Page 75 of Restored

“I’d said something he didn’t like—he hit me and I decided I’d had enough. I told him I was leaving, and he said I was his till the end of our contract, and if I tried to go, he’d kill me. We struggled, but he was a lot bigger than me. He ended up beating me badly and leaving me locked inside the house while he went out to meet his friends. If I’d still been there when he returned, I suspect he’d have finished me off. Thankfully, he didn’t think to lock the kitchen door, and I managed to escape.”

“Where did you go?”

“To Mabel. We hadn’t spoken for a while, but when she saw the state of me she took me back in. She sorted everything out with Skelton. Then she found me a new contract.”

“Another contract for her to profit from?” Henry said bitterly.

Kit raised his brows. “What else was she to do for me? She was the madam of a brothel—it was all she knew. As it was, she pressed my case quite hard with Phin to persuade him to take me. I don’t think he really wanted another boy at that point.”

“This was Phineas Warren?”

Kit glanced at him sharply.

“How do you know that?”

Henry shrugged. “People talk.”

Kit sighed and nodded. “That they do.”

“What was he like? Warren, I mean.”

“He was very kind to me, actually. He had some rather eccentric ideas, but he was not a demanding man—hell, he wasn’t actually capable of much in the bedchamber by then—but he kept me for several years and gave me a very handsome pay-off at the end, including the property where Redford’s is located. It was his generosity that enabled me to finally get off the game.”

Henry was hit by a hot bolt of shame so intense it stole his breath. Why had it never occurred to him that that might be something Kit would want? Had he really wanted to believe so badly that the man could desire nothing more than to be at his beck and call?

“Henry?”

He looked up to find Kit watching him with a curious expression.

“Is something wrong?” Kit asked and Henry shook his head mutely, unable to find words.

Kit was silent a moment, then he asked quietly, “Henry, why did you come here today?”

Henry gave a helpless, humourless laugh. “I don’t really know.” He pressed at the spot between his eyebrows where his headache always gathered. “I was walking in the park and thinking about the feelings that have risen up in me since I saw you again. I decided that I wanted—that is, Ineededto say—” He broke off, staring down at his hands. Was it right to speak these words aloud? None of this probably mattered to Kit. Not anymore.

“Yes?” Kit prompted.

Henry took a deep breath and tried to begin again, more calmly.

“I told you, the other night at the club, that I cared for you, all those years ago.”

Kit said nothing, only watched him, a faint frown between his brows.

“But that wasn’t the whole truth,” Henry said. “I was being careful with my words. Miserly, in fact. But today I realised that I had to be honest with you. Truly honest. Because you deserve to know the whole truth of the past. I wasn’t just fond of you, Kit. I loved you.”

Kit stared at him, seeming genuinely shocked. “Henry—” he began, only to cut himself off and stare at Henry in silence.

Henry smiled sadly, “Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to reciprocate. I realise that, given what happened after I left, any fondness you ever had for me was probably killed stone dead. But I just wanted totellyou. I wanted you to know—to really understand—how much you meant to me, and that leaving you was truly the hardest thing I ever did. You deserve to know that, Kit.”

Kit looked anguished. “Henry,” he said again. He shook his head and looked away, staring out of the window. After a long pause he said, “I wish I’d known.”

Henry felt oddly breathless. “Why?”

Kit turned back to meet his gaze. “Because I adored you, and when you left, it felt like I’d meant nothing to you. Perhaps if I’dknown…” He trailed off, his expression agonised.

“You loved me too?” Henry whispered in disbelief.

Kit nodded, his eyes shadowed with old grief. “I did. I thought it was pathetically obvious.”