Charlie gulped. He glanced to Phoebus, who seemed completely at ease, draped naked over the chaise as he was.
He met Brutus’s eyes again, seeing the true message of all he’d said plainly.
He nodded.
Brutus nodded back.
Charlie felt as if he’d made a pact with the devil without knowing it.
“Let me just reposition you,” Jonathan said, hurrying forward to move Phoebus’s limbs as if he were a puppet.
They took two more photographs before Brutus deemed they were enough. Jonathan worked enthusiastically to produce what were certain to be beautiful, sinful pictures. He was so focused that he didn’t seem to notice the way Phoebus nodded at Brutus, as if giving his approval for something, or the way Brutus glanced to Charlie as he began to tidy up, one eyebrow raised in question.
Charlie struggled under the intensity of the man’s gaze and looked to Jonathan, praying his savior would catch on to the danger around them and acknowledge it somehow.
“I should be able to develop these today,” Jonathan said, too friendly and calm to have grasped anything that was happening around him. “If you’d like, you could return tomorrow to collect them. As you might understand, I do not like to remain in possession of these sorts of photographs for any longer than strictly necessary.”
“Of course,” Brutus said, calmly pushing away from the bureau he’d been leaning against. He reached into his coat pocket as he approached Jonathan and drew out a card. “But I would rather you deliver them to me at the club at your earliest possible convenience,” he said, handing the card to Jonathan.
Jonathan took it with a smile. “Yes, of course. I would not mind at all.”
“And bring Charlie with you when you come,” Brutus added, nodding to Charlie.
Charlie, who had been helping Phoebus to dress again, froze, eyes wide, like a fly who had just realized it had flown into a spider’s web.
“Do you hear that, Charlie?” Jonathan said brightly, tucking the card away, then coming over to help tidy up the stage area. “You’ve been invited to a gentleman’s club.”
If he’d been able to speak in that moment, Charlie would have said, “It’s not a gentleman’s club.” He kept his mouth shut, though, sending a wary glance Brutus’s way.
“All will be well,” Brutus said, winking at him. To Jonathan, he said, “Just give your name at the front door and tell them you’re there to see Brutus and they’ll grant you admission.”
“Of course,” Jonathan said. “Let me show you out.”
As soon as Brutus and Phoebus left, Charlie let out a shaky breath and sank to sit on the chaise for a moment. He couldn’t puzzle out what had just happened, but it was certainly more than a gentleman having a few photographs of his young friend taken. It felt more like the interview he’d had with Bayswater and Heaton when he’d left school and earned his position as a clerk.
“That was an interesting diversion,” Jonathan said, as cheery as a summer’s morning, when he stepped back into the studio. “And you were a great help.”
Charlie shot to his feet, anxious about being caught sitting when he should have been working to earn his place.
Jonathan noticed his movements and grinned at him, heat in his eyes. “Do you wish to be photographed on the chaise the way young Phoebus was?” he asked.
The thought hadn’t occurred to Charlie, what with everything else that had filled the stuffy room with electricity, but he nodded anyhow.
Jonathan laughed, approaching him with a saucy swing to his steps and taking Charlie’s face in his hands. “I could photograph you in every sort of setting and position and take ages to grow tired of you,” he said.
A chill of dread slithered down Charlie’s spine. How long would it be until ages were done and Jonathan was tired?
That worry vanished from Charlie’s mind when Jonathan slanted his mouth over his in a heady kiss.
“Come along,” he said, stepping back and leaving Charlie reeling. “Let’s go down to the dark room and I’ll teach you how to develop photographs.”
Jonathan pulled away, leaving Charlie even more off-balance. He swayed into motion, following his savior as he went to gather the plates of Phoebus, then headed back to the kitchen and down the stairs to the darkroom.
“You will like what you see once the photographs are complete, I think,” Jonathan said, his face mysterious and powerful in the room lit only by a ruby lantern. “Then you will see yourself the way I see you.”
Charlie’s heart beat harder and his excitement was barely contained as he hung on Jonathan’s every word while pouring out the developing fluids and setting up the albumen paper. He needed to learn this and a great many other things. He needed to make himself as indispensable to Jonathan as the air he breathed.
He needed to keep the man safe from whatever it was Brutus wanted from him.
