But did he really owe loyalty to Jonathan? When Jonathan wouldn’t lift a finger to help Fabian?
“I might have a position for you, if you’d ever be interested in leaving photography behind to take up an entirely different profession,” Mr. Hammond said, stroking his fingers down Charlie’s neck before moving his hand away.
Charlie’s lips quivered and he made a sound, but he couldn’t force it to form words.
“I run a certain establishment in London, on Cleveland Street,” Mr. Hammond said, then waited, as if Charlie would soon understand what he was talking about.
Charlie didn’t know anything in that moment, let alone what Mr. Hammond could mean.
“I’ll pay you more than Moorgate is paying you,” Mr. Hammond said bluntly. “I might even be able to double it for a beautiful boy like you.”
Jonathan wasn’t paying Charlie anything. He was merely taking care of him.
Charlie so desperately wanted to be taken care of.
“I don’t imagine a man like Moorgate knows the sort of potential you have,” Mr. Hammond went on, studying Charlie like he could see under his clothes. “You could have quite the life if you put your trust in me.”
Charlie caught his breath. Not because there was any allure in Mr. Hammond’s offer, but because, like one of Jonathan’s magnesium flash ribbons igniting, it illuminated something Charlie hadn’t considered until that very moment.
He didn’t need Jonathan. He wouldn’t die if Jonathan put him back on the street. He could turn to someone like Mr. Hammond, or even The Zagreus Den.
He didn’t need Jonathan at all.
“I—”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry.”
Charlie leapt back from Mr. Hammond and turned to find Mr. Thomas wandering closer to them. Mr. Hammond glared at Mr. Thomas, but Mr. Thomas didn’t seem to notice.
“I seem to have lost my way,” Mr. Thomas said with a self-effacing laugh. “I was told luncheon would beal frescotoday, but I cannot for the life of me discover where everyone is gathering.”
Mr. Hammond backed off of Charlie, putting a huge distance between the two of them, as if they hadn’t been conversing at all.
“I believe lunch is being served on that nice stretch of lawn near the rose garden,” Mr. Hammond said with a friendly smile, as if he hadn’t just propositioned Charlie and offered to change his life. “Although if you ask me, this jellied eel nonsense I’m hearing about is an abomination.”
Mr. Thomas laughed. “I’m still eager to see Chillington choke a few of the slimy things down.
“That will be amusing enough, I suppose,” Mr. Hammond laughed, gesturing toward the house.
If Charlie didn’t know better, he would have thought Mr. Hammond was trying to get Mr. Thomas as far away from him as possible. Or perhaps as far from the cottage as possible? It was impossible to tell whether Mr. Hammond knew anything about Fabian being held prisoner or if he truly had just come out to the orangery to have a smoke in private.
Charlie watched the two men walk away, but just as he turned his head to look at the cottage and to assess his chances of getting inside to visit Fabian, Mr. Thomas broke away from Mr. Hammond and hurried back to him.
“I just wanted to say that I have been admiring the work you’ve been doing with Mr. Moorgate,” Mr. Thomas said.
And then he then did the strangest thing Charlie could have imagined. He held out his hand for Charlie to shake it.
Charlie stared at the extended hand for a long moment before cautiously raising his own.
Mr. Thomas not only shook his hand, he grasped Charlie’s in both of his.
Then he pulled Charlie in close.
“Have a care, my friend,” he said quietly. “There are snakes in the grass around Fairford House. I wouldn’t want you to be bitten by anything venomous.”
Charlie frowned in confusion, but then gasped as Mr. Thomas quickly pulled up the end of his sleeve, his right hand still holding Charlie’s, to reveal a tattoo on the back of his forearm. It was a snake coiled into the shape of a heart.
Charlie had seen that emblem before. He’d seen it at the house in Tyburnia. The heart-shaped snake was the symbol of The Zagreus Den.
