A Collar and Tie (Ganymede Quartet Book 4) (55 page)

“I’ll probably have to,” Henry agreed. “But I won’t want her.
I’m not interested in women.”

Jesse absorbed this. “Oh, all right. You’re like Reggie,
then.”

Henry blushed anew. “Well, I think I do things differently
than Reggie, but yes.”

“So what happened?”

Henry took another deep breath. “My best friend Louis saw us
together at the ball. We were drunk, and we were kissing, and they were
real
kisses, and Louis had no doubts about what he saw. He’s not my friend
anymore, of course. He won’t talk to me, but at least he hasn’t told anyone. He
said he wouldn’t, and he hasn’t, and I’m grateful for that.”

“But why did you leave, then?”

Henry flushed, hugely embarrassed to admit that, “I
panicked, I guess. I was afraid Father would find out what was really going on
and take Martin away from me and I’d never get him back. I was worried he’d be
sold or punished. I wanted us to find a place where we could live together as
free men—”

“Oh, so that’s why you cut his hair.”

“Yes. I cut his hair and made him wear a collar and tie. He
didn’t want to do any of it, of course, but I insisted.” Telling this now,
Henry felt so stupid. It had all been for nothing.

“Where were you going to go?”

“New Orleans, I think. We would have left the day my father
came for us.”

“How did he find you, anyway?”

Henry looked down at his hands in his lap and took a couple
of deep breaths. He wanted to be able to tell Jesse without bursting into
tears. “Martin told him where we were. He left a note here, and then he sent
word the first chance he got. I thought he was finally getting into the spirit
of our adventure,” Henry said, with a rueful laugh, “but really he was just
happy because he knew he’d be going home.”

“He certainly doesn’t seem happy
now
, though!”

“I don’t know what he expected,” Henry said. “He
betrayed
me. Of course I’m angry! We’re
both
unhappy.”

“Well, sure, he betrayed you, I guess, but really,
Henry…what was he supposed to do?”

Henry narrowed his eyes at his cousin. “What do you mean?”

“He couldn’t just let you run off to New Orleans!” Jesse
seemed very certain of this. “You don’t know anyone there, do you? How would
you have lived? What would you have done for work?”

“I took a lot of money,” Henry told him. “We wouldn’t have
had to work for a long time.”

“Yes, but eventually you’d have had to do
something
,
and I doubt you have any more business skills than I do, Henry. You certainly
don’t know a trade!”

Henry waved a hand at Jesse, not wanting to hear any more.
“Yes, yes, I know. It was stupid. I didn’t have a good enough plan, but
Martin
should have helped me think up a better plan. He’s very clever, you know. He
didn’t have to go running to my father.”

Jesse, shaking his head, didn’t seem to agree with this
assessment at all. “You put him in a terrible spot, Henry. He’s supposed to do
what’s best for you.”

“Who’s to say this is what’s best for me?”

Jesse scoffed at this. “Do you really think running away was
a good idea?”

Henry did not reply, because now, in retrospect, the answer
was ‘no,’ though he was loath to admit this.

Jesse said, “I’m just trying to imagine what Russ would have
done in the same situation—you know, since they had the same training. I’m not
sure he’d have been clever enough to get word to anyone, but that’s what he’d
have wanted to do. He’d have done whatever he had to do to get me to go home
again.”

“Would he have done it even if it meant the end of your
relationship? Even if it ruined everything?”

Jesse shook his head. “But I love Russ. That won’t end. That
can’t be ruined. Don’t you love Martin, too, Henry? If you say you don’t, I
won’t believe you.”

Henry couldn’t say that. “But he doesn’t love me,” he
insisted. “He only cares about making my father happy.”

Jesse seemed to doubt this. “I can’t know, of course, but it
seems to me like he was more interested in keeping you safe. You know he’s
supposed to try to keep you out of trouble. That doing so happened to make your
father happy is surely incidental.” He shook his head, clearly frustrated with
Henry. “What it seems like to me, Henry, is that he’s a good slave who did his
best, and you’re being cruel and holding a grudge.” He shrugged dismissively.
“You can go to New Orleans when you’re older.”

The point wasn’t a vacation, the point was freedom! Henry
wondered if Jesse would leave without a fuss if he asked him to. He felt angry
and embarrassed and wished he’d never started answering these questions.

“He’s never even apologized,” Henry complained in his own
defense. “If he’d only apologize, I could forgive him, and
maybe
we
could go back to the way things were.”

Jesse looked surprised by this. “He didn’t even try to apologize?”

“No, he—” Henry began, and then he stopped dead.

A terrible realization came over him, chilling and
mortifying.

It absolutely wasn’t true that Martin hadn’t tried. In fact,
Martin had tried many times to explain himself, and each time Henry had insisted
that he shut up. He’d
ordered
him. He’d been too angry to hear any
excuses, and then he’d discouraged Martin from talking to him for all the weeks
since they’d been brought home. He’d made it very clear to Martin that he
didn’t care to hear anything he had to say. He’d been waiting petulantly all
this time for Martin to come begging for the opportunity to apologize, but each
time Martin came to him, he’d refused to listen. He’d made it abundantly clear
that he wouldn’t be receptive to his overtures, but even still, Martin had kept
trying.

He hadn’t
let
Martin apologize. Martin had tried, but
he hadn’t allowed it.

Oh, this was awful! Poor Martin. His poor darling boy.

Henry put his head in his hands, overwhelmed by the evidence
of his obstinate idiocy. He wasn’t crying. He was just mortified and so, so
sad. Martin surely would have apologized a thousand times over if only Henry
had let him, if he had let him talk.

“Henry? Are you all right?”

Henry did not lift his head. “Oh, Jesse, I’ve made such a mess
of things.”

His heart throbbed doom and he was short of breath. All
these weeks of unhappiness and suffering were entirely his fault. Martin was
blameless. He should be the one to beg Martin’s forgiveness.

Jesse put his arm around Henry’s shoulders. “But you can fix
it, can’t you?” He gave Henry a little shake. “He loves you, Henry. He’ll
forgive you, I’m sure.”

“I don’t know if he loves me or not,” Henry admitted, voice
muffled by his hands. “I-I’ve been so
mean
, Jesse!”

“He’ll forgive you,” Jesse repeated firmly. “Even today,
with you not getting along, I see how he looks at you. He wants to be close to
you again, I’m sure of it.”

Henry sat up. His face was hot and his hands were shaking,
and he clamped them together between his thighs to hide the tremors. “It’s his
birthday tomorrow,” he said. “I’ve been worrying and worrying about whether I
should even say anything, and now…”

“Now you can make up with him,” Jesse suggested. “It’ll be
the best present ever.”

He’d been so selfish and so stupid. His assessment of the
situation had been just as flawed as his getaway plan. What if Jesse was wrong,
though? What if Martin had had enough of Henry’s arrogance and stupidity? Russ
and Martin were both Ganymede boys, but they were very different, and just
because Russ would forgive Jesse anything didn’t mean that Martin would do the
same for Henry. After all, Jesse hadn’t done anything so cruel to Russ.

“Have you ever fought with Russ?”

“Me?” Jesse seemed surprised to be asked. “No, we’ve never
had a serious fight.” He thought about it a moment. “I tickled him longer than
was fun for him once, and he was pretty unhappy with me over that.”

Henry laughed ruefully. “Martin did the same to me—right
before your birthday party, actually—and then he apologized all over the place.”
Martin had a long history of apologizing to Henry early and often whenever he’d
been allowed to do so. This estrangement was all Henry’s doing.

Henry put his head back in his hands and gave a little
groan.

“It seems like I helped you somehow,” Jesse remarked,
bumping him with his shoulder. “Am I right about that? I feel little
accomplished, if that’s the case.”

“You helped me realize how stupid I’ve been,” Henry said, a
bit grudgingly. “I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do about it, but at
least I see what I’ve done.” He wanted to run down to the basement and start
making things up to Martin right away, but he also wanted to go hide in a cave
and pretend none of it had happened.

“You’ll figure it out,” Jesse said, with much more
confidence than Henry felt. “When I’m back here for your party on Saturday, you
and Martin will be friends again, I’m sure of it.”

What a wonderful idea that was! Henry allowed himself a
tentative smile.

“My friends are all coming, by the way, in case you didn’t
know, as well as a bunch of the girls you danced with at my party.”

“I’m glad. A lot of people I don’t even know are
invited—people from my ball, mostly.”

“Russ and Martin have talked a little about the planning,
you know, and it sounds like it’s going to be a madhouse. Nearly everyone who
got an invitation is coming. People are dying to see the inside of this house.
I don’t think you realize how interested people are in your family.”

“We’re not interesting, though,” Henry pointed out. “We’re
just really rich.”

“Well, that’s not true,” Jesse said, “but even if it was,
just being really rich is enough to make people be interested in you.” He was
quiet a moment, then said, “By the way, I’m planning to behave myself at your
party.”

Henry gave him a questioning look.

“I know your friends see things differently than mine,”
Jesse said. “It’ll be easier on you if I can keep my hands off of Russ for a
few hours, don’t you think?”

Henry flushed with relief. He hadn’t known how he might ask
Jesse to do this. “Er, well…yes. Thank you.”

“Gene’s promised to warn Warren off from flirting with the
other masters, too,” Jesse continued. “All the Lawton boys are used to it, but
your friends would probably be shocked.”

Remembering Warren’s suggestive smiles and saucy wink, Henry
thought this was likely the case.

“I just really don’t want you to regret inviting me or my
friends,” Jesse told him. “We’ll all be on our best behavior.”

Henry was just relieved he wouldn’t have to spend his party
trying to block his friends’ view of Jesse feeding Russ from his hand. “I’m
sure everything will be just fine.”

“You know, I think things would be easier for you at a
different school,” Jesse said. “A bigger school, where people wouldn’t be so
vigilant about each other’s behavior. I’ve noticed this kind of thing with
other boys I’ve met from small schools, too. At Lawton, with fifty-odd boys in
my class, people did swaps in all kinds of ways. Boys experimented a lot more
than it seems like they do at your school. I mean, I don’t think there’s a
single Lawton boy who hadn’t kissed his slave and touched his cock by
graduation—now, some of them only did it the one time, of course, but there
were others who just kept on doing it, and doing more and more, and no one
cared as long as they were reasonably discreet.”

Henry had to wonder if Jesse considered his own behavior
‘reasonably discreet.’

“I know the Wiltons are nothing now, but we were an
important-enough family for a few generations, and we’ve always been very close
with our slaves, and the boys I went to school with were likewise close with
their companions, and no one worried too much about being a fairy or being
queer. I mean, a gentleman is afforded certain luxuries, and intimacy with a
companion is just one of them. Being queer isn’t going to ruin your life,
Henry, not like it would if you were working-class and had to struggle for
every little scrap of success and pleasure. Most of the fellows you’ll be in
business with when you’re grown will have had these same experiences, the same
closeness with a slave, and they’ll understand. Really, the only person it
might matter to is your wife.”

“I imagine she’ll have a lot to say about it, though,” Henry
said. “I anticipate it’s going to be a
big
problem. I also worry about
how it might reflect on my father if I get found out.”

Jesse dismissed this concern with a wave of his hand. “Your
father would probably find a way to use it to his advantage.”

“You certainly admire him, don’t you?” Henry resented this a
little.

“He’s very admirable, after all,” Jesse said with a shrug.
“Come on—you have to admire him a
little
.”

Henry gave a grudging shrug of his own. “Sure. He’s
accomplished a lot. I’ll never live up to his example, obviously.”

Jesse laughed. “I don’t get the impression that he expects
you to.”

Really, all Father seemed to want from Henry was a mediocre
showing and a grandson. “No, I guess he doesn’t.” Besides, Father had a whole
other son in reserve. Perhaps Calvin Murdock would prove worthy where Henry
fell short.

“What do you think they’ve been doing this whole time?”
Jesse asked. “I expect Russ is a little worried. Martin, too, most likely.”

“They’ve probably been eating the rest of the cake,” Henry
said sardonically. He suspected this might mitigate some of their worries.

Jesse laughed. “Is your cook making the cakes for your
party?”

Henry had not thought about this. “Oh. I
hope
so.” It
had not occurred to him that this job might be given to some outside party,
some professional baker, and he did not like the idea at all.