A Fashionable Indulgence (Society of Gentlemen #1) (4 page)

Harry grinned. “I do feel I know my family now. Could we go over who’ll be coming down to visit?”

“Nervous?”

“Well, yes, they’re your friends. Richard’s friends,” Harry amended hastily. “I should like to make a good impression.”

“You will make an entirely adequate impression,” Julius assured him. “And it doesn’t matter if you slip in this company. Very well, we will have Lord Gabriel Ashleigh. Who’s he?”

“Um…the duke of Warminster’s youngest son?” Julius shot him a look. Harry adjusted his tone to one of calm certainty. “The duke of Warminster’s youngest son.”

“You must not be uncertain, Harry. Far better to be wrong than uncertain. And stop saying ‘um, um.’ You sound like a schoolboy. Ash is an idiotic young hound and I expect you will like him, if only because it’s almost impossible not to. However, do not accept his advice on your wardrobe. Or horseflesh. Or anything, really. Francis Webster?”

Harry, still assimilating the idea that he might like a duke’s son, caught the “um” in his throat. “A wealthy gentleman.”

“Whence comes his wealth?”

Mr. Webster was a son of industry, his family fortune made in Lancashire cotton mills. Harry saw the trap and smiled politely. “I’m afraid I have no knowledge of the matter.”

That earned him an approving nod. “If Ash likes you, Francis will extend his tolerance. They are bosom friends. Francis will teach you the rudiments of card play.”

“I can play cards. Whist, at least, and écarté.”

“Unless you have been sharping for a living in some Parisian gaming hell—no?—then you will learn cards from Francis. He is a remarkable gamester. Not popular, for good reason, but one of ours. Dominic Frey.”

“He’s Cousin Richard’s friend,” Harry said cautiously.

Julius clicked his tongue, but without force. “A shining light of the Home Office, of a long-established but insignificant family. He and Richard are very close, but whether he’ll visit I could not say. It’s almost impossible to winkle him out of London.”

“I know someone like that,” Harry remarked. “My friend Silas—” Julius exhaled hard. Harry felt the blush sweep across his cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

“You
must not.
You have to forget all that, forget those…persons. You cannot afford to reminisce about the scum of the stews in decent company.”

The word was like a blow; Harry felt himself jolt. “Scum?” he repeated.

“That is what I said.”

“And is it what I am?” He could feel himself reddening. “
Scum
?”

“No, you’re a Vane. And you must speak and act as one.”

“As my father did?” Harry snapped back. “He was a Vane too, and the streets were good enough for him!”

“He was a damned fool.” Harry choked, but Julius spoke over his outrage. “Do you intend to take up his banner and cry for democracy?”

“Of course not. I hate politics. I never want to hear about politics again. I want to be a gentleman—”

“Then do as I tell you.”

“
But,
” Harry went on forcefully, because the words had to be forced out, “but Silas saved my life. I had nothing, nobody to turn to, and he gave me work although he could barely afford to pay me. He’s a good man. He’s not
scum.
”

“He may be a saint, for all I care, but he is not a fit associate for a Vane.”

“Then why did I have to associate with him?” Harry demanded. “My grandfather was happy for me to grow up as a radical and work in a radical bookshop. He knew about me, he knew my parents were dead—”

“And he sought you out,” Julius said impatiently.

“He said he’d been looking for six months. My parents died six
years
ago. Why didn’t he look for me before?” Six long years of cold and hunger, fear and poverty, when he could have been a Vane in a house like Arrandene. The sense of injustice was choking. “To leave me there so long, and then tell me I must pretend I was never there at all—”

Julius’s brows tipped in a tiny frown. “Stop. Understand this: If you speak of your past, in society, you will make the people around you uncomfortable, and they will make themselves comfortable again at your expense by means of mockery and contempt. That will be unpleasant for you, and for Richard, and, therefore, for me. So do not. It is quite simple.”

“And what if people find out about me?” Harry demanded. “That I’m a fraud?”

“You are not a fraud, you are a Vane. Someone may remark on your parentage, and we will deal with it if they do. But
you
will not tell them.”

Harry stared between his horse’s ears as they trotted along the Ridgeway. “I’m not ashamed of my past.”

“Aren’t you?”

“It wasn’t my fault.” Harry scowled at the trees that lined the bridle path. “Silas is a good man. My parents were dedicated. Maybe you think they were wrong—”

“You may assume so.”

“Perhaps they were, but they believed in what they did, and…” He didn’t want to say it, or think about it, but it had been sticking in his throat like thorns for weeks, and it had to be either swallowed for good or spat out. “My parents. If they knew about this, about me…” He could see, vividly, the anger and hurt in his mother’s eyes. Her son, the fop, the parasite, the traitor to his people. “They’d be so angry.”

“They’re dead.” The harshness in Julius’s voice brought Harry’s head round in shock. The gray shook its mane and whickered restively. “They died, and left you, and that is the end of it. Build no shrines. If they couldn’t be troubled to survive, be damned to them.”

Harry choked. “You’re speaking about my parents!”

“No more than they deserve. They plunged you, a Vane, into the gutter. I am trying to pull you out. If you would rather dwell in filth, be my guest, but in that case don’t waste any more of my time, and do not
dare
give me bleating about the wishes of the sanctified dead!” Julius clapped his heels to the gray’s side and the horse surged forward, into a gallop, alone.

Harry sat on the bay mare and stared after him, not quite sure how that conversation had gone so badly wrong.

“The great shame is that you weren’t born forty years earlier.”

Harry was fingering an ivory button, cunningly carved, but he looked up when Julius spoke, that ready smile lighting his cheerful features. “I think that would have been difficult for my parents to arrange.”

Julius laughed. “Nonsense. A little planning, a little care…”

Harry grinned back. “Why forty years ago?” he asked, and, without waiting for an answer, “What do you think of this?”

Julius leaned forward to look, propping himself with a light hand on Harry’s shoulder, and was, not for the first time, conscious of a certain guilt.

He still hadn’t apologized for his loss of temper on the ride, several days ago now. He rarely apologized for anything. It gave him a sour satisfaction to see who would not tolerate insult, who would swallow it whole, and who would forgive it. Harry had tolerated it one way or the other, meeting him back at the house with a tentative smile once Julius had ridden off the worst of his mood, and to his own surprise, Julius had felt the cold anger melt, just a little.

He knew precisely why he had lost his temper with Harry. It was because he couldn’t lose it with the dead. Because he had been angry at the unhappiness on Harry’s face, and every one of the choices that had been forced on him.

They were in Mr. Hawkes’s shop on Brook Street, the middle of fashionable London. It was out of Season, of course, and with the shop so empty of customers, Mr. Hawkes had closed it to passing trade to give Julius and Harry his undivided attention. Assistants hovered around them, proffering rolls of cloth, a spectrum of blues and greens, superfine and Bath coating. This was no place to consider anything but the cut of a coat and the selection of buttons, and Julius made it a point of pride that no man in London took buttons more seriously than he.

And yet…

Harry had given a little under his hand. Not a flinch, not shrinking away, but loosening his muscles to take the pressure. Giving way as a man might when he felt a lover’s weight between his legs and on his chest.

Pay attention, Norreys.

Harry was offering him an ivory button, with some sort of chased working. It was slightly yellowed. Julius circled his thumb over the smooth bone, resisting the urge to mimic the action with his other hand, which rested on Harry’s shoulder. “Yes. Yes, that is good.” Harry had an eye; there was no doubt of that. Julius was conscious of pride in his pupil.

“Many gentlemen prefer gilt,” Mr. Hawkes observed.

“And how very monotonous they all look. I said forty years ago, dear boy, because the fashions of the day would have suited you to perfection.”

“Oh, yes, sir.” Mr. Hawkes’s gloomy face lit at the chance to reminisce on past glories. “The broidery, sir. The richness of it. Clocked stockings for gentlemen.” He sighed.

“And a horsehair wig,” Harry added.

“You could powder,” Julius suggested. In fact, the bygone style of whitened hair would have become Harry, bringing out his deep blue eyes, so much like Richard’s. He didn’t have his older cousin’s impressive height and build, but with his brown hair cut to an unruly tumble of curls in the latest fashion, and the endless, gleeful enjoyment in his laughing face, he had no need for stature.

Harry Vane was, undeniably, a quick learner. It was just six weeks since Richard had plucked him from his seditionary bookshop, and already there was little trace of the tongue-tied boy who had sat by Julius in terrified silence on the way to Arrandene. He had soaked it all up: Julius’s advice and instruction, his speech and movements. He was acquiring grace, manners, a seat on a horse. Julius had done violence to his own feelings by engaging a dancing master, then permitted himself the indulgence of watching Harry pick up the steps, moving around the room in time to music. Vital young animal that he was, he had a gift for the physical, an inherent bodily grace when he didn’t let his mind get in the way. Julius would teach him to fence soon, he thought, and imagined gripping Harry’s wrists to show him the correct movements. Standing close, body to body, to adjust his stance…

He had a gift for people too. Everywhere he went, he was liked. Arrandene’s well-trained servants did not unbend, but they smiled. The dancing master’s assistant was paid to flatter, of course, but she had been genuinely amused by Harry as they whirled around the room, his hand on her back, his smile flashing in honest delight. They had chattered and laughed, and Julius’s mouth had dried with an almost painful yearning that was as much for Harry’s unselfconscious happiness as for his muscular thighs. Oh, Harry would charm the ladies once the Little Season began.

Unless he betrayed his nerves. That lurking fear was his greatest danger. Warm and happy by nature, he nevertheless was as jumpy as a cat at moments of alarm, as though he expected disaster to strike. That was something that time and experience could mend, if only Julius could prevent him making a fool of himself in public until then.

That process would begin this coming weekend, when their solitary sojourn at Arrandene would be interrupted by its owner and his friends. Harry would learn a great deal from their society, and Julius thought he would acquit himself well.

Harry would soon know how to present himself as a gentleman of fashion, and presentation would become reality quickly enough. He would become a part of the world that he found so thrilling, and no doubt he would discover its hidden shallows and dangerous shoals. But for now he was enthusiastic and bright-eyed, gleefully embracing the smallest tastes of what the world had to offer. He was, in fact, enjoying himself.

And, God rot it, so was Julius.

He did not
want
to enjoy this. He had intended to fulfill his unwanted orders as a soldier would: with excessive obedience, a defiance impossible to rebuke. Instead, he found himself caring about Harry’s success; caring more about the possibility of failure. Taking pleasure in his company. Wanting to see him smile.

“What about this?” Harry’s voice recalled his attention. The button he held was a large one, ebony, polished to a black sheen. Mr. Hawkes looked anxious, as well he might.

“For the Bath?” Julius nodded to the length of royal blue cloth they’d selected. “
Really
, dear boy?”

“Heavens, no.” Harry laughed at the absurdity. “For your new waistcoat. The gray satin.”

“Hmm. I had in mind mother of pearl.”

Harry opened his mouth to argue, then gave a little sideways nod of capitulation, oddly reminiscent of Richard. Perversely, that made Julius consider the idea of the ebony. He looked at the button again. “Black against gray. Hmm. Perhaps. But smaller
.
And—”

“Blacker,” Harry said. “Jet.”

“Onyx.”

“And I do think this size, no smaller. For—for dramatic effect. Really, Julius, can’t you see?” Harry twisted his neck to look up, lips slightly parted with an urgent need to convey his vision for the new waistcoat. He was flushed, hair slightly tousled, warm and yielding, and Julius wanted—

No.

Harry was indeed an obliging young gentleman, and it would be possible for a self-deceiving man, or an optimistic one, to believe he hungered for more than learning, but that was not a risk to take. God knew what odd ideas and shabby-genteel morality lurked behind the gossamer façade of sophistication that Julius was helping him weave. Worse, he was Richard’s cousin. He might have a damned inviting smile and a pair of legs that had sparked Julius’s interest for the first time in an age, but they weren’t worth the risk of a rift in Julius’s closest friendship. And there was a responsibility too, in his tutorial position. In fact, for the first time in years, Julius was conscious of a duty to be embraced.

Damn it.

“Onyx buttons,” he agreed. A small surrender to stave off the larger desire. “This size. I shall wear them for you, Galatea.”

He’d meant that as a tease, reminding himself as well as Harry of his role in the myth of the Greek sculptor whose beautiful creation came to life. But Harry flushed like a schoolboy, the scarlet sweeping across his unfashionably sun-browned cheeks, and turned his head away.

Damn, damn,
damn.

It was a dangerous business, indulging a taste for men, but Julius went about it with care. When he felt the need for physical relief he took it with one of the Ricardians, or at Millay’s, a discreet house of assignation run by one of Cyprian’s cronies. Hardly exciting, but a misplaced approach to an unknown man could lead to the pillory or the gallows, and Julius had not found the fleeting satisfaction to be worth risking his neck. It had been so long since he’d approached a man without being certain of his inclinations, he had all but forgotten the dance. He hadn’t wanted it enough. He hadn’t wanted it at all.

He wanted Harry now.

Foolish. Stupid. But he was so bright-eyed, so eager and warm and happy, enjoying life so much, and if Julius could just sink into that simple pleasure and forget for a little while…

He was only six years older than Harry but it felt like three decades. And Richard was coming down next weekend. Julius wanted to show him a delightful young gentleman, a cousin of whom he would not be ashamed. He did not want to explain away a sobbing, panicking youth complaining of sodomitical advances.

Not to mention the bet. Dominic had wagered that Harry would disgrace himself and his sponsors by Christmas, whether by clodhopping ineptitude, vulgarity, or radical politics. If Julius lost, he would hand over his pink and silver waistcoat for ceremonial burning; if Dominic lost, he would wear a waistcoat of Julius’s devising on three occasions of Julius’s choice. Julius wanted, intensely, to win.

He did not intend to see Harry fail, and he would not be the cause of his downfall.

“The ivory for the light blue, then, and gilt for the Bath?” he asked, holding out the button, and felt rather than saw Harry’s nod. “Good. And we will need everything made up and delivered to Arrandene by Friday.”

Mr. Hawkes made a strangled noise. “Sir—”

Julius tilted an eyebrow. The snyder let out a slight gasp, but nodded. An apprentice, thinking himself unobserved, made an appalled face.

“Excellent,” Julius purred. “Mr. Vane and I shall be most grateful.”

“I have a glass of port for you,” Richard said from behind Julius. “It would, were there justice, be half of my fortune. You have outdone yourself.”

Julius took both the glass and the compliment with a nod. “He’s an apt pupil. You are to be congratulated in your choice of long-lost cousin.”

“And my choice of Pygmalion. Really, Julius, I am deeply grateful.”

Julius turned back to the window. Richard’s comfortable withdrawing room on the first floor overlooked a little walled garden, in which Harry and Lord Gabriel Ashleigh were engaged in a game of spillikins, of all things. It was a picture of pleasure: two handsome, well-dressed young men, Ash’s golden hair standing in pleasing contrast to Harry’s dark curls. They were both laughing immoderately, flushed with enjoyment of the absurd pastime. Francis Webster stood back from them, arms folded, saturnine as ever. He was apparently talking to Dominic Frey, who stood by him, but his eyes were on Ash. An observer might have interpreted his look as contempt for childish pursuits, if unaware that impulsive, thoughtless, good-hearted Ash was the joy of Francis’s solitary soul.

“The children get on,” Julius observed. “I thought they might.”

“Birds of a feather?”

“Except that Harry isn’t an idiot.”

Richard blinked at the note in Julius’s voice, as well he might. Julius had not intended to lash out so irritably. He wanted to retract the words but bit back the impulse. It would only make matters worse.

The fact was, he had not realized quite how much he’d enjoyed his solitude with Harry until the others had arrived and spoiled it.

A ridiculous thought. They were his friends. This was Richard’s house. Francis had a biting contempt for society that Julius found pleasing, and never made unreasonable demands on his attention. Ash was a likable young hound. Even Dominic was in a cheerful frame of mind, a fact Julius had mentally linked to the finger-mark bruises now fading on his wrists. Of all the world, they were the men to whom Julius was closest, even if he didn’t always like them. There was no reason he should find their presence grating, but he did, because—curse it—they were commanding Harry’s attention.

Turning Harry into a gentleman had been the most enjoyable activity Julius could recall, if not the most pleasing he could imagine. Harry’s enthusiasm had lit something inside that had been so long extinct Julius had forgotten it had ever been there. They’d ridden for miles, talked frankly and openly—or at least Harry had—and damn it, it had been good.

“He is a pleasure to teach,” Julius clarified. “Loathsome though it is to admit it, I think Dominic was correct: I needed an occupation. Do not repeat that.”

“I shouldn’t dream of it. This was an outrageous imposition on you, Julius, but you have done marvels. I have invited a small party to stay here for a few days, to increase his acquaintance before the Season. The Buckleys, the Martindales, and a few more. Do you think he’ll be ready?”

Julius took a sip of port. “I think he’ll do. I should prefer to have longer with him—” God, wouldn’t he. “But he needs to put his lessons into practice.”

“He’s doing remarkably well. Blood will out.”

Julius tilted his head, acknowledging the sentiment rather than agreeing. In his view, Harry would be a success because of his modesty, his quick smile and eager pursuit of enjoyment, the sheer joy he took in his new life. None of those were characteristics of the well-bred people he knew. Perhaps Harry would become jaded by debauchery and bored by privilege. Doubtless he would make mistakes and be ridiculed; express happiness at some little thing that others took for granted, and mark himself out as plebeian. Julius could see the flush sweeping over his cheeks at every little snub and sneer, the self-betraying hurt in those expressive eyes, and even to imagine it made his fists tighten.

He bit back the urge to beg Richard for more time. That was not what Harry wanted. It would be wrong to stand in his way.