Page 11 of An Earl's Bet
“Yes.”Lord Horden glanced around the room.
“Are you expecting someone?”
“Surely you recall that I had several guests for dinner last night.At some point they will wish to break their fast as well.”
Earnest rolled his eyes.Who cared if they ate breakfast?
“You shouldn’t be sitting so close to me.”
“Are you nervous?No one will care.”
Lord Horden’s brown cheeks paled and he glanced down.“What we did was illegal.No one can know.”
Earnest leaned back in his chair.“Bosh.It wasn’t.”
“It was.”
He rolled his eyes.“For a Lord, you have a poor understanding of the law.”
“Excuse me.”The colour was back in Horden’s face as he sat up straight with his arms folded.Unfortunately his jacket hid his impressive chest muscles but Earnest had seen enough now to imagine them squeezed together by his forearms.He blinked and refocused on the discussion, because it wasn’t often that he had the opportunity to educate an Earl.Basically never, so this was a brand-new and exciting experience for him.
“It’s a common misunderstanding about the sodomy laws.It’s the act of sodomy that is specifically outlawed, not the rest of it.I could kiss you in Almack’s and there is nothing the law could do about it.”
“No?”
“Obviously, we’d both risk being blackmailed if I did such a thing, but yes, it’s not against the law.And for someone like you, even if you were caught in the act of sodomy with the required two witnesses, you’d only be fined by the court.I would likely get transported.”He shuddered.The antipodes were no place for a delicate poet like himself.
“I thought hanging was the punishment?”Horden’s gaze flicked to the door and back several times.
“Only for repeat offenders who are lower class.”
“How can you talk so freely about this?”
Earnest shrugged.“Talking is important.The reason people get away with believing the wrong information is because no one talks about it or only the people who want you to believe mistruths talk about it.I’m not saying that I am not careful, of course...”He knew that if he kissed someone—Horden—in Almack’s, he’d be opening himself for the very real possibility of being blackmailed by people who liked to use the threat of being ‘witnesses’ to sodomy as a reason to get money from people.Luckily he was a poet and had no money.“Why should I hide who I am because it’s associated with a bad law?”
Horden blinked several times.“A bad law.”
“Come on, Mister Lord Who Sits In Parliament, there are several bad laws, like the one that says only peers can vote, or that women can’t own property, or...”
“That slavery exists, and people can profit from owning others.”
“Yes.You see.Just because something is the law doesn’t make it right.”
Horden gulped.“Are you a radical?”
Earnest recalled that Horden had asked him this once before, and he wasn’t inclined to answer this time either.Some things truly weren’t safe.The sedition laws scared Earnest more than the sodomy laws.“I’m a poet.”As if that explained everything.
Horden looked all around him, his gaze hovering nervously on the door.“Can I tell you a secret?”
“Sure.”Earnest wanted to cheer for this secret, whatever it was.Surely this meant it was love between them if they were sharing secrets?Or maybe he’d leaped too fast?Again.He wanted to leap.When combined with great sex, learning about someone and what they secretly adored was his favourite thing about falling in love.
“I think I’m a radical.”
Earnest held his breath, suddenly realising he needed to tread carefully.Horden wasn’t like his artistic friends who talked frequently about radical concepts in private safe spaces.This was a man who’d been raised to be an Earl, whose peers likely bullied him into keeping the system as it was.
“Why do you say that?”
Lord Horden glared.“Look at me, Sir Pashley.The line of the Earldom is completely English, except for my mother’s mother who came to England from the Africas.”