“I thought I was here only for your pleasure.”
“And so you are.” Jack’s eyes crawled down him, and back up. “It will please me greatly to watch you bring yourself off right here against this door.”
Blood filled Alan’s cheeks. That—was not what he’d expected. But he found his own hand already squeezing himself urgently through the fabric, the other fumbling at buttons. Hm. Putting on a show was one thing, but getting spunk all over his precious work suit was another.
“Got a handkerchief?” he demanded.
“Oliver will harangue me if I keep losing them like this.” Jack handed one over. It matched the one Alan still had at home: a wide square of fine cotton with embroidered initials. Alan took pleasure in crushing the impeccably folded creases, tucking it between his fingers and at the ready.
His breath skittered as he set his bare hand to his cock and gave the first stroke. This, he was going to manage with his eyes defiantly open.
“Of course you’re hard already,” said Jack. “I should have made you stay down there—I’m sure you would have loved rutting against my leg.”
It was the disdainful Lord Hawthorn, who looked at Alan as if he wanted to kick him to the ground or eat him alive. Any thought of putting on a show flew out the window. It was all Alan could do to keep his knees from buckling as his lordship’s arrogant voice washed over him, lingering on how much Alan enjoyed being used and all the other ways his lordship would enjoy using him—
Alan was gone, loose from the world, and a braid of pleasure wove itself with vicious speed down his spine. He gave a wrenching gasp and spilled into the handkerchief.
He’d kept his eyes open after all. The effort was worth it for the way Jack’s hands unfolded from white-knuckled fists at his sides, and the look on Jack’s face. There were clouds of dust and desire in Alan’s skull, mingling with that damn expensive cologne. To be wanted this intensely, by a man who could have anything he bothered to beckon for, filled him with a hot jubilation beyond anything he could have imagined. And Alan was so very good at imagining.
It took him a moment to collect himself.
Then he wiped himself properly and, on impulse, held out the handkerchief.
Jack gave a crack of laughter. It had a note of relief in it, which punctured some of the tension and brought Alan the rest of the way back into his own body. His gut clenched, reminding him. Just this. Just this and they were done.
Jack took the handkerchief, folded it with delicacy, and pocketed it.
They got their appearances back in order before leaving and parted on the street with a mercifully non-awkward nod, as if between colleagues.
Which was what they were, now and for a few more days. They had never been friends, and were lovers only in the technical sense. No: pay attention to the clarity of your words, Alanzo. They had been lovers. Twice. Past tense. And done.
Alan tucked his hands into his pockets. He had work to do, but first he needed to walk for a while. Now that the clouds of desire were dissipating in the sunshine of the street, the guilt was creeping back, and he couldn’t stop the thought dancing through his mind:
What if things were different? What if I was allowed to keep this?
The world was playing a sick joke. Here, like a reward for all Alan’s self-denial and hunger and hard work, was everything he wanted for himself.
The deserving poor.
Nobody got what they deserved. And things weren’t different—they were how they were, just as the world was the world, and Alan had always known it. He couldn’t afford to forget.
14
“Hm,” said Adelaide, turning her face this way and that as she inspected it in a palm-sized mirror. “Do you know the number of shops in Mayfair I’ve been politely ushered out of with simpering remarks about colonial tastes? I’ve a mind to march back into all of them with this illusion on, try on ten gowns while loudly talking about my enormous inheritance, and then dismiss them all as not up to scratch and not buy a thing.”
Adelaide’s posture still spoke of deportment lessons, and her accent was as melodically educated as it had ever been. But the woman standing beside Jack, on the street a little way down from the Barrel, had white skin and mid-brown hair. Beneath her jacket, her shirtwaist had elaborate embroidery down the front and collar and cuffs: a dense floral pattern, which contained the runes required to anchor the illusion of a different person to the garment and whoever wore it.
“Bring me along on your shopping trip,” said Jack. “I’ll loom in the corner and look rich and unpleasant.”
“You do that wherever you are,” said Adelaide absently. She gave her reflection another long, complicated look before tucking the mirror away. “And I suppose I’m myself wherever I am. Unless I’m suddenly a pale English rose, in which case half the difficulty of my life is—gone. With just a few stitches and a flick of Violet’s fingers.” Adelaide’s smile was strange and cool on that prim, pink mouth. “It’s a queer thought. I’m not altogether sure I like it.”
Jack’s own illusion disguise was stitched into his necktie. Violet had merely fixed his nose and weakened his chin and turned his eyes brown. Even that much had given him a lurch of oddness, of being lost to himself, on looking in the mirror. Queer indeed. He had no idea how it would have felt for Adelaide, for whom appearance carried so much unavoidable weight.
He checked his pocket watch. Time.
“Ready, darling?” He offered Adelaide his arm. She tucked her hand through his elbow.
“Ready.”
Adelaide’s pass-token was in the woven bag she carried. They walked up the wide steps and through the huge doors, and were in the main foyer.
At once Adelaide clutched his arm more tightly. “Oh, look at that! Just like they describe, isn’t it?”
Jack followed her gaze up to the glass-and-lead ceiling high above their heads, busy as it always was with the feet of crossing people. By the time he looked down again, Adelaide was exclaiming over the oak doors and the season-clock and the polished marble beneath their feet.
Her attention to detail reminded Jack to fold her jacket and his coat over his arm, as if prepared to carry them through the building. He made a show of surprise when one of the blue-liveried attendants stepped over with hands inquiringly outstretched.
“Much obliged to you,” said Jack, handing them over. “Perhaps you can point us in the right direction? We’ve not been here before.”
“By all means, sir. Do you know which office you’re looking for? Is someone expecting you?”