Chapter 27 A Room for Charlie
As promised, Charlie met Ned at seven at his hotel, and they walked to a small bistro with low ceilings and candlelight.
While Charlie looked at the menu, Ned ordered a bottle of rich red wine from a book that was as thick as a city directory.
After the waiter uncorked it at the table, Ned had grasped the glass in his long fingers, hazel eyes sparkling as he swirled the wine.
He held the wine up to his nose, breathing deep, eyes closed, eyelashes resting delicately on his cheeks.
Only then did he bring the glass to his mouth, the rim pressing into his bottom lip, his tongue swiping a drop from his lips after.
Finally satisfied, Ned gave the waiter a small smile and thanked him in soft French.
Fucking hell.
Charlie cleared his throat and took a drink like he normally did, a decent gulp.
Anything to distract him from the man sitting across from him.
The red was smooth and rich. He’d only drunk wine this good once before, in that brothel in France, when Ned had turned his world upside down in a single evening.
Luckily, before Charlie could make a complete fool of himself, the waiter arrived with their boeuf bourguignon. The dish was rich and savoury, piping hot with vegetables and meat so tender that Charlie barely needed his knife. “This meal alone was worth the trip to France.”
A smile spread across Ned’s face. “Remember the bourguignon in Covent Garden? I thought you were going to get arrested for the sounds you were making.”
Charlie laughed at the memory, even if it was a stab to the gut to think about those glorious moments of ’23. He and Ned had been doing so well pretending they were just old army friends.
Ned must have seen Charlie’s frown because he then asked, “Should I not mention our… past?”
“I’m an arse, Pinsent, but I’m not that much of an arse.” Charlie wanted to prove to Ned he meant what he said, so he asked the question that had been burning in his mind since he had seen Ned two days ago. “Do you have any specific dining companions now?”
“I’ve had to be very discreet. Wait for my bohemian past to become an amusing party anecdote.
George and I’ve started to go on holidays together on the coast, though.
” Charlie’s stomach twisted, even though he had expected such an answer.
“He still works at the Treasury, hoarding each pound like it is his own.”
Charlie reminded himself that he wanted Ned to be happy, and George had been a friend at one point. “Still going out to the Lilypond? To Soho?” He didn’t think Ned noticed the forced levity in his voice.
Ned shook his head. “Only on rare occasions these days.”
“But you still have places to be yourself?” Charlie absolutely should not be asking this question. Should not be curious about the private desires of wearing silky clothes and make-up.
Ned gave no indication if Charlie’s nosiness bothered him. “I can’t take the risk of being spotted. George and I’ve our private circle, though, friends with whom we can be ourselves. The Tautons remain a riot, although Sophie got married, if you could believe.”
Never mind the wine, Charlie couldn’t help but drink in the sight of the man across the table, the long lines of his arms and legs.
A body as responsive as it was strong. A visceral memory shot through Charlie’s mind, of Ned naked, in bed, arched in ecstasy as Charlie ran a fingernail from his chest to his inner thigh.
He really, really should not be thinking such thoughts.
“Do you miss making hats?” Ned's question was worded even more innocently than Charlie’s question had been.
“Closed the door on all that.” For once he wished he had a different answer.
Ned leaned back in his chair and studied Charlie, his expression thoughtful.
The arrival of the tarte tatin distracted them both and Charlie had almost forgotten Ned’s odd look until they were scraping the last of the apple and caramelised pastry from their plates.
“My meetings this afternoon were quite dull. Gave me a lot of time to think.” Ned reached into his pocket and slid a key across the table.
“Once upon a time, you protected me for a night in a French hotel. Tonight, I want to offer the same. This is the key to a hotel room. A room for you to be, to do, whatever you want.”
Charlie knew he shouldn’t take the key. He wasn’t complicated like Ned, needing fancy clothes or make-up to feel like himself. He had made his choice in ’24 He had told Ned only that morning that he had no regrets.
Except… the laughter and smiles of Gert and Millie danced in his mind. Against scandal, against the risk of losing their futures, they’d chosen each other and the unknown in Paris. Refused to abandon their love, broken cars and foreign countries be damned.
Why couldn’t Charlie have an evening to know what it would be like to have made a different decision? A path where being queer wasn’t something that lived only inside Charlie, but in how he acted?
Charlie raised his wine glass and in a single rough gesture knocked back the rest of the red. Ignoring the glint of candlelight on his wedding ring, he reached for the key.
???
Charlie followed Ned back to the hotel, through the lobby, into the lift, and down the hall, until they were facing a solid wooden door with the same numbers as those on the key. Charlie’s blood felt fizzy, electric, as the weight of the key in his hand seemed to grow with every minute.
His hand hesitated slightly before inserting the key into the lock and striding into the room.
Ned’s room was markedly nicer than the dormitory hotel where Charlie was staying.
Whereas Charlie’s shared dorm had six narrow beds and chipped plaster, this room was all dark woods, soft carpets and cut glass.
The large four-poster bed barely took up half the room, leaving the rest of the luxurious space empty except for two overstuffed chairs by the window.
“Might as well come in,” Charlie called over his shoulder without letting himself think, “there’s more than enough space for the both of us.”
Ned smiled at Charlie’s feeble joke, but his eyes were still all fierce focus. “What do you need?”
Charlie had always envied Ned’s clarity of understanding his own desires. Even now, after Charlie had chosen to take the key and accept what this room offered, he didn’t know what he wanted.
Charlie could ask anything of Ned, though. The thrilling power and the responsibility of it anchored him.
Ned opened the windows, and the stuffy summer heat began to dissipate from the room. The windows were large and opened like doors onto wrought-iron balconies. Cool evening air drifted into the room and, with it, the tune of a popular cafe song from a band playing in the Grand Place.
A flash of need coursed through Charlie, and for the first time in a very long time, he didn’t automatically push it away. Charlie extended his hand to Ned. “Dance with me?”
There was no hesitation from Ned as Charlie grasped his hand, soft and elegant. Charlie arranged them in a standard dancing frame, trying not to be too distracted by the closeness of Ned’s body.
Charlie took a step forward and Ned promptly stepped on Charlie’s toe. “Bugger.” His voice came out as a hoarse whisper. “Need to remember to do everything backwards.”
Ned still assumed Charlie would lead when they danced, even though Ned was the authority figure in pretty much every way that mattered to society: taller, older, richer, better educated. Yet he never took any role between them as presumed.
“Relax.” Charlie tried to give Ned a reassuring smile. God knew that Charlie’s body was vibrating with tension, scared to let himself have this moment, of how good it might feel.
They started with the foxtrot. It wasn’t Charlie’s favourite, but it was a dance he remembered Ned being comfortable with. They fell into the rhythm of the dance more easily than Charlie had anticipated, gliding around the furniture that Charlie hadn’t bothered to move.
Outside the song was finishing up, but Charlie didn’t want to stop. Before the band had even taken up their next piece, Charlie asked, “Have you ever danced the rumba?”
Ned furrowed his brow. “I don’t think so? I might have seen it at one of Sophie’s parties.”
“It’s a good time.” Charlie listened to the beats of the new song being played outside, trying to determine how to adapt the slow-quick-quick-slow steps of the rumba to it.
“The key is in the sway of the hips. You step with the ball of your foot, so that one knee is always bent. The hips naturally follow.”
Ned’s frown transformed into a broad smile as Charlie stepped forward, angling his hips, and Ned’s body followed in kind. That was the joy of leading, bringing out the movement in your partner.
They both relaxed into the languid pace of the steps, the sway of their hips, close but never quite touching.
Charlie knew it was cheeky to have picked this particular dance.
The foxtrot was all about staying in your own space, each dancer maintaining their own form.
The rumba was seductive. It hinted with a wink and the shift of a hip of what these movements could also lead to, without ever crossing the line into overt sex.
Charlie felt the muscles shifting under Ned’s back as he stepped forward and Ned stepped back.
Charlie had learned Ned’s body before he got to know his mind.
Knew how his cock felt before he had known how Ned drank his tea.
Heard the sound of Ned moaning in pleasure before the sound of his laugh.
Now, Ned’s heart set the beat for Charlie’s.
A tension flowed out of Charlie. How had Ned phrased it all those years ago? There was a mask that Charlie wore. One that he had worn every day for eight years and never once let slip, no matter how much it itched, no matter how tight and oppressive it got.
He missed Ned. His posh bastard. The love of his life.
He missed Ned’s dry sense of humour, the kind where you only realised the joke a few minutes later.
The way he walked into a room and commanded the attention of everyone in it.
How he could make Charlie feel like the king of the world with a coy glance.
All his complexities and contradictions.
The best warrior Charlie had ever known who was also the hottest thing on two legs in a silk robe.
The poshest man possible while being one of the least pretentious.
Even all the ways Ned was raw and damaged, and how he understood the ways Charlie was broken too.
The way he had once ripped open Charlie’s world and yet had unshakeable faith in Charlie to keep up.
But Ned wasn’t Charlie’s lover anymore, and never would be again. Yet for this precious moment, Charlie pretended they were. When they had lived as they had wanted—disagreeing about art, going to underground nightclubs and reading by the river with the taste of strawberries in their mouths.
The music began to fade, and their dancing became slower and closer. They no longer followed the steps of any particular dance, but simply pressed together and swayed.
Charlie soaked up the chance to take in all of Ned’s little details. The new crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes, the flecks of colours in his irises, those long eyelashes that moved quickly whenever Ned was thinking. The dark, sharp stubble that was beginning to show.
Ned bit his lower lip. Charlie’s tongue licked his own lips, suddenly painfully dry. This was another dance, its steps ones Charlie hadn’t done in a long time, but as familiar as ever.
This was what taking the hotel key had been building to. What giving himself a night with Ned would mean. Except now that Charlie was on the edge of kissing Ned, of perhaps fucking, he found he couldn’t do it.
Charlie might be a largely inadequate husband, but he wouldn’t betray Betty.
Before Charlie needed to push Ned away, the taller man stepped out of his embrace. “My apologies, I hadn’t meant to get so carried away. I offered you protection to be yourself and…”
If Charlie thought he ached before, it was nothing to how he felt now, having lost the warmth and comfort of Ned’s arms. Ned took a deep, shaky breath before continuing, “You deserve better from me.”
Of course Ned would see it as all his fault. See Charlie’s mistakes as his own. He had always made Charlie out to be a much better man than he was. “I had no business taking that key.”
Ned collapsed into one of the chairs with more grace than a six-foot-tall man should really have, head in his hands.
Charlie was frozen in the middle of the room. How had he fucked up so spectacularly?
“I think I have regrets,” Charlie spoke the words as they came to him, one at a time.
Ned lifted his face from his hands. “I understand, of course. But really, you shouldn’t feel any shame for what is long in the past. Young men have desires, we were lonely, trying to sort out what the war did to us.”
No, no, this was all wrong.
“I’m not talking about us, what we shared. I don’t regret that. Ever.” Charlie let the full weight of his conviction show. “I regret that we had to make the choices that we did. That it was your career or me, that it was a family or you. I wish… we could have found a way to have everything.”
Distantly, he noted that the music from the Grand Place had finished.
“Regret is the reward for getting older,” Ned said softly.
“Some reward.”
“You acknowledge it.” Ned took a deep breath. “And you let it go.”
Hadn’t that been what Charlie had been doing? A bitterness filled Charlie’s chest. Bitter that there was a piece of himself, an important piece, that no one ever got to see. He hadn’t felt this after their walk in London in 24, but maybe tonight he had a better sense of what he had lost.
Charlie had to get out of this room. He had to find a way to put back on his mask, become Charles Villiers, the upright citizen, again. Had to put all this madness back into the lockbox in the back of his mind.
He grabbed his coat and walked towards the door. “I’ll see you at the memorial unveiling tomorrow,” he called over his shoulder, not brave enough to look back at Ned.
Once the door closed behind him, Charlie couldn’t wait for the lift and darted down the five flights of stairs. He was breathless by the time he reached the marble lobby. He sprinted out the door and kept running, running, down Arras’ streets and alleys until he could no longer breathe.
He slowed to a walk, his breath punching out of his lungs in gasps. His face, hair, and shirt were all soaked with rain, which somehow he hadn’t noticed until now. Charlie let the cold French night seep into his jacket, into his skin and muscles, fingering his wedding ring as he walked.