by KJ Charles
“The long game,” Alec said, half annoyed, half amused at being instructed. “I do recall. I’ll do it. Er, how do you propose to get Mr. Lane in?”
“As my valet. He makes rather a good one. Has a way with servants.”
“Gosh. And, I really do have to ask, how on earth can we go to Lady Sefton’s soirée when I for one am not invited?”
“Oh yes you are,” Jerry said. “Our names will be on the guest list, and nobody will question that. I should mention that mine is Vane.”
“Sorry?”
“Gerald Vane. A very distant relation of the Marquess of Cirencester’s family, with no claim at all on their notice,” he added, with a self-deprecating smile that Alec would bet he’d practised in a mirror, it was so perfectly pitched.
“Isn’t that a bit risky? What if there’s a Vane there?”
“There’s dozens of Vanes. The family runs to multiple sons and has done for generations. There’s no reason at all you should doubt my claim to the name, by the way, since I was introduced to you as such by a gentleman in a club who now escapes your memory.”
“In case anyone asks later on?”
“You’re getting the hang of this. I’ll collect you at your lodgings at eight on Saturday. Make sure you’ve eaten. I don’t want attacks of nerves or incautious drinking. Then just follow my lead.”
“What? I mean, are you not going to tell me what to do?”
“With all due respect, you’re no Mr. Mansfield,” Jerry said. “And moreover, we—Templeton and I—take a Wellingtonish approach to plans: we react and adapt. I don’t want you expecting any particular thing to happen; I want you to have a very pleasant evening, and to react to whatever may occur as you would normally. Just remember that you want to return to your father’s good graces, and if your terribly exciting and dashing new friend provides a way to do that, naturally you will seize the opportunity.”
“I don’t know if my father likes dashing and exciting people,” Alec suggested cautiously.
Jerry clicked his tongue. “Give me some credit.”
“Leave it to you?”
“Everything in my hands. It worked before.”
The words tingled through Alec. “This is rather different, though.”
“Yes and no,” Jerry said. “You find yourself unsure of what you want, how to get it, and whether you even ought to try. Well, I know what you want, I can supply it, and I have no doubts as to your capacity. I think you have remarkable potential.” He drawled the adjective as if giving it a long, slow stroke. “And I’m going to prove it to you.”
Alec swallowed. “Are you?”
“Do you know what I most enjoy about my work?” Jerry said, unexpectedly.
“The money?”
“Ha. No. That, as they say, is how one keeps score. No, I like the unseen power, the knowledge that we have and others don’t. I will walk through Lady Sefton’s marble halls on Saturday, and spread my nets to snare the Duke of Ilvar, and nobody but you and I will know what we’re doing there. I’ll move them like chess pieces, the ladies and gentlemen of wealth, and they won’t even know they’re pawns.”
Alec believed it. Jerry’s words had a quivering tension that made his toes curl and sent shivers of alarm and excitement up his spine. “That’s a disturbing tack to take.”
“You think so?”
“Well. Yes?”
“You don’t see the appeal in knowing something they don’t know?”
“Not really.”
Jerry turned to face him, and jerked his head. “With me.” He strode off without explanation. Alec followed, through the haloes of gaslight that pierced the gathering darkness, towards the dark underbelly of Waterloo Bridge. A friend had been relieved of his watch, wallet, and tiepin there quite recently. He thought he could see shapes moving in the gloom.
“Ought not we go round, or up the stairs?” he suggested.
“No.”
“But—”
“Lord Alexander.” Jerry’s tone was quite calm. Alec swallowed, and followed, into the cold, dank depths under the great bridge. The shadows were deepest between the huge supports and there were figures in those shadows, just visible, and sounds of panting, the slap of flesh. It stank of river-mud and damp stone and human dirt.
Jerry took his arm and pulled him into the dark. Alec went with him, almost stumbling, and was turned and shoved towards a wall he could barely see. He put his hands up automatically and found them pressed against slimy-rough brickwork, his face to the wall, Jerry’s foot between his own feet, kicking them wider. Then there was a push of a body against his back, and Jerry’s breath on his neck as he leaned heavily in, and Alec braced his forearms against the wall and tried to remember how his lungs worked.
“Lord Alexander.” Barely a whisper to his ear; Jerry’s hand sliding round his hips and cupping his groin. Alec moaned in his throat, trying to keep silent because this was insanely dangerous, pushing forward into Jerry’s possessive hand. Jerry was massaging him, a firm, deliberate pressure through his clothing, and he was hard himself, a stiff stand pushed against Alec’s arse. Alec had no idea what he was going to do, and if Jerry kept this up he’d spend in his drawers from the terrified excitement.
Jerry squeezed his bulge. Alec couldn’t help a breathy whimper, and then his buttons were being undone, warm strong fingers intruding between his legs, and Jerry had his prick in hand. He wrapped his fingers around Alec, still for a long second, and his hand moved. Alec bit his lip savagely to keep silent as that commanding hand worked him with short, sharp strokes, the urgency and the terrible recklessness of this combining in a rush of excitement. He came absurdly fast, pulsing violently against the wall, with the stink of the river in his nose.
He sagged. Jerry’s arm tightened, pulling him upright, mouth to his ear. “Remember this. When you greet Lady Sefton on Saturday, when you play the gentleman and introduce me to the Duke, remember that I had you like a cheap tart under Waterloo Bridge. I promise you, Lord Alexander, you’re going to love that. Now tidy up.”
He tugged at Alec’s waistband. Wordless, Alec tucked himself away. He did up his buttons before he turned, despite the darkness; Jerry took his arm and they headed out of the deepest shadows of the bridge. Two, three steps towards the relative brightness of the gaslit night, and then a bulky figure stepped into their way.
“Oi.” A deep voice. “What’s this?”
Jerry gave a weary sigh. “My good man, kindly move aside.”
“Suppose I don’t.” The man came forward. His silhouette didn’t suggest a policeman, thank God, but that was all the good that could be said, and Alec could feel a stir of interest from the huddled figures around them, as well as some rapid footsteps hurrying away—probably other indulgers thanking their lucky stars. “What’s a couple of swells doing down here? I reckon I ought to call the peelers. What about that, eh?”
“Pair of mollies,” a high voice came from the dark, adding an epithet, and there was a giggle. Alec’s stomach tensed with apprehension. False complaints of indecency were a highly profitable line, and most men would pay up to avoid the humiliating consequences even if they were innocent. It would be a great deal worse if this alley extortioner knew they were guilty.
Jerry had both hands up, placating. “Now, look, fellow, let’s be reasonable, eh? There’s no need for unpleasantness.”
“I’ll tell you what there’s need for.” The man took another intimidating step forward. Alec shrank away, and hated himself for it, even as the thug poked a finger into Jerry’s shoulder, looming over him.
“Please, my good man,” Jerry said, sounding rather less confident now. “Really, there’s no need for trouble. I’m sure we can come to an amicable—”
Alec didn’t see it coming. Jerry was still speaking as his right arm stabbed up in an uppercut at brutally close range, driving under the man’s ribcage as if trying to punch him in the heart. An immediate left hook to the stomach drove the air from the thug’s belly; Jerry put a
savage knee into his groin, and then as the man folded forward, Jerry caught his hair and brought up his knee again, this time into his victim’s face. There was a crunch, and the big man went down to all fours making an airless, gargling sound.
And now they could run. Alec shot a glance at Jerry to make sure he was coming, but he wasn’t. He’d moved back a little, and as Alec stared he took one light step forward, and kicked.
It was not the kind of kick Alec had seen in brawls, short jerky stabs of the foot. It was, in fact, very reminiscent of the kick with which Preston North End’s centre forward had started the FA Cup Final when Alec had illustrated it for a boy’s paper. There was a terrible, meaty thwack as Jerry’s foot connected with the man’s head; he went arching over backwards, hit the ground heavily, and didn’t move again.
“Scream for the peelers and I’ll come back and fucking do you,” Jerry said loudly, apparently for the benefit of the watchers, because the man on the ground didn’t look as though he was in any state to hear anything. “Goodnight, all.”
He strode off. Alec stared after him for a second, and then almost sprinted to catch up, feeling his shoulder blades tense with the consciousness of the people behind him. There was absolute silence from the shadows.
Jerry led the way along the Embankment heading towards Temple station, but turned up Surrey Street, through a flow of people, until they were on the brightly lit Strand once more.
“Uh, Jerry? Ought we not to, to...”
“What?”
“Send help? I think he might need a doctor,” Alec said, with some understatement.
“Any fuckster who tries to blackmail me may think himself lucky not to need a mortuary.” Jerry spoke with a certainty far more alarming than any threat. “You know what that fellow was up to. He’s learned a valuable lesson about attempting extortion.”
“He might die!”
“Yes. That was the lesson.”
Alec stared. Jerry shrugged.
“But—”
“But what? Are you suggesting I should have paid him? Appealed to his better nature? Let him take my wallet and call the peelers anyway?”
“We were under Waterloo Bridge,” Alec said, from the side of his mouth, voice low. “If one does that kind of thing—”
“Then what? One can expect to be beaten and blackmailed, and one deserves it? Do you suggest we ought to have paid up as some form of molly tax?”
“Well...” Yes, Alec realised, that was indeed what he thought, or at least, what seemed inevitable. Of course one would be threatened, blackmailed, punished. That was how the world worked. “No, I’m not saying that, but if one breaks the law—”
“Extortion is illegal,” Jerry pointed out. “Blackmail is a consequence of gross indecency, getting one’s head kicked in is a consequence of blackmail, and so the world spins. Why should your actions merit punishment and his escape it?”
Alec wasn’t sure how to answer that. “Well, what about your actions? Isn’t arrest the consequence of what you do?”
“Indeed, so I take steps to avoid it. If someone wants me to take the consequences, they’ll have to make me. That’s how it goes. No Fate, no great hand of divine justice. Can you not think of any upright gentleman who’s got away scot free with crimes that others would hang for?”
Alec stopped dead. Jerry took half a pace onward, then turned with a frown. “Alec?”
“Nothing,” Alec said. “Sorry. I’m sure you’re right, and in any case I’m not going to go back down there to help that man, so I’m probably being stupid. I think I should go home. I’m a little tired.”
Jerry raised a hand for a cab, and one duly moved off from a rank a little way down the street. Alec wanted to know what it was about his manner that made his hand so much more visible than Alec’s used the same way. “I will collect you on Saturday. Keep what I told you in mind, won’t you? And—” He removed something from a pocket and pressed it into Alec’s palm as part of a handshake. “Get yourself ready, Lord Alexander. We’re going to make your father proud.”
Alec looked at the paper when he was alone in the cab. He wasn’t even surprised to see a ten-pound note.
He shut his eyes and leaned back against the hard seat.
That was the second time Jerry had—he wasn’t even sure what verb to use. Brought him off didn’t begin to describe it. Jerry had fucked him, no matter how little physical contact had been involved, and Alec was uncomfortably aware he hadn’t done a damn thing in return. He was quite used to men whose only concern was their own cockstand, and if Jerry had, for example, first brought himself off and then ordered Alec to do it for him under the arches, that would have been entirely comprehensible in a way this wasn’t. Or if he was one of those who only liked to watch—but Alec could still feel the hard pressure against his arse from earlier. He didn’t at all understand this.
Maybe Jerry simply liked men to be putty in his hands. The way he’d spoken about the power he’d hold over wealthy people oblivious to the serpent in their midst; the way he’d spoken of the Duke.
Alec thought about Jerry Crozier’s cold lust for control, and the few seconds it had taken him to leave a deadly threat unconscious and bleeding, and the fact that he’d unleashed this man on his own father. He was still thinking about that when the cab drew up on Mincing Lane, and when he got out, he was smiling.
CHAPTER FIVE
Saturday.
Alec hadn’t heard anything from Jerry in the intervening period, which had been mostly a relief, nor from his father, which was not. He’d harboured a tiny hope that the Duke or his secretary might send some acceptance that would make it unnecessary for Alec to arrive at a house to which he wasn’t invited, greet a host who hadn’t invited him, and play a role he hadn’t been told about to achieve an end he didn’t understand.
It was the stuff of nightmares, and Alec had no idea why he wasn’t paralysed by terror. Perhaps it was so much a nightmare he couldn’t believe he was doing it, and thus he could drift on as though it were all a fantasy. Perhaps it was Jerry, who seemed to walk in another world altogether, one in which theft and violence and gross indecency were casual diversions, and who’d put Alec so firmly under his thumb. Panicky helplessness merged with the sense of surrender to Jerry’s will until he wasn’t sure what was fear and what arousal.
He read the newspaper avidly but saw no reports of a death or even a serious assault under Waterloo Bridge. He also bought new gloves, had his clothes pressed, his shoes polished, and his hair cut, and at eight o’clock on Saturday he was ready and waiting in his room when Mrs. Barzowski announced his guest in tones of barely-suppressed excitement.
Jerry strolled in. He looked superb, impeccable from sleek hair to shoes, with a rosebud of vivid pink in his buttonhole.
“Elegant,” he said, looking Alec up and down appreciatively. “Very grand indeed. Finery suits you.”
“It suits everyone.”
“Not at all. Templeton in evening dress looks like a gorilla that fell into a tailor’s shop.”
Alec choked. Jerry grinned, strolling closer. “So. Ready?”
“I hope so.”
“What’s my name?”
“Vane. Gerald Vane.”
“Excellent. Shall we go?”
“No. Wait. Sorry, but what if I get this wrong?” Alec blurted. “I’m truly not sure what you want of me.”
“I want you to go to a party—you can do that, yes? To make pleasant small talk. And, when an opportunity arises, to greet your father and stepmother with respect and courtesy, and introduce me as your friend. That’s all. Well, almost.”
“What else?”
Jerry smiled again, slower. “I told you to remember something. Do you?”
“Yes, but right now—”
“What was it?”
Alec made a frustrated noise. Jerry came another step closer. “Bear in mind,” he said softly, “you are Lord Alexander this evening. My Second Villain. What do I want you to remember?”
Alec met his eyes. “You had me against a wall under Waterloo Bridge.”
“Like a cheap tart. Shall I do it again?”
“Not under Waterloo Bridge.”
Jerry stroked a finger across Alec’s jaw, trailed it down his neck, onto his shoulder, walking around him as he did it. Alec stood, still and straight, feeling Jerry come close behind him, the finger stroking up his throat again, under his jaw. “How about at Lady Sefton’s soirée?”
“You can’t!”
“I could,” Jerry murmured. “I’m very tempted by the possibility. It would be absurdly risky, needless to say, but you are so deliciously obedient, I feel almost obliged to abuse that. I think I could take any liberties I like with this lovely unresisting flesh. I know I could. Are you aware your breathing changes when you’re getting hard?”
“No,” Alec said, voice somewhat high.
“You may take my word. I can hear you wanting me.” His other hand was sliding up and down Alec’s arm. “Do you know what I want?”
“I don’t have the faintest idea.”
Jerry laughed, a breath of air against his neck. “I want to make you spend, again and again, until you’re whimpering. I want you aching for what will happen when I next put my hands on you. I want you so trained to my touch that your breathing hitches when I walk into the room. I want to wind up your anticipation until you’re quivering for my orders, begging for them.”
“You want a plaything,” Alec whispered.
Jerry’s hands paused. “If you choose to put it like that. Do you want to be one? No thought, no will”—his thumb slid over Alec’s lips, pushed in—“just responding?”
“God. Yes. Please.”
“Then there we are. A match made in heaven. Oh, I will make you beg to be played with, Lord Alexander.”
“What about you?” Alec said. “We’ve done this twice and you haven’t—”
“Please,” Jerry murmured into his neck. “Do I strike you as a philanthropist?”
