Page 24 of The Lawrence Browne Affair
“I found this under the sofa, Radnor,” Turner said, waving a sheaf of papers, “along with a ham hock. Although Barnabus was delighted to discover the bone, I was less pleased to discover the correspondence. Some of it dates from months ago.”
There was nothing in the secretary’s voice to suggest that twelve hours earlier they had been in one another’s arms. Turner sounded as casually caustic as ever. Lawrence was unspeakably grateful. He knew—more or less—how to treat a secretary. He did not know how to act with a lover, or whatever it was Turner was now. If indeed he was anything.
“Burn it all,” Lawrence suggested. “If any of it matters, they’ll write again.”
“Oh, a fine secretary I’d be.” Turner held up a thick sheet of creamy paper. “There’s also a letter from an Admiral Haversham, thanking you for some unnamed service to your nation and asking about your progress with the telegraphic machine. Quite official looking too. All manner of seals and whatnot.”
Lawrence grunted. “That’s for the powder.” Browne’s Improved Black Powder, useful in mines but even better at destroying ships.
“I see.” Turner tilted his head to the side. “Do you have any other accomplishments or accolades you’d like to share?”
Lawrence thought about it. “No.”
Turner was giving him a strange little smile, the sort of smile Lawrence’s late wife used to give the men who flocked around her. Was Turner flirting with him? Well, if so, he was quite on his own. Lawrence shouldn’t be thinking of flirting at all. Not when last night had put him into such a muddle, not when he had felt—
Lawrence couldn’t complete the thought without a rush of blood to his prick. Right here in his study, in broad daylight too.
But perhaps he hadn’t behaved too disgracefully last night, because Turner wasn’t treating him like a fool or a degenerate. Instead he was behaving quite unremarkably. Except for that smile. Did he even realize he was smiling like that?
“What’s that letter?” he asked brusquely, pointing at the topmost paper in the pile Turner was sorting. He let his hand drop to the table next to Turner’s, so close their little fingers were a hair’s breadth apart. He didn’t move his hand away, and neither did Turner.
“Oh, that’s our friend Standish again. He never runs out of questions, does he?”
Lawrence snorted. “He needs things explained in minute detail, often with sketches.” This was a part of their process; once Standish could successfully replicate Lawrence’s invention, Standish handled the business end of things. It was Standish who arranged for the safety fuse and the black powder to be patented and widely produced, and presumably he would do the same with the telegraph.
Turner tapped his pen on the desk. “I’m surprised you indulge him. I understand what he stands to gain from this endless correspondence, but what’s in it for you, Radnor?”
Radnor hadn’t thought of it in those terms. “It isn’t everyone who takes an interest in explosives and electricity. When he asks one of his questions, I sometimes have to work through the answers in my own mind. And he’s better at implementing ideas than I am. I cobble something together, and he refines it.” That was more or less how they had stumbled onto the safety fuse. Lawrence, as an aside in one of their letters, had mentioned that he was working on a fuse that would burn more slowly and more predictably, to make it safer for miners. Standish had suggested coating the fuse with various substances, and several explosions and dozens of letters later, they had a safety fuse.
Their letters were prone to that sort of digression. Standish would mention some problem he had encountered in installing new water closets, and Lawrence would sketch out a solution. After a few years of correspondence, Lawrence felt they had established a sort of friendship.
“And the money?” Turner inquired.
“Standish deals with it.” Business was not something that amused Lawrence, but evidently Standish enjoyed it, so Lawrence let him have his way. Lawrence already had enough money—Percy died before he managed to run through the entire Radnor fortune—so he didn’t pay much attention.
A long moment passed, during which Turner regarded Lawrence curiously. “I see,” he finally said. “I don’t suppose you’ve met Standish?”
Lawrence turned his head to fully face his secretary and raised his eyebrow. He didn’t meet anybody, and Turner bloody well knew it.
“I didn’t think so,” Turner said.
Lawrence looked to where their fingers nearly met and saw that the back of Turner’s hand was scratched, red scrapes livid against the secretary’s pale skin. Lawrence took the man’s hand in his own, fingering the angry marks. He felt his heart drop. “Is that from—”
“The tree.”
“I’m so sorry.” He ought to have guessed that he was too big, too rough. He had no business even touching a man like Turner, smooth and polished and fine. “If I had known I was hurting you . . . ”
“I liked it.” Turner’s voice was low. “I liked everything about it, actually.”
Lawrence felt his cheeks heat, and when he looked at Turner he saw an answering flush on the other man’s face. “Sometimes I fear that it’s part of my madness,” he murmured.
“Desiring men?” Turner’s voice was steady, his hand still in Lawrence’s own.
Lawrence nodded, avoiding the other man’s gaze.
“I’m not mad. Nor are any of the men who’ve been my lovers. You aren’t mad either, but even if you were, this”—he squeezed Lawrence’s hand—“would have nothing to do with it.”
Last night, under the tree, he hadn’t felt mad in the slightest. Kissing Turner had felt like the suddenly obvious answer to an equation he had been trying to solve for years. Hell, every minute he had spentnotkissing Turner seemed evidence of an unsound mind.
