Discreet Young Gentleman (9 page)

"Will it?" Rob shook himself and smiled brightly, and for the first time Dean wondered how much of his easy good humor was genuine. "Do you play backgammon?"

The rest of the evening passed pleasantly, over the game board and a plain but appetizing dinner. Dean thought it best to avoid personal topics, and Rob responded with evident gratitude, putting himself out to be quietly charming. At last it was time to retire.

Dean hesitated. "The only private room they had left has just one bed. If that makes you uncomfortable—"

"Share a bed with someone I barely know?" Rob stretched, and smiled sleepily.

"You think that would bother me?"

"If it does, you can sleep on the floor," Dean said shortly.

Rob sobered. "If it happens that you're the one who's uncomfortable, let me assure you, my lord. You're perfectly safe with me."

"I rather thought so," Dean said, and wondered why he felt just a little deflated.

Encouraged by their chat the night before, Dean sought out Erich again before retiring, reasoning that it also gave Rob a chance to wash and change into a nightshirt in private while he was gone. It made him uncomfortable enough to share a bed with the man, he had no wish to see him in a state of undress. Still, it would be unusual to travel for many days and not have to share at least half the time, so he'd best come to terms with the idea of sleeping next to the prostitute. Some inns jammed patrons three and four to a bed, and many a night Dean had spent traveling back and forth to Cambridge curled up into as small a ball as possible, trying to avoid the ice-cold feet of a stranger. With his new rank and the money Peter had given him for the book, at least they should be able to bespeak private rooms, avoiding the worst of the public crush.

Once again, he found the coachman in the stable, with the animals. "Does it bother you," Dean asked in German, "sleeping in the...the...?" He had no idea what to call the attic room where the male servants were supposed to sleep, the females relegated to a similar chamber near the kitchen. Dormitory? What was the German for that? Life would be simpler if Erich could speak even a few words of English, but some things couldn't be mended. "... the room with many beds?"

"Nein, Herr Graf." Erich was sitting with his legs crossed on the ground, polishing the brass fittings of the horses' harness. "I don't mind other people. I just like animals better."

"Sometimes, me too." Dean struggled with the grammar of that, but Erich's cautious smile suggested he'd got his point across.

"But you are kind to me," Erich added quickly, seeming anxious that he might have hurt his employer's feelings. "I like your friend, too."

"Mein Freund? Who, Peter?"

Erich nodded toward the main building of the inn. "Nein. Hen-Black. He's not so bad."

Dean thought about the past few days, the unexpectedly entertaining time they'd had chasing ghosts around Tewkesbury today. "Nein," he said. "Not so bad, at all."

Despite the best efforts of the gruesome Wakeman Cenotaph, Dean dreamed about Rob instead. This time there was no narrative, only a series of sensory impressions.

The slap of flesh on flesh. The smell of sweat and aroused male. A single gasp, cut off short. And then the dawning realization that maybe this wasn't a dream, but was really happening—

Dean awoke, sitting straight up in bed. Rob slumbered quietly beside him, and if you had drawn a line delineating the exact center of the mattress, no part of the other man would have been found on Dean's side of the bed. Even in sleep he was unfailingly courteous: he didn't hog the covers or even snore.

Just a dream. Dean ran his fingers through his wiry hair, taking a deep breath. Of course it was a dream. He wrapped his arms around his bent knees and watched Rob sleep. It was an unusual situation, that was all. Rob was gorgeous, for a man, and was proving to be an amusing companion. And, of course, he was rather uniquely available. It was only natural to be curious, to wonder if... He tried not to finish the thought, but three a.m. is a truthful time of night. If sex with Rob would be less disappointing than it had turned out to be with women. If Rob could rekindle the kind of excitement he hadn't known since his schooldays, huddling beneath the covers with another boy, caught up in the forbidden thrill of mutual exploration.

But of course, there was another consideration.

Minerva.

He could hardly go to her and plead that her father was wrong, that he wasn't a sodomite—if by the time Dean reached her it was true. His integrity wouldn't allow that.

No. Rob was out of reach. In another time, in another place— Dean's hand stretched out, to smooth one dark lock back from the sleeping man's forehead, and he snatched it back, appalled.

Keep your hands off him and go to sleep, he told himself. Oh, Christ, just go to sleep.

Chapter Eight

Rob was again quiet and heavy-eyed at breakfast, staring blankly out the window while nursing a cup of strong coffee. As usual, a roll lay untouched on his plate.

"We'll stop for luncheon at Gloucester, I think," Dean said, tracing a finger down his map, the remains of a heartier breakfast at his elbow. His companion grunted.

"Nice cathedral there." This evoked no apparent interest at all. "Probably haunted."

Rob continued to stare silently at the busy street outside. Turning to look, Dean saw that the sun was up and shining mightily, causing steam to rise from puddles left over from last night's rain. A woman in grey was having to step cautiously as she crossed the street, heading for another hostelry.

"You're right. It is muddy. The road's a hasty pudding today. What's between here and Gloucester? Bishops Norton? We might get no farther than there by midday, and have to skip the cathedral entirely."

"As long as we're away from here." Rob picked up his roll, set it down again, and reburied his face in his coffee cup.

"What's wrong? Didn't you sleep?"

"Not well. The air was so heavy last night I could barely breathe. Like bands of iron around my chest." "I didn't notice."

The serving girl, Frances, reappeared just then. "Are you finished, my lord?" At his nod, she took Dean's plate, and hovered, hesitating over Rob's. "And you, sir?" Rob handed it to her. "But you didn't eat. How about I wrap up something to take with you?

A leg of chicken, or a nice bit of ham pie?" Frances looked concerned, but of course it wasn't just old men who would react to Rob's looks.

Rob smiled, but the effort was apparent. "Thank you, I'm not hungry."

She shrugged and turned to go, but Dean called her back. "Wait. We haven't heard about the Bear's ghost yet. Is it true there is one?"

"Oh, yes indeed, my lord! Ever so frightful it is, too." Frances gave an exaggerated shiver. "Poor soldier, brought here after the Battle, and executed right outside." She didn't specify which battle: despite other bloody encounters, the Wars of the Roses were still supreme in Tewkesbury.

"Does he walk?" Dean glanced at Rob, who was showing faint signs of interest.

"Waving his sword and shouting for vengeance?"

"Oh, no. Poor, pitiful thing. Wrapped all about in chains he is, and they say he doesn't even have a head to shout with. Not that I've seen him myself," the serving girl added. "I wouldn't stay the night here for all the tea in China."

Rob stood, almost knocking over his chair. "Let's go." Without waiting for a reply, he headed quickly for the door.

Dean couldn't follow immediately, having to stop to pay their reckoning and send word for Erich to bring the coach around. Outside, he found Rob leaning against the corner of the building, breathing deeply of the rain-washed morning air. "Is that what you think? You somehow felt the constriction of the chains? Honestly!"

"Of course not." Rob didn't look at him. "What would I have in common with that valiant young soldier?"

There was an obvious answer. "Maybe you feel confined by circumstances," Dean said slowly. "But don't we all forge our own chains?"

Erich pulled the coach up smartly, forestalling an answer. Rob smiled up at him, giving the grey mare a pat, then pointing at the carriage. "Zwei Pferde. Kutsche. Ja?"

The coachman was surprised into a somber smile. "Ja, mein Herr. Eine Kutsche und zwei Pferde. Das ist richtig."

"Und is very like 'and,' isn't it?" Rob waved to Erich and followed Dean into the coach. "And if das ist richtig means what I think it does, it's nearly the same. I wonder if there are many English words that are similar to German. The Anglo-Saxons were a Germanic tribe, weren't they?"

Their baggage was already strapped to the back, and a small basket sat waiting on the seat. Dean flipped up the checked napkin covering it. Ham pie. Chicken. Cherry tart. Serving girls were never so thoughtful of him.

The coach lurched to a start. "Within a decade," Dean said wryly, "Erich will have achieved what a hundred years of Hanoverian kings have failed to accomplish: get all of England to speak German."

Rob smiled briefly, but still wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Your chains, Rob," Dean asked softly. "Were they of your own making? Did you truly choose to do what you do?"

The other man brushed the hair back from his face impatiently. "What? Do you suppose I was sold into a brothel?"

"Such things happen."

"No. Not to me. I suppose I had a choice. Of sorts." Rob was silent for a moment, drumming his hand on the leather seat. "When I was fifteen—"

Dean made a noise of dismay.

"Oh, stop that." Humor glimmered in Rob's eyes. "It's not what you expect. My mother and I lived in a cottage on a distant relative's esta—farm. By the time I was fifteen, I'd already been ejected from school, and she was despairing of what in heaven's name was to become of me. By sheer luck, my "uncle" caught me kissing a stable boy in the barn one afternoon. He sent for my mother and told her that he had no interest in children, but if I was willing to join him up at the—uh, farmhouse—when I turned eighteen, he would see to it that I was taken care of for the rest of my life."

Estate, Rob had almost said, and stumbled over farmhouse— in place of what?

Manor? Castle? Slips of the tongue that for most people would indicate an attempt to conceal an upper-class background. But Rob was a storyteller, and very good with words. Perhaps he wanted Dean to think they were closer in background than the evidence would suggest. Dean shook his head, focusing on the details of the tale. "You call that luck? That's appalling!"

Rob shrugged. "It's really not much different from an arranged marriage, is it?"

"Yes, it is. And besides, he lied to you. If he'd made some sort of settlement upon you—"

"Ah, but he did. About three years ago, he died and left me a sizable nest egg.

Enough so that if it were invested wisely, I should have been able to live very comfortably off it forever." Rob paused. "He also left me his business manager, who was...very keen to comfort me, and equally keen to oversee my investments."

"And this business manager bilked you?"

"Not willingly. But the end result was the same. He let his emotions get in the way.

Wanted to make us both rich instead of comfortable, so he put everything we had into a shipment of high-quality porcelain from the East—a can't fail venture, he called it.

When it failed, he couldn't live with himself." Rob paused. "So, he didn't."

Dean winced. "What happened?"

"The ship went down with all hands in a storm, and took our future with it. And then I was alone, and I did face the prospect of starving. I almost just.. .followed him.

Instead, I drank what was left of the wine cellar before the creditors could seize it, and when I sobered up, I realized two things. First, that getting drunk is stupid and doesn't help in the least."

Dean nodded in silent agreement.

"Second, that my two gentleman friends had at least left me with a marketable skill. And after a few disastrous attempts at other occupations, yes, I decided to sell myself to other men for money."

"I wouldn't know how to get started." Dean flushed. "I mean— not that I—"

Rob shrugged again. "Men of certain tastes tend to know each other. My first patron was a gentleman of my uncle's acquaintance, who then introduced me to one or two others. And one of them told me to watch carefully for the advertisements in the papers. It would be clear enough, once I went for an interview, exactly what sort of discreet young gentleman the man was looking for. And it is. Is your curiosity satisfied now?"

"Well..." It was none of his business, but this question had been shouting to be asked for days. "Aren't there lonely women who would pay for your services?"

Rob laughed. "You did notice, in my story, that it was a boy my uncle caught me kissing?"

"Then you've always been a.. .a...?"

"Sodomite? That's the classic term, but it's so biblical, isn't it? And the purely descriptive epithets are rather crude and boring. How about madge cull? Ganymede?"

Rob crossed his long legs, propping his feet on the seat next to Dean and leaning back comfortably. "Gentleman of the back door. Back-gammon player. Indorser. Bum-fiddler. Navigator of the windward passage. Miss Molly."

"Hardly that," Dean interrupted, his face flaming. "I've at least heard of mollies, and you're not effeminate in the least."

"Kind of you to say so." Rob grinned. "Nevertheless, it was always men for me, my lord."

"But old men."

Rob sobered, stared out the window at the passing scenery. The bright sunshine of the early morning had given way to drifting clouds, and the constant shift of light and shadow wrung fifty shades of green from the fields. "Let me tell you a story," he said slowly. "The first man I traveled abroad with was seventy years old."

"Ugh."

"No, listen. Henry was revisiting the most important places in his life, one last time before he died. He took me to Venice. Once, when he was a young man, he went to a masked ball there. It was beyond anything he had ever imagined. A swirl of color and music and laughter that blended into a mass from which only one detail stood out: another young man, in medieval parti-colored hose and a green feathered mask.