Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Charlie didn’t often care that his tongue failed him when he felt even slightly out of sorts. The things that mattered the most to him were inside his head, heart, and body, and experience had taught him most people would be horrified and shun him if he let those things out.
Jonathan was the shining exception to those fears, but as the afternoon wore into evening with the two of them setting up the camera to take a few initial photographs of the house from the view of the gardens, Charlie wished he could gather his worries and fears into a reasonable argument that would make Jonathan quit the place at once.
“I don’t suppose we could get away with taking additional photographs of this place beyond what we’ve been charged to capture,” Jonathan said idly as Charlie handed him a dry plate for the last photograph of the day. “The scene is perfectly stunning today.”
It was the truth. The cheery afternoon had given way to a golden hour of intense light that caught every nuance of light and shadow around the stately architecture of the house.
To Charlie’s unpracticed eye, the images he and Jonathan were producing would be as lovely to look at as any of the grand landscape paintings in some of the rooms within the house.
The outside of the house and the gardens didn’t intimidate Charlie at all. It was the house’s interior that made him feel as if demons might rise up out of the floorboards to steal his soul. If he’d had his way, he and Jonathan would have slept outside under the stars.
“One more,” Jonathan said, inserting the dry plate into his camera, then leaning down to adjust the lens.
Charlie waited as patiently as he could.
He needed to find his voice so that he could warn Jonathan to be careful.
He needed to sort his thoughts into words to begin with so he could articulate all the reasons they were in danger.
But he was as far from being able to do that as he was from scooping an armful of stars out of the sky.
He tensed even more when he spotted Davidson coming out from around the side of the house.
“I wonder if Brutus intended me to photograph Fairford’s servants as well as the guests,” Jonathan said absently before clicking the shutter and taking the picture.
He stood with a smile when that was done and grinned at the approaching footman, who, unbeknownst to him, had just had his image imprinted for all time.
“Mr. Moorgate,” Davidson said with perfect coolness as he approached. “I’ve been sent to inform you that supper will be in one hour.”
“Very well,” Jonathan said, nodding to Davidson with more grace than Charlie felt the mean footman deserved.
Davidson glanced at Charlie, narrowing his eyes slightly.
Charlie narrowed his eyes right back.
Jonathan missed the exchange entirely. “Right,” he said, turning to Charlie. “You carry the exposed plates and I’ll take up the rest of it.”
Charlie ignored Davidson’s lingering looks and rushed to do as he’d been told. Exposed dry plates were extremely delicate and valuable, and being asked to carry them was much more of an honor than Davidson would ever be given.
The fact that Davidson didn’t know that and sneered at Charlie anyhow took a bit of the pride of helping Jonathan away. That feeling didn’t last long at any rate, and once Davidson returned to the house, Charlie forgot to feel antagonistic toward him.
As much as Charlie hated being inside the house at Fairford, he didn’t mind being alone with Jonathan in his room.
“Will you take your supper with the other servants?” Jonathan asked as he changed into supper clothes. “Or would you rather I tell them to send something to you up here?”
Charlie’s eyes widened. “You would do that?”
Jonathan glanced at him in the mirror, where he’d been checking his work as he tied his cravat. “You seem intimidated by Lord Frome’s household,” he said.
Charlie hugged himself, rubbing one arm. “They aren’t happy.”
It was an odd thing to say, he knew. He didn’t expect Jonathan to understand what he meant.
Jonathan surprised him by saying, “Yes, I’ve noticed,” with a frown. “It’s never a good thing when a household’s servants aren’t happy.”
Charlie’s shoulders relaxed and he began to warm with the thought that Jonathan understood after all.
Until Jonathan said, “There’s probably a bad apple downstairs,” as he went back to staring at his reflection in the mirror. “Downstairs dynamics can be fickle. I would be willing to wager that Mr. Glenn rules his underlings with too firm a grip.”
Disappointment deflated Charlie. That wasn’t what it was at all. Feelings like the ones he’d been filled with since arriving in Fairford House almost always came from the family that owned the house.
“Am I presentable?” Jonathan asked, turning to Charlie with a teasing smile.
Charlie smiled in return, his sense of doom broken for the moment by the warmth between him and his savior. He couldn’t find the words, so he nodded.
“Good.” Jonathan stepped closer to him, cupped the side of Charlie’s face, then planted a quick, not-quite chaste kiss on Charlie’s lips.
“Now, behave yourself. I’ll have someone send supper up for you.
Until then, see if you can’t sort the dry plates from today and organize everything for tomorrow.
I thought we might photograph the orangery in the morning, if the weather is accommodating, and the formal gardens in the afternoon. ”
Charlie nodded enthusiastically, lips tingling from the kiss.
His heart dropped as soon as Jonathan left the room, though. It felt like an enormous risk to let his savior out of his sight for more than a few seconds. He didn’t trust the other guests roaming the house any more than he trusted Fairford’s servants.
“This is not a good place,” he whispered to himself as he went to the table where they’d left the photographic equipment when they’d come back from their afternoon’s work.
It didn’t take long to organize things as they needed to be organized. Two weeks as Jonathan’s apprentice had hardly made Charlie an expert photographer, but he knew where exposed dry plates needed to be stored and how Jonathan’s satchel should be packed for their work the next day.
He was finished with the task quickly, then sat waiting for someone to bring him supper.
The wait grew long. It settled heavily on Charlie’s shoulders, especially when his stomach started to growl.
What if the servants had forgotten about him? What if they’d deliberately ignored Jonathan’s request to have supper sent up as some sort of cruel joke? What if Jonathan had forgotten about him entirely?
That last thought unnerved Charlie so much that he lost his appetite. Jonathan wouldn’t forget about him, not after kissing him. He relied on Charlie’s help too much.
Although he could easily accomplish everything the two of them had been doing on his own. He’d worked solo for years before Charlie had come along. And he hadn’t stopped teasing Charlie about putting him back where he’d found him.
About an hour after being left alone, Charlie couldn’t stand the wait any longer. He got up, heart in his throat, and left the room to go in search of either supper or solace.
It was his luck that he came across the pale-faced maid as soon as he descended to the front hall.
“Um…my master asked that supper be sent up to me?” He managed to push out the words somehow.
The maid froze as if he’d shouted at her. Her brown eyes went large as she stared back at him. “I wouldn’t know, sir,” she said, dropping into a tight curtsy.
Charlie was stunned to have someone call him “sir”. So much that it robbed him of the ability to say anything else, even though he worked his mouth in the attempt to speak.
“Mr. Glenn would know, sir,” the maid went on, darting a furtive look around. She lowered her voice to almost nothing and said, “He’s gone to the orangery to fetch greens for Cook.”
Charlie frowned slightly, but he couldn’t find the words to ask why before the maid rushed off, as if even talking to Charlie was a sin.
Confused, Charlie searched around the hall, wishing he knew what to do.
What he really wanted to do was run back upstairs to Jonathan’s room and hide under the bed until they could return to London.
But hunger and the memory of his suffering from it on the street pushed him to pursue a more primal urge.
He had to eat, and if the person who could give him food was in the orangery, that was where he needed to go.
Even though the sun had set, bathing the landscape around Fairford House in darkness, Charlie felt better and bolder once he was out of the house.
He hurried around to the side of the house, then found the path that led to the orangery by the light of the moon.
Part of him thought he was mad for leaving the safety of his and Jonathan’s room to go anywhere on the unfamiliar grounds, but the gnawing in his stomach was too terrifying for sense to take over.
The orangery was dark, which gathered worry into a knot in Charlie’s gut as he approached it. If Mr. Glenn truly was there fetching greens, surely there would be at least a faint glow from a lantern. As far as Charlie could tell, the whole thing was black.
The same wasn’t true for the dull cottage that sat several yards distant from the orangery on the other side. The building itself seemed to blend into its surroundings in the dark, but a faint light glowed from the windows, all of which were curtained.
The cottage must have had something to do with the orangery.
Perhaps Mr. Glenn had gone there to organize and bundle the greens he’d picked for Cook, like Jonathan had a darkroom to develop his photographs.
All Charlie needed to do was to politely knock on the door and ask Mr. Glenn to see to his supper.