by Tamara Allen
Copyright © 2014 Boys in our Books
ISBN: 978-0-692288-73-3
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved.
This anthology is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Art
Copyright © Susan Lee
syleegurldesigns.tumblr.com
Images copyright © Shutterstock
Edited by Dana Trejo
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
FOREWORD
by Alex Beecroft
OFFICE ROMANCE
by Tamara Allen
INTRODUCING MR. WINTERBOURNE
by Joanna Chambers
THE RUIN OF GABRIEL ASHLEIGH
by KJ Charles
UNFAIR IN LOVE AND WAR
by Kaje Harper
CAROUSEL
by Jordan L Hawk
DELIVERANCE
by Aleksandr Voinov
This collection of short stories was birthed because a sworn “I don’t like historicals” reader fell in love with what have become some of her favorite books by most of her favorite writers. Surprisingly, they were all historicals. Determined to make others feel the love, these authors were asked to contribute small tastes of how amazing historical storytelling can be.
Thank you to all the authors who generously and enthusiastically gave their time and talents to this project: Tamara Allen, Alex Beecroft, Joanna Chambers, KJ Charles, Kaje Harper, Jordan L. Hawk, and Aleksandr Voinov. It was such a pleasure.
Thanks to the Boys In Our Books team for supporting this endeavor.
This was a labor of love and I am thrilled to have been a part of it.
Best,
Susan
All proceeds from the purchase of this anthology will be donated to AllOut.org in celebration of LGBT History Month, October 2014.
I don’t get on well with my family, and to be honest my family don’t get on well with each other. By the time I was old enough to recognise the people around me, there was only me, mum and dad and occasional visits by my much older sisters. My grandparents were dead. Cousins, uncles, aunts etc, I believed I didn’t have any. Beyond the nuclear family, relatives were not spoken of. I knew we had moved to the part of England where I was growing up from Northern Ireland, because I remembered that trip, and I knew that my parents had moved to Ireland from somewhere else before that, but I didn’t know where they had come from originally.
As far as I was concerned, we had no past and we had no extended family. There was no sense in which we were part of anything larger. Just the three of us in a small house and blank white space where the rest of the world might have been.
Maybe that was one of the reasons why I’ve always gravitated to history.
Where I live now, it’s so flat that on a good day I can see the tower and the lantern of Ely cathedral across miles of farmland under the huge, cloud haunted sky of the fens. The present cathedral was built in 1109ad on the site of an earlier monastery, founded by St. Aetheldreda in 673ad. Ely is my local market town so I go into the cathedral often to pray or think in peace, and as I sit there in this spot where people of my county have been doing the same thing for going on 1400 years, I feel the sense of community, of belonging, that my family never had.
In a way, knowing the history of your country/your people is knowing who you are — what debts and what privileges your ancestors have bequeathed to you. I morris dance a lot, and that’s a similar thing — I’m aware that I’m taking part in something that’s been a tradition in my country since the 15th century, and whose roots go back into a shared Indo-European past that we can only dimly guess about. Follow the morris back far enough and you find that it connects up with dances from Spain, Morocco, from Romania, Germany and Portugal, even from India.
History is forever teaching us that we are all linked. That I, who walk the maze set in the floor of Ely cathedral, am part of a continuity of people who have walked it before me. I am part of the curve in the waterfall that existed before I did and will endure long after my particular little droplet has passed.
I think this is why Queer historical fiction is so important. A lot of us have had problems with our families and have not felt a sense of belonging there. Historians are now beginning to look beneath the straight-washing of the Victorians, who bowdlerised original sources to fit them to their straight-laced view of the world and buried what they couldn’t reinterpret. It’s beginning to be perfectly clear that queer people of all sorts have always been here. We too have been walking the mazes and dancing the dances of our culture throughout all recorded history and beyond.
But so much of the evidence has been lost or covered up. Queer people have been left thinking that history does not belong to them — that outside this modern moment was nothing but a blank white space, or worse, nothing but unrelenting condemnation.
It’s not good to be left feeling disconnected, as if you have no family and no place in the world, as if you don’t belong.
I have to applaud the efforts of some historians to uncover the evidence that puts gay and lesbian people, bisexuals, transgender people, pansexuals, asexuals, genderqueer people and others of the GSRM community back into the stream out of which we dip our present day society. Their efforts are vital, but they don’t reach people like stories do.
To my mind, that’s a primary reason why queer historical fiction is so important. A story can seize the imagination and the heart in the way a textbook can’t. If you read the stories and you think, “Yes, by God, we have been in this world forever. We belong here,” then you’ve put down a root that maybe you didn’t have before. And roots are essential if a plant is going to thrive.
My first inkling I was in trouble came the November day Mr. Leach made a rare appearance in accounting, bringing with him a gentleman introduced to us as efficiency expert Hubert Templeton. If he was unimposing in height and weight, Mr. Templeton made up for it with a fearsome gaze behind a beribboned pince-nez. As he marched the broad length of our department, pausing at each desk to pass silent judgment, I heard from behind me the swift shuffling of papers and whisper of drawers hastily opened or shut. Typewriter keys fell silent along with the chatter common in the closing hours, when everyone was resisting the influence of a chilly workroom and the last lazy efforts of the afternoon sun.
Mr. Leach remained at the front, near my desk, looking out over us like a kindly grandfather—if one accustomed to only the best behaved of grandchildren. “As of today, ladies and gentlemen, we’re introducing a new model of efficiency that will take us successfully into the new decade. The principles of scientific management have served a number of companies, and I’m confident they’ll prove as beneficial here at Manhattan Security Mutual. I anticipate cutting waste in all departments, beginning with correspondence. However . . .” He bowed in courtly homage to the row of secretaries at the southwest windows. “I’ve no doubt we’ll find our lovely sunflowers already at their most proficient.”
The ladies laughed politely, and Mr. Leach’s wizened features pulled into a lopsided smirk. Beside me, Bill Wallace groaned, a reaction I barely kept myself from echoing as the boss swung his gaze back to us. “Onward to accounting. Gentlemen.” A wry note stood out. “Well, I suppose it will suffice to say I’ve hired Mr. Templeton to get us on the right road. Any questions you may have, you will direct to him.”
“New methods,” Bill muttered. “New efficiency. New decade. Why do I get the feeling any day now we’re going to be looking for new jobs?”
We were all wise to the ongoing discussions upstairs, if we didn’t kno
w the details. Other departments had let people go. I’d hoped we would last through the year’s end to find ’21 bringing better tidings. I’d hoped that as the newest employee in the accounting department, I wouldn’t be the first handed my walking papers.
“Foster Wetherly.” Mr. Leach settled a smile tinged with somber sympathy on me. “I’d like to talk to you upstairs. And Casey Gladwin—where . . .?”
Most likely on the other side of the room, flirting with the secretaries. It was a sore temptation to say it aloud. Somehow I restrained myself. “Mr. Gladwin’s desk is at the back, two rows over.”
Mr. Leach seemed surprised by the precise reply, but I would have wagered that everyone on the fourth floor knew where Casey Gladwin sat on those rare occasions he could be found at his desk rather than hovering over someone else’s, going on about everything under the sun. It was a wonder he finished any work. Less of a wonder was the possibility Mr. Leach might let him go.
At the moment, I could take little pleasure in Casey Gladwin’s anticipated absence when my own seemed imminent. With no prospects and too many doctor’s bills to pay, I didn’t have a hope of moving back into my own apartment. My parents might not mind their only son stuck yet in the nest, but I didn’t know if I could bear another year in the room that belonged not to me, but to the boy whose biggest worry four years ago was what to do with himself once he finished college.
As I stepped into the elevator, I tried to concentrate on an argument that would persuade Mr. Leach to keep me at least through winter. If things improved and I found another job by spring . . .
I’d only begun to close the elevator door when a battered ash cane swung through the cab gate. Opening the gate, Gladwin stepped in and gave me a commiserating smile. “You, too? I have to say I’m surprised. You’re more devoted to that grindstone than anyone else on the fourth floor.”
“I was the most recently hired.” The same day as he, though I doubted he’d remember it.
“Yes.” Gladwin studied me with a more somber air. “Three months ago, right? It’s a funny thing. When the manager plucked us out of the line of applicants, I thought we were bound to hit it off. I get these ideas about fate—” He suddenly grinned. “Which shows you how silly they are. I suppose there’s a laugh to be had over being both hired and fired on the same days.”
“I hope you’ll understand when I say I can’t really afford to laugh.”
There was a trace of apology in his gaze, but it didn’t dampen the sheen of good humor. “When can a man not afford to laugh?”
The elevator door released me from captivity, and I stepped out ahead of Gladwin, outpacing him down the long corridor to the executive offices. There, I glanced back to see him leaning more heavily on the cane than he ordinarily did downstairs, with no ladies around to impress.
Before he could catch up, I went in, hoping to have a moment alone with the boss; but it was in vain, as we were made to wait ten minutes in the anteroom while Mr. Leach finished his chat with the fourth-floor manager. Though the manager might have said any number of good things about my work, once I’d taken a seat before Mr. Leach’s old oak desk, where my record was spread alongside Gladwin’s, it seemed clear that no argument in the world would spare either of us. The restraint in Mr. Leach’s manner, the way he shut the files and set them aside, the regretful curl of his lips—none of it invited discussion.
Gladwin knew it, I sensed. But he wouldn’t keep quiet. “No chance of reprieve?”
The rueful note made Mr. Leach chuckle. “Don’t alarm yourself just yet, sir. While I do have to let one of you go—”
“One?” Gladwin shifted in his chair. “Something tells me we’re not flipping a coin.”
The remark, directed to me, I steadfastly ignored. “Mr. Leach, if you’ve called us up to make a case for ourselves—”
“Not right this minute.” The smile he sent my way was very nearly reassuring. “You’ll make a case for yourselves over the next two weeks. Mr. Templeton believes this is an expedient method of retaining those who are most suited to fulfill our organization’s goals. I imagine you feel singled out, but we’re testing this in more than one department. If it doesn’t sit well with either of you to be so judged, you may request a character reference right now, and I’ll be pleased to provide it.”
Any affection I possessed for scientific principles was rapidly dwindling away. “My work will speak for itself, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wetherly. Mr. Gladwin?”
Gladwin seemed to need a moment to find his voice. “I’ll do whatever’s necessary, sir.”
“Excellent. Mr. Templeton will be overseeing your work. To facilitate this, Mr. Gladwin, I’d like you to exchange desks with Mr. Wallace for the time being.”
As much as I loathed the idea of Gladwin’s desk next to mine, it could only benefit me. Mr. Templeton would get an eyeful of Gladwin’s work habits, and maybe that would be enough to sway the balance.
It was a hope of which I had to remind myself the next day when Gladwin gathered his belongings and dumped them across Bill’s desk. Bill had already removed himself to Gladwin’s desk, at Mr. Templeton’s behest. Said Templeton buzzed up and down the aisles, an unsettling presence that kept every head bent over typewriter and adding machine.
Even so, suppressed amusement rose from the row behind me as Gladwin put a bulky comptometer down on one corner of his new desk, encroaching deliberately on my desk in the process. As he dropped into his chair, he appeared to notice my annoyance. “Your machine’s the one parked on the wrong side.”
“It’s right where it suits me.” I picked up my pen, determined that Mr. Templeton’s charge back up the aisle should find me hard at work. Gladwin’s soft snort pulled my attention back, and I frowned at him. “If you find it inconvenient—”
“Not at all.” A bright-eyed gaze slid my way. “I didn’t know you were left-handed. Reminds me of the fellow at my last job who was fired for it.”
“Oh, come now. They fired him for being left-handed?”
Gladwin lifted his shoulders in a rueful shrug. “It slowed him down. Put him at odds with the office equipment.” He shot a pointed glance at the ruler I’d reversed with painted-on numbers. “Everyone wants to be efficient these days.”
His laugh was quiet, but the sardonic note rang clear, as if he loathed the situation as much as I did. Or he wanted me to believe that. If I didn’t keep up my guard, I’d find myself manipulated out of a job. “I’m not at odds,” I assured him and moved my own calculating machine to the right hand corner of my desk.
“Not with the equipment, anyway.” He flashed me an altogether impish grin before swiftly returning to the task at hand. Mr. Templeton was on the prowl, rounding our double row of desks with no doubt every suspicion that work wasn’t being done. The pile of Gladwin’s personal possessions inspired a clucking disapproval.
“Casey Gladwin?” Mr. Templeton leaned toward him, peering hard through the pince-nez.
Gladwin, frowning, leaned back. “Yes, sir. I’ve just landed. Give me a minute to sort everything.”
“Minutes wasted add up quickly, Mr. Gladwin. Do you know how a business survives a period of economic instability?”
“The same way we survived the war. A little prayer and a lot of luck.”
I choked back a laugh. Gladwin’s breezy charm and dark-haired, blue-eyed good looks had made him a lot of friends in the last three months, but it wouldn’t get him anywhere now. I knew as much when Mr. Templeton drew back, shoulders squared. “Do you take your job seriously, Mr. Gladwin?”
“I do, sir.”
“Then you may wish to provide even the smallest evidence of your desire to keep it.” Mr. Templeton turned to me, and I swiftly dropped the pen—and as hastily scooped it up in my right hand. He seemed not to notice. “Frederick Wetherly?”
“Foster, sir.”
“Beg pardon.” Mr. Templeton looked over my desk. “You seem very organized, Mr. Wetherly. However . . .” He picked u
p the orange I’d left under the shade of my lamp. “Do you ordinarily dine at your desk?”
“No, sir. But my doctor prescribed—” That revelation seemed a bad idea. “I keep something at my desk in case I’m hungry late in the day. For efficiency’s sake,” I added, hoping it would induce him to leave it at that.
“I see. In future, leave nothing on your desk that doesn’t contribute to the task at hand.” Mr. Templeton put down the orange. “I won’t keep you further, but trust I’m staying apprised of your habits as Mr. Leach requested.” His gaze, as he spoke, lingered on Gladwin. When he’d turned his attention to the next row, I let out a relieved breath. It would be a task indeed, to get through such examinations and hold my thoughts together to focus on work at the same time. I opened a drawer and tucked the orange inside—only to notice Gladwin was observing with interest. Anything to avoid work, I supposed, and picked up my pen all the more determinedly.
“Your doctor prescribes fruit?”
“To strengthen my lungs.” And make the rest of the pills a little more palatable.
“Were you gassed?” It was asked quietly, all trace of humor gone.
The question surprised me—as did his interest. “I had the flu. Nearly died of it.”
“Nearly’s close enough. You look all right now.”
“I’m quite all right.”
“Why all the pills?” he asked, with a nod toward the drawer. He’d gotten a good look, evidently.
“My doctor means to keep me well.”