His Lordship's Secret Read online

  “What do you want?” Dominick barked.

  If the man was taken aback, he didn’t show it.

  “I told your friend to stop the fight with the promise of payment to you as well. Since you did not seek me to collect, I had to seek you out instead.”

  He held out several bills, folded in half.

  “I don’t need your rotten money.”

  The man eyed Dominick up and down. “Forgive me for saying this, but I believe you do.”

  Dominick spit again, and tried to walk away.

  “I wasn’t done—” A hand landed on Dominick's shoulder and he saw red. Next he knew, he had the man pinned against the wall, Dominick's forearm pressed dangerously against his throat.

  “I said bugger off. Leave me alone.”

  The man dropped the bills into the filth of the street as he choked and scrabbled at Dominick's arm.

  Dominick had noticed the man in the pub, how could he not? He was gorgeous, all fine long lines, high arched cheekbones and wide doe eyes. Maybe it was because he would never taste such finery himself, but there was something about such a rich morsel of fine young gentleman that made Dominick's teeth itch with the desire to gobble him up.

  Dominick leaned in closer, the man’s aborted breaths panting against his lips. His fingernails scratched ineffectively at the fabric of Dominick’s shirt and his eyes were wide with fear. Now that Dominick had a better look at him, there was something eerily familiar about him, his face buzzing at the back of Dominick's brain, like the words to a song he couldn’t quite remember.

  He sneered cruelly and leaned closer. “Unless this is what you’re after is it? Fancy swell like you after a bit of rough? Got scared off by old Body Snatcher but thought you could handle the loser, eh?”

  He raised a bruised hand and looked at it contemplatively. “Think my hands and mouth are going to be out of commission for a while yet, but your tenner and a crown extra will get you either my prick or my arse. What’s your fancy?”

  Dominick brushed the back of his hand against the man’s face in a parody of a lover’s caress. He then gave a light squeeze to the arm still trying to push him away. To Dominick's surprise, the man hissed like the soft grip had caused him actual pain.

  Before he could react, the man’s other hand swung out in a wild arc. Dominick hadn’t even noticed the cane until it struck him in the shoulder. He grunted, but did not release his grip. The angle of the glancing blow was too poor to cause him much harm, but then the man drove up with his knee, hitting Dominick squarely in the balls.

  Dominick dropped like a stone. He heaved, coughing up only air as he fought to swallow down bile. Every breath sent new knives of pain cutting upwards through his guts and slicing at his cracked ribs. He groaned, rolling onto his side and cupping himself. It didn’t help much for the pain, but at least provided a little protection should the man attack him again.

  The man was still leaning against the wall, cradling the arm Dominick had grabbed with the hand still holding that damned cane, his head back against the brick as he filled his lungs. A band of red was clear across his throat in what little light the moon and distant streetlamp provided.

  “Didn’t think I’d been beat enough?” Dominick croaked. “Christ, what a rotten night.”

  At this the man started to laugh, just a hoarse chuckle at first, then building until his entire body shook with hysterics. Wonderful. He was completely mad. Of course he was. Of all Dominick's luck.

  “Rotten night, rotten night...” the man panted. “It has been, hasn’t it?” He descended into another fit of laughter.

  Dominick rolled carefully onto his knees, but didn’t seem to be able to get his legs under him enough to stand up.

  “You won’t try and choke me again if I help you up, will you?”

  Dominick snorted, then regretted it as nausea rolled through him again. He sat very still until he was sure he wasn’t going to cast up his accounts. “Only if you promise not to knee me in the balls again.”

  The man bent to retrieve the fallen bills, then got his uninjured shoulder under Dominick’s outstretched arm. By leaning against each other and the alley wall they eventually returned Dominick to his unsteady feet.

  They stood a moment, catching their breaths, Dominick's arm still draped over the stranger’s shoulders.

  Dominick glanced sideways at the man, catching little more than his profile and the side of his head. From this angle, Dominick could see that his hair, short as it was, had a definite curl, the low light picking up on gold undertones to the dark red. With that hair and those eyes, he must have been a terror as a child, surely no one could have denied anything to such an imp.

  “Where’d you learn a move like that anyway?” Dominick asked. “I thought you fancy types were all about the gentlemanly art of the sport?”

  The man grinned. “Such a move would get me barred from Gentleman Jackson’s I’m sure. But no, when I was a child I had a friend who taught me that the only way to win a fair fight—”

  “—Is to cheat.”

  “—Is to cheat.”

  Dominick's world spun as everything clicked into place. The eyes, the hair, the strange familiarity. He had said exactly those words time and time again when he was a child back in the workhouse to comfort a sweet, crying little boy after the older children picked on him. The same boy he had taken under his wing and taught to survive, teaching him a few moves—bites, kicks, scratches, knees to the groin—that would fell even the largest attacker.

  The same boy, Alfie, who had been his best and only friend until the day he had left Dominick behind forever.

  “Dominick?” the man, Alfie, asked.

  “Alfie?”

  The man nodded. Dominick didn’t even know where to begin. Little Alfie, his Alfie, all grown up and healthy and rich... and beautiful. Oh, Christ.

  Beside him, Alfie gaped, jaw working several times before he finally sputtered out, “How… I mean, Dominick, you…”

  He moved to face Dominick, the movement jarring Dominick's arm from around his shoulders, wrenching his side. Dominick yelped.

  “Oh Jesus, Dominick, you nearly died.” A look of horror crossed Alfie's face as he gingerly reached out towards Dominick, only to withdraw at the last possible moment. His eyes went wide, “And I assaulted you!”

  Dominick laughed, wincing. All the nights he’d hoped to get a chance to see his Alfie again, he’d never imagined it would be like this. This was better than anything he could have dreamed.

  “To be fair I went after you first. I’m glad you still remember what I taught you, although my bollocks aren’t.”

  He threw his arm over Alfie's shoulder again, like he had done hundreds of times when they were young. He shivered as the night air cut through his thin shirt.

  “Come on then, I think this is a longer talk than I want to have in the street. I’ve got a room just up ahead. I lead, you help carry.”

  He rewarded himself with one more look at Alfie's shocked face, then began the arduous task of putting one foot in front of the other.

  Chapter 6

  Alfie glanced around at the tiny set of rooms Dominick had dragged him to. The three flights of stairs had been a challenge, but between the two of them they had managed. The two rooms combined were roughly the size of one of his townhome’s smaller pantries. The first held little more than a three-legged stool sat beside a table with uneven legs bearing a dented metal pitcher. Through an empty doorway stood the second room, empty as well save for a small window over a low bed and on the far wall, a tiny fireplace which Dominick probably considered a luxury.

  At Dominick’s grunt, Alfie carefully eased him down onto the bed. He shivered at the loss of warmth, feeling suddenly awkward and too large to be sharing such a small space with Dominick after all these years.

  By God, he’d never expected to see his friend again after the day he’d been dragged away kicking and screaming into a better life. How many times had he cried himself to sleep those
first months apart, curled up alone in his empty bed without Dominick there to tell him it would be better in the morning and lull him to sleep with his stories? All the times he had turned to share some funny thought or idea for mischief only to find no one by his side.

  And now here he was, face-to-face with the one person he’d always been able to share everything with, and Alfie didn’t have the faintest idea of what to say.

  “You can get the fire sorted then, if you’re just going to gawk.”

  Alfie did as he was told, kneeling by the hearth and laying in the assortment of odds and ends he found there. Oily newspaper that smelt of fish, a few small lumps of coal, slivers of wood that appeared to have been broken down from larger boards. It took him a while to get the fire going with such scraps, but it gave him time to gather his thoughts.

  If the truth came out he would be ruined and probably gaoled. He should lie, or say nothing at all, but he had spent years with his secrets eating him from the inside out and no one to confide in.

  And this was Dominick. Whatever may have passed in all the years since Alfie had last seen him, there was no one on earth he had ever trusted more. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to reveal everything to a man he hadn’t even known was still alive a few hours ago. He cleared his throat.

  “You remember that day at the workhouse that the flash couple showed up and we thought they were looking for a kitchen boy or the like? About twelve years ago?”

  “Hard to forget, since it ended with them carting you off. And it was thirteen.”

  Alfie nodded. Thirteen years. Could it really have been half his lifetime since he’d last seen Dominick?

  “Thirteen. Well, that was Lord and Lady Crawford, the late Lord and Lady that is. My parents.”

  The sounds of Dominick settling onto the bed suddenly ceased. Alfie swallowed and kept his eyes on the fire. He didn’t think he would be able to get through the rest of it if he had to look at Dominick while he told the story, the official story at least. And the truth would probably be even harder.

  “They had spent many years travelling abroad and their return to the ton with a half grown child was something of a shock for everyone, not the least the earl’s rather noxious brother and presumed heir. His son is the one who dragged me to the fight tonight. He’s as unpleasant as his father was, but I suppose I owe him now.”

  Alfie risked a quick look back at Dominick, who listened in wide-eyed amazement, one hand raised as if he had started working his bindings off, only to be distracted by Alfie’s story and completely forget what he was doing. Alfie couldn’t help but smile, it had always been Dominick’s tales distracting him, not the other way around.

  Without thinking, he rose and sat next to Dominick on the bed. He carefully brought the large hand down and set it upon his knee while he worked on picking out the blood encrusted knot. He wrinkled his nose as the blood flaked and gathered under his nails, but this was not the first time he had patched Dominick up after a fight, or vice versa. Indeed, his entire childhood at the workhouse had seemed little more than an endless series of them tending to each other’s injuries, be they from the matrons, other boys, or the most dangerous jobs.

  “I was shipped off to school almost immediately, after the requisite private tutors to ensure my coursework and behavior were comparable to those of my fellows. At first my accent and etiquette left much to be desired.”

  Too busy on all those ‘abroad travels’ to learn your manners, eh?” asked Dominick dryly.

  “Precisely. I continued my studies through university, until the death of my father, at which point I inherited the title of Lord Crawford and returned to London to care for my mother until her death some six months ago.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” Alfie nodded, the words feeling as meaningless as ever.

  “You realise I know it’s all horseshit. The first half at least, I don’t doubt you were a right terror when they tried to scrub some respectability into you.”

  Alfie could only shrug in return. He so desperately wanted to tell Dominick everything, but fear held his tongue.

  “Fine then,” said Dominick softly. “A man’s past is his own concern. I won’t pry.”

  The room descended into silence then, broken only by the occasional pop from the hearth. Alfie tried to focus on his work, and not think about the warmth of Dominick's hand soaking through to his skin, or the things Dominick had said when he’d had Alfie pressed against the wall.

  What Dominick had said about a man’s past, did that mean he had things in his life that were dangerous to discuss as well? The acts he thought Alfie wanted him for, had those been things Dominick had actually been forced to do in the past? The idea of Dominick, his protector, being so vulnerable as to having to resort to that to survive... His hands shook as he slowly unwound the fabric.

  “And what of yourself,” he tried to ask nonchalantly. “‘Tripner’ is new.”

  He felt more than saw Dominick’s shrug. “When I left the workhouse I needed a last name. I got it off a gin bottle.”

  “Oh.”

  Alfie tried to think of something else to say that wasn’t one of his thousand burning questions about Dominick’s past, but came up with nothing.

  “My history isn’t nearly so mysterious,” Dominick sighed, reading Alfie’s mind. “About a year after you left I got the choice of moving from the boys’ dorms up to the men’s or leaving the workhouse entirely, so I left without a second look. Spent a few years running with some Blackguard Children, begging and snatching and the like, then I spent a few years cracking houses. Had one close call too many and didn’t fancy a term in Newgate, so I’ve been finding odd jobs ever since. But it’s the usual, not enough work, too little pay.

  “I’m good with my fists though, have to be. So I win a few fights, get the moniker ‘Nick “the Terror” Tripner,’. Which is funny, since the last time anyone called me ‘Nick’ was you when you were too small to remember the whole thing. I guess publicans and urchins have about the same amount of brains.

  “Then tonight an opportunity comes along to make some fast money… Money I will take now that I know it’s from you. Consider it payment for that time I told matron it was Baz Watts who put that frog in her desk after he threw your shoes down the privy.”

  “Baz the Badger.”

  “That’s the one.”

  Alfie was silent a long moment, but couldn’t help but ask. “Does he still blame me for—”

  “He does,” Dominick interrupted, wincing as the fabric pulled away from his raw skin. “He’s as vicious now as he was then, and twice as ugly.”

  Alfie couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him. Dominick himself hadn’t changed much either. Still able to draw a smile out of Alfie when his worries began to get the best of him.

  He finished unwrapping Dominick's hand and carefully felt it over. Nothing seemed broken, thank goodness, but the bruising was going to be hell in the morning. He wordlessly took the other one and repeated his task. They sat quietly as Alfie worked. It was almost as if the last thirteen years hadn’t happened and they had never been apart.

  But they had, said a voice in the back of his mind. Thirteen years, during which he had lived the finest life and attended the best schools, was kept warm and fed as a member of the noble class, while Dominick had nothing but this tiny room that he had scraped and fought and… done other things to pay for. It was unfair.

  “In the alley…” Alfie hesitated. He didn’t really want to know, but some compulsion drew him to ask anyway. “The things you offered to do. You’ve done them before? For money?”

  Dominick’s hand tensed in his, but his voice when he responded was steady.

  “Not my favorite way to earn a meal, but it’s better than starving. I keep taking fights with the likes of The Body Snatcher though, I doubt my face will be pretty enough to draw them in anymore.”

  Alfie tried to smile at the jest, but it was a half-hearted thing at b
est. Inside he was burning with pity and anger and some stronger, wilder emotion he couldn’t name at the thought of the men who had treated Dominick so poorly. At the sight of Dominick’s shoulders hunching defensively he bit back his thoughts as best he could. He hadn’t been there to help Dominick then, but he could be useful now.

  He let go of Dominick's hand and stomped the few paces over to the pitcher, his anger still not fully controlled. The pitcher was full of water, but he could see no towel. He yanked off his cravat and dipped it in. When the cravat was soaked through, he pulled it out, twisted it tightly, but could not seem to wring out all of his frustrations.

  “Move more into the light. I need to see if that head injury needs stitches.”

  “I don’t remember you being so bossy, milord,” Dominick muttered petulantly as he shuffled closer to the fireplace, but his shoulders relaxed and Alfie took that as an encouraging sign.

  “And I don’t remember you losing fights, but here we are.” Alfie said, stepping in front of Dominick and flicking him on the ear.

  Dominick's eyes went wide and his hands came up to his reddening ear. Alfie flushed. What was he thinking? He was no longer a small child playing around with his only friend. He was a grown man. More than that, he was an earl with responsibilities and properties and tenants. He couldn’t go around being overly familiar with men he didn’t know.

  And that was just it. He didn’t know this man, this Mr. Tripner. Once upon a time, a lifetime ago, a poor orphan boy named Alfie had known another poor orphan boy, but that Dominick hadn’t even had a surname. He’d had kindness and laughter, and a shoulder to weep into, and let Alfie tuck his icy feet against his stomach on the coldest nights, and been the one person Alfie believed would always be there for him. But then he hadn’t. He had let Alfie go. And while that had given Alfie a life of luxury...