There Will Be Phlogiston (12 page)

A kick and he was down again, his mouth sour with
spit and iron, his eyes full of smearing stars.

“Please, I don’t—”

Perhaps there were three of them now. More. Less. It
didn’t matter. Everything was dissolving into a haze of hurt. He
had no idea how to fight back, how to defend himself, how to make
it stop. He might have begged. He knew he wept. But his tears were
abstract, somehow, like the blood he could feel running down his
skin, disconnected from a world that had become nothing more but
the spaces between blows.

When the edges of the darkness frayed—had he been
unconscious?—there was a hot weight on his back, pinning him down.
Hands, impersonal now, stripped him. He was dull with fear, beyond
even the effort of struggling. But this latest horror, and the
recognition of further violation, stirred him slightly.

“No . . . don’t . . . not . . .”

The snick of a blade. To Lord Mercury, the loudest
noise in Gaslight.

He wished he possessed strength enough to fight.
And, failing that, the courage to die. His honour should have
demanded it.

But he wanted to live. Above all else, he wanted to
live.

So he fell silent. Lay still.

Pleaded with the God who had fashioned him and
condemned him, denied him and punished him:
Let these men use
me, but let them spare me. Please.

The knife was for his hair.

They left him in the gutter, beaten and shorn,
tattered and shamed. They spat on him before they departed, pissed
on him, but they did not touch him.

And when they were gone, Lord Mercury laughed to the
lost sky, thinking how strange it was, this definition of
mercy.

A constable found him a little after dawn.

The circumstances and nature of the attack were such
that it was felt it would be in the best interests of public
decency to exercise discretion over the details.

Which, of course, meant that very soon everybody
knew everything. And all of Lord Mercury’s secrets became nothing
but trinkets to be passed round and picked over.

His injuries—cuts, bruises, a couple of cracked
ribs—would fade and fade swiftly, but how was he to bear this?
Knowing that the worst of him belonged to those who whispered of
it: his soul, his heart, his needs, helpless in the hands of people
who would shake their heads and laugh, or shudder in revulsion,
decry his weakness and perversion, or titter gleefully at the
scandal. People who would never—could never—understand.

It made him almost wish to be on the ground again,
at the mercy of strangers, where pain was simple: a string of
brutal moments. Not this savage and unceasing grief for something
at once as fundamental and ephemeral as his public self. Perhaps he
was mourning something that had never been little more than a
phantasm, but now he had lost even the hope of being a different
man, a better one, worthy of his name. Everyone knew him for who he
truly was: a sodomite, a fool, someone with no place among decent
people. Though even in the depths of his despair, he recognised the
absurdity of such a thought. Gaslight cared little for decency,
only discretion.

The only truly decent person he knew was Anstruther
Jones.

This house, this bed, was full of memories of him.
Attempts to tutor and civilise the man, all of them ridiculous,
hopeless, because Lord Mercury had wanted him just as he
was—untamed and free, entirely himself. Even if he did prefer
coffee to tea, smoke cheroots instead of cigars, laugh too loudly,
stand with his hands in his pockets and sit with his foot on his
knee and . . . fuck, oh God, the way he fucked.

That first time particularly. Hands claiming every
part of him, whispering things Lord Mercury should not have needed
to hear.

Yet dreamed of still.

God, he needed Jones. Not sexually. That was the
last thing his body, or his mind, was ready for. But thinking of
him had brought the longing out of the corners, scratching him raw.
He just wanted to be held, not in passion or possession, but in
comfort, until he felt strong and whole and worthy again.

The first few days, he stayed in bed, numbed by
laudanum and humiliation. He was not at home to visitors but, of
course, none came. There were no enquiries either, no calling cards
or invitations. Some of the servants left.

So this was disgrace: a slowly deepening
silence.

One afternoon, he was roused from a restless
half-sleep by a commotion from the hallway. His bedroom door flew
open with a crash and there, flanked by two harried-looking
footmen, was Anstruther Jones.

“I’m sorry, my lord, he—”

“Arkady.”

Oh, that rough, so familiar voice. It was as though
Lord Mercury—bent on his own torment—had summoned the man through
pure force of yearning, and, in that moment, it was impossible to
separate joy from pain, the sweetness of memory tangling with the
shock of recognition and the bitter sting of reality. It was
similarly difficult to muster much dignity from the centre of a
huddle of blankets, but he tried and nodded a hasty dismissal to
the servants. At the very least he could spare himself an
audience.

Although, of course, that left him alone with Jones.
Who looked appallingly desirable, all hard strength framed by
exquisite tailoring, the sort of man one wanted to savour and
slowly unwrap, until he was nothing but heat and skin and hunger .
. . and, oh God, why hadn’t he touched him more when there had been
opportunity? Jones had given himself like a gift, and Lord Mercury
had been too afraid to do anything but yield.

He should have
revelled
.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. And then,
panicking, “Wait, don’t . . . It’s not—” Because Jones was coming
into the room. Throwing off his hat, shrugging his coat from his
shoulders.

“I heard what happened. I came to see you.” The bed
creaked under Jones’s weight. He sat on the edge of it, rather as
Lord Mercury’s nurse had done when he had been very young and
suffering from some trifling childhood complaint that had rendered
him an exile from his mother.

It could have almost been amusing—as if Jones was
about to pat his hair and tuck him in—but all Lord Mercury could
think was how painful it was to accept the compassion of a man who
had once groaned with the pleasure of their connected bodies. Told
him how beautiful he was, whispered of all the things they could do
together.

“Why?” he snapped. “Are the rumours insufficiently
detailed?” It seemed there was a brittle, angry place at the
deepest heart of shame that felt almost like pride. “It’s all true.
I was at the docks, soliciting sodomitical advances. And,
afterwards, the gentleman’s friends took it upon themselves to
punish me for it. Does that satisfy you?”

Jones’s fingers closed lightly around his wrist, a
circle of warmth that made him remember the last time Jones had
held him, pinned to the wall, threatening and promising. “What have
I done to make you think I’d be pleased by cruelty?”

And all at once, Lord Mercury crumbled. Whatever
that final piece of pride had been, it was gone now, shattered by a
few gentle words, leaving only loss and old longing. His eyes
burned with fresh tears. “It’s not what you’ve done. The last time
we . . . If I hadn’t . . . I deserved this.”

“Not on my account. And certainly not on your
own.”

“I should not have been there.”
I should have
been with you.
“And I should have been able to defend
myself.”

Jones laid his hand back upon the coverlet and
patted it. “Arkady, if people want to hurt you, they can always
hurt you. It doesn’t matter how well you use a sword or your fists,
or what kind of man you think you are.”

It seemed impossible to imagine that Jones could
ever have been powerless. “Have you . . .” Too late, he realised
what he was asking and fell silent.

Jones laughed. “Have I ever got the shit kicked out
of me? I was born in the undercity. I’ve worked for pimps and
panderers and pirates. What do you think?”

Oh, what a stupid question. There was no solace in
knowing that. “I . . . I apologise.”

“You get used to it. Not that anyone should have
to.” Jones leaned forward, brushing a jagged lock of what remained
of Lord Mercury’s hair away from his brow. “How badly did they hurt
you?”

“Nothing that will not heal.”

“Those motherswinkers.”

There was something oddly touching about the glimmer
of anger in Jones’s eyes, the growl in his throat. It made Lord
Mercury feel slightly more capable of bravery. “Thank you, but I’m
fine.”

“Are the police looking for them?”

“I’m not . . . That is—” It was still, however, hard
to speak of. “I would prefer this matter received no further
attention.”

“Tell me about them?”

“I could describe their boots and their fists rather
well, but probably little else.”

“A few small details will do. I have resources,
connections, I can find these bastards.”

Truthfully, Lord Mercury had fantasised about it.
The visitation of righteous retribution on three soldiers whose
faces he could barely picture. He had imagined them at his feet,
weeping and humiliated, begging for his forgiveness. For a while it
had comforted him, until he had realised how childish it was, how
hollow and meaningless. “I don’t need you to do that,” he said, at
last.

“No, I know. Thought I’d offer, just in case.”

“Well, err, thank you for offering to have some men
found and beaten for me.”

Jones actually blushed. “Next time I’ll try
flowers.”

And Lord Mercury laughed—the impulse catching him as
sweetly and unexpectedly as snowdrops in spring. Laughter had
seemed so far away from him the last few days, but it was easy now.
Too easy. A sharp, hot pain as blood rushed to fill the cut that
had reopened on his lip, and a far deeper one like an iron band
around his ribs, and he fell silent again, stifling a gasp and
wincing. Jones offered him his perfect handkerchief, and Lord
Mercury had to accept it or be reduced to dabbing at himself with
the sleeve of his nightshirt. “Would you really have done that?
Brought me flowers?”

“Would you have wanted me to?”

It was an odd idea, not displeasing, but still odd.
“I thought gentlemen only gave flowers to ladies.”

“Maybe.” Jones shrugged. “But, if I did bring you
some, your prick probably wouldn’t immediately drop off. Maybe the
better question is, do you like flowers?”

“I’ve never considered it. What kind of flowers
would you get me?”

This was a fantasy far more potent than nebulous
revenge against three strangers who had hurt him: Jones, glorious,
marvellous Jones, every inch the gentleman, and not one fraction
less himself, in a flower shop somewhere, his arms full of bright
and beautiful things.
Are they for someone special?
the
seller would ask him. And, he would say,
Yes
.

“That’s where I get a bit lost.” Jones rubbed his
jaw, the stubble rasping beneath his fingers. “I’ve never bought
flowers for anyone. Not much call for them in the sky.”

Foolish daydreams. “I suppose not.”

Jones smiled. “Up on the claim, there’s these
storms, where water and phlogiston get all mixed up together.
Leaves this residue behind, and if you don’t clean it sharpish you
get . . . well . . . we call them aetherblooms. They don’t look
much like flowers though. They’re sort of like—” he wriggled his
fingers expressively “—tendrils that wave on the aether currents,
and glow greenish under starlight.”

Lord Mercury only realised he was crying when the
salt from his tears stung his cuts. He hadn’t realised how much he
had missed Jones. The sex, in all its savagery, certainly, but he
ached for this as well: company, shared laughter, and Jones’s
strange, shyly offered stories of the sky. He closed his eyes, just
for a moment, fearful of the man’s pity, but the words came
tumbling out anyway. “Why don’t you hate me?”

“Why would I hate you?”

“Because of how we parted.”

“Never mind that now.”

“But I do mind. I remember everything.”

Jones shifted on the bed, looking about as
uncomfortable as Lord Mercury had ever seen him. “I was angry.
Hurt. But it’s in the past.” Once again, a patting of hands. Jones
did it easily, as if it was simply his nature to be tactile, but
all Lord Mercury remembered was the other ways they had once
touched. “I’ll always be your friend, Arkady, if you’ll have me. I
knew that from the first moment I saw you.”

It was a kind thing to say. Very kind. He tried to
smile, but it hurt, as though there were cracks in his heart as
well as on his lips. “I’m not sure friendship was foremost in your
mind back then.”

“Well. No. I didn’t expect to like you. But you were
beautiful, and so put together like you were this perfect
gentleman, but your eyes said nothing but ‘love me.’” Jones
shrugged that shrug that Lord Mercury had failed to train out of
him. “So I did.”