Chapter 12 #2
Charlie had just taken a plate from him and slipped it back into the box a little too forcefully, risking cracking it. It was unbelievable that Jonathan thought he could relax for a moment, knowing someone else was suffering.
It was a good thing in more ways than one that Mr. Copeland and a few other men wandered into the gallery just then.
Jonathan was forced to turn his attention away from Charlie.
Charlie became nothing but a lowly apprentice again as he helped Jonathan set up for a new photograph.
It was also fortunate that Jonathan managed to compose the picture to include Mr. Copeland and his friends.
Brutus and Titus would be happy with that.
Charlie wasn’t happy no matter what he did.
It physically hurt to watch Jonathan gushing with friendship toward men who might have been very bad and done horrible things.
That was why Brutus had asked them to take the photographs, after all, wasn’t it?
Because he wanted to prove certain people had been at Fairford House so he could hold them accountable later?
“Once you’re finished here, Moorgate,” Mr. Copeland said as he wandered over to examine the camera, “you should join us for lunch on the lawn.”
“Frome discovered that Chillington is fond of jellied eels, of all things, and has had some brought in from the village,” one of the other men said.
Jonathan glanced briefly at Charlie, who had stepped to the side, where the box of plates and other equipment sat.
Charlie pretended not to see him. “Perhaps I will,” he said.
He glanced back to Charlie, who had his jaw clenched and fought to keep his hands from shaking too noticeably.
“Would you mind packing up here, Charlie?” he asked.
Charlie shook his head without looking at him.
“Come along, then, Moorgate,” Mr. Copeland laughed. “Since you were so eager to sing your young apprentice’s praises last night, you might as well leave him to get on with things here today.”
Charlie lifted his head and turned. Had Jonathan sung his praises?
There was no way to know. Jonathan had already let Mr. Copeland and the others lead him off. The best he got was a fleeting look over his shoulder from Jonathan.
As soon as the men were gone, Charlie blew out a disappointed breath and busied himself tidying up the equipment. He had to make two trips up to their room to store it all. Once that was done, he headed back downstairs, intending to go all the way to the servants’ hall for lunch.
He stopped when he reached one of the doors that led outside. It was open, as if some of the servants had been using it to take food out to wherever the gentlemen guests were eating their lunch. Through it, Charlie could see the orangery and hints of the cottage beyond.
He couldn’t stand by, pretending nothing was wrong the way Jonathan was pretending. If there was even a small chance he could do something to help Fabian, he had to do it.
Quickly checking to make certain he wasn’t observed, Charlie strode outside and along the path that led to the orangery.
He darted looks all around, deeply aware that not a soul could see him or guess where he was going.
Davidson hadn’t been lying after all when he’d said no one was allowed to go near the orangery or the cottage, and now he knew why.
It occurred to him as he reached the edge of the orangery, where he could duck down and use the building and the greenery around it to hide as he made his way toward the cottage, that the servants must have known at least a little bit about why the area was forbidden.
There was a chance the maid who had told him to go looking for Mr. Glenn there had done so in the hope that he would find Fabian and sound the alarm.
That possibility made him walk faster, which also made him a touch more careless than he should have been.
“Hello, Charlie.”
Charlie yelped and nearly fell over as he reached the corner of the orangery, only to find Mr. Hammond leaning against the side, enjoying a cigar in the midday sun.
Panic fluttered through Charlie. He wavered on his spot, glancing first to the cottage, then back toward the house. Part of him hoped Jonathan would appear, come to save him again. A more jaded part of him doubted Jonathan would ever come.
“Out enjoying this fine afternoon?” Mr. Hammond asked, pushing away from the side of the orangery and stamping out his cigar on one of the glass panes.
There was no way Charlie would be able to speak to the man. His throat was as tight and closed up as if someone had fastened a collar around it.
Mr. Hammond didn’t seem to mind. In fact, as he stepped slowly closer to Charlie, eyeing him up and down, Charlie had the terrible feeling that the man preferred that he couldn’t say a word.
“I hear you’re intelligent,” he said, “despite this little problem you have with speaking.”
“I can speak,” Charlie managed to croak out clumsily.
Mr. Hammond’s smile widened. “Of course you can, dear boy,” he said, his voice low and familiar as he moved far too close to Charlie. “I dare say you can do a lot more than talk with that lovely mouth of yours.”
He reached out and held Charlie’s chin, stroking his thumb across Charlie’s lower lip.
Twin feelings of revulsion and wicked curiosity pulsed through Charlie.
This was his weakness. This was what made him evil, not only in the sight of his family and God, but in his own heart and soul.
The way his pulse raced at Mr. Hammond’s touch, the way his body responded, despite how he felt about Jonathan, was what made him a monstrous creature.
But did he really owe loyalty to Jonathan? When Jonathan wouldn’t lift a finger to help Fabian?
“I might have a position for you, if you’d ever be interested in leaving photography behind to take up an entirely different profession,” Mr. Hammond said, stroking his fingers down Charlie’s neck before moving his hand away.
Charlie’s lips quivered and he made a sound, but he couldn’t force it to form words.
“I run a certain establishment in London, on Cleveland Street,” Mr. Hammond said, then waited, as if Charlie would soon understand what he was talking about.
Charlie didn’t know anything in that moment, let alone what Mr. Hammond could mean.
“I’ll pay you more than Moorgate is paying you,” Mr. Hammond said bluntly. “I might even be able to double it for a beautiful boy like you.”
Jonathan wasn’t paying Charlie anything. He was merely taking care of him.
Charlie so desperately wanted to be taken care of.
“I don’t imagine a man like Moorgate knows the sort of potential you have,” Mr. Hammond went on, studying Charlie like he could see under his clothes. “You could have quite the life if you put your trust in me.”
Charlie caught his breath. Not because there was any allure in Mr. Hammond’s offer, but because, like one of Jonathan’s magnesium flash ribbons igniting, it illuminated something Charlie hadn’t considered until that very moment.
He didn’t need Jonathan. He wouldn’t die if Jonathan put him back on the street. He could turn to someone like Mr. Hammond, or even The Zagreus Den.
He didn’t need Jonathan at all.
“I—”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry.”
Charlie leapt back from Mr. Hammond and turned to find Mr. Thomas wandering closer to them. Mr. Hammond glared at Mr. Thomas, but Mr. Thomas didn’t seem to notice.
“I seem to have lost my way,” Mr. Thomas said with a self-effacing laugh. “I was told luncheon would be al fresco today, but I cannot for the life of me discover where everyone is gathering.”
Mr. Hammond backed off of Charlie, putting a huge distance between the two of them, as if they hadn’t been conversing at all.
“I believe lunch is being served on that nice stretch of lawn near the rose garden,” Mr. Hammond said with a friendly smile, as if he hadn’t just propositioned Charlie and offered to change his life. “Although if you ask me, this jellied eel nonsense I’m hearing about is an abomination.”
Mr. Thomas laughed. “I’m still eager to see Chillington choke a few of the slimy things down.
“That will be amusing enough, I suppose,” Mr. Hammond laughed, gesturing toward the house.
If Charlie didn’t know better, he would have thought Mr. Hammond was trying to get Mr. Thomas as far away from him as possible.
Or perhaps as far from the cottage as possible?
It was impossible to tell whether Mr. Hammond knew anything about Fabian being held prisoner or if he truly had just come out to the orangery to have a smoke in private.
Charlie watched the two men walk away, but just as he turned his head to look at the cottage and to assess his chances of getting inside to visit Fabian, Mr. Thomas broke away from Mr. Hammond and hurried back to him.
“I just wanted to say that I have been admiring the work you’ve been doing with Mr. Moorgate,” Mr. Thomas said.
And then he then did the strangest thing Charlie could have imagined. He held out his hand for Charlie to shake it.
Charlie stared at the extended hand for a long moment before cautiously raising his own.
Mr. Thomas not only shook his hand, he grasped Charlie’s in both of his.
Then he pulled Charlie in close.
“Have a care, my friend,” he said quietly. “There are snakes in the grass around Fairford House. I wouldn’t want you to be bitten by anything venomous.”
Charlie frowned in confusion, but then gasped as Mr. Thomas quickly pulled up the end of his sleeve, his right hand still holding Charlie’s, to reveal a tattoo on the back of his forearm. It was a snake coiled into the shape of a heart.
Charlie had seen that emblem before. He’d seen it at the house in Tyburnia. The heart-shaped snake was the symbol of The Zagreus Den.
He snapped his eyes up to meet Mr. Thomas’s.
Mr. Thomas nodded quickly, then pulled his hand away, resuming his harmless, somewhat silly persona.
“Sorry, friend,” he called out to Mr. Hammond, rushing to catch up with him. “I just wanted to thank young Charlie here for his service.”
Mr. Hammond frowned with the sort of suspicion that came from another man moving in on his territory. Charlie didn’t think that’s what he was after, but he didn’t like being the center of that kind of scrutiny.
He walked off, wanting to get as far away from the orangery as he could.
As desperately as he wanted to visit Fabian again to make certain the young man was not in immediate danger, it was clear now was not the time.
There were things going on at Fairford House that he didn’t understand.
Maybe Jonathan was right to show caution instead of rushing into an ill-fated rescue attempt.