A Private Gentleman (16 page)
Read A Private Gentleman Online
Authors: Heidi Cullinan
You have purchased my time. If you chose to use it to make me wait, that is your
prerogative.”
Albert grimaced, then let out a breath and concentrated for several seconds
before attempting to speak. “N-N-Nervous.”
Michael managed to keep a straight face as he raised his eyebrows. “Are
you? Goodness, darling. I couldn’t even tell.”
Albert relaxed, just a little, and smiled. He reached over and placed a hand
on Michael’s: large, warm and comfortable. Then he rose, only somewhat
unsteadily, and held out his hand to Michael as he glanced toward the front of
the house in a gesture which said, clearly, “Shall we go?”
Michael nodded, accepted his hand and rose.
Albert had a cab waiting for them, a sleek, closed carriage which was nice
enough that he suspected it was the man’s own. Gratefully, the carriage bore no
crest of the marquess. Michael wasn’t sure he could have entered the vehicle,
knowing it belonged to Daventry. But no, it was simply plain black with a lush
blue velvet interior. It smelled of earth and Albert.
Michael settled back in his seat. “Well? Where do we go today?”
Albert rested his hands on his knees and gave a shrug and a smile. “Wh-
Where would you l-l-like?”
Back to this. Michael raised an eyebrow. “My lord. I understand you are new
to these sorts of liaisons, but this has nothing to do with what
I
want. The question is, where do
you
wish to go?”
Albert looked helpless. He stammered a few consonants, clutched his hands
against his thighs, then shut his eyes.
Michael waited for a full minute to see if Albert would recover, but it became
clear he had shut himself down. Michael sighed. Then he stood, lifted the trap
and spoke to the driver.
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“Drive six blocks north, please, and stop at the intersection of Dove and
Oxford.” Closing the trap, he remained standing and smiled wryly at Albert. “I
hope you brought coin, for I’m going to make you buy me a loaf and some
cheese. I’m simply—” He stopped as he realized Albert was shaking. “My lord?
My lord. Albert—Albert—darling—” He sat beside him and took the shaking
hands into his own.
Wes still had his eyes closed, but his face was red, and his nostrils flared as
his lip curled in disgust. Michael paused, uncertain. As Wes fumbled with his
pad and scratched out another note, Michael realized it was
self-
disgust.
Didn’t take enough medicine,
he wrote in an unsteady hand.
Michael looked up at his face in alarm. “You are ill? But why didn’t you
say?”
The noise Wes made through his nose was more expressive than a
Frenchman’s sigh. He scratched at his paper again.
Not ill. Only—
He stopped writing, crumpled the paper and tossed it angrily across the
coach.
Michael sat still a moment, unsure of exactly what to do. He had the sense
that this first outing with his patron was about to fall into permanent pieces.
What was odd was that he felt so strongly about this not happening. Why did he
care? This was Daventry’s son.
Daventry’s son who could not be more unlike his father. Daventry’s son, who is as
broken as I am.
Michael didn’t know if Rodger was right or not. He didn’t know if he’d
fallen in love with Albert, or if he was simply losing his grip on reason and sense.
He also didn’t know what to say, how to calm him.
And so he calmed him the only way he knew to calm a man.
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Smiling the smile he had smiled for so many gentlemen, a smile part
seduction, part gentling, part distraction, he placed his hand on Albert’s thigh.
“Be still, my lord,” he whispered, and as his hand slid higher, he bent and placed
his lips on his patron’s own.
However, there the whore’s game ended and something else began. His lips
brushed Albert’s once, twice, lingering before drawing on the soft flesh, meaning
to steal his tongue inside and brush Albert’s teeth. He meant it to be a practiced
move, calculated and controlled. When he should have drawn back, he found
himself hesitating. Instead of executing his carefully thought-out kiss, he found
himself leaning forward and pressing his forehead to Albert’s own.
He could not say how they ended up how they did, with himself on Albert’s
lap, knees straddled on either side of him, their chests pressed together as he
took Albert’s face in his hands and kissed him deeply. There was no art to it, no
careful seduction, only a sudden flare of need that had little to do with sex and so
much more to do with…something. Michael didn’t know what it was, but Albert
had it and he needed it, needed it desperately.
“Albert,” he whispered against his lips, and when Albert’s arms closed
around him, drawing him closer as he kissed back, Michael shuddered and let
go.
“Albert,” he whispered again, his voice straining with need. His hands
trembled on Albert’s ears, and he tipped his head back as lips trailed down his
throat.
Albert.
When the coach stopped, Michael startled as if waking from a dream.
Disorientation quickly morphed into awkwardness, and as he realized what he
was doing, how he had thrown himself not artfully at Albert but as some
lovesick schoolgirl, he felt his cheeks burn, and he tried to withdraw.
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Albert stopped him, gently but firmly, keeping him trapped with one arm on
his waist. With his other hand he shifted the curtain away from the window and
peered out into the street. He glanced at Michael with a curious frown. “B-
Bakery?”
Michael’s flush deepened. “Well, I’m quite hungry.”
Albert’s grin did devilish things to Michael’s insides. “Ah.” Keeping Michael
captive on his lap, he fumbled on the seat for his pad and pencil. “What-What w-
would you l-l-like?”
It took Michael a moment to realize Albert was asking what he wanted to
eat. “Oh. Ah—a couple of meat pies would do quite nicely.” He cleared his
throat. “Please.”
Albert brushed a kiss against Michael’s lips and adjusted Michael on his lap
in order to first scribble onto the pad. Rising enough to knock on the trap door,
he shoved the paper through, which presumably had instructions for the driver
to go into the bakery and get them food. When he returned his full attention to
Michael, he seemed remarkably calm.
“No longer nervous, my lord?” he tried to quip, but the words came out
breathless and uncertain. No, Albert wasn’t nervous. Michael was.
Albert smiled softly, almost wryly as he stroked Michael’s face. “Y-Your kiss-
kisses are g-good med-medicine.” Michael averted his eyes, and Albert’s hand
fell away. He didn’t look nervous, but he did look resigned. “D-Does m-my con-
con-con-condition d-d-disgust you?”
Michael frowned. Condition? Oh—the stammer. He touched Albert’s chest
reassuringly, but butterflies flew up in his stomach and made his hand tremble.
“To be blunt, my lord, I’m too busy worrying about my own condition to bother
with yours.” When Albert raised a questioning eyebrow at him, Michael gave in
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and confessed the whole. “I don’t understand my reaction to you. It upsets me.
I’m accustomed to being in control. And—”
And I find I don’t want to be in control when I’m with you.
He froze. The words had stopped behind his lips, but he’d heard them in his
head, and they terrified him. Despite his cutting them off, somehow it seemed
Albert had heard them too.
The knock on the door made them both jump, but Albert recovered quickly,
gently displacing Michael onto the seat before leaning forward to open the door
and take the wrapped package the servant offered. He stammered instructions as
well, too quietly for Michael to hear. Then he sat back on the seat, opened the
package and handed a meat pie wordlessly to Michael.
“Th-Thank you,” Michael replied, but he didn’t eat it, not at first.
Albert smiled, watching patiently until Michael took a bite. Then he smiled
again and kept smiling as the coach pulled back onto the street, and eventually
Michael gave in, relaxed and simply ate as they rode on.
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Chapter Seven
They did nothing more that first day than drive around London.
While Michael ate, occasionally foisting some of the food on Albert, they
circled aimlessly, but eventually the carriage stopped. When Michael pushed
back the curtain, he saw they were in Hyde Park. It was a cold, dreary day, not
quite raining as much as it was spitting in fits and starts, and so the park was not
as full as it might have been. Still, a fair number of coaches circled the paths, and a few brave souls rode.
Michael, who had been to the park, had never done so in a carriage—not,
that was, sitting on the seat. A gentleman he’d seen regularly a few years before
had been fond of riding across the green, waving to his friends while Michael
serviced him below. It made him feel a bit grand to sit in a fancy carriage with
the curtain pulled back, watching London’s finest promenade. He couldn’t see
much, just blurry blobs of color, and he longed to don his spectacles and see
them better. In a moment of self-consciousness, he glanced across at Albert and
found his patron watching out the opposite window, looking away from the
carriages. Looking up, in fact. Quite intently.
Michael did the same, but he saw nothing but a sky full of gray clouds.
Trying to be surreptitious, he leaned over and attempted to repeat the gesture
through Albert’s window, but it was more of the same. Frowning, he looked
again, and when he realized what had captured the attention of his host, he
laughed.
Heidi Cullinan
“Trees. That’s what you’re looking at, aren’t you? I’m ogling the
ton,
and
you’re inspecting the trees.”
Albert’s quiet smile did dangerous things to Michael’s insides. “M-Moss,” he
said, and pointed at a tall tree they were heading past. “On the b-b-bark.”
Michael leaned forward and squinted, but of course he could only see the
dark skeleton of the tree. “Ah. Is it good moss, or bad moss?”
He could hear the smile in Albert’s voice. “Just m-moss.” His arm extended
before Michael’s face, pointing to the south. “Th-That yew is d-dying. Every y-
year it h-hollows out more. A sh-shame. P-Pruning would have s-saved it.”
Michael had a suspicion he wouldn’t have been able to tell anything about
the yew even with his spectacles on, but he nodded and pretended he
understood. “What else do you see when you look out your window, Albert?”
That was all they did that first day. The whole first week, in fact, was
nothing but Albert taking Michael on rides around London, through every park
and borough, never looking at buildings or other carriages but always at trees
and plants. In a gesture that touched Michael, Albert always brought along a
fresh meat pie for Michael as well.
Michael of course never put on his glasses, but he thought he was beginning
to identify a few things by their shape and hue.
Though they toured every day, spending hours and hours together, not once
more after that first day did they even skirt close to anything remotely like sex.
At best their hands would touch, but since he had climbed onto Albert’s lap,
Michael hadn’t received so much as a kiss. He couldn’t decide if this was good or
bad. It was nice, in a way, to simply be with the man, and yes, it flattered him
that Albert wanted to share his passion for plants with him. Indeed, he found
himself interested despite himself. Michael noticed plants more when he was out
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on his own. After a week with Albert, he realized life was everywhere, even in
the dingiest parts of London.
Still, he wouldn’t have minded a little more personal “life”. He had stopped
dreaming of Daventry—he was too busy now dreaming of all the carnal things
he wanted to do with Daventry’s son, but in real life he received nothing at all,
and it was driving him mad. He didn’t know if this was some game or if Albert
had truly lost interest in him sexually. Every brush of hands, every glance,
became a tease, a torment. Every day Michael told himself he would kiss Albert
again, that he would end this strange standoff, but every day he waited for
Albert to make the first move, or at least to give him a sign. Michael began to
wonder if he would need to be a plant to get more attention, and found himself
constantly reaching for anything green in his wardrobe. It was sad, to be honest.
But he couldn’t stop.
On the sixth day of their meeting, Albert took Michael to the Regent’s Park
gardens.
Michael could tell even before they arrived that this tour was different. There
was an eagerness about Albert that outstripped his usual mood. He pointed out