Chapter 11 #2
“I will return as soon as I see to my assistant,” Jonathan told everyone and no one in particular before resting his hand on the small of Charlie’s back and escorting him out into the hallway.
He walked Charlie all the way down to one of the side corridors that must have led off into parts of the house frequented only by the servants before turning Charlie to face him.
“What is the matter?” he asked, barely above a whisper. Without really thinking about it, he cupped the side of Charlie’s hot face with one hand.
Charlie’s eyes went watery. He gulped a few times before saying, “There’s a prisoner. In the cottage beyond the orangery.”
“A prisoner?” Jonathan frowned, uncertain what Charlie could mean.
“The servants are forbidden from going there,” Charlie went on.
Jonathan shook his head, still in the dark.
“He’s drugged and chained to the bed,” Charlie tried again.
The uneasy feeling Jonathan had had when he’d left his and Charlie’s room earlier returned in full force. He wanted to avoid it or run away from it, but it clung to him, feeling like a rock in his gut or a wind that instantly chilled him to the bone.
“I do not think I understand,” Jonathan said. “Drugged and chained to a bed?”
Charlie tried to speak, but he grew more upset by the second and was unable to. Jonathan did his best to wait patiently for his friend to find his voice, but his own sense of fear and danger made him increasingly restless.
Finally, Charlie blurted out the word, “Fabian!”
Jonathan flinched a little and stood straighter. “Fabian?” He blinked. “Is that the man’s name?”
Charlie nodded furiously, glancing down the hall toward one of the rooms Jonathan knew to have a door that led outside.
Jonathan stood firmly where he was. “Fabian,” he repeated.
The name jogged something in his mind. He’d heard it in a conversation recently, he was sure.
Then he remembered.
“Not Lord Fabian, Barnstable’s son,” he said, jerking back and letting go of Charlie.
Charlie’s eyes went wide, like Jonathan had solved some sort of mystery instead of creating an even bigger one. “We have to help him,” he said with some difficulty.
“Help him,” Jonathan repeated, chills slithering their way down his neck and back. “Help Lord Fabian, if that is, indeed, who you saw.”
Charlie nodded frantically and grabbed Jonathan’s sleeve.
Jonathan didn’t move, even though he knew Charlie wanted him to rush off to be a hero of some sort. “What, precisely, did you see?” he asked, the fear in his gut growing heavier.
Charlie stared desperately at him. “He didn’t want it, the laudanum. Marks on his arm. He was naked, and then a man came in.”
Jonathan’s mind raced through a dozen possible scenarios to explain what Charlie had seen. His heart thudded against his ribs as his mind fought against the worst possible answers.
“Charlie,” he said slowly, wishing he sounded surer and more authoritative than he did, “you know that some of the upper classes lose themselves to laudanum and opium and other things.”
Charlie made a desperate sound and tugged Jonathan’s sleeve.
“If, indeed, that is the Lord Fabian, you must know that he has been missing for some time,” Jonathan went on, grasping for a plausible explanation that wasn’t too horrifying to contemplate. “He is reported to be an opium addict.”
Charlie protested wordlessly, taking a step down the hall and trying to drag Jonathan with him.
“Do you think there is anything I can do about this?” Jonathan asked, digging in his heels and stopping Charlie from pulling him into something he absolutely was not ready for.
Charlie huffed and dropped his sleeve. “Help,” he said, not as a plea but as a command.
“He might not want help,” Jonathan said, hands numb and shaking. “This might be exactly what he wants, if he is, indeed an addict.”
Charlie’s desperate look shifted to one of desolation.
Jonathan hated the way it made him feel. Small. Inadequate. Equally desolate.
“I’m sorry, but you don’t know what Fabian’s situation truly is,” he tried to reason with the young man.
“We are here to photograph things,” he went on vaguely, “not to get too deeply involved. What do you suppose would happen if we attempted to intervene and it came to pass that this Fabian is being kept in that cottage for a good reason? Or that he wishes to be there and we end up trespassing on something delicate?”
Charlie gaped at him.
If there had been any way Jonathan could have eased his young man’s mind without rushing headlong into danger he knew nothing about, and at the expense of damaging his newfound acceptance by the rest of the guests, he would have.
But he couldn’t risk his mission, he couldn’t risk the seedlings of camaraderie he’d found with gentlemen who should have been his peers, he couldn’t damage his father’s shifting opinion of him based on something Charlie had seen but couldn’t articulate.
Charlie clearly did not see things the same way.
“Please,” he huffed, hands forming fists at his sides.
“I cannot,” Jonathan said.
He couldn’t remember feeling more ashamed.
Charlie jerked his head away from Jonathan, blinking rapidly, like he was holding back tears and breathing heavily.
He tried to control himself, but was evidently unable to.
He glanced back at Jonathan briefly with a look of disappointment that shredded Jonathan’s insides, then turned and walked away.
Jonathan felt like the ground might open under him and swallow him. But what could he do? He was so far out of his depth that he couldn’t catch his breath.
After a full minute, he turned away from watching the hallway where Charlie had disappeared around a corner, then walked slowly back to the billiard room.
“Trouble with the young assistant?” Hammond asked, smirking.
“Good help is so hard to find these days,” Copeland chuckled. “And to be honest, that young apprentice of yours looks as feeble as they come.”
Jonathan jerked his head up, glaring at the man.
“He does seem a rather soft, degraded sort, if you catch my meaning,” another of the guests said, touching a finger to the side of his nose.
Several others laughed.
One of them said, “Perhaps Dalhurst has a use for him, or could at least teach him some discipline.”
Rage bubbled up in Jonathan, along with a fierce possessiveness. “Charlie is the very best of men,” he growled. He glanced around, searching for Dalhurst to tell the man he could not have Charlie, but Dalhurst was nowhere to be found.
“There, there,” Frome said with an uneasy smile. “I’m certain Copeland meant nothing by it.”
“Charlie is an angel,” Jonathan went on, his nerves too brittle and his guilt too sharp to let the moment pass.
“He is intelligent and kind. He has the best heart of any man of my acquaintance. He has endured more than most of us will ever suffer through in a lifetime, and he has retained his goodness and light.”
“It’s alright, man,” Hammond said, looking at Jonathan strangely. “No harm was meant by the comment. We can all see how much you value the boy.”
It was a warning that Jonathan was revealing too much, but the storm of emotions raging within him blew too ferociously for him to exercise caution.
“If you will excuse me,” he said, forcing himself to drop his shoulders and at least appear calm, though he was not even close to it. “I must attend to my assistant.”
He turned to go.
Someone murmured, “Yes, of course you must,” behind him.
The not-so subtle innuendo crushed the last bit of pride and confidence Jonathan had.
He was so close to regaining something that he hadn’t realized how desperately he’d missed for years.
Charlie had only been in his life for slightly more than a fortnight.
He cared for the young man, but what if he left?
What if he saw through Jonathan’s facade to the degenerate, inadequate man he was?