A Wager of Love: M/M Historical Romance (10 page)

“Have you been to such a place before?” Laurie asked.

Gilbert swallowed and lowered his eyes to gaze at the wood of the table. He nodded. Not meeting Laurie’s eyes now, and taking less care to exude mirth now that they were under less direct observation, Gilbert looked half sick with misery and guilt. Laurie supposed that that was for bringing him here. Though Laurie had never known that there was a hidden society like this, he knew of the punishments on the books for buggery.

“I’ve seen enough, Gilbert. Please, may we go?” Laurie nudged him gently. For his own sake he thought he might not mind to stay and watch a while longer, but he disliked the look of guilt on Gilbert’s face.

“Yes,” Gilbert said. He drew Laurie close and kissed his cheek as they left, keeping up the act until they were safely outside, where he let go of Laurie at once. “Forgive me, I should not have—”

“Gilbert,” Laurie interrupted him.

Gilbert fell silent. He still looked guilty.

“It was fair,” Laurie said. “And I enjoyed it.”

A tentative smile tugged at Gilbert’s lips. “Did you?”

“I didn’t know that such places existed,” Laurie said. He began to walk, trusting that Gilbert would accompany him.

The evening was quiet and warm, the streets still occupied by lighthearted revellers, and their steps took them half across the North Parade bridge, where Laurie stopped to look out across the moonlit river. They stood there for some time, keeping company in silence with their own thoughts.

“I concede,” Gilbert said, very softly.

Laurie looked over, catching his tongue between his teeth and feeling his heart flutter in his throat. He felt shaky and uncertain, dreading the revelation of what Gilbert had for so long not said. “Do you?”

“I must. I’m in love. I’m certain of it.”

Resting his arms over the ledge of the bridge, Laurie hung his head forward and focused on his breath. “With whom?”

Gilbert made a noise that was half laugh and half sigh. “You know perfectly well whom, Laurie. You just don’t want to admit it.”

“I need to hear you say it.”

“You.” Gilbert sighed, leaning back against the bridge near him. “I’m in love with you. I know it more truly than I have ever known anything, than I have ever felt anything. I finally believe in all of those love poems that I have memorised, and every poem in my heart is written with your name.”

“Gilbert,” Laurie said, voice strained by all of the doubt and confusion in his mind. “I am not—it is not my nature—I’m not
like
that.”

“I know.”

“I don’t love you, Gilbert.”

Gilbert laughed, broken. “I know that, too.” He pushed away from the bridge rail, and laughed again. This time it was light and careless, the Gilbert that Laurie had first met. “It was only a wager, Laurie. A jest. Will you have your forfeit of me?”

“No.” Laurie straightened up, turning away from the river. “How can I, when all I feel is doubt?”

He could feel Gilbert’s gaze upon him, and knew that if he turned to look, Gilbert’s expression would be as carefree as ever, making light of his own heartbreak.

“Are we friends?” Gilbert asked.

“I don’t know!” Laurie shouted, and then quieted, folding his arms across his chest. He wished that Gilbert would stop looking at him. “Leave me be, Gilbert.”

“Good evening,” Gilbert said, and bowed, “Mr. Aberforth.”

And then Gilbert turned and walked away down the street.

W
hen Laurie returned
to the hotel, Gilbert had already gone. It felt impossible, somehow, that he should not be immediately nearby. They had shared a bed for almost a month, and Laurie had gotten used to having Gilbert constantly present in his life.

The elegantly appointed room was quiet and hollow. Gilbert’s traveling case was gone.

Laurie said on the edge of the bed and lay back. When he closed his eyes he could hear Gilbert’s playful laughter, and thought that at any moment Gilbert might appear and take up teasing him, perhaps resorting to tickling him if he couldn’t otherwise get a smile.

“Gilbert,” Laurie breathed. He ached to have his friend back again, already sick at heart with missing him, but he knew that if Gilbert were here, things would be strained and painful.

Gilbert loved him.
Loved
him. Passionately, like a man for his wife. And after everything,
that
was what made Laurie doubt if love were real at all. If a man could feel love, or what passed as love, for another man, then what truth or sanctity remained in the world?

For in fact he knew that if love were real, and if Gilbert loved him, it would mean that his best friend, his charming, impish Gilbert, would be heartbroken. And that was worse. Better not to believe in love at all than to think of Gilbert heartbroken and miserable.

“
The fountains mingle with the river
,” Laurie recited to himself, hearing the imagined echo of the words as they had sounded when Gilbert had spoken them. “
And the rivers with the ocean
,

The words trailed off, dying without echo in the softly-carpeted room.

Laurie kept his eyes closed, knowing that if he opened them Gilbert would not be there. He wouldn’t be watching Laurie with that tempting, challenging smile, the way that he held Laurie’s eyes as he spoke, as if the request for a kiss was his in truth and more than mere words in a poem.

Gilbert gone; back to London. Laurie was glad for it. He needed the time and space to determine what he wanted and how to deal with Gilbert’s confession.

Curling onto his side, Laurie reached for one of the pillows and hugged it. The wager was done; their friendship ruined; everything returned to how it had been before he had met Gilbert at a party, except that now he was left with the haunting memory of Gilbert’s comely voice reciting love poems.

In the morning he hired a carriage to take him back to his parents home.

He encountered Elizabeth in the front parlour, playing with Sarah. She looked up in surprise as Laurie passed by alone. “Why, where is Gilbert?”

“On his way back to London, I imagine.” Laurie leaned in the doorframe, casting his eyes downward. “I’m afraid we have quarrelled.”

“Laurie!” Elizabeth scolded. “What have you done?”

Laurie gave a pained, shaky laugh. The words came too easily to his tongue, but he trapped them behind his tongue for a few moments until he couldn’t bear to hold back the confession: “I fear I may have broken his heart.”

Elizabeth stared at him in shock, and then sighed. “You daft fool.”

He came to sit on the ground by her, trusting that his sister would understand and accept him no matter what. She always had, whenever Laurie had been confused or upset as a child.

Sarah held out her little hands and Laurie offered his in return, distractedly playing her little game of pat-a-cake. Elizabeth did not press him or make any further comment, although Laurie wished she would resolve it all without his being forced to face his own mistakes.

“Shall I be forthright?” Laurie said at last.

“Yes,” Elizabeth said, reaching out to pat her younger brother’s hair. “If you think you are, or have ever been, a secretive person, Laurie, I fear that you are deeply mistaken. You may as well be forthright.”

“He conceded our wager,” Laurie said, gazing at Sarah’s little hands instead of meeting his sister’s eyes, “and said that he loved me.”

“And what did you do?” Her tone was gentle.

“I told him I did not, and bid him leave me be.”

Elizabeth’s hand tugged gently at a lock of Laurie’s hair. “That was foolish.”

“What ought I have done?”

“I don’t know, Laurie.” Elizabeth’s hands returned to her lap. “You’ll have to decide that for yourself.”

“It doesn’t bother you,” Laurie asked, “that he said he loved me? He meant it…” Choked up, Laurie turned his head away. “As a man might love his wife, Elizabeth.”

“I know little of that,” Elizabeth said. “But I do know that I’ve never seen you so joyful as you were in his company, and did I have a sister whom Gilbert treated as he treated you, and who laughed and lit in his company as you do, I would urge her to marry him.”

“And if she did not love him?”

“I am not so certain,” Elizabeth said, leaning forward and clasping Laurie’s face in her hands so that she might kiss his forehead. “That she knows what love is. But I think that either way, the choice ought to be hers.”

O
ver the next weeks
, Elizabeth did not speak further of the subject, and Laurie’s parents said nothing. They left him to his own company in his room or in the library. Laurie wasn’t certain how much they knew, or what their thoughts might be on the subject, and he did not ask.

He sent most of Gilbert’s things on to London at once, neglecting only a slim volume of poetry which remained inexplicably on Laurie’s nightstand while he packed the rest into Gilbert’s trunk. The book sat there for a week, unopened, and then traveled about for another week in the breast pocket of Laurie’s coat, until he at last opened the book and read the verses therein. Some of them Gilbert had read or recited, while others were new. Laurie read them again and again until they were etched into his heart the way that they were etched into Gilbert’s, until at last it seemed to him that he ought to return the book, in person.

He did not know, in truth, what he would do or say in Gilbert’s presence, that he knew that he had wrongly retained Gilbert’s book, which must be returned, and that with every fibre in his being he missed his friend.

The summer was more than half gone by the time he made his way back to London.

He took a room again in Steven’s Hotel on Bond Street, and called the same day upon Gilbert’s residence in Mayfair. The housekeeper informed him that Gilbert was out, and had been for some weeks. She believed that he was abroad, but knew not where, and thought that the butler might be able to forward some correspondence to him as necessary. Laurie thanked her, and did not mention the book of poetry.

From there he went to the residence of Gilbert’s aunt and uncle. Giving his name to the Butler and announcing himself as a friend of Gilbert’s, Laurie asked to speak to the master or mistress of the house regarding his whereabouts.

He was shown rather promptly into a private study, where he met Gilbert’s uncle by marriage, Lord Ephraim Bingham. The magistrate was a gray-faced man who regarded Laurie a manner similar to that which he might turn on a miscreant brought into his court. “Mr. Aberforth. I do not believe that I have previously had the pleasure of your acquaintance.”

“I believe, Lord Bingham, that we met briefly at a soirée which you hosted in the spring. I made the acquaintance of your nephew at that time. I have now been told that he has gone abroad. May I prevail upon you to tell me his whereabouts?”

“Italy,” said Lord Bingham, with a deeply disapproving frown, “although I fear for the influence of foreign depravity upon his moral character.”

“Have you,” Laurie asked, “his address?”

“May I ask what business you have with my nephew?”

Laurie’s blood chilled at Lord Bingham’s tone. “He is my friend, sir,” Laurie said, drawing himself up proudly. “I have quarrelled with him on a matter of some importance, and I wish to remedy the matter posthaste.”

“I presume,” said Lord Bingham, “that you are a young man of good breeding and character, and I must therefore encourage you to end all acquaintance with Gilbert Heckwith.”

Laurie clenched his jaw, offended on Gilbert’s behalf. “I would know your reasons.”

“It pains me to admit,” said the magistrate, “that my nephew is a young man of weak moral fibre who has in the past sometime been led astray by wicked and depraved elements. I fear that some of those influences may yet remain upon him, and I would not see any other young men drawn into that mire.”

Standing rigidly upright, back and shoulders tense with fury, Laurie lifted his chin. “Sir, in my acquaintance with Mr. Heckwith, he has been in all manners honest and honourable, and I will not hear him slandered.” Some words from
Paradise Lost
drifted through Laurie’s mind, but he thought it best not to bring Gilbert’s atheism into the conversation.

“He was taken in a house of sin,” said Lord Bingham, with careful emphasis upon the word ‘sin’. “And imprisoned.”

Laurie blanched with horror.

Lord Bingham continued: “I was able to intervene on his behalf, in order to preserve the family’s good name, and on account that all witnesses there freely affirmed that he had in no way physically engaged in the sins of buggery and vice.”

Laurie felt dizzy and sick.
Gilbert imprisoned
.

“This was all some years ago,” Lord Bingham said.

Laurie nearly stumbled in relief. Years ago. Then Gilbert was indeed in Italy now, and safe.

“And the boy gave me his word that he would not return unto such vice, but I fear that his soul is weak and that the influence of sin is heavy upon him.” The magistrate’s gaze was merciless, and heavy with judgment. “I hope that you are not one of these influences, nor that you have been influenced by him.”

“To my knowledge,” Laurie said fervently, “Gilbert Heckwith is guilty of no sin.”

If love exists, then by its nature love cannot be sin
, Laurie thought, and wished passionately that he might be able to protect Gilbert from this man’s hatred and judgment.

“I’m glad to hear that,” the magistrate said, “but until I see my nephew decently married to a respectable young woman, I will not believe it. And you may have my assurance that if that boy is ever caught in such lewd behaviour again, I shall see to it that he is punished to the full extent of the law.”

“Sir,” Laurie said, “have you his address in Italy?”

Lord Bingham’s eyes were cold. “I have not.”

Laurie bowed. “Good day, Lord Bingham.”

L
aurie returned
to his hotel sick at heart.  He knew that Gilbert had never seen love between his aunt and uncle, nor perhaps ever from them. Now he knew that Gilbert had once been arrested at a molly house, though he had touched no one, and had probably been there in search of love. He knew of no friends of Gilbert’s, other than those social acquaintances who invited him to parties on account of his handsome face and charming wit, and so had no further contacts he might press for Gilbert’s whereabouts.

Lord Bingham’s words infuriated Laurie. He sorely wished that he might spirit Gilbert away from such hostility. Better, perhaps, to stay in Italy forever. Or France, where, to Laurie’s understanding, such things were more common and they understood that a man might love another man.

He took pen and paper, and sat at the little desk in his hotel room.

Come home
, he wrote.
I miss you
.

Come home, for my heart aches that you are gone.

There is no light in the world without you, and I am lost.

I love you.

Come home.

Yours forever,

Laurie.

He stared at the words on the page, half disbelieving what he had written, and then folded the letter and tucked it inside the little book of poetry.

It was evening, but Laurie’s heart was tempestuous with emotion, so he hired a cab back to Mayfair. This time, the butler himself answered Gilbert’s door.

“Good evening,” said Laurie.

“Good evening, Mr. Aberforth. Mr. Heckwith is not in residence.”

“I’m aware of that. I believe he is in Italy? I would have his address there.”

The butler hesitated, but at length he nodded and welcomed Laurie inside. “He favours the Hotel Splendido in Portofino, and I have been forwarding his correspondence there. Shall I write that down for you?”

“Yes,” Laurie said. “Thank you.”

F
eeling foolish but determined
, Laurie booked a ticket on a clipper ship to Italy, from where he hired a cutter to take him to the Riviera.

It was nearing autumn when he arrived, and Laurie feared that he would reach Portofino only to find that Gilbert had already departed. Exhausted and still seasick by the time he reached his destination, Laurie arrived at the Hotel Splendido on a fine late-summer day, and engaged a room at once.

“Is Mr. Gilbert Heckwith still in lodging here?” he inquired.

“He is,
signore.
Shall I inform him that you have arrived?”

Laurie’s head felt light with relief. “Yes, thank you.”

He was shown up to his room and his trunk delivered for him. Wavering on his feet, he dearly considered laying down on the soft bed and sleeping for a week, but he couldn’t bear to delay any longer if Gilbert were here. Finding his way downstairs, Laurie made his way through the hotel restaurant, and out through the open villa doors onto the spacious, shady patio.

Gilbert was there. He sat near the end of the patio, alone at a table. A cup of coffee and a book sat neglected to one side, while Gilbert’s arms were folded and he gazed out endlessly across the sea.