“I see. No, that won’t do. That won’t do at all.” Doctor Barlowe shook his head and drummed his fingers softly on his medical bag, deep in thought. “And in addition to blackmail, you have reason to suspect he poisoned Lord Crawford?”
Dominick fetched the bottle of port and the cork. “St. John gave him this. It was sealed, but there’s a hole in the cork, where he must have injected the poison somehow.”
Doctor Barlowe pulled out a clean handkerchief and took the objects, inspecting them both before stopping the bottle back up with its cork and wrapping them in the cloth, careful not to touch either with his bare skin.
“These are very serious allegations. If you’ll allow me, I’ll take these back to my office and see if there is indeed any trace of poison on them, at which point we can discuss what to do further.
“In the meantime, it appears Mr. St. John’s plan has failed. You will live, Lord Crawford, although I insist on bed rest for the next few days at least. I will send word with my findings when I have them. However, it may take some time. As you can imagine, poisons are hardly my area of expertise. Best to avoid your cousin in the interim, I should think.”
“Let him believe his plan’s still in motion, and I just haven’t gotten around to drinking it yet?” Alfie croaked.
“Precisely. Besides, if word gets out that a lord has been poisoned, all the most fashionable members of society will claim to have been, and I’ll be run off my feet!”
✽✽✽
“Mr. Trent, a word?”
Dominick took another moment to ensure Alfie’s pillows were properly fluffed before joining the doctor in the hall. Doctor Barlowe had helped him carry Alfie upstairs and into bed with a minimum of fuss from the patient. Dominick had been impressed by the strength still evident in the man. Of course, being a doctor wasn’t just prescribing smelling salts to swooning ladies; he had to have strength enough to hold a thrashing patient still and operate at the same time.
“I thought it best to discuss this where Lord Crawford could not hear. It would not do to distress him further in his current state,” the doctor said as they reached the front hall, pulling on his gloves. “As I said before, anything said to me is in the strictest confidence, whether it is of a medical nature or… otherwise.”
Dominick nodded.
“As such, I will contact you as soon as I have any conclusive evidence one way or the other as to whether the bottle contains traces of poison.”
He gave his medical bag holding the bottle in question a jaunty pat. “But until such time, I will not be making any accusations against his lordship’s cousin. To do so would only be ruinous in society and bring scandal upon the family name, which must obviously be avoided at all costs. And the unnecessary stress to the patient as well of course.”
“Of course,” Dominick added dryly, already eager for this conversation to be over so he could return to Alfie.
“As a gentleman, I assume I can rely upon your discretion in this matter as well?”
Dominick couldn’t help the huff of laughter that escaped him, “Don’t worry, Doctor. I don’t mix much with society.”
“Good, good.” Doctor Barlowe said with a crisp nod before rummaging in his bag. “I almost forgot again. I meant to give these to Lord Crawford when I removed his stitches, but they completely slipped my mind. His medication.”
“Medication?” Alfie had mentioned no such thing to Dominick.
Doctor Barlowe nodded. “You seem to be good friends with his lordship, I ask then, have you noticed any... strangeness in his behavior?”
Dominick’s brow furrowed in confusion.
The doctor sighed and looked up at something on the wall. Dominick followed his gaze to the painting hanging there. It was the portrait of Alfie’s parents, the one of them dressed in the exotic garb of their travels.
“I knew his lordship’s mother when she was a girl. Kind, gentle, all fine traits that she passed along to her son. She was the model of respectability, a paragon of what a well-bred lady should be. In a just world, she would be among us still, an example and inspiration to all decent folk.
The doctor’s kindly face twisted into a scowl. “But her husband somehow coerced her into haring off with him to parts unknown, and when they returned… I only met the man after he had already fallen ill, so I do not know if his neurasthenia was a result of his travels or the cause of it, but the late earl’s madness was becoming more pronounced by the day. That he passed before his eccentricities could shame his wife and son further was almost a blessing.”
The doctor sighed heavily, and touched the painting’s gilt frame with reverence.
“But his death sent poor Althea into such mourning. I had hoped that free of his influence, she would recover and become her old self again, once more respected and celebrated for her virtue. But those hopes were in vain. And now I fear for the current earl. To have a morbid heredity from one parent is trouble enough, and his cousin acting in such an atrocious manner is most worrisome as well. I fear the risk of shame being brought upon the family did not die with the father.”
He handed Dominick a small bottle of unlabelled brown glass. “These drops are merely a precaution. Be sure not to give him these until the poison has passed completely from his system; it would be best to wait until his lordship is up and out of bed. I would also appreciate a note being sent so I can update my records when he begins treatment. Three drops in water, after supper. Any more could prove dangerous.”
Dominick took the bottle grimly.
“I appreciate your concern for your friend,” Doctor Barlowe called over his shoulder as he walked out the front door and climbed into the waiting hack, the same one Dominick had chased after before. Dominick handed the driver the promised coin—liberated from a stash in Alfie’s desk—and closed the coach door behind the doctor.
Doctor Barlowe leaned out the open window and whispered, “I warn you to be careful. This sort of thing often looks better before it gets worse. Feel free to call me again if he should take a turn.”
Dominick started. He hadn’t considered that. If the poison—and it was poison—still remained in Alfie’s body, he could be in danger even now. He hardly waited for the hack to pull away before he was slamming the front door behind him and rushing back upstairs.
✽✽✽
Dominick sat heavily on the bed and breathed a sigh of relief. Beside him, Alfie’s chest rose and fell evenly in his sleep.
It could have been minutes or hours that he sat there, matching his breaths to Alfie’s own. If Alfie stopped breathing, Dominick realised vaguely, he would too. Maybe not right away, but to have gotten Alfie back after all these years, to have felt the soft touch of his lips and the silken warmth of his body beneath Dominick’s hands only to then lose him? That would kill Dominick as surely as any poison.
The thought did not particularly shock him. After all, he couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t love Alfie in one way or another.
He pulled the covers of the bed up, tucking them in more firmly around Alfie’s bare shoulders. Alfie mumbled something in his sleep, fighting briefly against his cocoon of blankets before giving up with the smallest huff. Dominick’s heart swelled with fondness. Like this, swallowed in his giant bed, the lines and cares of the day erased by slumber, Dominick saw nothing of the lord Alfie had become, just the street urchin he had once known; sweet, brave, and far too good for the ugliness around him.
It was a precious thing, to be so in love with such a man. He only hoped that Alfie did not love him back.
Dominick sighed, turning away from Alfie to look down at his own hands. Even now, in the quiet and beauty of a lord’s mansion, they were clenched into fists, ready to fight. His palms were coarse and rough from honest work when he could get it, and his knuckles pitted and scarred from when he couldn’t. As for Dominick’s body… He knew there was a rough appeal there, he’d made enough pennies on his knees or braced against the bricks of dark alleys to know that, but that was
only on the surface. Inside he was all the ugliness he had ever tried to protect Alfie from. A cheap fighter and a cheaper whore, a thief and a ruffian. A man who could be counted on to do almost anything, if it bought him bread enough to live another day.
If he had done any good in his life since protecting Alfie all those years ago, Dominick could not think of it, and he knew that when his time came, that one act would not be enough to balance the scales of all that had come after it.
For now though, he could watch over the man he loved and be there for him when he awoke. Maybe that would count for something.
Chapter 22
Alfie tugged at the collar of his cleanest—and itchiest—shirt. Dominick had told him to keep watch while he eavesdropped on the fancy folks having tea with the governor. The rumor was they were here to hire a new maid or kitchen boy and if Dominick could find out who they’d picked before anyone else did, he and Alfie could get a head start on claiming their things.
The fine carriage parked in the workhouse yard was an unusual sight. Alfie was so distracted by its liveried footmen pointedly ignoring the taunts of some of the braver children that he didn’t notice the boy sneaking up behind him until it was too late.
“Off with very fairies, were you?” Baz said with a vicious flick to Alfie’s ear. “That’d be about right. Get a good look in while you can, that’s the last time you’ll see anything so nice.”
Alfie rubbed his stinging ear and looked up at the taller boy. Dominick said he’d start growing any day now, and end up taller than Baz and him both, and who’d be flicking whose ears then! He straightened up as much as he could.
“You never know, they could pick me, and in a few years I’ll be wearing a fine uniform just like that and riding on the back of an even fancier coach.”
Baz laughed viciously, “Well, mind you don’t get any mud on the doors opening them or I’ll order you whipped. Didn’t you hear? They’re not here for a servant, you ninny. They’re looking for a child on the sly like to say is their own. Raise to be a proper lord with beautiful ladies and bags of money and whatnot.”
He sneered down at Alfie. “Not going to pick a scrawny weakling like you, are they? Rich folk don’t like a little mouse, always hiding in the shadows. They want a real man like me.”
“I think they’d want an heir who wasn’t so stupid he’d confuse his soup bowl for his chamber pot.”
Alfie immediately regretted his words as a brutal punch to the stomach brought him to the ground. He raised his arms to protect his face from the kick he knew was coming. He braced himself for the pain, but it never came.
Instead there was a shout as Dominick burst out of the building and threw himself directly onto Baz. He fought like a demon possessed, landing blow after blow until Baz kneed him in the bollocks. Alfie winced in sympathy and tried to go to his friend’s aid. Baz rolled them over, but Dominick still had strength enough to grab a hold of him and keep him from going for the knife in his boot. The two wrestled furiously in the dirt, teeth bared like dogs and spitting curses in between savage jabs.
Still gasping, Alfie pulled himself to his feet, and staggered a few steps before he was stopped by a voice behind him.
“Such a pity! And he seemed most promising too!”
The nasal crack of the lord’s voice was enough to silence the whole yard. Even the two fighters came to a halt at the sound. Alfie turned. The fine man and lady stood on the stairs to the main building. She had a hand pressed over her mouth in shock, but the look on him was outraged disappointment. Beside them the workhouse governor groveled and sniveled.
“Many, many apologies, Your Lordship. We have unfortunately had quite a few problems with that one. Would your second choice still suffice? As you see, here he stands, quite wisely staying uninvolved in the squabbles of his lessers.”
“I suppose,” the lord sighed, and flicked a hand at the waiting footmen.
“No!” Baz screamed, struggling to break Dominick’s grip, “It’s meant to be me! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you both!”
Alfie squinted in confusion, then two sets of heavy hands landed on his shoulders and began to drag him away.
“Nick? Nick!” he cried.
Dominick smiling at him from the dirt, teeth bloody and eyes sad, was the last sight Alfie had of the only person who had ever loved him.
✽✽✽
“Nick? Nick!”
Alfie thrashed and struggled against the footmen holding him back. Then with a gasp he awoke and immediately wished he had not. His entire body felt as if he’d been dragged through Whitechapel behind a cart, and his mouth tasted as if he’d been licking the gutter the entire way. There was also a hazy recollection of Dominick tucking him into bed, but he must be getting the past confused with the present.
“I’m here, I’m here,” said a deep voice. “Christ, you still scrap like an alley cat, don’t you?”
Alfie lay still, blinking as his nightmare dissolved back into the memory it was. Slowly this time, he tried to sit up, only to be stopped by a heavy weight across his chest. He looked down and his breath caught in his throat. Dominick sat on the very edge of a chair by the side of his bed with one thick arm splayed across Alfie’s chest, pinning him down. His head rested on top of the coverlet by Alfie’s hip, face turned away and hair mussed as if he’d slept in that uncomfortable position all night.
The blankets had slid down just far enough in Alfie’s struggles that the side of Dominick’s thumb rested against his bare skin. The single point of contact felt like a brand, burning Alfie and filling him with memories of the night before. Of Dominick bathed in the glow of lamplight, those strong arms pulling Alfie against him, stripping him of his shirt...
Of what might have happened next, if his thrice cursed cousin was not a murderous fiend.
Alfie sighed, loathed to let such dark thoughts intrude on the present. He squirmed until he was able to free an arm from his blanket prison, and hesitated only a moment before laying it down on top of Dominick’s. His pulse sped as his fingers traced along the raised veins and defined muscle, entranced by the potent maleness of his form. Dominick’s arm hair tickled against his wrist as Alfie gently stroked a fingertip over the backs of still tender-looking knuckles, humming absently to fill the sudden silence of the room.
The hand beneath his twisted, coming palm to palm with Alfie’s and interlocking their fingers. He smiled as Dominick lifted his head from the covers just enough to turn to face him.
“Good morning?” Alfie whispered.
“Evening,” replied Dominick with a tired grin. “You slept the whole day away. I was just starting to drift off myself when you decided to wake so dramatically.”
Alfie shivered as Dominick pulled their entwined hands down to press a kiss against the back of his hand.
“How are you feeling?”
“Better. A bit like the time I spent 10 hours in a pub after completing my finals at university and woke up in a mail coach bound for Aberdeen, but it’s fading.”
Dominick chuckled. “I’d like to hear that story sometime.”
“It’s not much of a story. Before we even crossed into Lincolnshire, I had been sick all over myself multiple times and was kicked off at the first inn to make my way home in disgrace.”
“Sounds like some nights I’ve had.”
Dominick gave Alfie’s hand another kiss, then pulled away. The sad whine Alfie let out surprised and embarrassed him, but Dominick only laughed.
“I’m not going far. You’ll be hungry once you brush the sleep off. Mrs. Hirkins left enough stew to feed an army on to warm for you in the kitchen. A proper fussock she was, I had to convince her I’d sit awake by your side all night, Bible open in my lap and hands clasped in prayer, before I finally convinced her to go home.”
Alfie whined again. He’d never be able to look her in the eye after this.
Dominick winked. “Now you stay right where you are. If I’m going to be awake all night with you in bed, I can think of m
uch better ways to spend it than reading the Bible.”
The fire that rushed through Alfie’s body with those words was hot enough to burn away the last wisps of lethargy from his mind. Hardly had the door clicked shut behind Dominick, before he was up. He shivered in the cold of the room and grabbed the robe draped absently across the back of a chair to cover his naked body. Flushing at the realisation someone had stripped him before putting him to bed, he tried to put the thought from his mind, but could not fully drive away the hope that Dominick had liked what he’d seen.
He looked around for his slippers, but not seeing them immediately, padded barefoot over to the washbasin. A quick scrub with tooth powder removed the foul taste, but a glance in the mirror was enough to confirm that he still bore the aftereffects of his poison. His skin was even paler than usual, a poor contrast to Dominick’s healthy glow, and dark circles weighed down his eyes. He ran the backs of his fingers over his cheeks, debating the merits of a quick shave, but decided not to deprive himself of what little colour the copper stubble lent him. The idea of leaving it was shockingly improper, but then again, so was what he and Dominick were about to do.
He pulled his mind from such thoughts with difficulty, nerves and excitement jumbling the images in his mind. He could already feel his body responding, and it would not do to have the race half run before Dominick even returned.
He huffed out a laugh. His hands were shaking too much to safely hold a razor anyway and doubtless Dominick was far more used to the feel of stubble on a lover than he was.
He scowled. He didn’t blame Dominick for what he had done to survive and would not begrudge any that he had taken to his bed willingly, but the idea that other men had paid so cheaply to have such a treasure as his Dominick, to have used him and discarded him for the price of a few coins, was enraging. His heart broke for the boy Dominick had been, and the man he was now, still so strong and caring, still rising to his feet with the same breathtaking smile Alfie remembered from boyhood, no matter how many times the world knocked him down.
His Lordship's Secret Page 18
