Charlie nearly dropped his plate.
Jonathan fumbled his fork. “My father?” he asked, his voice dropping to a bitter register. “And do you know my father?”
“Moorgate is an MP,” Titus said. “Most of London knows him.”
“I’ll give you that much,” Jonathan said, resuming eating with an air of false casualness. “But what makes you think my father, whom, I might add, hates me, would recommend me for the job of photographing some old toff’s gardens? My father generally wishes he had never begotten me.”
“You can leave that up to us,” Titus said, his smile chilling Charlie to the bone.
“We are quite adept at making gentlemen think that doing our will is their idea,” Brutus added with a smile that matched his brother’s.
The hair on the back of Charlie’s neck stood up. He didn’t doubt the two brothers’ power for a moment. He wasn’t as certain about their motivations, or about their morality, but he didn’t doubt they had the ability to make people do whatever they desired. The deep, throbbing pull in his gut was proof of that.
That thought was interrupted by a plaintive sound from the young man with the gold collar, whose place Charlie had nearly reached. He sat in front of the man he was with now, straddling him. Judging by his undulating movements and the dewy flush of strain on the older man’s face, the activity they were engaged in was obvious.
Right there, at the table.
In a room full of people eating their lunch and going about their business as if these things happened every day.
The Zagreus Den was a club, a brothel, and a school. Charlie wondered what sort of subjects were taught there.
“I will need some time to consider your offer,” Jonathan said, likely oblivious to what was happening around him.
“Of course,” Brutus said with a friendly smile. “We’re in no hurry for your answer.”
“Except that Lord Frome’s house party is already underway,” Titus added in a lower voice.
“It will continue for weeks still,” Brutus added.
Charlie had reached the end of the table, and at Valentine’s prompting, he stood and followed his new friend back to the serving table at the side.
“I shall endeavor to make a decision about your offer as soon as possible,” Jonathan said, watching Charlie’s every step as he moved away.
“Good,” Brutus said. “Perfect. And now that business is out of the way, we will all be free to enjoy today’s entertainments.”
He nodded to the musicians, who ended the song they’d been playing and started another, livelier one. Several of the young men who had been serving left their plates and platters where they were and gathered in the center of the room to dance.
“Do you want to join us?” Valentine asked with an excited smile. He quickly added. “You don’t have to. You can go sit with your master and watch instead.”
Charlie shook his head tightly as he set his plate down. He glanced longingly at Jonathan, who was still watching him.
Valentine laughed. “Go on, then. There will be time for dancing later.”
Charlie smiled politely, then hurried around the outskirts of the room, desperate to be near Jonathan. As intoxicating and inviting as the scene around them was and as much as he liked to Valentine, everything about The Zagreus Den was bizarre and unsettling.
He wasn’t sure he liked it.
He worried he liked it a bit too much.
Mostly, he just wanted to get through it and still be with Jonathan at the end of the day. As he sank to kneel by Jonathan’s side, gratified when Jonathan smiled at him and rested a hand on his thigh. Somehow, they’d fallen into a world neither of themunderstood, although Charlie was already starting to guess one thing about it.
Once you were invited into The Zagreus Den, it was impossible to get out.
Chapter Seven
Smile. Carry on an engaging conversation. Feign affability even when you did not feel it.
These were the lessons that Jonathan had learned in his life so far. They were the things that had made the coldness of his father’s world bearable, gained him friends and partners for assignations all throughout his school days. They were the tools he wielded in his current life to keep his business afloat and to console himself as he swam against the stream of what a man born to his state in life should have sought after.
