Jonathan didn’t rest once they made it to the next spot of woods, or the next after that. Charlie’s heart pounded and he lost his breath completely as Jonathan took him farther and farther away from the house.
At last, they reached a genuine bit of woods with a stream that wound through it at the very bottom of the hill on which Fairford’s manor house stood.
“I have no idea if we’re far enough away,” Jonathan panted, lurching over to a fallen tree trunk and sitting heavily against it.
Charlie sagged to sit by his side, looking out through the thick trees to the edge of the meadow they’d raced across. He didn’t know what to say, whether there was any way to comfort Jonathan as he broke down into tears, burying his face in his hands. He didn’t know if he wanted to comfort Jonathan or demand an apology.
He received an apology without asking for it.
“I am so sorry,” Jonathan sobbed, shoulders hunched, face hidden from him. “You were right in every way to demand I take action and I was so wrong.”
His words were true, but rather than igniting Charlie with righteous indignation, they stooped his shoulders and made him cry right along with his master, his heart bleeding for him.
“I’m sorry,” Jonathan repeated, then twisted to pull Charlie into his embrace.
Charlie let himself be comforted for only a moment before pushing and fighting to separate himself from Jonathan.
“I told you he was in trouble,” he said, voice hoarse and weak. “I told you he needed help.”
“I know,” Jonathan hung his head. “I didn’t want it to be true.”
Charlie gaped at him in the dark. “Just because you don’t want bad things to be true does not mean they are false,” he said, wishing he had better words for the admonishment he wanted to give, not just to Jonathan, but to the world.
“I know,” Jonathan repeated with a hopeless shrug.
Charlie wasn’t convinced he did know. He slid off the log and stood facing Jonathan, hands clenched into fists at his sides, anger and compassion battling within him.
“He needed our help. I needed your help. So many people need help. But they laugh and play games and hurt instead of help,” he said, flinging his arm out toward the house, unseen beyond the trees.
“Oh, God!” Jonathan said, gasping his way into a hard bout of weeping that shook his entire body. “They needed my help, and all I did was pay them a pittance for a handful of lewd photographs.”
Charlie took a step back, his throat squeezing with pity even while his gut churned as he shared the realization Jonathan had just come to.
“All those young men,” Jonathan wept on. “All those vulnerable boys. They didn’t need respite for one night, one belly full of food before being sent on their way. They needed help, and I failed to give it.”
He wasn’t wrong, but it broke Charlie’s heart all the same. Few things were more heartbreaking than the regret of a man who had been wrong for a very long time realizing he could have done things differently.
Charlie sank to his knees in front of Jonathan, resting his hands on his master’s thighs. “Did you know?” he asked.
Jonathan was silent for a few moments, breathing heavily as he wiped the tears from his eyes. They didn’t seem to want to stop, which caused Charlie’s throat to squeeze tighter.
“I want to say I didn’t know,” Jonathan confessed in a whisper. “I want to say that they were all as carefree and hedonistic as I was. It was a fair exchange. I didn’t ask much from them and they didn’t want much from me. Everyone benefited.”
Except they didn’t. Or, at least, Charlie wouldn’t have. He’d been on the edge of desperation, the edge of death, really. He wouldn’t have survived if he hadn’t carved a place for himself in Jonathan’s life with deft precision.
How many of the other young men Jonathan had lured into his studio hadn’t survived a month after leaving him?
It was too painful to think about now.
And yet, Jonathan did not seem to be able to think of anything else.
“How many more like Lord Fabian are out there?” he asked, staring at Charlie like he knew the answers to everything. “How many men have I and others written off as lost to opium or vice when really they have been forced into it?”
Charlie didn’t have an answer.
“My father,” Jonathan continued, sucking in a breath and sitting straighter. “Why would he associate with these people to the point of coming to Wiltshire to spend time with them if he is not just as dark and corrupted as they are?”
Charlie blinked. He hadn’t thought of that. All he’d known was that Mr. Moorgate was every bit as terrifying as any of the men he’d encountered at Fairford House.
