Nobody sucked cocks that well, but he did his best.
Afterward, they lay together in unusual quiet, until Dominic said, “When I said last time that the Six Acts had to be enforced, I didn’t mean for the good of the country. I meant…the government has to. They—we—Lord Sidmouth cannot pass draconian measures and then not apply them. That would make it appear as though those measures were unnecessary, which will not do. Especially now the king’s passing means there must be a general election.”
“Aye. I worked that out, maybe…Friday. Shouldn’t have—”
“I’m not asking for an apology,” Dominic interrupted. “Although if you would occasionally listen, it would make for a pleasant change. I wanted to make sure you understand what I was saying.”
“And I do, and what should I do about it?”
“Stop writing sedition; stop associating with seditionists. Take the work Richard offered. Leave the country. I don’t know, Silas. At the very least, avoid snares.”
“You got something in mind?”
“No. Or rather, yes, but I don’t know what, and I couldn’t tell you anyway. Oh, blast it.”
The Home Office knew of an ongoing conspiracy, was working with Bow Street, and Sidmouth himself had a finger in the pie. Of more than that, Dominic had no idea. He’d put himself at arm’s length from radical cases, ostensibly in case his friendship with Harry Vane affected his work, and to ask about them now would at best look like unprofessional gossip-mongering. At worst it might make people wonder why he was asking.
If Silas was involved in a real threat to England’s stability, Dominic had no idea what he’d do. He wanted to tell Silas plainly: There is a plot discovered. Watch out. But if he did that, he might be warning traitors. He had averted his eyes from Silas’s seditious writings, but he could not sink so far as to condone action against the country or its lawful government.
So all he could do was pray that his lover had more sense than to be involved. His forty-year-old lover who had just pressed a fight on a pair of gutter-bloods half his age and whose chest as well as face bore painful bruises because he was ready to mete out violence for what he felt right, and damn the law.
Silas was looking at him. Dominic shrugged, helpless.
“Ah, Tory. You don’t make your own path easy.”
“It’s not me making it difficult,” Dominic said with feeling.
“ ’Course it is. If you had sense, you’d be living the life with your Richard—”
“Not my Richard. Very much not.”
“Oh, aye. So wanting to have me pressed, then that offer of work…?”
“Richard will do anything for his friends,” Dominic said. “In my case, that includes offering a means by which my lover might remain safe in a time of such danger that I feel, frankly, sick with apprehension. Silas, if I begged you—”
“Don’t.” Silas’s voice was thick. “I can’t—not if you do that. Don’t.”
Dominic folded a hand, dug his nails into his palm. “You have no idea how much I want to. I want to make you give up your principles almost as much as I should like to give up mine. I’m afraid for you every day. I want you to be safe. I want you warm and fed. I want a thousand things for you that you won’t take from me.”
“I can’t.”
“I know. You can’t accept a damned thing except for the trivial matters of my heart, my soul, and my moral certainty. You’ve helped yourself to those quite freely.”
“And your arse,” Silas said. “I don’t mind taking that either. I got to stand on a level with you, Dom, or I’m nothing.”
Dominic inhaled deeply, striving for control. “Heaven preserve me from a man of principle.”
“Ah, you love it. Politics, pricks, and principle, that’s what you like most.” Silas rolled over, straddling him and not gently. Dominic grunted as the man’s weight came down on his chest, and again as Silas leaned back to cup a hand between his legs. “And it seems to me we’ve had enough of two of those.”
“If you say so. Would you like to discuss the forthcoming election?”
Silas’s face was a little more careworn, but his grin was as savage as ever, and his hand was tightening painfully. “Almost right, Tory. One letter off. And I’m going to make you work for this one.”
It wasn’t all that Dominic wanted. He wanted promises and capitulation, or at least acceptance. He wanted Silas to face the way things were instead of fighting battles that had been lost before they started, against a foe too powerful to challenge.