A Private Gentleman (32 page)
Read A Private Gentleman Online
Authors: Heidi Cullinan
Michael slid off, collapsed beside Wes on the bed and drunkenly pushed one
of Wes’s own hands to his cock. “Come, Albert,” he whispered wearily. With
three sharp strokes, Wes did, sending his own seed up to mingle with Michael’s
against his chest.
They lay there a long time, heaving for breath.
I love you too.
Wes shut his eyes and turned his head to place a kiss on Michael’s hair.
Michael drew himself closer and snuggled against Wes’s side.
Wes reached down without displacing him, drew up the covers and nestled
in close to his lover as they both settled into sleep. They lay together without
moving until morning was high and a chirping bird outside the cottage window
woke him.
Opening his eyes, Wes felt Michael hot and close beside him, their sticky
spendings dried and cold against his chest.
He smiled.
Michael had no nightmares, and when he woke, it was to find himself in
Albert’s arms.
Several times that day he wondered if he’d stumbled into a dream. After
making lingering, sweet love in bed until they could stand it no longer, they
made breakfast together out of the supplies they’d foraged from the cottage
larder and enjoyed quiet conversation peppered by comfortable silence over this
and their morning tea. After that Albert took Michael on a walk through the
neighboring countryside. It was as picturesque as a painting—indeed, everything
about Oxford seemed carefully crafted to be exquisitely charming and beautiful.
They meandered all the way back into town, where they shopped once more,
this time not just in bookshops but anywhere that caught their fancy. They
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revisited the bakery and the inn. They wandered down the narrow streets and
passages around the campus—Michael couldn’t get over how close everything
felt, like dangerous alleys in London that weren’t dangerous any longer.
The only part that brought him any pain were the boys. The bright, happy
boys laughing and joking with one another between classes. It didn’t matter that
he knew many of them weren’t happy at all. That the smaller ones were probably
fagging, both literally and metaphorically, for the bigger ones. That they had
overbearing or disinterested fathers, that they had nightmares of their own. He
couldn’t stop yearning after them, wishing he had been one of them. Because
much as their lives weren’t perfect, he also knew none of them would end up
whoring for a living. He’d told Albert he’d rather his life than that of a boring
clerk, but as he watched the boys, he admitted that boast was a lie.
He hated his life. Rodger was right—he wanted out of it. But where on earth
would he go?
Albert. I can go to Albert.
Yes, he could, because Albert loved him. Albert would do anything for him. In fact, he thought Albert often looked as if he were
working up to asking him serious questions, possibly ones that revolved around
spending much, much more time together on outings like this. In cottages like
the one they’d slept in the night before. Yes. Albert would take him in.
Until he learned about Michael’s connection to his father.
As Albert’s satchel and Michael’s purchases were loaded onto the train,
Michael tried to reassure himself that his confession might not go entirely awry.
Certainly Albert would be shocked, yes. But he’d hardly refuse to see Michael
any longer because of it. It wasn’t as if it was Michael’s fault. Nor was it Albert’s.
It was just a gruesome, unfortunate fact that it was Albert’s father who had
bought and raped him.
Of course, it was possible that Albert wouldn’t believe him.
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Also possible that he would be so disgusted he couldn’t stand to see him.
Truth be told, there were many unpleasant outcomes possible.
He barely noticed anything on the train ride home, he was so preoccupied
with how, even when, to tell Albert.
Two days.
He could put it off until tomorrow.
Or he could get it over with tonight. Instinct told him now was good. Now when
Albert was so soft and affectionate. Now when Albert kept holding his hand
beneath the lap blanket. Obviously not that very second, he shouldn’t tell him,
not on the train. But he knew men, and he knew Albert. He had the feeling
Albert would try to stay the evening with him. Perhaps that would be best.
Perhaps they could go back to Dove Street, and he would take Albert up to his
room. Show him his books. Ply him with wine. Light candles and open the
windows so the music from the ballroom drifted up. Tell his tale slowly,
carefully. Explain.
But when Albert looked at him all soft and in love, he said, “W-Would you c-
come to m-my ap-partment?”
Albert’s
apartment. Ah.
Michael gave him as seductive a smile as he dared in public. “I could make
you quite comfortable at Dove Street. In my room.” He squeezed Albert’s hand
surreptitiously. “I would love to show you where the lovely books you bought
me go.”
If anything, Albert seemed more upset. He stammered incoherently for
several seconds, then managed to get out his words. “Ap-p-pologies. I h-h-h-
have r-un out of m-m-medicine.” He paused for breath, glancing around at the
crowd.
Michael’s spirits sank. Yes, this had been quite the public airing for his
recluse. Which meant he shouldn’t even go home with him at all, let alone tell
him horror stories about his father.
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Before he could say anything, Albert took his arm, maneuvering him against
a wall behind a crowd of people lining up for a food stall. He leaned in close so
his lips brushed Michael’s ear as he spoke.
“St-stay with me.” His hand squeezed on Michael’s shoulder. “Please.”
Michael dared a brush of his lips against his collar. “Of course.”
Wes loaded them into a fine black carriage, Michael’s books and parcels
carefully packed inside too, and the coachman drove them into the heart of
Mayfair. As they made their way up the stately walk to Albert’s front door, a
smart-looking butler came out to greet them.
“Good evening, Lord George.” The servant bowed. “You have had several
visitors, and much correspondence has been left for you.”
Albert waved him off impatiently. “In a m-moment, in a m-m-moment.” He
hurried Michael down the hall to a room on the left, wrestled with the door, then
let them inside.
A fire waited in the sitting room, lighting his way as he fumbled to a side
table. It was burned down to embers, but they were hot coals and would rise
back to life with just a little fuel. As Albert fumbled with a wooden box and
Michael hovered off to the side, a mob-capped maid ducked into the room, built
up the fire and exited again without a word.
Now the room was brightly lit, allowing Michael to watch as Albert
withdrew a small glass bottle. His hands shook as he held a dropper over an
empty glass tumbler, measuring out seven drops with care. After replacing the
glass vial in the box, he produced a bottle of wine from the cupboard below,
pulled the cork and splashed a bit of red on top of his drops. His hand shook
mightily as he brought the glass to his lips and tossed the liquid into his mouth,
but when the tumbler came down again, he sighed in ragged relief.
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“M-my ap-pologies.” His voice was ragged and tinged with shame. “I l-let it
go t-too long.” His back still to Michael, he ran a hand through his own hair. “I
am t-t-trying, but I am st-still d-dependent on the st-stuff.”
Michael wanted to reach out and reassure him, but he wasn’t entirely sure
how. “It’s all right,” he said, feeling pat, but it seemed to work regardless, for
Albert came over and brushed a kiss against his cheek. Michael could smell the
sweetness of the wine and the laudanum when Albert spoke.
“I m-must go s-see to our b-belongings and h-hear my c-c-correspondence
from Rawlins. I w-won’t be long. P-please, make yourself at h-home.”
He left, and for a few moments Michael simply stood at the side of the room,
looking about idly, trying to decide what to do. He took in a simple set of chairs,
a desk, a cabinet.
The wooden box with the opiate inside.
Michael walked toward the box without meaning to. He didn’t open it, but
he ran his hand over the top. Then he meandered around the room, hushing his
footfalls.
He wandered down the hall and into Albert’s lavatory.
It was the most impressive bath he’d ever seen: grand copper tub, elegant
black tile. More beautiful was the display of plants that filled the place. They
stood on shelves, in corners, hung from the ceiling. Some were right in the
window and some were pulled back. Apparatus dangled from the ceiling, pipes
and tubes and valves that seemed to have nothing to do with the usual features
of a bath. Small spouts hung from the ends of some of the tubes. Whole pots of
nothing but soil stood on one side of the room.
A series of glass jars lined a long wooden shelf, with green twiglike plants
buried within rock inside clear, condensation-riddled containers. Michael was
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inspecting one as Albert came into the room. When he saw what Michael was
looking at, he brightened.
“Th-these are my orchids.”
“Oh?” Michael turned back to the plants, more than a little disappointed.
These were Albert’s prizes? They didn’t look terribly interesting. Nothing like
the ones at the Regent’s Park garden.
Albert stroked the side of one of the jars in the same way most men would
stroke their lover. “None of these are b-blooming yet, but they all w-will before
I’m through with them.” He nodded at the jar he was touching. “Th-This is c-
cattleya. They f-form in clumps—you can s-see this sp-specimen starting to do so
here, if you p-peer around the side.”
He lifted his hand to gesture to another on a higher shelf. “Here is a ph-
phalaenopsis. I h-have a blooming plant of this species, though not here. Th-
These two are the most p-prevalent species in England just now, though there is
also the d-dendrobium.”
Michael nodded in what he hoped was a sage gesture, though largely he saw
odd little green stems stuck in moss and rock. Albert smiled at him knowingly
and pulled a binder down from the shelf above.
“L-Let me show you what these orchids will become.”
He opened the binder and laid it on the counter, and Michael couldn’t stop
an intake of breath.
The colors of the illustrations themselves were half the beauty. Bright pinks
fading into white, deep purples, all outlined in charcoal and perched atop bright
green stems. The illustrations were works of art, done in expert hand. Beneath
each was a carefully inked title: DENDROBRIUM and CATTLEYA.
Michael looked up at him. “Did you paint these?”
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Albert nodded. “I h-have trouble still with scale, but otherwise I b-believe
I’m quite p-passable as a b-botanical illustrator.” He turned one of the heavy
vellum pages, giving Michael more minutiae of orchids than he could ever
possibly retain. Still, he loved hearing the passion in Albert’s voice. The more he
spoke of flowers the less and less of his stammer was present.
Turning one last page, Albert sighed. “This is the p-plant I want most of all.
It is l-leafless, you see. The f-flower hangs in the m-middle of the air. I’ve s-seen a few in London—one at L-Lady G-Gordon’s p-party the night we met. N-None of
them are blooming, however. This illustration is a c-copy of a c-copy.” He
stroked the page sadly.
Michael leaned against the side of the shelf behind him, feeling a tickle of a
bud against the back of his head. “Is that why you love orchids so? Because
they’re rare?”
“N-N-Not at all.” Albert stroked the page of the folio. “Orchids have no p-
purpose other than b-beauty. They provide n-no medicine, n-no food. They are
d-delicate flowers, difficult to g-g-grow. And y-yet they grow everywhere in the
world.” He traced a gloved fingertip over the curve of a drawn petal, his soft
gray eyes trailing the motion. “B-Beauty for b-b-beauty’s sake. G-G-God asks n-
n-nothing of them b-beyond that they b-be themselves. Th-That’s why they are
m-my f-f-favorite.”
Was it the yearning in Albert’s voice? Was it the way he stroked the image
with such love and longing? Was it the gentleness with which his lover spoke?
Was it Michael’s own pent-up fear simply choosing this moment to burst free?
Michael didn’t know. All he knew was that his mouth was opening and he was
whispering, “Albert—Albert, I have something to tell you.”
Albert’s expression changed to concern. “W-We should g-go sit d-down.”
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“No.” Michael grabbed at Albert’s hands and held them fast before him. His