Rooks and Romanticide (11 page)

Levi kissed him again. Cain yielded to it. He'd said his piece. He'd meant every bit of it. He was satisfied with it.

And that was it, then.

That was the inevitable
click
of destiny's hammer, fate sealed by hungry kisses.

Bloodstained fate for two children with bloodstained hands, and they were helpless to change it.

 

 

L
EVI
KNEW
it was a secret and that he had to keep it. And keep it he did, because he was greedy.

Imagine, the notoriously young and unforgiving Earl Dietrich, a bloody queer!

That is, he didn't want BLACK to know what he knew about the Earl, because this twisted victory over the Earl's private moments was something he wanted to savor on his own for a while. He couldn't explain why, but he didn't try either. It was just that simple.

Be honest with me
, the Earl had said, and God, that hurt so sweet and twisted.

It was much easier to take on the role of the Earl's hidden ace than he'd expected—slipping into character wholeheartedly was nothing—but at the same time, it was also quite taxing.

He'd passed the Earl's series of tests, and by Guy Fawkes Day—when all the nonpartisan folks of New London were burning little handmade popes and filling the streets with their silly hymns, a sea of candles lighting their crooked alleys and children prancing around in those awful white masks—the demands of his and BLACK's tentative little scheme became fully clear to Levi.

“You're not allowed on the manor grounds without an escort,” the Earl outlined, standing on the front steps of St. Vincent's as the autumn rain fell in dismal slants through the fog and spill of light from the gas lamps along the street. A fierce wind had kicked up, and leaves danced along the slick cobblestones.
An escort.
It was a smart move. The Earl was no fool, not even after desperate kisses. Levi could see the Earl's security, shadows like ghosts slinking about the churchyard. Ah, what fun this was, to literally have the enemy in his grasp and make the conscious decision not to strike yet. After all, what
was
the rest of the plan? He'd have to speak with BLACK later…. If he felt like it, anyway.

“Understood, my lord,” Levi whispered.

“We will meet every night here to discuss missions I have for you, and if we don't, I'll forward a message to you explaining why. I'll also send assignments.”

We will meet every night here.
Would they? Levi couldn't suppress a devious smile, a little ironic chuckle. Of course they would. Because there was a mutual
intrigue
between them, or however the Earl wanted to put it. Clever little imp.

Be honest with me.

As it turned out, by the very next day, the courier Levi had stationed on the Rue at the fake address came to him delivering a wax-sealed packet. It seemed the Earl already had assignments for his new ace in the sleeve.

There was no real fighting involved, and some part of Levi was thankful for that. Those on the streets knew him better than the Earl did, after all, and he would have hated to stumble upon some familiar face here or there and have to explain what he was doing and why he was doing it alone.

No, the Earl just wanted to use Levi like another set of eyes, peeking into the worst parts of New London that he himself was loath to enter.

First it was that Levi had to patrol a certain neighborhood where rather insignificant Ruslaniv gangs were terrorizing Dietrich working class, like packs of angry dogs chasing rabbits in and out of their burrows.

Then there was a minor dispute on the bankers' block down by Alderstower, and masked thieves outside Leroy Square, and a scouting mission that required Levi spend some time in the East Streets
—
strictly Ruslaniv territory, and slummy territory at that. It was already familiar to Levi. Cleveland Street and Dalley's Street and Old Yew
Bailey
Court where gamblers organized boxing matches and swordfights, Foxe's and Fleet's Inn, hotels and cafés and all other sorts of haunts the parties of nightlife loved. But still he was always on edge, waiting to be caught as this Other Levi, this spying spy
—
caught by those who knew him, or those who thought they knew him.

Not long after that the Earl asked him to infiltrate a notorious Ruslaniv dance hall where opium and cocaine barons spoke of their sales and deals, and he was to report back to the Dietrich house with overheard plans so the Dietrich men could hijack the barons' shipments and hold them over their heads.

It wasn't hard to roam the streets unchallenged by Lord Ruslaniv.

His father was confident in Levi's anonymity. He'd helped to fortify it, anyway, and after all that had happened over the years, he had stopped asking about anything. Now and then it was just a weary glance over breakfast or luncheon, when Levi was frequently hungover, or distracted, or sporting badges from a night of carousing—tousled hair, darkened eyes, yesterday's clothes, bloodied knuckles, broken blood vessels.

It was the same now, sneaking around for Earl Dietrich. The servants noticed Levi was gone, as did his father's dutiful agents. They whispered and exchanged looks when he came trudging through the marble halls at daybreak, exhausted and accepting guilt for their simplest suspicions. They'd go whispering to his father by midday about his antics, but they were clueless of just what
antics
he was up to lately. They judged him as a rowdy and ruthless young man, taking advantage of his good looks and fat wallet with the rest of the gang he'd inherited from his older brother, the older brother who actually
had
taken advantage of his good looks and fat wallet.

But that was the thing. Levi was not out gallivanting with the crew he'd inherited. And to avoid BLACK's questions as to why he didn't join them at all their favorite clubs and casinos, raising hell through New London as the Ruslanivs' most elusive and ominous gang….

That balancing act was the part that really grated on Levi's nerves.

“How's it going?” they'd ask carefully, with critical glances—Elliot, the Witch, William—when what they really meant was
What the devil are you doing with the Earl that makes him get you more than we do now
?

Their resentful glances made him giddy.

Be honest with me.

“Listen,” Levi said, and he looked at Eliott because he knew Eliott would understand the urgency even if it went unexplained. “BLACK needs to lay low while I'm involved with the Earl. Let us become shadows in the night again, because we can't afford to draw attention to ourselves with as much as he's watching the streets.”

He was twenty-four years old, the Honourable Lawrence Levi Ruslaniv, elusive heir of the Ruslaniv fortune and infamy, and until he'd been seven, his world had been one of governesses, the nursery, the high walls around the manor, the screams he sometimes heard outside those walls. Screams cursing his family, sometimes punctuated by gunshots.

He'd learned about his family's history and burdens for the first time when he was eight. He'd whispered to himself the reasons he couldn't go outside the Ruslaniv walls like he whispered his prayers.
Too dangerous, too dangerous, not safe for an heir.

He'd pulled his first trigger when he was nine, entered into BLACK's training when he was twelve, killed for the first time when he was fifteen.

And now, almost ten years later, he was tangled up with an earl—
the
Earl, the son of the enemy, the new enemy
now
, apparently.

Wasn't it absolutely wild?

 

 

“T
HE
SECURITY
on the western wing of the manor might be a bit lax tonight,” the Earl whispered, a sly hint in the dancing dark of St. Vincent's. He turned his eyes up so seductively, so serenely as they lingered close together in the shadows near the doors after another business meeting, which had quickly gone from talk of guns and politics to talk with tongue and teeth. It was curious how the hot golden glow of candles in the dark could seem like something hellish even in the dusty peace of the sanctuary. That light rendered the Earl utterly dark and dangerous-looking, a little devil, mastermind of these rendezvous, a vagrant agent of Cupid or Venus or some less well-intentioned deity sent to test the convictions and willpower of men. Such assignations were clearly nothing new to him. He knew what he was doing, what it meant, and how illicit it was. The utter lack of shyness in his eyes was mesmerizing, like staring into a flame as it changed colors. And God, but he was so hot and slim and perfect, and the way that knowing smirk passed across his face as he bid Levi good night and disappeared from the church, out into the dark…. Oh, it was just too good.

Levi turned and scowled up at the Virgin Mary, who peered down at him in such mournful disappointment.

“Shut up,” he hissed, and pinched out one of her prayer candles before leaving.

Levi played along, because it was his duty to play along. The name of the game was to get on the Earl's good side, wasn't it?

He was surprised, of course. Who else in all of New London knew the young Earl's shameful inclinations? Who else in New London had the Earl romped with? Had Levi really expected anything else from someone who had seen the belly of Father Kelvin's brothel and lived to tell the tale, like the Earl had?

He wondered if the Earl would ever even mention as much to him. Certainly men were not required to disclose prior sins to present lovers.

Levi felt no guilt for it. At least, not for the deceit. He enjoyed the kisses and the playful tension, without a doubt. But he also felt somewhat detached, cold and in awe of himself for doing such things and not feeling a single moral shiver about it. It was a delicious game. He couldn't deny that. The kisses, the brush of fingertips, the racing of his heart, and the way the Earl's damning glances and secretive smirks just grabbed his desire by the throat…. Well, why couldn't he get a little pleasure out of it too?

Sitting in the dark on the Earl's balcony, or before the fire in his wide elegant room, or in the dancing shadows of St. Vincent's, they even talked together.

They talked of politics and business, and they gossiped about parties and people and the jokes of life in general. They talked about nothing. They talked about everything. They shared childhood memories, which Levi carefully edited on his part.

There was no stopping the inevitable befriending.

But Levi needed to know things.

It was vital to know things in his complex and duplicitous position.

“I find myself wondering,” he prompted from below the Earl's balcony, where it was safe tonight, a beckoning bed partner like he had been when BLACK had urged him back over the wall almost a fortnight ago, “just how many men like me you've gobbled up as lovers?”

The Earl was in that oversize smoking jacket of his, the one his butler had draped over him the same night. He hoisted himself up to sit near the stone gargoyle, and it was either stupidity or an unwavering and rebellious bravery with which he left himself vulnerable on his balcony like that, stripped of formalities and security.

“I hope you're not accusing me of trickery and selfishness,” the Earl called down, hooking his feet at the ankles and lounging against the gargoyle. It made Levi nervous to see him perched on the ledge like that. He did not want him to fall. “Don't be insulting. I like to think I'm rather selective about my bedmates.”

“Selective, you say?”

“Yes, you should feel honored.”

Levi was no stranger to utilizing surroundings, and with something just short of ease, he climbed the vines and uneven stones of the manor until he was beside the Earl's balcony. The Earl wore that ever-teasing smirk of his, the one that said Levi could trust him if he wanted to, but for all he knew, he could still just be using him for his own manly needs. The Earl slid away from the gargoyle and helped Levi over the stone and onto his balcony.

“I do feel honored,” Levi replied.

“Are you jealous?” The Earl sounded eager. “You're jealous of those in my past?”

“I'm curious,” Levi parried.

“Admit it,” the Earl hissed, fingers digging into Levi's arm. His eyes were wide and lit by a mischievous light as he ducked out of view from the open bedroom doors, and that teasing smirk became a full greedy grin. “Admit it, you can't resist me.”

Levi stared at him for a moment, not really feeling moved one way or the other, except for the fact that a natural and unaffiliated sort of lust was stirring between his hips, hardening and responding to the pure physical aspect of it all, which was numb and terrible in and of itself.

God, how easy it was to play this role. One might have thought it was his natural character. Closer, closer—he had to become indispensable to the Earl. He wasn't sure what drove him to such a goal, other than an obvious shift of power directly into his hands. He had to become a puppet master of sorts.

But all his words felt honest, and Levi wondered if he was getting too much into character.

I feel honored.

The Earl simply smiled a mysterious and distant smile, like the spider in the center of the web smiling over at the fly snared in its silk, lashes lowered on those ruthless pale eyes.

It was rather eerie. It sparked a fleeting misgiving in Levi. He thought—what if the Earl was bluffing too? What if this was all one grand chess game and neither would win because it was an endless dance with danger and dirty design?

But why was he afraid of that, if not only for the obvious loss of strategy? Certainly not because he was enjoying himself—