by KJ Charles
“Did . . .” Theo licked his lips. “Did you do this?”
“Mr. Conroy did. I told Miss Jennifer the truth of your actions—we had a long journey, a long time to talk. She has matured a little over the last days, I suspect. She was adamant that the family owed you a great deal.” And had clearly realised that it would enrage Geoffrey Hazelwood to lose his hold over his cousin. Martin couldn’t fault her motivation. “She spoke well for you. I merely added my voice.”
Theo was shaking his head. “I didn’t do anything for her sake or her family’s. Martin, tell me you did not have to ask this as a favour. Tell me you don’t owe them this. Please. I will tear this agreement up if that’s what it means. I would rather do that, for my own soul’s sake if nothing else. I will not be responsible for that.”
Martin closed his eyes. He couldn’t answer for a second, not with those words in his ears. Theo with relief of the debt in his grasp, and ready to give it up for him.
“Martin,” Theo said.
“No. You need not worry about accepting it.”
He couldn’t deny that Mr. Conroy had looked to him, waited for him to speak, before he agreed to Miss Jennifer’s request. He had wanted to grant Martin a favour, find a way to balance the books, and he had paid Theo’s debt as a means of paying Martin, whether he wanted payment or not. That was very clear, and the extraordinary thing was, it had barely mattered at all. “I added my voice to Miss Jennifer’s, and that is all. I didn’t have to; I chose to. I daresay Mr. Conroy thought of it as a way of restoring the order of things.” Theo’s face twisted. Martin took his hand, rubbing his thumb over the palm, feeling his thin fingers curl. “But, Theo, I don’t care.”
“Truly?” Theo sounded stifled, disbelieving.
“Let Mr. Conroy believe he purchased his daughter’s safety if it makes him feel better. If he cannot accept a friend’s help without making it a transaction, I am sorry for it, but that is his affair. I acted as I thought best, and I owe the Conroys nothing. Not for this, not for anything.” It wasn’t as simple as the saying of it, but it was true, and for the first time he felt that one day he would believe that. He looked into Theo’s troubled eyes. “And you owe me nothing either, in case you’re wondering.”
“Seven hundred pounds,” Theo said, choked.
“You earned it. You risked your liberty and your future for Miss Conroy.”
“I did nothing for her sake.”
“You helped me, we helped her, Mr. Conroy helped you. That is how it should be.”
“I’m fairly sure he didn’t want to help me to the tune of seven hundred pounds.”
“But I wanted him to, and he owes me that.” Martin heard the note of steel in his own voice, saw Theo’s eyes widen at it. He deliberately made his tone lighter. “And in any case . . .” He brought his other hand to Theo’s face, with its fading bruises. “Dorothea Swann lives by her work, does she not? Consider your story a private commission, paid accordingly. A drama written for four.”
Theo’s cheek muscles moved under his palm as, at last, a smile dawned. “I should write for private audiences more often, at this rate of pay. What is it: Jennifer: or, Villainy Triumphant?”
“Theodore: or, Virtue Finally Located.”
Theo tucked the paper into his inside pocket. His now-free hand slid downward, over Martin’s belly, brushing the front of his breeches. “Finally Located, and Promptly Discarded.”
“An excellent choice,” Martin said, a little hoarsely. Theo’s hand was between his legs, cupping him, and he let his fingers spread wide over the narrow face he held. “Theo . . .”
“I have to raise something.” Theo’s voice wobbled slightly.
“What?”
“‘Your plots were foiled’? Did you really say that out loud?”
Martin began to laugh. “Dear heaven, don’t remind me. I couldn’t think of what to say, and we were acting a melodrama anyway.”
“Just promise me that you’ll leave the literary composition to me in future.”
“You have my word.” Martin leaned a little closer. “Talking of promises . . .”
“We have unfinished business?”
Martin gently tilted Theo’s chin up. “A great deal of it. I don’t want to finish our business today, or at any time soon. You talked about the man you wanted to be and the one I thought you to be, but in truth, I like the man you are. The one in front of me now. I want to know you when we’re not both being jolted to pieces or chasing around the countryside. And I very much want to see you on your hands and knees, naturally, but that’s not all I want, and I hope it’s not all you want.”
Theo’s lips were slightly parted, the bottom one still a little discoloured at the corner from Martin’s blow. “No,” he said, on a breath. “That’s not all I want either. I didn’t know if I could have more.”
“You have a new start.” Martin ran his fingers through Theo’s fine hair, loving the feel of it, as Theo’s hand slid up to his hip, not so much seductive as simply holding on. “I wonder if we might start together, perhaps. Find out how we get on.”
“See what happens?”
“Learn a little more of each other.”
Theo nodded. “Right. Yes. You are going to fuck me, aren’t you?”
“Definitely.”
“Just making sure.” Theo leaned against him. Martin disengaged his hand to put his arms round the slim shoulders with a peculiar feeling of relief; Theo’s hands went round his own waist in return. “I’m not quite sure of what I’m doing otherwise.”
Martin kissed his hair. “Well, it’s a good place to start.”
Theo lifted his face, and their mouths met. Martin kissed him carefully, soft movements, just reacquainting himself with Theo’s taste and feel. Theo’s mouth was once again a little tentative, as if he wasn’t quite sure of the steps of this dance, but his hands on Martin’s waist were decided in their clasp, and after a few moments, they moved from decided to determined. Theo’s fingers spread, digging in, his mouth widened, and Martin followed the lead, kissing him harder now, wanting to feel him bend and give.
Theo bit at his lip, dragging his teeth over the soft flesh. Martin grabbed for the hands clamped on his arse and moved them to hold Theo’s arms together behind his back, Martin’s hands over his. Theo tilted his hips provocatively forward, and Martin pulled him tighter until the sensation of thighs and bellies and pricks colliding was nigh unbearable and he had an urgent need to rid them both of the layers of clothing in their way. Theo was grinding against him, making his wants vividly clear, mouth greedy and sloppy and warm, and Martin had a sudden terror he might spend before he was even unclothed.
He grunted into Theo’s mouth, tugged on his hands. Theo bent away at the hips, keeping their lower bodies pressed. “Mmm?”
“I want you naked,” Martin said, voice startling even him with its low growl.
“In here?” Theo glanced at the window.
The parlour was at the back of the house, and the yard his alone, but still, better safe than sorry. Martin gave him a gentle push, releasing his hands. “If you close the shutters?”
Theo scampered to do that, while Martin lit a lamp. They turned back to each other in the dimmer light. Theo looked absurdly, gloriously wanton, with his dishevelled hair and his prick straining for release.
“Undress,” Martin said. “I want to watch you.”
Theo’s mouth curved. He shed his coat with a quick motion, tossing it onto a chair, and pulled the loose shirt over his head, linen billowing to cover his face, belly bared to Martin’s view. He jerked his shoestrings undone, kicked away the shoes, and stripped off his stockings with little more ceremony.
“Stop.” Martin walked up to him and spanned his belly with both hands, thumbs touching. He slid them up and down, over Theo’s thin chest with its sparse hair; over the small, pale nipples; over the wings of his rib cage and the dent of his navel and the jut of his hip bones. Just touching, learning, feeling Theo’s hungry eyes on his fa
ce.
“Perfect,” he murmured.
Theo gave a breathy laugh. “That is very far from the truth.”
“Perfect for me.”
Theo’s expression shifted slightly to something a little puzzled, a little wondering. “Well . . . If you say so?”
“It is past time you learn that I mean what I say.” Martin bent forward and sucked deliberately at his neck, with lips and teeth together. Theo whimpered. “Now strip.”
Theo squirmed out of his trousers and drawers together so that he stood bare and hard and waiting. Martin wanted to whimper himself. Instead he went to his knees, taking hold of Theo’s hips with both hands, and put his mouth to Theo’s stand. Just lightly, but the hips he held jerked as though he’d taken him down in a gulp, and Theo’s hands slid and scrabbled for a grip on his own cropped hair. Martin took his time, licking and kissing and mouthing around Theo’s prick without ever engulfing it, and by the time his own constricted prick could bear no more, Theo was moaning abjectly.
Martin pushed himself to his feet and stripped, fingers feeling swollen and clumsy, and considerably hindered by Theo’s assistance in tugging at his shirt and fumbling at his buttons. Between them they got the clothing off at last. Martin kicked away his drawers, and Theo pressed himself close, joining their nakedness.
“Martin,” he said. “This has been a delightful interlude, but if you don’t fuck me right now, I am going to set fire to your house. Consider yourself warned.”
“Well, if you put it that way.” Martin got his hands across Theo’s arse and walked him backward, to the settle. “How do you like it?”
Theo wrapped one leg around Martin’s thigh. “In.”
“I’m trying to treat you with respect and consideration,” Martin pointed out. “The least you could do is stop playing the harlot.”
“What makes you think I’m playing?”
“Tomcat.”
They grinned at each other. Theo’s eyes were at once dark with lust and bright with pleasure, and Martin’s heart stuttered at the open happiness he saw.
“Over the settle?” he suggested. Theo shifted round obligingly, and Martin retrieved a bottle of oil from the desk, where he’d put it several very long days ago, and knelt behind him. He stroked Theo’s thighs, back, between his legs, feeling him twist and push back. Slicked a finger to probe deeper and open him up a little.
“I know what I’m doing,” Theo said, a little breathlessly.
“Probably better than I,” Martin admitted.
Theo glanced round. “Oil yourself. Oh, Jesus, that looks so good. Just keep doing that.” His eyes were fixed on Martin’s hand as he stroked himself, his stand glistening with oil. “I could watch you do that all day.”
“I’ll make a memorandum,” Martin rasped, letting his palm slide under his length for the pure pleasure of Theo’s look.
Theo shifted his legs wider. “Ready? Come forward, and on my word.” His head tipped back. “Now.”
Martin pushed into him, with no more than a little difficulty. Theo was tight and warm, and he groaned and arched his back in a way that went straight to Martin’s bollocks.
“God, God, God, yes. Again, deeper. Slow. There.”
Martin gripped his shoulders, breathing deeply. Theo squirmed back against him, as best he could, and Martin splayed a hand over his back in a futile effort to keep him still. He grasped Theo’s hip with his other hand, and took a moment longer to regain control, and to learn the thin, sharp lines of Theo’s back, and admire the way his skin looked against Theo’s in the light of the oil lamp. Like marquetry: gleaming mahogany inlaid in the lightest birchwood, or perhaps the other way around. Laid together.
“You look so good like this,” he whispered.
“On my knees with your prick in my arse?”
“Born for it.”
Martin began to move, slowly at first, finding his pace. Theo moved as well, more than any of the few partners Martin had had previously, picking up the rhythm. His back flexed, his shoulders worked. Martin leaned into him, pressing his lips to Theo’s neck, felt him arch.
“Harder.” The sound vibrated through his neck and Martin’s lips. He kissed, bit, thrust as he did it, and Theo’s hair whipped as he jerked his head back, and then the pair of them were moving at once in a controlled frenzy of desire and sensation, push and pull, bodies heaving together, slicked with sweat. Martin got his hand round to Theo’s prick, and Theo drove into his fist, snarling and gasping as he fucked Martin’s hand and was fucked in turn, and when Martin spent inside him, it was with a cry of almost-pain for the blinding sharpness of the sensation that shot through him.
His hand was wet with Theo’s spend, he realised, so he allowed himself to collapse forward, face resting on Theo’s sweaty back.
“And you say that was merely the start,” Theo said at last. “I’ll be dead by next Tuesday.”
Martin tugged him closer, kissing his ear. “But what a magnificent end.”
“Yours is rather appealing too,” Theo assured him. Martin gave him a swat, and they ended up lolling together on the settle, hot, sticky, bone-tired, limbs entangled, and mouths close enough to kiss or talk.
“Tell me,” Theo said after an interlude of the former. “Was that a phantasm born of panic, or is my debt truly cancelled?”
“In full.”
“That . . .” There was a little puzzled frown between Theo’s brows. “I’m rather struggling to understand that. It’s been there for so long. I thought it would always be there. And it’s gone, and now I’m not quite sure what to do.”
Martin dropped a kiss on his hair. “Well, it seems to me your best course is simply to pursue your occupation. Not that I have any ulterior motive in the suggestion, of course, but I have been looking forward to Mrs. Swann’s next work, so if you did happen to be thinking of a new book . . .”
“I have one just gone to the publisher actually, and an idea I’ve been toying with.” Theo paused. “And I can take a little time to write it. Not feel Geoffrey breathing down my neck. Do better work. I might even write a half-decent hero. My God.”
“You’ve the world before you. It’s quite a big place, once you can raise your head and see it.”
“Mmm.” Theo’s eyes were wide and happy, the colour of one of those cold, drizzly days that preceded a glorious spring, and Martin didn’t think he could recall a shade he liked more. “Will you show me around?”
Martin smiled down at him. “Let’s look together.”
This story was inspired by a display in the excellent “Black Georgians: The Shock of the Familiar” exhibition run by the Black Cultural Archives in London. It told the story of Cesar Picton (1755?–1836), an emancipated black Briton who remained on sociable terms with the family of his former enslaver, and asked how apparently friendly relationships of this kind might have felt to those involved.
Any errors are, of course, of my own making.
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With thanks to Julio-Alexi Genao and C. Morgan Kennedy, to Anne Scott, and to the fine people at Riptide.
The history of lonely hearts advertising is treated in detail in the wonderfully entertaining Shapely Ankle Preferr’d by Francesca Beauman.
A Charm of Magpies world
The Magpie Lord
A Case of Possession
Flight of Magpies
Jackdaw
A Queer Trade
Rag and Bone
Society of Gentlemen
The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh
A Fashionable Indulgence
A Seditious Affair
A Gentleman’s Position
Non-Stop Till Tokyo
Think of England
The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal
Sins of the Cities
An Unseen Attraction (Feb 2017)
KJ Charles is a writer and freelance editor. She lives in London with her husband, two kids, an out-of-control garden, and an increasingly murderous cat.
KJ writes mostly romance, mostly queer, frequently historical, and usually with some fantasy or horror in there.
Find her on Twitter @kj_charles, pick up free reads on her website at kjcharleswriter.com, get the infrequent newsletter at kjcharleswriter.com/newsletter, or join her Facebook group, KJ Charles Chat, for sneak peeks and exclusives.
She is represented by Courtney Miller-Callihan at Handspun Literary.
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