A Seditious Affair (18 page)

He stood by the fire, too nervous to sit. He’d instructed the men to allow nobody but Richard up. Easily done; his order was second only to Richard’s here. It always had been, because Richard had always protected him, and Dominic had always allowed it.

The door opened at last, and Richard came in.

He was a big man, who looked bigger when he was angry. Today he looked very imposing indeed.

He threw his gloves on a side table. “Well, Dominic. You wanted to have this out; here I am.”

No beating about the bush then. “Compliments of the season to you too,” Dominic said. “Be advised that you have no right, none at all, to comment on how I choose to conduct my affairs. I regret extremely that I brought trouble to Millay’s, but that was misfortune, and it will not be repeated—”

“Let us be honest, at least,” Richard cut in. “Your gutter-blood brought the trouble, because he was pursued by men of, I understand, the Home Office.”

“I brought him to Millay’s. It is my responsibility. And
not
Cyprian’s business.”

“On the contrary,” Richard said swiftly. “He is about my business. His acts are mine.”

“Then you are an interfering spy.” Dominic relished the look of shock that brought. “Yes, I mean it, and while I am on the topic, I will not see the madam Zoë punished for what happened there, let alone for what is between Silas and myself. You may rule your empire, via your spymaster, with an iron hand, but Silas is not in your power. And as for what lies between me and you, that is our business and you will keep your accursed sneaking valet out of it.”

Richard’s fist was clenched. “You will not insult my staff, and you are greatly mistaken—”

“I am not. How dare you send your valet to act as my flashman?”

“I beg your pardon,” Richard said. “I am not familiar with the language of the stews.”

“Procurer then,” Dominic said, with great clarity. “Was it your idea or the ubiquitous Cyprian’s to find—I believe I have the wording correct—‘a bully to do Mr. Frey as he likes it’? Did you presume to discuss my desires with your
valet
?”

Richard was reddening. “What the devil should I have done? For God’s sake, man, you were like to get yourself killed! You were beaten bloody—”

“Yes, I was,” Dominic agreed. “I went and sought relief in the most sordid alleys of London, and do you know why?”

“No. I do not, I never have—”

“
That’s
why. That tone in your voice. Your contempt, Richard, your scorn—”

“Are you blaming
me
for your perversions?”

Dominic took a very deep breath. “You may say that, if you will. If you intend to keep twisting the knife. They are my
desires,
Richard, just as you have desires. It is possible to differ with respect, you know.”

Richard snorted. “You are hardly the man to say that.”

“I have learned it. I have learned it from a radical democratic agitator. Not, my friend, from you.”

Richard’s jaw set. “Then perhaps it ill suits you to complain that Cyprian put him in your way.”

“Oh, I am grateful for the meeting. I am even grateful for the care that I must believe motivated your interference. But I am not grateful to know that your servant sneaks around my life, and I am telling you, Richard,
no more.
”

“If we are safe here, it is Cyprian’s work,” Richard said, low. “If we are safe at Millay’s—and you may have destroyed that—it is Cyprian’s work.”

“Then raise his pay, but keep him out of my business. I will not have it, Richard. My connection with Silas is not your concern, and you have no right over it. If you choose to close the doors of this place to me, you may do so; if you no longer wish to extend me your friendship because of it, that is your privilege, but you will not presume to act on me, or him. How dare you suggest press-ganging a free Englishman to get him out of your way!”

“I was angry.” Richard looked a little shamefaced. “I should not have written it, but—”

“But you listened to your valet’s gossip.”

“Will you leave him out of this!” Richard snapped. “He does my bidding, just as your accursed democrat flagellator does yours.”

“As a matter of fact,” Dominic said, “I do not indulge in flagellation, and if I did, it would be none of your damned business since I do not ask
you
to wield the whip, and most of all, Silas is not my servant!” Perhaps it was his increasing volume, but Richard flinched. “Silas is an independent man and a free man, and if he chooses to—to share my bed in the way that pleases us both—”

“It is an abuse.”

Dominic made a frustrated sound in his throat. “It is not abuse, for heaven’s sake. When will you listen to me? I
want
what he does—”

“I don’t mean the way he treats you, repugnant though that is,” Richard said coldly. “I mean your abuses.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You are protecting the very sort of criminal revolutionary you are bound by duty to hunt down. Using the knowledge and power your position gives you in order to defy the law. Is that not an abuse? And this man—you say you have a connection with him. What connection? How can there be a relationship between so low and so high? You are wealthy, of good family, and you could have him arrested at any time. How is that right, Dominic? How is it fair that you hold every card and he must do what you ask of him?”

It was like a blow. Dominic had to struggle to respond. “That is not how it is. That is not remotely how it is.”

“Really?” Richard took an impatient turn around the room. “You may think not. But when one party has everything and the other nothing, can there be any sort of parity between them? Any justice, any balance, any match? Look at my cousin Verona, married to her penniless sergeant. She has birth, wealth, and beauty. He has nothing. When the first flush of enthusiasm subsides, what will be left but he in a subordinate position, always?”

“I understood she’d been set on him since childhood. And I assume she has settled a sum on him—”

“Which you can scarcely do,” Richard retorted. “If you had given your heart to a scullery maid even, you could at least give her the protection of your name and rank, disgrace yourself but elevate her. But in our position—”

“In our position we have nobody to rely on but one another,” Dominic said. “You taught us that, Rich. You have given us safety and companionship in our little society, and we all owe you a great deal. But, my friend, you are not the master of hearts or the arbiter of principles.”

“Easily said, when you seem to have discarded yours.”

“I see. Tell me, is your outrage truly concern for Silas’s well-being? Or are you merely angry that I have presumed to creep out from your shadow at last?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I am tired of missing you, Richard. In fact, I do not miss you. I’m sorry I could not love you as we both wished, back then. But I will not spend any more of my life mourning that we are not a bedroom match, or listening to your opinions on the subject.”

“That is grossly unfair.” Richard sounded strangled.

“You made me feel less of a man. You made me feel unworthy of you.” Dominic was half-shouting now, years of suppressed, unacknowledged hurt rushing through his veins. “I felt unworthy of
anyone
because I believed what happened between us was my fault. Well, it was not. And if it has taken a self-taught gutter revolutionary to show me that, I can only conclude that Silas’s views have something to commend them after all. Because I will tell you this, Richard Vane, he has been a better man to me than you ever were.”

Richard’s mouth was open, his face patched red and white. Dominic had the distinct sensation that he might have gone too far. But it had needed saying, and with it he had felt the cleansing pain of a bursting cyst, the poison draining away.

“There’s a line of Blake’s,” he went on. “
Love seeketh only self to please, to bind another to its delight—
”

“That is not what I wanted. It is
not.
”

“It is not what either of us wanted, I imagine, but it is what both of us did. I wanted you to meet my desires and you wanted me to forget them. Neither of us was reasonable, but we were very young.” He managed a smile. “I love you dearly, my friend. I always will, but even without my tastes, I think we would not have grown well together. The fact is, you want an ally. I prefer a challenge. You want agreement; I want contraries. I want Silas.”

Richard swallowed convulsively. “How can you know? How can you risk yourself with so much uncertainty? What damage might be done by this?”

“What’s the alternative to risk?” Dominic demanded. “Live celibate? Bed whores? Swive each other for the lack of anything better to do, the pack of us alone together? Do you remember we had a conversation about Julius, that inhuman, miserable distance at which he set himself? He’s come back to life—”

“With Harry, who is his equal in birth and a man with whom he can be seen to spend time.”

“As far as any of us can,” Dominic retorted. “I don’t need you to shake Silas’s hand and I don’t want to make him part of our society. He is Ludgate radical to the bone, and I would not change that if I could.”

“You cannot love across a divide,” Richard said. “It’s not possible. The world doesn’t allow it.”

“Since the world would hang me equally quickly whether the prick in my arse was attached to you or Silas, I cannot see it matters.”

“It matters to me,” Richard said. “It is everything. If there is no legitimacy for our affairs, no framework, then we must be our own arbiters of right and wrong. We have to watch ourselves because we cannot let the world do it, and again, Dominic, can you say that this business of yours is fair?”

“I cannot defend the contradictions in my position. I see no way whatever to reconcile my duty and my personal obligations, and heaven knows how this will end. You are quite right about that, and I have no answer. And furthermore, I know damned well that I have more power than Silas in the world outside. He wouldn’t let me forget it, even if I was inclined to. So . . . I give him the truth. I don’t ask for his; I give him mine.” The shames, the fears, the desires. He stared into the fire. “I have made myself vulnerable to him, I have put my soul in his hands, and he has cherished it. I wish you’d see that, Richard. I wish you understood.”

There was a long silence.

“You gave me the truth too, once,” Richard said at last. “And I could not see then how there could be caring in what you asked of me, and I don’t see now. You frighten me, Dominic. I spent a decade wondering if any unexpected note would be the news that you had been found dead in some filthy gutter, if whoever you’d found to abuse you had gone too far. So, yes, I did ask Cyprian to find me a solution to the problem you present, and I am repaid for my interference now, because it seems he succeeded all too well.”

“Perhaps he should establish a marriage mart of some kind. He could apply his powers to finding someone for you.”

Richard made a jerky movement, then stopped himself. “I think not.” The tone was light, but the pause had been too long. If Julius was right about his love affair, Richard evidently did not intend to speak of it.

Dominic tried not to be hurt by that. “I wish you would. I wish you could let yourself love someone worthy of you.”

“I wish you the same.” Richard grimaced. “Ah, Dom. I cannot like this business of yours, I cannot understand it, and I cannot see it ending well.” He moved forward, dropping a hand to Dominic’s shoulder, a tentative motion that stung because they should not be wary of each other. “I have only ever wanted your happiness.”

“For that, you have to let me be the arbiter of what makes me happy.”

“Yes, but you must understand that I know best.”

Dominic looked up with outrage, saw his friend’s rueful, apologetic smile, and couldn’t help but laugh.

Richard smiled back, relieved. “Ah, curse it. I overstepped, I know I did, and I am sorry. I don’t agree with your course, but if you are sure this is what you want . . .”

Dominic put his own hand over the large, strong fingers and felt them tighten, that old familiar sign of friendship. The relief was a physical, palpable thing. “Truly, Rich.”

“And—I must ask this—if he is arrested? If, indeed, you learn something that makes it imperative to have him arrested?”

“I am attempting not to learn that,” Dominic said. “Deliberate ignorance, you might say. He does not tell me what he does or where he goes, and I do not ask.”

“A state of affairs that might fool a blind man in the dark. And you keep your knowledge from him, of the proceedings against radicals?”

“As far as I can, except—”

“Harry,” Richard said with him. “Of course.”

“I am treading the edge of a precipice here,” Dominic said bluntly. “Liverpool’s administration has been savage on the reformists and whipped up a deal of discontent. The Whigs claim the country is ripe for revolution. There is talk of an uprising sweeping the North.”

“Then, surely—”

“Talk, it is always talk. If I thought there was a figurehead, a leader of revolution, I should be afraid. There is none, no English Danton or Robespierre. In the end, this is a conservative land. I do not see a tipping point that will force the radicals to act. And I am very afraid that the Government needs one.”

“How do you mean?”

“The Six Acts infringe British liberties. Sidmouth needs to prove that they were justified, that to make any concession to reform is to hand the nation to Jacobins. He needs an outrage. That was to be Lord Maltravers’s and Mr. Skelton’s coup: the radical Harry Vane made rich by the murders of his noble relatives. That little scheme did not come off, but it has not been forgotten.”

“Are you telling me that business was not sincerely meant?” Richard demanded. “It was an error, yes, but from overenthusiasm—”

“Perhaps,” Dominic said. “Mr. Skelton suspects Silas of sedition, and he is quite right to do so. And yet his patron is Lord Maltravers, who dislikes our set, dislikes Harry, and would be ecstatic to see his brother’s friends brought low by association. Let us say that if Silas were arrested and the consequence of his arrest were Harry’s disgrace, Lord Maltravers would be very well pleased with Mr. Skelton. And so would Lord Sidmouth, because the Government needs a radical scandal, and I think at this point even the loosest threads may be woven into a conspiracy.”