After a full minute, he turned away from watching the hallway where Charlie had disappeared around a corner, then walked slowly back to the billiard room.
“Trouble with the young assistant?” Hammond asked, smirking.
“Good help is so hard to find these days,” Copeland chuckled. “And to be honest, that young apprentice of yours looks as feeble as they come.”
Jonathan jerked his head up, glaring at the man.
“He does seem a rather soft, degraded sort, if you catch my meaning,” another of the guests said, touching a finger to the side of his nose.
Several others laughed.
One of them said, “Perhaps Dalhurst has a use for him, or could at least teach him some discipline.”
Rage bubbled up in Jonathan, along with a fierce possessiveness. “Charlie is the very best of men,” he growled. He glanced around, searching for Dalhurst to tell the man he could not have Charlie, but Dalhurst was nowhere to be found.
“There, there,” Frome said with an uneasy smile. “I’m certain Copeland meant nothing by it.”
“Charlie is an angel,” Jonathan went on, his nerves too brittle and his guilt too sharp to let the moment pass. “He is intelligent and kind. He has the best heart of any man of my acquaintance.He has endured more than most of us will ever suffer through in a lifetime, and he has retained his goodness and light.”
“It’s alright, man,” Hammond said, looking at Jonathan strangely. “No harm was meant by the comment. We can all see how much you value the boy.”
It was a warning that Jonathan was revealing too much, but the storm of emotions raging within him blew too ferociously for him to exercise caution.
“If you will excuse me,” he said, forcing himself to drop his shoulders and at least appear calm, though he was not even close to it. “I must attend to my assistant.”
He turned to go.
Someone murmured, “Yes, of course you must,” behind him.
The not-so subtle innuendo crushed the last bit of pride and confidence Jonathan had. He was so close to regaining something that he hadn’t realized how desperately he’d missed for years. Charlie had only been in his life for slightly more than a fortnight. He cared for the young man, but what if he left? What if he saw through Jonathan’s façade to the degenerate, inadequate man he was?
Chapter Twelve
Since being thrown out of his father’s house many weeks ago, Charlie had known too many kinds of pain. He’d experienced the pain of rejection by the people he’d believed would always love him, the pain of being robbed and beaten in London’s back alleys, and the pain of hunger after days without food.
Nothing had prepared him for the pain of disappointment when the man he relied on for his very life refused to help someone else in desperate need.
Charlie stormed back to the room he shared with Jonathan, wanting to slam the door behind him once he was safely inside, but not daring to do anything that might cause a commotion. He took one look at the large bed in the center of one wall, the bed he’d hoped to sleep the night in, tucked against Jonathan’s side, then marched to the opposite side of the room and through the door into the dressing room.
There was a small bed there, the one intended for him or whatever other servant Jonathan might have brought with him. Charlie kicked off his shoes angrily, tore at his waistcoat, and shucked his trousers before diving angrily into that narrow bed in just his shirt and drawers. He pulled the covers up over hishead and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hide from everything he’d seen and from the world.
Fabian wasn’t in the cottage of his own volition, he was sure of it. He was not an addict wallowing in the fantasies of the substances he consumed. He was a prisoner, abused and forced into the state in which he was being kept.
That truth was bad enough, but the callousness and excuses Jonathan had given him instead of rushing to help were too much. Charlie turned his face into the meager pillow and wept out his frustration and heartache.
The only thing worse than being weak and powerless was knowing someone you cared about might have the power you lacked, but they were unwilling to wield it.
Only a few minutes after Charlie flung himself in bed, hugging himself tightly and weeping, Jonathan returned to their rooms. Charlie tensed at once, holding his breath and wondering if his savior—no, he felt sick to think of Jonathan that way now—would bother to come looking for him, let alone find him.
Before he could even finish that thought, Jonathan’s soft voice called out, “Charlie?” in the other room.
Charlie’s heart twisted and flipped, pulling at his gut as it did. He’d never been so happy and so heartbroken at the sound of someone’s voice. He wanted to throw back the bedcovers and run to Jonathan, though whether to throw himself at his feet or to demand answers, he wasn’t sure.
A few seconds later, footsteps near the doorway to the dressing room told him Jonathan had come looking for him. He heard Jonathan exhale heavily.
“What can I do, Charlie?” he asked, so much sadness in his voice that tears stung Charlie’s eyes. “What can I do?”
He might have been asking the question genuinely, but Charlie didn’t want to have to tell, what, his friend? His master?His lover? He didn’t want to have to tell the man what to do. Jonathan should have known what needed to be done.
