by Merry Farmer
Alistair stopped dead and both of them froze as a thump sounded in the hall outside the office. Joe’s heart pounded against his ribs, but no longer from lust. If they were caught, it would be a catastrophe.
The thump was followed by footsteps, then a voice. Joe and Alistair held perfectly still, not even breathing. The voice said something else which, to Joe’s ears, sounded like a complaint, before the footsteps moved on. Slowly, cautiously, Joe relaxed. If he had to guess, he’d say one of the maids had passed by the office, possibly dropped something, and cursed herself as she picked it up and moved on. Chances were, she didn’t have a clue what was going on behind the door she passed. All the same, he and Alistair remained utterly still for several more seconds.
“So much for another go-around,” Joe whispered at last, peeling himself away from Alistair with the greatest reluctance.
“Cooler heads prevail,” Alistair joked, sitting up as soon as Joe rolled to the side to stand.
“Do you need any help straightening yourself up?” Joe asked, tugging up his trousers and fastening them. He was a mess, and likely Alistair was as well.
“I don’t think anything short of a bath will truly straighten me up,” Alistair chuckled, standing with a wince that Joe could just make out in the dark. “I should probably slip out the back way so that no one sees me in this condition.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth then the sound of footsteps returned in the hallway. Both Joe and Alistair quickened their pace, scrambling for their clothes and throwing them on as fast as possible. They’d been far more careless in undressing than Joe had thought and had to search for shirts, waistcoats, and jackets in the near-dark room, throwing them on and tucking and tugging without any guidance to make themselves look even partly presentable.
When at last they were together enough to leave the office, they crept out into the deserted hall, but didn’t get farther than the unused library.
“Wait here,” Joe whispered. “I’ll fetch your coat. Then I’ll get you out one of the side entrances.”
Alistair nodded, then pretended to be perusing the shelves while Joe darted out into the main hall and the room where the footmen were keeping coats. He was fairly certain anyone who took a close look at him would guess that he’d been doing something other than standing sedately in a corner, waiting to be called on to serve, but the advantage of being a servant was that few people noticed him. He caught sight of his pink-cheeked reflection in a mirror in the hallway and worked to tidy his tousled hair as he reached the room where coats were being kept.
It was a stroke of luck that retrieving Alistair’s coat, taking it to him, and stealing through the halls with him until they reached the conservatory, where a set of French doors let out into a courtyard with access to the street, passed without trouble. It was foolish to risk kissing Alistair goodbye, but he stole a peck anyhow.
“I’ll send you notice of arrangements tomorrow,” Alistair whispered before slipping off into the night.
Joe stood where he was in the cold courtyard for a moment, smiling up at the patch of stars above him. His heart had never felt so full, and he loved the sensation. He loved everything about the madness that swirled around him, because he knew without a doubt, beyond reason, that he loved Alistair.
The ball was far from over, which gave him ample time to dash back into the house and up to his garret room in the servant’s quarters to wash up and change clothes before heading back to Burbage’s dressing room. The later it got, the more likely Burbage was to return, and he would need help undressing. Joe also had to pack his bag for whatever trip his employer was about to take. He didn’t care where Burbage was off to. The man could travel to Peru, for all he cared, and stay there indefinitely.
Those thoughts were still fresh in his mind when Burbage marched into the dressing room just after midnight.
“Is my bag packed?” he asked without preamble, loosening his tie as he crossed to the wardrobe.
“Yes, my lord,” Joe said, grateful he’d finished the job less than five minutes earlier.
“Good,” Burbage snapped. “Help me to change. I need to be at Victoria Station by one-thirty.”
Joe fought to hide his surprise. He said nothing as he helped Burbage change out of his ball suit and into one more suitable for traveling. A thousand questions flooded him, but he was in no position to ask any of them. For a change, it irritated him that Burbage was in no mood to talk either. He didn’t give so much as a hint of where he was going or why he needed to leave in the middle of the night. He didn’t criticize the job Joe was doing or acknowledge him at all.
“See to it that the stain is cleaned off the cuff of that jacket.” They were the only words Burbage spoke before gesturing for Joe to take up his suitcase and follow him out of the dressing room.
The ball was still ongoing as they made their way down to the ground floor. Not unlike Alistair, Burbage chose to leave the house through one of the side doors that let out into the courtyard. Joe followed him to the front of the house, handing the bag over as Burbage climbed into a waiting carriage. Without a word, Burbage slammed the carriage door. Moments later, he was gone.
Something wasn’t right, but Joe couldn’t put his finger on it. There were very few reasons a man would dash away from home in the middle of the night, leaving without saying goodbye to anyone. Then again, Burbage could very well have made his goodbyes to his family before coming up to his dressing room. Or not. The uneasy feeling that Burbage’s swift departure had something to do with Lily’s disappearance struck him, but he rejected the idea. He’d already searched for clues that might connect his employer with Lily’s disappearance and had found nothing. It was far more likely the man was rushing off to a clandestine affair. Joe grinned as he headed back into the house. He certainly knew what that was like, or at least, he was about to.
By the time he returned to the dressing room to fetch Burbage’s jacket and carried it down to the servants’ hall to see about the stain, exhaustion was well on its way to taking over from curiosity. He deposited the jacket on the pile of other clothes Burbage needed repaired before heading out for what he considered a well-deserved sleep.
“Oh, Mr. Logan, do you have a moment?” Lucy, one of the maids, stopped him before he got to the stairs.
“Certainly,” Joe replied with a smile.
Lucy chewed her lip and frowned before asking, “Have you seen Toby?”
“Toby?”
“Or Emma,” Lucy went on.
“Emma isn’t in the scullery?” Joe asked.
Lucy shook her head. “Cook’s in a right temper about it. Says Emma’s been shirking her duty.”
“That’s not like Emma at all,” Joe said with a frown. That frown softened. “Although it might be like her, considering the ball. Toby was upstairs earlier, spying on the toffs.”
Lucy made a frustrated sound. A sound exactly like the one Joe and Alistair had heard in the hall that interrupted their tryst. If that had been Lucy in search of Toby and Emma, they’d been damned lucky she hadn’t checked in the study after all.
“Keep looking around upstairs,” Joe advised her. “I would be willing to bet the two of them fell asleep in a corner of the ballroom while watching the guests dancing.”
“You’re probably right,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “Goodnight, Mr. Logan.”
“Goodnight, Lucy.”
Joe continued on, mounting the stairs to his tiny room two at a time. In spite of the strangeness of Burbage, his heart was light. He was eager to get to bed, though he wasn’t sure how well he’d be able to sleep. He was already anticipating the letter he would get from Alistair and the nights they were about to have together.
Alistair tried to fight the giddy feeling in his gut as he strode swiftly through the streets of Mayfair on his way home. He walked with his hands thrust in his pockets and the collar of his coat turned up, not only against the cold, but because he knew he looked a mess and probably smelled of sweat and sex
. Which was why he couldn’t keep the foolish grin off his face.
It didn’t matter that it had been little more than an impromptu fumble in the dark, finally being so intimate with Joe, tasting his skin and feeling his mouth around his cock, had been the single most gratifying experience of his life. He replayed every detail of the sounds Joe made, the way Joe’s body had felt under his hands, and the friction of Joe’s hard cock against his belly until the memories alone made walking extraordinarily uncomfortable. The sooner he made a reservation at a discreet hotel and met Joe there, the better. He made a note to himself to purchase lubrication, because he had every intention of sinking himself deep inside of Joe and begging for the same once they were finally alone, without danger of discovery.
When he reached home, he had the feeling that at least someone was still up, perhaps waiting for him, but he rushed up to his room before anyone could intercept him, going so far as to take his coat with him instead of handing it off to the footman on night duty. The last thing he wanted was for anyone in his family to see him in his current state.
Duty got the best of him, though, and he decided that after washing up and changing into his night clothes, he would head out to make certain his father and mother had made it home in one piece.
The reflection that he saw of himself in his bedroom mirror made him grunt with amusement as he removed his coat. His clothes were rumpled, and he hadn’t buttoned his waistcoat correctly. He couldn’t help but laugh as he removed the layers of soiled clothes and set them aside to be washed. His shirt was skewed and didn’t seem to fit right, though as he removed it, he saw why.
Somehow, a piece of paper had plastered itself to his torso as he’d dressed. His shirt had ended up on the desk in the small office, and he supposed he must have picked up the paper when he retrieved it. He set it aside as he finished undressing, then scrubbed himself in the sink of the bathroom attached to his bedroom. He’d take a full bath in the morning, when he had more energy. Once cleaned up, he wandered back into his bedroom, put on his pajamas, then went back to the paper to see what it was.
His tired, cozy mood vanished as he read the signature at the bottom of the letter—J. Adler. Instantly, his gut clenched, and he dragged his eyes to the top of the page to tear through the contents of the letter. It wasn’t addressed to anyone in particular, but Alistair wasn’t certain it mattered. It simply read, “In receipt of cargo. Buyer waiting in Brighton. Shipment to proceed next Tuesday.”
Alistair’s scowl deepened as he scanned the letter for any sort of date or any indication what the cargo in question was. There was no date, but something about the letter seemed recent. The letter held no other information, but it set Alistair’s nerves on edge all the same.
His mounting anxiety was interrupted by a knock on his door. He quickly put the letter face down on the dressing table beside his wardrobe, then crossed to answer the door.
“I thought that was you I heard coming in,” Darren greeted him from the hall.
“I should have come to tell you or Father and Mother that I’d made it home,” Alistair said, unaccountably flustered by his brother’s presence.
Darren laughed and let himself into the room, thumping Alistair’s arm as he did. “How old are you, Alistair? Nearly thirty? You’re well past the age when you have to tell Father and Mother you’re home. Well past the age when anyone should hold you accountable for staying out a little late to court your sweetheart.”
Alistair’s face flamed at the statement. If only Darren knew. “Yes, well, old habits die hard,” he said, not quite able to meet his brother’s eyes.
Judging by the teasing in his expression, Darren knew exactly what Alistair had been up to, just not with whom. “So should we expect a spring wedding?” he asked with a rakish grin.
“Probably,” Alistair said with what he hoped was a casual shrug. “I don’t think there’s any point in delaying things.” Delaying the inevitable marriage to Lady Matilda would only give him the chance to get cold feet about the entire thing.
“You should have heard the way Father went on and on about you once we got home,” Darren continued. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to measure up to you, the favorite son, once you finish marrying the perfect bride and producing the ideal heir.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to outshine me and gain their favor a thousand times more than I have,” Alistair mumbled, crossing to the clothes he’d left out. The urge to hide them in case Darren could smell them the way he could was acute. “How is Father now?” he asked, changing the subject to something that would wipe the sly grin from his brother’s face.
Darren sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “All right, I suppose. If you consider a long and inevitable decline all right. Mother convinced him to go straight to bed. I hate the way she suffers over this whole thing.”
“We all hate it,” Alistair agreed. “We have to stop letting him go out like he has been. It only upsets him.”
“If only we had someone like that Mr. Logan to keep him calm,” Darren said.
Alistair tensed, certain his brother would be able to hear the pounding of his heart. “Yes, Mr. Logan is one in a million,” he said quietly, glancing away.
When he looked back, Darren was studying him with a frown that chilled Alistair’s blood. Darren wasn’t a fool, and he’d known Alistair his entire life. It wouldn’t take much for him to see the truth.
“I’m going away for a short trip tomorrow,” Alistair blurted in an attempt to stop whatever thoughts his brother was having.
“Oh, yes?” Darren’s sly grin returned. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Lady Matilda, does it? Only, I heard her tell her sister that she was off for a quick jaunt to the countryside.”
Alistair blinked. Had she said that? He’d barely listened to a word Lady Matilda had said through the entire ball, but if she was leaving London, it was a blessing.
“Yes,” he answered Darren, turning away and forcing himself to grin as though Darren had caught him in a naughty plan. His actual naughty plan certainly wouldn’t make his brother grin the way he did at that answer.
“You sly dog,” Darren said, stepping forward to slap Alistair’s back. “I honestly didn’t think you had it in you. I’ll make a suitable excuse to Mother and Father for you, and to Beth, if she deigns to spend her time here at home instead of out with her friends.”
“Thank you,” Alistair said, sending his brother a sheepish look. “And if you ever want to sneak off on a similar errand, I’ll support you too.”
“Of course, you will.” Darren gave his back one more pat before heading for the door. “A June wedding is just the thing,” he said before winking and stepping out into the hall, shutting Alistair’s door behind him.
Alistair huffed out a breath and shook his head, not sure whether he’d convinced Darren everything was above board or not. All he knew was that the life he wanted to live and the path he seemed doomed to follow were two very different things, and it would be his job to reconcile them.
Chapter 12
The note Joe was waiting for came just after midday, as most of the Eccles House staff was busy cleaning up after the ball.
“This just came for you,” Lucy said, handing Joe a tiny slip of paper as their paths crossed in the downstairs hallway.
Joe’s heart bounced from his stomach to his throat as he opened the note to read, “The Savoy under the name Mercer”. His elation lasted for only a second, though.
“Is something the matter?” he asked a distracted Lucy.
Lucy could hardly stand still. Her brow was furrowed, and she had chewed her lip so much that it looked as though she was wearing cosmetics. “Did you ever find Toby or Emma last night?” she asked, worry lining her face.
Joe’s already heightened emotions turned anxious and squeezed his chest. “They weren’t upstairs, spying on the guests?”
Lucy shook her head. “I thought you were right, that they would be found sleepin
g in some corner after the guests all left, but they weren’t. No one has seen hide nor hair of them.”
Alarm quickly swallowed everything else Joe felt. “We’ll search downstairs,” he said, launching into motion. “They have to be here somewhere.”
“I’ve already searched three times over,” Lucy said, following him. “And up in our quarters too, though neither Toby nor Emma would have any reason to be up there.”
She was right. The hall boy and scullery maid generally slept downstairs, wherever they could find a spare corner. They were the ones who were expected to wake up first and go to bed last every day and to work harder than anyone else in the house. A few minutes of searching brought to light things Joe should have noticed earlier but hadn’t—the way Mr. Vine was grumbling about downstairs fires not being lit on time, Cook’s complaint about dishes piling up in the scullery with no one cleaning them, the irritation of the maids who had been set to do Emma’s jobs. The life of a scullery maid was hard and thankless, but Emma had always been diligent and cheerful.
“You’re right,” Joe was forced to admit at last, after he and Lucy had been all through the servants’ hall and garret bedrooms. “They’re gone.”
Admitting as much was painful. It brought to mind how the staff must have felt when Lily went missing months before. The anger bubbling under the surface of every maid and footman he came across, the resentment that the lowliest servants in the house had shirked their duty, only added to his biting frustration at the situation. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Toby and Emma—and Lily—were in horrible danger, and the people who spent their days around them, who should care the most, were angry instead of anxious.
He paused in the crossway of two downstairs hallways, shoving a hand through his hair. The note from Alistair was still in his pocket, and he took it out to look at it again. His aristocratic lover wanted to meet him in a posh hotel for sex—something he’d wanted from the moment the two of them had met—right as two vulnerable young people whom he cared about had vanished. Just as his sister had vanished. The timing couldn’t have been worse.
