by J. A. Rock
“Did I not just crawl back into bed with you and assure you of what a good lad you are so that you may now slink back to your fiancé secure in the knowledge that your moral laxity shall not cost you the marriage you so crave?”
“That’s not—”
“That is precisely what happened. You assured me you would not despise me, that you were fully complicit in our little tryst, and yet I see regret tormenting you. You shall get no further reassurance from me, Warry. You are your own master. At least until you stand before a priest and hand Balfour the end of your leash.”
“You disgust me,” Warry snapped.
Hartwell winced inwardly but continued jamming his foot into his shoe. He wished the feeling were quite mutual.
“I called you a coward before only because I knew no stronger word. But you are something far worse. And I hope that I never speak to you again as long as I live.”
“Throw your tantrum,” Hartwell said, tying his shoe. “You have a child’s understanding of how the world works. Go play with your colicked goats and your poor dumb cows.”
“And you go on living a life where you love no one truly except yourself. I am not the child here, Hartwell.”
“I am not the one betraying the trust of a man I supposedly have tremendous affection for.”
That silenced Warry so abruptly Hartwell promptly regretted the words—true though they were.
He straightened. “I am sorry I pushed you away at the Marchland ball. I have cursed myself for a fool ever since. And I am sorry, that for all the years of our childhood, I did not see you as I do now. That I did not take you in my arms long before Balfour crossed your path and tell you how absolutely enchanting you are. But what I have done I have done to protect you. To keep you from feeling shame and to prevent myself from standing in your path to happiness. If that makes me a child in your eyes, Warry, then you win. I shall trouble you no further.”
He had not quite been able to meet Warry’s gaze through much of his speech, but when he turned for the door, he was not fast enough to avoid a last glimpse of Warry’s folded-up figure, straw-coloured hair now touching bare knees. The image nearly compelled him to return to the bed. To offer the very reassurances he had just vowed to deny the lad. But the sooner he left this wretched room, the sooner the pain would start to fade. He yanked his other shoe on and hurried out, shutting the door hard behind him.
Chapter 14
The letter arrived from Balfour a little after noon, requesting Warry’s presence in Hyde Park for a carriage ride. Warry’s stomach soured, but at least Balfour had suggested a public meeting place. With Balfour’s ball coming up, more members of the ton were arriving in London. And with the weather so fair, many of them would be promenading. Perhaps Balfour would not make a scene about last evening.
Even if he did, what did Warry care? What did he care about anything? He’d gone home and slept dreamlessly for two hours. He’d eaten a late breakfast without tasting a bite. And now he saw the park and its inhabitants as though from a great distance. Balfour awaited him, not with his curricle but with a closed carriage. The thought of being closed in with Balfour was unpleasant, but he attempted a smile as he accepted Balfour’s hand and climbed up. It was as though the flesh Balfour touched was not even Warry’s.
“I do apologise for last night,” he remarked with more heartiness than he’d thought himself capable of. “My friend was feeling quite ill. I wanted to see him safely home.”
He adjusted himself on the seat as the carriage rolled forward. He waited for Balfour’s lecture, knowing he would hear none of it.
Balfour sat across from him and regarded him with chilly, dark eyes.
“What sort of game do you think you’re playing?” the man asked.
“I’m not playing any game.” It felt good to be so far away and to know that nothing and no one could hurt him ever again, for he understood now that what Balfour had first seen in him—that capacity for love—had been a falsehood.
“Do not lie to me.”
Balfour had drawn the curtains. Sunlight tried without much success to filter in through the wine-coloured fabric.
“I saw the way you touched him last night. And then this morning, Lord Wendell tells me he saw you and Hartwell leaving an accommodation on Russell Street. One after the other. Do you think me stupid?”
“I have no opinion of your intelligence.”
“Why were you there?”
“He was ill. From the spirits. I stayed to ensure his safety. I slept in a chair.”
Memory roared inside him like a flame. He could feel Hartwell’s touch, could taste his skin and hear his groans of pleasure.
No. No, he must put all that from his mind.
Balfour slapped the wall of the carriage, and Warry nearly flinched.
“You have promised yourself to me, and yet you have no thought for my reputation. What did I tell you about loyalty?”
Warry nearly laughed out loud. Where had loyalty got him? A memory of placing the jug before Hartwell so he could be sick. Curling around Hartwell so the man might sleep. Assuring Hartwell he did not despise him. All so that Hartwell might once again find his weakest places and strike him just there.
And yet, however ill-used he felt by Hartwell, had there not been truth in the man’s words? I am not the one betraying the trust of a man I supposedly have tremendous affection for. He owed Balfour nothing—neither honesty nor loyalty. But how had he failed to realise the wrongness of withholding the fact of his engagement from Hartwell? Hartwell had no way of knowing the engagement was a sham. No wonder he despised Warry. Warry did not possess a unique capacity for love. He possessed a unique capacity for manipulation and wickedness. For covering up his sins with more lies.
“I am sorry,” Warry said, his focus on the curtained window.
“Low as you might be willing to sink, I will not sink with you. Are we clear?”
Warry looked Balfour directly in the eye, the way Balfour had taught him to in conversation. He straightened his neck and lifted his chin. “Let me go then if I do not please you.”
Balfour was staring but not into Warry’s eyes. Warry realised too late what he was seeing.
“What is that?” Balfour asked with deceptive calm.
Warry wanted, for some reason, to reach up and touch the mark on his neck. To press on it and make it hurt.
He leaned forward and hissed, right in Balfour’s face, “A bit of fun.”
The slap came so fast the sound of it was at first greater than the smart. Warry put his hand to his cheek, anchored quite firmly now in reality, and dreading the moment the numbness would fade and he would be forced to confront humiliation as well as pain.
“I will have your obedience,” was all Balfour said.
Warry stifled another laugh. Hartwell was right. He was undone. He might have found saving grace in the fact that Balfour was willing to wed a ruined thing like him, except he suddenly understood, fully and with alarming clarity, that Balfour would make the whole of his life hell. He had thought to seek solace with Hartwell, to grasp onto something that was his choice alone, and to be loved, even if it could only be in hidden places or under the cover of darkness. Instead, he had only given Balfour more power over him.
For Balfour knew everything, not just about sherry and horses. He knew Warry’s lies for what they were. And he knew how to deal with a wicked thing like Warry.
You are your own master. At least until you stand before a priest and hand Balfour the end of your leash.
He stared at his knees as the carriage bumped along. His cheek throbbed. Could what Hartwell had said be true? That he’d rejected Warry in order to protect him? That he’d held Warry at the Marchland ball and demanded to know Warry’s feelings for him, and then, when Warry had made his feelings very clear, pushed him away because he thought of Warry’s shame? Ironic that Hartwell had fallen into horseshit when he was already full of it. Hartwell had been afraid of scandal and afraid of disappointing his fath
er. That was all.
How close he had come that morning to telling Hartwell the truth. About the letter, Balfour, the blackmail…all of it. But what would Hartwell think of Warry having endangered Becca in the first place and then endangering her further by betraying Balfour? Hartwell and Becca might be at odds now, but Hartwell still loved Becca above anyone in the world; Warry was sure of it.
He was still studying his own body as though it were someone else’s when Balfour’s hand settled on his thigh. He jerked away reflexively, but Balfour yanked his leg back into place. “Don’t,” Balfour said quietly and without looking at Warry. “I’m certain you allowed Lord Hartwell more liberties than this. Do not play the innocent now.”
Warry allowed Balfour’s hand to remain.
He began to feel sick, realising just how trapped he was and just how much he deserved his fate. Balfour would never stop holding his indiscretion over him, even once they were married. And if Warry refused to marry him, then it was his sister’s reputation that fell to ruin.
He nodded, and Balfour squeezed his thigh almost affectionately.
“Look at me,” Balfour said. When Warry glanced up, the other man’s eyes held as much longing as Warry had ever seen in Hartwell’s.
“Come,” he said. “I am sorry I lost my temper. In fact, I’m glad to see that you are not the innocent I thought. It was all a bit much, that wide-eyed act. I will be pleased, on our wedding night, to lie with one who clearly has some experience, someone who likes a bit of fun.” He ran his thumb over Warry’s knee, then moved his hand higher. “Of course, knowing that you are secretly as insatiable as I am is driving me quite mad. It will not be long until I may finally take what I am owed for my discretion.” He pushed his thumb into Warry’s inner thigh.
Warry shoved his hand away, and Balfour withdrew, laughing.
In the late afternoon, Warry had hoped for peace, but instead he joined his father for lunch at the earl’s club—a dull, staid place nowhere near as welcoming, to Warry’s mind, as the Bucknall Club. Of which he would probably never be a member now, he thought wanly, for even if Balfour intended to allow him such freedoms once they were wed, he had no doubt Hartwell would block any of his attempts to join.
His father was in a sour mood too; he usually was when the first big events of the Season were approaching, like a child who had to be bullied into participating in some game but then enjoyed himself immensely. Warry would leave the bullying to his mother; he didn’t have the stomach for it today. Instead, he pushed his luncheon around on his plate with a silver fork and tried his hardest to prove a decent dining companion.
“I must say, all this business with Hartwell is perplexing,” Earl Warrington grumbled over his asparagus.
Warry jolted, scraping the tines of his fork across the plate with a screech. “The business with Hartwell?”
Earl Warrington waved his hand. “He and your sister. Your mother and I thought it’d be a perfect match. Why, Becca and Hartwell have been thick as thieves since they were still in leading strings. Who’d have guessed she’d be so set against him just because he almost shot you.”
Warry smiled a little at that, despite himself. “I’m rather glad, actually, that she’s not tripping over herself to marry someone who almost killed me.”
“Pish posh,” Earl Warrington said, stabbing a piece of carrot. “Almost, my boy, almost. It’s all water under the bridge now, isn’t it?”
Yes, it was. He had more to worry himself about than his shattered pride and his bruised heart. The spectre of Balfour loomed large after their carriage ride. Warry could still feel his skin prickling in revulsion as Balfour had slid a hand up his thigh. It was astonishing to think he’d very recently considered the man a friend and a confidant, not that Warry had shared any true confidences with him during that part of their friendship. He’d spoken perhaps a little about his anxiety for the future and his uncertainty about, well, everything, and he’d been so happy to find a friend who didn’t laugh at him for his insecurities. And a friend who didn’t roll his eyes and sigh, the way Becca and Hartwell often did, when he talked about agriculture and animal husbandry and the effects of enclosures on smallholders. Balfour had even listened intently when Warry had spoken—haltingly at first and then with greater confidence—about the Corn Law. The price of a loaf of bread didn’t matter a whit to most of the ton, and talks of rioting and unrest weren’t tolerated in polite company, but Balfour had listened, and Warry had been fool enough to think that meant he had won the man’s respect. Instead, it seemed Balfour had only been thinking of ways that, when they were married, he would teach Warry to shut his mouth.
Well then, no declaration of love by Hartwell had saved Warry, so he supposed that, unless he wanted to live a life of abject misery, he would have to save himself. He just didn’t know how. He could not marry Balfour; nothing was clearer to him now. But in order to escape the man, he had to first deal with the fact that Balfour had Becca’s letter in his possession, and Warry didn’t doubt he’d use it. Extracting himself from the engagement would be impossible without first securing, and destroying, that letter.
“Are you going back to the house after this?” Earl Warrington asked.
“Yes, I expect so. You?”
No.” His father shook his head, his jowls shaking. “Good Lord, no. While you were out earlier, Morgan came around looking for you. When he couldn’t find you, he trapped me in my library with a thousand questions about ribbons.” His expression darkened. “Ribbons. Really, that boy is a menace.”
“Father,” Warry said chidingly.
“I mean it,” Earl Warrington said. “His head is so stuffed full of buttons and ribbons and buckles and hats there’s no room for any other thoughts at all. They’d want to get him married off quickly, I tell you, because the boy’s a scandal waiting in the wings.”
“I rather think that’s the plan,” Warry said, and it was a plan that Morgan seemed delighted about. Warry was sure Morgan was hoping very much for a wife or a husband who would enjoy dressing him like a doll in the latest fashions and pandering to his every whim. Warry hoped, for Morgan’s sake, that he wed someone wealthy and indulgent enough to make him happy. His cousin was a popinjay, but Warry wished him happiness.
Earl Warrington eyed him keenly over the top of his spectacles. “It’s the plan of all parents, of course.” He paused to attack his mutton briefly and then looked at Warry again. “To make good marriages for their children.”
Warry wondered if he had imagined the slight emphasis in his father’s words. He cleared his throat. “I…I think Becca and Hartwell would make a good marriage.”
“Hmm.” Earl Warrington studied his face for a long moment and then stabbed a pea. “It wasn’t Becca I was talking about, my boy.”
Warry took a sip of port and screwed his courage. “Do you think Balfour is not a good match, sir?”
His father tilted his head. “He’s rich, and your mother says his nose is not the worst she has seen. I suppose that makes him a good match.”
Warry tensed, knowing his father wasn’t finished with his assessment yet.
“I have heard nothing concrete about his reputation that would make me question it,” the earl said, swirling the contents of his glass. “And if he makes you happy, then I am happy.”
Warry nodded sharply. “Thank you.”
Earl Warrington waved for a footman to come and take his plate away. “I remember when I first met your mother,” he said at last. “She was surrounded by suitors clamouring for her notice, of course, a flock of bright popinjays, and I thought she would never notice a plain brown sparrow like me. And then, one evening after I’d known her a little while, I walked up to her at the theatre, and she smiled, and her smile lit up the entire world. I knew, in that moment, that we would be happy together because she never smiled at all those popinjays the way she smiled at me.”
Warry felt an ache in his heart. They had not been happy ever after, though. They were, as he’d told B
alfour, often like strangers. His father spent an increasing amount of his time gambling, and his mother spent her time worrying about the family finances. This was some tidy, charming little story his father told himself to deflect life’s cruel realities.
“You don’t smile when you talk about Balfour,” Earl Warrington said quietly.
“I have never been the most demonstrative,” Warry said.
“Tell me, then,” his father said. “Tell me that he makes you happy.”
Warry swallowed, nodded, and held his father’s gaze. “He makes me happy.”
Earl Warrington exhaled slowly. “Well, then I am happy too.”
They sat silently for a long while, their lies festering between them.
Chapter 15
Hartwell had received the invitation to Balfour’s ball with all the pleasure of a man receiving an offering of a dead bird from a cat. In fact, he may have preferred the dead bird because at least he could appreciate the spirit in which such a gift was intended. But Hartwell was no fan of balls, at least not lately. Perhaps Gale’s jaded misanthropy was contagious, or perhaps Hartwell was tired of being prodded about when he would find a match. A ball at Balfour’s house meant he would have to watch Warry with the man. Watch them together in conversation, watch Balfour brush a curl of Warry’s hair behind his ear. And wonder whether any of it was the truth. If Warry truly loved Balfour, then what of the feelings he’d claimed he harboured for Hartwell? What of the way he’d responded to Hartwell’s touch? The way he’d smiled afterward, looking dazed and thoroughly pleasured?
Good Lord, what a nightmare.
Hartwell’s parents were attending. Both of them. Even his father, who was much more at home at his club than he was in the social whirl, would not miss the first official event of the Season.
His father’s mood since learning the engagement was off had been…Hartwell was not sure how to describe it. His father no longer seemed disappointed in him. Rather, it was as if Hartwell had ceased to exist. There was no mention of cutting the purse strings, which ought to have been a relief, but his father’s coldness bothered him more than he’d expected. Attending Balfour’s ball with his parents would not solve the problem, but Hartwell maintained some childish desire to be in his father’s presence, to test the bounds of how thoroughly the elder Hartwell could ignore him.
