Chapter 58
Warren raised the axe over his shoulder, taking a deep exhale as he swung, cracking the piece of wood clean through with a loud thunk.
It was snowing, the forest around his cabin hazy white as the thick flakes fell.
This storm was going to be brutal; he could already smell it thick on the air.
It felt like a blanket was hanging low and heavy, quieting the forest to the sound of his breathing and the dull chopping of his blade.
He readied the next piece of wood on the stump, shifting the axe to one hand. Then he took up his position, swinging back with the axe. He brought it down with a thwack, splitting the wood in two.
Bang, bang, bang.
He jerked upright, clutching tighter to his axe handle. Someone was pounding on the front door of his cabin. “Back here!” he called.
He waited, swinging the axe into the stump.
Charles stumbled around the corner of the cabin, clutching to the wall with one hand as he shuffled forward. Christ, was the man drunk? It was barely mid-afternoon. Was that . . .
Warren narrowed his eyes. Charles was clutching a bottle of what looked like brandy in his ungloved hand, his knuckles red with cold.
Charles raised his red-rimmed eyes, stumbling to a halt in the snow, the bottle slipping from his fingers and dropping at his feet.
Warren knew what was wrong without him saying a word.
“John . . .”
And then Warren was on the move, crossing the clearing to wrap Charles in his arms. “I’m sorry, Charles. I’m so sorry.”
Charles sank against him with a sob. “He’s dead.”
“I know,” Warren murmured, rubbing his back with a gloved hand. “Come inside.”
“I wasn’t there,” he cried, his face pressed into Warren’s fur-lined leather vest. “He sent me away. One minute he was talking to me and the next . . . the next—”
“I know,” he soothed, tucking him under his arm and leading him to the cabin. He left the bottle of brandy in the snow.
Warren rattled his door open, pulling Charles inside with him. The cabin was warm and smelled of the duck he had sizzling on a spit over the fire. A pot of potatoes and carrots boiled on the chain.
He helped Charles out of his scarf and jacket. The poor man swayed on his feet, drunk on brandy and grief. “Come,” he murmured, pulling Charles forward and sitting him on the bed. “Are you hungry? Let’s get some food in your stomach. Soak up some of the brandy.”
He got to work, removing the duck from the fire, and serving up two bowls of the potato and carrot mash.
He took Charles by the shoulders, leading him over to the table.
Charles sank down, snatching for the wooden spoon, but he didn’t eat.
Warren was hungry enough for the both of them, digging into the food as Charles sat quietly, staring down at the steaming plate of food.
“Was it peaceful?” Warren asked, not knowing what else to say.
Charles nodded. “Grasby’s already came,” he muttered, moving the boiled potatoes around on his plate. “They’re so efficient. I blinked and he was gone. He’s just . . . gone.”
“Well . . . at least he had time to ready his affairs,” Warren said with a shrug. He stilled, eyes wide as he stared across the table.
Charles was laughing. It started small, a low chuckle. But it grew. In moments, he was wheezing, one hand on his side.
Warren set his fork aside. “Charles, what—”
“Affairs,” Charles repeated, his mirth dying as he wiped at his eyes.
Then he was reaching inside his waistcoat, pulling out a stack of letters wrapped in a red ribbon.
He set them on the table between them and leaned back, as if the letters were a venomous snake that may strike. “Do you know what those are?”
Warren said nothing, waiting for Charles to get to his point.
“They’re love letters. My uncle’s love letters.”
Warren wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but he wasn’t expecting that. He’d always assumed Mr. Selby was a lifelong bachelor by choice. A lot of men of the cloth chose that path. It was odd to think of the man having a love affair with some seamstress or married lady.
“In his dying moments, he bade me go to his study and find them . . . burn them,” Charles muttered, his eyes still fixed on the offensive stack.
“He wanted this evidence destroyed. I missed his passing because I could not help myself, Warren. I read them. He told me not to, but it couldn’t be helped.
He died while I read them . . . while I broke the last request he ever gave me. ”
“Charles—”
“I’m glad I read them,” he growled, raising his eyes to hold Warren’s gaze. His energy was impossible to read—angry, sad, confused. “They’re all from the same person,” he went on.
Warren reached across the table for his hand. “Charles—”
“A Reverend Martin Fields of Devonshire.”
He stilled. “A reverend wrote him love letters? A reverend as in a man?”
Charles nodded. “They were in love. They wrote a single letter a year, pouring out all their loving sentiments. Reverend Fields is quite the poet” he spat.
Warren closed his hand around Charles’s, but Charles jerked away. “And now you are angry—”
Charles launched from his chair, the spoon clattering to the table. “Of course, I’m bloody fucking angry! He lied to me, John. All my life, he’s been lying.”
Warren sighed, leaning back in his chair. “He was afraid.”
Charles shook his head. “He warned me away from you so many times. He bade me leave, John. I came to be at his dying bed, and he told me to go, too afraid I would see you again, that I would be lured into your depravity.” He groaned, dragging both hands through his hair. “All the while . . .”
Warren got to his feet, moving around the table. He placed two firm hands on Charles’s shoulders. “He loved you, Charles. He was protecting you—”
“He was protecting himself,” he spat, shrugging away. “And he was hiding the truth. He loved this M. Fields. He loved him in the shadows for over twenty years. He loved him the way I love you!”
“And he does not want the same fate for you,” Warren reasoned. “He knows the reality of loving another man, of hiding all that this is,” he added, gesturing between them. “Do not let this truth sully your memories of him, Charles—”
“He should have told me,” Charles spat.
Warren sighed again. Never in his life did he imagine himself taking the part of Thomas Selby.
But Charles needed a good dose of reason.
“How could he tell you?” he replied. “How would a young Charles have responded knowing his uncle also had a great, secret love? You’re too romantic for your own good.
His admission would have driven you further into my arms, not away. ”
Charles shook his head, crossing his arms tight around himself. He looked so tender, so perfectly broken.
Warren reached out a hand again, brushing the back of his knuckles down his arm. “I hate that this revelation has come at this time. You deserve the chance to mourn him for the man he was. He was your father—”
“He was my guilty conscience. He made me believe—” He spun away with a groan.
“Believe what?”
Charles stilled, his hands clasped behind his neck as he took a shaking breath.
“I never believed what we shared is a sin, John. Love is . . . love cannot ever be a sin.” He turned slowly, a fresh tear slipping down his cheek.
“But shame is real . . . shame and disloyalty. Uncle Selby made me believe I should be ashamed of what we share. He told me again and again it was wrong. I was not afraid of you for the sin of it . . . I was afraid for the disloyalty to my uncle.”
“Why?”
Charles shrugged. “The man gave me everything, John. He took us in. He cared for me when no one else . . .” He fell into silence with another pained groan, turning away.
Warren gave him a moment to collect himself. “What do you need?”
Charles turned, eyes still shut tight. Slowly, he let out a shaking breath through pursed lips and opened his eyes. He settled his amber gaze on Warren, a pleading question reaching out through their bond. “John . . . please.”
Warren stayed still. “You’re drunk.”
“Not so very,” he replied, closing the space between them, his hands going to the buttons of Warren’s vest.
Warren closed his large hands around Charles’s wrists. “You’re grieving.”
Charles stilled, his shoulders suppressing a sob. “John, please,” he murmured, tipping up on his toes to kiss Warren’s jaw. “Please, Johnnie. Just . . . just hold me. Make it go away. Make it stop. Just for a moment. Please—”
Warren wrapped him in his arms, pressing his face to Charles’s neck and breathing him in.
Charles’s hands moved, stripping him out of his vest and immediately working on his cravat.
Warren couldn’t help but respond, having Charles in his arms. He stood still, letting Charles have his way at first, stripping Warren down to his shirtsleeves and kissing all across his broad chest, his hands slipping inside the top of Warren’s breeches.
“Please,” Charles begged again, his face nuzzled in at Warren’s neck. “Please, hold me.”
Setting his reserve aside, Warren got to work, stripping Charles out of his clothes until they were both standing shirtless, breeches open, hands seeking for their hard lengths.
Warren went slowly, peppering Charles with kisses, teasing him and bringing him to the edge, his hand stroking along his shaft and cupping his balls.
Charles groaned, leaning into his every touch. “More,” he pleaded, his own hand stroking Warren from root to tip. “I need you, Johnnie. Been so long. Please god, make me yours.”
Warren groaned, letting himself sink fully into character. He turned Charles around in his embrace, pulling him by the hips until Charles was nestled against his hard cock. Charles whimpered, tipping his head back to expose his neck. Warren obliged him, lavishing his neck with hot kisses.