It had started to rain as Jay and Sebastian made the drive back from York, and continued to do so on and off into the next day.
Sebastian fed another log from the cottage’s ample store into the wood-burning stove. Jay was bundled up in an oversized jumper that looked suspiciously like one of Sebastian’s; he’d stretched out on the sofa, computer resting on his stomach as he paged through local buy and sell listings, looking for anyone getting rid of an old, chunky laptop.
He bent his knees to make room as Sebastian moved back to sit at the end of the sofa, then dropped his feet into Sebastian’s lap. Sebastian wrapped a hand around Jay’s ankle, fingers slipping under his sock to touch skin. There was a little ridge of scar tissue along the back of Jay’s heel.
Scattered across the coffee table were a few pieces of equipment Jay had dug out of his luggage. Among them was what looked, to all casual observers, like a normal ballpoint pen; it was only once Sebastian picked it up and examined it closely that he spotted the tiny camera lens hidden along the top, at the base of the clip. “Very James Bond, this.”
“You can get them online for, like, thirty quid.” Jay raised an eyebrow at him over the edge of his laptop. “You weren’t using those in the SAS?”
Sebastian shrugged and set the pen camera down again. “All that stuff was for the spooks. By the time the Regiment was involved, the situation was usually more … aggressive.” He settled back into the sofa. “You said this necklace we’re after is from India?”
“The stones are,” Jay explained. “A baronet called Roger Wentworth brought them back to England in the 1800s, although I can’t figure out how he got them.”
“Probably looted them,” Sebastian guessed. “Or they were a bribe.”
“Either way, Wentworth had them made into a necklace as a present for his wife,” Jay went on. “It’s been in the family ever since, although it’s usually kept in a vault down in London.” He took a moment to turn his laptop around, showing Sebastian a photo. The latest holder of the baronetcy, Philip Wentworth—somewhere in his forties or fifties—stood at a wedding altar with a much younger woman. “The current baronet just got married, though. He’s eager to show off the new wife—they’re going to be at the Bambreich Hunt Ball this week.”
“And Wentworth brought the necklace out of storage for her to wear,” Sebastian guessed. A grin crept across his face. “Are we going to a ball?”
“I’ve got our tickets already.” Jay rolled his eyes. “Because you can just buy tickets to these things, it turns out.”
“Not all of them,” Sebastian said. “The big hunt ball down in Lincolnshire is more exclusive—that’s the one the royals tend to show up to.”
Jay muttered something incoherently derogatory about southerners.
Sebastian’s grin widened. “Since when is Lincolnshire in the South?”
With a flat glare, utterly serious, Jay said, “Everything south of the Tyne is the South.”
“Jay, we’re south of the Tyne right now.”
“I said what I said.”
Suspecting he wasn’t about to win this debate, Sebastian changed the subject. “Hunt ball dress code is usually black tie,” he said. “You’ll need to rent a tux.”
“I brought a suit,” Jay replied, without looking up from his laptop.
“No, an actual tuxedo,” Sebastian insisted. “And yes, there is a difference.”
Jay made an annoyed noise. “How come I’m renting a tux and you’re not?”
“I brought mine.”
Jay lowered the laptop lid and gave Sebastian an incredulous look. “You brought a tuxedo? Here?”
“You didn’t tell me where we were going,” Sebastian said. “I wanted to be prepared.”
Jay’s phone, resting on the coffee table, beeped loudly. Jay grumbled and stretched off the sofa to grab it.
“All right,” Sebastian said, curiosity and annoyance finally getting the better of him, “what is that?”
Jay blinked at him. “What?”
“That.” Sebastian gestured to Jay’s phone. “Your phone keeps going off, and it’s something important, because you check every time.” A horrible thought occurred to him. “Is something wrong? Back in London?”
Jay stared at him for a long moment, chewing his lip. His voice was oddly small when he finally said, “You weren’t eating.”
It was a baffling response, and it took Sebastian a few seconds to realise what Jay was talking about. Looking back on it, his appetite certainly hadn’t been what it was. He’d skipped more than a few meals in the first days after his encounter with Collier—until Jay had practically moved in with him.
“You always make yourself eat if I’m eating too,” Jay explained. “Thing is, I’m … not good at remembering to eat. So I set a reminder on my phone, and—”
The rest of the sentence dissolved into a yelp as Sebastian lunged up the length of the sofa, carefully shoving the laptop out of the way and onto the floor, covering Jay’s body with his own and crushing their lips together.
Sebastian couldn’t tell if the wrenching noises coming out of him were laughs or sobs.
The Bambreich Hunt Ball was held at Whashton Hall: an eighteenth-century stately home that had, in recent years, been bought by a property developer and renovated into an event venue. Most of the estate’s two dozen bedrooms were converted to guest rooms, one of which Jay had booked for himself and Sebastian.
Sebastian made his way through the manor’s halls in just his trousers and shirt, his collar unbuttoned, hair still a little damp from the shower. Jay’s laptop bag hung off his shoulder. Around him, the venue’s staff hurried to make sure everything was ready for the ball; the manager’s polite smile when Sebastian pulled him aside was more than a bit strained, flustered as he was by both the interruption and Sebastian’s half-dressed state.
“My partner is worried about leaving his laptop in the room.” Sebastian gestured to the bag and rolled his eyes, as if he found this concern adorably overblown. “Do you have a safe or a vault or something?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” the manager replied, eager to get Sebastian out of his hair.
He led the way downstairs, where part of the house’s cellar had been walled off into a safe room secured with a heavy bolted door. It had a mechanical combination lock, and the manager was careful to block Sebastian’s view with his own body as he dialled in the numbers and hauled it open.
Inside, the walls of the safe room were lined with sturdy metal lockers. As the manager opened one up, Sebastian reached into the bag and pulled out the laptop Jay had bought off a retired builder in Middlesbrough. He placed it in the locker, and the manager shut the door, pulling the key from the lock and handing it to Sebastian.
On their way out, Sebastian deliberately attempted to pass through the door at the same time as the manager. In the minor collision that ensued, Sebastian slipped the pen camera into the manager’s breast pocket.
As the manager hurried back to his duties, Sebastian ambled back upstairs.
The guest rooms were a confused mix of continental and contemporary styles; the one Jay had booked included a four-poster bed with a wrought iron frame, its pale pastel bedclothes a perfect match to the rest of the decor. Sebastian’s jacket and tie were laid out on the bed, next to the tuxedo Jay had rented. Jay himself wasn’t in evidence, but the bathroom door was closed and Sebastian could hear the shower running.
Sebastian opened the front pocket of his suitcase, looking for a pair of cufflinks, and instead found a strip of neatly-coiled black leather.
The night Jay first put the collar on him, Sebastian had assumed Jay would want to keep it with him—probably in that drawer at the bottom of his dresser, with his hoard of toys and other little accessories. But the morning after, when Sebastian tried to hand it off, Jay had shaken his head.
“It’s yours,” he’d said, simply, and Sebastian couldn’t really argue otherwise.
He ran his fingers over the collar, feeling the pores in the leather, the raised lines of the stitching, the cool metal of the grommets and buckle. It had a faint, rich smell that Sebastian knew from experience would intensify when the leather was warmed by the heat of his body. For such a small thing, it felt heavier than it actually was—more real and tangible than anything else in the room.
When Jay had hired a car and told Sebastian to pack a bag, Sebastian had thrown the collar into his suitcase before he could talk himself out of it. He wasn’t even sure he’d want to wear it, but having it with him felt … necessary.
Even holding the collar in his hand brought with it a sense of peace. It meant he was cared for, held. That he belonged to someone—a man who had killed for him, and was now pestering himself with his own phone to make sure he ate properly.
Beneath the collar, Sebastian found the small box containing his silver cufflinks. He brought both with him as he moved back to the bed.
The ball was held under a marquee, out on the estate grounds. Inside, row upon row of dinner tables were neatly arranged with enough room for a dance floor, where a string quartet played on a low stage.
Sebastian and Jay arrived a few minutes into the cocktail hour; the other guests milled around them, chatting loudly. The men wore either tuxedos or the distinctive red jackets of formal hunting dress. The women were all in ballgowns, although most of them had opted for sensible shoes or, in a few cases, mud-spattered wellies; nobody with any sense risked their designer pumps walking across a field in Yorkshire in November.
High society in the country was notoriously insular; everyone here knew each other already, and had come here specifically to see each other. Even Sebastian, normally rather conspicuous at events like this, went largely unacknowledged as he and Jay lurked near the end of the bar.
Sebastian was quite enjoying Jay in a tux, even if it was a rental. The high collar and crisp black jacket gave him a commanding air that made Sebastian want to kneel at his feet—a thing he absolutely shouldn’t be doing right now. He looked away and scanned the crowd, spotting Sir Philip Wentworth as he approached the bar. Next to him, Lady Wentworth’s low-cut ballgown showed off the brilliant array of emeralds strung about her neck.
She really was quite young for him, although Sebastian was hardly in a position to judge.
From within the crowd, a familiar voice called out, “Eloise!”
The man approaching the couple wore an expensive tuxedo and a bad haircut; he was maybe about thirty, but carried himself with a domineering air Sebastian would expect from someone much older. Sebastian didn’t know his face, but he’d heard the man’s voice on the radio.
“Reg!” Lady Wentworth turned to her husband. “Darling, you remember Reginald Bailey—Lord Sedley’s grandson.”
“On my mother’s side,” Bailey added, with a brittle smile. “No title for me, I’m afraid.”
“Bailey,” Sir Philip ground out, clearly annoyed by the intrusion. “I thought you were out of the country.”
“Oh, the summit in Brussels isn’t until next week,” Bailey replied, either oblivious to or deliberately ignoring the hostility coming his way.
Before Sebastian could eavesdrop any further, the master of ceremonies stepped up to the microphone and encouraged everyone to take their seats for dinner.
Most everyone of importance had brought their friends to the ball and booked out whole tables. Superfluous couples, like Jay and Sebastian, were relegated to tables made up of other, smaller groups—in this case, a handful of silver-haired, bearded men who seemed to be old hunting mates. They immediately closed ranks to chat about the past season, completely oblivious to anyone else’s presence.
As the servers began distributing the first course, Jay said, “It’s a bit Jane Austen, isn’t it?”
Sebastian shrugged. “Same general principle as back then. These things are mostly an excuse for old toffs to gossip while their kids get drunk and shag each other.”
Any meal made for hundreds of people at the same time was generally quite bad; tonight’s dinner was no exception, featuring an exceptionally dry roast beef. The old hunters at their table largely ignored it, instead devouring an implausible number of sausage rolls they’d smuggled in their pockets.
Then dinner was cleared away, and just about every guest under the age of forty immediately got up and began to file out.
Jay, watching the procession, asked, “Where are they going?”
“Disco tent,” Sebastian explained. “The dancing in here isn’t going to be nearly as much fun.” Their current position gave them a poor view of Sir Philip and Lady Wentworth; Sebastian angled his head toward the bar and stood. “Come on.”
Jay joined him as he made for the bar, which offered a much better vantage as Lady Wentworth attempted to get her husband onto the dance floor. He shrugged her off and remained stubbornly in his seat, chatting to the other men at his table.
“There’s my cue,” Sebastian said, and Jay nodded.
Lady Wentworth gave Sebastian an appraising look as he approached—one her husband failed to note.
“My boyfriend doesn’t dance,” Sebastian said, with a glance to where Jay was still leaning against the bar. He offered Lady Wentworth his hand. “Would you indulge me?”
“Of course,” Lady Wentworth replied, and took Sebastian’s hand as he led her out onto the dance floor.
There were four girls’ schools within the general vicinity of the Eton campus, and so Sebastian had plenty of experience dancing with women. He was, frequently, one of the few among his schoolmates who would accommodate the girls’ interest in ballroom dancing; the other boys usually preferred to grind on them instead.
The string quartet launched into a sedate waltz, as befitting the age and energy level of the room, and Sebastian spun Lady Wentworth gracefully across the floor. He spared a glance in her husband’s direction; he was still chatting away with his mates, with no interest in what was happening on the dance floor.
Jay, meanwhile, was watching them intently. There was a dark expression on his face—jealousy, perhaps. Completely irrational, as Sebastian had no interest in Lady Wentworth or any other woman, but the intensity of Jay’s gaze set something smouldering low in Sebastian’s belly.
He knocked his foot decisively into the heel of Lady Wentworth’s shoe; her balance slipped, and she toppled dramatically to the floor.
A gasp went up among the other guests; a few of them gathered around Sebastian as he crouched over Lady Wentworth, making a show of how flustered and apologetic he was. His hand, resting between her shoulders, drifted up to the back of her neck. He caught the clasp of the necklace between his thumb and forefinger and twitched it open; his other hand pressed against the base of her throat, bracing her as he helped her to her feet.
When he stepped away, it was with the necklace hidden in his palm.
Jay appeared at Sebastian’s shoulder. “Everything all right?”
“Just an accident,” Sebastian replied, and slipped the necklace into Jay’s pocket.
Several of the surrounding guests were shoved out of the way as Sir Philip finally arrived. “What’s going on?” His gaze immediately settled on Lady Wentworth’s chest. “Where’s the necklace?”
Lady Wentworth’s hand went to her throat, only now noticing that the jewels were gone, and Jay sidled quickly behind Sebastian.
“Nobody move!” Sir Philip bellowed. He pointed to the nearest member of staff—one of the servers. “You! Go and get the manager. I want this place locked down until—”
“Is this it?” Jay called from the back of the crowd.
He was standing by one of the tables; he’d pulled up its white skirt to reveal the necklace lying on the floor, looking for all the world as if it had fallen off and been kicked across the room.
There was a long, awkward silence before Sir Philip stormed over, snatching the necklace up off the ground.
By this point, enough of a fuss had been raised that the venue’s manager was on his way over. “Is everything all right, sir?”
“No, it’s not.” Sir Philip brandished the necklace in one hand. “I want this locked up in the vault, immediately.”
“Of course, sir,” the manager said quickly, ushering Sir Philip toward the exit. “Right this way.”
It was a few minutes before Wentworth reappeared. The manager wasn’t far behind, and Jay was pleased to note he still had the pen camera tucked into his breast pocket.
By this point in the evening everyone was several rounds in; the noise level under the marquee had risen to a dull roar. “Come on,” Sebastian said, leaning close to Jay’s ear, warm breath washing over his neck. “I need a smoke.”
Sebastian made sure to brush past the manager on their way out. As they circled around to a small copse of trees not far from the tent, he passed Jay the pen camera.
A few other smokers were gathered in loose groups, chatting loudly. Thumping bass and piercing laughter from the disco tent, about a hundred yards away, indicated the debauchery within was well underway. A few giggles emanated from deeper within the brush, and a few couples could be seen sneaking across the grounds.
As Sebastian lit a cigarette, Jay flipped open the data port on the pen camera and ran a cable from his phone to access its internal memory. A quick binary search brought him to a point in the video where the manager was standing in front of the safe room.
Sebastian snuck a hand up the back of Jay’s jacket, stroking the dip of his waist through his shirt.
The manager unlocked the vault door and stepped inside; there was no audio, but Jay caught occasional glimpses of Wentworth in the periphery. When the manager opened one of the unclaimed lockers, Wentworth placed the necklace inside.
Jay clipped the video down to the relevant footage and saved it, tucking his phone away as Sebastian’s fingers began teasing at his waistband. “Enjoying yourself?” he said, giving Sebastian a sidelong look.
“Oh, yes,” Sebastian replied. He stubbed out his cigarette, tossed it away, and bent to nibble along Jay’s jaw.
Jay tipped his head back with a soft sigh, letting Sebastian neck him for a bit before he pulled away and pressed a brief, teasing kiss to Sebastian’s mouth.
Nobody gave them a second glance as they hurried back toward the house.
Most of the staff and guests were still caught up in the ball, out on the grounds, and so the house was nearly empty. It was painfully easy to slip downstairs into the cellar, and Jay pulled up the video from the pen camera.
From its place in the manager’s breast pocket, the camera was ideally positioned to capture every turn of the dial as he opened the door to the safe room. Jay read off the numbers, and Sebastian dialled in the combination.
There was a thunk as the bolts retracted; Sebastian pulled the door open. “What’s the locker number?”
Jay checked the video. “Twelve.”
Sebastian located locker twelve and pulled out his picks, selecting a rake from the set—it wouldn’t matter much whether anyone could tell the lock had been picked. The vault door was clearly intended to be the room’s primary line of defence, as the lock opened easily with a bit of jiggling.
Plucking the necklace from Wentworth’s locker, Sebastian handed it off to Jay and pulled out the key to their own. He retrieved the laptop inside and cracked open the back panel; Jay had removed all the screws holding it in place. He’d also stripped out nearly every component within the laptop’s plastic case, leaving more than enough room to hide the necklace inside.
When they checked out tomorrow morning, taking the laptop with them, the authorities would be scouring the countryside for the necklace. Nobody would suspect it had been in the vault the entire time.
Sebastian closed up the locker and safe room, and together he and Jay slipped back upstairs. The manor was still functionally empty, and the route to their room was clear—until the manager appeared at the end of the corridor, heading for his office.
Grabbing Jay by the lapels, Sebastian steered them both into the wall and slammed his mouth hungrily over Jay’s.
Jay responded with a quiet grunt as his back hit the wall, but—aware they had an audience—kissed back with enthusiasm, licking into Sebastian’s mouth, clawing at his shirt to pull him closer.
There was something under Sebastian’s collar—something firm and heavy, wrapped around his neck. Jay made a noise of confusion into the kiss; then his fingers brushed the unmistakable shape of a metal buckle, and he realised what the thing under Sebastian’s shirt had to be.
He broke away with a sharp gasp, staring up into Sebastian’s wicked grin.
The moment was shattered by the sound of someone clearing their throat. The manager stood a few feet away, thoroughly unimpressed.
“Sorry,” Sebastian offered, with an appropriately sheepish smile. “Got a bit carried away.”
Jay avoided the manager’s eyes, grabbing Sebastian by the wrist and hauling him back to their room.
Chapter 5 of “Moriarty & Moran’s North Yorkshire Crime Spree” will be published on June 1! To get it delivered directly to your inbox, subscribe here:
… And if that’s too long to wait, you can also get the completed story as an ebook.
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