The Thief

by Bonnie Dee

  “Toby, then. And you must call me Cyril. A formal address or surname seems ridiculous when we’re lying naked together.” Belmont rested a hand on Jody’s stomach inches away from his cock, which began to stir in interest. “I never liked Alden, but I must be grateful to him for introducing us.”

  “Mm-hm.” Jody changed the subject abruptly. “What were your parents like? Do you miss them awfully?”

  “Um. Not right at this moment. Why do you ask?”

  “I assumed this is the master bedroom, which would once have been their room.”

  “That is a cock-shriveling thought!” Cyril chuckled, then grew serious. “I do miss them, but I must admit, I’m relieved to escape the constant pressure to marry, produce an heir, and conform to expectations. I love and miss Mother, who cultivated my love for growing things. It has been a number of years, but grief occasionally comes on me at unexpected moments. How I wish she could see the Cymdibium in bloom or my seedlings as they begin to sprout. Father, on the other hand…” Cyril paused. “I respected the man, but I don’t know if can say I loved him. Nor has he ever quite left me. His voice of criticism ever echoes in my mind.”

  Jody nodded as Lassiter filled his mind. “I know that voice. When I earned praise from mine, it was like heaps of gold showered on me. But when I failed him, it was boxed ears and no supper.”

  “Fathers,” Cyril sighed.

  “Fathers,” Jody agreed. “And yet one still tries to please and grovels at praise like a dumb cur. That is the most truth of it.”

  The afternoon crept into evening as Jody and Cyril continued to lie talking, occasionally touching or kissing, and eventually entwined in passion once more. After working up an appetite, they padded down two flights of stairs to the kitchen, naked and shivering, and returned with cold roast beef in gravy for a late-night feast.

  Jody lost track of time in the haze of happiness and an evening that felt as if it could never end. Belmont was easy to laugh and joke and talk with. In fact, Jody did not realize they’d stopped murmuring pillow talk to one another until he jerked awake from a deep sleep.

  Disoriented and frightened by the silence and darkness, he struggled to recall where he was. Not a Shoreditch cold-water flat, that was for certain. No neighbors shouting through thin walls. No thumping footsteps or bodies smacking together in either anger or sex. He lay in a soft, cozy bed that smelled pleasantly of sex, and beside him…

  Jody reached over to feel Cyril’s warm body, the breath rising and falling in his chest. This was the very definition of comfort, safety, home. He could relax here without fear. He smiled and nearly dozed once more.

  But no! Jody jerked awake and sat up. There was more danger here than in some filthy alley with a thug threatening to beat him senseless. He’d outstayed his time here and never gotten around to hooking Belmont with those documents. The covers now were not comforting, but too heavy and too hot. Panic chased through his body, making his heart pound. He must flee before Cyril awoke. He couldn’t bear to face that sweet, trusting face in the morning light.

  He crept from bed so as not to disturb the sleeping man and hurried downstairs. In the drawing room, where they’d left the gaslight turned low, he found paper and hastily scribbled a note. Then he gathered up his clothing and dressed before letting himself out of the house as stealthily as if he had broken into it.

  On the quiet street, the white row of houses stood sentinel, watching him scurry away, as dangerous, wrong, and out of place as a rat racing back to the slum where it belonged.

  Chapter Eight

  Cyril couldn’t stop thinking about kissing. What a strange concept, the pressure of lips, then the exploring tongue teasing pleasure from the other’s tongue. An exchange of saliva. No other mammal on earth included this oddity in their mating ritual. Oh, but how good it felt to invite another person to touch in such a very personal way, face-to-face. He could happily have kissed Wentworth—no, Toby—for hours. As glorious and powerful as the sexual release had been, it was the kissing that stayed with Cyril all the following day.

  When he awoke to find his guest gone, disappointment and dismay had pierced Cyril as sharply as a blade. But then he found Toby’s note on the ottoman in the drawing room where he’d brought Cyril such pleasure.

  Sorry to leave without waking you. I didn’t wish to interrupt your dreams. Shall we meet again soon? I will send a note tomorrow to arrange a time and place. Until then, know that I am yours truly. T

  Yours truly. The common valediction was weighted with meaning.

  Yours. Did Toby mean that word?

  Truly. It seemed promising. Perhaps Cyril was not the only one of the pair of them bowled over with joy and happiness.

  Ah, but he was behaving like a lovestruck youth, heart overflowing with promise and dizzy thoughts encompassing the sole object of his desire. He cooked himself an egg for breakfast and could not eat it. Then he wandered into the conservatory to check the orchids, but even the quarter-inch growth of his plants overnight did not excite him. Every task he used to try to distract himself from Toby could not sway his thoughts from their next meeting. Where would they meet? Or might Toby, knowing Cyril had no staff to interrupt them, simply come round the house?

  But as morning crept slowly on and the noon hour came, neither Toby nor a messenger with a note appeared. Cyril prepared a light lunch and barely sipped the soup.

  By midafternoon, his anxiety turned to severe fretting. What a naïve fool to assume his new friend would contact him the very same day. Wentworth was a busy man with meetings to make during his short time in the city. Soon, he’d return to India. Cyril had been a dalliance he might later fondly recall along with visiting tourist sites like Buckingham Palace or the Tower. Yours truly was simply the traditional ending to a note. Cyril was pathetic to stitch together daydreams of love out of basic sexual attraction, some amiable conversation, and kissing that had left his lips bruised.

  Standing in the greenhouse, Cyril closed his eyes to the bright flowers before him. He pressed his fingers to his mouth, fingering the softly swollen lips and pretending the touch was Toby’s kiss once more. He would recall every detail of those kisses if he lived to be one hundred. He knew it to be true even as his rational mind dismissed the thought as childish romanticism.

  And then, at the front of the house, the doorbell rang.

  Heart in his throat, Cyril rushed out of the greenhouse while straightening his collar and buttoning his waistcoat. He would not reveal any discomposure when answering the door. Honestly, at a moment like this, it would be good to have a butler to welcome his guest, allowing Cyril time to arrange himself in a drawing room armchair with his nose in a book. He could appear as if he had not spent the day mooning all over the house and waiting impatiently to hear from his lover.

  But nonchalance was hardly an option when he was breathless by the time he opened the door.

  His gaze dropped from the height that would have been Toby’s eyes several inches to the face of Mrs. Judith Landers. The dear lady, one of his friends from the Orchid Society, smiled up at him from under the wide brim of her ostrich-plume-trimmed hat. The dyed blue feather exactly matched her eyes. which were nearly lost in a web of wrinkles.

  “Surprise, my dear boy! It is so bad of us to come in the middle of the afternoon.”

  “Nowhere near morning calls,” Mrs. Prudence Davis chimed in. The taller woman with remnants of auburn streaking her white hair, stood just behind Mrs. Landers. “I told her, ‘Judith, we’ve missed morning calls. It is too late to stop by.’ But she would not listen. Once she seizes hold of an idea, she will not let go. Like a corgi with a bone, I always say.”

  Cyril stifled a smile for short, stocky Mrs. Landers did indeed rather remind one of a corgi.

  “We simply could not wait any longer to see your hybrid. Do you mind, Lord Belmont?” Judith Landers continued.

  “There is not much to see as yet.” As much as he adored these ladies, Cyril wanted them off his front doorstep an
d on their way as soon as possible.

  “Doesn’t matter. I want to observe the first shoots and hear all about your process.”

  “Of course. Do come in.” He wished he’d never mentioned his experiment to the club members. “I can’t be certain of success. These plants may not share properties with both the parent varieties.”

  “Naturally, we’re aware. We’re horticulturalists,” Mrs. Davis replied tartly as she shrugged out of her coat and Cyril took it.

  She behaved as if it were perfectly normal for a gentleman to answer his own front door and take the guests’ coats. Neither woman mentioned the lack of butler or looked askance.

  “We missed you at the meeting yesterday,” Judith said as he led them to the solarium.

  “I was entertaining a friend from out of town.” Cyril kept his back turned to them so the blush flaming in his cheeks would not raise questions.

  “How nice,” Prudence said. “It is always good to see an old friend. Did you know that Mrs. Landers and I had not seen each other since our girlhood when we were neighbors?”

  Judith took up the tale. “But when we met again—what was it now, Prudie? Eight years ago?”

  “Ten, dear.”

  “It was as if no time had passed. No time at all. Our friendship was immediately restored. So much so that we decided to share lodgings since we are both widows.”

  “That’s a lovely story. I’m glad you resumed your friendship,” Cyril replied absently, having heard the tale many times before.

  “Old friends are the best friends,” Prudence pronounced.

  Cyril opened the door and ushered them into the greenhouse.

  Judith hurried straight over to the nursery bed, her bustle rustling behind her like a tail. “Look at these little darlings. Spectacular! What nitrates do you use to enrich the soil, if I may ask? Not to rob you of your gardening secrets.”

  For the next twenty minutes, the three of them spoke of orchids. Cyril stumbled over his words, losing track of what he was saying and giving only a small portion of his attention to the conversation. The rest of him listened for the doorbell and prayed it would be a messenger and not Toby, whom he would then have to introduce to Judith and Prudence. Of all days for them to choose a drop-in visit!

  “When the plants have developed, might you consider selling us one or two?” Prudence enquired. “Even if the cross does not take, we would adore adding a Cymbidium Faberi to our collection.”

  “My dear friends, I would not dream of accepting your money. I will gladly give you any plant you choose.”

  “We understand you raise orchids to sell,” Judith stated bluntly. “It is quite all right with us. Prudence and I certainly understand the need to, er, monetize one’s hobby and don’t think any the less of you for it.”

  Prudence took a lace handkerchief from her pocket and wiped soil from her fingers. “As third son of a duke, Mr. Davis inherited little, yet the family would have been scandalized if he took a paid position. For many years, we survived on a tight budget and an extensive line of credit. Genteel poverty presses one between a rock and…another rock. I am ever grateful to my dear friend Judith for inviting me to be her companion after my husband’s passing. I don’t know what I should have done without her.”

  She patted Judith’s hand, and Judith covered it with her own. “The pleasure of your company has been all mine. I don’t know how I ever lived without you.”

  The two women exchanged a long look as if there were no other person in the room. Cyril froze as he realized the two women’s connection was much deeper than casual companionship. He highly doubted they carried on a physical relationship, but the two clearly loved each other deeply. Their devotion was breathtaking and brought tears to his eyes.

  Practical Judith broke off her regard to cut to the point. “We would like to pay you for your plants on occasion. There’s no need for you to seek unfamiliar customers when two eager ones stand before you.”

  “We should have said something before now,” Prudence chimed in, “as we’ve lusted after your spectacular black beauty for some time.”

  The words “lusted after” nearly made him choke on laughter, but Cyril managed to reply. “I must keep my one and only black orchid, but will be happy to sell you her progeny when they come of age.”

  “If they exhibit only the traits of the purple-faced Phaelenopsis, we shall still be glad to purchase several of the plants.”

  They resumed talk of cultivation for several more minutes before Prudence finally declared it was time to leave. “Surely you have more important things to do than waste time entertaining two old widows.”

  After Cyril helped Prudence into her coat, she turned to touch his cheek with her gloved hand and peer into his face with wise old eyes. “It has been a pleasure visiting with you, my dear. I hope you know if you should ever need anything, you may call upon us. Not having children of my own, I think of you rather like the son I might have had.”

  “Indeed,” Judith added brusquely. “You possess fine qualities, Belmont. I’m pleased to consider you a friend.”

  Heart brimming with emotion, Cyril bowed. “Your words touch me, ladies. If I can ever be of help to either of you, please let me know.”

  He closed the door behind them knowing he would never take payment from them for his orchids. Their honest offer of friendship was greater than any money. Although he’d always appreciated sharp Mrs. Davis and kind Mrs. Landers, he hadn’t really thought about their lives before today—a pair of widowed friends living happily together in their twilight years.

  Cyril had always imagined he’d die alone without a single person beside him, but perhaps it was possible to find a special friend with whom to share one’s life. Not, of course, Tobias Wentworth, who was merely a fantasy Cyril had concocted. They would never be more than ships passing in the night. But perhaps someday, he would find a man who could be more than a temporary lover. A deeply cherished soul mate, a true North Star was what Cyril truly craved and had begun to realize he could not pass through life without.

  Chapter Nine

  “I’m not goin’ back,” Jody repeated for the third time. “Told you I’d assess the situation, and I ’ave. Belmont is not the brass ring Alden let on he would be. He’s not the man for us.”

  “Assess? Fancy talk. Are you starting to believe your act too much?” Lassiter sneered as he stirred the gaseous beans in the same greasy black pot that had sat on the coal stove since Jody was a child.

  Leaning against the doorframe, Jody was a heartbeat away from bolting out of the room. “I don’t believe he’s got any money. Man doesn’t keep servants, for one thing, and his house is shabby.”

  “Heirlooms. Old don’t mean junk. Even if his finances ain’t in the bloom of health, a bit of desperation can work in our favor. He’s got connections. If he believes in you, he’ll get the money to invest. Last chance to restore the family fortune and all that. Go back and show ’im those papers. Why’d I go to all the trouble of having ’em made?”

  Jody’s head throbbed. They’d been around the maypole until he was dizzy. Still Lassiter refused to stop talking. His palaver could wear down a nun until she agreed to turn tricks on the cathedral steps. Why was he putting up with this harangue? Why not walk out?

  “I’m done arguing. To hell with your big score!”

  Lassiter stopped stirring to face him, beady eyes pinning Jody in place as they’d always done. “Our big score. Once more, then you go to America like you say you want to, and I’ll spend my final days someplace sunny, yeah?” He stabbed a finger in the air. “You owe me this. I took you in when you was starvin’ and cared for you like a son. One last job before we call it quits.”

  But not this job. Anyone but Cyril. Jody bit back the howl rising in his throat. When he finally opened his mouth, he found himself promising, “Fine! I’ll show Belmont the damn papers, but I’m telling you, it won’t make a difference.”

  Lassiter held his palms wide. “It’s all I ask, l
ad. I have faith in you. You’ve a silver tongue and could sell ice to a Laplander. Now go make me proud.”

  Jody pushed away from the wall. “Fuck making you proud. This one wipes the slate clean, then we’re through.” He stalked out of the room, a fighting dog that licks its wounds but returns to the ring at its master’s bidding.

  By the time he reached Belmont’s house, the hour was late and the windows dark. Perhaps the house’s owner was in bed. Jody wondered if Cyril had been disappointed not to receive a note from him. Would he welcome Jody now, past midnight, and without advance warning of the visit? Rather than stand at the edge of the pool cast by a streetlight, staring up at Cyril’s bedroom window, he should walk away.

  Don’t knock. Don’t ring. Disappear and leave the poor man alone.

  Jody wished to hell he had a cigarette to smoke as he stood hovering in indecision. Or opium. What he wouldn’t give for the drug that dulled his senses, smoothing the sharp edges off life. But he didn’t have tobacco, and he’d given up opium for good. Nothing would make him dive back into the dragon’s lair. His freedom from addiction had been too hard won.

  He took a pull of gin from the flask in his pocket, stowed it, then approached Cyril’s door. He turned the bell knob and heard a distant chime. After a moment’s silence, approaching footsteps made his heart beat faster and his breathing shallow.

  Cyril opened the door and stood haloed by the interior light. His expression was therefore unreadable as he said, “You came.”

  Jody swallowed hard, stomach flip-flopping. He braced for the door to shut in his face and stepped back. “I should’ve sent word or come earlier. I apologize for the inappropriate hour. May I call on you again in the morning?”

  “Come in.” Cyril moved aside to let him in, and at last, Jody could see his features. There was no annoyance or recrimination reflected in his welcoming smile. He closed the door behind them, shutting out the dark night.

  “I had meetings. After that, I have no excuse other than to say I grew skittish. Last night was so very…” Jody compressed his lips to stop their unaccountable quivering. “The intensity of our time together reminded me of how things went the last time I allowed myself to care for someone. Fear crept in, and I almost decided not to call on you again. But I couldn’t bear to leave England without seeing you once more.”