Page 11

FELIX WAS quick to bring me the documents from the poaching trial, and I spent the next few days with my regular cases set aside in favor of poring over the long-closed one.

It seemed fairly cut and dry, nothing in it to suggest that anything untoward had happened, but the circumstances were certainly strange.

There was a sworn statement from the local magistrate saying that he had been called to Ashford Hall by Colonel James Wright, who had sent for him after a local father of three had killed a deer in the woods.

It was straightforward—James had accused the man of poaching, Arthur had said that there was a verbal agreement for hunting on the land, but the accused was ill-liked in the area and it seemed the magistrate was bent on taking him to trial one way or another.

Despite Arthur’s refusal to push through with the poaching accusation, the man had been charged with the act of transporting the dead deer from Arthur’s property to his own, the magistrate arguing that this was a blatant act of theft.

Garretty had defended the man successfully, and Arthur had stepped in to make amends, but the damage was done.

Despite the flimsiness of the charge and the legal wrangling that had to be done to even bring it to trial, the accused had been branded a thief and a poacher by virtue of public opinion, and Arthur had been branded a lord petty enough to persecute a man for killing a single deer.

After copious note-taking, reading and re-reading witness statements, the only glimmer of something interesting was in a statement taken from Rudolph Nelson, who said he had been with Arthur in the library at the time of the poaching.

Neither man had realized the magistrate had been called until he arrived at the estate, nearly an hour and a half after James had first sent for him.

What had they been doing in the library for ninety minutes?

Obviously, my mind went to the first thing that I could see myself doing with another man for that length of time in an isolated area, and from there the path from the poaching case to the blackmail seemed clear.

Approaching Arthur with my suspicions, however, would only serve to entrench him in his belief that lawyers were up to no good, and accusing a man—a lord, in fact—of loving another man was just as bad if not worse.

There were my own emotions to contend with as well.

While the nature of the blackmail had not been revealed to me yet, those missing ninety minutes were distraction enough, a tempest churning in my chest as I continued to return to them.

Where blackmail had been on Garrety’s mind—a fact of which I was convinced now that I could see the accusation, even if it wasn’t true—something decidedly different was on mine.

Was Rudolph Nelson handsome? Had they sat in the same library where Arthur answered letters and engaged in a debauchery that I myself would have enjoyed?

As I continued to work through the papers, I still found myself obsessing over the possibility that Arthur shared my inclinations, embarrassed by my desire for a man who disliked me but indulging in those fantasies all the same.

Despite my renewed suspicions, both of Garrety’s actions and my own growing determination to find out if Arthur and I shared a proclivity, I decided to sit on that information until I could find a way to broach the subject delicately.

Tired of being cooped up and needing a breath of fresh air, I took the tea Felix had delivered to me and stepped out on the balcony, taking a sip and scanning the garden.

I was surprised to find that Charles and Arthur were walking together, having a clearly animated conversation, and I was considering calling out to them when the choice was taken away from me, Charles happening to glance up towards my balcony.

“Tom!” he called, waving. “We were just discussing you!”

“Oh, is that so?” I asked, leaning over the railing and peering down at the brothers. Arthur, always perfectly coiffed, was watching me as well, and the sunlight caught his green eyes in a way that made them look like gems. “What could the Ashford brothers possibly be talking about?”

“We’re going for a horseback ride,” Charles said. “And we were discussing whether it would be rude to ask if you’d like to come since you’re working on reviewing the poaching case, and we don’t want to make you feel pressured into spending time with us when you’re already doing so much.”

“I haven’t been on horseback for some time,” I admitted. “I may not be the best companion.”

“We’d still like you to come,” Arthur said, and it was his earnestness that caught me off guard.

It sounded as though he genuinely wanted me to join them, and if he hadn’t said it in that exact tone of voice, I’m not sure I would have been so easily convinced.

“Do you have the time? Felix has packed us lunch, and we have a horse that would suit you quite well.”

“Give me fifteen minutes to find my riding clothes,” I said, as I knew I had packed them, just wasn’t sure where they could be at the moment. “Are you sure I won’t be a disruption?”

“You’ve never been a disruption,” Charles said. “We’ll meet you at the front of the house. Bring a book, if you’d please. We’re riding to the pond, and Arthur almost always falls asleep after we’ve had lunch.”

“Can a man have no secrets?” Arthur asked, and it was the first time I’d heard such a clear joke pass his lips; as I retreated to my room, I realized with dread that the surface level attraction I had been struggling with since first laying eyes on the man was crystallizing into something else, a strange and potent hunger.

I had the wherewithal to be ashamed of this attraction, not because it was towards another man, an appetite I had always recognized within myself, but because it was for the brother of my dearest friend.

The betrayal of Charles’s trust felt like the most grievous damage I could do, and I had to find a way to either control myself or rid myself of that attraction forever.

Already I could imagine that Charles would blame me for the seduction of his brother, a dual attack on Arthur’s character due to the fact that I was a man and a man of a lower class.

The rumors that would fly and the damage to his character would far outstrip anything done by the poaching case, and I could not fathom putting Charles in that position.

I found my riding clothes, almost brand-new, unpacked in a far corner of my wardrobe. After changing into them, I met the brothers on the front steps, a rather lengthy legal tome I was annotating held under one arm. Charles looked at it and shook his head. “I meant a novel, Tom.”

“I know what you meant,” I said in return, as teasing as could be. “I’m afraid I have little time for leisure reading. Would you trust a lawyer who spent his days reading Emma instead of Hegel?”

“I would find it an excellent marker of his taste,” Charles said, clapping me on the shoulder. “But there is no accounting for you, man. Come along. Your horse is named Apple, and he is a wonderful little creature with a superb temperament. Lady Ida rides him when she visits.”

“Are the Nelson siblings coming this summer?” I asked, following Charles towards the stables, Arthur tailing close behind.

I imagined I could feel his eyes upon me and thrilled at the thought that he was gazing at me as I had gazed at him before reminding myself it was foolish to hope for something so far outside of the realm of possibility.

“They’ll be here within the next week,” Arthur offered. “Ida has been spending some time in France to help with an unfortunate illness, and Rudolph was with her, but their doctor seems to think it’s appropriate for Ida to return. Certainly the fresh air here can only help.”

“Their home is quite northern, isn’t it?” We reached the stables, one of the boys clearly on lookout for us as he raced back inside as soon as he saw we were drawing close. “It’s quite kind of you to allow them to stay here.”

“Both Ida and Rudy are old friends,” Charles said, watching as the horses were brought out, each ready to be ridden and the largest, undoubtedly Charles’s, laden with a blanket and saddlebags of food.

“We were practically raised together. Our mothers were great friends, and we are similar enough in age that it was only right we would spend our summers together. We never wanted to break with tradition.”

Conversation was momentarily paused due to the necessity of mounting our horses, and I found quickly that Apple was as docile as promised.

I had been a decent rider when I was younger, but the convenience of London hansom cabs had robbed me of some of this skill, although I knew that once we were on our way the memory would return and I’d have no trouble keeping up with the brothers.

The pace of our horses was too disparate to allow us to resume chatting as we rode, making our way eastward towards the great pond that lay at the edge of the wood.

Arthur rode at the head of our little party, leading Charles and I onto a road that would take us through the wood, and the sight and smell of the trees was a comfort to a man who had spent far too much time in the oppressive air of London instead of this greenery.

The trees met in an arch over the path we took, green light dappling the dirt as the sun fell through the leaves, and while my entire stay at Ashford Hall so far had been categorized by beauty, this was far greater than even I had come to expect.