A Seditious Affair(37)

They were beggar revolutionaries, driven by anger and despair, but they were good men, most of them, who believed passionately and unquestioningly in the prospect of a just world, in Spencean ideals, in the things Silas needed to be true, and it was a relief to be among them. This was where he belonged. He needed to remember that amid the dizzying pleasures of Wednesdays and their relentless assault on everything he held dear.

Not that he disliked arguing with Dom. Arguing with Dom was damn near as good as fucking him. When those dark eyes narrowed in thought, when he bent that formidable determination to confront Silas’s beliefs—not to ignore or dismiss, but to take them on at equal value, so that the pull of his attention became a physical thing—then Silas understood what it was to be important. He mattered, and not for what he could do to Dom’s body either. Dom cared what he thought, and that was sweeter than the Tokay, and more intoxicating too.

No wonder the gentry would fight to the death to keep their privileges. Silas might himself, after a taste of what it was to count.

But he wouldn’t forget who he was, and he wouldn’t give up the struggle in the face of a new wave of reactionary tyranny.

“I don’t like it,” Brunt growled. He was a cadaverous man, hungry looking—wasn’t everyone?—with sallow skin, lank black hair, and deep-set eyes, reminding Silas irresistibly of the creature in Frankenstein. “They’ll come for us. Blood-drinking bastards that they are.”

“What about your shop, Mason?” Davidson asked. “Any more trouble there?”

“Another visit, couple of weeks back. Just looking, this time. They’re still sniffing around for the press. Like I’d move it back for their finding.”

“Wise man,” Edwards said with a smile. “I hope wherever you’re printing they’re our people? There are too many turncoats.”

“Aye, safe enough.” Silas had no intention of saying more. Someone had informed on him, Dom had said after the first raid, and that was no surprise. The Home Office and the Runners used informants and spies without shame. He trusted everyone around him, but as Euphemia Gordon used to say, Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

This discussion progressed as they always did. Bitter anger, today about the six bills moving inexorably through Parliament. Coarse jests at the government’s expense. Brunt, who fancied himself a poet, read a satirical ballad of his own composition on how Lord Liverpool’s government schemed to plunder and starve the country; Thistlewood sang a revolutionary song. More ale.

It felt so futile.

Silas thought about it pacing home. Was it the threat of the six bills, the appalling truth of how far the government would go to quell reform? Davidson had said, They’re frightened of us. They know they’re going to lose. But it had had a hollow sound. The radicals were the frightened ones, and they knew it.

You could be transported! Dom had shouted at him, as if he hadn’t thought about that.

He didn’t think that was why it felt futile, though. He was used to being afraid, and to not giving up in the face of fear. He was used to digging in grimly when times were bad. He wasn’t used to wondering if, in truth, there was any point to it.

Perhaps it was Dom. Perhaps a man couldn’t share a bed with a Tory and walk away with his principles intact. Or perhaps he could if the Tory was the gluttonous, reactionary swine depicted in the popular press. Not intelligent, questioning, thoughtful Dominic.

Silas wouldn’t change his views in the face of flogging or transportation, but he had a terrible feeling that caring had sapped his will.

That’s what we’re asking for, he reminded himself. A voice. If we could speak in Parliament as I speak to Dom, if they’d but listen to us as he does to me…

Ha. That was utopian beyond anything Spence had dreamed up. Silas stuck his icy hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders against the cold, and walked home alone.

—

He got to Millay’s far too early the next Wednesday. Zoë insisted on taking him into the kitchen for a mug of tea rather than have him kicking about the house.

“In a hurry for your appointment?” she asked.

“You watch yourself, minx. How’s young Peter?”

“A stubborn, pigheaded little brute, just like his godfather. Don’t change the subject, Silas Mason. You’re not going to hit my handsome Tory today, are you?”

“Since when’s he yours?”

Zoë laughed, her ample bosom quivering in the low-cut gown. “He’s my best customer. Tips like a king, never makes extra work, and oh, those pretty eyelashes.” She fluttered her own. “They’re wasted on a man. Or maybe you don’t think so?”