A Pretty Mouth (27 page)

She had indeed. Four wriggling, blind kittens of various colors pawed and suckled at her teats, as she licked a fifth clean of mess. When Henry cooed at her, she looked up at him with a bland but friendly expression, whined, thumped her tail several times against the blanket-covered floor, and went back to her work.

“Must be hungry,” murmured Henry, but he did not want to poke through St John’s belongings to see if he kept a store of snacks. If only he hadn’t depleted his own cache through late-night munching! Surely Lady Franco would not eat the few dried apples he had upstairs—but perhaps she would take a biscuit? He’d seen cats rooting through trash before, and sometimes they would eat an old roll when there was nothing better …

Racing upstairs, he grabbed his sack of treats and found a handful of stale, crumbly crackers. Gathering what he could into the palm of his hand, he went back down and offered the largest piece to Lady Franco. She considered it for only a moment before gobbling it. Henry left the rest with her, and then went to refill her dish with water from the cistern that hosed down St John’s weird plants. After doing so, he ambled back over toward the plant table.

Jars full of plant essences, he thought. And these strange plants. A rose that bloomed tulips; a cactus that loved wet soil. Did stripping an essence lead to … bizarre growth patterns? And how had St John managed the feat?

Henry inspected the plant table. Pulling out the top drawer—and feeling like the snoop he was—he discovered nothing more sinister than a book of poetry—Abraham Cowley’s
The Mistress
. Henry opened it to a page, and it was “Platonick Love,” which, he realized after scanning the verses, was the poem St John had earlier quoted at him.

Next to the poem was a note, in St John’s clear script:

“A rose by any other name.” The house of Tudor looks painted by Rembrandt, but is proof of what? Retaining some but not all of orig. body? What, really, is the soul of a flower? Of an animal? Of a man?

St John’s interests certainly veered toward the strange!

Henry heard voices, approaching footsteps. He replaced the book, shut the drawer, and scooted up the stairs lest it be St John, Thomas, and whatever creature Thomas had procured for St John’s “hard exercise.”

It turned out his hunch had been correct. As he undressed, Henry heard the door open, then low voices. A woman spoke; a man laughed, and then there was silence.

Henry relaxed, blew out the lantern, and got into bed. He had very nearly fallen asleep when sounds began to drift up through the floorboards: a rhythmic thumping, and muffled groans. Instantly awake, he tried not to listen, but failed completely. He had not heard the sounds of coupling since his mother died when he was eight years old—his father had not remarried—and it was intensely exciting. Envisioning St John enthusiastically ploughing a rented field, as it were, Henry’s cock quivered, and without his touching it once, lengthened and throbbed under the blankets of his bed.

He turned over onto his stomach and pressed his erection into the mattress, almost ejaculating from the luscious sensation. He held entirely still after that; he felt an intense desire to spend, but Henry refused himself the pleasure. It seemed weird and wrong to abuse himself whilst listening to his roommate fucking, to say nothing of the night’s unpleasant events being still quite fresh in his mind. To his relief the sounds rapidly reached a crescendo and then subsided—as did he, after a few moments.

Henry congratulated himself on his self-control, but when it became apparent St John was getting his money’s worth and enjoying a second occasion, Henry gave up, grabbed a stocking, and, spitting into his hand, began to gently stroke his shaft and balls. He took his time with himself, imagining St John’s white buttocks tensing and releasing as he worked his lady-love; imagining, too, the rapturous sounds and heaving, jiggling flesh of his partner. Since coming to Wadham, Henry had been denied the opportunity to have a truly luxurious frig, his former roommates being night owls as well as given to teasing, so he went at it gently but enthusiastically until, well before St John finished up, he had spent copiously all over himself. After cleaning up the mess with the stocking, Henry Milliner fell deeply, contentedly asleep.

Chapter Eleven: Art Can Indeed Seem Much Like Love

John Wilmot, the 2
^nd
Earl of Rochester, sipped his ale in a smoky corner of the crowded public house and tried not to look like the person he knew he was: A jilted thirteen-year-old schoolboy who’d snuck out so he could cry into his beer instead of into his pillow. Unfortunately, the effort made him so self-conscious that hot stinging tears once again began to flow down his cheeks. The delicate skin around his eyes and under his nose was sore from wiping at his face, so he let them drip and puddle onto the greasy wood of the table.

Maybe it was a good thing he looked like a pathetic, snot-nosed little kid, though. People were certainly avoiding him, and that was what he wanted.

Before coming to Wadham, John would never have believed a crowded tavern could be more solitary than a private room, but here he was simply one among many and thus invisible. At school he ran the risk of people knocking on his door or hollering up at his window if he lit a candle, or just teasing him through the walls if they heard him sniffling.

Leaving Wadham had been damn scary, though—as was being out on the town all on his own! He had sneaked out of school exactly twice since he’d entered college in January, both times for Blithe Company events: The first folderol at the Horse where he’d seen cunt for the first time, and the second, where that slouch, that, that utter
Judas
Henry had made such an arse of himself. Whatever sangfroid he’d evinced had been entirely in the service of trying to impress Henry; the reality was that he’d been too nervous to fart during those moments getting over the gate, to say nothing of getting back in again—and both times there had been, you know, a plan, provided by St John who, whatever else he might be, was a bit brilliant at mischief. John wasn’t so sure he could manage a similar caper on his own, but he’d missed supper due to being too red-faced to risk the dining hall, and he’d decided that if his heart was going to break, he’d rather it do so on a full stomach.

So to the Bear, a small, handsome coaching inn where he’d stayed for a fortnight before moving into the Wadham dormitories. He wasn’t sure he’d made the right choice of where to go, though. When he’d gotten within sight he’d felt suddenly, powerfully homesick—but also too hungry to seek out somewhere else.

And really, what he was homesick for wasn’t really the Bear, nor his childhood home, but his old tutor and governor, the Reverend Francis Giffard. Giffard had stayed with him during that fortnight but left the very day John started at Wadham, and John had not heard from him since. John had received a letter from his mother reporting that Giffard was now an ordained deacon at Lincoln Cathedral, and he wouldn’t begrudge him that honor for anything in the world … and yet. Giffard had come into his life when he was seven years old, and until a few months back, had been a constant presence. Why, until coming to Wadham, John had rarely passed a night without the Reverend sleeping alongside him in his bed …

Upon hearing Giffard had been dismissed by his mother, who had decided John would live in private chambers like the other Fellow Commoners, he had experienced some anxiety over it: Would he be cold in the winter months without another body wrapped around his? Would the darkness come alive and consume him, as he had worried about since he was a babe in swaddling clothes? But when he had expressed these worries to Reverend Giffard the man had slapped John across the mouth and told him not to cry over nothing like a little girl.

“Guard yourself against sin and believe you in the Lord and His power,” Giffard had said sternly. “You are an Earl and, more importantly, a fine scholar. There is nothing you need fear except temptation.”

That was Giffard through and through. Words hard as flint and confusing messages that John must either puzzle out for himself or risk a beating if he dared ask for clarification. He preferred, therefore, to try on his own, but in the six years of his being tutored by Giffard he had yet to understand what the man considered ‘sin,’ or for that matter, ‘temptation.’ John knew the meanings of the words, of course, but not what
Giffard
meant by them, as the reverend’s definitions sometimes seemed … discrete.

But as they’d been discussing in Master Fulkerson’s class, the Ancient Greeks had certainly seemed to think that the special relationship between a boy and his teacher contributed to a young man’s intellectual and moral growth. Perhaps Giffard had been right about certain matters. Best not to dwell on the past. That chapter in his life was over forever, for better or for worse. Worse, it seemed. John had really thought Henry’s friendship would fill the hole in his heart, only to discover the older boy was a badger, a liar, and a—

“Beer for you, m’lord!”

Startled, John jumped when the broad-faced, prettyish girl who worked at the Bear shouted at him over the din as she slammed down a tankard of ale. Some of the foam sloshed over of the lip, lacing the side of the mug as it dripped onto the table.

John looked from the beer up at her, confused. It didn’t surprise him that she knew he was a lord—she had served him his food and drink the whole time he had stayed there. He had no idea of what her name was, of course, but the real mystery was that he hadn’t ordered another drink. He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off.

“Gen’leman at the bar bought it for you. Said it looked like you needed it.” She winked at him. “Pardon me for saying so, but I agree!”

“Perhaps,” said John, nodding in agreement just in case she didn’t catch what he said, and surrendered his old mug to accept the new.

As he sipped, he looked over the men sitting at the bar. None were looking at him—but then one of them, a fleshy fellow of perhaps five-and-thirty with butter-yellow hair and a ruddy, sunburned complexion glanced over his shoulder. He smiled when they made eye contact, and John lifted his glass as a gesture of thanks.

The man seemed to take this as an invitation and slid off his stool to elbow his way over to where John sat. John didn’t know how he felt about the possibility of company; he certainly wasn’t going to disclose the truth about why he was so miserable if the man asked.

As he drew nearer, John saw the stranger wasn’t sunburned. His nose and cheeks were florid as a beet and dappled everywhere with tiny blue veins. John had an inkling of what that might betray about the man’s habits, and when the fellow’s aroma of sour beer announced his presence before he introduced himself, it served to confirm John’s suspicions.

“Good evening, my Lord Rochester,” he said, sitting down on the bench next to John and leaning in close. “Please forgive the forwardness of my buying your lordship a drink, but you seemed, if I may be so bold, in need of comfort.”

John tried to make his scooting-away from this flatterer as surreptitious as possible; he was vaguely uncomfortable having a stranger sit so near to him at all, much less this one. He reminded John of Henry—though that might just be the girth and the obsequiousness.

“Thank you, sir. It is appreciated,” said John, politely but without any indication he was in want of further conversation.

“We haven’t met,” said the man. He must be unaware of social cues, too drunk to heed them—or disinclined to respect them. “Alice, the girl, she knew who you were when I asked. I saw you come in, you see. You …
attract the eye
, m’lord.”

“It is kind of you to say so,” said John. He was getting a weird feeling from this man. Who in the world was he, to speak to him with such confidence and familiarity? But to ask would be to further engage, so John did not.

“My name is Robert Whitehall,” said the man. “I am many things—a fellow at Merton College, a drinker of fine ales, spirits, and wines, a man of the world—but most of all a poet. Yet I am a poet who seeks inspiration in such low places as these rather than sitting in meadows or praying at the Church, I’m afraid.” He smiled at John hopefully. “Are you still inclined to speak to me? I hope so.”

John didn’t know quite how to reply, having been profoundly disinclined to speak with this Robert Whitehall to begin with—and yet he
was
distracting John from his woes. That counted for something.

“I enjoy poetry very much,” said John, “but I’m afraid I don’t know your work, Mr. Whitehall. Is it possible you write under an alias?”

John thought Whitehall looked annoyed for a moment, but it passed so quickly it might have been a trick of the light, or a brief repression of gas, for his next words were jovial enough.

“I have indeed written under aliases, and had some work published under my own name too, my lord.” He sighed. “I am not famous, though some—Lord Clarendon and Catherine of Braganza, to mention two distinguished patrons of the arts, have said some kind things about my efforts.”

John was impressed. Perhaps this Whitehall was all right; there was something in the man’s manners that made John reconsider his first impression. No need to see users and losers like Henry in every face that smiled at him, he reminded himself. “You must be very wonderful, then.” John hesitated, then said, blushing, “I confess I have tried my hand at verse-writing, but to no great success.”