Shoutout to the unstoppable force of storm101 for prodding at my immovable object and getting me to actually a.) write this, b.) post this, and c.) not immediately orphan and neglect it.

For better or worse, this series has been a massive influence on me for years, and I can only hope I'm doing it some small justice.


Incident


Cain swallowed hard. His ears were buzzing. He'd had too much to drink, and felt that he might shake his head and wake up suddenly in his own bed, as though it couldn't be anything but a perverse dream.

He needed to stand up, to enact his plan and leave. His flimsy excuses to himself had brought him to this point, but there was no way to write off another step in this direction. Continuing to sit there was a cowardly way of making a choice, but he couldn't pretend that it wasn't a choice. He needed to stand and leave before every lie he'd told that evening was revealed to be the truth about him.

"Cain, wasn't it?"

The earl jolted slightly at the hand on his knee.

"You've been sitting there an awfully long time, milord." The other sounded sweetly mocking. "You're allowed to be nervous... But too much thinking and you'll run away. Hm, Lord Cain?"

It didn't feel quite real. He turned his head to see the speaker, trying to dredge up his name from earlier, brief introductions, and the boy was looming over him, in spite of his relative youth and slender build, and either Cain did not want to understand in time to move, or he had drunk more than he thought he had, neither of which were attractive prospects- and what a phrase to use, here and now- because...

Then the youth was kissing him, fully on the lips- Charles, his brain supplied, unhelpfully slow, a valet—and his choice had been made, and he kissed back and tried not to think about how on earth a valet found himself in a cheap hotel room with another man, lest he think of—God, what would he tell Riff in the morning?


It had started innocently enough, as dinner with an old school friend of Oscar's. Of course Cain had ulterior motives, but they related to the death of Lord Eldridge, not anything like this. In the middle of another inquiry about his companion's amateur cricket team that was headed nowhere, another party had passed them in the restaurant, and caught young Mr. Hart's eye.
"Excuse me, Cain- Taylor!" The man turned and smiled in apparent delight, but Cain took an instant dislike to him. There was something distinctly middle class about his appearance, and something weaseley and sly about his face. "Are you dining here as well? What a coincidence!"

"I'm afraid I'm only here to pick up a friend." He gestured to, of all things, a waiter moving towards them- a much younger man with a face that would have been pretty if he hadn't looked so smug.

Cain had to admit that he immediately thought something extremely unflattering of this Taylor fellow, and his internal insults deepened suddenly into suspicions when the interloper brushed his fingers along the waiter's waist.

"Taylor." The boy cast Hart and Hargreaves each a considering look that left no real room for doubt in Cain's mind. "These friends of yours coming tonight?"

He wondered if this was the sort of indignant horror that Uncle Neil felt constantly in his presence, and made a halfhearted resolution to apologize.

"Well, Taylor, are we invited?"

A little chill of horror shot down Cain's spine. What on earth was Hart thinking? They hardly knew each other, to begin with, and he was suggesting that they follow dinner with a pleasant evening of sodomy?

"Of course, Aaron! We're having a bit of a dinner party at my house, I'm afraid, and you're already eating, but feel free to drop by for a few drinks, and then we'll be moving over to the club for the evening. If your friend doesn't mind, he's certainly welcome to join us."

He definitely did mind, since he had no intention of spending the evening with male prostitutes, thank you. And Aaron Hart was a friend of Oscar's from college! That made his suspicions about the ex-Gabriel heir much more likely. No bloody wonder Oscar had been disowned, in that case! Cain wondered briefly if their entire amateur cricket team had a more Grecian concept of sportsmanship. Oscar was built like a sportsman, muscular and broad, but Hart was all slender and lean, and thank God he noticed Cain staring and snapped him out of it with a little grin.

"Cain?"

"Ah, yes! Sorry. That sounds lovely." After all, he rationalized, he hadn't gotten a shred of useful information out of Hart yet, and he was attempting to investigate a murder, was he not? It would be ridiculous to let this put him off. Besides, he didn't have to so much as leave the restaurant with the man. The agreement alone would make his companion feel that they were co-conspirators, and make getting information about Lord Eldridge that much easier.

But then, of course, he realized that there was no harm in going to Taylor's little dinner, where he could ply Hart with drinks and extract even more information about Lord Eldridge's private affairs without getting anywhere near their so-called club. The plying with drinks, however, went both ways, and though he suspected that Hart's reasons were slightly nefarious, he couldn't refuse, just as he realized he couldn't make his escape without rousing suspicions. He was a bit tipsy and simply couldn't think of a convincing excuse.

He determined to retire with a boy to a private room, pay him, and simply depart.

His ability to willfully lie to himself was truly astonishing.


Cain laid very still, smoking one of Charles's cheap cigarettes and wondering what the hell he was supposed to do now. He took a shallow drag and shifted a leg slightly, wishing desperately to be clothed again in more than his shirt but feeling tremendously sore and limp. The rent boy was smirking at him from across the bed, but Cain couldn't quite manage to meet his eyes.

"I'm surprised at you, Lord Cain. It usually goes the other way in these sorts of—"

He forced himself to move, stumbling slightly and wincing as he fumbled for his discarded clothes. He couldn't bear to hear any more of this, to see this insufferable boy for another instant, knowing what he knew, having done what he'd done.

The other only laughed, standing leisurely and putting out his cigarette. "You look like you could use a hand," he mused sweetly, as Cain fumbled with his tie, and plucked the ends out of his grasp to knot a neat four in hand with startling ease. "What? I am a valet, you know."

Cain recoiled slightly from the thought, absurdly disgusted by the idea of this man, naked and smirking and stinking of sex, claiming the same title as Riff. Riff, who had dressed him neatly in a Windsor before he left for dinner. Riff, to whom he would return in the wee hours with a lie on his lips and this man's tie knot hanging around his neck like a noose. It was ridiculous to feel as guilty as he did in that moment about a tie, and yet…

He shook it off and stepped into his trousers, glancing around for his jacket and discovering that the contents of his pockets had spilled across the floor—his cards, a few pence in loose change, and a gold cigarette case.

Charles picked up the case without apology. "Well isn't this a pretty thing?"

Payment, Cain registered suddenly. Was he expected to offer money, or would that be crass? Nothing had been discussed beforehand.

"Are you terribly attached to it? I should like to have a memento—since I was your first, and all."

Cain turned to look for a mirror and hide the sneer that slipped across his face. "Then it's yours." He ran his fingers through his hair to neaten it and added casually, "Though I don't imagine the contents would be much to your taste. If I may?" The cigarette case was handed back over and Cain popped it open, dumping a bundle of little flat vials into his hand, each sloshing with clear liquid.

"Milord has a little habit?" Charles inquired silkily, and Cain smiled back.

"Something like that. Would you like to try?" He unscrewed the lid of a vial and tipped a single drop out onto his fingertip.

"Well, whyever not?"

"Open," the noble ordered, slipping his finger between the rent boy's parted lips and watching him suck it clean without shame. He shrugged into his jacket and bent to tie his shoes, deciding on second thought to simply knot them and tuck the laces inside, for Riff to fix later. When he stood again, Charles was already looking woozy.

"Works quickly," he murmured thickly, and Cain smiled, shoving him gently and letting him fall back across the bed, dead to the world.

He left the cigarette case in the young man's limp hand—an ignominious end for an eighteenth birthday present from his uncle, who, as he had entirely forgotten, had gone to the trouble of engraving Cain C. Hargreaves in neat script on the inside.