A review by haloblues
Any Old Diamonds by KJ Charles

4.0

I loved the flow of this. It had such vivid, beautiful descriptions -- the setting was detailed and immersive, the rooms and buildings were elaborate and gorgeously conveyed, and that's without even getting into the characters. I loved Jerry and Alec -- I felt Alec's pain at having to deceive his siblings, felt his conflict over his father and what to do about him, and felt his relief at having Jerry at his side through it all.

Details: Fixed POV (Alec's), third-person, past tense
Favourite character: Jerry
Happy ending?: Yes
Other content warnings: Miscommunication trope, parental neglect

Favourite quotes:
"He's a terrible person and he deserves something terrible to happen to him."

"Well, that's us," Lane said. "We happen to people, don't we, Jerry?"


"Consider me the antithesis of a Romish priest. I take confession, I keep your silence, but instead of absolution I give you vengeance."


"I'd rather speak to George first."

"Or is it that you'd rather put off contacting your father a little longer?"

Alec glared at him. "I dare say you're very acute, but it doesn't make you any more likeable."


"What about you?" Alec demanded. "Do you have a Mr. Hyde, or am I talking to him now?"

Crozier threw his head back and laughed. "Ha! No, the good doctor's potion wouldn't do much for me. I fear there's no virtuous do-gooder lurking within."

"You don't have a secret life as a vicar?"

"No, I'm straightforwardly disgraceful."


"And what does it mean if I tell you? That all of it is real? That it's what I am deep down?"

"That it's part of you," Crozier said. "Why should it not be? Dr. Jekyll came up with his potion to separate out his worse impulses from his better precisely because he had worse impulses. Everyone does. His tragedy came about because he tried to eliminate them."

"Whereas you think I should embrace them."

"I think you should acknowledge they exist, and then spend less time making yourself miserable about the fact that you're imperfect. Really, if you think you're flawed, you ought to spend a day with Templeton."


Crozier's fingers released Alec's chin, skimmed down his throat. "You understand that I'm not a good man, don't you?"

"Yes."

"And yet you'd put yourself in my hands anyway."


"Elegant," he said, looking Alec up and down appreciatively. "Very grand indeed. Finery suits you."

"It suits everyone."

"Not at all. Templeton in evening dress looks like a gorilla that fell into a tailor's shop."


"You want a plaything," Alec whispered.

Jerry's hands paused. "If you choose to put it like that. Do you want to be one? No thought, no will"--his thumb slid over Alec's lips, pushed in--"just responding?"

"God. Yes. Please."

"Then there we are. A match made in heaven. Oh, I will make you beg to be played with, Lord Alexander."


Jerry's brows tipped. "What are you thinking?"

"Nothing," Alec said automatically, and then, "Well. Only that it struck me, in other circumstances, if a man stood by his wife in the teeth of all opposition, and was unshakeably loyal for twenty years at great personal cost, we'd praise it as the height of marital love."

"Touching," Jerry said, with absolutely no sincerity. "I'll send a bouquet. Now, are you going to ingratiate yourself with them so I can rob them?"


In fact, Jerry was like nobody else he'd ever known, and Alec would have counted himself absurdly fortunate if all they'd had was the companionship and the fucking. But when the mask slipped, revealing the man underneath; when Jerry cared what Alec thought and wanted him to be happy; most of all when he startled himself with uncalculated truths...

That Jerry could break Alec's heart.


"Why does it take an hour to open the safe? I thought you two were good at this."

"Are you familiar with the operation of a variable key for Bramah sliders?"

"No."

"Assume I explained how it works and you grasped that it takes an hour."


"Damn it, Alec, you've been telling me the truth since we met -- the real truth, not nonsense about rings and murders. You kept other people's secrets, but you gave me your own."

"But my secrets don't matter."

"They're the only ones that matter," Jerry said with breathtaking certainty. "To hell with dukes. You gave me your truth all along, with a courage I can't begin to match, and I don't have anything to offer in return except my own stab at honesty for what it's worth. And the truth is that I love you. That I've been coming to love you for so long, and with so little care and attention on my part, that by the time I realised you'd walked off with my heart and soul it was already too late."


Jerry nodded. "It's as per that chap under Waterloo Bridge, isn't it? You didn't want his head kicked in, despite the fact that he clearly deserved it and the lack of other options."

"There was always not kicking him in the head."

"No, I can't see that working at all."


"And now I know what I think. What you said about my father is absolutely right, but it isn't everything. Because this isn't only about my father. It's about me."

"And Cara, and your mother, and Mr. Clayton."

"And me," Alec repeated doggedly. "I count. Maybe I count more than the others, because I'm still alive, and I have to live with myself after all this. You may think I'm too soft; perhaps I am. But I have to decide for myself what to do about my own father, and I have to decide whether I'm going to trust people--"

"Crozier's not people. He's a thief."

"You lived on the street, and when you were eight you found someone you could trust completely," Alec said. "Someone who saved you and loved you and looked after you. I lived in a castle, and when I was eight my father murdered my mother. I don't think we're going to agree on learning to trust."


Alec hurried out, almost colliding with Sir William, who was also on his way. "What on earth is going on?" he demanded.

"I've been asking myself that for the last hour," Sir William said fervently.


"Before they left, they found time to go upstairs and finish emptying Her Grace's safe."

"What?"

"I will have someone's hide for this. Ah, no, I won't though, because I've been sacked," she added.


"And in the interests of full disclosure, I do need to stress that the police want me rather urgently."

"Yes, well, they're not the only ones," Alec said.


"Anything, Alec. Anything you need of me. If you have opinions about my profession, even--"

Alec shook his head. "I'm not going to ask you to mend your ways. I knew who you were all along, I've no right to demand you become someone else. Of course, if you want to reform, you should," he added hastily. "Don't let me put you off. But that's up to you. Don't rob my friends, please."

"Good God. Call yourself an upstanding member of the nobility?"

"I may have low moral standards," Alec acknowledged. "It runs in the family."

"And who better for a degenerate aristocrat than a professional criminal, when you think about it?" Jerry brushed a hand over his face, through his hair. "Talk about making a profit on a job. I stole you, and I'm keeping you."
 
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