A Fashionable Indulgence (Society of Gentlemen #1) (19 page)

“I don’t want your bloody money.”

“I’ve never wanted your bloody opinionated advice. It’s what I can do for now, and I’ll send more when I can. And I think Dominic will warn me if there’s any more raids planned—”

“Will he,” Silas said through his teeth, and slammed a pile of books onto a shelf so hard that the impact knocked another three off.

When Julius reflected on his life back in spring, before he’d heard the name of Harry Vane, it seemed at once a wasteland and a paradise. God knew Harry was a miracle in his bed, in his arms. God knew he’d started to think he’d never care for another human being again, or be other than disgusted by the sins of the flesh that he now found himself anticipating eagerly. Nevertheless, he was quite nostalgic for the days when he had not spent every minute in a state of alarm, thinking of what he should, or might, or
could
do if Harry found himself disgraced, disowned, and penniless once more.

They were at Lord Bunbury’s house tonight, and Julius wished to God they had avoided it. He was one of Richard’s more tedious relatives, a wealthy and well-connected man with four daughters who aspired variously to marry titles, fashion, or political influence. Richard and his friends evidently seemed a useful hunting ground. Julius would have felt quite sorry for the fellow, wasting his food and wine on men who were unlikely to take his offspring off his hands, but the dinners were indifferent, and the daughters as tiresome as their father.

Julius maintained conversation about ladies’ dress with his allotted daughter, whom he thought might be called Agatha, throughout a generously wined dinner. He braced himself as the ladies retired and the men sat, circulating the port around the board. They had been drinking steadily for a couple of hours now, and everyone but Harry was a Tory.

Of course someone raised Peterloo. Someone
would.

“It was open treason,” Bunbury said. “Taking arms against lawful government. Riots were the inevitable sequel.”

“The magistrates took arms against the reformers first,” Julius pointed out. Harry was seated on the other side of the table, a few chairs farther up. Julius couldn’t apply pressure to his foot to remind him to keep silence, but he might at least draw the fire. “If you kill unarmed men on one occasion, you may expect to meet armed ones on the next. That was established very well in the Peninsula,” he added, a little reminder of his own patriotism that he didn’t expect to work. The incredulous looks from around the table suggested it hadn’t.

“The Manchester magistrates sent in the yeomanry precisely
because
of these violent radicals,” Bunbury retorted. “The danger of a popular uprising—”

“An uprising requires a head,” Richard said, deep voice as calming as ever. “Has one emerged?”

“Not yet.” Dominic took a gulp of port. He had been drinking heavily throughout the meal, and indeed for the last few days. “Give Orator Hunt his due, he does not support violent revolution. There is no other figurehead, for now. But one charismatic man with a call to arms and the country will explode.”

“We should send in the troops,” Lord Bunbury decreed, and there was a chorus of agreement.
Send in soldiers. Put a stop to demonstrations. Ban the public meetings. Make them know their place.
Harry stared at his hands.

“I want to see the polemicists arrested,” Lord Maltravers said. He seemed so far unaware that he sat at a table with a former apprentice to revolution. Please God he would not find out. “They are the ones stirring discontent, with their slandering of decent men who enforced the law. That fellow Wroe with his so-called
faithful narratives
is as dangerous as the rabble-rousers like Jack Cade. Hang them all, I say. Make an example.”

Harry’s fingers tightened on his glass. Dominic’s jaw was set.

“Absolutely,” Bunbury agreed. “Sedition must be stamped out.” Several men nodded emphatically. Others frowned.

“Unfortunately, if we hang every man in the country who disagrees with the Manchester magistrates, there will be very few left to work the fields,” Julius pointed out. “And I was under the impression that Britons may hold whatever views we wish. We do not live under the Terror.”

“Only because we give no ground to revolutionaries!” Bunbury retorted.

“Didn’t know you were a Whig, Norreys,” somebody muttered.

“No, he’s right,” the man next to him said. “Of course people may disagree, within the law.”

“But when disagreement becomes riot and disorder and revolution, when demagogues are arming themselves against lawful government—”

“Revolution is a hydra,” someone down the table pronounced, in what Julius assumed was a prepared comment. “Cut off the heads and burn the stumps or they regrow doubled.”

“Don’t you think,” Harry said, “that the account of eyewitnesses to killings should be heard?” He was looking at his glass, which meant that Julius couldn’t catch his eye. “Don’t you think that if what the magistrates and yeomanry did was so praiseworthy, it is strange to arrest men for telling people about it?”

“Any story can be told a multitude of ways,” Richard said, apparently not hearing the dissenting voices that he spoke over.

“Told and distorted,” Dominic put in. “If people insist on writing damned fool treasonous, seditious, inflammatory stuff then they must take the consequences. What are we to do, let dissent and discontent breed unchecked? What the devil are we
supposed
to do?” He tossed back the remainder of his drink.

“We all agree that whipping up further discontent now is dangerous,” Bunbury began.

“No.” Harry put down his glass. “No, I don’t agree, Lord Bunbury. I think what’s dangerous is sending armed troops to attack unarmed crowds. I think what’s whipping up discontent is that the taxes that keep the Regent in luxury and the Corn Laws that keep the masters rich are causing the poor to starve in the streets—”

“Harry!” said Julius and Richard at once.

“—to die like dogs, from hunger, in order to keep people like you fat and comfortable,” Harry went on, stabbing a finger at Bunbury, “and nobody speaks for them in Parliament because they have no representation, and
that’s
what the reformers were asking for at Peterloo! Not your head on a pike, but a
voice.
”

“Good God,” Maltravers said. “What the devil is this?”

“This is England!” Harry shouted at him over Julius’s attempt at protest. “These are the people of this country, every bit as free-born as you, Lord Maltravers, and a damn sight more useful, and they’re starving to death, and you want them hanged for daring to be discontented about it! Unarmed Englishmen and women were killed, and you blame the crowd’s anger on the telling of it? If you read of your sister dead on the ground, would you blame the writer for how you felt?”

Maltravers was crimson. “Don’t presume to mention my sister in this indecent nonsense!”

“Women died at Peterloo,” Harry said, voice shaking. “If you had any decency at all, sir, you’d care about that.”

“Stop it,”
Julius said as Maltravers gaped.

“This is nothing but sentiment, and that is no excuse for sedition!” Dominic shouted, slamming his hand on the table. “There are laws! Nobody is excused from the law!”

“Oh, you can talk,” Harry snapped.

“Silence.
Now.
” Richard’s voice was commanding.

“Sedition and democracy.” Bunbury was spluttering with outraged dignity. “I will not have this at my table.”

“I’m very happy to leave.” Harry rose, throwing down his napkin. “I find I don’t belong in this company.” He shoved his chair back and stalked away with surprising dignity, leaving a babble of anger and outrage that faded as quickly to anticipatory, enthralled silence.

Richard’s lips were tight. Dominic had both elbows on the table, hands over his face. Bunbury looked apoplectic. Julius glanced from one to another and said, very clearly, “I think young Vane was a little elevated by wine.”

“He’s a Jacobin!” Maltravers exploded. “Did you
hear
the insult—?”

“
A little elevated by wine,
” Julius repeated, loud and cold. “I should ensure he doesn’t get himself into any further trouble. Excuse me, Bunbury, gentlemen.”
Or don’t,
he thought, as he left the table without ceremony. He couldn’t give a damn if he was never invited to dinner again, if Bunbury’s chattering daughter gave him the cut forever. He had Harry to shout at.

There was no sign of him in the street when Julius emerged. He took a guess, headed eastward in the direction of Ludgate at something close to a run, and to his relief saw Harry not too many minutes later, heading down Grafton Street.

“Harry,” he snapped, catching up.

“Are you going to tell me I shouldn’t have said it?” Harry’s eyes had the sheen that suggested he was holding back tears of anger. “I couldn’t bear it—”

“It was unbearable, but for God’s sake, you imbecile, do you imagine your damned grandfather won’t hear about this?”

Harry sucked in a shaky breath. “I don’t
care
.”

He would, and soon. “Next time, feign illness and leave,” Julius said, in the full knowledge that there might not be a next time. There had been too many men there, and Harry’s words had been too raw. Perhaps Richard might smooth matters over at least somewhat, but he had a drunken, angry, indiscreet Dominic on his hands. “Come home.”

“I’m going to see Silas.”

“Don’t. Please, Harry. Do not go there now.”
Don’t be found there, don’t leave a trail, don’t walk away from my world and burn the bridge behind you.

“Where else am I supposed to go?” Harry demanded, swinging round so that Julius almost collided with him. “I don’t want to see any
gentlemen.
I don’t want to hear any more of it.”

“Come home with me,” Julius said. “I can assure you I won’t talk politics.”

“I’m not in the mood for pleasantry.”

“Then we shan’t be pleasant. Just come with me before you run your head into any more nooses.” Harry was breathing hard, nostrils flared. God knew what he would do left to himself. Probably go assist his damned radical mentor in spreading treasonous literature, with the sudden wild urge to consign it all to the devil that had flung Alexander Vane out of his own sphere. “This is your parentage coming through, isn’t it? Standing for your principles and to the devil with the consequences.”

That had shocked Harry out of his anger. “Silas would say that was like my mother. I’m not…I wouldn’t…Oh my God, Julius, what have I done?”

Julius took his arm. “Let’s go home and discuss it, before we meet anyone we know.”

By the time they reached Great Ryder Street and Julius’s rooms, the reaction had set in.

“Hell’s teeth.” Harry slumped on the settle with a glass in his hand. “I don’t suppose people might just think I was drunk?”

Julius sighed. “Dear boy, Lord Bunbury remembers Alexander Vane eloping with a radical. You insulted him at his own table, as well as that ass Maltravers. And he gossips like a washerwoman. You may expect the story of your parentage to be all over London by tomorrow, with you cast as a full-blown Jacobin and a democrat.” He dropped to his haunches in front of Harry, taking his hands. “We will need to consider how to present this to Gideon.”

“He said he’d cut me off if I was a radical.”

“Yes, he did,” Julius said slowly. “But if he were made aware of the equal disgrace that would follow a second disowning of his offspring…”

“Would there be disgrace?”

“Disgrace could be arranged. A man who disowns first his son and then his grandson might well become an object of mockery and disgust, no matter your transgression. I’ll speak to Richard.” Julius squeezed his hands. “I can’t promise. And you may expect the immediate future to be unpleasant. But we will do what we can.”

Harry leaned forward, so his forehead rested against Julius’s. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I don’t
want
to do without you.”

“We’ll find a way, dear boy. Somehow.”

“We won’t. If Gideon doesn’t cut me off for this, he certainly won’t let me keep on as I was, without marrying and all that. Oh God, Julius, maybe I should just go back to Ludgate—”

“No.”

“I don’t want to. It’s only a matter of time before Silas is arrested again.” His fingers dug into Julius’s palms. “We had to flee the country when I was twelve because my father started a riot. I kept watch in Paris for government spies, carried secret messages for Mother. I spent all that time being afraid. I’m so tired of being afraid. But I couldn’t keep quiet, I
couldn’t.
”

Julius grabbed him, tugging him forward into an embrace. “Shh. Shh. Stop. I have done ill by you, my love. I carried out my assigned duty, rode into the crowd with sabre drawn, as it were, to eliminate the radical for the benefit of the gentleman, when I should have been considering how to reconcile your lives. Dominic more or less told me that. How lowering to know he is sometimes right.” And he’d lost their bet, damn it.

“Julius…” Harry put out a finger, carefully hooking a stray lock of hair over his ear, making Julius shiver. “Did you say
my love
?”

“I…may have done.” Harry’s brows rose, and Julius gave up. “Very well, yes, I did. My love.”

Harry’s hand gently traced his lips. “You haven’t done ill by me. Never say that. I do want this life, the comfort and the safety, and the fun of it. But I don’t want to lose you, or to be silenced, and…I don’t think I can have everything I want.” His hand slipped behind Julius’s neck, cupping the back of his head. “If I have you, I don’t mind about the rest.”

“You can have me. However you like, for however long you choose.”

“For richer, for poorer?” Harry asked, with a weak smile.

“As long as you don’t expect me to demonstrate for reform.” Julius tried to keep his tone light. He didn’t feel light. He felt as though he’d made a promise that was past due. “If your grandfather turns you away, I will not.”

“Oh God. Julius.” Harry pulled him into a kiss, urgent and needy. “I love you. I want you. I want…”

Julius kissed him, with careful precision. “Will you hold something for me?”

“Any time you like.”

“Don’t be vulgar. Just a moment.” Now seemed as good a time as any. He went to his cabinet and collected a small box. It was dusty to the touch, and he tipped the contents into his hand before returning. “Here.”

“It’s lovely.” Harry admired the pin he held. It was very plain, gold worked with simple elegance and set with a smooth, deep blue lapis lazuli cut
en cabochon.
“Why do you want me to hold this?”