Any Old Diamonds

by KJ Charles

  “I said I want to hear you. Do you want to know if I’m bringing myself off while I watch you?”

  “Well. Yes.”

  “No.” Crozier sounded amused. “Tempting though it is. No, I think, when I next spend, it will be with you splayed before me and crying my name.”

  “Oh God.”

  “If you prefer, but Jerry will do.”

  Alec almost laughed, breath hiccupping. Crozier’s hand was moving now, an undulating pressure on his throat, pulsing in time with the strokes of his own hand. “Yes, I’m looking forward to making use of you. Pressing you up against a wall or pushing you down onto a bed. Both, possibly. You don’t like to talk when you fuck, do you?”

  Alec shook his head, a tiny movement.

  “I’ll wager you moan, though. I’m quite sure you moan and whimper and writhe while a man has his way with you. Christ, I want to use your body till I’m sated and you’re sobbing. Faster, now. I want you to spend knowing I’m going to fuck you, and how hard, and to think about spreading your legs when I tell you to—”

  “Jesus!” Alec said, and then he was coming, prick pulsing in his fingers, Crozier’s hand pushing brutally hard against his throat so that his head was held back as his hips jerked helplessly. Imprisoned, and coming for his gaoler. He gasped and spasmed, shuddering in relief, and Crozier’s grip relaxed.

  “Christ,” he said, sounding almost a little shaky. “Well.”

  Alec licked his lips. He’d managed not to spend on his black trousers, thank heavens, but his hand was sticky. Crozier’s arm came over the chair, holding out a handkerchief.

  “Thanks,” Alec managed.

  “My pleasure. In every possible sense. Did I gauge that correctly?”

  Alec nodded, concentrating on cleaning himself up, not sure he could look round. “Yes. Very much.”

  “Good. Excellent,” Crozier said. “In that case, I will see you in, shall we say two days?”

  Alec jerked round in the chair. Crozier was still leaning on the high back. He wore his usual mildly amused expression, except that his pupils were wide, his lips reddened and slightly parted. “But—Aren’t you going to—”

  Crozier extended one arm and touched his finger to Alec’s lips, as a nursemaid would a child who needed silencing. “Who gives the orders here, Lord Alexander?”

  It sent a shudder through him. “You,” he said, against the pressure of the finger.

  “If I want to fuck you, I’ll tell you so. Or I’ll just do it. Push you up against the wall without a word, shove your trousers down and have you in silence, without troubling to discuss the matter. I wonder if you’d come harder that way.”

  “I don’t know,” Alec whispered, feeling the pressure against his lips. Please do that. Please.

  Crozier held his gaze for a moment longer, then stepped away. “We may find out, sooner or later. So we both know where we stand, I’m not going to seek permission, but I will take refusal.” Alec nodded, but apparently that wasn’t enough, because Crozier’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure you’re listening, Lord Alexander. If something is not to your liking you will say so. I don’t take pleasure in inflicting unwanted suffering. Unlike wanted suffering, which I can do all day. Got it?”

  “Yes. I’ll say.”

  “Good. After all, I can be so much worse if I can push to the edges of your pleasures.”

  Alec gave him a look. “Is that intended to be an inducement?”

  Crozier grinned evilly. “You tell me. Very well. I shall seek theatre tickets.”

  “You’ll what?”

  “Theatre. We discussed it at dinner, remember? I’m tempted to suggest the touring production of Jekyll and Hyde. It’s well done, and seems somehow appropriate. I’d be happy to see that again.”

  “I’ve heard it’s very good.” Apparently they really weren’t fucking any more. Alec got up, straightening his clothing, legs a little uncertain under him. “I’d like to see it.”

  “You’ll receive instructions. If you haven’t heard from your father by then, we will consult on next steps.”

  “Right. Yes.”

  “You look blank.”

  “I’m finding it quite hard to keep track,” Alec said, with some understatement. “You know, being Second Villain to a jewel thief, and trying to manage my family situation, and having you do, er, what you just did, and then back to jewel theft. It’s a bit confusing.”

  “I see no reason the duties of Second Villain shouldn’t include being First Villain’s helpless sexual plaything. It would make the melodramas a great deal more entertaining. Follow my lead, do as directed, and leave the rest to me.”

  Alec could almost feel the weight slipping from his shoulders. It was an appalling temptation. Crozier was a bad man; he’d made a point of that himself. Bad, highly competent, very evidently someone who liked to be in charge of every possible element. And all Alec had to do was give up and let him take over.

  “Good Lord, you look exhausted,” Crozier said. “Let’s get you a growler.”

  “I don’t have the funds. And you can’t keep paying for me.”

  “Oh, the Duke of Ilvar will be paying eventually. Don’t worry about that. In fact, don’t worry at all about any of it.” He ran a finger gently down Alec’s face, slid it under his jaw. “Everything is entirely under control.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Alec did his best the next day. He tried to work. He tried not to listen for every knock at the door in case it was the postman bearing a letter from his father. He tried not to think of what would happen if his father rejected his overtures and he’d alienated his siblings in vain, and he tried particularly hard not to think about Crozier’s promises to take care of it.

  Everything is entirely under control. It was so tempting to believe him.

  Alec had been seven when his mother died, quite old enough to be aware of the world fracturing around him. He’d been left in no doubt of the relative importance his father placed on his second wife and his offspring; he’d also been very thoroughly taught at school that the sins of the father were visited upon the children. Alec had been a pariah for years, the other boys gleefully repeating the things their parents said about the Duke of Ilvar and his new Duchess. If only they’d known.

  Growing to manhood and carving out his own career hadn’t brought any more certainty. It should have—and, Alec had sometimes thought in rebellious moments, it would have, if he’d cut himself off from his brother and sisters. If he was permitted to be plain Alec Pyne who earned his own living and mixed with journalists and artists and was of no interest to anyone... But he wasn’t, because he was Lord Alexander and his behaviour reflected on his brother and sisters, clinging onto gentility by their fingertips.

  Cara had once suggested Annabel might train as a copyist, a perfectly respectable occupation for a woman. Alec still winced at the memory of that argument, and George and Melissa’s fury. They were the heirs to Ilvar; sooner or later Father would die, and George would be duke, and assuming Father hadn’t ploughed every bit of his capital into jewels for the Duchess by then, they’d be able to take their place in society. But not, as George had pointed out, if his sister were a type-writer and his brother a newspaper drudge. They had to hold to their stations in life or they would be nothing. What sort of man would marry Lady Annabel Pyne-ffoulkes, with no portion to speak of, if he had to pluck her from an office?

  Alec’s descent to the industrious classes didn’t reflect nearly so badly on the family as Annabel’s would, but George had still been disappointed that Alec was working at all, and that, since he was working, he wasn’t doing so in a bank or a stockbrokers’ firm. That would have been a respectable occupation, where he could actually bring in enough money to make a difference or, even better, strike a bargain with a banker’s daughter who would pay to become Lady Alexander. If only Alec had had the capacity.

  It had added up to a wearyingly familiar sense of isolation even before his estrangement from his siblings. Cara had know
n him, but she was dead; George tried his best, but he’d never understand. Work had brought friendships as far as they went with people constantly scrabbling for the same jobs, but little else. It had come out very quickly that he was titled—one could hardly mix with people who worked on the papers and expect to keep that sort of secret—and his colleagues had generally lost interest in him when he’d refused to spill secrets of Society that he mostly didn’t have. And his private life was, frankly, a blank. He’d had plenty of encounters, thanks to boyish good looks—he had a feeling that wouldn’t be the case much longer, given his blond hair had started to grey and his wide blue eyes were acquiring crow’s feet—but nothing that had lasted. Men didn’t tend to seek him out twice; he was silent and passive to a fault in the bedroom and the kind of men who liked that in a partner had not so far proved to be men he wanted anything to do with.

  The fact was, he reflected as he sketched the next day, sunlight streaming through the skylight and hot on his hand, he was lonely. He was neither fish nor fowl socially, he disappointed his family whatever he did, and though he had plenty of acquaintances, he had very few real friends. He’d never had those, because how could you make friends when you couldn’t tell people the truth?

  He’d told the truth—one truth—to Jerry Crozier and he wasn’t quite sure why, except that he’d already put himself in the man’s power so he could scarcely make matters worse. That, and there was something about Crozier’s shameless confidence, the casual authority, that Alec wanted in his own soul. Wanted to have, wanted to be had by: he wasn’t sure which.

  He wished to God he could talk to someone about this, but there was nobody, and he wasn’t sure what he’d say anyway. This fellow told me to stroke myself off while he watched. No, that was all. No, he didn’t touch me, except for his hand on my throat. Not like that, I could breathe, just holding me still. Yes, best fuck of my life. No, I can’t name him. He’d be angry if I spoke about him in any way, and he frightens me a little bit.

  It was an uncomfortable thought. Crozier could be a charming companion and an intelligent listener, and he’d teased out precisely what Alec wanted so carefully and given—no, offered—it to him. And yet he was frightening; he took what he wanted and wasn’t sorry, and when Alec had tried his patience too much, the look in his eyes had been genuinely alarming.

  Alec had put himself in this dangerous man’s hands anyway, and been promised that everything was under control, and the dreadful thing was, he believed it.

  He didn’t get a great deal done that day. The next day brought a rejection on the Shakespeare job, which was a blow, an acknowledgement of his submitted artwork for the fairytale book, and a stiff note from George requesting he reconsider his foolish actions and offering fifty pounds to meet his immediate obligations. Alec doubted Melissa would be happy if she heard about that, sent his brother an appreciative thought, and penned a brief, sulky note of refusal. There was no letter from his father.

  What would, what could Crozier do if the Duke chose not to reply?

  He’d find out soon, he decided, because the second post brought a ticket for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde plus a scribbled note on Army and Navy Club notepaper:

  Evening dress not required.

  Call me Jerry.

  The former was a relief, since he’d sent his one shirt for laundry; he wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the latter. Jerry. It seemed uncomfortably intimate, but intimacy was the impression they were trying to give in public, and if one could toss oneself off at a man’s command, one could surely use his first name.

  He put on his better suit and the green waistcoat, spent too long prodding at his hair, and went out with a jangling combination of nerves and excitement, and a little pot of petroleum jelly in his pocket because one never knew.

  Jerry was lounging outside the theatre when Alec arrived, chatting with the doorman. He straightened as Alec approached. He looked rather more clubbable today, in a smart check, like an ordinary sort of man about town. “And here he is. Good evening, Lord Alexander.”

  “Jerry, old fellow.” Alec found he was smiling. “I hope I’m not late?”

  “Not at all. Thanks for your advice, Drummond.” He tipped the doorman, raised his hat in jovial manner, and led the way in.

  “What did you want of the doorman?” Alec enquired.

  “It never hurts to make friends in low places. Particularly when they can obtain one boxes at short notice, and let one know about the comings and goings of all sorts of interesting people.”

  And doubtless let other people know about Alec’s comings and goings with Jerry. He nodded and followed his companion through the crowd to the stalls.

  The play was marvellous. Alec had loved the book, and though the stage version lacked its subtlety, the atmosphere of terror was superbly done, and Mr. Mansfield’s twisting physique truly horrifying as he shifted from the philanthropic, kindly Dr. Jekyll to the monster of selfishness Hyde. Alec shuddered along with the mystery, gasped at the cruel attack on the harmless old man, found himself praying that Dr. Jekyll would somehow overcome his worse self even while he knew the end was inevitable.

  And all the while he was aware of Jerry Crozier next to him, very close, not touching. He didn’t think Jerry’s attention was on the play.

  They went along to the Coal Hole on the Strand afterwards for a bite to eat. It was noisy, the kind of loud masculine noise Alec didn’t much like, with red-faced men braying and shouting and a pall of smoke hanging over everything, but the food was good.

  “What news?” Jerry enquired once they’d addressed a generous portion of steak and kidney pudding. He had to speak loudly even with Alex close up to him on the shared table, calf pushed up against calf.

  “Nothing. Or, negative news. I didn’t get the Shakespeare commission.”

  “Ah, that’s a shame. Sorry to hear it.”

  “Well. And there’s been no response to my letter either.”

  “There, I can offer some assistance,” Jerry said. “Your father and his wife will be at Lady Sefton’s soirée on Saturday. If I obtain invitations for us both, is he likely to cut you dead?”

  “If you what? How will you do that?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Answer the question.”

  “I...don’t know,” Alec said. “I don’t even know if he’ll recognise me. I haven’t seen him in eight years.”

  “It could be worse. At least you haven’t had any recent blistering rows. Well, we won’t take any chances.”

  “What are you going to do?” Alec asked uneasily.

  “Leave it to me. And make sure you look your best. Do you have all the needful—gloves and so on? I want you looking smart as a new pin. No poverty in evidence.”

  Alec thought of his last pair of gloves, unfortunately yellowing. “Um. I can probably—”

  “No probably. We’ll deal with that.”

  “Why? That is, he’ll surely assume I’ve got back in touch for the money, so why pretend I haven’t?”

  Jerry clicked his tongue. “Because we don’t want to embarrass him. If you look shabby-genteel, it would be a reproach to his paternal care. There will be plenty of people watching to see how you behave: it must be with the greatest filial respect. Nothing for which the highest stickler could reproach you or your father, or indeed your stepmother.”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  His reluctance must have been clear. Jerry gave him a sideways look. “You know you’ll have to do her equal courtesy, if not more.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re monosyllabic again. Is that really harder to swallow than the other?”

  Alec’s chest felt tight. He didn’t much want to discuss this here, so he simply nodded.

  Jerry sighed. “Will this be a problem?”

  “No. I’ll do it. I don’t much relish it, that’s all.”

  Jerry contemplated him, then tossed a few coins on the table. “Come on.”

  “Where?”

&
nbsp; “Outside.”

  Alec followed, once again. Out of the Coal Hole, down Carting Lane’s steep slope, through the shadows of tall buildings on each side, towards the smell of the river, salty at the high tide but still stinking of fish and rotten wood, and down towards Victoria Embankment Gardens. Alec’s pulse was hammering. It was far too risky here; one did sometimes see men sneaking in and out of the bushes, but the chance of a patrolling constable was far too high and it was twilight now, not pitch dark.

  Yet Jerry strolled on, unconcerned, and Alec paced him, heart in his throat, feeling himself hardening almost in response to the tension, waiting to be pushed into the bushes.

  Jerry didn’t break his stride. They went through the gardens, onto the Embankment, and to Alec’s bewilderment, came to a stop to look out over the softly heaving river.

  “Er,” Alec said.

  “Fresh air, for a given value of fresh,” Jerry said. “And a chance to speak in slightly more peace. Why do you loathe your stepmother so much, when it’s your father who had the responsibility to you? Or are we blaming her for his failings?”

  “I blame them both. She’s a horrible woman—proud, unkind, resentful—and he’s done everything in his power to encourage her. He’s selfish and weak, and all the crueller because he’s weak, and she encourages that. They make each other worse.”

  “And yet she’s harder to swallow?”

  “Well, I’m meant to honour my father,” Alec said. “The Bible says so. Maybe it’s easier for me to hate her.”

  He fixed his eyes on the water, black in the dimming light. He could feel Jerry’s gaze.

  “Maybe,” Jerry said at last. “All the same, I want you making your obeisance to her as though she were the Queen of England. If she’s proud, you feed her pride. If she’s uncertain of her position underneath the facade, you show absolute certainty. Whatever she wants to hear from you. Got it? You and I need to be invited to Castle Speight, and if you get this right we will be, and once Temp and I have a foot in the door, my degenerate scion of a noble race, your troubles will be over. What game are we playing?”