Jonathan flinched a little and stood straighter. “Fabian?” He blinked. “Is that the man’s name?”
Charlie nodded furiously, glancing down the hall toward one of the rooms Jonathan knew to have a door that led outside.
Jonathan stood firmly where he was. “Fabian,” he repeated.
The name jogged something in his mind. He’d heard it in a conversation recently, he was sure.
Then he remembered.
“Not Lord Fabian, Barnstable’s son,” he said, jerking back and letting go of Charlie.
Charlie’s eyes went wide, like Jonathan had solved some sort of mystery instead of creating an even bigger one. “We have to help him,” he said with some difficulty.
“Help him,” Jonathan repeated, chills slithering their way down his neck and back. “Help Lord Fabian, if that is, indeed, who you saw.”
Charlie nodded frantically and grabbed Jonathan’s sleeve.
Jonathan didn’t move, even though he knew Charlie wanted him to rush off to be a hero of some sort. “What, precisely, did you see?” he asked, the fear in his gut growing heavier.
Charlie stared desperately at him. “He didn’t want it, the laudanum. Marks on his arm. He was naked, and then a man came in.”
Jonathan’s mind raced through a dozen possible scenarios to explain what Charlie had seen. His heart thudded against his ribs as his mind fought against the worst possible answers.
“Charlie,” he said slowly, wishing he sounded surer and more authoritative than he did, “you know that some of the upper classes lose themselves to laudanum and opium and other things.”
Charlie made a desperate sound and tugged Jonathan’s sleeve.
“If, indeed, that istheLord Fabian, you must know that he has been missing for some time,” Jonathan went on, grasping for a plausible explanation that wasn’t too horrifying to contemplate. “He is reported to be an opium addict.”
Charlie protested wordlessly, taking a step down the hall and trying to drag Jonathan with him.
“Do you think there is anything I can do about this?” Jonathan asked, digging in his heels and stopping Charlie from pulling him into something he absolutely was not ready for.
Charlie huffed and dropped his sleeve. “Help,” he said, not as a plea but as a command.
“He might not want help,” Jonathan said, hands numb and shaking. “This might be exactly what he wants, if he is, indeed an addict.”
Charlie’s desperate look shifted to one of desolation.
Jonathan hated the way it made him feel. Small. Inadequate. Equally desolate.
“I’m sorry, but you don’t know what Fabian’s situation truly is,” he tried to reason with the young man. “We are here to photograph things,” he went on vaguely, “not to get too deeply involved. What do you suppose would happen if we attempted to intervene and it came to pass that this Fabian is being kept in that cottage for a good reason? Or that he wishes to be there and we end up trespassing on something delicate?”
Charlie gaped at him.
If there had been any way Jonathan could have eased his young man’s mind without rushing headlong into danger he knew nothing about, and at the expense of damaging his newfound acceptance by the rest of the guests, he would have. But he couldn’t risk his mission, he couldn’t risk the seedlings of camaraderie he’d found with gentlemen who should have been his peers, he couldn’t damage his father’s shifting opinion of him based on something Charlie had seen but couldn’t articulate.
Charlie clearly did not see things the same way.
“Please,” he huffed, hands forming fists at his sides.
“I cannot,” Jonathan said.
He couldn’t remember feeling more ashamed.
Charlie jerked his head away from Jonathan, blinking rapidly, like he was holding back tears and breathing heavily. He tried to control himself, but was evidently unable to. He glanced back at Jonathan briefly with a look of disappointment that shredded Jonathan’s insides, then turned and walked away.
Jonathan felt like the ground might open under him and swallow him. But what could he do? He was so far out of his depth that he couldn’t catch his breath.
