There Will Be Phlogiston Read online

  “I’m afraid,” murmured Lord Mercury, “I have quite ruined any hope of a respectable future for either of you. What do we do now?”

  Jones began to walk them away from the ballroom. People drew back as they came near, whispered behind their fans, or stared at them in mingled curiosity and dismay. “We go home,” he said.

  Rosamond squeezed his arm in sheer glee. Was this all one had to do to be happy—choose, and act, and not look back?

  But in the entrance hall, her mother was waiting, frail as a ghost in rose silk, locked inside her beauty like a music box without a key, and all of Rosamond’s courage crumbled. She was a little girl again, when her mother was perfect, and her father was wondrous, and he used to kiss her hands and laugh and fill her skirts with petals. Before Lord Wolfram had been sent to fight a trade war halfway across the world. Before Lady Wolfram’s headaches and the laudanum. Before Rosamond knew Gaslight afternoons were grey, not gold, and she had learned to hate the scent of roses.

  “I . . . oh, Mother . . . I’m sorry . . . I’m so sorry. I had to. I couldn’t—”

  “Shhh.” Lady Wolfram put a finger to her lips. She was so pale, her skin seemed almost translucent. She came towards them, soundless as a feather, and kissed Rosamond on the forehead. The lightest brush of flesh and breath. “Be happy, my daughter.”

  She pressed something hard and cold into Rosamond’s palm, turned, and slipped into the night.

  Nobody saw her again.

  Safely in Lord Mercury’s carriage, Rosamond opened her hand. It was a ring. Her mother’s wedding ring. Rose gold, decorated with a pattern of entwined flowers. She held it up to the window and, by the uncertain flicker of the gaslights, read the words engraved on the inside: my luve’s like a red red rose.

  Then she cried, not so much for herself, but for two lovers who had lost each other long ago, and two men took turns holding her.

  By the time they arrived at Lord Mercury’s grand but clearly neglected townhouse, Rosamond was out of tears. And she was holding his hand, not Jones’s, as a housemaid let them inside.

  “My butler left,” he explained. “Because I’m a pervert.”

  “Oh, my lord—” Rosamond put a wrist to her brow “—one can overlook a little sodomy between friends, but this is beyond the pale.”

  His fingers tightened around hers. “Arkady.”

  “J-Jones calls me Ros.”

  She slid a sideways glance at him. It seemed slightly safer, somehow, than looking at Jones. Was it peculiar, or perfectly natural, to have more in common with him, than the man she loved? Or perhaps it was that—loving Anstruther Jones, and being loved by him—that truly bound them. “I was tired of being frightened too,” she whispered.

  “Fear is what it is,” said Jones. “It’s what you do that matters.” He stepped close, cupping the edge of Lord Mercury’s jaw, and Rosamond felt the touch, and the shiver that ran through Arkady as he turned his face blindly into the caress.

  “But I’ve been such a coward. All these years.”

  “Don’t say that. It’s easy to be brave when you’ve nothing to lose.”

  “And what,” Arkady asked softly, “of your losses?”

  “I . . .” Jones’s voice caught, turned rough at the edges. “I have everything I’ve ever wanted.”

  It was the oddest moment. Rosamond wasn’t sure how it came about, but the next thing she knew, Anstruther Jones was on his knees on the hall floor and she had her arms tight around him, and so did Arkady, and it was hard to tell who was holding whom in that sweet muddle of warmth. And all Rosamond could think was how miraculous it was that this strong, lonely man was . . . theirs. And how utterly right it felt to be there, with both of them: Jones, whom she loved, and Arkady, whom she understood.

  Jones’s mouth moved against her skin as he spoke. “Ambition can be a hungry feeling. It’s served me well, made me what I am, given me what I have, but I hope I don’t need it again.”

  “Indeed no.” Rosamond grinned. “Your ambitions are to be limited to be satisfying what I believe may turn out be my insatiable sexual appetites and keeping me in the manner to which I intend to grow accustomed.”

  “I, too,” added Arkady, “will require sexual satisfaction. And also sunrises. And also flowers.”

  “And—” Jones’s partially muffled laughter made his body shake “—what do I get out of this?”

  “All my love,” said Arkady. “All the happiness I can give you.”

  “And mine,” said Rosamond. “Though I do not think I am very good at loving people, for I am selfish and greedy and have previously found blackmail superior to friendship. But all my governesses have noted what a quick and agile mind I have, so I believe I . . . can . . . I will learn.”

  “You do all right.” Jones’s fingers stirred the little hairs at the back of her neck, making her shiver with silver-bright pleasure.

  Arkady’s eyes gleamed mischievously at her as he peeped over Jones’s shoulder. “Just don’t blackmail me again.”

  She sorted through their hands until she found the one that was clutching his—so different to Jones’s, with its tapering fingers and butter-smooth skin. She gave it a squeeze. “I promise.”

  “I’m not sure you could, in any case. The whole of Gaslight probably knows more about my proclivities than I do.” He pressed a light kiss to Jones’s brow. “Which is something I very much desire to correct.”

  Rosamond nodded. “I have had insufficient opportunity to develop proclivities.”

  “I can already think of one we share.”

  “Yes,” said Jones, sounding remarkably flustered for the man who had taught them pleasure, “you’re both depraved.”

  “Oh—” Rosamond pulled back a little to meet his eyes “—I like the sound of that.”

  There was a slash of red across the crest of his cheekbones, and she realised suddenly that he was almost shy, not of depravity as he had suggested, but love. That while he gave it without hesitation, he was as inexperienced as any of them in receiving it. “I . . . I can’t . . . I don’t ask questions about good fortune but . . . thank you. For whatever this is.”

  “I’m not sure, having little knowledge of such matters but—” she let go of Arkady and pulled Jones into an bold, open-mouthed kiss that made him shudder and groan, his body stirring in interesting ways “—I think what it is . . . or perhaps may come to be . . . is family.”

  One of Arkady’s arms curved protectively over Jones’s shoulder. “You know, I keep thinking of that conversation we had—the, ah, the one where you . . . the one where I said that without what we knew, we were left with nothing.”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, I was wrong.” He smiled at her, curling into them both. “We have each other.”

  They were all a little silly after that. It was some giddy combination of relief and release, tinged—for Rosamond, at least—with a faint sense of unreality. She half feared she was going to wake up her in own bed, and discover this was nothing more than some kind of torrid, highly specific fever-dream. Although nothing of her life and temperament to date suggested that even her most aspirational fantasies would have inclined her to harbour designs on the possession of not merely one man, but two.

  They crept through the darkened rooms of Lord Mercury’s house, holding hands and giggling. They smoked Jones’s cheroots on the overgrown terraces, Rosamond faring far better than Arkady, who choked on the bitter smoke. In the bare-shelved library, they drank Arkady’s finest brandy straight from his last crystal decanter. And in this Rosamond did not excel, for the stuff tasted horrible, harsh and fiery. It had been her general experience that men preferred to keep the best things for themselves, but in this case, that made no sense at all.

  However, it left both Jones and Arkady dreamy and mellow, and they sat awhile by the fire Jones had lit for them, watching the shadows jump upon the wainscoting, and the flames dance in ribbons of scarlet and gold. Jones lay with his head in her lap, and Arkady tuc
ked against her side, as he unpicked all her ringlets and smoothed out her tresses, with far more care than she had ever shown them.

  Rosamond found herself wishing she had some female friends so she could share these marvellous discoveries with them. The secret to happiness, she would say, sipping her tea delicately, is a generous-hearted, sexually amphibious man who desires you, and a confirmed sodomite who admires your hair.

  They swapped secrets softly in the firelight. Old hurts and unexpected joys, the dreams they had once feared to dream, the hopes they told themselves were foolish, pieces of the lost times of their lives. Though, eventually, grey seeped into the darkness and the embers faded, and they grew frivolous again. And why shouldn’t they? The night was theirs.

  In the billiard room—another male mystery that turned out to be disappointingly banal in reality (it was just a room, for heaven’s sake; why the drama?)—they taught Rosamond how to play. It was clearly Arkady’s game, Jones muttering with every miscue that there wasn’t much call for billiard tables in the sky, but Rosamond discovered she could compensate for lack of skill, against Jones at least, by taking her shots in a particular fashion. Jones would, for some reason, get very distracted. Perhaps it had something to do with the way the position of her elbows squished her bosoms together?

  Not to be outdone, Arkady then started bending rather suggestively over the table, thrusting his—admittedly—beautifully shaped buttocks skywards in a manner she presumed would be very tempting for a man of Anstruther Jones’s inclinations.

  Jones’s took his turn, and sent the cue ball spinning nowhere.

  And Arkady stood there smirking, his weight resting on one leg in a manner that shamelessly emphasised the masculine curves and angles of his body.

  This would never do! Rosamond scowled at him, largely in jest, but a little bit not. Fuck billiards. This was a different game entirely, and while she instinctively recognised there could (and should) be no winner, nor loser, she wanted to play it well. She prowled around the table, as if looking for the best possible angle for her shot, uttering impatient little noises as her skirts got in her way.

  She put her hands on her hips, and pouted. “This isn’t fair. I am hampered in ways you gentlemen are not.”

  “Well, you should have thought of that,” returned Arkady, as he chalked his cue, “before you decided to be a woman.”

  “Oh please, it is not my sex which hampers me, merely my garments. Jones, my dear, would you please help me remove them?”

  He gave a bow. “Anything to oblige a lady.”

  His skills had not improved since the day in the woods at Ashworth, which was fortunate indeed because she did not like to think of him having partaken of activities that would have given him practice at it. Arkady, perhaps because he was a man, or perhaps because he was simply Arkady, did not trouble her, but if any woman was going be undressed by Anstruther Jones, it was going to be her.

  “These buttons were made by mice,” he muttered, fingers working somewhere down her spine.

  Arkady helped in the end—though it did not serve his cause—and peeled her out of her ball gown and petticoats. He nudged Jones out of the way, and unfastened her crinoline cage. She stepped out of it, feeling at once frighteningly exposed and wondrously free. It was hard to believe that, when she had awoken, today had seemed like any other day—and yet here she was, at three in the morning, partially undressed in a billiard room, in front of two men. Truly, nothing would ever be the same again. Certainly she wouldn’t.

  Jones shook his head at the pile of steel and silk. “I had no idea all you ladies were running about in armour. We should have sent you against those Russian guns, not the Light Brigade.”

  “What do women wear in the sky?” she asked.

  “Whatever they want. Trousers mostly. Unless they’re whores.”

  Rosamond looked down her legs. “Maybe I shall wear trousers sometimes.” Jones, it turned out, was also looking at her legs. And other parts of her. She still had her shoes and stockings and drawers and corset and chemise. But the heat in his eyes made her feel naked, and she was very glad she had chosen a particularly lacy set of unmentionables with ribbons at the knees. “Sir.” She rapped on the edge of the billiard table to get his attention. “My face is up here.”

  “Aye, but I’ve already seen your face.”

  She knew she was blushing, the warmth of it spreading and tingling through her whole body, gathering with particular intensity in certain places. “Well, I hope you enjoy the view.”

  She wriggled into position, leaned far over the table and managed a very neat cannon, even if she said so herself.

  “Hmm.” Arkady tilted his head, as if considering the table. “You know, I do believe my coat is rather hindering my range of motion.”

  He stripped it off with a flourish. She did not think he looked quite as impressive in his shirt sleeves as Jones, but then she did not want him in the same way she wanted Jones. His body was built quite differently, without the raw power, but, she could gladly concede, no less pleasingly. He was all clean, smooth lines, a graceful cat of a man, lightly muscled and elegant.

  He rolled his shoulders. “And my waistcoat.” That came off too, more carefully than the coat. “And, for that matter, my shirt.” He whisked it over his head, and Jones made a low, hungry noise at the back of his throat.

  And Arkady deserved to have that noise because he was truly exquisite, even with the bruises that cast angry shadows across his body. Jones, she recalled, was amply and excitingly befurred, but Arkady was like some perfect sculpture, a dream of male beauty Pygmalion might have carved had his tastes run otherwise. The hair that curled upon his forearms, and formed a wicked little arrow down his abdomen, glinted gold and mahogany and russet red in the flickering gaslight.

  Jones dropped his cue and held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I’ve lost. Or won. I really don’t care.”

  Arkady laughed and bowed to Rosamond. “Well played, my lady.”

  “And to you, my lord.” She dropped him a curtsey. “How do we celebrate such a victory?”

  “We go to bed,” said Jones, decidedly.

  It was probably already close to dawn, so that seemed like a very sensible notion, but as they climbed the stairs—Rosamond in her drawers, Arkady without his shirt, Jones walking with visible discomfort—an odd, slightly tense silence settled over them. She was not quite sure what had changed, but perhaps nothing had—it was simply that certain things had become undeniable, and certain questions had to be asked.

  “This . . . this is not normal, is it?” she blurted out.

  Arkady paused, one hand resting lightly on the banister. “It’s not usual.”

  “Spare me the semantics. I am uncertain how it is arranged when a lady retires with only one gentleman, let alone two of them. Do we go separately, or all together? What are our roles? Is there to be a schedule of occupancy? And what if we wish to negotiate times or activities or—”

  “Why don’t we work it out?” Jones swept her into his arms like the barbarian he was.

  She thought about protesting, just on principle, but quickly decided that would be a silly principle because it was rather thrilling to be carried about as though she were the heroine in a melodrama. Although she supposed if she were a proper heroine, she would have fainted by now, rather than be enthusiastically participating in her own debauchery. But that, she thought, as she tucked her head against Jones’s chest, his heart thudding beneath her cheek, was a flaw in heroines, not a flaw in her.

  She had never been in a gentleman’s bedroom before, but as it turned out, they slept in much the same manner as women, if under fewer frills. There was, however, something rather extravagant about Arkady’s bed with its gleaming, intricate carvings, and the lavish hangings in burgundy velvet and gold. It made her a little sad for him, imagining him every night, restless and alone in all that space and grandeur.

  “You had better help me with my stays,” she said, as Jones lowe
red her onto the pillows. “Or I may suffocate.”

  It took both of them, for Jones was once again inept, but it felt so good to be out of her corset. She stretched her arms above her head, filled her lungs to their capacity, and let the luxury of being able to move freely rush all the way through her, until she felt even her toes uncurling.

  Jones closed a hand around one of her ankles. Drew it slowly upwards over her stocking-covered calf, a sweet-rough drag of heat and pressure, at once arousing and comforting. Arkady sprawled out next to her on his stomach, watching her lazily, his lips curled into a half smile. She had always thought his eyes quite cold in their beauty, too bright, too perfect, like glass, but in this light they were mossy-dark, and soft with something she thought might be contentment.

  All her half-formed fears fled. Fuck normal. She wanted this, exactly as it was, a secret shared between three people who had always been alone. It was hard to believe she had ever thought Lord Mercury remote. She had dismissed him as a perfect gentleman, a distant star, but he was her Arkady now, and Jones’s. She had held his hand, and seen him smile, and shown him—on more than one occasion—the worst of her. And in return, he had dried her tears, and played with her hair, made her feel beautiful, and trusted her with who he was.

  Made brave by the steady warmth of Jones’s hand upon her, she reached out and traced a careful path down the bridge of Arkady’s nose. He did not flinch, only lightly kissed her finger as it passed his lips. His mouth did not feel like Jones’s mouth, but she could not have articulated why or how it was different. Perhaps it was simply because he did not stir her in the same way, though it pleased her to touch him, and be touched in return.

  He quirked a brow at her. “I’ve never had a woman in my bed before.”

  “Does it meet your expectations?”