“I suppose because I believe I’ve done nothing that shames me.”
“But you’re a man of God—”
The words were exploding out of George. Yet Thomas, discovering a reserve of conviction he hardly knew he possessed, cut over him. “No. I was never a man of God. Only a man of duty. And now, thanks to Micha, I’m simply a man.”
“You’re sick or mad or both.”
Thomas shook his head. “Please. Can’t you try to understand?”
“I don’t want to understand.” George pulled in a shuddery breath and took a few restless turns about the room.
That was when Thomas realised, beneath all the rage and scorn lay sorrow. And that hurt most of all.
“Don’t do it.” George sounded close to pleading. “You don’t have to ... be like this.”
Thomas’s eyelashes were clogged with tears. “It’s not a choice. Or if it is, I would not choose differently.”
“Why did you tell me this? What purpose does it serve but to ruin us both?”
“I suppose I was tired of lies. I’ve been lying for Edward at our father’s behest for so long. Now you ask me to lie for myself. Is who I am really enough to make you hate me, George?”
George said nothing for what felt like a very long time, his eyes moving back and forth over Thomas’s face, searching for something that must have eluded him. “You’re no brother of mine,” he said, and walked out.
The door closed behind him with the softest imaginable click.
Thomas sat, staring at an empty room, stunned with anguish.
After a moment, perhaps from a habit of tidiness or simply for something to do, he leaned down and picked upThe Gentlemen of London. His eye passed over the page without curiosity, then snagged on a familiarconfiguration of letters.Mr. M. D-shw-d, No. 12 Church Lane, Whitechapel.And he read on instinctively, almost without understanding what he saw:
And such as knew he was a man would say / Leander, thou art made for amorous play. Here a connoisseur of classical temperament may satisfy his most ardent longings. Mr. D is a fine, tall gentleman vigorous and well formed, with a captivating countenance and striking dark eyes that inflame the senses. A genteel companion, clearly of some breeding and education, his nature is not spirited but he is quite obliging and submits himself to all pleasures requested of him.
Oh Micha,he thought,Micha.
He let the book fall into his lap. Then he picked it up again, ripped away the meagre binding, and began methodically to shred the pages until they littered the floor at his feet like corrupt petals. Finally, he gathered up the pieces and fed them, one by one, to the fire until there was nothing left.
It was sometime later that Thomas climbed the stairs to the room he no longer thought of as being solely his. Micha was curled up on his side on the bed, Thomas’s dressing gown spread over him like a blanket. Thomas tugged off his boots and his coat, and joined his lover, sliding a hand over his waist and pressing his face into the familiar place between Micha’s jutting shoulder blades. Micha stirred and eased his body closer to Thomas, engulfing him in warmth.
Thomas parted the soft curls that gathered at the nape of the other man’s neck and kissed him there. Micha gave a deep, luxurious shiver, and Thomas tried not to think of the words of strangers. He let them go, letter by letter, until they were nothing but the memory of a shadow, fragments of a fading past, as insubstantial as withering leaves. Powerless in the face of the future they would have together.
“For an arse,” Micha murmured, “your brother can sometimes be almost endearing.”
Where once that might have made him smile, now it recalled Thomas to everything that had just transpired, and he uttered a soft sound of pain.
Micha tensed against him. “What’s the matter?”
“I . . . I . . . told him. About me. About us.”
“Fuck, why?” Micha rolled onto his back, hands tangling into his hair, a low groan escaping him. “He could see us imprisoned.”
Accustomed always to the protections of wealth and privilege, Thomas had given very little consideration to the legal reality of their transgressions. But now understanding settled over him like cold mist. He had endangered Micha—threatened what was already a precarious life—with nothing but a handful of careless words and misplaced hopes.
“Do you have any idea what they do to men like us?” Micha was saying, all the old ferocity in his voice. “Even before they send you to the wheel.”
“Don’t—”
“They’d make you a public and medical spectacle, the property of any learned doctor summoned to examine you for signs of sin. Dilation of the fundament. Elongation of the penis. Details, naturally, to be published in the scandal sheets the very next fucking day. Is that what you want?”
“Micha,” Thomas whispered, “please stop.”
