Free Cry for Passion by Robin Schone Page A

twenty-fourth of May. Did you resign so you could go against Whitcox in the civil suit?”
    Jack’s heels hollowly corroborated: “I have nothing to say.”
    “Is there a rivalry between you and Whitcox?”
    “I have nothing to say,” Jack repeated, gaze trained forward.
    “How did you vote today in the act for Greffen?”
    It was a matter of public record.
    “I voted against it,” Jack said.
    “Why?” nipped his heels.
    “The law did not support it,” Jack said.
    “Mr. Prime Minister,” rippled inside the Central Hall.
    Jack exited the West door underneath the blind justice of royals.
    The reporter for The Pall Mall Gazette did not follow; he had bigger fish to pursue.
    Jack entered St. Stephen’s Hall and walked between the dead, clicking footsteps ricocheting off encaustic tile and stained glass.
    Marble eyes bored into him.
    He knew the name of each life-sized statue. He knew the legacy of each man.
    Selden. Hampden. Lord Falkland. Lord Clarendon. Lord Somers. Sir Robert Walpole. Lord Chatham. Lord Mansfield. Burke. Fox. Pitt. Graham.
    The Descriptive Account of the Palace of Westminster described them as “men to whom England owes her gratitude for their patriotism and public virtue.”
    Jack had read the booklet when he had been twenty-four years old. Jack had walked between the statues as a fellow MP at the age of thirty-four.
    He had been one year older, Jack reflected, than what Rose Clarring’s husband was now.
    Jack pushed through heavy doors.
    Rose Clarring leaned against a lamppost, face turned up to the dying sun.
    Jack paused, cock flexing in recognition.
    A mechanical clank pierced the monotonous grind of carriage wheels, a warning precursor: The three-quarter bells struck.
    Rose Clarring’s head jerked, gaze fixing on the three-hundred-and-fifteen-foot-tall clock tower that dominated the northwestern sky.
    The wonder that illuminated her face, listening up close to the bells that could be heard throughout London, fisted inside his chest.
    This woman wanted to experience passion. But Parliament did not recognize passion.
    Letting go of the heavy door, Jack crossed the pavement, pigeons scattering, footsteps drowned by the deafening clamor of the Westminster Chimes. Inhaling the clean scent of springtime roses, Jack grasped her wool-padded elbow on the fourth refrain.
    Cornflower blue eyes shadowed by pending night turned up to his. Inside their depths was the knowledge of his sexuality.
    The testicles he had squeezed. The cock he had fucked.
    The woman he had loved.
    “It’s very beautiful here,” carried over the clear strike of a bell.
    The warmth of her skin leaked into Jack’s fingers. “Yes.”
    He had once thought so.
    “You were drinking last night, before . . .” Her voice trailed off. Elbow tensing, she asked, “Do you at all remember . . . ?”
    Heat licked Jack’s cheeks and lapped a trail down to his cock. “Yes.”
    He remembered every word she had spoken. Every flicker of shadow inside her eyes, first watching him undress, and then watching him fondle his flesh.
    “Did Mrs. Whitcox love you?”
    The lingering quiver of a Westminster chime died. The singsong whine of carriage wheels permeated St. Stephen’s Circle.
    “Is that why you came to the Houses of Parliament,” Jack asked, voice remote, devoid of the emotion she elicited, “to enquire about my former lover?”
    “I didn’t know where else to find you.” Uncertainty wiped clean the sexual awareness inside her gaze. “Is this not a good time?”
    No woman had ever met Jack outside the Houses of Parliament: The raw vulnerability he had felt inside her drawing room—dressing in cold, wrinkled clothing and cleaning up his ejaculate—crawled up his spine.
    “We generally break for supper around eight,” Jack said neutrally.
    “You said you’d consider representation if I demonstrated that a woman’s passion is worth a man’s reputation.”
    Behind Jack, sharp footsteps and excited voices pierced the