Damon Snow and the Nocturnal Lessons (8 page)

“So of course you would avoid him,” I said.

“I didn’t avoid him,” Kendall protested.

“Then why did you turn him away before?” I asked. His quivering had made it seem as if Price really had been the one who had beaten him to a bloody pulp.

“So he didn’t have to put up with me,” Kendall said. “What bloke wants some little whore hanging onto him thinking he’s in love? What bloke? I’m only a bloody embarrassment to him.”

That’s not how Price thought of it. From our encounter earlier, Price was likely to feel embarrassed no matter what. “What is the worst thing that will happen?” I asked.

Kendall stopped, and gaped at me.

“You’re rejected now,” I said. “Supposedly. What worse can he do?”

“Haven’t I driven it through your thick head by now?”

Before I could give him a proper response with my fist, the servant’s door cracked against the wall, flooding the courtyard with light. Benjamin leaned out, hotter than a poker that’s just been in the fire. “You had better not be thinking you’ll get to sleep inside tonight,” Benjamin said.

Kendall ran to him. “I’m ready to work.”

“Not with those eyes,” Benjamin said. “Go fix them.”

“Yes, sir,” Kendall said before disappearing inside.

Benjamin glared at me now. I sighed and stood and more slowly ambled past him. It looked as if I really would need the extra coin.

“You stink like gin,” Benjamin said.

“Some men like that,” I said.

He just scoffed at me.

Chapter Seven

As far as plans went, mine wasn’t particularly clever, but it didn’t need to be. Price and Kendall were lovebirds; it shouldn’t be difficult to pair them together.

Kendall refused to even look me in the eye. If I were in a room, he escaped behind someone else so I couldn’t follow. That added some difficulty, but nothing I couldn’t overcome.

With my spare coin, I rented a room for them above the Red Cockle. It physically burned me to waste such good money when Price had a perfectly good and perfectly empty — if enormously filthy — house at his disposal, but Kendall…

I was acquainted with the bar keep, a man called Dougall, and not for the usual reasons. The Red Cockle had a good reputation, where the whoring was discrete and of the female persuasion. My mother had washed laundry for him at one point, and he never could refuse an opportunity to call round our humble abode with an apple or other treat in hand. He had been a bit sweet on her, but my mother, good girl that she had been, had always refused to bend that way.

Yet she still managed to stay in good relations with the man, which meant that I felt assured in hiring a room from him, even for another man.

I waited downstairs in the tavern and nursed a pint. I didn’t particularly enjoy ale — it wasn’t strong enough, not when even gin failed to keep me inebriated for long.

The crowd was lively, but not overly violent. Good friends, good drinks, good times. Not so good gambling, from the disappointed groan from the table over, but the man seemed to take it in good cheer.

Price entered. His eyes twitched all over the tavern. A jumpy fellow, but then I had sent him a card claiming to be Kendall. I had even fudged my spelling and script to make it reasonable, although Byrne surely wouldn’t like it. I had to. Most likely, Kendall wasn’t even literate.

I checked my pocket watch. Ah, exactly on time. Jumpy, but punctual. I glanced around to see if anyone had taken note, but no one had. It was another reason I had chosen the Red Cockle. A good reputation meant respectable gentlemen like Price wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

Price moved to the bar and leaned over to speak to the keep. It looked as if he tried to whisper, but the general noise of the tavern was too much, and Dougall motioned to him several times to speak up. Price nearly shouted, then turned around guiltily.

I sighed. Red Cockle or not, if he kept it up, someone would note he was about immoral deeds.

Dougall peered over Price’s shoulders and tipped his head.

I nodded back to him.

Dougall yelled for his wench to take over the bar and escorted Price to the back and up the stairs. I sighed, and followed at a respectable distance. I shouldn’t even be involved, but it appeared as if I would have to keep an eye on Price.

At the top of the stairs, I found Dougall alone two doors from the end of a very long hall.

“Is he in there?” I asked, keeping my voice low. A murmur from the tavern followed me up the stairs.

Dougall nodded. “That he is, lad. D’ye mind telling me what’s going on?”

I heard footsteps behind me. Damnation, Kendall had arrived already. “Later,” I lied. “Is there somewhere I can hide for a moment?”

“The next room is free,” Dougall said. He opened the room without demanding payment upfront. He knew I would be good for it.

“My thanks,” I said. “I’ll be but a moment.”

He might not even charge me full price for the night. Which was a good bargain for me, for I didn’t have much beyond a few pence. I ducked under his arm as our visitor reached the bend in the stairs and closed the door behind me.

The walls were all too thin for a tavern inn, I found. Even above the general murmur, I could hear Dougall as clear as day say, “I expect you’ll be wanting that room.”

“Err, yes…” I heard Kendall say. He didn’t know which one he was destined for, but that was the difficulty with arranged affairs.

Dougall’s heavy footsteps sounded as he departed to tend his bar again.

In the end, Kendall hadn’t been too difficult to arrange. All I had had to do was tell Benjamin I heard a flat was too shy, or too prudent, to make an appearance at Mother Dover’s, and while I was always eager to get money off his mother’s books, he’d rather have a boy like Kendall. And wasn’t I just the good little thing to tell him while he could get his cut rather than telling Kendall himself?

Of course, Benjamin wouldn’t get paid. Or I could lean on Price a little for the extra shilling. Or perhaps at least retrieve my coat. If Price actually believed what he said he believed, he’d be all too willing to pay for this happy ending.

Kendall opened the door to the other room, the hinges squeaking.

“Kendall.” Price dragged out his name like too much emotion weighed it down.

“I—I—” Kendall scuffled back.

I gave an oath under my breath. This was why I had wished to remain in the tavern.

“Kendall, I must say—”

“No, I do not wish to hear it!” A body hit the wall and then I heard steps fleeing down the hall, with Price’s heavier footsteps after him. It was a good long corridor, but not long enough. I came out of the room, the door slamming close behind me, and took two steps forward, but those two didn’t notice for Price yelled, “I love you too!”

Idiot!

Kendall slid to a stop. He didn’t look back, but said, “Ye shouldn’t go saying things like that. Not out here.”

“Things like what? That I love you?” Price asked, stepping forward. He had lost his great coat and only wore his dinner jacket. “But it’s true.”

“If anyone else heard ye — you say that…” Kendall motioned his neck, meaning either the pillory or the hangman’s noose. “You shouldn’t say it.”

“I don’t honestly care,” Price said. “The pillory, Newgate Prison, even the noose, I do not care. What else do I have to live for if I can’t have you?”

Oh, gag me please, before I spilled my pint back up.

“You can have somebody else,” Kendall said. “Somebody appropriate.”

I bit back a scoff. If Price wanted someone else, he could have had it, without yelling to half of the East End that he was a sod.

“I did the appropriate thing,” Price said. “I married the proper lady, I properly sired children, I properly buried them, each and every one of them. I did the proper thing, and it’s brought me nothing but misery.”

“So will this,” Kendall said. “There’s a reason nobody cares for us mollies.”

“What reason would that be?” Price asked. “Because someone must have forgotten to tell me. I can’t imagine what it would be.”

“God’s will?” Kendall suggested.

“God’s will was to take my children away,” Price said. “I don’t expect much from him anymore.”

“Then… then… what about Damon Snow?”

“Who?”

“The—the Pink who—who works me with,” Kendall said. “The one you…”

“Oh, him,” Price said. “What about him?”

“He speaks real good,” Kendall said. “He dresses real good. He knows things. He wouldn’t… He’d be proper, as proper as these things can get.”

“He’s nothing,” Price said.

I barely had time to think,
thank you kindly
, because Kendall turned to stare at him and I had to duck into their rented room before he saw me. I had run too far up to duck into the empty one. I was successful, for instead of ratting me out, Kendall said, “But — but I’m just an urchin. I try to speak like him, but it’s just all… I’m none too proper.”

Oh Christ, even I could hear the trembling in his voice, as if everything would spill over if Price said one more kind thing.

“Oh, oh, my boy,” Price said. Kendall sobbed. “Come into the room now, where we can sit awhile.”

“No — no, I should go,” Kendall said, his voice thick as if with unshed tears.

“Nonsense,” Price said. “I’m not letting you go. Not unless you can tell me that you really do not want me.”

Kendall did not say anything. The silence stretched between them.

“Come now,” Price said, and I heard their footsteps approaching.

I searched the room, looking for a place to hide. Why did I have to run after Kendall? But reputation or not, the Red Cockle was not the most distinguished place in town. It had a wardrobe and a bed — and curtains! Full length curtains that had been left unbundled to each side.

I dashed behind them, and cursed myself for the lack of ingenuity. It would be such an easy task to notice me… It was the best I had, for Price closed the door and led Kendall to the bed.

“No, no, sit here,” Price told him and patted on the bed, but Kendall slid the floor, his knees banging so roughly against the floor that I winced.

“I don’t deserve such a nice bed,” Kendall mumbled.

I heard Price sit heavily on the edge. The curtain revealed half of the bed before me, and I cursed myself again for such an obvious hiding spot, but I couldn’t see them at the foot of the bed. Nor could I pull the curtains around me better without alerting them to my presence. Perhaps they would be too distracted to see me?

Kendall made a small appreciative moan. What were they doing? Kendall seemed calm now, instead of choking back sobs. The only thing I could think being done at the edge of the bed… well, I didn’t imagine Kendall would be so appreciative of that. Nor did I hear the appropriate slurping sounds. Such acts that I sold were disgusting sometimes.

Price murmured to him, too low for me to make out the words, but I didn’t think it was the words that helped.

“Here, lay down on the bed,” Price said.

Kendall made a distressed sound. I sucked in a breath, waiting to be revealed.

“It’ll be good, I promise,” Price said.

“But—”

“You are good enough,” Price said.

“But I — I’m the sort who sells myself on the street,” Kendall said. “I — I get beaten and broken and — and you helped me. You’ve already been too kind to me.”

“No one is going to hurt you now, I promise,” Price said. “I just wish to demonstrate… well… please? Please lay down on the bed?”

Silence followed, but then I heard the bed ropes creak and Kendall came into view as he laid back, his eyes squeezed shut as if he expected someone really would beat him, despite Price’s assurances. Or perhaps because he would rather be beaten than to have Price change his mind.

Fabric shifted, but I couldn’t see that far down Kendall’s body. Then Kendall gasped, his breast rising from the bed. He stared down his body in shock.

My mouth was a perfect ‘o’ as well. This was so far from my imagination. I couldn’t even think the word. Price couldn’t be…

Kendall protested, “You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” Price said. “I want nothing more than to suck your cock. Please indulge me.”

A shiver ran through Kendall. A more violent tremor struck me. Such things didn’t happen. Flats paid to be sucked off, not to have to do such demeaning things. But evidently Price didn’t think it was demeaning.

My body shifted to the right before my mind could catch up to realise what a terrible idea that was. Price really was doing it. His lips parted and he leaned down to slowly slide his lips over the head of Kendall’s increasingly stiff cock. His fingers stroked Kendall’s length, urging it harder with each stroke.

Kendall stared at him, watched him rise again just high enough so that his lips barely touched the slit on his head, and then down again, with a twist. Kendall cried out.