Chapter 28 Christmas Under Fire #2
Hugh cocked his head and looked at Charlie like he was an interesting specimen in the zoo. “I was drunk and needed to piss. A chap strolled in after me in the toilets and asked me to suck his cock. I was arrested about two minutes later.”
Ned froze his hand midway to his lips for a sip of port. “You mean you were propositioned?”
“I seized the day, and then found it had rather seized me in return.”
Charlie turned to look at Ned, eyebrow quirked.
“I’ve been asking around, and it seems quite a few chaps have been picked up for gross indecency at the moment.
The same story—drunk, public toilets, propositioned, and immediately arrested.
Funnily enough, the man they were with never seems to be listed in the dockets. ”
“Entrapment?” Sophie took the words right out of Ned’s mouth. “Is there any proof?”
Charlie shrugged. “From what I can see, no one has bothered to find out.”
“The details are purely academic. Ned is going to arrange for the charges to be dismissed.” Freddy reached out as if to take Hugh’s hand. “All will be done and forgotten before you know it.”
Ned’s heart raced, even as he tried to reassure himself that changing his support to advocate the use of gas by the Allies wouldn’t shift the course of history by any means. Being prosecuted would change the course of Hugh’s life.
“For fuck’s sake.” Charlie cut across the conversation again. “Hugh, you have access to wealth, power, and privilege. A man like you could take an entrapment scheme to court and get the whole thing dismantled. Yet you don’t. You would rather rely on your cronies to bend the law for you.”
The fire crackled into the silence as they all gaped at Charlie’s words. Hugh alone remained unreadable, smoking yet another cigarette, using his port glass as an ashtray.
When he did speak, his accent completely shifted, becoming barely recognisable to Ned.
“I clawed my way into polite society once, and that was mostly due to luck and looks. Both of which have run out. I’ve no desire to find out whether life as the catamite third son of a tenant farmer got any better over the past quarter century. ”
“Wouldn't have picked you as a Geordie.” Charlie managed his surprise better than Ned or the shocked Tautons on the sofa. Or perhaps Charlie had seen something in Hugh that Ned had never noticed. “Pass a bloke a smoke, will you?”
“I haven’t been ‘from the north’ in a long time. Not since I’ve had this name.” Hugh’s rougher accent stayed in place as he lit a cigarette for Charlie. “The power and privilege? I fought for it. You should understand that, not like the rest of them in this room. I don’t intend to lose what I got.”
“So then don’t.” Charlie’s own accent had also become considerably harsher.
“Most rich poofters would lose if put in front of a judge with these types of charges. But a desperate son of a bitch who needs to put on the show of his life? There would be a line around the block to watch. Are you an actor or not? Convince your fucking audience.”
“There was a teacher, a few years ago, who managed to get off because of entrapment.” Sophie’s voice was almost hesitant, as if she were intruding on a personal conversation.
Freddy nodded. “I remember that case. There was no denying he was caught with his pants down as it were, but the judge threw the charges out. Demanded an apology.”
“A precedent could help some of the other men Charlie mentioned, maybe get them new trials.” Trust Sophie to think of others.
Hugh met Ned’s eyes and for a flash, Ned was once again in the presence of the blond prince who had laughed and danced at the Ritz. Whose carefree attitude had been so liberating.
“Edmund, any chance you could help me find a lawyer who wants to bring the Met down a peg or two?”
Ned had to clear his throat before he spoke. “With pleasure, Hugh.”
???
The fire cast long, dim shadows across the room. Sophie, Freddy, and Hugh had long since said their good evenings. Charlie had moved to sit in the wingback chair opposite from Ned.
“You were asking around?” Ned didn’t know how to feel about Charlie’s detective work. Charlie had no doubt pulled a rabbit out of a hat. Yet, why hadn’t he spoken to Ned about it?
“A few shopboys here and there. I wanted the lay of the land before you went and did something stupid.”
“I had a plan. Hugh was going to be fine.”
“You were going to agree to things you shouldn’t. Compromise yourself.” At the question on Ned’s face, Charlie answered. “You don’t think I know you? Figured you would sacrifice yourself for someone else.”
“I don’t have infinite political capital. I have to play politics to get what I want.”
“Now you won’t need to. Hugh’s going to fight the case in court. You can keep your stance on gas.” Charlie was almost triumphant.
Ned weighed his next words carefully. “This helps, no doubt, but I’ll have other favours to call in the new year.”
Charlie’s objector tribunal, Pemberton’s letter, all axes hanging over their happiness.
“I would never ask that of you.” Blunt and honest.
“You didn’t need to.” Equally blunt, equally honest.
Charlie’s face hardened in the firelight. “Let me be clear. I don’t want whatever you are plotting. I don’t want you involved with the tribunal, especially if it comes at the price of compromising yourself.”
“I can’t be without you. I can’t watch you get hurt.” The words came out as a whisper.
Charlie pushed himself out of his chair and sat down on the arm of Ned’s, wrapping his arms around Ned’s shoulders.
“I’m not scared of anything that the tribunal finds.
The terrifying conversation about what happened during the war?
That happened nine years ago at Thiepval when I told you why I slit my wrists.
I can handle everything else. Let me manage the conchie tribunal and you make sure our country doesn’t lose its soul. ”
Tears formed at the edges of Ned’s eyes. He’d rarely been so scared of the future, but if following Charlie’s wishes wasn’t doing right by him, then what was?
A thousand objections and arguments crumbled to dust. Ned wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the past. He and Charlie had both paid the price for trying to protect the other. Now they needed to take the chance of facing the storm by standing together.
“Promise me you won’t do anything stupid?”
“I never do.” Charlie leaned down and began to kiss Ned intently, fingers fumbling for the buttons of his shirt.
“Charlie!” Ned hissed.
Charlie didn’t stop. “Everyone has gone to bed.”
“I don’t want you to force yourself…” Ned was far too raw to explain.
“Is this about last night?” Charlie looked confused.
“You didn’t want me.”
Charlie shifted until he was sitting in Ned’s lap, their faces nearly touching. “We’ve been at it like bunnies these past months, and you’ve come what, a third of the time? A quarter? Have you been fucking me out of pity? Is the truth that I’m awful on my knees?”
“God no!” Ned spoke almost too loudly. “You’re incredible, ecstasy inducing. The best I ever had.”
“The best, eh?” Charlie's face split into a broad grin. “Always good to hear, but that wasn’t my point. Your body works the way it works. I can tell exactly when it gets to be too much and you won’t come.
Doesn’t mean sometimes I don’t wish you would.
I love to watch you fall apart, but as long as you’re in my arms, enjoying yourself, I’m happy.
I was having a good time last night, and I was hoping to have a good time tonight. ”
“I want to be enough for you.” At Ned’s shame, the words came out as a whisper.
“For a brilliant man, sometimes you can be awfully thick-headed.” Charlie’s eyes darted around, and before Ned had a chance to work out what Charlie was looking for, he pulled Ned up from the chair. “Do you still remember how to be quiet?”
Ned shouldn’t find those words as erotic as he did. “You can’t be proposing what I think you are?”
“The servants have all gone to bed,” Charlie repeated. “So do you remember?” he mouthed the words against Ned’s neck.
“Yes,” Ned answered breathily. What Charlie was proposing was wrong, dangerous, and Ned wanted it so badly.
Charlie stepped off his lap and backed up against the sturdy wood bookcases that lined that wall. “Get over here, Pinsent.”
Ned stood up as if he were a puppet on a string and found himself yanked into a harsh, unrelenting kiss. A moan escaped him, and Charlie pulled back. “I said be quiet.”
Chastised, and even harder for it, Ned apologised with his lips, worshipping not just Charlie’s soft mouth, but his jaw, neck. Charlie had given himself a close shave in advance of the dinner party, and the soft skin was soft, addictive.
Charlie’s hands slipped down from Ned’s arms to their trousers, flicking the buttons open with the brutal efficiency that normally indicated that Ned was about to get it. A shiver ran down Ned’s spine in anticipation.
Except, with his dancer’s grace, Charlie pulled back from Ned’s kiss, grinned at him, and flipped around so that he was now facing the bookcases, arms braced against the wooden shelves, arse bare with his trousers and drawers around his ankles.
He looked over his shoulder with a sly look. “Going to get me ready, then?”
Oh fuck.
Whatever intellectual capacity Ned had remaining after the evening’s proceedings was burned up at the raw sight of his lover presenting himself like this to Ned, blue eyes flashing with mischief, legs spread.
Charlie sighed dramatically. “I guess I’ll have to instruct you then.”
Ned’s fist gripped his cock tighter. “Yes,” he managed to shudder out.
“Give me your fingers.” At Charlie’s instructions, Ned brought his left hand to Charlie’s mouth, which Charlie took finger by finger, sucking and swirling.
“Now make me feel good.” Ned set about doing exactly that, using every trick he’d acquired as well as some he had just fantasied about to make his lover fall apart. Caressing Charlie’s cock, balls, every inch of skin and nerves Ned could find. He was enthralled by every shudder and hitched breath.
Charlie might be the one bare-arsed, but he was in total control of Ned.
A small tin container was pressed into Ned’s hand, “You’re very good with your hands. Might want to use some of this.” Charlie had brought Vaseline? It had been sitting in his pocket since dinner? That level of planning made Ned groan. “Make me forget who I am.”
God, Ned hoped he could. Not just because he wanted to bring Charlie pleasure, but because the vulnerability of being taken like this wasn’t one that Charlie afforded himself often.
Slicking up his fingers, Ned breeched Charlie, gently but with no hesitation. He had his orders. Ned knew what he was looking for, and it took hardly any strokes until Charlie was gasping. Ned wrapped his arm around Charlie’s chest to provide him with extra support.
“Whatever you need, whatever you want, you take from me,” Ned said, setting a slow rhythm, wanting to give Charlie the opportunity to savour the sensations. “Use me, fuck yourself on me.”
Charlie did just that, adjusting and shifting his hips, controlling and driving the movement. This was exactly what Ned liked, a bit at Charlie’s mercy, a bit wanton, and a bit out of control. Ned thrust back against Charlie’s thigh, because how could he not?
“I love you.” Charlie words were breathy, on the cusp of tears.
“God yes. Love you too. With everything I have,” Ned gasped, Charlie’s words completing parts of Ned's soul.
Charlie reached around and gripped Ned’s cock, tightly and fast. It was an awkward angle, but it was enough. Ned was done. He wasn’t trying to be the perfect son, the saviour of his friends, the moral compass of his country. He was pure need, laid bare for Charlie’s use and pleasure.
Normally, it was Charlie who spoke in bed, but the words couldn’t stop tumbling out of Ned, whispering gently about how beautiful he was, how loved he was. Charlie came, shuddering, shaking, tears streaming down his face.
Careful not to rush the moment, Ned withdrew his fingers, kissed the sweat-streaked temple of Charlie’s face, and then kneeled to gently pull up Charlie’s drawers and trousers, carefully re-doing the buttons and belt.
Once he was satisfied that they were decent, he pulled Charlie away from the bookcases and down into the chair, cuddling his lover in his arms. Wordlessly and still boneless, Charlie nestled against his chest.
Together they watched the embers of the fire die down.