Page 50 of The Soldier's Scoundrel
“I was thinking of letting a small house in the country this autumn.” Oliver, gratifyingly, had finished his pie and was now popping grapes into his mouth. “Something very modest. A hunting lodge, perhaps.”
In other words, not small at all. Four bedrooms at a minimum, servants all over the place. “Mmm-hmm,” Jack murmured, reaching across the table to take a grape for himself, letting his hand brush Oliver’s, so discreetly nobody could notice.
“Something small enough that I wouldn’t need live-in servants.” Now Oliver brushed Jack’s hand.
All these secret touches were a sort of code, Jack thought. Like ships communicating by semaphore. Jesus, he must be soft in the head. These touches were no code, they were a message written in invisible ink, and if you held it over a lamp you’d reveal the words Jack Turner is an idiot.
“Would you visit me in a place like that?” Oliver hadn’t even tried to keep the feeling out of his voice. His hope was right there, out in the open, and Jack wanted to look away.
“No.” Jack snatched his hand back. Then, seeing a look of hurt wash over Oliver’s face, he started to explain. “I need to work. Besides, how would you explain your sudden urge to take holidays with me? Servants or no, people would guess that we were up to no good, because there isn’t a single reputable reason for someone like you to spend time with someone like me. It’s easier to hide our . . . friendship in London.”
“I see,” Oliver said, looking like he didn’t see at all. He had to be living in a fantasy land if he thought the two of them could jaunt off to the country without raising suspicion. The son of an earl going to a hunting lodge with his brother-in-law’s former valet? The only question on anyone’s mind would be whether Oliver and Jack were going to bed together or doing something even worse.
“We can see one another in London,” Jack suggested, torn between wanting to flee the premises and wishing he could pull Oliver into his arms to show him that this wasn’t a rebuff but an offer.
“We can see one another in London,” Oliver repeated, but with a curl to his lip that made it clear exactly how paltry an offer he considered it. “We’ll come up with pretexts for visits. We’ll slip through alleyways to avoid being seen.”
Yes, that was precisely what Jack had been suggesting. They would embrace all the behaviors of secrecy and shame. Until someone noticed, that was. And then they’d avoid one another forever. That was the way these things worked.
“You’re so caught up in the differences between us,” Oliver was now saying, leaning back in his seat and regarding Jack with narrowed eyes. “Like we’re of two different species. I’ve gone about with men from all walks of life—”
“Oh have you?” Jack said, unable to repress a raised eyebrow and an affable leer. He watched in delight as a blush spread over Oliver’s face.
“No, no, not like this,” Oliver said quickly. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’ve never had anything like this.” Neither had Jack, for that matter, but he wasn’t going to say so. “What I mean is that I’ve eaten lunch and ridden in curricles and visited gaming halls with people who didn’t go to Eton. The mere fact of us spending time together isn’t as fascinating to the general public as you imagine.”
“Did you see the looks we got when we walked in here? The innkeeper’s wife took one look at your coat with those shiny buttons, another look at your boots, and then a third look at me, and I don’t know what conclusions she drew, only that they weren’t favorable to either of us.”
Oliver pressed his lips together, likely thinking of how he could charm his way into the innkeeper’s wife’s good graces. But then his expression changed, tight-lipped concern replaced with outright mirth. “God help me, Jack, but do you have a looking glass? I swear to you, if I put you next to half the gentlemen of my acquaintance there would be hardly any difference in your appearances except that you’re better-looking and more disheveled. I don’t know how you manage to tie your cravat in a way that’s so . . . well, offensive to the very notion of cravats—”
“Years of practice,” Jack said dryly.
“In any event, there’s nothing about your manner or your speech that says you aren’t a gentleman.”
“Oh, I know that I’m a passable copy. But like with paste, when you compare it to a real diamond you can spot the difference straightaway.”
Oliver held his hands up, palms out, as if to stop Jack from saying anything further. “I take it I’m the real diamond in that revolting metaphor?”
Jack refused to smile. “Precisely so.”
“The way you talk about yourself, sometimes I think you’re under the impression that you’re still an urchin on the streets of St. Giles.”
“I might as well be, for all I have any business consorting with the Honorable Captain Rivington.”
Oliver laughed and changed the topic, evidently giving up the argument, at least for now.
Jack realized that he was fighting the wrong battle, though. The real danger wasn’t exposure. No, the end would come not with the fear of discovery but rather when Oliver found some other way to quench his boredom and fill his time. He’d stand for Parliament or start breeding horses. Maybe he’d take an interest in astronomy or agriculture. He’d look back on this time with Jack as a strange and vaguely embarrassing interlude: I spent a month getting fucked by my brother-in-law’s valet and mucking about with blackmail. How odd. How very déclassé.
He glanced across the table at Oliver, who was eating grapes and giving Jack smiles he’d one day regret. The man had no idea that he’d look back on this day with shame, and Jack didn’t want to be anywhere nearby when Oliver came to that realization. Jack needed to scrape together whatever last shreds of dignity he had left and find a way to say good-bye before things got worse.
The next day, Oliver left his curricle behind and walked the short distance to Sackville Street, where Jack greeted him by throwing him onto the bed and slowly making him come unglued. He seemed to take a wicked pleasure in watching Oliver unravel before him. Afterwards, Oliver lay on his side, sated and spent and too exhausted to do much of anything besides watch Jack arrange his cards on the table. Jack wore only trousers, lamplight casting a warm glow on his bare chest and arms. His hair was in total disarray, sticking up at improbable angles that only grew more absurd as Jack absently scrubbed his hand across his scalp, deep in thought.
“Are you entirely sure you aren’t doing something mystical with those cards?” Oliver asked after a few moments of watching Jack repeatedly shuffle and lay out the cards. “Perhaps you have a family talent for that sort of thing.” He tried for a light tone, knowing that Jack never said much about his family.
Jack flashed him a quelling look. “The only thing my family has a gift for is crime, I assure you. If you’re referring to my mother’s . . . career, I’m afraid she had no unnatural abilities. She tricked men into paying her to prevent whatever disaster she foretold in her cards. One of her clients caught on to the scheme and killed her. Presumably a person who could actually see the future would have been able to avoid that outcome.”
“Oh,” Oliver said, regretting having introduced the topic.
“You sound disappointed.” Jack deftly gathered his cards. “Would you prefer it if I claimed to be able to see the future, or the past, or have the cards reveal divine truths to me? Would that make it easier for you to accept what I do?”
