugged. “We all have pain, Wes. It isn’t life without it. What matters in life isn’t that we escape pain. What matters is that we overcome it.” She smiled and took his hand. “Come. Let’s go help him with his boat.”
Wes rose to do so, but as Penny set out across the grass, he heard his name echoing from back at the main house, and when he turned toward the sound he saw Michael beckoning to him. He made his apologies to Penny and hurried his strides across the lawn to his lover, who was beaming.
When he asked Michael what he wanted, all he did was smile, hold out his hand, and say, “Come with me.”
Michael led him back toward their cottage, to the greenhouse in the back.
The stovehouse smelled of new wood, and a month past its introduction, it was still a delight to Wes. It had more apparatus for heating and watering than what he had at Regent’s Park, for as Penny no longer wanted for money for her house by the docks, neither did the marquess ever let Wes want for a botanist’s luxury. He hadn’t yet asked for exotic plants to be delivered, but he suspected his brother wouldn’t hesitate to procure them.
It was August, and there were as many blooms around the house as there were inside it, but the most exotic and precious plants still remained within.
“I just noticed it this morning,” Michael said, sounding very excited. “It must have happened overnight.”
Michael led Wes around the corner past a great potted palm, behind four exotic ferns, and there in the back where his orchids were, he saw it.
The leafless orchid was blooming.
It was just a small bloom. The petals were thin and white and open against the long green stem—it was the most amazing bloom Wes had ever seen. The top part was like a star, each petal a thin and delicate arm, but the bottom produced a lip that extended out like a slipper—and then from that, as if it had not done enough, two slender arms snaked from each side.
Pale, delicate and lovely—and healthy.
He didn’t know how long he sat there. Michael brought him his notebook and pencil, and later a spot of tea, but eventually he took away both and led Wes back out into the sunshine, declaring he’d been a botanist long enough.
“To celebrate the blooming,” Michael declared, linking their arms, “we will take the train back to London and spend the night at Dove Street.” He ran his hand seductively down Wes’s arm. “And you shall take me to the ballroom, and we will go dancing.”
Wes had been smiling, his blood humming at the thought of all that they would and could do in a room at Dove Street, but when he heard dancing, his face fell. “I c-can’t dance,” he reminded Michael.
Michael gave him an impatient look. “It isn’t terribly difficult to dance, dear Albert. I can teach you in a trifle.”
“M-many have t-tried,” Wes said, sensing disaster and wishing to avoid it. “All have f-f-failed.”
“Half an hour,” Michael declared. “Give me half an hour to teach you, and if I can’t, then I shall believe you that you are in fact unteachable, and I will never bring up the subject again.”
Wes rubbed at his forehead, hating this with a fiery passion, but not seeing any way out, either. He sighed. “Very w-well.”
They ended up in their parlor, all the couches and chairs pushed back and rugs rolled up. Michael stood in the center of the room, held his arms up, and gestured with his wrist. “Come here, please. I can’t dance with you from fifteen feet away.”
Wes came forward, lifting his hands into dancing position. Michael nodded in approval and slipped into his embrace. This made Wes’s body hum. He’d never danced with a man before. He found he was more relaxed already. This was so much better. Though he knew it would still end in disaster.
“All dances are patterns,” Michael explained. “The trick is to find the basic pattern and teach it to your feet. As the leader, you’ll also need to guide the dance steps of your partner, who in this case is me. Even then, however, you stick to the same pattern. When you’re ready, you move a bit about the room. You must look out for furniture and, if there are others dancing with you, other couples. But essentially, Albert darling, that is all there is to dancing.”
Wes’s eyebrows lifted briefly. Put like that, it didn’t sound difficult at all.
He had to give Michael credit—Wes did better with him than he’d ever done. While they were dancing side by side, Wes mimicking Michael, he did quite, quite well indeed. When Michael stood before him, mirroring his steps, he also did fairly well.
And then Michael stepped into his embrace, Wes tried to lead, and it fell to pieces. Every single time.
“Sorry,” Wes murmured, blushing furiously. “I t-told you—”
Michael lifted a hand and waved him into silence. He stared thoughtfully at Wes for several seconds. “Hmm. Do you know, it never occurred to me before, but—yes. Why not?” His smile became wicked. “Again, my lord.”
Wes raised his arms, swallowing a weary sigh. Michael kept grinning, and he shook his head.
“No, darling.” He shifted Wes’s hands, placing one on Michael’s right shoulder and clasped his other hand with his left. “This time, it’s you who will follow me.” When Wes blinked, Michael continued grinning. “The same steps, but this time beginning with the other foot. I’ll lead the way. You only have to let your body move in the direction I tell it to go.”
Wes felt a bit strange, he had to admit, as if he had been unmanned somehow. And yet—well, hadn’t that been Michael, only moments before? Had he thought him unmanly?
A bit, he admitted to himself.
No longer. For Michael moved Wes with strength and grace about the floor, and when Wes tripped, he recovered them so smoothly that anyone watching them wouldn’t even have known. For what felt like hours, they simply turned about the room, Michael humming a tune softly under his breath to give them time and rhythm. They danced, and they dance
d, and they danced.
Lord George Albert Westin was dancing.
All these years. All these years, an entire lifetime of years of parties, of home dances, dances at school—his sainted mother even had been frustrated with him for not being able to dance. The tutors. The daughters of mothers who hoped to win favor with the marquess by helping him with his socially awkward son. “Teach him to dance,” that was the excuse. What everyone meant, of course, was Teach him how to be in the world. How to get out of the house. How to be able to bear a party without passing out. How to not disgrace the family. How to dance, not just in the arms of a woman, but in life.
Michael’s mouth brushed Wes’s ear, and Wes could hear the smile in Michael’s voice as he said, “It didn’t even take me fifteen minutes.”
Wes wanted to laugh—laugh, cry, shout, leap through the air. For the first time in his life, even, he wanted to run out into the street and run up to strangers and shout in their faces and spin them around. I can dance. I can dance, and I can speak. I can love, I can laugh—I can live. There’s nothing wrong with me. There never was. I just needed to find the right way to do it. The right place to do it.
He looked down at Michael.
The right man to do it with.
Wes stopped dancing—not tripping, just stopping, and he held Michael fast about the waist, clutching him, drawing him close. Shivering, he shut his eyes and buried his face in Michael’s neck, drawing in deep draughts of him.
“Albert?” Michael called softly. “Are you all right?”
Wes pulled back, swallowing hard. He looked Michael in the eye, but he still couldn’t say anything. He touched Michael’s face in wonder.
“Albert?” Michael stroked Wes’s cheek.
“Yes,” Wes said, spirit soaring, his throat full of words, and his tongue—at least for this moment—content to get completely out of the way. “Yes. I am perfectly fine.”
Wes bent and kissed his lover, at which point, though his words were still ready to slide out on command, he had no need of them at all.