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But he did not pull away. He leaned into the kiss, and Thomas unclenched his hands and let them find their way into Alastair’s hair, which was rough silk against his fingers. He felt an exquisite sense of relief—he had wanted this for so long, and what had happened between them in the Sanctuary had only made it worse—and then the relief melted away into heat, traversing his veins like liquid fire. Alastair was kissing him hard, each kiss opening his mouth a little wider, their tongues touching in a flickering dance. In between kisses, Alastair murmured soft words in Persian. “Ey pesar,” he whispered, “nik ze hadd mibebari kar-e jamal.” His tongue swept Thomas’s lower lip; Thomas shuddered, pressed into him, his breath catching with every kiss, every movement of Alastair’s body. “Ba conin hosn ze to sabr konam?”
And then, just as abruptly as it had started, it was over. Alastair pulled back, his hand still on Thomas’s arm, his face flushed. “Thomas,” he breathed. “This isn’t something I can do.”
Thomas closed his eyes. “Why not?”
“The situation hasn’t changed,” Alastair said, in a voice closer to his usual tone, and Thomas could feel the spell broken, dissipating as though it had never been. “Your friends hate me. And they are right to do so—”
“I told Matthew,” Thomas said.
Alastair’s eyes widened. “You what?”
“I told Matthew,” said Thomas. “About me. And that I—that we—that I cared about you.” He cleared his throat. “He knew about you and Charles already.”
“Well, Charles is his brother,” said Alastair, in an oddly mechanical voice. “And Matthew is himself—different. But your other friends…”
“Christopher won’t care. As for James, he is married to your sister. Alastair, you are already part of us, part of our group, whether you like it or not. You cannot use my friends as an excuse.”
“It’s not an excuse.” Alastair was still holding on to Thomas’s jacket, still leaning toward him. Thomas could smell Alastair’s scent of smoke and spice and leather. Desire burned deep in his belly like a swallowed coal, but he knew it made no difference. Alastair was shaking his head. “I learned—with Charles—things cannot be all stolen moments. But neither can we hurt others by blindly pursuing what we want—”
“So you do want me,” Thomas said, and felt a bitter sort of gladness.
Alastair’s eyes darkened. “How can you even ask—”
There was a bang and both of them looked up to see Christopher, carrying a tall stack of books, one of which had just fallen loudly to the ground. He seemed delighted to see them, as if it were perfectly normal for Thomas and Alastair to be sitting on the floor, with Alastair clutching Thomas’s sleeve.
“Enough shilly-shallying, you two,” Christopher exclaimed. “I’ve had an idea. We must go immediately to Limehouse.”
15 OLD VOICES
All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creak’d;
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek’d,
Or from the crevice peer’d about.
Old faces glimmer’d thro’ the doors
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Mariana”
Cordelia had been late getting out of the house, and she found herself at Chiswick House after the others had already arrived. She climbed out of the carriage, waving at Anna and Ariadne, who were waiting by the steps; the Institute carriage had already pulled up in the circular drive. Cordelia could see a few figures in the distance where James, Jesse, and Lucie seemed to have gone to look at the gardens.
It was a bracing day, cold enough to sting her chest when she breathed. She glanced around as she pulled on her gloves. At night, the house and its grounds had the feel of a classical ruin, like a Roman villa gone to seed—marble and brick chipped and unrepaired, paint peeling, formal gardens now a shaggy war of briars and hedges invading each other’s space. She remembered the effect as quite Gothic, with Grace very much the pale maiden languishing behind the dark walls.
But here in the white winter sun the house looked merely shabby and squalid. Nothing romantic lurked here, she thought. Only the end result of decades of domestic horror, negligence, and cruelty.
As she went to join Ariadne and Anna, the others approached—James, pale but calm, Jesse, seemingly distracted, and Lucie, brightly friendly as she greeted Ariadne and Anna, but careful not to look at Cordelia.
Cordelia had not expected anything different—it was probably why she had dawdled getting started that morning—but it still hurt to have Lucie ignore her. Not, she thought, that she didn’t deserve it.
At least all of them were wearing ordinary clothes, not gear, which was a relief to Cordelia—she had wondered about it herself and finally decided on a simple dress and sturdy boots. It was not as if she could fight anyway, she thought bitterly, if the situation arose. She would have to fling herself behind someone else for protection, like the sort of Victorian heroine she particularly disliked.
