by KJ Charles
Clem stared at him, speechless.
“Mark came round to ask for it, and I gave it to him,” Rowley said. “I didn’t consult you, or wait for you. It seemed like a sensible idea.”
“My family.” Clem’s lips felt odd, as though they wouldn’t quite shape the words. “My brother—”
“My shop. I have a stake in this too. I should have asked you, I see that, but I, uh, I thought we were working together.”
“Yes,” Clem said. “So did I.”
They stared at each other. Rowley looked very small, his face very bare.
“I thought you understood,” Clem said. “I really did think you understood. I have to explain to Edmund why I can’t keep my promise to him now. I’d like you to go, please.”
Rowley nodded. “Mark will be back soon. Tonight or tomorrow.”
“That’s not the point.”
“No. I know.” Rowley replaced his spectacles, hesitated as if to say something, then simply turned and left.
Chapter 10
Mark came back with the page the next evening.
Rowley and Clem hadn’t spoken since. Rowley couldn’t. The prospect of an argument froze him, in mind and body. He felt only the sensation of shoulders hunching, spine crunching, locking him in place; he couldn’t think for fear of what might happen. It didn’t matter if it was Clem, who’d probably never raised a hand to anyone in anger; it didn’t matter that Rowley was thirty-five years old and his father had been dead for two decades. He knew he looked like an automaton, staring blankly and answering furious shouts in a featureless voice, and he well knew it didn’t ever make anyone less angry, but it was all the defence he had against the awful spectre of violent, murderous rage.
He’d have liked to lose himself in work. He felt like skinning something. But since that had been taken away from him as well, he did more cleaning, and spoke to the man from the fire insurance company, and then came in and went straight up to his room, where he lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The whitewash had been new when he moved in but it was already greasy-dusty with soot and smuts, risen from the fire or carried in by fog, marring the smooth surface. Nothing ever lasted.
There was a tight knot in his stomach that hadn’t gone away since that argument, a nauseous sense of having done something irretrievably bad, and a desperate urge to make it not be his fault. He had not intended to disregard Clem in handing the page to Mark. Clem was the one who’d called the enquiry agent in; why would Rowley dismiss his request? And it was Rowley’s shop that had burned; surely he should have a say in the matter? And anyway, hadn’t they been working as a team, on the same side? Was it Rowley’s fault that Clem was on his brother’s side more?
He dropped an arm over his face, not much wanting to see.
Of course Clem would put his brother the earl before anything else. Certainly before Rowley’s tentative efforts to be something more. Especially if those efforts came across as it seemed they had.
What the devil was I supposed to do? his rebellious thoughts demanded. I’ve bent over backward to accommodate him, I’ve tried my best….
Maybe he had, and maybe his best wasn’t good enough. Maybe he should leave. His shop was in ruins, his life was in danger, and the look of betrayal on Clem’s face was not going away, no matter how hard he shut his eyes.
He’d had to say something. All very well for Clem to talk about Rowley respecting his decisions, but how could he keep silent when he heard that tissue of lies and melodrama? In Rowley’s opinion, the Earl of Moreton was going to make sure he came out of this cesspit smelling of roses, whatever damage that did to anyone else. Clem ought to be protecting himself, and instead he was standing by his bully of a brother.
You don’t owe him that, Rowley found himself thinking at Clem.
They weren’t his own words. Mr. Morris had told him that twenty years ago, when he had expressed his intention to go see his father hanged. He’d said, “So I can be sure he’s dead,” with the bravado of youth, and Mr. Morris had shaken his head and said, “You don’t owe him that,” as though Rowley had told him something entirely different.
He’d gone to the execution, with a crowd variously howling execration, commenting on the prisoner’s courage, or simply enjoying an interesting day out. He’d wormed his way to the front, and he’d watched his father brought to the scaffold, hooded, and dropped. He’d watched as the body swung for the required hour and the crowd dispersed; he’d watched it cut down and taken for burial within the prison walls. He hadn’t wept and he hadn’t prayed, but he’d attended his father’s passing, because he’d had to.
Denny Green’s eyes had swept over him in the crowd. They’d been bloodshot and red-rimmed and he’d looked sick for drink, and Rowley didn’t think his father had even recognised him, and he truly hadn’t owed Denny Green so much as a farewell—but he’d been there anyway.
Rowley was thinking about that when there was a knock on his door. He raised himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. “Yes?”
It was Elsie, the little tweeny. “Please, Mr. Green, but Mr. Talleyfer says could you come down, only Mr.—Mr.—Gawd, I forgot already, him with the foreign name is here.”
“Braglewicz?” Elsie nodded with relief. Rowley slipped his shoes on and hurried down.
Mark and Clem were in the study, and one look at Clem’s rigid face told Rowley that he was not forgiven. And this was Clem, forgiving to a fault. He felt sick.
“Evening, Rowley.” Mark glanced between him and Clem, a swift look that suggested he saw more than Rowley wanted him to. “Thought I’d better let you know what I found. If that’s all right?”
Clem gave a brief, reluctant nod. Rowley managed, “Yes.”
“Don’t go overboard,” Mark recommended. “I only spent two days on this with nobody paying me, no trouble at all. Right, well, first things first, the Church of St. Peter parish register covering 1850 is missing a leaf. Goes from page thirty-six to page thirty-nine. It’s cut out neat as you like, but the handwriting on the surrounding pages matches this one. I’d say it’s a certainty. Real page, real marriage. So, while I was there, I thought I’d pop over to the parish of Penn and ask some questions about Miss Emmeline Godfrey. Any joy at Somerset House on that, incidentally?”
“She died this year. No divorce.”
Mark whistled. “Well, that’s not good for his lordship, is it?”
“What did you find?” Clem asked, his voice tight with tension.
Mark made a face. “Nothing good, mate. First thing is, her sister’s still living in a hamlet called Forty Green. She says nobody’s seen hide nor hair of Emmeline since March 1850. And she didn’t know about any marriage. What she said, and I had the same from neighbours too, was that Emmeline was a real beauty, chaste as a nun, and religious as one, come to that.”
“Religious?” Clem said.
“Devout. Saintly, they said, apart from one chap who said unbearable, but I reckon he meant the same thing. If she’d been Romish she’d have been off to a convent, and her sister thought she’d done that, gone off and converted secret-like. Nobody knew of any followers, except there was a lady recalled gossip that she’d been walking out with a gentleman. Nobody knew of a marriage. She’d been living in Chepping Wycombe to work, kept herself to herself, and then in spring of ’fifty she sent her family a letter saying she had to go away, and nobody’s heard from her in twenty-three years. No idea where she went, or who with, if anyone.”
“Are you—can you be sure?” Clem looked rather sick.
“It’s what they all said. Thing is, sometimes people go missing and everyone talks like they were saints, but more often they’ll tell you, ‘I always thought she was a wicked girl, I’m not surprised,’ or what have you. They want a reason. I think her sister would have been happier to say she’d gone with a man than to think she’d vanished into thin air.”
Clem sat in one of the chairs and put his face in his hands. Rowley wanted to go over, comfort him, but had no idea if
that would be welcome.
“I asked about Lugtrout while I was there,” Mark said. “Nothing you wouldn’t expect. Lecherous sot, gambled, got himself turfed out of the parish in disgrace. Anyway, here’s the page. What’s happened while I’ve been abroad?”
Rowley gave him a brief summary of Tim Taillefer’s discoveries. He didn’t offer anything of what Edmund had said. That was for Clem to do, and in any case, he didn’t want to stretch this out. He wanted Mark to go away so he could talk to Clem.
Mark left at last. Rowley showed him out, because Clem was still staring at the fire, then returned to the study and closed the door. “Are you all right?”
“What do you think?” There were tears in Clem’s voice.
Rowley came over, dropping to squat by his chair. “Clem, I’m sorry. I really am. You should have been able to believe him, you were right to—”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Well, you should have been. And look, it might not be that bad.”
Clem raised his head. “How could it not? He said all those dreadful things about her.”
“All that means is he didn’t want to seem a villain,” Rowley said. “Let’s think it through. He met a very lovely girl who wouldn’t allow intimacies outside marriage, he married her—”
“Secretly. Keeping it from her family. Does that suggest good intentions to you?”
“At least it was in a church, and he did marry her. You hear of men who engage actors to perform false ceremonies.” Rowley had heard of them in sensation novels rather than the newspapers, but still. “I suppose he regretted it quickly. I’ve no personal experience, but I can’t imagine that a wedding night with a devout virgin was entertaining for anyone.”
“God.”
“And perhaps he left her, and certainly he had the records altered, but at least we know she was alive and well till this year,” Rowley concluded.
“Alive and well? She was the Countess of Moreton and she died in a workhouse. How is that well?”
Rowley wasn’t quite sure how he’d found himself defending Edmund Taillefer. “Look, I’m not arguing, and this story’s nothing to be proud of, but if he’d told it to you as it was, without shame, what would that say about him? Isn’t that something, that he didn’t want you to know the truth?”
Clem scrubbed at his face with the heels of his hand. “Do you think he lied to me because he cares for my good opinion?”
“Uh…” It was tempting, but wrong. “Honestly, no.”
“Nor do I,” Clem said. “But…I do think he cares for his own good opinion. I think you’re right about that. He lied because he’s ashamed of the truth.”
Rowley sighed. “I remember a time my father cared for his own good opinion. That was a deal better than when he stopped caring.”
Clem looked round at last. His eyes were full of misery, and it made Rowley’s heart contract. “Would you like me to say that you were right?”
“No. I was going to say that you were.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I don’t care,” Rowley said. “Send him the page if that’s what you think best, or if that’s what would make you feel better, and damn the consequences. I’m sorry, Clem. I am so sorry.”
“I thought you understood,” Clem said softly.
“I thought I understood. I wish I had. I’d like to do better, if you’ll let me try.”
Clem put out his hand, his left, crossing his body. Rowley took it with a sense of incredulous relief so strong he thought he might lose his precarious balance on his heels, and interlaced his fingers with Clem’s. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “The truth is—well, a lot of things. I’m not used to sharing decisions. It seemed the sensible thing to do, so I did it, and it didn’t occur to me that there are other things than being sensible, or that my notion of sensible wasn’t yours. Also, I hate your family.”
“Sorry, what was that?”
“They’re utter swine,” Rowley said, with strong feeling. “Not as bad as my father, I grant you, but given he danced a hemp jig, that doesn’t give you much to boast of. I’ve not seen or heard a single thing worth a damn of a single one of them except your pal Tim, so I wasn’t inclined to be considerate on their behalf, even if you are. Er, I’m trying not to be kind and patient here.”
“You’re doing a fine job of it.” There was the spark of a smile beginning in Clem’s eyes.
Rowley sighed, looking down to the hand he held. “Look, Clem, the fact is, I’m afraid.”
“I know. Spim—”
“Not that. I’m afraid of you.”
“What?”
“Of you, of this.” The creases in Clem’s fingers were slightly darker than the rest of his skin, Rowley noticed, unless that was the way the light fell. His own hands looked small, and old. “I’m terrified. I’ve been…solitary, I suppose, for a long time, and I’ve always liked being solitary and deciding things for myself, and I don’t have any idea how to be lovers. I don’t know how it should work. And I know there are some things where you need a bit of help, like crowds, and plenty more where you don’t, and I thought I was getting that right, but I wasn’t, and I didn’t know it, and I don’t think it says much for me that I didn’t know. And I can’t argue. I’m sorry. If you shout at me I just—”
“You go away, in your head,” Clem said. “I saw. I’m not very good at arguing either, or even saying things that need saying if they might start an argument. But if I wait and wait to say anything, and then pop like the cork out of a soda-water bottle, that’s not very sensible either. I’m sorry I shouted.”
“Don’t be. I’d rather you didn’t have to shout, but I’d rather you shouted than I never found out I was getting it wrong. Because if we’re both afraid to say anything to each other, we are going to get it wrong. And I don’t want to, I truly don’t. Uh, Clem?”
“Yes?”
“I think I might love you. I’ve spent the last day feeling sick to my heart, thinking that I’d made you so unhappy. I know we’ve only been at this a couple of weeks, and we’ve been quite busy, what with one thing and another, but I think I might have been falling in love with you ever since I moved in. You’re the kindest man I’ve ever met, and maybe the bravest one, and I’ve never wanted to be with someone else like this in my life. And I know I walked away yesterday—”
“I told you to,” Clem said on a breath.
“I’d have run away from anyone else. Gone and not come back. But I couldn’t. I don’t have a choice when it comes to you—or I do, but it’s a stupid choice because it’s you or not you, and that’s no choice at all. I love you. And, uh, you don’t have to say anything, and if you want to tell me how I went wrong—”
“Rowley?”
“Yes?”
“Could you stop talking?”
Rowley saw the look on Clem’s face and rose to straddle his lap, a movement that was already habitual and felt like coming home. He cupped the sides of Clem’s face, feeling the scrape of beard under his palms, looking into those glorious glowing brown eyes. Clem’s hands landed gently on his shoulders, urging him forward, and Rowley leaned in and kissed him. Slow, and soft, and deeply, profoundly relieving, so that Rowley felt a pricking at his eyes that he had to blink away. Clem’s tongue was exploring and Rowley opened to it, and then they were kissing hard, open mouthed, Clem’s grip almost painful, teeth and lips bumping, and it didn’t matter in the slightest. Rowley didn’t care if his mouth was bruised, because Clem was kissing him without watching himself, and that thought sent shivers of excitement through him. He dug his fingers into Clem’s thick hair, loving its feel.
Clem’s hands moved to his face, tugged gently at his spectacles, but didn’t try to take them off. Rowley handled that, slipping them into his pocket, and leaned in so Clem could kiss his hair and ears and neck and jawline. He whimpered under the feel of it, found Clem’s mouth again, kissed until they were both hard and writhing against each other and the day’s dreadfulness was the last thing on Rowley
’s mind, at least.
Clem seemed equally intent. “Oh, my Rowley. Goodness, I missed you. Is the door locked?”
“Fuck,” Rowley said wholeheartedly, jolting upright. “I’m glad one of us is paying attention.” That was criminally careless, flirting with disaster, and entirely his own fault. He swung his leg off and hurried to secure the door, turned back—
“Stop.”
Rowley stood, uncertain, still aroused, and half blind. The gas was on, but not particularly bright, and Clem was a brown-and-black blur against the greenish blob of the chair. “What—?”
“Can you see me?”
“Not really.”
“Would you stay there a moment? And touch yourself?”
Rowley blinked. Then he moved one hand downward, skimming the front of his trousers. “Like this?”
“Just like that. Don’t unbutton them yet, just stroke.”
Rowley moved his hand as though mesmerised, pressing his hand against the cloth of his trousers, feeling the hard length of his erection, tantalising himself.
“Is that odd?” Clem asked. “Doing that, I mean, when you can’t see me?”
“A bit.” A lot. He was used to intimacy without spectacles, but that had always previously been close up, when he could see. Clem as part of a blurred world was peculiar. Unnerving.
“It’s only, there was something I thought of,” Clem said. “You can say if you don’t like it. Don’t stop touching yourself.”
“What is it?” Rowley asked. His voice sounded a little strained in his own ears.
“Mmm—tell you in a minute. I think maybe you should unbutton first.”
Rowley’s fingers were shaking. He dealt with the buttons of trousers and drawers, taking himself in hand, as vulnerable as he’d ever felt and entirely lost to Clem’s intention.
“Oh, that looks good,” Clem said softly. “A bit more. Rub your thumb over the head, the way you like it.” Rowley caressed himself obediently, his breath coming harsh. “Does that feel good?”
“Very.”