An Unnatural Vice (Sins of the Cities, #2)

by K.J. Charles

He closed his eyes, tilting his head back to expose his throat, a priestly action that had a wholly secular effect on Nathaniel.

Justin Lazarus was without question a disgraceful fraud, but as his lips moved in silent prayer, Nathaniel could not help the thought that he looked like a glorious fuck.

“Fear,” Nathaniel repeated. Lazarus looked at him, his eyes slightly, unnervingly unfocused. “You’re not a man who believes easily. You doubt. You don’t have faith, but you knew it once, and I think you feel the void it has left, in a world that you perceive to be without God or soul.” There was a small gasp from someone. “I think you’re alone, very alone, and I think the only thing more frightening than to believe you are alone forever is to consider that perhaps, after all, you are not.”

Nathaniel wondered what it would take to make Clem think ill of anyone. One would probably have to hold him at gunpoint.

I’d like you to consider one question, please. I don’t ask you to answer me; in fact, I ask you not to. But you will have to answer it to yourself, and honestly.” The sheer gall of the wretch, exhorting a gentleman to honesty. “Go on.” “You’ve come here at the cost of a guinea when your own time is evidently worth something, on a filthy night,” Lazarus said. “I don’t think you’ve done that out of an urge to tell me you don’t believe in me. I think there is something you need. You may not want to believe that. I suspect you have persuaded yourself there’s a completely different reason. But you have come here all the same in the hope I can give you what you want.” His eyes were fixed on Nathaniel’s face, his voice murmuring. Mesmeric. Seductive. “You know what you came here for. Let me serve you.”

Now, think of what you want to know, or find. In one word, please. A name, a thing, an idea, a longing. Look at the void in your soul, Mr. Royston, the thing you’ve come to me to seek. I won’t ask to see it, but you must know what it is. Whatever it is, reduce it in your mind to one word. The thing you want, or lack, or fear. Focus on that. Bring it down to a single word in your mind.

He looked like the sin of angels, like the sweetest fruit at the goblin market, and Nathaniel despised everything about him.

Anyway, Desmond’s a miserable old clutchfist and Phineas is a dreadful piece of work, and you and I are both thoroughly out in the cold now. So if Nathaniel can do nothing more than spoil their fun, I say it’s worth doing.”

Just as two practical, professional men whose interests coincided and who might be able to do one another a good turn. A quiet chat with Nathaniel Roy. That would be a perfectly reasonable move.

He wanted Lazarus, and—the true danger here—he wanted to believe Lazarus was worth wanting.

Justin gave a short laugh. “Words you can agree with, that’s all. That and observation. I couldn’t tell a heart line from a train line.” “Words I agree with,” Nathaniel repeated. “I said, you are not a man who passes by on the other side of the road without concern. Think about it. That could mean you give half your income to the poor; it could apply if you have never dropped a penny in a beggar’s hands, so long as you notice them. And frankly, if you don’t notice, you’re all the more likely to believe you do. There’s not a man or woman alive who’d argue with that statement. It feeds your self-esteem, it tells you you’re a good man, it gives no fact for you to disagree with. I dare say you’ve already imagined a half dozen incidents to which I might be referring, and with a little work, you’d end up believing I told you what they were.”

“Don’t trust me when I flatter you,” Justin said. “You want to believe me when I flatter you, and that makes you—anyone—easy to manipulate.” “But what you said.” Nathaniel sounded as though he spoke with difficulty. “About wishes and best interests—” He paused. “Could apply to anyone.” “Couldn’t it just. What I said was that you’d like to do what you want, and sometimes you do, and sometimes you don’t. And I told you that if you don’t it’s because you’re sensible or caring, and if you do it’s because you’re brave. Flattery again, flattery and ambiguity. Tailored for you, naturally, but the reason you think I’m right is I haven’t given you anything you can point at and say, ‘That’s wrong.’ ”

Nathaniel was watching him. “All right. I hear you. Sit down.” “You don’t hear me,” Justin said. He felt, suddenly, very weary. “It must be wonderful if you can afford to do the right things. I can’t, so I’m going to carry on being petty and contemptible for money.

Would you care for a walk later?” “A walk?” “It’s a thing with legs one does in the country,”

“I can imagine,” Nathaniel said. “That’s when it’s unbearable, you see. When the storm recedes and you can think clearly again, and you realise that now you have to live out the rest of your life without them, that everything’s changed and it can never be mended. That’s when it’s hard.”

“Hell’s teeth,” Nathaniel gasped. “If I’d known seances led to this—” Justin withdrew enough to speak. “Tell you what, my spirit guide’s a fucking tart.”

Everyone divided the world into us and them, the people for whom one cared and fought, and the people whose interests one might disregard. One’s family, of course, or the friends so close as to be family, and then expanding circles of care and duty. Some looked out for the interests of their own neighbours, their class and society and damn the rest; some extended their duty of care to entire professions. Some fought for larger groups: the children of London, the poor and sick of England, an entire subcontinent.

“Oh, Christ, don’t do that,” Justin said. “Don’t try to redeem me. If I wanted someone to make me a better man, I’d find myself a woman.”

I’m not going to be the only honest man in London. I will not bend. If people are fool enough and rich enough to pay me to lie to them, that’s their choice. We all have to look after ourselves; why should I not when everyone else does? Why should Sukey or Emma have to scrub or whore for the sake of my virtue? Why should I be the one to bow the knee?” His voice was angry, defiant, threadbare. Nathaniel wanted to shake him. “Look at yourself, man. You are on your knees; does it make it any better that you put yourself there?” “Yes,” Justin said. “And you wouldn’t ask that if you’d tried the other.”

I can’t remember the words you used, but what you told me was that the only thing more frightening than despair was the prospect of hope. You said that to me. And I have frequently observed that a good way to find out what a man fears in himself is to see what he attacks in others.”

“I wish you understood I don’t want someone else.” There was gravel in Nathaniel’s voice. “I wish you understood that it’s not who you are that bothers me, but what you do, and those things are not the same.” “Yes, they are. What we mean or think or say is hot air, at most.” Justin’s breath steamed as he spoke. “We are what we do. There isn’t anything else.” “There’s potential,” Nathaniel said. “There is what we could do, if we chose. I see the man you could be because it’s part of the man you are. I don’t ask you to change anything for my sake, but I wish you would do it for your own, because I think you will tear yourself apart if you don’t.

the strength that was even strong enough to bend.