Page 59 of Seduced By a Scoundrel

“I do not know,” Jeremy said, attempting to hide his face against Derrek’s neck.

A moment later, there was a thumping crash from below followed by Clary cursing, then footsteps hurrying up the stairs.

“Jeremy, Talboys!” Clary shouted from the hall, then let herself into the anteroom of Jeremy’s part of the house. “Get up!”

Derrek groaned. Jeremy had the presence of mind to reach for the bedcovers and had only just covered the two of them when, as he suspected she would, Clary burst through the door of their bedroom without knocking.

“Bloody hell, woman!” Derrek shouted at her.

Jeremy was more than a little shocked himself, but all of that vanished when Clary, wide-eyed and flushed, declared, “The king died during the night! Victoria is queen!”

In an instant, everything was forgotten, from the impropriety of Clary’s intrusion to the fact that Jeremy was unclothed and mussed from everything he and Derrek had just done. He sat bolt-upright and gaped back at his friend.

“The King is dead?” he asked.

“Long live the Queen!” Clary declared. She then noticed the state Jeremy and Derrek were in and burst into laughter before dashing out of the room. “Long live the Queen! Artie! Timothy! Jonty! The King is dead, long live the Queen!”

“It was a terrible idea to invite that woman to live here,” Derrek grumbled, rubbing his hands over his face.

Jeremy ignored his lover’s grumpiness. “Victoria is queen,” he said, throwing the covers off all the way and scrambling over Derrek to get out of bed. “We must…we must…I do not know what we must do, but we must do something.”

He nearly fell out of bed, half-tangled in the sheets as he was, and rushed to the screen in the corner to use the chamber pot. England had a new monarch, its first queen in over two hundred years. Surely, the day would be filled with celebrations, both of King William’s life and the new queen’s ascendance.

“London will be completely mad today,” Derrek said with a sigh, getting out of bed as Jeremy came out from behind the screen. “And you’ll likely want to be in the middle of the madness.”

Jeremy headed to the wash stand but paused to rake a lascivious gaze over Derrek’s body. His spend was still sticky on his stomach, which filled him with a sense of satisfaction. But there were a great many other things to think about just then.

“The entire city will be mourning and celebrating,” he said, continuing to the wash stand as Derrek ducked behind the screen. “It is a monumental event, the sort of thing one spends in company instead of tucked away, pretending business can continue as usual.”

“It is not the day of a funeral nor the day of a coronation,” Derrek said behind the screen.

“But those days are coming, and men will need suits for both,” Jeremy said, then splashed water over his face and body.

Derrek laughed. “I see your aim now. You are hoping to profit from the occasion.”

“I am hoping to offer my services to those who might want them,” Jeremy corrected him, scrubbing himself clean.

“I see,” Derrek said, coming out from behind the screen with a grin.

He moved over to kiss Jeremy soundly as Jeremy completed a quick scrub of his body with a soapy sponge.

“Either way,” Jeremy said once Derrek let him go and started washing himself, “we should hurry over to The Chameleon Club right away to see what everyone else thinks of this turn of events.”

“That I agree with,” Derrek said.

They continued to fly through their morning routines of washing, shaving, and dressing, all while the rest of their household rushed about, sharing and resharing the news with each other and chatting excitedly about what was to come.

“A new queen means a whole new era,” Timothy said, brimming with excitement, as they all shared a cup of tea together in the workroom sometime later.

“Perhaps it will be a better era,” Jonty said. “Perhaps this new queen will feel differently about men like us than those who came before her.”

“It would be nice,” Jeremy said, touched by Jonty’s optimism.

“I will believe it when I see it,” Derrek murmured close to Jeremy’s ear. “Our sort needs to look out for our own future.”

Jeremy agreed, but he did not want to disappoint the lads in their exuberance.

After they finished their morning meal, Jeremy declared that the boys should have the day off so that they might join in with whatever mourning or celebrations might take place. Clary, who had already begun to make friends among London’s other seamstresses and modistes, went off to join them in exactly what Derrek had cheekily suggested before, moving through the crowds that were sure to be on the street, advertising their services and handing out cards with suggestions that a new gown would be the perfect way to mark the occasion.

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