“I’m ruined, John! Ruined . . . dear God . . . you must help me, tell me what to do . . .” Eddy gripped Lachley’s hands in desperation and panic. “I am undone! He can’t be allowed to do this, you know what will become of me! Someone must stop him! If my grandmother should find out—dear Lord, she can’t ever find out, it would destroy her good name, bring such shame on the whole family . . . my God, the whole government might go, you know what the situation is, John, you’ve told me yourself about it, the Fenians, the labor riots, what am I to do? Threats—threats!—demands for money or else ruination! Oh, God, I am destroyed, should word leak of it . . . Disgrace, prison . . . he’s gone beyond his station in life! Beyond the bounds of civilized law, beyond the protection of God, may the Devil take him!”
“Your Highness, calm yourself, please.” He pulled his hands free of Eddy’s grip and poured a second, far more generous brandy, getting it down the distraught prince’s throat. He stroked Eddy’s absurdly long neck, massaging the tension away, calmed him to the point where he could speak coherently. “Now, then, Eddy. Tell me very slowly just exactly what has happened.”
Eddy began in a shaken whisper, “You remember Morgan?”
Lachley frowned. He certainly did. Morgan was a little Welsh nancy boy from Cardiff, the star attraction of a certain high-class West End brothel right here on Cleveland Street, a boulevard as infamous for its homosexual establishments as it was famous for its talented artists, painters, and art galleries. Hard on the heels of learning that his ticket to fame and fortune and considerable political power was banging a fifteen-year-old male whore on Cleveland Street, he had drugged Eddy into a state of extreme suggestibility and sternly suggested that he break off the relationship immediately.