“Good.”
“Yes, Leo, but he killed himself. And if anyone was susceptible to blackmail it would be him.”
“Oh,” Leonora said slowly. “So…Rackham killed the goose that laid the golden egg, and now he’s looking for more geese?”
“Or, he needs a lot of money fast. He’s given me till Friday to come up with the five thousand.”
“Someone’s on his back. Gambling debts? Opium debts?”
“My thoughts exactly.”
Leo’s dark eyes met his. “Can you find out who he owes?”
“I’m getting Merrick onto it this afternoon.”
“What are you thinking of?”
“Offering him passage on a boat and a fat purse. If he’s under the cosh, he might jump at a chance to get away.”
Leonora looked dubious. “What if it’s the kind of people you can’t escape?”
“We’ll find out. Don’t worry, Leo. Stall him if you can, pay him if you can’t. I’ll have him dealt with one way or the other in the next two days.”
“And…what about the other way?” asked Leonora.
There was a short silence. Crane said, “I don’t know.”
“I know what Tom would have done.”
“So do I. And I’ve considered it. I even told him I’d send Merrick after him. But I don’t think I could explain to—my just man—that I’d set up a murder, Leo. I don’t think I’d want to try.”
“Is it murder to kill a blackmailer?”
“Maybe not,” Crane said. “Not if you’re desperate. I’m not desperate yet.”
Chapter Four
The rest of the day was intensely tiresome. Crane put Merrick abreast of the situation and sent him off to snout out Rackham’s woes among his many Chinese drinking and gambling friends. He contacted his bankers to make sure he had enough cash in hand to bail himself, Stephen and Merrick out of whatever the law might throw at them and get them all urgently out of the country, then he thought about it again and increased the sum so that he could get Leonora out too if need be. It probably wouldn’t be necessary, but you never knew with Leo.
He looked over his affairs to ensure that he had covered the most immediate issues if he had to cut and run. He responded curtly to various letters from a cousin several times removed, making demands on him in his unacknowledged and unwanted capacity as head of the house. He had an irritatingly frank discussion with his lawyer as to what to do in the case of arrest on charges of unnatural acts. Mostly, he resisted, with increasing difficulty, the urge to go round to Stephen’s rooms, or to send more and more messages. Stephen would reappear when it suited him.
He ate alone at a chop house since Merrick was still out, and he was stretched out on the couch reading the latest number of All the Year Round with limited interest when he heard the door open.
“About bloody time,” he called, without looking up, as soft feet approached. “Well?”
There was no reply. But Crane felt a pressure on his waist, and glanced down to see his top button silently undoing itself, slipping through the buttonhole apparently of its own accord.
“Hello, Stephen,” he said, without looking round.
“Hello,” said Stephen, and dropped to his knees by the couch as the remaining buttons flicked open one by one.
Blood, bone and birdspit, Stephen called it: a deep-rooted, old and strange type of magic that could tap the massive power inherent to Crane’s bloodline. The affair in spring had been an attempt by a group of warlocks to claim the Magpie Lord’s magic using the abused corpses of the Vaudrey family. Stephen had wrested the power back when he had shared Crane’s blood. The third item on the list, birdspit, was a country euphemism, and a much less effective route to the power, but then, power wasn’t the point of the exercise.
Stephen’s mouth was hot and eager on Crane’s cock now, sliding up and down the shaft, tongue flickering round the smooth head. His hands, those magical hands that prickled with power, were on Crane’s thighs and hips, stroking the magpie tattoos that adorned him, the tingling of his fingers getting stronger as Stephen’s own arousal built, feeding off Crane’s unconcealed pleasure. He was apparently intent on bringing Crane off with mouth alone, tongue playing up and down the long vein, lips tightening with wicked force, teeth nipping just to the right side of painful, then pulling his mouth off and down to lavish attention on his balls again. Crane gave a groan of agony at the withdrawal and glanced at Stephen’s russet head, catching him shooting a mischievous look up.
Well, that could not stand. Crane took a handful of curly hair and pulled, not gently. “You. Get your mouth back on my cock. Now.”
Stephen’s hands gave a flare of arousal that stabbed into Crane’s hipbones like needles of light as he obediently took Crane back into his mouth and sucked hard, mouth working with a tight clutch.