Page 29 of The Words Beneath the Noise

“I do not know. Maybe. I think maybe. But I am not certain, and being wrong could...”

“Destroy everything. Yes.” She reached across the table and took my hand, her grip warm and surprisingly gentle. “That is always the gamble, is it not? Every time we reach for someone.”

“How do you do it? Keep reaching?”

“Because the alternative is living with my hands at my sides. And that is not living, love. That is just existing.” She squeezed my fingers. “Go talk to your soldier. Find out what kind of man he is. And if he proves safe, if he proves to be family or at least a friend to family...” She pressed something into my palm. A small card with an address in London. “There are people who can help. Safe houses. We look after our own.”

I stared at the card, at the lifeline it represented.

“Be careful, Arthur Pembroke. But not too careful. Careful is another word for lonely.” She kissed my cheek, leaving a smear of lipstick. “And you have been lonely long enough.”

Then she was gone, swept away to bid farewell to other guests, and I was left alone with a card in my hand and a heart full of terrified hope.

The walkback to the estate felt longer in the dark.

I took the lane slowly, my mind churning. Every shadow could be Tom. Every footstep behind me could be the moment everything changed. I was so tired of being afraid. So tired of calculating odds and risks and consequences. So tired of living in the narrow space between desire and disaster.

The estate gates loomed ahead. I passed through, nodding to the guard on duty, and made my way not to my room but to the bench outside Hut X. I needed to sit. Needed to breathe. Needed a moment to gather myself before facing whatever came next.

The bench was cold, the wood biting through my trousers. I sat anyway, pulling the Black Book from my pocket and holding it against my chest like a talisman. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called. The sound was lonely and beautiful, and I felt tears prick my eyes for no reason I could name.

Footsteps on the gravel path.

I did not look up. Did not need to. I knew those footsteps now, knew the particular rhythm of them, the weight and pace that belonged to only one person.

Tom came around the corner of the hut and stopped when he saw me. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The night stretched between us, full of everything we had not said.

Then he crossed the distance and sat down beside me on the bench, leaving a careful six inches of space between us. Close enough to feel his warmth. Far enough to maintain the pretence of propriety.

“You knew I was following you,” he said. It was not a question.

“Yes.”

“You went anyway.”

“Yes.”

Silence. I could hear him breathing, slow and steady, the breath of a man who had learned to control his body even when his mind was in chaos.

“That place,” he said finally. “The back room of the pub. What was it?”

“I think you know what it was.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

I turned to look at him then, really look, searching his face for any sign of disgust or judgment or the cold calculation of a man about to report me. But there was nothing there except exhaustion and uncertainty and something else, something that looked almost like hope.

“It was a gathering place,” I said slowly. “For people like me. Men who love men. Women who love women. People who do not fit the mould the world has made for them.” I swallowed hard. “It is illegal, of course. All of it. The gatherings, the performers, the language we speak. Being what I am is a crime punishable by prison. You know that.”

“I know.”

“So.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. “Are you going to report me?”

The question hung between us. I could feel my pulse in my throat, could feel the Black Book pressed against my chest, full of every secret that could destroy me. Everything came down to this moment. This answer. This man with winter eyes and careful hands who held my future without even knowing it.

Tom turned to face me fully. In the dim light from the hut's windows, his expression was impossible to read.

“No,” he said.