“Two?”
Another sheaf of soiled papers. Falling on him like spit.
“It’s more than you’re worth.”
I used to have pride,Micha thought. Yet, here he sat, silent and ashamed, because George was right. It was more than he was worth. Far more. His hands shook a little as he gathered up the notes and smoothed them into a pile. He should take it and leave. Men had paid him far less for far greater mortifications. Oh, but Thomas. Thomas. And the promises he had made. Micha dragged up his head and managed to sneer. “Then why pay it?”
George’s eyes flared. “For my brother, of course.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“Be reasonable, man. You won’t get more from him. I’m the heir to one of the oldest marquessates in England. He’s a rector.”
Micha held out the notes. He wished he had the courage to throw them at George’s feet. “Take your fucking money. I said I don’t want it.”
George glared at him so furiously that, for a moment, Micha thought the man might strike him. But then a strange smile unfurled across his lips. He plucked the notes from Micha’s hand, folded them neatly, and leaned in. And, once again, Micha flinched from him, but he had nowhere to go. He turned his head away helplessly, hating himself and hating George and hating Thomas, too, for abandoning him to this. George peeled open Micha’s coat and slipped the notes into the inside pocket.
“Keep it, you little parasite.” He smiled, sharp-toothed, falsely sweet. “And when you finally realise my brother has nothing to giveyou, come and find me, and I’ll double it, just to keep you away from my family.”
Pushed beyond endurance, Micha shoved George away and leapt to his feet, his arms folded tightly across his body to try and control his shaking.
“But don’t wait too long, old man. Because if there’s anything out there about you, I’ll find it. And then I’ll destroy you.”
And Micha ran. Like a thief, like a whore, like the broken coward he was.
He dragged himself up the stairs, as fast as he could manage, barely able to breathe by the time he stumbled into his room and half-fell onto the bed. As soon as he had the strength to move, he curled himself up tightly. Fuck George for frightening him. Fuck himself for being frightened. Fuck Thomas for discovering—after all this time—something Micha still wanted. Fuck everything.
In a little while, he dipped a hand beneath the bed and dragged out the bottle of laudanum Mrs. Clark had brought him. He sat up and mixed himself a draught. It helped still the trembling in his hands, but it could not quiet the turmoil of his thoughts.
I want nothing from you.
Thomas’s voice seemed to echo endlessly through his mind.
What did it mean? Was he supposed to believe it? Everybody wanted something. It was simply the way of the world.
And Thomas was wrong, regardless. He did not ask for nothing. He asked for faith, hope, trust, all things that Micha had long since forgotten how to give and, even had he not, would never have readily surrendered to another’s care again. Trust was an invitation to betrayal. Hope an opportunity for disappointment. And, as for faith, that was a fool’s virtue. Why give anything, or anyone, that sort of power over your heart or happiness?
But Thomas’s words and careless promises had nudged something in Micha. Leaving London was a prospect so remote that he’d never even allowed himself to think of it. He preferred opium’s painless, artificialdreams to impossible ones. And had always thought the city would be his tomb. But perhaps Thomas would take him to green places. He would see stars again. He could pretend to be some other man and live some other life. As though his body was not a desecrated shrine to the basest lusts, his soul a nest for worms. As though his heart was more than just red meat.
He could almost have wept with longing and fear. But, of course, he did no such thing. He had lived for so long with nothing to lose, with opium as his sole desire, that wanting anything else felt like weakness. A restless tingling gathered in his fingertips. This was unbearable. He was utterly powerless. That was the problem with kindness. Sincere or otherwise, it stripped you of yourself, left you vulnerable and dependent. It was easier to be fucked for money.
Easier, yes, but not preferable.
Micha told himself it was simply another sort of usage and that he could learn to endure it. But even another measure of laudanum could not calm him. His thoughts kept springing back to Thomas like a compass needle to a magnet. What did the man want? What did he truly want? What lurked behind his earnest eyes and shy smile? It was not, in truth, that Micha believed Thomas had some unpleasant or sinister purpose. But he burned with the sudden need to find some secret sin or piece of darkness, a moment of cruelty or selfishness, anything that would prove he was as human, fallible, and self-motivated as everyone else. Something Micha could hold over him, even if just in the privacy of his own mind. Since he was sure he bore Thomas norealmalice.
Did he?
Tangling his fingers in his hair, he pulled until he felt a distant, muted pain and swore softly. He had, of late, touched by small gestures, self-conscious confidences, and quiet mirth, been forgetting his dislike. It was the laughter that had undone him. Thomas smiled like a man without fear of pain.
Micha had no real plan, and only the vaguest of intentions, as he hauled himself upright and left the room. The house, as ever, was silent. The place was vast, and there were so few servants it was rare to evencatch a glimpse of them moving around. It reminded Micha, in his more whimsical moods, of a cursed castle from a fairy tale. He knew only his bedroom and a handful of staterooms below, but he set off resolutely down the corridor, pushing open door after door, searching for the other occupied room and hoping Thomas was still busy with his travel arrangements. If not, Micha could easily attribute his wild wanderings to boredom and curiosity—an explanation considerably more plausible than the truth.
Eventually, through luck and determination, he found what had to be Thomas’s bedroom. It was no less neglected than his own, and Thomas lived a neat, austere existence. There was a travelling bag at the foot of the bed, one of his plain black coats flung across a chair, a copy of the Bible on the bedside table, and what looked like a half-written sermon on the dresser. Otherwise nothing, either illuminating or incriminating.
Micha dropped to his knees and went shamelessly through the travelling bag. Still nothing. Thomas was less a man of mystery than a man of no discernible personality whatsoever. It would almost have been laughable, except Micha was too frantic, and he knew it wasn’t true. Thomas was a creature of light and subtlety, like colours shifting over the surface of a pearl. And Micha blamed the laudanum for allowing him to form such a ridiculous thought. He was here to learn Thomas’s secrets, not sit around making fanciful comparisons.
He stopped rifling through Thomas’s unmentionables and cast his eyes over whatever Thomas had been writing. Dull. Finally, he picked up the Bible, just in case a note or a letter slipped out from between its pages, and that was when he saw the slim leather-bound volume that had been partially obscured beneath it. At last. Micha seized it and flipped open its covers to reveal page after page of dense handwritten text. The first entry was dated over a year ago:Edward shot himself today. God help him, Micha was reading the private thoughts of a man so utterly naive it had not even occurred to him to hide his fucking journal.
He glanced over his shoulder towards the partially open door. He didn’t have time to read even a fraction of these words. He fanned the pages, letting phrases and paragraphs jump at him at random.
