He had been born to a life of ease and luxury, the son of an East Anglian nobleman. But one frosted, wretched night in the winter of his fourteenth year, Yates stole from his father’s high-walled, sprawling home and ran away to sea. When asked the reason for such a bold but undeniably rash impulse, Yates typically laughed and cautioned his listeners against the dangers of allowing impressionable young lads to read too many stirring tales of high adventure. But Sebastian had long suspected that the true reasons were much darker and could at times be glimpsed lurking behind the laughter in the man’s mocking hazel eyes, like the shadowy ghosts of childhood’s worst nightmares.
No one knew all that had occurred during the man’s years at sea. There were whispered tales of shipwrecks and pirates and daggers stained with the blood of both innocent and evil men. All that could be said with certainty was that Yates had risen from his precarious beginnings as a cabin boy to become captain of a privateer that terrorized the shipping of England’s enemies from the Spanish Main to the East Indies. By the time he returned to take his place in London society, he was a wealthy man.
He bought a grand house in Mayfair and quickly set about scandalizing the more sanctimonious members of the ton. Broad shouldered and sun bronzed, his dark hair worn too long and with the wink of pirate’s gold in his left ear, Yates moved through London society like a sleek tiger on the prowl at a garden party. His well-muscled body kept toned and hard by regular workouts at Jackson’s Boxing Salon and Angelo’s fencing parlor, Yates exuded unabashed virility and an aggressive masculinity in a way that was rare amongst the sophisticated, mannered men of the ton. The high sticklers would always look askance at him, but London’s most popular hostesses loved him. He was wellborn but deliciously unique, endlessly amusing—and very, very rich.
Yet Sebastian sometimes found himself wondering what had brought Yates back to London after so many years. There was a coiled restlessness about the man, a recklessness born of a mingling of boredom and despair that Sebastian both recognized and understood. Was it boredom or an urge to self-destruction that drove Yates to risk everything for the transient, meaningless thrill of running rum and the odd French agent beneath the noses of His Majesty’s Navy? Sebastian could never decide. But whatever Yates’s reasons for dabbling in smuggling and espionage, his most dangerous activities were actually those of the boudoir. For the truth was that London’s most virile, most ostentatious Corinthian preferred the sexual pleasures to be found with those of his own gender.
It was an inclination more dangerous than smuggling, viewed by society and the law as a crime on par with treason. For in an age given over to vice and excess, love of one’s own kind remained the ultimate unforgivable sin, punishable by a hideous death.
It was his fear of that death—a fear increased by the enmity of the King’s powerful cousin, Lord Jarvis—that had driven Yates into a marriage of convenience with the most beautiful, the most desirable, the most sought-after actress of the London stage: Kat Boleyn, the woman Sebastian had loved, and lost.
Yates’s prison cell was small and stone-cold, the air thick with the pervasive stench of effluvia and rot. A tumult of raucous voices and laughter rose from the crowded yard below the room’s small barred window, but Yates himself sat silently on the edge of his narrow cot, elbows propped on splayed knees, bowed head clutched in his hands. He didn’t look up when, keys rattling, the turnkey pushed open the thick door.
“Jist bang on the door when ye need me, yer lordship,” said the turnkey with a sniff.
Sebastian slipped the man a coin. “Thank you.”
Yates lifted his head, his fingers raking through his long dark hair to link behind his neck. A day’s growth of beard shadowed the man’s dark, handsome face; his coat was torn, his cravat gone, his breeches and shirt smeared with blood and dirt. Yates obviously hadn’t come here without a struggle.
“So have you come to gloat too?” he said, his voice rough.
“Actually, I’m here to help.”
An indecipherable expression flitted across the man’s face before being carefully hidden away. “Did Kat ask you—”
Sebastian shook his head. “I haven’t seen her yet.” He pulled forward the room’s sole chair, a straight-backed spindly thing that swayed ominously when it took his weight. “Tell me what happened.”
Yates gave a bitter laugh. “You’re married to the daughter of my worst enemy. Give me one good reason why I should trust you.”
Sebastian shrugged and pushed to his feet. “Suit yourself. Although I will point out that Jarvis happens to be my worst enemy too. And from what I’m hearing, the way things stand now, I’m the only chance you have.”
For a long moment, Yates held his gaze. Then he blew out a painful breath and brought up a hand to shade his eyes. “Sit down. Please.”
Sebastian sat. “They tell me you were found bending over Eisler’s body. Is that true?”
“It is. But I swear to God, he was dead when I found him.” He scrubbed his hands down over his face. “How much do you know about Daniel Eisler?”
“Not a bloody thing.”
“He is—or I suppose I should say, he was one of the biggest diamond merchants in London. Prinny did business with him, as did most of the royal dukes. I’ve heard it said he even sold Napoléon the diamond necklace he presented to the Empress Marie Louise as a wedding present.”