“Yes. I do, in fact, want a drink. Badly. Plymouth martini, please. Very dry, with a twist.”
Randy iced a glass, then began to assemble the cocktail. He glanced up as he let a few drops of vermouth into the shaker. “What are you doing here, Jack? I haven’t had time to deal with anything.”
“I know that, but I was walking to my hotel when I understood something.” He waited as Randy poured his martini into the chilled glass, added a twist of lemon peel, and slid the drink toward him. When Randy met his eye again, Jack said, “I didn’t give you what you really need to make a decision. Trust.”
Randy frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“I think you do. You told me already trust is important to you, but I failed to grasp your meaning fully.” His gaze was steady until Randy recalled the moment at Cuir. Jack nodded at the understanding on Randy’s face. “You said to me just last night, if I gave you my trust, you wouldn’t abuse it. And you didn’t. Now I would like to make you that gift again.”
Malcolm returned from his dinner break and looked back and forth between Randy and Jack. The questions just had to be piling up in his assistant’s head but Randy ignored that. “Mal, can you cover?” Randy gestured with his head for Jack to accompany him to one of the side rooms off the main bar.
They sat down in neighboring wing chairs, and Jack took a sip of his martini. “That’s a bit of all right, that,” he said before resting it on a cocktail table. He leaned forward and clasped his hands together as they dangled between his knees. “Randy, I’m not trying to flatter you when I say that you see things I’d prefer to keep hidden. Things I thought I’d actually defeated in myself. But I understand that what I conceal out of shame may be perceived as duplicitous. May I trust you again?”
Randy dipped his chin in agreement.
“You are quite right about my clothes and my accent. This inna… well, this isn’t me. Not really. I grew up in a blue collar town far from London. About three hours northwest in fact, in a place called Stoke-on-Trent. It dunna sound like much distance, but believe me, the difference between the London art world and the factory where my dad worked—it’s vast. Practically uncrossable.” As Jack spoke, the London tones relaxed and revealed more of the burr Randy had detected previously.
“I’m the middle child of five, all boys. My mum was a school teacher and my dad worked shifts when he could get ’em. It’s a fine place for many, but I felt trapped. I dreamed of getting away to somewhere I could feel free. Somewhere more refined, like. My mates at school, my brothers, even my dad kicked my bum for putting on airs, as they said. Said I was soft. Called me a monstink.” Jack gave Randy a small grin. “It means a conceited young ’un. Anyway, my mum understood. She probably knew I couldn’t stay in Stoke.
“I went to uni—that is, to university—to study art. Do you know a film called Little Man Tate?” Randy did. “There’s a part when the boy genius looks at a print of van Gogh’s Irises. He sees one white iris amidst the purple, and he says, ‘Maybe it’s lonely.’ Well, that was a revelation for me. I was frankly shocked. I had probably seen dozens of posters and brollies an’ all with Irises, but until that film, it never occurred to me to wonder what the artist meant to convey. It was a sublime touch, this little observation of what van Gogh may have intended. I started looking up things in the library to see what records there were, and came across some of Vincent’s correspondence. That was the start of my passion.”
Randy got it. What Kevin had done for him was different, but somehow the same. He had kindled something with his questions to Randy, until the curiosity grew into a flame. “I understand.”
“My mum saw the change, and she did everything she could to help. She even told off my dad and brothers, to make ’em leave me alone. She was brilliant, really. She spent hours with me to help get me ready for my A Levels in history and in art. I couldna have accomplished nowt else. When I was accepted to university, she was as proud of that as anything.”
Randy could only imagine what that kind of support from his mother would have been like. Her near-shame in her own brother and her son had never made sense to him. She’d been so concerned with keeping up appearances in her everyday world, her narrow-minded view of what was appropriate, that she couldn’t understand or accept that at least some of the men in her life wanted a world bigger than Portland, Maine.
Jack’s words brought him back. “At uni, I came to see the art community had little room for a working class lad. Many of the students in my program had grown up attending museum openings and galas. They were posh themselves, maybe not bright enough for Oxford or Cambridge but better able to move through the academic games than I could. I applied myself in my studies, but even favorite professors treated me as, I don’t know.” Jack grimaced painfully. “As a mascot. I could write essays as well as anyone. I knew my history, the styles, artistic movements. But when I spoke Potteries dialect, I could see the eye rolls. Perhaps it’s different in the States, but in London, at least, a lot of the art world is all polish and sophistication. Veneer. My manner was a tremendous liability. I had to find a way to fit in, and so I changed the manner of my speech and my dress. I was my own Pygmalion.”
“You learned to pass,” Randy said with a slow nod. “You became what they wanted to see, in order to thrive.”
“I did.” Jack paused, then hung his head sheepishly. His burr was under control again when he spoke. “I suppose you condemn me for that. I doubt you’ve had to pass as anything but yourself a day in your life.”
Randy felt his cheeks burn. “You’re wrong about me there. I hid that I was gay all through my career in the Secret Service. I had the best of intentions to make changes from the inside when I rose in the ranks, but somewhere along the way, I suppose I just forgot to be who I was.” He could sense Jack’s compassion still, and he hoped Jack felt the same from him. “I don’t condemn you for doing what you had to do in order to fit in. I guess I just hope there was someone who knew the real Jack Fraser.”
Jack grinned shyly. “There was. I met Sophie Valcoates while we were still at uni in Scotland. We were in a seminar together on Egyptian art history, and we became fast friends. She was from that posh world but she understood instantly why I was cultivating this false front. She helped me perfect it and carry it off, in fact.”
“Valcoates?” Randy asked. “As in Valcoates Auction House?” He was shocked—that was one of the largest in the world.
“Yes, exactly. It was the family business. Her father was a senior vice president so she grew up with cocktail conversation an’ all. It was a lovely game to her, pulling the wool over the eyes of the monstinks that inevitably showed up at galleries and openings just to be seen. When we moved to London, she helped get my start. New manner of speaking, new style I suppose. She even bought me new clothes.”
“Did she know about you? That you…” Randy trailed off. In fact, he didn’t know about Jack. Was he gay? Bi? Hardcore kinkster, or merely a tourist?
Jack turned red. “Yes, she knew I was gay. Am gay. And that I like sex rougher than might be acceptable in the art gallery circles. Of course it’s mostly theoretical. I don’t dare go into any of the gay places, or seek company in London. The gossip would ruin any hope I have of a career. Sophie, though. She loves me anyway, and I love her.”
Randy felt his shoulders stiffen and tried to cover his reaction by reaching for his drink until he remembered he didn’t have one. His disappointment made him awkward again. He couldn’t understand why he had even begun to go down this path with Jack, and why he’d let himself indulge in ridiculous daydreams.
So many men over the years had tried to get Randy to give a relationship a shot. Nice, handsome, sexy men. Through whatever perversity of his own nature, Randy had turned nearly all of them away until Trevor. And even if Randy had finally let himself have something beyond just a steady roll in the hay, that had been a lie from the beginning on Trevor’s side. Proof that Randy had no judgment worth speaking of, and no busi
ness with anything more than a fuck buddy.
So why was he practically grieving for what could have been?
“You don’t have to tell me about this,” Randy said, more to protect himself than Jack. “I follow. You’re engaged to someone you love, and she lets you get some on the side.”
“Randy, I want you to understand.” Jack leaned forward and waited until Randy met his eyes. “I do love Sophie, but we’re like brother and sister. We’ve never had sex, not even a real kiss. Sophie simply doesn’t have sexual desire for anyone, man or woman. And she doesn’t get jealous about me. I think these days people might say she’s asexual. Labels don’t concern Sophie. But we’re the best of friends.
“For years we simply posed as a couple but her father started to apply immense pressure once she turned thirty-five, so we quickly reached an agreement. We announced our engagement last year. She needs a man to keep her father from dragging her to one potential suitor after another, and I need the status and security of a well-connected wife to be taken seriously in our circles. I would never do nowt to embarrass her, of course, so we agreed long ago that it was best if I quell my desires whilst in England, but anything was fair game when I’m abroad.”
A flare of desire surged through Randy. Fair game, huh. I could show you a fair game.
But almost immediately, the flicker died out. He didn’t want to be a part of what Jack described. He was shaking his head before Jack even finished speaking.
“I hear you. And I’m glad you have a situation that works well for the two of you. But if you told me this so I’d take you to bed again, the answer is no.”
Disappointment showed in Jack’s face. “But why not? Inna this perfect? You know now that it’s more of a mutual convenience. I’m not hurting Sophie because I’m not giving away anything she wants.”
“You gave away what I want.”
It just slipped out and revealed hurt Randy meant to hide. When Jack’s face registered an O of surprise, he jumped out of his chair, scooping up the empty martini glass as he rose. He spoke fast to cover up his admission. “I appreciate you trusting me. I’m sure that was difficult. It changes nothing, but you’re right about me. Honesty is important. I’ve really got to get back to the bar.”
“Randy.” Jack reached up and put a hand on his arm. The weight and warmth soaked through Randy’s white shirt and to the skin below. He wanted to pull away, but he couldn’t quite make himself do it. “You see it as a betrayal, don’t you? My relationship with Sophie.”
A betrayal? The word brought Randy to a full stop. Jack stroked his thumb back and forth along Randy’s forearm as he waited for some kind of response. He opened his mouth to make a smartassed reply, then closed it again.
Betrayal. Even if Sophie and Jack had a bargain, it was a betrayal, to Randy. They held themselves out to their world one way, but the reality was different. Perhaps no one had the right to make assumptions or lay expectations at their feet. Jack and Sophie, though—they apparently not only wanted to play the expectations game, they wanted to win. If Randy let himself be drawn in, then he would be complicit in that game.
Randy was on the edge of understanding something about himself. He squatted on his heels and looked up at Jack’s face.
“I’d say that your deal with Sophie is none of my business, but you brought this to me so I think you want to make it my business. You’ve apparently decided my opinion matters, and I wish I could give you the pass. I wish I could take you home and put you in leather and wrap you in chains and take all the noise away. I wish I could fuck you again to make you come apart the way you did last night, and then put you back together. I’m not a moralist, Jack. I don’t go out of my way to judge relationships. But you want something with me. Maybe an evening, maybe more. I can’t give that to you. I’m sorry.”
“Canst thee explain it to me, Randy?” Jack asked softly. “Please try.”
Randy hesitated, then held to Jack’s gaze. “My uncle and his partner were together for twenty years until Kevin was killed in the line of duty. They were proud of each other and their relationship, even when being out and open cost them. They weren’t perfect. They had their fights and problems. Even made a mistake with a stranger a time or two. But from what I saw, it was the honesty that mattered to them. The public commitment. It was who they were.
“I believe in that, Jack. I’m fifty-one years old now, and I probably missed my chance at that kind of relationship some time when I was failing to live up to my own expectations. But even if I can’t have that, it doesn’t mean I’ll settle for being a secret or a second choice or a fool.”
Jack’s eyes darted back and forth across Randy’s face and his mouth opened in surprise. “Oh my god. I just got it.”
“Got what?”
“It’s right there on the sign above your door, Randy. You’ve already been badly betrayed, haven’t you?”
Randy looked away sharply at the connection Jack drew and tried to laugh it off. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Mata Hari. The famous French singer who used sex to learn secrets and then passed them along to her spymasters. Greta Garbo was in the film from the early 1930s.”
“It’s just a name—” Randy tried, but Jack shook his head. He had a vacant look in his eye as he focused inward.
“Let me see. Mata Hari got information from a man who was in love with her, even though he knew she was a spy. Then, yes, then she was ordered to get information from a pilot about missions he was flying over Germany. But she fell in love with the pilot. The first man then turned her in to the French police.”
Randy stood from his squat and winced as his knees cracked. He looked at Jack a moment, then said, “‘A spy in love is a tool that has outlived its usefulness.’ That’s the best line in the movie.”
“Randy, what happened to you?” Jack pleaded. He rose to his feet, and Randy let him wind an arm around his waist even though he resented how good it felt to have a warm hand pull him close. He could smell that damn cologne rising from Jack’s neck, all dark and mysterious and wonderful.
He closed his eyes, unwilling to meet Jack’s. But Jack trusted him even though Randy had been an asshole to him, so he fought down his pride and decided to return the gift.
“It wasn’t exactly like the movie. A man named Trevor Mackenzie. For six months, I thought we were in a relationship. He said he loved me and I, well, I thought I loved him. He worked for an airline so we didn’t get together that often, but he would fly in to meet me when I was traveling for the Secret Service, or drop in to see me in DC.”
For the second time that evening, Randy’s face reddened. The shame he usually kept at bay was near that night. Perhaps it was Jack’s attempts at honesty, or Randy’s own ridiculous disappointment, but he was useless and idiotic and, goddammit, lonely. Maybe that was why he made himself finish the story.
“It turned out Trevor was just using me to get information about the senator I was responsible for protecting. He was married to a woman the entire time, and I was just a mark. I was investigated and exonerated of any complicity, but the scandal was an end to my career. Trevor went to jail, and I never saw him again.”
Jack made a noise in his throat—sympathy? Pain? Anger? Randy couldn’t tell, but he made himself say it all. Just once, to a man who would leave the country soon, he would tell all of it.
“I failed in so many ways. I didn’t see what was right in front of me about Trevor’s game. I became a piece on the side to a married man. Grace Gibson was a friend as well as my responsibility, and I failed her. I let down the memory of my uncle. I never had the balls to come out as gay, so I let down my team again when they found out what I had done.” He closed his eyes tightly to seal in the pain and the guilt that threatened to pour out of him. “I let down my country by my own foolishness. That’s why I don’t like being called a hero. I’m just a man trying to make up for his mistakes.”
Randy opened his eyes again when Jack pressed a kiss to
his cheek and to his lips. It was closed-mouth, and Jack didn’t try for more, but he was grateful for the contact. For a moment, at least, he felt less of a fool. When Jack broke the kiss but pulled at the back of his head, Randy relaxed and let his forehead down to rest on Jack’s shoulder.
“I think a true painting of you would show you standing caught between two men,” Jack murmured. “Kevin on one side, showing you what was necessary in a good life. Love, honor, duty. This Trevor bloke on t’other side, using you, betraying your trust, taking advantage of your need to protect. I wish I had the skill to create that canvas for you.” Randy jerked away sharply at Jack’s words, but he stopped his retreat at the gentle, kind smile he saw. “I’m not taking the mick, Randy. I think I understand. You want to do good, but you’re afraid of being used. You’re full of hope, but you’ve been hurt. You want to love, but that requires trust.”
Randy pulled back. His throat hurt and his eyes burned, but he blinked that away. He didn’t know why it should hurt to be seen so clearly by a man who could at best remain a casual acquaintance. While he straightened his clothes self-consciously, Jack similarly put himself together. Enough had been said, and even though it left them in the same position, they understood each other a little better.
Jack touched Randy lightly, then squeezed his forearm. “Thank you for the gift. I promise you, I won’t talk to anyone else about this. Not even Sophie. I willna abuse your trust.” They shared a sad smile at the reminder of their night in Cuir.
Jack said, “I’ll wait to hear what you decide about the painting,” and then he left.
As he did, he brushed past Danny, who was standing in the door to the side room. Randy was startled. “How long have you been there?”
Danny just looked at him for a moment, then said, “Not long.” He turned to leave, then came into the room instead and took the empty martini glass from Randy. “I’ll wash this.”
Lying Eyes Page 16