A Gentleman's Position (Society of Gentlemen) (16 page)

“I know, and I should be grateful if you didn’t repeat this conversation, because Silas will doubtless have my hide for it, but Skelton is
supposed
to hunt down radicals. It’s what he’s paid for. And yes, he’s Maltravers’s ally, but I can’t see him destroyed for that.”

“I don’t need to destroy him,” David said. “I think there is another way to deal with Mr. Skelton, but I will require your help, Mr. Frey.”

Dominic gave him a relieved smile. “Anything. Thank you.”

“Good,” Richard said. “Julius, have you any concerns?”

“Dear fellow, he may rip the balls off anyone he sees fit,” Julius said. “Cry havoc, Cyprian, and consider me your dog of war.”

Francis rolled his eyes. “Seconded.”

“Thirded,” Harry added. “Ash?”

Ash made a face. “I feel a deuced villain, you know. He’s my brother.”

“And you’re his brother, and that hasn’t stopped him,” Francis pointed out.

“I know. I’ll do what I have to.”

“What about you, Richard?” Dominic asked.

“Cyprian has my full support in whatever he does. All of you will kindly treat his requests as though they came from me.” He nodded at David. “Carry on.”

David took a deep breath. “Firstly, time. When is the trial of the conspirators set?”

“The other conspirators, you mean?” Dominic asked a little sardonically. “The fifteenth.”

“Nine days,” David said. “Lord Maltravers will want Silas added to the accused as soon as possible. Lord Gabriel, you need to delay him. Tell him that you are prepared to give in to his blackmail but that you are still working on persuading your friends. Say they are intransigent; Lord Richard is offended. Seem cowed and afraid. Can you do that?”

“I can seem afraid without any trouble at all,” Ash assured him.

“Ask to see the letter, to confirm he has it. You may be able to find a clue as to where it might be. And”—his chin tilted upward—“make Lord Richard the focus of your objections.”

Ash frowned. “How do you mean?”

“Imply that he is the man stopping you from giving in, but he has secrets himself. Use phrases like
holier-than-thou, or a fly on the wall might see things.
Don’t be drawn into specifics; clam up when he asks. But set that trail for me, Lord Gabriel—that Lord Richard has secrets for Lord Maltravers to learn. I want him on Lord Richard’s scent.”

The other men were shifting in their seats. Julius’s brows were raised so high it looked painful. “Are you baiting traps?”

David smiled, sharp-toothed and wicked. Richard waved a hand, indicating that he was unconcerned. He didn’t quite feel it.

“Very well,” David said. “As to the rest of you…gossip. I need you all, from tonight, to start asking what’s wrong with Lord Maltravers.”

“That won’t take long to establish,” Francis muttered.

“No, Mr. Webster, I mean,
What on earth is wrong with Maltravers?
” David spoke in a voice unnervingly like Julius’s dry tone.
“The fellow’s always been boastful, but really…
Or
Do you believe all this about Maltravers? He’s been saying the most peculiar things recently, but this seems extraordinary.”

“We’re to say that he’s a liar?” Julius asked.

“That he speaks fantasies, Mr. Norreys. Peculiar, sordid, unreliable. And ask; don’t say. Assert that you don’t believe a word of it. Wonder if anyone else has heard that he is speaking wildly. Remember that nonsense he was spouting about Harry Vane last winter or that ungentlemanly boast about Lady Beaufort—”

“What did he say about Lady Beaufort?” Harry asked, ruffled. He was one of the fashionable widow’s court and took a chivalrous interest in her reputation. “Because I can assure you, she would not drop her handkerchief for that oaf, no matter what he may claim.”

“I’m not aware he said anything, Mr. Harry. But you believed that he did.”

“He’s a braggart,” Francis said. “And a damned offensive lout.”

“Repeat his boasts and his offenses, and amplify them in the telling. The more basis in truth, the better. Would he have made remarks about any other lady?”

“He was heard to remark that he would take his pick of the Martindale girls at his leisure,” Julius said. “I found that insulting.”

“Suppose he said his pick of the girls and their mother too?” David asked.

“I
beg
your pardon?”

“Mr. Norreys, nobody would believe ill of Mrs. Martindale. If Lord Maltravers has been making remarks about her, that would only reflect on his peculiar state of mind.”

Julius considered that. An unpleasant smile dawned on his handsome features. “Do you know, perhaps he might have said such a thing. I believe I see what you’re about, Cyprian.”

“I don’t, quite,” Ash said.

“Undermining Lord Maltravers’s word,” Dominic said. “If Julius tells Mrs. Martindale that Maltravers said that about her—”

“Tells Lady Jersey that he said that about my cousin Martindale, more like,” Julius said.

“
Asks
Lady Jersey if she’s heard any such thing,” David said. “And asks if she was present when he said that other thing.
Now, was that at Lady Hertford’s or Lady Beaufort’s? I could have sworn you were there, but perhaps not.
I think people will be quite sure they were in the room at the time. With a couple of repetitions, they’ll believe they heard it themselves.”

Dominic raised a dark brow. “You don’t have a high opinion of human nature, do you?”

“People like stories, Mr. Frey. And they like to see the high brought low, and they love scandal. Give them the story of the duke’s son who is making the most shocking remarks, and it will spread whether it’s believed or not. Spread it enough, and it
will
be believed. After all, it must be true if everyone is saying it.”

“Yes, I see,” Julius said. “Richard, have you read
Frankenstein
at all? No? You probably should.”

“Do be quiet,” Dominic told him. “Will this be enough, Mr. Cyprian?”

“Not on its own, no. This is just your part.” David smiled. “Leave the rest with me.”

“I am absolutely appalled,” Richard said afterward.

They had cooked up half a dozen lies that were close enough to remarks Maltravers had made to have the ring of truth, but which Julius and David had together given an extra note of malice. The others had learned their parts while David and Dominic had consulted on Mr. Skelton, black and red heads together in the corner, and then the other Ricardians had left to begin their work. Harry had been advised to adhere closely to the truth; he blushed too freely to lie well. Francis was to remind people how much Maltravers disliked him, rather than starting new hares, so that nobody should trace any slanders back to him.

Now the others had left, and Richard and David stood alone among a litter of glasses, staring at the fire.

“You did say free rein,” David said. “And I did warn you.”

“I’m not appalled by you. Startled, perhaps, and—very well, maybe a little appalled, but what else would I expect from Mr. Fox?
It is not so, nor it was not so, but we’ll damned well make people believe it’s so.
No, I was thinking of Julius’s enthusiasm for inventing scandal. I have rarely seen him enjoy himself more.”

“He does have a knack for it. Do you mind this?”

“You’re killing the pig,” Richard said. “And you could not do this to another man. Lord Maltravers’s character can only be blackened because he has stained it so badly himself. Do sit down. You’ve been on your feet all evening.” He waved at one of the armchairs by the fire. “Drink?”

David looked just slightly uncertain. He took the seat, correct and upright on the edge of the chair, then leaned back crossing his legs in a deliberate pose of relaxation.

Richard handed him a glass of brandy and stayed standing by the chair. “What else have you planned?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“I can’t have that. You are doing extraordinary and unprincipled things for me, at my request. This is not like blacking my boots, a thing to be hidden from sight. I want to be with you in this. In all of what you do.”

“Well, thank you, but I meant that I don’t want you to know because I want some things to surprise you, for effect. You’re a good liar, but not a patch on Lord Gabriel or Mr. Norreys. You’ll find out,” he added, grin sharpening. “That should start tomorrow. You may not see Silas around for the next couple of days.”

“I feel a decided sense of apprehension. Do I want to know how much slander I should expect about myself?”

“I am playing fast and loose with your name to Lord Maltravers. It’s what will get me into his house. I don’t think you need fear scandal attaching permanently to you, if we can scotch this business of the letter, of course. Your reputation is its own shield. There is nothing for slander to stick to.”

“Well. Yes.” Richard sighed. “I rather wish I had not admitted illicit affections to my brother.”

“What?” David sat up, brandy splashing the sides of his glass. “You did
what
?”

“Not that. He thinks it is a lady I cannot marry and have enraged with my damn fool principles. I just—ah, I felt so tired of lying. I could not pretend to be a happily single gentleman any longer, and I have had all the conversations about marriage I can stomach. You have no idea how I envy you your mother.” To his own shock, his voice broke on the words. “If Philip—if I could just talk to him—”

David jerked as though he had started to get out of the chair and stopped himself. “I’m sorry.”

“It is absurd. I have been lying about my affections since I was old enough to have them. Why should it matter so much now?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do. It is because I wish I could tell him about you.”

“There is nothing to tell,” David said, but his eyes were wide and dark.

“Not true. And it will still not be true if you never touch me again. I should still like him to know that I have given my heart to someone who deserves it even if he does not want it.”

“Burn no bridges, my lord. Not on my account.”

“I shall do as I damned well see fit. Just as you will. David…” Richard extended his hand. “Why did you come back?”

“I told you. Silas and Mr. Norreys made me.”

“You did tell me that, but unfortunately for you, Julius’s version of events does not tally with yours. Try again.”

David narrowed his eyes. “Well then, if you will have it, pride. Half a dozen lords and gentlemen desperate for a valet’s help?” He lifted a mocking brow. “I could not resist the opportunity to show off my skills.”

“That is more plausible,” Richard agreed. “You certainly have Satan’s own pride. I don’t know why I never saw it before.”

“It’s marked well enough.” David tugged at a lock of red hair. “The devil’s hue.”

Richard reached down, not asking permission but slowly enough that David could move his head away if he wished. He didn’t, but Richard felt him stiffen as he ran his fingers through the straight, smooth hair. “I assume nothing, and I will not press you to anything. I hope you know that.”

“Yes.” David’s damned unreadable face was closed again, but he wasn’t quite looking at Richard, and there was tension in his jawline that would have been invisible to anyone who had not watched him for so long.

“I am also sure you would not put up with any such thing. You have, after all, walked away from me twice now, and I can hardly pretend that you’re in need of my protection when I am so much in need of yours.” Richard carefully hooked a few strands of hair behind David’s ear. “I cannot think of any better course than to tell you the truth and leave it in your hands.”

“What truth?” David’s voice was a little husky.

“That if you should care to have me come to you, you need but crook a finger.” Richard stroked David’s cheek with the backs of his fingers, feeling the very slightest prickle of stubble. “If you tell me no, I will be silent. If you prefer, I shall never ask again. But you should know that I would plead on my knees if I thought you wanted me there.”

“To win my help?”

“Be damned to your help. I want your mouth, and your hands, and your hair, and your eyes. I want to stop feeling as though half of my world has gone missing. That puts no obligation on you, none at all, but it is the truth. Do as you wish with it.”

David’s lips were parted, but he didn’t speak. Richard wanted to deal with David’s mouth for him, but that would not do. David had to come to him, or not. “If you want me to go now, I will,” he went on, rolling the lock of hair between his fingers. “But I would so much rather stay with you.”

David looked up, meeting his eyes at last. “Then why aren’t you kissing me?”

“Be bold, be bold, but not too bold.”
Richard ran his thumb over David’s lips, felt a tiny movement. “Will you be with me tonight?”

David’s mouth moved, lips closing over Richard’s thumb. He felt a tongue on the sensitive pad and shuddered as David sucked harder, scraping his teeth over skin. “God. My fox.”

David dragged his mouth away. “I want this. You.”

Richard nodded. Neither of them moved for a second, frozen together in front of the fire. Then David made a noise in his throat and rose to stand on tiptoe, grabbing a handful of Richard’s hair. His lips hit Richard’s fiercely, and Richard took equally hard hold of him, pulling him close. They kissed in savage silence, breathing hard. Richard dug his fingers into David’s arse and thigh, making damned sure he knew he was needed, and opened his own mouth to kisses that bit.

At last, Richard pulled away. “Bedroom?”

“Floor.”

“The floor under our feet?”

David’s fingers twined through Richard’s hair. “That very one.”

The floor of the Ricardians’ private meeting room, the space reserved for Richard’s most intimate friends. Richard looked down into David’s eyes, which were filled with dancing devils in the firelight. “I have not made love outside a bedroom in…” Not since his youth; not since Dominic.

David didn’t look away, but his other hand moved, and Richard heard the soft slip of buttons. He swallowed. He couldn’t look away either, not with David’s gaze so intent.

David took Richard’s hand, gently pressed it to a very solid cock-stand. His fingers curled around it, apparently of their own volition, forcing a breathy gasp from David, and that was all Richard needed.

He went to his knees on the rug, one at a time because he was too big to do that easily, his eyes still locked with David’s, David’s hand still tight in his hair. He didn’t move for a long, silent moment, letting both of them absorb what was happening, feeling his heart thump, then he leaned forward and took David’s prick in his mouth.

“Christ.” David’s fingers tensed. “Oh yes.”

It was the noises he made. That first time, Richard had thought his uncontrollable excitement had been due to his pent-up need for David or even just the sheer relief of handling another man’s body again, but he’d been wrong. It was those little whimpering breaths, the tiny moans, the sound of David’s control fracturing, which acted on Richard’s own prick like the stroke of a hand. He could feel himself straining against his breeches, painfully needy, and he’d be damned if there would be a repeat of that first absurd schoolboy spilling, but God, the pleasure of sucking David, of making him curse and groan, and of feeling that stiff length in his mouth…He wrapped his tongue around it, working his lips, relishing the sensation and the taste of firm flesh.

“Sweet Lord. Stop.” David tugged at Richard’s hair. “Not yet.” Richard released him with a sound of protest, and David gave a breathless laugh. “My God. You like a cock in your mouth.” He slipped to his knees with effortless grace so that they faced each other, sliding a hand down Richard’s side and over the bulge of his arousal. “Where else do you like it?”

Richard’s breath caught in his throat. David’s hand stilled, and his eyes widened sharply as if his mind had just caught up with his mouth, because to have said
that
to Lord Richard Vane….

He did not want to be Lord Richard now, and to have David watching his words was not tolerable. He brushed his thumb over David’s lips, steadily and carefully, felt the flick of tongue. “I think…I very much think I should like it anywhere you choose to put it, my fox.”

David closed his lips over Richard’s thumb with deliberate, tight suction, then released him. He spoke without hesitation, with almost a little too much control. “Shall I fuck you, Richard?”

“Yes. God, yes. Uh…it’s been a long time, though.”

“I’ll be delighted to remind you of the steps.”

The thought was a little unnerving, in truth. Dominic had always wanted to be fucked; Julius did not take either part. Richard’s only experience on that side of things had been years ago, with the tall and cheerful captain of a hussar regiment. They’d enjoyed several unsophisticated but enthusiastic weeks before the man had gone back to the wars, never to return. That felt a very long time ago now.

Richard hadn’t imagined playing at all fours for David. The few furtive thoughts he’d allowed himself on the subject had all been the other way about, as had seemed only natural for their positions and their relative sizes. Richard could not have pictured David asking to fuck him, still less himself asking David for it.

And now it had happened, it would happen, and Richard couldn’t think of anything else. David’s fingers were at work, groping through Richard’s breeches with dizzying expertise, and he felt suddenly weak with the need to put himself in David’s hands and throw over all responsibility. “Please,” he said abruptly. “I want this. Come to bed.”

“No. Here. I want to have you in this room.” David’s hand was almost painfully tight.

“Why?”

“Because I want you to remember.” His eyes looked very dark in the firelight. “Every time you come here, I want you to think of us. I want this room to smell of me forever.”

“You are the very devil,” Richard said hoarsely.

“I’ll make it good. Believe me, I’ll make it worth it.”

Richard caught a handful of David’s hair, jerking his head back, exerting his strength just enough to make David’s eyes widen. Enough to remind them both who was the bigger man, who was bending now.

“Then fuck me, you redheaded bastard,” he said, and felt David’s fierce, foxy grin like fingernails on his skin. “But at least let us lock the damned door.”

David went to do that, then to the adjoining bedroom. Richard stripped off his coat and cravat, threw them with deliberate carelessness onto a chair, and had shrugged off his waistcoat by the time David returned with his own coat and neckcloth removed. Richard pulled the shirt over his head and discarded that as well so that he was standing bare chested in candlelight, watching David watching him.

“Richard.” David reached to put a bottle of oil on the mantel, paused, then tipped some into his palm and rubbed it into his hands. He stepped forward and stroked his slick hands over Richard’s chest, tracing pectoral muscles, abdominal muscles, the curve of his ribs. Richard stood still under the warm, slippery touch, trying to control his breathing.

“There is so very much of you.” David’s eyes were on Richard’s torso as he circled a nipple with a finger. The oil matted Richard’s chest hair, tangled it. “I want all of it.”

“You have it.”

“Tonight.” David gave a fleeting smile.

“It’s more than I thought we’d have. I did not mean to offend you with my offer, David.”

“I know. We are of different worlds, and that is nobody’s fault. I was unreasonable to expect you to understand.”

“No, you were not. But I have had almost thirty-eight years as a lord and one night as your lover.” He tipped up David’s face with a finger under the chin. “Can you allow me to stumble now and then?”

David made a stifled noise. “When you say things like that, you make me almost believe—”

“In us?” Richard bowed his head to brush a kiss over his lips. “I wish you would. I wish I could see our way or that you would find it.”

“I don’t know how. We have tonight,” David whispered. “That will do for now.”

Richard took David’s earlobe in his mouth, gently tonguing the soft flesh, feeling David’s shudder. Julius and Harry were sporting matching earrings now, which Richard found foppish beyond bearing, but he could understand the urge to adorn his lover’s ears, because David’s were beautiful. Porcelain pale, the curves sharply defined at the top where they rose to a noticeable point and softer and gentler on the lower parts. He sucked on the lobe and heard David gasp.