Jonathan might not have heard the answer. He stared at Charlie with wide eyes, a flush coming to his face, as soon as Charlie offered him the plate.
“Look at you,” he said, breathless with either wonder or amusement. “You match this dazzling ensemble perfectly.”
Charlie smiled, face heating. He couldn’t help it. The comment was one of approval, and the more he could gain Jonathan’s favor, the safer he would be.
“I knew he would enjoy himself here,” Brutus said. When Charlie peeked at him, he winked.
Charlie wobbled, his body feeling like jelly for a moment.
“I think I could get used to a performance like this,” Jonathan said, helping himself to a slice of chicken from the plate. “And you say you do this every day?”
“It’s how we live,” the man sitting next to Brutus said.
Charlie gulped and peeked at that man from under his lashes. He was just as dark and imposing as Brutus, but perhaps a bit bulkier. The two men looked very similar.
“Charlie, this is my brother, Titus,” Brutus said, confirming Charlie’s guess.
“Lovely to meet you, Charlie,” Titus said with a kindly nod.
Charlie had to resist the urge to lower himself under that nod. He didn’t want to fumble the plate he still held out to Jonathan.
“You said that my membership in the Den would include Charlie as well?” Jonathan asked as he finished loading his plate.
Charlie lifted his head and glanced with wide eyes from Jonathan to Brutus and Titus and back again. If Jonathan joined the Den with him, then he’d have to keep him.
“Yes, if you’d like,” Brutus answered.
Another wave of wobbles knocked Charlie off-balance again. So Jonathan did not necessarily have to keep him to join the Den.
He would have to work harder.
“I still haven’t decided what to make of any of this,” Jonathan said, cutting into his meat.
Valentine hissed quietly to get Charlie’s attention. As soon as Charlie looked his way, Valentine stood and nodded for Charlie to do the same. He gestured for them both to move down the table to serve some of the other men who were waiting.
“You do not have to give us your answer yet,” Titus said to Jonathan.
“I am intrigued,” Jonathan reassured him, watching with just a touch of wariness in his eyes as Charlie knelt in front ofanother man down the table. “But what is this job you said you’d like me to do, and is it a prerequisite for membership? Like a trial or a test?”
“Not at all,” Brutus said, waving his hand and then finishing the bite he’d been chewing before going on. “We will happily pay you for the photographs we’re after.”
“Handsomely, because of the risk,” Titus added.
Even though he thought he was supposed to give his full attention to the man he was currently serving, Charlie glanced curiously back at the conversation. His heart beat faster at the idea of Jonathan taking any sort of risk.
“I hardly see how photographing a gaggle of guests at a country house party could be dangerous,” Jonathan said with a sly grin.
“They would not know you are there to photograph them,” Titus explained. “You would be there to ostensibly photograph Lord Frome’s gardens and his art collection.”
“And he’s requested this?” Jonathan asked with a frown.
“He has mentioned in conversations that he would like to have his art collection inventoried and his garden preserved in photographs,” Brutus said with a nod. “He does not, of course, know us at all, nor is he aware of the connections he has to us.”
Charlie wondered what those connections were. Unfortunately, his serving duties took him farther down the table from the conversation. Not so far that he couldn’t still listen in, though.
“You think he would hire me for this task without knowing me?” Jonathan asked, checking on Charlie’s whereabouts once again. “Why?”
“Because he knows your father,” Brutus said.
