Discreet Young Gentleman (12 page)

"Now get the horses," the man with the gun called to his associate.

"No!" The protest burst out of Dean before he could think. "You can't strand us here!"

"Shut up!" The highwayman swirled and backhanded Dean across the face with the hand not holding the gun. Against every instinct, Dean managed not to respond in kind, although his hands clenched into fists in helpless fury. "You think you're too good to walk? Ha! You've got good boots—" The robber peered closer in the bright moonlight, and grinned. "Damned good boots. I'll have those too. And your friend's as well."

The highwaymen were kind enough to leave their own shoes, rather worse for wear, in exchange. Left alone on the road with the disabled, horseless carriage, Dean and his two companions stared after their assailants until the sound of the hoof beats faded into nothingness.

Dean sat on the hard-packed road and put his face in his hands. "Shit. Shit!" he said, adding helpfully for Erich, "Scheisse! What are we going to do?"

Rob sat down next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Here. Here's your ribbon."

Erich sat on the other side, silently offering the books.

He nodded to the coachman, placing the ledger and dictionary on his lap, then wrapped the scrap of blue satin around his wrist and tied it. "Thank you. It was my mother's, not Minerva's."

"See?" Rob squeezed his shoulder. "Not all's lost."

"But we have no money, no horses, no...boots." Dean kicked at the highwayman's shoe, sending the malodorous item skidding down the road. "The coach is wrecked, and if we leave it here unattended it will be stripped of the wheels, tack, cushions, and anything else removable by the time we get someone to fetch it. Assuming we even could, without money."

"A bank might—"

"It's Saturday night," Dean said miserably. "The banks won't open until Monday.

How are we even going to eat until then?"

Rob's hand dropped off Dean's shoulder. "I can get us money," he said.

"You can? How?" Dean shook his head as he realized what Rob was offering.

"No," he said. "Oh, no. Besides, even if you wanted to, this is the Cotswolds, not London. Opportunities would be rather limited, don't you think?"

Rob didn't look at him. "Do you remember that pub we passed a few miles back?

The Rose and Thistle, I think it was called."

"A country pub? That would hardly—"

"Please. Listen. I recognized it. I've—I met a patron there, once. There's a private club upstairs." Rob kept his gaze firmly focused on the road in front of him. "People come from miles away to visit it—Gloucester, Bristol, Bath. It's for men only. Do you understand me?"

A molly house, he meant. Here, in the heart of the English countryside. "No," Dean said, mind groping for alternatives. "I mean, yes, I understand, but...no. You cannot.

We'll try...I don't know, a farmhouse or something. Someone will take us in until the banks open. Or...one of my uncles lives here in Gloucester. Somewhere."

"Do you know where he lives? Could we find it tonight, on foot?"

"Rob. I don't want you to do this."

Rob's looked at him at last, eyes were dark in the moonlight. "Thank you, Dean.

But you know, it's what I do." "Not like this."

"No. But we'll be damned hungry by Monday morning if I don't." He smiled. "And that's assuming you can talk the bank manager into believing you're really the Earl of Carwick, with shoes like those."

Dean was silent, staring into the shadows, while Rob stood, brushing himself off.

"Dean. Why don't you and Erich stay with the coach? I'll be back by morning." He looked back down the road the way they had come. "Or, if you prefer that I don't come back, I'll send someone with enough money to get you on to Bath, or home to Carwick."

"No." Dean got up and retrieved the shoe he'd kicked earlier. "I'll come with you.

What if there's trouble?" It's the least I can do, he thought, knot clenching in his belly.

He put on the highwayman's shoes and explained to Erich that they were going for help, and would return or send someone for the coach in the morning.

Two hours later, Dean stared into his beer in the upstairs room of the pub. "I've lost a certain amount of innocence since making your acquaintance," he had jested to Rob this morning. Well, Rob was the one losing his innocence now. "I don't take on a dozen strangers a night," he'd said at the first.

But maybe that was a lie. Anger roiled in Dean's gut. The man had been arrested, hadn't he? Appeared before Magistrate Lewis. That argued against Rob's claim of servicing a select clientèle through appointments alone. And he certainly knew what to do tonight. When they'd arrived at the Rose and Thistle, Rob had put his hand briefly on Dean's arm.

"I need to talk to the barman. The upstairs club is kept very secure, so I'll have to convince him I'm not trouble."

Dean looked around the taproom, which looked like a hundred other pubs he'd frequented: the same dark beams, plain wooden tables, handsome oak bar. There must have been a local festival or fair pulling in patrons from the surrounding towns, a raucous crowd of farmers and tradesmen, mostly, but with a sprinkling of women among them. Cheerful serving girls, bold-eyed fancy women, even a few easy-going wives. Incredible to imagine the second, secret world of the molly house upstairs. He looked at the barman overseeing the establishment, a tall, thick man with a full head of greying blond hair. "He'll want a cut."

"Yes, of course. But if upstairs is anywhere near as busy as down here, I should still have enough for us within a few hours." Rob hesitated just for a second. "How do I look?"

Dean reached and brushed at a small spot of dust on Rob's cheek. How did he look? Handsome. Gorgeous. Like something far too precious to be sold to anyone with an itch and a few spare coppers. "Fine." He dropped his hand, and Rob caught it.

"Don't be angry. Please."

Dean pulled his hand free. "Should I go upstairs with you? Suppose you need help."

Rob hesitated, then nodded. "I'd appreciate that."

He watched as Rob joined the throng at the bar and waited patiently for a word with the barman. Before long, he'd caught the man's attention, and Dean could see the barman's face spark with interest. What was Rob offering? A cut of the profits, a free sample? A little of both?

The barman called for one of his assistants to mind the taps, and disappeared into the back with Rob. In less than ten minutes he and Rob were back, a smug smile on the barman's broad face. Maybe they had just been discussing terms. Was that enough time for more? But Dean's own perfunctory encounters with prostitutes had frequently been as brief.

Rob crooked a finger at him and Dean rose, following the two others up the stairs to the secret men's club. At first, it looked like a smaller, quieter version of the pub downstairs, with perhaps half as many tables. It took a second glance to realize that most of the clientèle were better dressed than the crowd below, which fit Rob's description of this as a place men traveled some distance to find. These weren't locals out for a casual mug of ale, they were here for the companionship of those of their own kind. Some, Dean supposed, might just want breathing space, a place where they could relax and talk to others who shared their interests.

Others clearly wanted more. The tinkle of piano music covered the hum of conversation, but the amorous postures of several of the couples seated at tables made overhearing their words unnecessary. Just as he was wondering where they went for more intimate encounters, a pair of young men rose and disappeared through a dimly-lit archway at the back of the room. Dean peered through the gloom, seeing a short corridor with perhaps three or four doors on each side, and one at the end. Private rooms. He swallowed.

"Find a place to sit." Dean jumped as Rob spoke into his ear. "If I need help, I'll find a way to get word to you."

Dean nodded shortly, finding an empty table in the corner of the room, and watching as the downstairs barman handed off Rob to the man in charge of the upstairs bar. This employee, a younger, thinner man with a devilish smile, guided Rob back toward the archway and the corridor beyond. Dean expected they would stop and talk to patrons along the way, but apparently it wasn't necessary. When a man who looks like Rob enters a room, everyone notices. And everyone seemed to know what it meant that he was being led, alone, to one of the private rooms. It didn't take long before a middle-aged gentleman excused himself from the friends he'd been playing cards with, and disappeared through the archway. Dean's hands clenched beneath the table.

The young barman came by almost immediately with a brimming mug of bitter.

"On the house," he said with a wink. "Just wave me down when you want more."

Dean forced the beer past the lump in his throat, unable to stop imagining what was going on in the back room. Damn him. That bloody whore. If Dean had been blessed with half Rob's looks, one-third of his charm, he would never let just anyone have the use of them. Rob had been given such gifts—how dare he pervert them like this?

For you, the answer came back. For you, and Erich, and the blasted coach. Rob on his own could charm his way home without having to resort to this.

The first of Rob's clients reappeared from the back, looking damnably content, and two other men rose at once, hurrying to beat each other to the archway. There was a brief, heated discussion when they reached it at the same time. Then, one of them tossed a coin, and the winner proceeded into the corridor, while the loser stamped his foot and stalked back to a table near Dean, glowering. The barman approached him, close enough for Dean to overhear that there was another young man for sale in the back tonight, if he wished. The loser of the coin toss shook his head stubbornly. He would wait for Rob.

Dean didn't want to think about what Rob was doing, but watching the other patrons made him uncomfortable, and unaccountably nervous. Some of them were obvious mollies, effeminate, even painted—one pretty young man was even wearing a woman's dress, for heaven's sake. But others looked like men one would tip one's hat to in the street, respectable, prosperous. Men like his uncles. Like himself.

The barman came back with his pitcher and refilled his mug. Dean stared at it. It would be an easy antidote to the bitter feelings coursing through him, drinking himself senseless. Something he'd managed to avoid since the disastrous night he'd come into the title. If only Rob would come back, so they could leave this dreadful place, which was filling up quickly as the evening lengthened.

Two tables away, a couple began kissing, oblivious to the now-crowded room, and Dean's hand tightened painfully on his mug as an unwelcome heat rose in his groin.

Someone was playing the piano, badly, and all at once that was more than he could bear. He stood up with such vehemence that he nearly knocked his chair over, and shoved his way through the crowd until he reached the group thronged around the piano. He laid an ungentle hand on the shoulder of the man playing, causing a startled crash of keys as the pianist jumped in surprise. "Stop that bloody noise!" Dean's shout was loud in the absence of the music.

The pianist assessed Dean's youth, breadth, and obvious temper, and wisely decided it wasn't worth fighting over. He raised his hands in supplication. "Didn't like that song, sir? I can play another."

"I sincerely doubt it."

A much bigger man pushed through the others, face belligerent. "I suppose you can do better?" Dean narrowed his eyes. "I suppose I can." "Prove it."

The current player hurried to give up the stool. For the second time in a week, Dean found himself seated in front of a piano, scowling down at the keys. He could play better than that idiot any day of the week. Blindfolded. As he frequently had been, the better to be forced to learn the keyboard by heart. Just for a second, he was seven years old again, tears escaping the cloth tied painfully tight around his eyes, dreading the sharp rap of a ruler across his knuckles every time he missed a note.

Dean blinked. It was just a bloody piano, and the crowd was getting restless. The thought crossed his mind, out of nowhere, that Rob liked music. Hearing it well-played might make whatever he was going through right now just that much easier.

He ran his fingers lightly over the keys, calling forth a little trill from one of his father's favorite Mozart pieces. "What do you want to hear?"

Competing voices called out the names of old ballads, and new popular songs. He seized on one, recently familiar. "All right, then: 'The Lobster-Back Waltz.'" Dean launched into the tune.

Someone at his shoulder hummed along, then began singing. "Across Iberia we will go, Chasing Boney to and fro..." Dean hadn't even known there were words to the song. Others joined in, so that by the time they reached, "And the regiments of dead, will learn to fear a coat of red!," there was quite a chorus of voices caterwauling along.

"Well done!" someone cried out. "How about 'Barbry Allen'?"

After that, the barman placed an empty mug on the piano, and appreciative patrons dropped pennies into it from time to time. Dean eyed the growing collection with bemusement. "At last, Father," he muttered to himself, "your son's a professional musician." Playing in a molly house. Funny, how the thought of his father's imagined horror made playing the despised instrument almost agreeable. Certainly better than thinking about what was happening in the back room. "Come on," he shouted. "What's next?"

It was at least midnight before, despite entreaties to continue, Dean excused himself from the pianoforte and cashed in his pennies with the barman. Almost five shillings. He stowed them in his pocket and accepted another free pint of ale. Why wasn't Rob back yet? Damn him. Oh, damn him. Exhausted, he found his old seat in the corner of the pub and closed his eyes, just to rest them for a moment.

He was lying with his head down on the table some time later when a hand shook him roughly by the shoulder. Dean started, poised for a fight.

"Come on," Rob said. "Let's get out of here." He looked absolutely the same, which was, curiously, both a relief and a source of aggravation. In his hand he clutched a long-necked brown bottle.