A Private Gentleman (12 page)
Read A Private Gentleman Online
Authors: Heidi Cullinan
by, but Mama held her head high, so I did too.” His grip on his gown relaxed
slightly. “I went to school. Not an excellent school, but not a terrible one, either. I
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did well enough. I had the usual dreams of being a lawyer or a scholar,
sometimes even an ambassador. But then I turned twelve, and I came home for
the end of term.”
His eyes went hard, his jaw set tight, but when he spoke, it was the little boy
again, even through the cold delivery. “Mama was not there, just a man.” He
stopped for several seconds, his countenance growing harder and harder, his
throat working with difficulty several times before he said, with perfect coolness
and ease, “My mother had sold me to him.”
Now it was Wes’s turn to jolt, a soft gasp of horror escaping.
Vallant smiled a wry smile and glanced at Wes. “Do you know, Rodger still
uses the story sometimes to weed out customers? Without revealing it was me, of
course. Anyone who isn’t horrified is shown the door and never allowed back
again. Isn’t it interesting that neither of us thought to tell it to you before
tonight?” He regarded Wes. “It’s your eyes, I think. They promise something
kind. Heaven help the world should you ever turn dark. You would send Satan
himself scrambling.”
Wes’s hand had stilled on Vallant’s arm. Vallant reached over, touched
Wes’s fingers lightly, and moved them back and forth a few times against his
own skin. When Wes renewed his rhythmic caress, Vallant pulled his hand away
and began to speak again, gazing into nothingness once more.
“He bought me for the entire break between terms. He stayed in the house
with me except for a few times when he had to leave, and then I was shackled to
the bed until his return. All the usual servants were gone and new brought in,
but let me assure you, it was a special kind of hell to endure that in my own
home, in my own mother’s bloody bedroom. He had me every way he liked until
a few days before term was due to start again, and then he left. The night he did
so is something of a blur in my memory.
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“I remember him leaving. I remember my mother appearing at the bottom of
the stairs from wherever she had hid herself, wiping at her eyes constantly,
speaking with false cheerfulness, trying to pretend it hadn’t happened. She spoke
of how excited she was for me to go back to school, how the headmaster had
reported me such a model student, how grand things were ahead of me, surely.
She produced a treasure trove of gifts, every book and trinket I had ever asked
for but never received. She produced a grand new trousseau for the next term.
She promised a holiday soon, to wherever I wanted to go. I kept silent through it
all, shocked at first, and then hurt, and then furious, and the longer I said
nothing, the more extravagant her promises became. At last she broke down and
wept hysterically.
“She rationalized it several different ways. She was out of money. She was
too old, and no one wanted her. She had panicked. She was weak. She was
terribly sorry, and she knew it was wrong, but couldn’t I see there was no other
way to keep up the lives we had become so fond of living? Didn’t I want to go to
university? Didn’t I want grand things? What, had I thought such would come
for free? Wasn’t it time I provided for us, for a change? She wheedled, promising
I could have it all, any and everything—so long as, every now and again, I spent
some time with the man. And of course unspoken but understood was the truth
that after this man, there would be another. And another. And another.”
Wes hissed out a breath, and his hand tangled in the blue silk. His stomach
turned and he saw nothing but red. He didn’t realize how tightly he gripped
Vallant until he felt fingers brush his own. He relaxed his grip, but to his
surprise, Vallant did not release him. In fact, he captured Wes’s hand, drew it to
his lips as he turned his head, and kissed his knuckles before returning Wes’s
hand back to his sleeve.
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“Well,” Vallant said, as if this were some light gossip he repeated, “I left that
night. In the true form of the fool I was, I tied my most precious belongings into a
bedsheet, slung them over my back and darted out into the night.” His laugh
rumbled through his body, and he shook his head. “Good God, but by rights I
should have learned the many horrible ways men on the streets could be worse
than—” He stopped, bit his lip and sighed. “Suffice it to say, I was fortunate
beyond anything I deserved. The first person I ran into—literally—was Rodger,
who at the time was but sixteen, though he already ran an impressive ring of
prostitutes. Mistaking me for a lordling, he proposed to ransom me to my family,
only to withdraw in shock as I went into hysterics, threatening to tear out his
eyeballs if he so much as dared to
think
of sending me home again. My tale came out shortly thereafter, and my life as it is fell in to place. Rodger took me under
his wing, and then he took me into his bed. With my permission, mind you.
Though we both tired of that quickly enough.” He stopped and blushed. “I don’t
know why I just told you that.”
His hand reached up to stroke his own hair, and his gaze across the room
turned strangely pensive. “I enjoyed sex even then. Despite what she may have
intended, my mother did not sell anyone my virginity, nor the concept of sex
with my own gender. And as I watched Rodger’s girls and boys work their
corners, as I saw their power and even their pleasure, I thought of what my
mother had said, of all she had promised, if I would only sleep with the man.
And I thought, well, why not? Now that I had been relieved of my fantasies,
there was really nothing else for me to do but whore.
“But with Rodger it would be on my own terms. There seemed a sort of
justice to it—she had ruined me, but I could remake myself, even thumbing my
nose at it all by taking what they had made me and doing them one better. So I
did, and I did it well. I was pretty then, acutely so, and so I was popular. And I
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wasn’t stupid. The Dove Street house was my plan, built on the ashes of my
mother’s schemes. Sex on our terms, for our rates. And for many years now, that
has been the whole of it. I have enjoyed many fine things and as much pleasure
as I care to reach for, protected and monitored by Rodger.”
His eyes closed on a sigh. “Except now, for no reason I can explain, pleasure
has turned to panic. I dream dark, terrible dreams, and while I can kneel before a
man in a crowded room and suckle his root like a calf at a teat, while I can take
his cock in my hand and draw his pleasure out of him with a skill I have taken
years to hone, if you put me in a room alone with a man and let him cover me
with his body, if he tries to enter me, or even sometimes if he simply moves the
wrong way or the smell is right, I am so filled with panic I nearly cast up my
accounts on the spot. Let me assure you this is the very devil to explain to a client who has already put his coin in Rodger’s greasy hand.” He rubbed his forehead.
“And that is the tale, my lord. I am a whore who can no longer fuck, and I don’t
know why. I’ve had no one in well over a month.” His lips pressed together.
“Since you, dear Albert. No one since you.”
The sordid, impossible story kept swirling inside of Wes’s head—operatic
indeed—but at this, Wes deflated slightly.
This is why he asked for me.
Immediately, he felt ridiculous. What had he expected? That the beautiful whore
had fallen in love with him? That this was some idiot fairytale?
My mother sold me.
Wes shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, willing the disgusting
thought to roll back into the depths of his consciousness, but it would not go. He
thought of the hopeless case he’d been at twelve, at how he’d barely been able to
leave the house, let alone speak. He could not imagine what he would have done
if his father had sold him—his mother had been dead by then, so she could not
have. The thought of her doing so wasn’t even something he could put his mind
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around. Not his father either. He couldn’t imagine anyone doing it. It was
beyond disgusting.
I have long ago learned not to be surprised.
That was what Rodger had said. Wes began to understand why.
Vallant took Wes’s hand again and kissed his fingers gently. “You are a
darling man to listen to all that prattle. I don’t even know if that explains it
properly, but hopefully this allays your concern enough to allow you to leave. I
had thought—” He grimaced. “Oh, it’s ridiculous, obviously. But I’d thought
perhaps, with you, it would be all right. That it would cure me or something.
Which now seems nothing but mad. I am sorry to have troubled you, to have
exposed you to Rodger, to have involved you in this at all. Please consider
yourself absolved. Whatever Rodger held over you, I promise to make him
release it. I know you have no reason to believe my word, but I swear to you, you
have nothing to fear from me, now or ever.”
Wes stared at him in disbelief. Go?
Go?
Vallant thought he would leave, just like that? Frowning, he opened his mouth to speak.
“D-d-d-da— T-t-t-t-t-t-t-t—”
Growling in impotent rage, Wes swung his legs off the bed, doing up his
trousers with trembling hands. He hated himself, hated his stammer, hated his
tongue, his mind, his stupid timid nature, stupid, stupid, stupid—
My mother sold me.
You learn not to be surprised.
Wes stormed over to his discarded waistcoat, not even aware of what he was
reaching for until the notebook was in his hand. He dug into the pocket again
until he found the stub of pencil and exhaled a victorious huff. As he returned to
the bed, he could see Vallant eyeing him warily, but he ignored this, sat on the
opposite end and braced the pad on his knee.
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You think after all that, I will leave? What sort of monster do you take me for? You
think I could be that callous? No better than the piece of filth who used you, nor the
soulless fiend who sold you?
He ripped off the page and handed it over, but he began a second note even
before Vallant had taken the first from his hand.
Is this bastard still alive? I assume not, that Rodger had him strangled?
He had to pause, forcing his grip on the pencil to lighten before he went on.
I want his name,
if he isn’t already dispatched. I’m not without resources or influence. And I’m very
difficult to prosecute.
He stopped writing then, but his blood was pounding in his ears, and
without meaning to he crumbled the bottom half of his notepad. He had never
felt such rage in all his life.
“No.” Vallant’s reply was short, sharp and brooked no argument. He handed
the notes back to Wes. “No, you will not have the name. Don’t ask again, either.
Ever.”
Wes wanted to press the issue, but he knew a brick wall when he saw one.
And notes could only be so persuasive. He turned over the first piece of paper
and wrote again.
I want to help you.
Vallant took the paper with visual trepidation, but he laughed once he saw
the words. “Well, you can’t, darling. You saw where we landed.”
Wes scowled.
I didn’t mean help you that way. Please. You must let me give you
aid. I think now you meant Bedlam as a joke, at least a dark one, but this cannot be
healthy regardless. You thought something in me might help you, enough to send for me.
Now that I actually know what I’m meant to do, let me at least attempt it.
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Wes watched Vallant’s face as he read, but it gave him no clue. When Vallant
spoke, he glanced at Wes without turning his head or lowering the note. “Aid me
how? What is it you think you could do?”
Wes had no idea. He didn’t write this though, pausing with his pencil over
the paper as he frantically tried to think. He began a few lines only to cross them
out. After three such tries, he balled up that paper, tossed it over his shoulder
into the fireplace and started one afresh.
I want to keep seeing you. I don’t care if we have intercourse or not. We can talk.
Or
write notes. Or paint bloody watercolors. I hardly care, to tell the truth. I know only that
I can’t simply walk out of here and whistle my way back to my apartments as if you were
just some whore I fucked and nothing else.
He hesitated over that last, but in the end he passed it over before he could
