by Merry Farmer
“The only way to change the world is to find a way to get around its rules,” Alistair said, then stole a light kiss from Joe’s lips.
Joe didn’t flinch away, but he didn’t respond with the ardor Alistair hoped for either. “So many things are wrong about this world,” he muttered.
“I agree. The world is wrong, but we aren’t.” Alistair’s brow inched up hopefully. All he wanted to do was to find the words that would set Joe at ease and make him smile again.
Instead, Joe’s frown deepened and he said, “Toby and Emma have gone missing.”
It was Alistair’s turn to frown. “Toby and Emma?”
“The hall boy and scullery maid at Eccles House.”
Alistair shook his head slightly and adjusted the way he held Joe, hoping to give him more comfort. “Do they disappear often?”
“No,” Joe answered immediately. “It’s unlike them. Just as it was unlike Lily.”
An uncomfortable feeling crawled through Alistair. He’d entirely forgotten about the letter he’d accidentally taken home from the ball until that moment. He’d been so wrapped up in meeting Joe at the hotel that everything else had fallen by the wayside.
But before he could mention it, Joe wriggled away from him and said, “I’ve let too many things get in the way of what I should be doing, looking for Lily. And now Toby and Emma.”
He rolled to the side, throwing back the bedcovers and swinging his legs around to stand. Alistair would have enjoyed the sight of Joe’s bare back and backside as he rose and crossed the room to the bathroom, but all the lust, love, and tenderness they’d explored in the past day had been thoroughly replaced by frustration. It radiated from Joe like heat.
Alistair slipped out from under the sheets and sat on the edge of the bed, watching the open bathroom doorway until Joe came out.
“The situation might not be as hopeless as it seems,” he said, rising and walking to meet Joe. He couldn’t help but lose his train of thought for a moment at the sight of Joe’s naked body. It didn’t help solidify his thoughts when Joe raked him with an appraising glance as well. As much as they’d enjoyed each other in the last several hours, Alistair was ready for more. He would be ready for more for a long time to come.
Rather than reach for Joe, though, he shook his head to clear his thoughts and changed direction, crossing to the bureau where he’d stored his clothes the day before when he’d arrived. He took the letter from Eccles House out of the top drawer and turned to show it to Joe.
“I accidentally took this with me from the office the other night,” he explained. “It’s cryptic. It might be nothing. But the name Adler caught my attention.”
Joe’s reaction was far stronger than Alistair anticipated. “Adler?” His voice rose as he snatched the letter from Alistair and read it. His eyes grew wide with anger. “Why didn’t you show this to me yesterday?” he demanded.
The reaction was so far beyond what Alistair had expected that it unnerved him. “I intended to tell you right away, but we got distracted.” He took a slight step back.
Joe hissed and crumpled the letter in his fist. “Everything is a distraction. We’ve been distracted far too much for far too long.”
“We’ve waited weeks to be together,” Alistair reminded him, feeling his temper rise at the harshness of Joe’s response to what he thought was a step in the right direction in so many ways.
“Maybe we should have waited longer,” Joe grumbled, marching across the room to the chair where his satchel sat, still unpacked. He yanked it open and began pulling clean clothes out.
As much as Alistair tried to fight the sentimental feeling, he was hurt. “Are you saying we shouldn’t have met here? That we shouldn’t have fucked the way we did?”
Joe winced, as though he recognized the offense he’d caused. “No,” he said, a wealth of emotions packed into the single word. He huffed out a breath and threw the drawers he’d just taken from his satchel onto the table before turning to Alistair. “I don’t mean that at all. You’re right. We’ve waited a long time to be together, and I don’t regret a second of it.”
Alistair wasn’t convinced Joe believed his own words. He crossed his arms. “But being together isn’t as important as finding your sister.”
Joe didn’t contradict him right away. The hurt pounding in Alistair’s chest grew. Joe was right, of course. Family meant everything. His sister was and should be the most important thing in the world to Joe. But knowing that did nothing for Alistair’s pride or his heart.
“You are important to me, Alistair,” Joe said, defeat and frustration in his voice as he walked slowly closer to Alistair. “God knows how important you are, now more than ever.” He came close enough to rest a hand on the side of Alistair’s face. “But is fucking, no matter how great it is, more important than the lives of three young people?”
“No. I’m not saying it is,” Alistair answered immediately, though part of his heart felt like he was lying. Joe was important to him. Joe was everything he’d ever wanted, and everything he knew he would have to fight to be able to have. But he hadn’t anticipated he’d have to fight Joe as well.
“I don’t mean to hurt you,” Joe said, letting his hand slide down to Alistair’s chest for a moment before turning and walking back to the chair with his satchel. “I mean that. I really don’t. But my conscience won’t let me rest until I know I’ve done everything possible to find my sister, and now Toby and Emma too. And it feels like you withheld information from me that could be the lynchpin in the whole thing.”
“I didn’t withhold anything from you deliberately,” Alistair insisted, following him to the chair. “I was just caught up.”
“I know,” Joe said, anger creeping back into his voice again. “But we can’t afford it.”
“So we’re just supposed to…to put us aside while we attempt to locate missing children based off of a cryptic note that might not mean anything at all?” Alistair demanded, growing angry as well.
“No,” Joe answered, exasperated, then turned to Alistair, meeting his eyes, and said, “Maybe yes.”
Alistair flinched. He couldn’t stop himself. “No,” he said, crossing his arms and staring hard at Joe. “I refuse to believe that’s the answer. We stand a far better chance of finding your sister, and finding the hall boy and scullery maid, if we approach this together.”
“You’re right,” Joe said with a sigh, beginning to dress. As he straightened after putting on his drawers, he said, “But the children have to be a priority.”
Alistair’s gut disagreed. The two of them, what they had together, had to be the priority. If they didn’t nurture what they had and put it above all else, they wouldn’t be as effective. Instead, he said, “Staying in Burbage’s employ isn’t going to help things. Leave him and come work for me.”
Joe froze halfway through reaching for his shirt. “Work for you? As what?”
“My valet,” Alistair said with less patience than he should have used. “What else?”
Joe made a sound of disgust and continued dressing. “I bet you would love that,” he said, sending Alistair a sour look.
“As a matter of fact, I would,” Alistair said, fast approaching the point where he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to kiss Joe or punch his perfect jaw. “I would love having you near me all the time, having a perfectly reasonable excuse for you to have intimate access to me at all times.”
“And like any toff, you’d love to keep the country boy servant in his place,” Joe sneered.
“When have I ever said that class matters to me? When have I ever given a fuck where you came from or what your job is?”
“When you told that cunt of a concierge that it was all right to let me into this goddamn place because I was beholden to you,” Joe snapped.
“We talked about this,” Alistair fired back, fighting to keep his voice at a volume that wouldn’t carry through the walls and give them away. “What you and I need and what the rest of the world demands are t
wo different things, and all the wishing in the world isn’t going to change that.”
“I refuse to be relegated to second class in the eyes of the man I love.” Joe had no such qualms about being loud.
“Do you love me?” Alistair demanded, struggling to keep his emotions in check and failing. “Because last I checked, love was about making sacrifices.”
“Then why do I feel like the only one sacrificing here?” Joe turned away to throw on his shirt, then the rest of his clothes.
“I am risking everything to be with you,” Alistair hissed. “My family assumes I’ve dashed off to the country for an illicit rendezvous with a woman I can barely tolerate, but whom I will have to marry and, God help me, bed to produce an heir.”
“And how is that you sacrificing something for me?” Joe asked, fastening his trousers and tucking in his shirt. “You’d end up doing the same, whether I was in the picture or not.”
He had a point, and it stung. “It wouldn’t feel like such a curse if I hadn’t fallen in love with you.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have.” Joe finished dressing and darted around the room, retrieving his clothes from where they’d ended up the day before and stuffing them into his satchel.
Alarm made Alistair’s hands and heart go numb. “I could no more have stopped myself from falling in love with you than I could have stopped the blood from pumping through my veins,” he said in a hoarse voice. “And I’m not going to stop now because you’re offended at the bitter truths of life.”
“I’m offended,” Joe began, whipping to face Alistair, “that someone out there thinks that snatching children is acceptable. I’m offended that my beautiful, funny, intelligent sister disappeared and that no one thought to question it or look for her. I’m offended that the man who should support me more than anyone is more concerned with who will suck his cock and put him to bed each night than he is about injustice.”
“That is not what I’m concerned with,” Alistair raised his voice again. “I want to find your sister and the others, but even you have to admit that we have a better chance at pursuing this case if we are able to be together and work together as much and as closely as possible.”
He could tell he’d made his point by the way Joe’s face pinched in frustration. He could also tell they were at an impasse. Joe had a stubborn streak a mile long and enough will to stick doggedly to what he believed in against all odds. That was one of the things Alistair admired the most about him, one of the things that attracted him. But at the moment, it made him want to throttle the bastard.
Joe let out a heavy breath and slung his satchel over his shoulder. He stared down at the floor for several, aching seconds before dragging his gaze up to meet Alistair’s eyes. For a moment, he merely stood there, looking at him. Joe was fully dressed while Alistair was still naked and exposed. It seemed only right, somehow.
“I can’t stay here and go around in circles with you. I have to go look for them,” Joe said at last in a defeated voice. “I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t at least try to find them. I’ll go to Brighton to follow that lead on Adler if I have to, but I can’t just stay here, whittling away my time in bed with you—as much as I might want to—when those children are in danger.”
He glanced away from Alistair as he headed to the door.
“So you’re just going to leave?” Alistair followed him, panic growing in his gut. It felt too much as though everything he’d ever wanted and had finally gotten was slipping through his fingers. “Just like that?”
“Yes.” Joe reached for the handle on the door, but paused, letting out a long breath. “No.” He glanced at Alistair over his shoulder. “I’m leaving you, but not that way,” he said, the tenderness in his voice running riot with Alistair’s emotions. “I love you. I want you. But not now, and not like this.”
Alistair’s lips pressed together as if to form the word “But—” to begin a protest, but the words wouldn’t come out. He wanted to beg Joe to stay. He also wanted to kick him through the door with a “good riddance”. In the end, he stood by, unable to do anything but watch, as Joe opened the door and slipped out into the hallway as discreetly as possible.
As the door clicked behind him, the panic Alistair had managed to hold at bay overwhelmed him. He stumbled back until he sat on the edge of the rumpled bed, breathing heavily. In spite of what Joe said, it felt as though things were over, as if his world were ending. He didn’t understand how things could have fallen apart so soon after being heaven itself. It was as if he were starring in some romantic play, but the script had been switched with that of a tragedy after the first act.
He sat where he was for so long his backside started to go numb before getting up and heading into the bathroom to wash up. As he splashed cold water over his face and body, he forced himself to summon up the will to continue on. He hadn’t lost Joe yet. And he refused to believe that the children were truly lost either. Joe was right that finding them was the most important thing in that moment. Alistair wracked his brains, seeking out all the ways that a man of his position might be able to do more than the average man to find out who Adler was and what he was up to. And with that, he searched his thoughts and his heart for a way he could win Joe back and convince him that they were fighting on the same side after all.
Chapter 14
Walking out on Alistair was the stupidest thing Joe had done in years. He knew it within hours of leaving the hotel, as he stormed fruitlessly through the streets, no idea where to even begin his search for Toby and Emma. He had no clues to go on other than the note Alistair had shown him, which he’d barely glanced at before flying off the handle. The only thing he could think to do was to travel to Brighton, but by the time he reached the seaside town that evening, he didn’t have any more of an idea where to search or even what he was looking for than when he’d started. Beyond that, he didn’t have enough money to spare for a hotel for the night and ended up sleeping under one of the piers with a dozen other, shadowy, down-on-their-luck men and women.
It wasn’t until he was huddled against one of the pier’s damp, stinking support columns, shivering to block out the icy wind blowing from the Channel, that the full impact of his foolishness hit him. He’d walked out on Alistair, a man who loved him beyond reason and whom he, strange as it was to admit it, loved to a ridiculous degree. They’d spent a night together that he wouldn’t soon forget, giving and taking pleasure like he’d never known. Joe truly had never experienced anything half as sensual or satisfying as bedding Alistair. He had to face the fact that the reason it had felt so good was because their hearts were connected as intimately as their bodies.
And he’d run from that. Run like the dickens, because the idea that he could give himself over so completely to someone who was born into a different world and a different class than him, someone who would always have just a slight advantage over him, no matter what promises Alistair made, unnerved him. His pride rebelled at the idea of submission to another man. And yet, hadn’t he laid himself bare, submitting fully to Alistair’s lusts at least once during their long night together? Taking a turn in that role had been a pleasure and then some. And wasn’t his position with Burbage, the position he depended on for his salary and for clues about where to find Lily, a lower one? Hadn’t his apprenticeship at the tailor’s in Leeds been inferior to his master as well? Why, then, did it sting so much more to think that his only chance to be with Alistair was in a role where society would disregard him as just a servant?
Because he loved Alistair. The answer came to him as the lap of the waves against the end of the pier finally lulled him into a restless sleep. He loved Alistair beyond reason, and love demanded partnership, equality. Love demanded something almost impossible for him and Alistair. But could he be willing to reach for something just short of ideal if it meant the two of them could be together?
His fitful slumber was awakened suddenly at the first hint of light as police officers combed the beach around
the pier, chasing away the vagrants who had made it their home for the night. Joe leapt up and scattered along with the others before he could be found out and possibly arrested. He couldn’t think of anything to do other than to search up and down the Brighton waterfront for any sign of illicit activity.
Unsurprisingly, he found more of it than he bargained for—prostitutes selling themselves, smugglers looking to unload illegal cargo, and even an attempted kidnapping. He watched in horror as a man in a colorful but ragged coat tempted a young boy away from his family with a stick of candy. Only at the last minute, when Joe spotted a shadowy accomplice waiting behind the pier with a burlap sack did he launch into action.
“You shouldn’t talk to strangers, son,” he said, stepping out from his concealment and walking boldly up to the boy.
The man in the ragged coat lost the cheery smile he’d put on for the boy and glared at Joe with narrowed eyes, but Joe ignored him. He walked up to the boy and took his hand, heading on as though he truly were the boy’s father. The ragged coat man and his accomplice rushed off as Joe marched the boy back to his family, who had only just noticed he’d gone missing.
“Billy, where did you wander off to?” the boy’s true father asked, approaching Joe with a dark, suspicious look.
“He nearly got himself into trouble,” Joe informed the man. “Have a care for him.”
He returned the boy to his family, but the eeriness of the encounter stuck with him as he doubled back to look for the ragged coat man. Had Lily been snatched from Eccles House as easily? Had Toby and Emma been lured away in a similar fashion, when no one was paying attention? And if it was so easy to steal a child, what could possibly be done to keep other children safe?
The next few days passed in a similar fashion, but without as much excitement. Tuesday came and went, but Joe witnessed nothing that matched the letter from Adler that Alistair had found. Again, he cursed himself for not staying by Alistair’s side or getting a better look at the letter to work out what it meant. His whole journey had ended up being pointless. By the time he returned to London, almost a week had passed. He’d had no contact with Alistair, and it was beginning to wear on his nerves.
