Wanted, a Gentleman

by KJ Charles

  Theo held up a hand in apology. “I beg your pardon. I, uh, feel strongly about gratitude. Forced gratitude, I mean, the kind piled on your debt as added interest. To be ground underfoot and then told to be thankful the foot was not heavier—I hate it. I expect you hate it a great deal worse than I.” He paused, thinking. “And I have heard about plantations and the things that are done there. If that might have been my lot in life, I would have been damned happy to avoid it too.”

  “That was never in question for you,” Martin said. “It was for me. I am angry, believe me. I am more angry than you can imagine, and I will always be angry, but I am also very glad that was not my life. And that was all in the Conroys’ hands, always.” Obligation and resentment and guilty relief, ever there, knotted together.

  “So this pays them back,” Theo said. “Is that it? If you retrieve Miss Conroy, a life for a life?”

  Martin looked blankly forward. It had not occurred to him to think of this mission in those terms. In the end, he’d done what was asked because he still loved the laughing little girl who had climbed on his lap demanding stories. “I doubt they will see it so.”

  “I don’t give a hound’s tits what they think. What do you think?”

  Martin considered it. He would, undeniably, have rendered the Conroys a service—a favour—that ought to earn their gratitude in full measure. But a life for a life? “Perhaps.”

  Theo exhaled hard, ruffling his lips, but said no more.

  Martin didn’t speak either. He had never said so much in his life, and he wasn’t sure why he had let it all spill out at this time, to this man. Because he was exhausted by silence? Because Theo was so very unimportant? Because he’d asked, when nobody else had?

  Whatever the reason, it was more than Martin had ever said, because he could not usually bring himself to complain of his lot. He had been, without question, the best treated of any slave or even servant of his acquaintance, and was now prospering beyond what many in London, black or white, could dream of. So he contributed what he could to the Stingo’s coffers for the needy poor, helped his fellows set up their own shops and coffeehouses in their own little part of London, and tried endlessly to work away the corrosive guilt at his undeserved good fortune.

  Good fortune, to be stolen from your home and shipped across the seas. But as Mr. Conroy had once advised him, in such firm yet kindly tones, otherwise he would have spent his life breaking his back and hands in the sugarcane fields, under the whip. You should remember how lucky you are, the Conroys had often said. And that was wrong, filthily wrong, but his youth had been haunted by the spectres of how much worse it might have been, of feeling glad it was not worse for himself and ashamed to compare his lot with that of others. He had spent his life twisting in the meshes of that net.

  The pain in his palms made him realise that his hands were fisted, nails digging in. He forced himself to relax them.

  Theo was watching him.

  “I don’t want your pity,” Martin said, almost a snarl.

  “You won’t get it,” Theo said. “I reserve sentiments of pity entirely for myself.”

  Martin couldn’t help a laugh.

  Theo smiled back, then it faded a little. “Uh,” he said. “Your family . . .?”

  “I don’t know. I was perhaps four when I was brought to England. A gift from a Dutch friend of theirs who had a plantation on the island of St. Vincent. I don’t remember anything before the ship.”

  “What a pretty token. Some people would have brought flowers. What did you do with the collar?”

  “Why?”

  Theo shrugged. “I was trying to think what I would do with such a gift, and I cannot. Keep it, throw it away, sell it and spend the proceeds on drink?”

  “I sold it to a jeweller, and used what I got for it to buy a girl at auction. Peggy, my housekeeper.”

  “Oh,” Theo said slowly. “Yes, of course. Did that help?”

  “In its way. Although she was a thorough-going domestic affliction at first. The scourge of my crockery.” He found he was smiling again, the knot in his chest a little looser. Peggy, just twelve when he’d bought and freed her, had anchored his angry, directionless bewilderment after his emancipation, giving him a reason to think twice, to stay calm, to succeed.

  “It’s so hard to get good staff,” Theo agreed. “I manage my household by not having one, and curling up in a corner of my office like a stray dog.” He said it in the tones of a joke, and Martin laughed accordingly, but he had seen the couch and blankets under piles of paper, and it struck him to wonder how Theo spent the money he must surely make.

  Not his business. He let out a long breath, consciously relaxing his shoulders. “Thank you.”

  Theo looked a little startled. “For what?”

  “Listening, I suppose.” Listening, and the flare of angry defence, and the expression in his eyes that spoke of sympathy rather than pity. Martin would never ask for those things, but they were undeniably warming to have. “I don’t talk about it a great deal. I daresay you’re sorry you asked,” he added, with an effort at lightness.

  “No,” Theo said. “So this is what success in our quest means to you, then? More than Miss Conroy’s well-being?”

  “That’s my first concern,” Martin said, a little puzzled that he’d returned to the question. “But I can’t deny I want to succeed for—let’s say, my own satisfaction.”

  “To do the Conroys a favour for which they will have to be grateful. Right,” Theo said. “Right. Well, I suppose we’d better press on.”

  By the time they stopped for the night, outside Newark-on-Trent, Theo had decided that the only people on earth he despised more than the Conroy family were, firstly, the man who called himself Troilus, and secondly, the whoreson damned fool who had invented the very idea of chaises. Everything hurt, from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

  He’d ordered the horses at the previous stage, where they could and probably should have stopped for the night. He’d done it without consultation, in the teeth of his own wishes, and he wasn’t entirely sure why.

  The immediate reason was obvious: he hadn’t wanted to make Martin ask him to do it. But beyond that . . . It was because he wanted to make Martin feel that he was on his side, he told himself, but he had a sinking suspicion that wasn’t true.

  The fact was, he wanted to be on Martin’s side, which was a different thing entirely. He wanted to be helping him, he wanted them to be working together, he wanted that shared understanding. He wanted to help Martin find the girl and return her to her home virgo intacta, and he wanted Martin to let go a little of his unhappiness when he did it. He wanted more of those smiles.

  He was a mutton-headed gaby, and he needed to keep an eye on his own interests, and not confuse them with his interest in the fit of Martin’s breeches, either. Martin needed to catch their fugitives; Theo did not, and he was a clodpole to sacrifice his arse on the altar of Miss Conroy’s virginity, he thought as he walked, sore and stiff-legged, into the Royal Oak.

  As it was, they were late arrivals. Naturally, everyone looked around as they walked in. Naturally, everyone kept looking at Martin.

  Theo had never wanted to be a big man, except on the few occasions he’d had his scrawny arse well booted, usually because of his too-ready mouth. He wished that he could loom intimidatingly now, ask the lot of them what the devil they were staring at. Instead he ignored the gawping rustic clowns as only a Londoner could ignore people, and stalked, as best he could with his aching thighs, to the bar.

  “Two ales and whatever you have hot to eat,” he told the landlord. “And we’ll need beds for the night.”

  The landlord flickered a look over Theo’s shoulder, at his companion. “Blackamoor’s with you, is he?”

  Theo made his best effort to deliver the sort of freezing glare he’d frequently received from his tutors. “Mr. St. Vincent and I are on urgent business. We’ve no time to lose, so we’ll need to leave at first light. We’d like�
�” He rephrased that. “You’ll make sure we’re roused before dawn with the horses ready to depart at first light.” He let the man open his mouth before adding, “So we’ll settle with you for all that this evening, and here’s something more for the trouble we’ll be putting you to. Oh, and we’ll dine in a private parlour,” he added, as though he commanded such things daily.

  Money was a marvellous thing. The colour of the Conroys’ coin quite outweighed the colour of his companion’s skin, and they were shortly seated in a little room, small and snug, each with a mug of good ale, and a little of the tension was fading from Martin’s face. Theo had come to the firm conclusion that if the Conroys were putting them through this, they could damned well pay for it.

  Martin was obviously thinking along similar lines, if going in a different direction, because he said, “You’re making very free with the funds.”

  “Well, we need the fools here willing to bestir themselves in the morning. And I for one want a bit of comfort if we’re to keep that pace up. My arse feels like a blacksmith’s anvil with the pounding it’s taken.”

  Martin’s lips parted slightly, as though he were about to make a retort in kind, and then snapped shut. Theo chalked that one up to himself with a little satisfaction.

  “I just hope they’ve food in the house,” Martin said instead. “If they can make us something edible, I’ll be a contented man.”

  “I’ll eat anything they put in front of me. Maybe even the plate.”

  As it proved, he didn’t have to devour the china. The host served them himself, with great hunks of a well-cooked ham, eggs, new bread, and a dish of peas, all excellent. Theo hadn’t eaten anything so fresh since he’d moved to London, and had not had peas like this since he’d picked them himself at home. He wolfed about half his plateful down before slowing to savour the rest, and glanced up to see Martin’s grin. “What are you looking at?”

  “Good to see a man enjoy his food.”

  “Well, if I must be dragged to the country, I might as well enjoy the benefits.”

  “Wise.” Martin was clearing his own plate with alacrity. Theo surrendered the remaining bread to him, as the bigger man, but made sure he snagged another spoonful of peas for himself.

  Bodily needs—or those particular ones, at least—met, he wiped his lips and leaned back in his chair. Martin was still eating, and Theo watched him while his attention was on his food, watched the movement of his throat and jaw, and let his imagination play.

  It was ten o’clock by the time they’d both finished their meal. Each had ordered a second mug of ale as they ate. Theo sipped at his, eyes on Martin over the rim of the tankard as he pored over the map the landlord had been induced to lend.

  “We’ve covered something close to a hundred and twenty miles, I think,” Martin said.

  “In a single day,” Theo said, incredulous. “Great heavens. No wonder my arse hurts.”

  “Stop telling me about your arse.”

  “I wouldn’t tell you if you didn’t care.”

  “I do not care!”

  “I’m sure you do,” Theo said. “Deep down, under that gruff exterior, beats a heart of gold with an urgent concern for the condition of my arse.”

  “It does not. Stop playing the fool.” Martin kept his eyes on the map, lips clamped together, with an expression of serious concentration that might have fooled a particularly unobservant child. “Perhaps eighty miles to Boroughbridge, and they six hours ahead. Five if they stopped sooner than we. I don’t think we’ll catch them tomorrow.”

  “But we’ll surely find their trail there.” Mine host and the ostlers of the Royal Oak had not seen the fugitives, but Newark was a sizeable town, with plenty of coaching inns. It would be an effort Theo was disinclined to make to walk round them all, asking whether their quarry had passed through. “Though we may need to stop a little while in Boroughbridge to be sure we discover which route they take.”

  “If they stay on the Great North Road we’ll have them before the border,” Martin said, as if reassuring himself. “Surely.”

  “We’ll catch them yet, I’m sure of it,” Theo said. “Come on, let’s retire. We need the early start.”

  They had a shared room, two beds. Theo had requested that. His reason, ready to be offered if asked for, was that he’d flashed around their money in a strange place and who knew what uncivilised tricks rustics got up to with wealthy travellers? Safety in numbers, he’d have said.

  Martin didn’t ask, though. Didn’t ask, didn’t comment, didn’t look while Theo changed into his nightshirt. That was probably because he was a decent man with morals who knew right from wrong.

  Theo looked. He watched Martin pull his white shirt over his head, baring his deep chest, a rich glinting brown in the candlelight. Watched his smooth back as he poured water from the ewer and splashed his face and neck, rubbed his arms and chest, leaving glistening streaks and droplets running down his back like tears.

  He was still watching, unable to do anything else, when Martin turned and their eyes met.

  They stared at each other. Theo sitting in bed in his nightshirt, caught in the act, knowing damned well that his arousal was visibly tenting the linen. Martin, stripped to the waist, standing a few feet away.

  There had to be something Theo could say that would bring him those few steps closer, over whatever line of uncertainty or belief or convention lay in his way. Something that would make it quite clear what Theo wanted, what they both wanted.

  Or perhaps there wasn’t. Christ, perhaps he’d misread incomprehension or tolerance of his nonsense, and now he’d pushed too far and he was about to find himself abandoned here, thrown out, beaten bloody—

  Martin swallowed, once, throat working so that the little black pinprick mark moved up and down. That was his only movement. He didn’t step away or cover himself, and Theo knew with a shudder of relief for more than the safety of his person that he hadn’t been wrong.

  “When you said you didn’t want to hear any more about my arse,” he began.

  “Oh, for—”

  “It’s very sore.” He offered a ludicrously wide-eyed look that won him a splutter of laughter. “You could at least offer me a rubdown.”

  Martin shut his eyes. “Theo . . .”

  “We’re in the middle of nowhere. We needn’t stop here again. And if I’m going to have a sore arse tomorrow anyway—”

  “For God’s sake!” Martin jerked his head around, though there had been no sound from the hallway and the door was shut and bolted.

  Theo stretched out in the bed, not bothering to pull down the hem of his nightshirt as it rode up. “There’s nobody here but you and me, and if we’re quiet, it’ll stay that way.”

  “You’re presuming a great deal.” Martin’s voice was level, but his eyes had moved down from Theo’s face, and his lips were slightly parted.

  “I’m very presumptuous.” Theo slid a hand down himself, pulling the loose linen tight over his chest, then travelling further, down to his own bare thigh, and then up again, fingers delving under the nightshirt. Martin swallowed again. “I presume you might want to come over here and let me have a suck of you, to start with.” He edged the nightshirt up, over his hips, so the cloth bunched against his cockstand.

  “God’s truth,” Martin said under his breath, and came forward with, Theo noted, all the difficulties attendant on breeches that weren’t designed to hold what looked like an impressively rampant prick. He stopped by the edge of the bed, looking down. “Just . . . why?”

  “Why what? Why do I want to suck you?” Theo looked him up and down, taking his time. It wasn’t a hardship. “How would I not?”

  “This is not— I don’t wish to insult you,” Martin said with care, “but this is not what I am paying you for, nor what you’re obliged to provide.”

  Theo narrowed his eyes. “Sweetling, if you were paying me for this, it would definitely be fifty guineas.”

  Martin took that in for a second, and then he
was on the bed, kneeling across and over Theo, legs to each side and hands bracketing his face. Theo stared up into those dark eyes, copper-flecked in the candlelight, feeling his breath come short.

  “Do you kiss?” Martin asked, so low it was almost hard to hear.

  That wasn’t a question that often arose for Theo. When he did use his mouth, it was more tongue-fucking than kissing. He’d never kissed in the way that Miss Conroy had doubtless imagined her elopement would bring, the way that Adelina and his other heroines might expect to be kissed by their bland heroes in the last chapters of his books. The way that heroes kissed in his head, sometimes, in the romances he could never write or publish.

  He doubted Martin would kiss him that way either, but he was open to whatever was on offer. “Why not?” he said, and Martin’s mouth came down on his.

  He was taller than Theo and much more powerfully built, but his touch was so light, so careful. Almost chaste, except his full lips were just a little way apart. Theo would have lunged, or thrust with his tongue, hurried matters up a little, but he was on his back with Martin above him, braced on his elbows and dipping his head, and it was easier simply to let him set the pace.

  Easier. Sweeter. Frightening. Because Martin was kissing him so very gently, as if this were a wooing, not just the fuck Theo wanted. As if he were making love, as if Theo was worth making love to.

  Martin’s tongue teased his lips, and Theo opened to him. Why don’t you get on with it, he should have said, or I’d rather a cock than a kiss, thank you, but he didn’t. Instead he kissed Martin back, not sure what he was doing, shutting his eyes against the tenderness of it as their lips moved together, and knew a sense of profound relief when Martin lowered his body a little, bringing that solid weight and the bulge of a hard cock against his thigh. That was what he understood, and wanted, and could deal with.

  He kissed Martin a little harder, squirming as he did it, felt the response at once. Martin’s mouth pressed closer, his tongue becoming less exploratory and more possessive. Theo ground up against him, heard a grunt, did it again, tongues plunging and tangling now. He got his hands round Martin’s solid arse and grabbed.