The Lawrence Browne Affair

by Cat Sebastian

  Twenty minutes later, the three of them shared a mushroom omelet in Mrs. Ferris’s parlor.

  This was the coziest room Georgie had yet seen at Penkellis. There was neither dust nor mice, the windows were reasonably clean, and a fire burned high in the little hearth. On the chimney piece was a row of carefully arranged knickknacks—a braided lock of hair, a small whittled animal of some sort, a sketch of a very young man.

  “Who’s the woman in the whitewashed cottage with all those yellow-haired children?” Georgie asked. “She’s the one I bought the eggs from.”

  “That’d be Maggie Kemp,” Janet said around a mouthful of eggs.

  “What’s this about Lord Radnor stealing her caul?”

  Mrs. Ferris paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. “You know how these people are,” she said. “Superstitious.” Georgie noticed that she avoided meeting anyone’s eyes.

  “Of course,” Georgie agreed. He didn’t mention that the child had said Mrs. Ferris herself had blamed the earl for the theft. Instead he decided it was time to ingratiate himself with the servants. “It seems a waste to keep an experienced cook and not have her do any cooking.”

  Mrs. Ferris sighed. “His lordship wants his ham and bread and won’t hear otherwise. That’s the way he is. Of course, I told him, years ago, back when he still came down to visit the kitchens, that a man needs more than that to live, but he’s set in his ways. So it’s ham and bread, and apples when they’re in season.”

  Georgie realized that if the walnuts he had seen Mrs. Ferris shelling on the night of his arrival were not intended for Radnor, they must have had some other purpose. Presumably she sold them and kept the proceeds for herself. It seemed strange that Mrs. Ferris would profit from the sale of Penkellis’s walnuts but not avail herself of the fortune’s worth of silver and china littering the house. But Georgie knew the lines people drew for themselves. Stay on the right side of the line, and it wasn’t really wrong. Georgie had those lines too, only they never seemed to stay in the same place for long. One moment he felt quite above reproach, and the next he was telling young Ned Packingham that he ought not let his aunt invest in a certain fictitious canal company.

  Georgie tried to steer his attention away from the swamp of regret and shame that was the Packingham job. “Does he not let you clean?” he asked Janet.

  “His lordship doesn’t like to be disturbed,” Janet said primly. “Getting on his bad side is more than our lives are worth.”

  “Is that why the other servants left? Because they feared getting on his bad side?” Georgie had a hard time imagining Radnor actually harming anyone. This morning Georgie had watched in astonishment as Radnor rescued a spider that Georgie had wanted to kill.

  The women exchanged a long look. “There was an explosion—a very small one, nothing to fuss over—but they got it into their heads that they’d be blown to bits.”

  “Now, I wonder why they’d think that,” Georgie pondered. He kept his attention on Janet, figuring her as the one more likely to accidentally reveal something. “Radnor owns mines elsewhere in Cornwall, does he not? I take it the powder and fuse he developed were for use in these mines? It seems odd that the villagers, who surely must have some relations who work in the mines, wouldn’t understand that.”

  Georgie, after two weeks spent elbow-deep in Radnor’s papers, knew perfectly well that the earl had invented a safety fuse that was meant to make work safer for the miners. By all rights, the local people ought to regard him as a hero.

  “Well,” Janet said slowly, “the folk around here think he’s some kind of devil worshiper. Can’t imagine why.”

  “Janet!” Mrs. Ferris chided.

  “Well, they do. Like Mr. Turner said—”

  “Call me Georgie, please,” he said, bringing out his best smile.

  “Like Georgie said, Maggie Kemp has been going on about that poxy caul for years now. How old is Betsy? Three? Three years that she’s been telling everyone who darkens her doorstep that Lord Radnor is using her Betsy’s caul to summon devils or whatnot.”

  Mrs. Ferris pushed some stray bits of onion around her plate. “There’s no harm in him. I always tell them so.”

  Georgie wondered what else she told them. He would have bet almost anything that she was at the heart of the rumors and suspicion that surrounded Radnor, but he couldn’t see why.

  “The lad in the sketch.” He gestured with his fork at the drawing that sat on the chimney piece. “Is he your son?” he asked Mrs. Ferris.

  By the time the kitchen clock chimed ten, Georgie had learned that Mrs. Ferris’s son was a midshipman in the navy. He knew Janet was Mrs. Ferris’s cousin’s daughter and also a Ferris. This, Georgie noted but of course did not remark on, likely meant that Mrs. Ferris was really a miss. And yet, she had somehow managed to get her child a commission.

  He could have done this routine in his sleep. Ingratiating himself was what he did best. He hadn’t done it with Radnor, though. He hadn’t needed to—he was genuinely intrigued by the earl’s device, even more so by the man who had invented it. Instead he provoked and irritated Radnor as much as he pleased. That was not how he treated marks. It was not even how he treated his friends.

  No matter how hard Georgie tried to keep his mental pigeonholes sorted, he could not seem to keep Radnor where he belonged.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lawrence needed to apologize to Turner. It was the right thing, the sane thing to do. He knew this because it was the exact opposite of what his father or brother would have done after behaving boorishly to a servant. He would do something else his father and brother had never thought to do: he would offer to let the man leave, even paying his wages through the next quarter. He would make that offer because he wanted Turner to stay, damn him, and he was operating on the vague sense that when in doubt about the correct course of action, he ought to consult his desires and behave contrary to them.

  Candle in hand, he headed to the wing that housed the only inhabitable bedchambers. He didn’t know which one had been assigned to Turner—or indeed who could have done the assigning in the first place—but unless the man was bedding down in the stables he couldn’t be far from here. But the west wing was utterly silent. There was no sign of life, no smell of wood fire, no rustling of bedsheets. All he could hear was the familiar nighttime scurrying of mice and the wind whistling through a cracked window.

  He opened each door along the corridor, unleashing cloud after cloud of dust. For the first time, he realized what it meant to live in a house with essentially no servants. Soon this wing would go the way of the crumbling east wing. The furniture would molder and rot. Small leaks, then larger ones, would spring in the roof. Eventually it would cave in and the walls would fall. Small weeds would grow in between the toppled stones.

  He could see it with perfect clarity: Penkellis gone, eradicated from the face of the earth. The bloodline of the Earls of Radnor would end with Lawrence, and all that was left was to wait for the house itself to crumble. It brought him a small mote of joy to think that this place, with all its evil and sorrow, could be done away with. But at the same time he knew it had to be slightly mad to fantasize about one’s own ancestral home being reduced to rubble.

  That was why he had to hold fast to any sane impulse that got into his head, like a ship’s captain leaning hard on the wheel during a storm. He needed to throw his weight into choosing not to be mad, while he still had a choice. He would not go the way of his father and brother, letting himself be governed only by his madness, only by his pleasure. Not yet. Not while he still had a choice.

  But it was all too clear that Turner was not to be found in this part of the house. Lawrence returned upstairs, to the tower that housed his study and bedchamber.

  Rounding a corner, he saw Barnabus lying outside the door to what had once been Lawrence’s own dressing room. The dog sleepily thumped his tail, but made no other move to greet his master. Lawrence bent to scratch the animal behind his ears.

&nbs
p; “Stay,” he whispered, pushing open the dressing room door. In the darkness, he could barely make out the silhouette of a man lying on the sofa.

  He ought to shut the door and tiptoe out the way he had come. Turner was sleeping. Of course he was sleeping. It was likely past midnight. This was not the time for apologies, Lawrence realized belatedly. He ought to be in bed himself.

  Instead he stepped further into the room. He assumed there was some good reason for Turner to be sleeping here but didn’t bother taxing his mind with a question when the answer didn’t matter. Much more interesting was the fact that Turner slept with his hands folded under his cheek like a child, his knees tucked up close to his chest.

  Even more interesting still was the fact that Turner slept without a shirt. The coat he was using as a blanket had slipped down, revealing a shoulder that was burnished to a pale glow by the faint moonlight.

  Lawrence placed the candle on an empty table and took a step closer still. Turner looked very young and unsophisticated while he slept, his beauty unrelieved by the sharp edges of urbanity and archness. Dark eyelashes rested against smooth cheeks in obscene extravagance. Lawrence was disconcerted to see the man like this, all sleepy innocence.

  As he watched, a spider crawled across the secretary’s face. Turner’s nose twitched in unconscious discomfort. Instinctively, Lawrence reached out and brushed the creature off Turner’s cheek.

  Instantly, Turner’s eyes sprang open, and Lawrence found himself being shoved to the ground.

  “Who sent you?” Turner asked, his voice raspy with sleep.

  What the hell kind of question was that? And what kind of life had Turner lived to wake up in such a fashion?

  “It’s Radnor,” he answered, slightly stunned by the force with which he had hit the floor. Turner was kneeling over him, one knee on his chest, his hands pinning Lawrence’s wrists to the bare floor. If that was what he could do while still half-asleep, Lawrence didn’t want to find out what he was capable of at his best.

  It occurred to Lawrence that perhaps Turner hadn’t been menaced by any of Lawrence’s theatrics. He could defend himself against a man of Lawrence’s size, which was certainly not a skill typical of a secretary. But Lawrence already knew that Turner was no ordinary secretary. What the devil he actually was remained unclear.

  “Radnor,” Turner repeated in confusion—and was that relief?—taking his knee off Lawrence’s chest so he now was kneeling astride Lawrence. “What the devil are you doing in here?” His voice was hoarse, tired.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Lawrence pointed out. There was just enough light to see Turner’s black eyes, his sleep-tousled hair falling across his forehead as he leaned over Lawrence. Lawrence let his gaze drift over the other man’s chest, lean and wiry.

  Neither of them moved. Surely one of them ought to, but it wouldn’t be Lawrence. The mere proximity of this man was doing dangerous things to his already chancy grip on self-control.

  “I take it we’re even now.” Turner’s mouth, alarmingly close to Lawrence’s own, crooked up in the ghost of a smile.

  “Even?” Lawrence, frantically trying to persuade his cock that now was not the time to get ideas, was not following the other man’s logic.

  “Now we’ve both nearly killed one another after being startled from our sleep.”

  “I’m very sorry about—”

  “What a pretty pair we make.” Turner was looking down at him with an expression that Lawrence couldn’t read, but which his prick seemed eager to interpret.

  Still neither of them moved.

  Lawrence might go the rest of his life without ever being this close to another person again, without feeling his body stir, without absorbing heat from another man’s touch. Even this simple contact, Turner’s hands pressed against his own, might be something he would never know again. Perhaps that was why he made no effort to get free of Turner’s grip.

  But that didn’t explain why Turner didn’t let go.

  Lawrence squeezed his eyes shut. He had come here to behave decently, to act with whatever shreds of sanity he could muster, not to nurture lascivious thoughts. “If you choose to leave, I’ll pay your wages through the next quarter and write you a character.” Another moment, another rising and falling of chests. “You’re a very good secretary. I should have told you that earlier.”

  “That’s why you came to my room in the middle of the night?” There was amusement in Turner’s voice. “To praise my secretarial skills?”

  “Technically, I came into my own dressing room.”

  “I’m not quitting my post.”

  Lawrence flung open his eyes. “But—”

  “As you said, I’m a good secretary.” Turner’s dark eyes sparkled even in the dimness. “I don’t think you have any malice in you.”

  “I—you don’t know what I’m capable of.”

  “Stop.” Turner’s hands closed tightly around Lawrence’s much larger ones. “Stop,” he repeated. He shifted on his knees in a way that couldn’t help but cause his thigh to brush against Lawrence’s cockstand.

  Ripples of sensation coursed through Lawrence’s body, causing want as sharp and needful as thirst. His hips wanted to buck upwards, and he had to exert all his will to keep them decently against the floor.

  But then Turner shifted, and they brushed together again. This time Lawrence couldn’t help but let his hips move, seeking relief that he would never—could never—achieve.

  He waited for the inevitable moment when Turner would recoil in disgust and alarm. But that moment never came. Instead they remained half-tangled together in the silence and darkness.

  “You should go.” Lawrence groaned. “Or I should.”

  Another shift of their bodies, another fleeting ripple of pleasure. “What if I don’t want to?” Turner’s voice was arch but with a hint of huskiness.

  The only response Lawrence could make was a guttural grunt.

  “Make me.”

  “Pardon?” Lawrence managed to say.

  “If you want to leave, you’ll have to make me let you go.”

  Lawrence wrested his hands free of Turner’s grip and rolled the other man onto his back. Turner lay on the floor, Lawrence crouching over him.

  Only then did Lawrence realize that Turner hadn’t put up a fight at all. He was letting Lawrence manhandle him. Lawrence refused to let himself understand the meaning of this.

  Turner licked his lips. Lawrence forced himself to stay perfectly still. But when Turner twisted one of his hands out of Lawrence’s grip, he didn’t try to stop him. And when Turner brought that hand around Lawrence’s neck and tugged him down, he didn’t stop that either. He only closed his eyes, because he didn’t think he was equal to watching whatever was about to happen. His other senses were already overwhelmed and overtaxed.

  He felt Turner coming closer, felt the other man’s breath on his face, heard the rustle of limbs being rearranged. Almost, almost he could taste—but he wouldn’t let himself think of mouths and tasting and the slow pink flick of Turner’s tongue when he had licked his lips.

  Then a warm hand rested on his cheek. He heard a sigh, and then the hand was gone. “Up you go, Radnor.”

  Lawrence stood. Looking down, he saw Turner pass a hand over his mouth and heard him sigh again.

  Lawrence hesitated at the door, resting one arm against the door frame. “You ought to get back to sleep.” Turner did not respond.

  Instead of heading next door to his own room, Lawrence went downstairs to the kitchen. It had been months, perhaps longer, since he had traveled these corridors. The kitchen was silent and dark. “Sally?” he called. To think of Sally Ferris still at Penkellis. Why would she have stayed here? Hadn’t he offered to set her up somewhere else? Well, she had endured far worse than Lawrence, and this was the only home she had ever known, so perhaps she had simply chosen the devil she knew. Maybe that was why Lawrence was still here too. “Mrs. Ferris?” he amended, remembering the passage of years.
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br />   A figure in a dressing gown and cap appeared. “Good heavens, is that you, Master Laurie?” She looked startled and tired but not afraid. “My lord, I mean to say.”

  “I’m so sorry to trouble you,” Lawrence said, attempting some semblance of courtesy despite the late hour. “But could you see to it that the blue bedchamber is aired and cleaned, and a fire lit there for Mr. Turner?”

  “Now, my lord?” She looked so much older than the last time he had seen her. That was how time worked, he reminded himself. She was likely thinking the same about him.

  “No, no. Tomorrow. And thank you.”

  When he returned to his tower, he paused outside the dressing room door. Barnabus was fast asleep, but he heard rustling inside the room. Lawrence didn’t dare go next door to his own room. Instead he crossed to his study and lit a lamp.

  Georgie rubbed his eyes and sat up. Only the faintest light was streaming through the window, but strange sounds were coming from the corridor outside the dressing room door. In any decent house, early morning rustling would be no cause for alarm, nothing more than servants going about the mundane business of lighting fires or carrying up trays of tea. In this house, it was more likely to be wild animals prowling for food.

  He dressed in haste and opened the door, intensely conscious of his stubbly jaw and creased cravat, but if ever there was a place to let personal standards fall by the wayside, it was Penkellis. Down the length of the corridor ran a rope of twisted wires. At one end, Radnor knelt by one of the trestles of his communication device.

  “Over there, Turner,” the earl said, as if they were already in the middle of a conversation. “Take hold of the wires and keep them steady while I fasten the ends to this trestle.” His voice was rough, and he avoided looking at Georgie.

  Georgie had already decided that he would proceed as usual, as if he hadn’t come within a hair’s breadth of kissing the man. As if he hadn’t lain awake for hours thinking of the way Radnor’s hard-muscled body had pressed him into the cold floor. Flushing, Georgie put that thought aside for the moment, something to be taken out and enjoyed later.