A Private Gentleman (7 page)
Read A Private Gentleman Online
Authors: Heidi Cullinan
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
47
Heidi Cullinan
him. Which had only made 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.
48
A Private Gentleman
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.
“This is bad, ducks.”
Michael shoved a shaking hand into his hair and averted his eyes. “I can sell
some books to make up for my losses, if you want. I’m sure it will pass soon
enough.”
That only made Rodger angry. “I’m not talking about money, you dumb sod.
I’m talking about
you.
This is bad for
you.
” Rodger sank beside him on the sofa with a heavy sigh. “Why did you have to go and fuck his lad? God above, but I
wish you hadn’t.”
“I didn’t think it would matter. It shouldn’t have mattered.” Michael
wrapped himself in the afghan and stared at the floor. “I don’t understand. I’m
not upset about it, about what Daventry did to me. I haven’t been for years. I get
tense if someone mentions him, and I think it would be bad if I encountered him,
but it isn’t as if we run in the same circles. And his son is nothing like him. Albert is
kind
. Even funny. I enjoyed myself with him. But I’m not even thinking of him.
Or Daventry. Not until—” He bit his lip and said nothing more.
Rodger rubbed his chin for a long moment. “Let me have a go.”
Michael drew back and looked at him in horror.
Rodger punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Don’t give me that look. I’ve
had that arse more than any man in London.”
“Yes, but not for years,” Michael protested. “We joke about it all the time,
but we never actually do it.”
49
Heidi Cullinan
“If you panic with me,” Rodger dogged, “then you know something is truly
buggered in your head. Pardon the pun. If you can let me do you…” Rodger
gave him a cheeky wink, “…well, then you know you can at least keep up your
rent.”
Michael grimaced, but it was mostly for show. He never minded being
fucked by Rodger. “Fine,” he agreed. “But you’ll not do me for free.”
Rodger snorted. “I’ll pay your going rate if there’s come dripping out your
arse, how about that?”
Michael made a rude gesture, stripped out of his clothes and turned over.
Ten minutes later he was shaking, wrapped in every blanket the servants
could find and huddled in a ball at the end of the couch near the stove as Rodger
stormed down the hall, swearing so badly one of the men at the door had to ask
him to please stop scaring off the customers. Once he was able to stand, Michael
dressed, crawled up the stairs to his room, drank warm milk and fell asleep.
In the middle of the night he was screaming again, the nightmare returned in
full force. It came the next night as well.
And the night after that.
The night after that too.
Even when Rodger sat beside him all night, or all day, or whenever Michael
tried to sleep deep enough to rest, the nightmare came back, over and over and
over.
“This is insane,” Michael complained through chattering teeth during the
second straight week. Cold, so
cold.
He wrapped himself in blankets, but they could not warm him. He felt hollowed out from the inside.
Rodger was grim. “You should be getting better, not worse. No one’s
touched your arse in ten days.”
Didn’t Michael know it. “Perhaps I’m ill.”
50
A Private Gentleman
“Only in your head.” When Michael recoiled, Rodger gentled. “Calm
yourself. No one’s sending you to Bedlam.”
Michael sagged against the wall. “I was
rid
of this.” He drew his knees closer to his body. “Until Albert.”
Rodger was silent a moment. “Maybe that’s what you need. Maybe you need
to see him again. Hey,” he said when Michael glared at him. “Don’t look at me
like that. It might work. Nothing else is, anyway.”
Michael doubted that very much. But talking about Albert made the man
linger in his mind. It made him think of his face, guarded, but so soft, so…pretty,
really. He had a simple look about him, a shyness Michael knew well, but no
desperation. Just quietness. And now that he knew underneath that veneer
lurked a tiger…
Rodger’s hand came down on his, and he turned to him, frowning. “What
were you thinking of just then? You went all relaxed and quiet. You looked
almost yourself again.” He glanced down, then boldly reached over and cupped
Michael’s groin.
“Rodger!” Michael snapped his legs together and glared. He was half-hard.
Rodger only pointed an accusing finger at him. “What were you thinking
of?” he demanded.
Michael felt his cheeks pinken. “Albert. But I even got hard for you—”
“I’m going to bring him here, and you’re going to fuck him,” Rodger
declared. “Or rather, he will fuck you.” He frowned. “Unless that might make
you worse. God above, I don’t think I could handle you being worse.” He looked
into Michael’s face, stripping him bare. “Do you want him, love?”
Michael turned away before Rodger could see anything. “And how will you
fetch him if I do? Knock on Daventry’s door and ask if you could borrow his son?
You have a whore down in your bawdy house you need him to fuck for you?”
51
Heidi Cullinan
“Don’t get smart. I’ll send the boys out to watch for him. I doubt he lives
with the marquess, at his age. Don’t know quite where he’d be, but sounds like
we should be looking in gardens to start.” He nudged Michael with his elbow.
“But is that what you want, Michael? Do you want to see Lord George again?”
Michael stared down at the bed, the hollow cold inside him making him
shake. He tried to stammer a lie, but he was too tired. “Yes.”
Rodger smacked Michael’s rump through the blanket. “Get yourself greased
for your shy stammerer then, love. I’ll have him for you by the end of the week.”
And so Michael lived in a constant state of terror, half-afraid that Rodger
would produce Albert, half-afraid he wouldn’t be able to. Every night he
dreamed, and as every day passed, the dreams got worse, and the cold he felt
after them grew colder and colder, until he never thought he’d be able to get
warm again.
No peer or gentleman in all of England was more venerated, more wise,
more admired and more emulated than Wes’s father, the Marquess of Daventry.
All his estates were in perfect order. He kept up the entailed houses, and he
had a few others as well. He was active in politics and a vocal and respected
participant in the House of Lords. He’d provided the title with two sons, and the
first had married well—third daughter of a duke, bringing in a tidy sum to boot.
She’d produced two sons and a daughter already, with another child on the way.
Daventry had mourned his wife properly when she died and now kept to the
life of a genteel bachelor. There had been a few relationships, Wes suspected, but
as with all things Daventry, they were discreet.
One bright March morning, Wes received a summons to visit him.
Daventry House sat in St. George’s Square, boasting a lovely view of the
park. Daventry himself was here, doing his duty through the Season to
52
A Private Gentleman
government and society. In fact, as Wes was ushered into his study, his father
was in quiet consult with his secretary, trying to decide which balls and dinners
he should attend for the next week in between attending Parliament sessions and
meetings with the other leaders of his party. But when Daventry saw his second
son in the doorway, he put the secretary’s list down and sat back in his chair,
giving Wes his full attention.
“George Albert. How prompt you are. Well done.” Pale eyes danced beneath
pepper-gray hair as Daventry motioned to a chair across from his desk. “Do sit.
We’re nearly finished here, and I shall be with you directly.”
Wes sat as bid, glancing about the room as his father continued to debate in
quiet tones with his secretary.
The study had been redone again. That was Daventry, never one to step out
of pace. He had given way to the necktie as well. Wes touched his own cravat.
He wondered if it was a particularly sad social sin to be more out of fashion than
one’s own father.
Daventry dismissed his secretary and turned to Wes. Wes sat forward in his
seat, trying to look alert.
“As I mentioned in my note,” his father began, “I have need of your aid. You
remember the Presleys.” When Wes only blinked at him, Daventry’s mouth
flattened in dismay. “Arthur Presley. Of Devonshire. I believe you knew his son
at school, before you left? Garreth?”
Before you left.
The words rang in the air between them, as disheartening as the memory of Garreth Presley himself. “Y-y-yes, F-Father.”
Daventry shifted some papers on his desk. “As I said, I’d like you to attend
the ball with me. It seems Presley has taken a liking to plants and wants to know
how to begin a collection. He’s coming over for a little dinner I’m having. The
usual people will be in attendance: your brother, senior members of our party in
53
Heidi Cullinan
Parliament, and their wives. I told Presley you’d be there and that he could quiz
you all he liked about plants.”
Wes looked up in alarm. His father’s “little dinners” were nothing of the
kind. The last one had consisted of fifty people. “I d-d-d-don’t th-th-th-th—”
“I have need of Presley’s influence on a few matters, and this would go a
long way to assuring his compliance.” He leaned forward on his desk and looked
Wes levelly in the eye. “I would consider this a great favor, George Albert. I
