Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Jonathan was supposed to be the one showing Charlie comfort, not the other way around. But they ended up spending the next half hour just sitting together in silence, Jonathan holding Charlie and resting his head on Charlie’s shoulder.
Charlie was too stunned to know what to do about it.
He was still reeling from Hammond’s attempt to lure him away and preoccupied with Fabian’s fate to know how to comfort his…
not his master or his savior, his…friend.
All he could do was sit in silence with him, letting the warmth of his body surround Jonathan.
“Right, enough of this,” Jonathan said after they’d been resting there together for what felt like ages, neither of them truly sharing their thoughts. “We have photographs to take, and I am beginning to suspect whose photographs we should be taking.”
Charlie raised his eyebrows a bit as Jonathan pulled away, hiding his face as if he didn’t want Charlie to see or understand the emotions he was feeling. He stood where he was, just watching as Jonathan gathered together the things they would need to take a few photographs.
“With any luck, Frome’s guests will still be playing tennis on the lawn,” Jonathan said, his back turned to Charlie.
“I can easily make the case that photographing a tennis match would be jolly. Not only will it allow us to document Frome’s guests as we’ve been charged to do, if any of them make a point of not wanting to be in the image, it will give us a clue about who among the guests is guilty of… something.”
Charlie frowned, not because of what Jonathan said, but because something had changed with the man. Had the other guests been cruel to him somehow? Charlie doubted it. The other gentlemen, as far as he’d been able to tell, were amused by Jonathan, though perhaps a bit too much.
“Come now,” Jonathan said once he had all the equipment he needed. He held out the full satchel to Charlie.
Charlie stepped over, regarding Jonathan carefully, and slipped the satchel over his shoulder. He desperately wanted to ask Jonathan what had happened to cause his change in demeanor, but he doubted he had the right to ask about such things.
Even though he wanted to.
He wanted to be open enough with Jonathan that he could do more than just be held while Jonathan was upset. He wanted to be taken seriously by the man so that he could provide real comfort.
And so that he could demand answers as to why Jonathan was so unwilling to help Fabian.
He could leave. If Jonathan wouldn’t be honest with him, he could just leave. A dozen other men and more would have him.
“Right,” Jonathan sighed as he lifted his camera. “Our mission awaits.”
The rest of the day was spent in uncomfortable, working silence between the two of them.
The other guests were still playing tennis when Jonathan and Charlie made their way down to the lawn with the camera.
They seemed to think it was a lark that Jonathan wanted to photograph them at play.
Jonathan joked and bantered with them, almost the way he’d been the day before, but Charlie could see a light had gone out of his eyes.
It was maddening. He wanted to know so many things, do so many things that might actually make a difference to the lives of the people around him.
All he had the power to do, though, was hand Jonathan dry plates when he asked for them, sometimes before he asked, and to make note of which men stepped carefully out of the way of the camera every time Jonathan clicked the shutter.
Most of the men were happy to have their picture taken. They posed with their rackets as if in the middle of a game. At one point, most of them lined up in a perfect group, pulling faces and smiling as Jonathan caught them all.
Most notably, Jonathan’s father stayed out of the photographs, though if Charlie had to venture a guess, he would have said that was because he didn’t approve of Jonathan as a photographer in general.
Hammond stayed away from the camera as well, which didn’t surprise Charlie in the least. They weren’t the only ones, but frustratingly, Charlie didn’t know the names of the other two in particular who kept away from everything the rest of them were engaging in.
“That’s all the plates I have this afternoon, gentlemen,” Jonathan told the others with a false smile as Charlie carefully packed away the last plate.
“When will we be able to see ourselves preserved for all posterity?” a dark-haired gentleman with a large moustache asked as the footmen marched onto the court to clear away the tennis things.
“You will have to come to my photography studio in Marylebone in a few weeks’ time to see them,” Jonathan said, thumping the man who asked on the back as Charlie packed up the equipment. “I’ll have you for tea.”
Charlie prayed that the man would never show up. He didn’t want to see a single one of the men currently at Fairford House ever again in his life.
He only hoped that he was still with Jonathan in a few weeks’ time.
Or did he? He still wasn’t certain of that.
As soon as they were away from the others, Jonathan’s playful smile vanished. He fell back into silence as the two of them returned the equipment to their room.
“I wish I did not have to join the others for supper tonight,” Jonathan said with a dejected sigh as they sorted everything once they were alone.
“Why do you have to?” Charlie asked, unable to look Jonathan in the eyes, as he moved the box of exposed plates to the shelf where the other boxes of plates for photographs they’d already taken waited.
“Because it is expected,” Jonathan mumbled, moving to the wardrobe to fetch his supper clothes.
Charlie bit his lip as he watched Jonathan sideways. He finished with the boxes of plates, then slowly turned to face Jonathan.
It took a few more seconds for him to summon enough courage to say, “We should leave.”
Jonathan had shed his shirt and was sponging his torso clean by the washbasin. He glanced at Charlie with a sad look. “I wish we could.”
“Why can’t we?” Charlie asked, moving closer to him and looking at him with more boldness.
Jonathan huffed a heavy sigh. “One does not simply leave a house party in the middle,” he said, looking more tired than Charlie had ever seen him. “Especially when we’ve been given a very important task by our new friends.”
“But we have all the photographs we’ve already taken,” Charlie argued. “This is not a good place. We should go.”
Jonathan tossed the sponge back into the wash basin and dried under his arms with a towel. “I cannot.”
Charlie pressed his lips together and huffed through his nose. “There are a lot of things you cannot do.”
Jonathan’s eyes went wide as he glanced suddenly at Charlie. “What is that supposed to mean?”
As guilty as he felt for snapping at his betters, the fire had been lit in Charlie’s soul, and he wasn’t about to give it up.
“You were willing enough to come here in the first place because Brutus and Titus asked you to,” he said. “You inserted yourself easily into the company here and have photographed everything you were meant to. But you cannot now leave? And you won’t help Fabian when he desperately needs us?”
Jonathan’s entire body seemed to weigh down at Charlie’s words.
“Are you on about Lord Fabian again? Still?” He shook his head as he grabbed his supper shirt to put it on.
“Charlie, while I admire your desire to help wherever you can, you do not know the circumstances surrounding Lord Fabian any more than I do.”
In an instant, Charlie was plunged back into frustration and disappointment.
“Then find out,” he said. “Go to the cottage behind the orangery and ask him.”
Jonathan sent him a wary look through the mirror, where he’d gone to make certain he was buttoning his shirt correctly.
“I cannot just walk over to that cottage, knock on the door, and demand to know why a young lordling who is high on opium is idling away his time in the middle of the countryside.”
“He is chained to the bed,” Charlie insisted, wanting to stamp his foot. “The laudanum is being forced on him.”
“You don’t know that,” Jonathan said sheepishly.
Charlie growled in frustration and turned away, heading for the door.
“Charlie, where are you going?” Jonathan asked, pivoting away from the mirror and looking at Charlie in alarm.
Charlie reached for the door handle, glanced back at Jonathan for a moment, then stormed out into the hall. If Jonathan wanted to drag his heels and believe Fabian was complicit in his own captivity, then fine. But Charlie intended to find out the truth.
He met very few people on his way downstairs. Supper was about to be served, so Fairford’s staff was all busy preparing for the meal.
The only person who didn’t seem to be rushing to and from the dining room was the pale-faced maid who had sent him in search of Mr. Glenn the day before.
Charlie caught sight of her just outside the kitchen door as he stepped through a different door into the small courtyard that separated the house from the stables and some of the other buildings.
If the maid had any questions as to why Charlie was wandering around the kitchen courtyard, she didn’t stop to ask. In fact, if Charlie didn’t know better, he would have said the young woman didn’t see him at all.
He pretended to head in a different direction than the orangery as he walked around the house, keeping to the shadows as best he could. He passed the lawn where the guests had played tennis earlier, but the area was abandoned. The gardens were empty as well, which was unsurprising, given the hour.