by Ruby Moone
Hugo felt ill. Had Hessledon done something?
“What has happened? Please, Winsford, tell me what’s going on. How do you know him? Has he tried to extort money from you too? From Lyndon?” The thought that he might have inadvertently involved Lyndon was too awful to contemplate.
Winsford tapped a hand on his knee. “Did you speak to Cross?”
“I did. I spent quite some time speaking to him.”
“Did he ask you about me?”
Hugo frowned. “Well, yes, but only in passing. Winsford… Simon, will you please tell me what’s going on?”
“Edgar Hessledon works for the Foreign Office.”
“So does…” Hugo paused and swallowed. “So does Cross.”
Winsford nodded slowly and looked him in the eye. “He works for Hessledon.”
Hugo stood and paced the room, one hand over his mouth. Winsford’s words rang in his ears. Lyndon worked for the man who was blackmailing him.
“Is that why he came to the party? To get to you? To get to me? What did he want? What did he hope to accomplish?” Hugo tried not to reveal the depth of the betrayal, but it was almost impossible to keep the emotion out of his voice, to keep the anguish from showing. How did one conceal a heart that was breaking?
“Hugo.”
He stopped pacing and covered his eyes with his hand. He heard Winsford get up and come over to where he stood.
“Are you, did you…become involved with him?”
Hugo nodded, still concealing his eyes, he simply couldn’t dissemble.
“I need to tell you something. Something I should have told you immediately when you came to me about Hessledon.”
Hugo breathed deeply and pulled the hand from his eyes. He brought his gaze up to meet his brother’s. Winsford looked wretched.
“What?” he whispered.
Muscles leaped along Winsford’s jaw, and he looked so pale he might faint. When he spoke, Hugo very nearly did.
“Hessledon is my lover.”
Chapter 9
Hugo stared at his brother in confusion.
“What?”
Winsford swallowed. “Hessledon is my lover.”
“But you’re…you…”
“I’m the same as you, Hugo. I should have told you. I’m so sorry.” His voice was low. Painful.
It felt as though everything stopped. The clock carried on ticking, the fire carried on crackling, but the air seemed too still. As though everything continued except Hugo and Simon who stood staring at each other, neither speaking, neither knowing what to say.
“Well, if he’s your lover, why would he threaten me?” Hugo said, and his brother turned his head, and swallowed.
“Because I’d told him we must end what was between us. I told him it would tear my family apart, that…that it was wrong.” He passed a hand over his eyes.
“Does Vincent know?”
Winsford nodded.
“So, you were worried about me finding out?”
Winsford nodded again.
“And this is his way of showing you that you needn’t worry because I’m the same?”
His brother looked agonised, but stoic.
“I don’t know. Possibly. Yes.”
Hugo had to take a moment to compose himself. He had to ask; he just didn’t want to hear.
“And the purpose of sending Cross? What was that? Was it to seduce me? He’d already made me confess my true nature to you with the blackmail.”
Winsford looked so guilty Hugo laughed, but it was a hollow, empty sound.
“He made his point with the blackmail. I strongly suspect sending Cross was his way of waving it before me in case I missed his point. Making me see that the feelings that we have for each other are not wrong. That my family may survive. Even that you might understand.”
As the world crumbled beneath his feet, Hugo sank into the chair and stared into the fire. It all made sense now. Lyndon had been making a point. That was all. Every single good thing that had happened to him recently was a lie.
Winsford came and sat in the chair opposite him. Perched on the edge, leaning forward.
“Did you spend the night with him?”
Hugo nodded. Not looking at him, keeping his gaze on the fire. There was no point in dissembling.
“Was he important to you?”
Hugo nodded again.
“I’m so sorry.” Winsford’s voice was a mere thread.
Hugo scrubbed his face with both hands. “It’s nothing. Silly really. Foolish of me to believe he’d forgiven me.”
“Forgiven you?”
Hugo turned to face his brother. He might as well know it all. “At school, Lyndon… Cross and I were both bullied. More than the run of the mill, truth told, it was quite awful.”
Winsford frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What could you have done?” Hugo raised an eyebrow. “And how would have that made me look? Anyway, that’s beside the point. I tried as hard as I could to steer Lyndon away from the worst of it, warned him when something really dreadful was being planned, but there were times… times when I was expected to join in. And to protect myself, to my everlasting shame, I did.” He rubbed a hand over his stomach as it rolled. He pulled in a breath to continue, but it was hard. “He said he forgave me, said that the times I did help meant a lot to him, and that he’d always…always cared for me.”
Hugo gave Winsford an abridged version of their conversations and then paused when emotion threatened to overwhelm him.
“It’s something I’ve struggled with all my life.” He made the admission quietly. He felt faintly better for saying it aloud to another person. “The guilt for what I allowed myself to be dragged into, and the shame that I wasn’t strong enough to stand by Lyndon.”
“My dearest boy, you were but a child.” Winsford looked pained.
“I might have been, but I could have acted better. The thought that Lyndon had forgiven me made things seem marginally more bearable. But now, now I see that things are about as bad as they can be, and I’m still the coward that didn’t stand by his friend, and he may just have secured himself a rather spectacular revenge this weekend.”
And I fear I have lost the man that I esteemed above all others. The one I could have loved, and the one I could have spent the rest of my days loving.
“Hugo, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s hardly your fault.” Hugo gave him a weak smile. “I’m presuming you asked Lyndon to accompany you back to London?”
“I wanted him as far away from you as possible. I made him leave immediately.”
“What did he say?”
“Very little, except that he was sorry. For what it’s worth, he seemed genuinely distressed.”
Hugo’s head hurt. “Will you go back to Hessledon?”
Winsford looked away. “I don’t think I can after this. I can’t quite believe he was so damned reckless as to involve you, to risk you.”
“I suppose he was only trying to make a point.” Hugo tried to be magnanimous, but he wished Hessledon had stuck to his plan of blackmail without introducing Lyndon into his games.
Winsford looked directly at him. “Hugo, you said that you’d considered ending your life. What he did could have driven you to desperate measures. Could have resulted in your death. What if I’d lost you?”
“Well, when you put it like that, it was rather high handed.”
“High handed! It was damned well reckless.”
“Is he like that?”
Winsford frowned. “Like what?”
“High handed, reckless…?” He shrugged.
Heat hit Winsford’s cheeks and Hugo’s eyes widened.
Winsford made an irritated sound. “He can be as high handed and reckless as he likes in the bedchamber, but when it comes to my life and my family, then he cannot. I will not have it.”
“I presume he won’t continue to pursue me?”
“No. If you owe him money, I will clear the debt, but the
re will be no question of blackmail.”
“Thank you. That is an enormous relief, I’ll not lie. The thought that we could pay a blackmailer, only for him to return time and time again was weighing so heavily.”
“I know.”
“I’ll pay you back, of course.” He hesitated. “I wouldn’t have done anything foolish. Firstly, I couldn’t put you all through it, and secondly, it wouldn’t necessarily have been the end of it. It did seem like the honourable thing to do, but…” Hugo shrugged awkwardly.
“Well, I’m damned glad you didn’t.” Winsford’s expression turned into something different. Something softer. “You know, I may not have told you this, but I am proud of the man you’ve become.”
Hugo felt himself flush. “Not sure why. I’ve hardly done much. And what I have done, I’ve managed to make a mess of.”
“You are a good man and you have a good heart.” Winsford smiled sadly. “Don’t argue with your elders.”
Hugo managed a weak grin and nodded. “Thank you.”
“Why don’t you stay here instead of going to your rooms? It’s warmer, and we will feed you well.” He raised his eyebrows and looked dreadfully hopeful. What Hugo wanted was to retire to his rooms and curl up in a ball and howl.
“That’s terribly kind, but I think I need some time to myself.”
“Of course. Will you eat with me first?”
He could agree to that, so he nodded.
Hugo sat in his parlour with a book on his lap. He’d been trying to read for some time, but it was difficult. He wanted to pay Lyndon a call, but by the evening he’d talked himself out of it. What was the point? Had Lyndon cared a jot, he’d have come and found him.
He was staring into the fire, contemplating Christmas alone, when he had a visitor.
He bestirred himself and waited until he was presented and was stunned when Lyndon was ushered in, looking pale and tired.
Hugo drew on centuries of breeding to regard him with polite disinterest. He wasn’t sure how long he could keep it up, given his insides seemed to have drawn themselves up tight and frozen in place.
“To what do I owe the honour?” He managed an emphasis on the word honour that signalled it was anything but.
“Hugo, I need to explain.”
Hugo shook his head and steeled himself. “Nothing to explain. I understand. I was vile to you in school, and you saw your opportunity to set things to rights. I’d say we are equal now.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“No? Were you forced? Coerced?”
“Well, no, but…”
“You acted of your own free will to enter my family home and seduce me so that your…employer…could ensure that my brother knew for certain that I was a sodomite, that I was prepared to commit illegal acts in his home, should his blackmail attempt have failed to bring him around.”
Admittedly, Lyndon looked sick, but Hugo pressed on.
“You took my admission that I should have stood up for you, that I saw myself as cowardly, that I’d suffered badly with the notion that I let you down, and let me make a complete and utter fool of myself. If you were looking to embarrass me, let me tell you, it was a successful campaign. I don’t think I’ve ever been so mortified as to have to tell my brother that I accepted you, believed you, and bedded you. I don’t think he’s ever had a terribly high opinion of my intellectual faculties, but I’m fairly certain he now sees me as a complete blockhead, and who could blame him.”
Lyndon’s eyes fluttered closed and he swallowed. “It started out that way. I was keen to see you, but I completely underestimated what seeing you would do to me. I’d forgotten how good you were, how gorgeous and kind you were, and just how much I adored you.”
“Nonsense.” It took all he had and then some to smile, extend a hand, and say, “No hard feelings?”
“Stop it, Hugo. I’m trying to talk to you. Trying to tell you that what happened between us meant something to me.”
“Glad to hear it. Now, if you don’t mind?” He gestured to the door.
“I’m not leaving until we talk.”
“We have talked. I’m now asking you to leave.” Hugo couldn’t bear it much longer, but he’d be damned if he’d break down in front of him. He looked so damned lovely. Those dark, expressive eyes, golden hair, pale, sculpted face.
Hugo walked to the door to emphasise his point.
“Hugo. Please.” He walked to him and held out a hand. “Please, let’s sit down and talk. Let me explain, let me tell you how this whole, dreadful affair came about.” He reached out to touch Hugo’s face, making him flinch.
“For God’s sake, Hugo, you asked for my hand!”
Hugo’s eyes fluttered closed as shame, humiliation, and mortification warred for supremacy in his chest.
“Please. Just. Leave.”
Lyndon’s eyes shone with unshed tears. “I will be at the Fox and Garter tavern on Sackville Street tonight.” His chin quirked. “If you could find it in your heart to give me a hearing, I’ll tell you everything. At least, that way, you can make a judgement and if you find that you can’t forgive me, then there is nothing more to say.”
Hugo looked at the floor and was surprised when Lyndon brushed a kiss against his temple as he left.
Chapter 10
Hugo was slumped in his armchair, contemplating a vow of celibacy, when his second visitor of the evening arrived. He was surprised, and more than a little alarmed, to admit Edgar Hessledon to his rooms.
“Mr. Hessledon.” He didn’t offer him a seat. He had no intention of extending the visit more than necessary. He was a handsome man of around fifty years. Dark hair, but with silver pronounced at the temples and laced through the remainder, there was something hard about him and something unsettling. He couldn’t imagine his brother with him.
“Lord Hugo. I’ve come to give you my apology for the way I behaved.”
“Apology accepted.” Hessledon didn’t move or speak. Hugo sighed inwardly. Another man who was a master of the art of the silence. He held out for a moment, but then couldn’t bear it any longer.
“Am I to assume from this that you are not going to blackmail me?”
“You assume correctly.”
“What about the debt?”
“Consider it dealt with.”
“Has my brother paid you? If so, I will take it up with him.”
Hessledon looked discomfited for the first time. “I have cancelled the debt.”
Hugo, having learned some things from his brother, arched and eyebrow and waited. To his everlasting surprise, it worked.
“I realise that this is highly irregular, and I have no desire to cast aspersions on your ability to settle your debts, but …” He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t exactly playing fair.” He cleared his throat again and looked at the floor. Hugo had the strongest notion that this was not something that Edgar Hessledon admitted to. Ever.
“You cheated?” he asked, just for clarity, of course.
Hessledon sucked in a breath. “I may have manipulated the outcome of the game. Rest assured, your brother has raked me over on that account. Multiple times.”
“In that case, I accept your cancellation of the debt.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
“And then you sent your assistant to seduce me.”
At this, Hessledon fidgeted. “Ah. Cross.”
Hugo employed his eyebrow again, but this time, Hessledon narrowed his eyes.
“You know, you look awfully like your brother when you do that.”
“Where do you think I learned it, Mr. Hessledon.”
Hessledon gave him a lingering look and huffed out a sigh. “Yes. I sent Cross. And may I say, I have suffered enormously on that count. Never have I seen him so up in the boughs.” Hessledon hesitated, and then sighed, some of the starch going out of him. He ran a hand around the back of his neck.
“Lord Hugo, I have behaved in an abysmal fashion. I’ve involved you and Cross in something that
should have remained between myself and your brother. I have never seen either of them so damned angry and hurt. It was stupid of me, but in my defence, it was the only way that I could think of to get your stubborn, pig-headed brother to listen to me.”
Both Hugo’s eyebrows shot up at this. “It does sound a tad desperate.”
“I was, am, desperate.” He seemed to droop a little. “I love Simon.” His voice was soft. Sad. “I love him. I’ve never been in love before,” he added.
Hugo had the oddest urge to reassure him. Which was, of course, ridiculous, and quite probably exactly what Hessledon intended.
“I see,” was all he could say. Hugo couldn’t think of a single time he’d heard a man profess romantic love for another man in his entire life. It was deeply affecting.
“I had hoped that one day he might realise he loves me too, but I fear after this fiasco he’ll never speak to me again.”
Hugo had to admit he was probably right. “My brother has a very strong sense of family. He’ll need to be assured that his actions won’t ever reflect on them. I’m afraid what you did highlighted how easy it would be for everything to come crumbling down around his ears.”
“I know. It was unutterably stupid.”
“I think he will find loving a man difficult.”
Hessledon nodded. “Indeed. And you?”
“Me?”
“Do you find loving another man difficult?”
Hugo stiffened his spine. “I’m not sure that’s any of your business.”
“I was wondering, if you think you could, that you might find it in your heart to forgive Cross?”
“I’m not sure that’s any of your business either.”
Hessledon gave him a long look. “I shouldn’t have involved him. He didn’t want to do it, and he’s absolutely livid with me now. When I spoke to him earlier, he was nigh beside himself needing to speak to you. Will you listen?”
Hugo shook his head. “I deserved it. I was hideous to him at school. He was entirely justified in seeking revenge.”
“Dear, dear boy. You are so like your brother in so many ways.”
