A Seditious Affair(77)

“I don’t call for murder,” Silas said. “What I want is to see people rule themselves, not be ruled, and for that they need teaching, and they need a voice. And if men, and women too, don’t want to rule themselves, well, let them say that. Let them who want chains stay in them, but they should have the choice. And you know why your lot won’t give us that choice, why you’d rather take away all those ancient British liberties you’re so strong on than listen to the people?” He jabbed a finger at Dominic’s shoulder. “Because you know damn well you’d find that even the men who want masters want different masters. Better ones. Ones that don’t just leave people to starve—”

“One minute you want liberty; the next you demand that the government take charge of the bread on every man’s plate.”

“Are you telling me this government rules in anyone’s interests but its own?” Silas retorted. “You say the people want good rulers. Starving in the fields and being ridden down in the streets, that’s good? What are we supposed to do about it, ask polite-like and wait for your convenience?”

Dominic set his teeth. He hadn’t meant to start an argument, but they were both on edge, which always made Silas aggressive, and the last thing Dominic wanted to do was discuss why.

“Mason,” he said, holding up his hands.

Silas blinked, the anger on his face warring with a smile, reluctant but there. “Giving up? Too much, is it?”

“Enough! Or too much.” It was a line of Blake’s, and now the smile reached Silas’s eyes. “I am generally delighted to wrangle with you, but not tonight. There are other things I want to discuss, and—ah, tempers are too high. You radicals have pushed too hard, and my government has pushed too hard back, or perhaps it is the other way around, but I don’t like where any of it is going.”

“I’ll agree with that.”

“Then let us not bring it in here. We always said each would keep to his own principles—my duties, your ideals. We don’t ask each other to change them. And when I suggest you ignore your radical friends and lay down your arms, it’s because…” He traced a finger over the side of Silas’s face, the lines around his eyes. “Because I care about you, my beloved brute, and you’re so tired.”

Silas shut his eyes. “Dom…” It sounded stifled.

“Stay with me,” Dominic said. “We’ll eat, talk, or not talk. But be with me tonight.”

Silas nodded. They dressed in silence, the tension slackened a little, but Dominic felt a note of something unspoken still hanging in the air. Perhaps it was just his own guilt.

He went to the privy outside to relieve himself before they dined. When he came back to the room, the bed was a litter of yesterday’s newspapers, haphazardly flung around, and Silas was gone.

—

Silas ran up Swallow Street as though the devil were at his heels. It wasn’t the broadest or best lit street, but that meant fewer watched, less chance of being stopped, and he couldn’t be stopped now. It was probably too late already.

The cold bit at his lungs, and Dominic’s greatcoat was tight on his shoulders. He shouldn’t have taken it, but it had been right there, whereas getting the coat Harry had bought him would have meant a search through the rambling corridors of Quex’s to find the room he’d slept in. He couldn’t afford the time.

Dominic had known something was up. The panic when he’d arrived, the stress in his eyes. I don’t like where any of it is going.

Nor did Silas, not one little bit.

Dominic had gone to the jakes, and Silas, nervy and fretful with what he knew and couldn’t say, had picked up one of yesterday’s newspapers. The London Gazette, as it happened, since it was the first to hand. He’d done his best all afternoon not to think of the Spenceans and their damn fool plan to attack the cabinet dinner, but once he could no longer drive it out of his mind with reading and fucking, as the clock ticked, the thought had been impossible to repress. Would it come off? Could they succeed at all? How bad would it be if they failed?

There was nothing he could do, not to stop them, not to help them, but the tension was killing him. So he’d picked up the paper, with a vague urge to read the announcement of the Earl of Harrowby’s dinner over again, as if he’d learn anything new.

It wasn’t there. There was no announcement of the dinner in the notices.

That had just been tiresome. When he couldn’t find it in The Times, he was confused. Then it wasn’t in The Morning Post either, and at that point, Silas felt fear send its icy trickle down his spine.