Discreet Young Gentleman (21 page)

Dean shook himself, ashamed of terrorizing the young man, inadvertent as it had been. "No. One room will be acceptable." Besides, with Rob beside him, he could at least be sure that Parker wasn't slipping into the young man's room for a taste of their upcoming trip abroad. Dean couldn't control a shudder, and the receptionist, mistaking it for a shiver caused by his wet clothes, blathered on about fires and hot drinks. He hardly heard, lost in his misery.

Rob's patrons were supposed to be old, not just older. Not hale, hearty men in their fifties, still lusty enough to give him a serious working-over. Like Mr. Parker, who was approaching him now. "Dean Smith, isn't it? Or no, it's Lord Carwick now. Sorry to hear about your Uncle Silas."

"Uncle Parmenius," Dean corrected automatically. "Was it? Hard to keep all your uncles straight." Parker's eyes flicked to the jumble of parcels Rob and Erich had brought in, and his lips pursed in speculation. "Are you traveling with anyone?"

"No, I'm quite alone." Pray God that Rob, should he return before he could get rid of his friend's father, would have the sense not to acknowledge him in public.

"Well, then." Parker nodded toward the bar. "I'm here for the horse race tomorrow, with a young friend of mine. Perhaps you'll join our table for dinner?"

Parker's "young friend," who couldn't be above twenty, curved his cherub's mouth into a smile and waved.

Dean wrapped his arms around himself, his wet clothing chilling him. "Perhaps, if I can warm up sufficiently." An empty courtesy; Dean and Rob would dine in their room tonight, safe from curious eyes. He could trust the staff in an establishment like this to be silent about whom he was traveling with, and if they could get up and leave for Bath early enough in the morning, Parker need never know Dean had been in the company of a male prostitute. Especially one he was all too familiar with himself.

"I'll let you finish checking in, then." Parker slapped him on the back with a strong, meaty hand and took his leave, returning to his bronze-haired cupid at the bar.

Dean was signing his name and address in the hotel ledger when Rob and Erich returned with a second load of packages. From what he could remember, there were only a few valises left, bought to hold their clothing and gear. Empty, they wouldn't need two men to carry. "Do me a favor, Mr...?"

"Jennings, my lord. Anything, my lord."

"The dark-haired gentleman behind me is my companion, Mr. Black. Could you show him to our room now, and have someone bring our parcels up? Tell him I'm going to have a quick whisky before joining him, and would appreciate it if he'd have the room settled before I arrive." Dean wasn't yet used to acting the aristocrat, and hoped the receptionist wouldn't find anything untoward in his request.

He must have passed muster, because the man didn't bat an eye. "Gladly, my lord."

The receptionist caught up with Rob at the door, as he and the coachman were venturing out for the bags, and probably to check for any odds and ends missed in their earlier trips. Dean watched out of the corner of his eye as Rob listened to the clerk's words, nodding and saying something to Erich before following the hotel employee up the elegantly curving staircase. Erich continued alone out into the rain. Satisfied that the endeavor had been accomplished without linking Rob and Erich to himself, Dean finished signing in, and, bracing himself, turned to the bar to kill some time before joining Rob in their room.

There was a blessed fire roaring in the bar, and soon Dean was toasting himself in front of it, clothes steaming, a hot toddy on order from the barman. As he'd expected, Mr. Parker and his friend were quick to join him, and he and the former spent a few minutes chatting about the doings of Dean's school friend Richard. Parker's young companion, introduced merely as Cedric, didn't have the grace not to show his boredom, but fiddled annoyingly with an absurd intricately-carved walking stick.

Cedric's eyes narrowed as he beheld, out in the reception area, Erich's return with the valises. "Parks," he announced, interrupting Mr. Parker's soliloquy on his son, "I'm going to get that manservant to fetch my other bag from the coach."

Parker smiled tightly. "Don't be silly, Ceddie. You have all you need upstairs."

The little cupid's full bottom lip jutted out. "But I want to wear my green waistcoat for dinner tonight. I will tell him to fetch it, he's already wet." Without another word he jumped to his feet and stalked into the foyer.

The barman brought Dean's hot toddy, and he took it with a distracted murmur of thanks. In the foyer, Erich was shrugging and shaking his head in negation. Of course he was, he couldn't understand a word the boy was saying. Cedric's voice, now raised in anger, could be heard clear back in the bar. Dean's hand tightened on his glass. Why wouldn't the young idiot drop the issue? "I'm sure one of the hotel staff will be happy to fetch your Cedric's valise, Mr. Parker. Perhaps you might suggest it."

Parker lifted a brow. "Ceddie's right—why get some other poor bastard soaked to his skin when that one can just as easily do it?"

"He doesn't seem to want to." Dean prayed Parker's companion would get the message that Erich didn't understand him, or give up and ask at the desk for help. Mr.

Parker had seen Erich and Rob together. If he had to intervene on his coachman's behalf, it would be clear that Dean was the third member of that same party.

"Rather insolent, don't you think?" huffed Parker, meaning Erich.

"Yes, he is," Dean replied, meaning Cedric.

Erich, still shaking his head doggedly, made the mistake of turning his back on his young harasser. Cedric, clearly furious at the imagined affront, raised his stick.

Dean bolted from his chair, hot drink scorching his leg as the glass tumbled to the ground. Cedric, startled at the rush of motion, paused long enough in mid-blow for Dean to reach him and snatch the walking stick from his hand. "Leave him alone. He doesn't speak English, don't you see that?"

Parker's voice sounded from behind him, soft and with a hint of smirk. "And how do you know that?"

Dean didn't turn around, putting a reassuring hand on Erich's shoulder. "He's my coachman," he said shortly. "Es ist in Ordnung, Erich. Geh dich abtrocknen."

Erich looked at Cedric for a moment, studying him coolly, and Dean remembered that the coachman had not so long ago been a soldier of renown. If he wanted to, he could snap the young fool's neck like a toothpick. Cedric, seeing something of this in Erich's eyes, took a step closer to Parker. Erich gave his head a contemptuous shake.

"Gute Nacht, Herr Graf," he said to Dean with a bow.

"Gute Nacht." Dean watched as his coachman strode off toward the servants'

quarters, not looking at Parker and his companion. "And now, if you'll excuse me..."

Mr. Parker, a knowing smile curving his lips, put a hand on Dean's arm. "No, I insist I replace your drink. Cedric, go tell the barman to prepare a fresh toddy.

Quickly, now!" The youth scurried off to do his bidding, and Dean flinched to think that the man might order Rob about in such a fashion. He might as well have the drink, if there were any chance he could convince Parker that his association with the prostitute was innocent. And if not, he wouldn't be any worse off, and at least would have had his hot drink. Numbly, he allowed Parker to guide him back to their table by the fire.

"So," Parker said when they were seated, "you are traveling with Rob Carter after all."

Allardyce, Black, Carter...did Rob work his way through the alphabet to select aliases? Why not choose one, and stick with it? Perhaps it made it more difficult for a patron to locate him again, should Rob decide he didn't wish to renew the acquaintance.

"Rob's just a friend," Dean said stiffly. Over at the bar, young Cedric was chatting desultorily with the bartender. "A...a fishing crony."

Parker smirked. "I've cast line in those waters myself. The man knows his way around a pole, doesn't he?"

Dean flushed hot. "Mr. Parker, I'm sure I don't—"

"Come now," Parker said with a pat on his hand, leaning forward with a conspiratorial grin. "No need to be coy with me. You know, I remember wondering about you, that time you came to visit Dickie. Imagine the fun we could have had, if I'd known for sure that you were a..."

Sodomite. Dean chanted Rob's list of epithets in his mind. Indorser, bum-fiddler.

Madge cull. Molly.

"Tradesman like myself," Parker finished with a wink.

That one he hadn't heard, and his friend's father laughed at his blank look.

"You know, always going 'round to the back door."

"I don't think I'll stay for that drink after all." Dean started to rise, but was restrained by Parker's grasp on his forearm.

"No, no. Men like us should stick together. Good heavens, you're red in the face! I can't blame you for being uncomfortable, at your age I was still boxing the Jesuit to a book of engravings of classical statues. You're luckier than I was, I didn't even dream the like of Rob and Cedric existed." He nodded proudly toward Cedric, still at the bar waiting for Dean's toddy. "How do you like him?"

Dean sat back down with a thump, feeling helplessly out of his depth. "I'm sure he's very sweet."

"Oh, sweet indeed." Parker all but licked his lips. "I won him off Clair in a game of faro just last week."

"Clair?" Dean blinked.

"The Honorable Stephen Clair—you know, Lord St. Joseph's younger brother. You must have heard of him, he's rather a legend among our sort. Bold as brass about liking the boys, he is, always has some pretty little molly on his arm." Parker's eyes gleamed as he looked at his companion. "Few prettier than my Ceddie, though. Do you like him?"

Dean did not, but took refuge in a diplomatic truth. "He is indeed handsome."

Parker leaned over the table. "Then what say we have a little trade? Rob for Cedric.

Just for tonight."

It was a long moment before Dean could even find breath. "Mr. Parker, tell me: are you much of a shot?"

The other man looked confused at the sudden change in topic. "I beg your pardon?"

"Because I am," Dean continued. "I'm accounted a very good hand with a pistol.

Make such a suggestion again, and I'll be happy to give you a personal demonstration, tomorrow at dawn. Are we clear?"

Parker didn't take offense, just sat back in his chair and gave a rueful chuckle.

"You've got it bad for the lad, don't you? Can't say I blame you, Rob is remarkable.

I've offered him a fortune for exclusive rights, but so far he's turned me down. But every man has his price, and when we're in Italy next month I'm determined to find it.

So enjoy him while you can, because soon," and his eyes glittered at the thought,

"soon he'll be all mine."

Dean's gorge rose. "What of your Cedric?"

"Haven't thought." Parker shrugged. "If I decide to sell off his contract, I'll give you first crack. But there's no reason I can't keep both of 'em." He smiled at Cedric, who was returning, at last, with Dean's toddy, and another whisky for his master. "Yes, I believe I'll take them both to Italy this year. Just picture Rob and Ceddie together—now there s something to make your prick jump to attention."

Dean, who was having difficulty keeping his fists from jumping to attention instead, downed his hot toddy and ordered another. Getting drunk might on occasion lead to disastrous consequences, but sometimes, it was all one had.

Chapter Nineteen

Dean groaned. How was he supposed to sleep, when Ceddie was pounding rhythmically on his head with that damned walking stick? He opened one eye, and clamped it shut again instantly. The sun would have chosen that morning to assert itself over the past few days of endless rain. "Curtains," he rasped. "Close the bloody curtains."

Nothing happened. Dean peeked through his too-fair, good-for-nothing lashes and saw Rob, fully dressed for the day, seated at the dressing table in front of the window.

He was writing a letter, slowly and painstakingly, in apparent ignorance of Dean's terrible suffering.

"Curtains?" It came out a plaintive mew.

Rob dipped his quill into the inkpot again, blotting it with care before continuing his missive. He did not turn toward the bed when he finally deigned to speak. "Do you know the chief problem with trying to drink your troubles away? In the morning, the troubles are still there and you've got a damnable headache. At the very least."

Dean raised his hands to cover his eyes, which felt so raw as to be bleeding from the pupils, and winced anew as his right hand discovered what seemed to be one hell of a black eye on that side

of his face. "I hope Parker looks worse," he mumbled.

"And why," Rob asked, "would you assume you got into a fight with Mr. Parker?"

"He said such things about you," Dean said through the protective cover of his hands.

"Yes, I know." Rob's voice held a certain tartness. "You repeated them to me, over and over."

"Hell and damnation." With enough of the bed's pillows piled behind him, Dean found he could assume a sitting position, although he could still only bear one eye to be open at a time. "I don't know why I stayed to listen to him."

"I was wondering that myself."

"For the same reason one picks at any scab, I suppose." Dean wished he hadn't said that out loud, but his mind and mouth had yet to find synchronization.

"Do you know," Rob said coolly, "I have my own scabs. But I don't get drunk and berate people, endlessly, for things I can't change. Didn't I tell you before I dislike it when someone calls me names?"

"Hell," Dean said again, mouth dropping open. "You hit me."

At last, Rob looked at him, a reluctant smile playing about his lips. "Perhaps I should have. But no, you did that yourself: stumbled and smacked your face into the bedpost. I was sure you'd put your eye out, from the way you carried on."

"Damn." Dean assayed a tentative stretch. "If it helps any, I'm sorry."

"Thank you." Rob was silent for a moment, and the scratching of his quill sounded loud in the quiet, sunny room. "There's a headache powder and carafe of water on the bedside table."