‘It was a gentleman’s entertainment,’ he said. ‘Something for groups of men without ladies present, or with ladies who weren’t being ladylike. Entirely private. But then a couple of months later I was staying with some rather strait-laced distant cousins, who felt an obligation to me despite my father’s behaviour, and they held a soirée and invited their neighbours, who included Miss Beaumont and Sir James Vier. They knew of Sir James’s grudge against my father, of course, but they believed that I wasn’t involved, and said they wanted amity restored. And Vier smiled at me in the most unpleasant way, and an hour or so into proceedings he took me aside and informed me he had obtained some of my more disreputable shades. He had shown them to my cousins, and told them I was secretly making obscene postures for the young people at the party. Corrupting them.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Why did he do it? Revenge. Why he told me: possibly because he wanted to see my face, but also so I couldn’t look surprised or innocent when my cousins confronted me about it. It was a well-laid trap. I denied cutting anything unfit at their house, but they had the profiles as evidence, and there we are. That was why I agreed to elope with Miss Beaumont. Vier had cut me off from the last members of my family who’d speak to me, out of sheer spite, and I was drifting around the place wondering what on earth I’d do.’
‘Great God, Daizell. I’m so sorry.’ Cassian’s hand groped for his, sliding under the sheets, fingers warm and close and comforting. ‘This is appalling. I had no idea. Vier is a vile, hateful man and I’m disgusted, though not surprised, but yourfather. How could he do that to you? He ruined you as much as his other victims, and people blame you for it?’
Everyone had blamed him, if only by contagion. He’d been cut so often it had felt like real cuts, each turned head or blank look a blade on his skin.
Daizell was a companionable man. He’d thought he had plenty of friends, just as he’d believed in his father’s careless affection and his mother’s love. But when it came down to the bone, people didn’t help, and they didn’t stay. They looked to their own well-being and left you behind.
He hadn’t helped himself, of course. He’d been tainted by his parents’ crime, but he’d blackened his own reputation as thoroughly as he had ever blackened paper for a profile, in a slow steady slide out of the Polite World and into disreputability that he couldn’t seem to stop.
‘It’s my own fault,’ he said aloud. ‘Well, and my parents’, of course. But I haven’t helped myself. I was expelled from Eton, you know.’
‘I did hear. A gambling ring?’
‘Quite a lively one,’ Daizell admitted. There had been a few running at Eton; his syndicate had, unfortunately, taken rather too much of various young noblemen’s allowances, and an example had been made. Like father, like son. ‘I made plenty more mistakes too. I was a careless fool before the robbery, and after I was a drunken one for a while, and perhaps if I had stood up for myself better, people wouldn’t have found it so easy to tar me with the same brush.’
‘But none of that is a crime!’ Cassian sounded really angry now.
‘The profiles were definitely dubious. It’s hardly surprising people don’t think much of me.’
Cassian’s hand tightened. ‘Well, they’re wrong. And I do.’
‘Why?’
The word tore itself from a throat that was already hurting with control. Cassian took a moment to answer. With another man, Daizell would have pulled his hand away at that pause, but he was getting used to the little silences as Cassian thought about what he was going to say.
‘Because you’re kind,’ he said at last. ‘I quite believe you would make impulsive decisions, or unconventional ones, or bad ones. But you go out of your way to help people. You risked your neck in a coach crash to protect someone else’s baby. I wouldneverbelieve you were involved in a robbery or corrupting youth, or anything like that, and if anyone does, they’re a fool.’
He squeezed Daizell’s fingers hard, and relapsed into silence. Daizell lay, eyes stinging in the dark, not entirely knowing what he felt except that it hurt, but also that it hurt in a good way, like the picking off of a tight, ugly scab.
It didn’t really matter if Cassian, a gentleman of wealth but no account, thought he was a good person. The world had decided him to be a not-quite gentleman of bad stock and poor character, and one man’s opinion wouldn’t change that. But all the same, here in the quiet of the room, it felt like everything.
Cassian’s fingers were still entwined with his, sufficiently relaxed that he could pull away if he wanted. He didn’t, and the touch was a comfort in the dark.
This time, Daizell woke up with his arm over Cassian, and his face buried in the man’s shoulder.
Cassian was breathing evenly under him. Daizell allowed himself a moment to enjoy the physical contact, then peeled himself off and rolled onto his back. He tried to do it without shaking the bed or waking his bedmate, but Cassian grunted.
‘Morning,’ Daizell said, with determined cheer. No more soul-searching: they had a job to do. ‘Are we going round the outskirts today?’
‘Chasing a man in a mulberry coat. Ugh.’
Daizell rubbed his face. ‘You know, if he changes his coat . . .’
‘That has occurred to me too. Am I wasting our time, Daize?’
‘I don’t have anything better to do with mine.’
‘And I’ve got a month off, so—’
He couldn’t help asking. ‘A month off what?’
Cassian stilled. It was a tiny quiver of tension, which Daizell wouldn’t have noticed if they hadn’t been so close. ‘Oh, normal life and duties and whatnot. I’m not expected back for a month is what I meant, so like you, I’ve nothing better to do.’ He paused. ‘I suppose . . .’
‘What?’
