“Thief.”
“Arsehole.”
“People I’ve fucked are usually invited to call me Jack, actually. Regardless of context.”
He watched the invitation being weighed as Alan Ross weighed all gifts: as if suspecting them of being hollow and containing Greeks.
“All right then. If you ever take a belt to any part of me, Jack, then I’ll bite your fucking prick off.”
“Duly noted.”
“I’ve never given anyone I’ve fucked my real name.”
“Julius Caesar,” said Jack dryly. “I recall.”
A brief smile: one of the real, uneven ones. “I suppose you could call me Alan. Only among friends, mind. If you have any.”
“Go fuck yourself,” said Jack. But he was too well sated to make it sound anything but fond.
11
It was much harder to make the name Jack stick to Lord Hawthorn than it had been with Maud, or Violet, or Edwin. Even Sir Robert was sliding into Robin in Alan’s mind, from hearing the others talk about him.
Jack. It was a name like the slap of fingers against skin. Thoroughly unmagical, and unadorned by status.
Alan was going to transform his lordship into a simple Christian name if it killed him. He needed as much equal footing as possible now that things were … complicating themselves. This was only another person, as Alan was a person. Treading the same ground. Breathing the same air. And, at least for today, working towards the same goals.
Jack. Alan repeated it over and over, letting his gaze snag where the man in question lounged in Violet’s largest armchair. Sensation wormed through Alan when the blue eyes held his with unhesitating interest. He jerked his gaze away at once, but stubbornness forced it back. He wouldn’t lose this fight, whatever it was. It wasn’t his fault that the well-bred Lord Hawthorn—Jack, Jack—was failing to do the polite thing and ignore Alan’s presence as if nothing had ever passed between them. No surprise. He didn’t care for manners unless they suited him. Hadn’t Alan said as much the previous night?
Belatedly Alan realised that Edwin had asked him a question.
“Sorry?”
“You brought it with you?”
The rosary. He pulled it from his pocket and handed it over.
Edwin and Violet would try to get through the oak door in the spinet room today. Lord—Jack was here because runes had something to do with doors and his family had something to do with runes. Alan was here because Edwin had a theory about the rosary and perturbation.
“It’s the combination of beech and rowan that’s interesting,” said Edwin. “I’ve found out some more about rowan. It’s barely used in magical contexts at all, because it’s a muffler. It makes any magic less strong, less useful.”
“Like the dampening pedal on a piano?” said Violet.
“Exactly like,” said Edwin. “And beech has a concentrating effect on magic. Using the two together makes no sense unless the opposition is the point. And your mother had you use this in a ritual?”
“Hail Marys and Our Fathers. Nothing magical about them,” said Alan. “You say them over and over and you use the beads to keep count. And then, if you’re five years old, you get bored of the prayers and just play with the wood because it feels nice.”
Edwin pulled the beads through his fingers as if he could turn himself into a wood-taster. He went to the desk where the diagrams of Spinet House lay, and carefully tore a strip from a large piece of paper. Then he flicked the fingers of one hand until the pads glowed white and pressed his thumb to one end of the strip. It acted like glue, binding one end of the paper to the other. He brought the resulting paper loop back to Alan, who took it.
“There’s a mathematical—well, it doesn’t matter. See how I twisted it before I stuck the end down? It means that this loop has only one side. You could draw a line with a pencil, and it would keep turning inwards and meet itself.”
“Look at that. You’ve learned to use visual aids, Edwin,” said Jack.
“Robin likes books to have pictures,” said Edwin evenly, and the corner of Jack’s mouth gave a twitch.
Alan looked back at his loop. “What does this have to do with the rosary?”
“I think…” Edwin made a gesture like a figure-of-eight on its side. “Handling these woods, at an age when most magicians are starting to show their power and have their lock ceremony, gave your magic nowhere to go. The beech kept it flowing, and the rowan turned it back on itself, locking it away until there was no way for you to draw on it even if you’d known to try.”
“Wait,” said Jack. “Are you saying Ross is a magician?” His lordship hadn’t been present when Alan explained about the cracked plates and his mother’s panic.
Edwin made a this is imprecise face. He settled on “Was. You had the potential to be a magician, and it was suppressed. That explains Guignol’s case studies, though I’d have to reread them to find out if there was any specific mention of wood. Or, er, Catholicism.”
“Was,” said Jack harshly.
The past tense, applied to magic. His eyes met Alan’s again.
Alan wanted to snap at Edwin—Stop giving me more things to have in common with this man. He’d already been inside Jack’s house, eaten from his table, laughed at his humour and touched his books and—Sainted Christ—spent onto his furniture, in the grips of an arousal so desperate and all-consuming he hadn’t thought his body capable of it.
And then gone home with a spunk-stained handkerchief in his pocket and brought himself off with it, all over again, to the memory.
He shouldn’t have given in to this. For all sorts of reasons. But most prominently: he had the urge to apologise to Berto for throwing stones about unwise liaisons. At least if you kept to fucking men of your own station, there was no likelihood of one partner being in vastly more trouble than the other if you were arrested for it.
Lord Hawthorn could ruin Alan’s life. He could stand up and accuse Alan of indecent behaviour, and even if Jack had personally sucked the cocks of every man in the courtroom, Alan Ross would still be the one to go to prison. Not an earl’s son and heir.
Last night had been an act of unforgivable self-indulgence. Alan was gambling his life and his family’s security on Jack being a mild and decent person; the sort of person who wouldn’t carry a grudge, wouldn’t lash out in revenge, if he ever had reason to be angry with you.
Which, ha.
And even knowing that, even throttled by the tightening knot of his own mistake, all Alan could think about was doing it again. The memory of Jack practically hurling him from one side of the room to the other—Jack’s filthy thunder-rumble of a voice—the heavy perfection of Jack’s body behind his, thick cock shoving between his legs—all of it made Alan’s own cock tighten anew and his chest turn to molten butter.
That was its own sort of disaster. For a while this morning Alan had entertained a futile hope that once would have been enough to purge that need from his bloodstream. To prove that a flesh-and-blood encounter would never live up to fantasy—especially the fantasies one took the time to wrap words around and set down in text.
Instead, it had worked in the opposite direction. Now Alan knew that this man could match him in terrifyingly tempting ways. Last night had only broken the iced-over surface of what he might dare to want from a partner like that. There was so much more, darker and riskier, in the depths.