Chapter 7
Earnest shouldn’t be this pleased that Hugo hadn’t connected his story about his father sending him away, and Hugo sending him away that other time.
.. His fear of being sent away, of being abandoned by people who should love him wasn’t something he wanted to discuss.
Not when there were so many more interesting things to talk about, like Hugo’s dreadful father and how they would enact revenge.
“What are we going to do to change the entire system and free all those people?”
Hugo’s eyes widened. “I wish I knew.”
“I think you do know, but the answers are all hard.”
“I’m not afraid of hard work. But it took Mr Wilberforce twenty years to get slavery abolished in Britain.”
He knew that, but the weight of time was heavier when Hugo said it. Earnest was beginning to understand why Hugo was so overwhelmed by the task ahead of him. “I don’t think it’s as simple as work. You need to convince your peers to give up some of their power, and that will be hard.”
“Impossible.”
“No. Doing it tomorrow is impossible. The entire task is not impossible. It’s simply huge, unwieldy, and overwhelming.”
Hugo snorted. “Just those things?”
“Yes. But if anyone has the ability and training to fight a difficult fight and come out on top, it’s you.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You’ve already survived your father’s treatment of you. He tried to make you in a miserable version of himself, and he failed. Look at you. You are strong and you care about people you’ve never met. Your father couldn’t stop you from caring, and that’s why you’ll succeed here too.”
“I hope you are right.”
Earnest grinned. “I’m usually right, and when I’m wrong, it’s still fun.”
“None of this is going to be fun.”
“Are you certain about that? Upsetting Lords is quite fun.” It was why he wrote rude poetry about them with his pseudonym.
“What if it all goes wrong?”
Earnest stared carefully at Hugo, wondering what he meant. “Given the Sisyphean task, the chances are that plenty will go wrong, but that doesn’t make the fight any less worthy.”
Hugo threw his hands in the air. “You don’t understand.”
“Help me understand.” He wanted to help, although how much help he could give was debatable.
Perhaps he could write a few touching poems..
. Oh. He had many contacts among the press; he wasn’t completely useless.
He could write things and have them published.
He might be able to sway people with poignant words.
“If I don’t follow the rules, bad things will happen.”
Earnest peered at Hugo. “Says who?”
“Me, my life, everything.”
He reached out and held Hugo’s hands. “Let me guess ... your father told you to follow the rules or he’d—”
“He used to apologise when he was beating me, saying that if I’d just been better, if I’d followed the rules, then he wouldn’t have to do that to me.”
Earnest’s heart broke for the young boy Hugo had been.
He had meant it when Hugo should have spent his childhood happy and free, playing pranks like dressing up in the display armour and riding silver platters down the stairs.
He should’ve been escaping his governess by climbing out the window or making the servants squeal by putting frogs in their aprons or sitting in trees.
Hugo shouldn’t have spent his childhood scared.
“And did following his rules ever prevent one of his punishments?"
Hugo gasped. “No, but that only meant I had to try harder.”
“Or it means your father was a miserable old man who liked hitting you.”
“But he said it was my fault.”
Earnest blinked. “He was wrong. It is not your fault. There is absolutely no logic to that statement. He abused you and made you feel like you deserved it. It’s wrong.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.” He wanted to thump Hugo on the chest every time he said that to emphasis his point, but he had enough instinct to know that hitting someone who’d been hit his whole childhood wasn’t the greatest choice.
Instead, he kissed him. “It was never your fault.” If he repeated it often enough, hopefully Hugo would believe it.
“Do you think so?”
“I know so. It wasn’t your fault.”
Hugo’s breath rattled in his chest as Earnest held him tight. “I wish I could believe you.”
“If you saw a grown man hitting a child, who would you blame?”
“The man. But it was different in my case.”
Earnest didn’t say anything, just pressed kisses to Hugo’s knuckles as he waited.
“Why is it so hard to believe that my father was wrong?”
“Fathers are supposed to protect their families, not beat them. We are all taught to respect and believe our fathers, so of course, you believed him. You were the child; it is natural for you to believe him. And he lied to you.”
Hugo made a strangled noise. “I still check for him in every room in this house. I can’t enter a room without pausing and making sure he’s not there. Sometimes I wish I could just burn the whole house down so that I’d be able to stop worrying about him being there.”
“I bet you could. Society would call it a tragic accident.” He could just imagine it. It would be extraordinary to see flames flickering through the roof and watching a symbol of power burn to the ground.
Hugo sagged. “It would an extraordinary waste of money.”
“Can you afford to rebuild?”
Hugo made a snuffling noise with his face buried against Earnest’s shoulder. He couldn’t tell if Hugo was laughing or crying, or maybe both, but he felt honoured to be the one here holding him as he worked it out.
“Or let’s put it in language you’ve already used,” Earnest figured out what might help Hugo. “If you break the rules by burning down your own house, what bad things do you imagine happening?”
“Aside from not having a house?”
“Will you be without somewhere to live if you burn down this house?” Earnest knew Hugo had other places; he’d camped on the lawn in front of his London townhouse.
Hugo gulped. “No. I have a townhouse in London, and several smaller estates.”
“What else might go wrong?”
“If people discovered I’d done it on purpose, they might think poorly of me?”
Earnest rolled his eyes. “God forbid.”
“How am I supposed to get bad laws changed if my peers think I’m the type of person who would burn down his own estate?”
Earnest had to concede that one. “Excellent point. I’ll allow that one.”
“You’ll allow it?”
“Yes. I can’t guarantee that bad things won’t happen. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t, but I bet if you burned down this house, you could rebuild a home where you wouldn’t be forever checking for your father’s ghost.”
“Ghost?”
“Well, he’s not here, is he? But you still look for him, ergo he’s a ghost haunting you.”
“It could be argued that this entire house is him.”
Earnest raised his eyebrows. “What a fanciful thought.”
“He had the house extensively remodelled after he married my mother. There is barely a trace of the original homestead left.”
“Why did he face it the wrong way?”
“Excuse me?”
“This room, your chosen office, has the best light. He’s arranged the house with the service rooms facing the best of the day’s sun.
Perfect for drying laundry, but not so great for guests who want to enjoy a warm room in winter, or gaze across the gardens in the summer.
Instead, the drawing room looks out on the entrance and the neighbour’s property. ”
“Good point.”
“If you burn it down, you’ll be able to rebuild with a more natural design that takes advantage of the best of Doncaster’s weather, maybe up on the hill, overlooking your estate, rather than tucked down here near the entrance where passing traffic can watch you.”
Hugo smiled slowly. “My father wanted a property that showed everyone who he was.”
“He’s certainly done that. Do you enjoy people gawking at you?” He didn’t imagine so.
“No. I’ve just never imagined I could change it.”
“Why not? Your father did.” Earnest couldn’t imagine having enough money to give real consideration to this whim of a plan, and yet, he wanted Hugo to feel freed from the bonds of his father’s treatment of him.
Burning down an Earl’s mansion would be the most extraordinary fun!
He almost jogged on the spot with glee at the concept.
“I need to remove some of the important papers first.” Hugo’s eyes glittered with a fierce light, and fuck, it was so incredibly attractive.
Earnest kissed him because words, his favourite thing, weren’t enough to convey the depth of how he felt.
He’d done it again; fallen in love and now he was doomed to force himself to leave before Hugo threw him away. Again.