Archive of Our Own ^beta

Wally: Suppose you’re going through some kind of hell in your own life, well you would love to know if friends have experience similar things. But we just don’t dare to ask each other.
Andre: No. It would be like asking your friend to drop his role.

— My Dinner with Andre

It was a chilly Tuesday afternoon, and every building in London was wrapped in a thick blanket of fog. There were a few pockets of hushed conversation in the Lyons, but not many, and between the quiet, the grey windows, and the little table tucked away in the corner, the meeting felt almost clandestine. A man in a dark overcoat entered and removed his dark hat, and Thomas’s heart gave an erratic leap. He took a deep breath to steady himself before he raised his hand. Richard did a double take, and Thomas’s lips twitched in amusement. Richard’s answering smile was rueful as he walked over, stripping off his gloves.

“Thomas,” he said warmly. “It’s very good to see you.”

He tossed his gloves in his hat and set them both down on the table, and Thomas stood and shook his hand. It was an impartial gesture; Thomas had become accustomed to the more effusive greetings of Americans, Hollywood types, and campy queens (and not a few campy American Hollywood types), and he would ordinarily grasp friends by both arms and kiss their cheeks, at least in private. But this was London, and Richard. Funny how things changed.

“Hello, Richard.”

“Look at you,” he laughed as he removed his coat. “You’re looking very brown—and with your hair grown out and this—” He circled his hand, indicating the ascot knotted around Thomas’s neck. It was forest green with a pattern of diamonds, and he had thought it was subtle. “My, my, you are American now.”

“I don’t think that’s a compliment, but I’ll take it as one,” Thomas smiled. “You look well.”

“That’s you being kind.”

“No, it’s not.”

Richard settled, finally. He set his folded scarf beside his hat and sat down with a faint exhalation, an ah, that’s done sort of sound, and then they sat, quietly, looking at each other, waiting for someone to say something that mattered.

“How—” Thomas began.

“Good afternoon, sirs.” A waitress appeared out of thin air at the edge of the table, her pencil poised above a notepad. She was young, with mousy hair and big, earnest eyes and an accent that wobbled and dropped to Cockney on every other syllable. “May I bring you some beverages, and will you be ’aving any luncheon this afternoon?”

“Not for me, thank you,” Richard said. “Only a large coffee, with cream and sugar.”

“You’ll have something to eat,” Thomas protested, shaking out the menu. “Gooseberry tart? Banana chantilly? Pot de creme au chocolat?”

“Are you eating?”

“Yes, I think I will.” He looked up at the waitress. “I’d like tea, please, and a scone with clotted cream and jam.”

“Two scones,” Richard amended. The waitress finished writing their order with a decisive nod.

“That will be with you momentarily,” she declared in a grave voice, and scurried away.

“Is it just me, or is everyone in the world getting younger?” Richard asked conspiratorially. 

“Not me. I’m getting older.”

“Me, too. More’s the pity.”

“I don’t remember you drinking coffee.”

“I didn’t, until the baby.”

Richard hesitated. There it was. The first proper acknowledgement of just how far their lives had diverged. Thomas’s hands were folded on the table, and his fingers twisted together as he smiled and spoke in as light a voice as he could manage.

“How is he? And Mrs. Ellis?”

“Very well, thank you,” Richard said. “We’re planning on closing up the flat soon; the royal household is going to Sandringham for Christmas, and Nora’s mother lives quite nearby. We talked of doing that earlier, as a matter of fact, so she could get some more help with the baby while I was in Balmoral, but—well, she said she would rather manage him at home than on a train with luggage involved, and that seemed sensible to me. Edward’s starting to walk,” he confided after a slight pause.

“Oh, never. He was only born in—what was it, January?”

“I know, I know,” Richard said, delight overtaking the hesitation in his smile. “And he still needs help, but I swear, he can get across the whole sitting room just holding onto my hands. Nora is certain he’ll be managing on his own by the end of the month. I’ve got a photo—”

His eyebrows lifted, hopeful and apologetic.

“Go on then,” Thomas said.

The waitress returned with their scones and drinks, just as Richard handed over a small photograph. It was a shot of a woman and a baby outside a church. The woman was wearing a light coat and a cloche hat accented with a felt flower. From what Thomas could tell, Mrs. Ellis was plump and quite a bit shorter than her husband, with a toothy, infectious smile and a mass of dark curls, kept long in defiance of the fashion but pinned up neatly. The baby practically dwarfed her in his trailing, brilliant-white christening gown.

“That was this past May,” Richard said. “Nora has a winter birthday, too, and she was christened soon after, but apparently it was snowed out. Half the guests couldn’t come and her mother had to get a local friend to be godmother because her school friend couldn’t get in because the roads were horrid, but she didn’t really like the local friend—” He waved it away, and Thomas got the sense that it was an oft-repeated story. “The gist of it was, my mother-in-law is adamantly against events of any importance being held in the winter months. Aside from Christmas, which can’t really be helped.”

“Good advice,” Thomas agreed as he handed the photo back. “Not something I have to worry about much in California, but… they look very charming, Richard.”

“Thank you.” He tucked it back into the inner pocket of his coat carefully, and stirred cream and sugar into his coffee. “And how is Mr. Dexter?”

“Fine, thank you,” Thomas rattled off immediately. He was spreading cream on his scone with diligence it might not require.

“Only fine?”

Thomas glanced up. Richard was watching from behind his coffee cup, a blandly polite expression on his face. He didn’t seem heartbroken, and obviously Thomas knew the question would come up; there was no reason for him to be tongue-tied, except that as far as he could remember, he had never before had to explain Guy to someone who knew him only as “Mr. Dexter” and an image on film. It was an odd conundrum. He felt like he needed to pull out the equivalent of a christening photo—a snapshot of Guy walking the dog, or standing on a beach holding an ice cream cone. Proof that he was an ordinary person at heart.

“He’s very well,” Thomas amended. “He meant to spend the day shopping for cold-weather clothes, so pity the poor tailors of London who will be talking about that for hours. We have some already, of course, but there isn’t call for much in Los Angeles, and he’s rented a cottage in Scotland over Christmas. I think he’s secretly hoping we’ll get snowed in for a fortnight. People get very nostalgic for snow, you know, when they live somewhere that doesn’t get it.”

“Do you?”

“No,” he said firmly. “Not yet, at least.”

Richard opened his mouth, but less than a syllable fell out. He looked down hastily and devoted his attention to his own scone. Jam first. The first time they had arranged to meet, after the royal visit, they had taken tea in some little cafe situated right by a train station. They had gotten through the first pleasantries easily enough, but Thomas found himself unusually quiet, out of practice when it came to flirting, until Richard quirked his eyebrows and said Are you putting the cream on your scone first? Explain yourself, Mr. Barrow.

“What is it?” he said, emboldened by the memory.

“Hm?”

“You were going to say something.”

“Oh, no. You’ll be in Britain the whole month, then? That’s nice, if you’ve gone through the trouble of crossing the pond.”

“Actually…” Thomas felt his cheeks warm. “Not quite—we’re only in London until Thursday, and then we’re going to Paris for two weeks. Then Scotland for Christmas, and the Crawleys have invited us back to Downton Abbey for New Year’s Eve. We’ll stay there for two days before leaving out of Liverpool.”

“Does Mr. Dexter have any family over here?”

“Yes, his brother lives in Edinburgh—they’re from Sheffield originally, but the brother’s wife’s family is Scottish, and he went into business with his father-in-law.”

“Oh, so you’ll be seeing them when you go up north?”

“I won’t,” Thomas said, with just enough emphasis to make a point.

Guy and his brother didn’t get along; he would stop by for tea and supper to drop off presents for his nieces and nephews, field their delighted questions about the pictures, and discreetly hand his sister-in-law a card containing four post-dated cheques. His brother would sit in the corner, managing a neutral expression as best he could and saying little more than “Good to see you,” and “Goodbye, Quentin, Happy Christmas.” Thomas would stay at the hotel with a book.

“Ah.”

“Will you have a chance to visit your parents in York?” Thomas asked hastily. He remembered his mistake only when Richard hesitated, the coffee cup suspended in the air.

“My father is coming to Sandringham, as a matter of fact,” he said delicately.

“That’s nice. I’m sor—”

“Never mind, Thomas. It is nice. He’s used to not seeing me at Christmas, but my mother-in-law has insisted he come to stay every year since the wedding.” He set his cup down. He took up his spoon again and stirred the coffee, although he hadn’t added anything to it. His gaze flickered up from beneath his eyelashes, and something in Thomas’s face seemed to decide him. He set the spoon back in the saucer. “I hope it’s not horrible of me to say that your plans sound exhausting. Running around the country—across the channel, even—and seeing just a few friends, here and there… and won’t it be strange, staying at the Crawleys’ as a guest?”

“Probably,” Thomas grimaced. “It’s the first time I’ll be back, and we haven’t worked it all out yet, but… we’ll see. Anyway you’re one to talk about travelling, after just getting back from Balmoral!”

“Because of my job. That’s different than… well, I suppose it is your job, too—”

“It’s not,” Thomas interrupted. His heart gave a painful throb. He glanced around the cafe; there was no one sitting nearby, but he lowered his voice anyway. “It’s not… like that. Guy goes where he has to when he has to, but it’s my own decision if I want to join him. We both wanted to visit England. The cottage was his idea, and Paris was mine—well, I meant it as a joke at first—but we planned it out together.”

“My apologies. Of course.” Richard hesitated, and smoothed his shirtfront as he sat back in his chair. He rested one arm casually on the back of the seat beside him. “That’s my point exactly. I’ll run around the highlands and Norfolk for my employer if I have to—I’ll even run up to London on occasion to have tea with an old friend—but if I was sitting down to plan a holiday I’d be in front of my own fire, with my own wife and my own baby, and none of us would have anywhere else to go for a good long while.”

“Now there’s something I don’t understand.” Their eyes met across the table. Richard’s were guarded, but unsurprised; he had expected this line of questioning. Thomas leaned even closer. “Rude of me to ask, probably, but—Richard, do you not…? I mean, did something change, or are you…?”

“Nothing has changed except my priorities,” he said, very slowly and carefully. “I… feel as I’ve always felt, but… I no longer believe those feelings can—” He cleared his throat. “—compensate for the things I was sacrificing in their favour.”

“Right. All right. You know—” He shook his head. “I’ve spent years wondering, and every answer I’ve come up with has sounded like that, but I’m still not sure if I understand it. I always thought you were so… confident, and brave—”

“And now?” Richard asked, his voice still very light and pleasant but his lips hardly moving. “Now you think I’m a coward, Thomas?”

“No,” he said immediately. “No, of course not.”

He realised he was twisting his napkin between his fingers and forced himself to stop, spreading the distended cloth flat against the table. The muted quiet of the near-empty cafe went on for a moment as he took a bite of his scone and swallowed without tasting it; Richard didn’t push.

“When I thought I could stop being with men,” Thomas said slowly. “—change how I felt towards women—when I tried, I felt like a coward. I was miserable and ill the entire time. And you’re not. And that’s wonderful, but… I don’t understand.”

Richard nodded to himself. He sat forward, folding his hands on the table in front of him. He had good hands—valet’s hands, clean, somewhere between the roughness of a worker and the softness of a lord, the nails just a hair’s breadth longer than most men’s, in case a thread needed picking.

“You remember when my mother died.”

“Yes,” Thomas said in the pause he left. He didn’t say anything else; he had tried sympathy, after it happened, when he had met Richard in a pub in York, but it had come clumsy from him, and Richard had rejected it with impatience.

“I don’t—I don’t think I told you… it’s a bit of a blur, that time. I remember things, but not in the right order. But I don’t think I told you my last conversation with her. She was coherent, but confused. We were trying to keep her calm. The doctor said it was best. Just soothing things, you know. Yes Mum, everything is all right, I’ll pay the butcher and don’t mention that she’d already done it, or my father would promise to keep visiting her great-aunt who’d died six years before. Go along with things. You know. She knew she was dying. And she said to me—she was very worried—she said Richard, who will look after you?” He laughed softly. “Never mind that I was a grown man, that I’d left home two decades prior. Mums, you know. This was… right towards the end. She was weak. So I took her hand and I said don’t worry, Mum, I’m getting married. She asked me if there would be tulips.” He rubbed his thumb along his lip. “She’d had a bouquet of tulips at her wedding. Pink ones.”

He cleared his throat and clasped his hands again.

“I said yes of course, and she said that good. She died about an hour later. It wasn’t the very last thing I said to her, but… it was near it.”

“Richard—”

“And of course I began to regret it almost immediately,” he continued forcefully. “Almost the last thing I’d said to my mother, and it was a lie. A deliberate lie.”

“But I thought your parents knew,” Thomas said, when Richard paused to take another sip. He coughed like his throat was still dry when he set the empty cup down. Thomas pushed the teapot towards him, and Richard nodded his thanks. “You told me your parents had—”

He cut himself off as the waitress appeared.

“May I get you a tea cup, sir?” she asked pointedly.

“Oh—yes, thank you,” Richard said, appropriately abashed.

“As a matter of fact, we’d like another pot, please,” Thomas said.

“Right away, sir,” she said, whisking away the pot and the cup.

There was a moment’s silence when she left, and then they looked at each other and laughed. There was an edge of hysteric relief to it.

“God, I don’t miss being a footman,” Richard chuckled. “Tea cups and coffee cups and tisane cups—”

“Tea spoons and jam spoons and sugar spoons, and don’t forget the difference between the everyday silver and the holiday silver and the guests-we-must-impress silver—”

“Only three sets?” Richard sniffed. “Well, not everyone can be born royalty, I suppose, although you’d think they would at least make an effort.”

They chuckled again, and fell into a mutual silence until the waitress had come back, set the new things down, and gone away again.

“There’s knowing and there’s understanding,” Richard said after a moment. He poured himself a cup of tea. A touch of cream, two sugars. “I was… nineteen, I think, when they discovered. Still a boy. Boys do get crushes, you know, and do silly things, and then they grow out of it. Boys fool around. Men settle down. She never said anything even halfway cruel, but she didn’t think it was a permanent arrangement. She was always waiting for me to… grow up.”

“I see.”

Richard set the spoon down with a sigh.

“That was already on my mind, then. The lying. Different, you know, when it’s your mother. And then there was the funeral, which was horrible, but… everyone was kind. Very kind. Telling stories and offering favours—and there were more people than I expected, loads more. I think that was the only thing that got my father through it, if I’m honest, was having all of those wonderful people saying wonderful things about her. And I started thinking… God, if Thomas and I were together twice as long when one of us died, we’d still have half as many people at the funeral. Less. Lucky to have a funeral, even, if we had the wrong vicar—”

“Not so optimistic, then, about how fifty years ago man couldn’t fly…” Thomas muttered.

“You’ll forgive me for being pessimistic at my mother’s funeral,” Richard said in an ice cold voice, and Thomas felt heat sear his cheeks.

“Of course. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

“Yes, well.” He cleared his throat. “That was when things began to shift in my mind. That’s what I was thinking when I met you at the pub. I hadn’t decided anything yet, but I was considering the—the whole scope of my mother’s life, and my father’s life, and mine. And then, the more I thought about it, I felt how… how to love someone and build a life with them, really it’s the best thing one does. Especially for…” His mouth was a bitter twist. “The king’s second valet. Someone who could, in all likelihood, go through his entire life never having done anything worth noticing, never created something or protected something that would last. But love brings out the best in people, and I began to think that not only did I want all of those tangible things my parents had—a house, a helpmate, children—but I didn’t want to hide the best part of myself. I wanted to be a husband and a father, to love openly and unreservedly, to have a life and accomplishments that everyone could understand. I—I’m not sure if that’s the best way to put it—it sounds selfish, almost—but it’s the best I can manage.”

“I’m still not sure I understand,” Thomas frowned. “You were sick of hiding your happiness, and your happiness was being in love with—a man. Forget—” He shifted uneasily in his seat and shook his head. “—me. I don’t mean to say I was important specifically. I mean, you decided that the best thing one does is being in love, and you would only ever love a man, but that had to be secret, so instead you married a woman you could never love. How does that make sense?”

“Because I do love Nora. Of course I do. I’d known her for years already, and I knew what she was like and I knew we agreed on all the important things. And once we were married… well, when you start a life with someone, and eventually have a child with her, and a house and all the rest of it—holiday plans—when you are sincerely devoted to the life you have together, then you have to fall in love with each other. Or else everything falls apart. Will we ever in our lives have a night of wild, unrestrained passion, not at all—but I enjoy her company, I enjoy her conversation. She’s a wonderful support, a wonderful mother. Really the best friend I’ve ever had. And then there’s Edward.”

Richard’s cheeks had gone a little pink at a night of wild, unrestrained passion, but his discomfort faded, just as quickly, at the mention of his son. A smile darted across his face, as bright as sunlight breaking through a cloudy day.

“If I do nothing with my life, not a thing except raise that beautiful boy, it will have been a life worth living. And that’s the whole point, I think. I don’t mean that my marriage or my child have to preclude any sort of romantic arrangement. I simply mean they take precedent. If I had nothing else besides being a lover, and that was secret, it couldn’t be enough for me. If I am a husband and a father, then being a lover is… a wonderful bonus.”

“Not very fair on the other bloke, though, is it?” Thomas commented. Or on your wife, he was about to say, but Richard was drawing back and pressing his lips into a thin line.

“We all have lines we will and won’t cross, Thomas.” He rolled his cup back and forth along the outer rim for a moment, his lips slowly parting and his eyes hooded. Thomas realised that he had overstepped. It was a sensation he was very familiar with—he had a lifetime of experience in provoking people—but not with Richard. “I have to say, I do think there is irony in you chastising me for not marrying for love.”

“Why?”

“Well…”

He gave a self-evident shrug.

“Well what?”

“Look, I don’t mean to be flippant. I know it’s been years and things might have changed, but… I sent you a letter saying I was engaged and a month later you were running away, not with Jack Flash from the village, but with an American film star you hardly knew. And good luck to you, says I, but you can’t make a principled stand—”

“You think I went off with Guy because he’s rich?” Thomas demanded in a soft hiss. “Or because of you?”

“Am I wrong?”

“I’ll tell you what you are.” He drew his coat closer and began to fumble in the pockets for his wallet. “You are so god damned arrogant sometimes, Richard—and so am I but at least I can tell when I’m being arrogant and you—”

“Put that away.”

“Don’t worry, I’m only paying my portion of the bill. If the thought of Guy’s money paying for your coffee is that awful—”

“Oh for God’s sake, sit down, Thomas.” Richard put a hand on his forearm and pushed. He leaned closer, dropping his voice. “I’ve just spent fifteen minutes trying to prove to you that my life isn’t a complete sham. Don’t I deserve the same?”

“You threw me over in favour of your life,” Thomas repeated likewise, but he didn’t pull away. They had exchanged only a few letters over the years—goodbyes and congratulations in 1928, pleasantries and updates every couple of months since. They had never spoke of this. Technically it wasn’t true; their relationship had been over for almost three months when Richard sent notice of his engagement. But it wasn’t so false that he could deny it, either. “My life came about after you and independently from you. I think that means you owe me more, then, don’t you?”

“I told you there was a chance. You decided not to wait around for it. That’s not me throwing you over.”

“It wasn’t—”

“Are you leaving, sir?” the waitress asked. She was too good at her job, that one. “Will you be wanting the bill?”

He glanced at her only briefly, and then back at Richard. He did look different than when Thomas had first met him. Not bad, not by any means—he was still a dreadfully attractive man, and would remain so for many years. But there were bags under his eyes now, and in the winter his skin looked sallow. He seemed tired. And then—just for a moment—he met Thomas’s gaze and there was a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. Strange. Richard never seemed uncertain. Even that day in the pub, he had spoken of uncertainty but he had been unyielding in his conviction that their association, as such, needed to come to an end.

The truth was that Richard didn’t deserve this anger. Not now. Maybe not ever—but that day, when he had ended their relationship, his grief had been too raw, too enormous, for Thomas to do anything more than bow his head and murmur yes, of course I understand, even when everything in him had been howling I don’t, I don’t understand, I thought I had finally done everything right. It had been festering inside of him all this time, like a fire in a compost heap, dampened by Richard’s grief and Mrs. Hughes’s charity and the wonderful life Guy had given him, but now it had finally caught. It wasn’t fair. That was just how it was.

“No, I don’t,” Thomas said to the waitress. “Is there a public telephone? I need to call my hotel.”

“Yes, there are two in the corner there.”

She pointed. Thomas walked off, without looking back at Richard, and dropped two pennies in the nearest phone. The clerk at the front desk answered.

“This is Barrow—I’m in the Lincoln Suite.”

“Yes, Mr. Barrow. How may I be of assistance?”

“Has Mr. Dexter returned to the hotel yet?”

“No, sir, I’m afraid he hasn’t. Would you like to leave a message?”

“No,” Thomas said, gripping the phone hard. “No message. Thank you.”

He put the phone back on the hook and lingered for a moment. His heart was beginning to slow again. It would have been better, of course, to get ahold of Guy. Hear his voice. Say I’ve changed my mind, can you cancel the rest of the holiday and take me home? and have him answer yes, of course, my love, if that’s what you really want. But imagining it had the same effect, somehow. A little.

He took his cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, taking a deep drag, before he returned to the table. He let his hips sway in that deliberate invert’s sway as he walked, to remind Richard and himself that he was different than when he had left England. He made effeminate gestures and he wore gaudy ascots and he was flagrantly, hopelessly, happily in love with Guy Dexter.

“This is harder than I thought it would be,” he admitted as he fell back into his chair.

“What—talking to me?”

“All of it. You. England. The Crawley visit is going to be a nightmare and part of me wants to call it off, but—” He shook his head. “Never mind. There never was a chance for us, Richard. Not once you’d decided to get married. Anything else I could have given a try, but not that.”

“Why not?”

“Do you remember when I told you about the duke I had for a while?”

“Do I,” Richard said, with a sudden boyish grin that lifted years off his face. “I finally solved the mystery of who made Crowborough so bloody paranoid—not likely to forget that in a hurry.”

“Right. Well, I told him to come to Downton Abbey to marry Lady Mary. That was when we thought she was going to be an heiress. He needed one. She was going to be his wife and I was going to be his valet. I was looking forward to it. I was looking forward to it,” he repeated slowly. “I was going to spend every day watching the man I loved make love to someone else. To a woman who had a right to him that I would never have. Listen to everyone fawn over what a fine couple they were, watch them have children, trot after him like a puppy while they arranged their affairs. Take orders from her. Lady Mary and me—we’re not unalike, really, and I was ready to live the rest of my life in the shadow of hers. Fifteen years later, by the time I met you, I had realised at least how miserable I would have been, living like that. There’s lots I could have put up with, but I’m not going to be a married man’s secret. Not ever.”

“I see.”

Richard took a sip of tea and grimaced. He refreshed the cup and added more sugar, stirring it slowly. The spoon grazed the porcelain.

“Would—it wouldn’t have made any difference if you’d known,” Thomas said, answering the question before he could even ask it. “We’d known each other for less than a year. Even if you did care for me, all that you said before—you wouldn’t have given it up for me.”

“No,” Richard agreed. He sat forward on his elbows, crossing his arms. “Don’t say if.”

“What?”

“Even if I cared for you. Don’t say it like that. I did, Thomas. That’s not in question. It wasn’t enough to make me forget everything else, but… I did.”

“Kind of you to say,” Thomas murmured. There was a small, discreet ash tray on the side of the table, and he tapped into it.

“Mr. Dexter doesn’t plan on getting married, then?” Richard asked. “From what I gather, those Hollywood types usually do. Several times.”

“No, he doesn’t.” Thomas smirked. “It’s all about the story out there. You can get away with murder if there’s a good story—Guy has a made-up fiancee who wrote to him faithfully all through the war before dying tragically of Spanish flu, and he just can’t imagine any wife truly comparing to her. His agent keeps a list of actresses who have been divorced and remarried at least once. You know, women who know what they’re about. And every once in a while he takes one of them to one premiere, one dinner, and two lunches, and the papers work themselves into a flurry of Will she be the one to mend Guy Dexter’s broken heart? Will he finally tame so-and-so for good? It’s all quite fun to watch, really.”

“That sounds like a film itself. Although I suppose in a film, he would have a secret mad wife or something, and his agent would be a clever young woman and they would fall in love by the end of it.”

“I suppose.”

It struck him as an unkind comment—sly, in the way he might have been when he was younger, in a way he wasn’t used to associating with Richard. He bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from making a sharp retort.

“Does it bother you?”

“What?”

“Mr. Dexter—”

“Guy,” Thomas corrected impatiently. “He didn’t even want the housemaids at Downton to call him Mr. Dexter.”

“Does it bother you to see Mr. Dexter going about with all these women in the magazines? Everyone fawning over what a fine couple they make?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not real. A marriage is a marriage, but what can anyone say about a few dates? That they’re sweet on each other? People will say that about any lord’s son who makes eye contact with a pretty girl over dinner. Or any maid who’s ever giggled at a footman, for that matter. Anyone who matters knows I’m the one he comes home to at the end of the day.”

He cigarette had burnt down. A woman over Richard’s shoulder—older, with a mess of frail white hair and a pinched expression—had been glaring at him periodically ever since he lit it, and he flashed her an excessively polite smile and a respectful nod as he stubbed it out. She huffed and turned her head.

“That’s always been important to you, hasn’t it?” Richard asked, resting his chin in his hand. “That people know. I could hardly believe it when you said everyone at Downton did.”

“Well, that’s different. That was people knowing about me, not about my fancy man—and I hadn’t wanted that, exactly. But not all of us have the option of passing by unknown. I don’t know how you get so lucky, but people always seem to guess about me. And if they do… well, it’s like you said, isn’t it? It’s hard to keep love secret. If people must know how I feel about men, I’d rather they know about the man I love and the life we have together, rather than think it’s all about ogling every attractive boy that crosses my path and meeting seedy men in seedy places.”

Richard grimaced in acknowledgement.

“And there are limits, of course. We’re not putting it in the paper, even in Los Angeles. But Hollywood couldn’t run without men of our persuasion, so most people who have anything to do with the industry are willing to look the other way, even if they don’t particularly approve. Between the two of us, we have enough friends that I can go for days interacting almost exclusively with people who know us and respect us, and that… that feels good.”

“I can imagine. That is, I can imagine it feels good. I can hardly imagine a thing like that is really possible, but Hollywood is all about miracles, isn’t it?”

Thomas gave an obliging chuckle. He lifted his cup from the saucer and trained his eyes on it, as though there was something fascinating written along the rim of the china.

“Does Mrs. Ellis know?” he asked in a light voice.

Richard’s index finger tapped on his chin twice, and he dropped his arm to the table with a heavy sigh.

“I don’t know what Nora knows.”

“You haven’t told her, then.”

“Not in so many words, no. We were very… sensible… about the proposal. Talked around it in hypotheticals for a while, to make sure we were in agreement. One of the things I asked was whether she could be happy with a man who wouldn’t… God, I don’t remember how I said it. It took me ages to find the right words. A man who was more concerned about companionship than his rights as a husband. Something like that. She said no, that wasn’t a great concern, and then she thought about it and asked if I meant a man who had a roving eye. Who wants a husband who goes around chasing after the neighbours and getting thrown out of every whorehouse in London?”

“Hardly your style, anyway.”

“No, not at all. But someone who simply had little interest beyond companionship—or even someone who was engaged in a discreet affair with someone he couldn’t marry—that might be all right, as long as no one ever knew. Including her.”

“She sounds like a very interesting woman.”

“She is. She’s very… she might be the first person I’ve ever met who truly doesn’t care what anybody else thinks. I mean, she does hate it when people are pitying or patronising—but for years she was prepared to be the useful spinster of the family, and people would say things like what a shame she wasn’t as pretty as her sisters and didn’t have as many suitors, and she would shrug it off. Said there were plenty of other things worth doing in this world. She is very happy with the life we have now—she adores Edward—but I think she would have been just as happy as a housekeeper, or a postmistress, or a mystery novelist, as long as no one had tried to bully her into it.”

“That’s… uncommon. And admirable, I think.”

“Go on,” Richard said, a smile just tilting his lips. “Say it.”

“Very unlike you.”

“Yes. We complement each other in a lot of ways.”

“Are you having affairs, then? Anyone noteworthy?”

It was a casual question, but Richard seemed to take it as a targeted shot. His posture became as stiff as his voice.

“Are you? Or should I ask about Mr. Dexter, rather? From what I’ve read—”

“More me than Guy, certainly. Normally if he’s having an affair I’m just on the other side of the bed, so that doesn’t really count, does it?”

Richard choked on his tea. He coughed for a moment, and pounded his chest, giving Thomas just enough time to regret his boldness. He felt a warm blush come over his cheeks and he averted his gaze, fidgeting with his cuff and the face of his wristwatch. It was a birthday present from Guy, and he still wasn’t used to it.

“Excuse me,” Richard rasped when he could manage words again. “That was—direct.”

“Me more than you,” Thomas mumbled.

“Maybe, but…” He took another sip, then put his cup down and folded his hands, businesslike. “Right, I’ll just come out and say it: I don’t understand you, Thomas. You spent half your life building up a career and then abandoned it to run after a man you’d known for a month. You left behind your family, your friends, the children you were so fond of, the place you’d lived for almost twenty years. A few minutes ago you nearly stormed out at the mere implication that you didn’t love him, but if you’re out having loads of affairs, then…?”

Thomas felt puzzlement drawing his eyebrows together.

“What does that have to do with anything? You must know couples who let each other step out.”

“When we were younger,” Richard frowned. “When no one was serious about anything and relationships never lasted—nothing that mattered.”

“Richard… do you… have any queer friends?”

The look Richard shot him, quick and guilty and embarrassed from under his lashes, was answer enough.

“Some. I’ve got— Dennis, you remember, my friend who lives in Shropshire. He writes. And I run into some of my old pals every now and again in London, the ones who have left the royal household, but… I don’t go around at night anymore. I’ve got a wife and a baby. I’ve got to be home with them.”

“Right.” He reminded himself that, a few years ago, that wouldn’t have been a surprise. A few years ago, he would have said more or less the same. “Well, I think even if Guy and I had fallen apart, the whole business—moving to Los Angeles—it might have been worth it just for that. Having friends. Not having to pretend all the time, not having to explain to people who don’t understand— don’t make a face at me. Present company excluded, obviously.”

“That’s not what I was thinking,” Richard said, a small smile tugging at his mouth. “I was only thinking that you said something very similar the night we met. Rather—” He caught himself. “The night we reached an understanding. It was the second or third day after we met, wasn’t it? You said something about how nice it was to be understood, to fit in without having to try.”

“Yes. Yes, it is nice. When I was at Downton, I felt… there was always a distance. Some of that was my fault and some of it wasn’t. But in the end, I nearly died twice, once on purpose and once on accident, because I couldn’t see a way that I could truly belong, to get past that difference. It took time for me to fall in with Guy’s friends, too, but only in the usual way. And even so, there are always so many people coming and going in California, it hardly mattered that I was out of place. Soon enough, I had settled in with the established set, and there were other people coming in who saw me as part of the established set. Aspiring actors—which does get a bit awkward sometimes, because some of them are rubbish, or unlucky, and obviously Guy isn’t. It’s easier with sailors. Sailors are just looking for a good time— and I’m not being vulgar.” Not very vulgar. “A bit of semi-civilized conversation, good food, and a few drinks, and they’re well pleased. That’s why it’s not…”

He faltered. Richard waited patiently, and Thomas stalled for time by swallowing the last bit of his long-neglected and rather soggy scone.

“With—you know—affairs. It’s not as though I’m going around looking for something better to jump ship for. I’ve met people who do, and that seems exhausting. For me, it’s more about… I like being around men like us. It makes me feel good. Being wanted, that makes me feel good—it does for everyone, doesn’t it? Guy noticed. He—he worries about some things. When you’re talking to him, he’s very confident and charming, but at heart he’s still a tailor’s son who got thrust into this whole new life, and sometimes he worries that it’s all going to be snatched away just as quick. The way he figures it, if I’m always looking at other men and wondering what it might be like, and never able to find out—especially having been alone for so long—then eventually I’ll either leave or come to resent him. But if it’s just something temporary, someone passing through or someone who’s obviously not suitable for more than a night, then I get to feel good, have a bit of fun, and come home to what I really want. And he’s happier, then, because me coming home is proof that I’ve looked around at all there is and chosen him, over and over and over again.”

“All right,” Richard said finally, putting them both out of their misery. They should have met in a pub—this was the sort of thing that was easier with beer. Or better, hard liquor. “I understand the logic of that, at least. And setting affairs aside—you are happy with him? He makes you happy?”

“Yes.”

Thomas had forgotten his tea, too, and it was cold. He drank half of it with a frown and poured more from the pot. Richard watched him with an amused expression playing on his face.

“Now you get quiet. You chatter on about your sailors, but when I ask about your lover…”

“He’s wonderful,” Thomas said with a shrug. “He’s… what do you want me to say?”

“Have you always thought so? None of my business, I know. But when you first left England, were you together then?”

“No, not really. I did think highly of him. He was always very kind and patient, when they were filming at Downton. Always a friendly word to say to anyone—and a bit more than friendly towards me. But I wasn’t in love with him, if that’s what you’re asking. He offered me the chance to travel with him, to look after a nice house in a quiet neighbourhood, arrange things how I liked… God,” he laughed with a soft smile, remembering. He looked down at his hands. “It sounds dull, when I put it like that, but I swear he looked at me with stars in his eyes. He obviously fancied me, and he was the sort of person I could fancy, easily, once we got to know each other properly. So I said yes.”

“But how could you know that? Just from knowing each other a few weeks—”

“You fancied me after a few days.”

“I fancied you enough to write some letters. I wasn’t asking you to move to London with me, let alone Los Angeles.”

“That reminds me.” Thomas drew out his keys and set them on the table. The little silver moon fob smiled up at them; it had withstood the transition from pocket watch to key chain with grace, although it looked a little battered for the change. “Do you want this back?”

“No,” Richard said immediately. He looked hurt. “Not unless you’re looking to get rid of it.”

“I wasn’t sure—you said you’d had it for a long time—”

“It was a gift. It’s yours as long as you want it.”

“All right.”

He picked up the fob, intending to tuck it away again, but there was a small black streak on the surface that caught his attention. He prized it off with a thumbnail.

“I knew what he was like,” he said without looking up. “I’d seen him working, seen him at meals, overheard him talking to people, as well as talking to him myself. He can talk to anyone. If we’d still had a scullery maid at Downton, he would have smiled at her and asked her how on earth she managed to get the grate so clean, and told her it was probably the most important job of anyone in the house. And he’d mean it. That’s what makes him such a good actor, really, the fact that he can empathise with anybody. I don’t think he’s perfect, and I didn’t then—he sulks, when he does get upset, and sometimes he takes things for granted. But I’d seen enough of his faults that I was sure they weren’t bad ones, and enough of his good qualities to know he would treat me well. That’s more than a lot of marriages start on, on top of the fact that I liked the practical things he was offering. It was enough for me.”

“Enough to leave your entire career over?”

“I didn’t. I was getting a good letter of reference. If things hadn’t worked out, I could have got another job—they have butlers in America, you know.”

“Yes, but… you’d worked at Downton for so long, and I thought you were rather attached to it. And you said earlier that this—this travelling together and all that, it’s not a job. You’re travelling together because of your personal relationship, and that’s all well and good but it means you’re reliant on Mr. Dexter’s goodwill.”

“Isn’t Mrs. Ellis reliant on your goodwill?” Thomas asked, lifting an eyebrow. “She’s left her job, too, hasn’t she?”

“Nora is a woman. You’re a man.”

It was said in such a blunt, matter-of-fact way that Thomas couldn’t help but laugh, and Richard grinned back, a joke they were both in on. Richard might have warned him to be more circumspect in that first meeting—might have opted for circumspection in the years since—but he had told enough stories of London for Thomas to know he was a pragmatist, not a moralist.

“How very pre-war of you, Mr. Ellis. It’s the 1930s now. Women can have jobs and men can be gigolos.”

Richard shook his head.

“Oh, tease all you want,” he said from behind his cup. “But it makes a difference. You know it does. More women are comfortable with the idea of living off men than the other way around. There are exceptions, of course, but usually there’s a reason for that, and I’m curious to hear your reason. Especially for a man like you—you were proud of your work. You were all puffed up when the Crawleys put that other butler over you for our visit.”

“That made my decision easier, if anything. Why work myself into the grave for a family that was happy to replace me whenever they wanted? Besides, I’m not sitting by the pool all day doing nothing. I’ve got work to do, just as I had at Downton Abbey, and I’m still proud of it. The house is smaller and less formal, so some of the tasks are different, but if anything I take more pride in managing it because I think of it as my own.”

“Do you take a salary?”

“Asking questions about money… now which one of us is an American?”

“I didn’t ask how much.”

“Yes, I take a salary. And a little extra for pin money. And I handle much of Guy’s finances, so if I wanted, I could probably rob him blind.”

“Have you ever been tempted?”

“Not really, no. It turns out that I have somewhat expensive taste in food and wine, which Guy and I split anyway, but not much else—I always thought I was rather particular about my clothing, but compared to film stars I’m remarkably modest.”

“I wouldn’t call that modest,” Richard said, nodding at his ascot.

“Because this is England. Trust me, in Los Angeles this is nothing. I don’t miss white tie and starched collars every night, I can tell you that.”

He paused for a moment, thinking back to his nights in the dining room at Downton. Standing as straight-backed as he could, holding his limbs rigid, trying to surreptitiously eye the glittering expanse of the table for empty glasses while pretending to be as insensitive as a statue. The first few days he worked as a footman, he would be exhausted by the end of the family’s dinner, because it felt like every muscle, every sense, every nerve in his body was on alert for every second of it. As if serving at dinner would be the making or breaking of him. Over the years, it had become routine, and for a while he had even considered it one of the less-boring aspects of life in service. He always liked to collect as much information as he could, and dinner was an excellent opportunity for it.

In the last year or so he had worked at Downton, something had changed. He had found himself drifting during service—he would come to and realise he had no idea how much time had passed. By instinct or by miracle, he had never been gone so long that the family recognised his negligence, but it was only a matter of time. Back then, he had largely blamed Richard—the flush of a new relationship and subsequently the dull ache of heartbreak distracting him. But even then, he had realised that wasn’t the whole story. If Thomas had to guess now, he would put more of the blame on his night out with Chris Webster… or even his brief stint working for Sir Mark. The realisation that there was a world outside Downton Abbey, a dozen different worlds, some that suited him and some that didn’t, that he would never know because he had tied himself to that house.

“It wasn’t the same job I signed up for,” he said, which was near enough to what he meant. “It was lonelier. You’ve seen this, I’m sure, but only from the outside—the way houses look these days. Andy Parker, my older footman, he’s gone now. He went into pig farming. They haven’t replaced him, so the one footman up at Downton Abbey now is the young lad, Albert. When I started, the house had four footmen, two hallboys, and a valet, and we knew the heir would bring a valet once he moved in. As far as I can remember, there were three kitchen maids and a scullery maid along with the cook, that’s down to a cook and one assistant, and a whole cricket team’s worth of housemaids down to three dailies. And do you know how many of the current staff at Downton are live-in?”

“Not the maids, of course… I remember the Bateses went home at night, didn’t they?”

“Butler,” Thomas said, extending his thumb and then his index finger. “Footman.”

“Christ,” Richard exclaimed. “What about the hallboy?”

“Haven’t got one. The last one left to go work at the chocolate factory, and they couldn’t get anyone in to replace him.”

“Where’s everybody else?”

“They all got bloody married, is what. When we started our careers, had you ever in your life heard of a house where the lady’s maids, the valet, the housekeeper, the cook, and a footman were all married?”

“’Course not.”

“Of course not. If I had stayed, I would have been doing all of the butler’s duties and half the footman’s job, hardly anyone to lord my authority over, and my reward would be less of a personal life than anyone else in the house. No marriage, no cottage, no one sticking around to have a drink or a smoke or a game of cards in the evening. Fifty years ago, the pride of a job well done might have kept me around, but not in 1928 it didn’t.”

“You could still have got a sweetheart of your own,” Richard suggested. “If the dailies and the footmen and the kitchen staff and the upper staff all get to go home, or step out to the pictures, surely the butler could do the same.”

“With who?” Thomas asked sceptically. “Fellow from the village? It’s a small village. Not likely. Fellow from York? Maybe—except that’s a fair distance, and I probably couldn’t manage except on my half-days, unless I wanted to live off three hours of sleep at a time. And before you say visiting valet, I want you to know that you were the first visiting valet we’d had at Downton for a year and a half, at that point, and we didn’t have another in the whole year after. Not even Mr. Big-Shot Director or Mr. Film Star brought valets. Men don’t, these days—I think anyone young enough to have served in the war decided it wasn’t worth the fuss.”

“Things really are incredibly different in the royal household,” Richard mused. “We read about the shortage in the newspapers, but when I took the flat, we were still gasping for whatever bit of privacy and solitude we could get. And of course, spending so much time in London… it wasn’t so much a matter of finding companionship as keeping it.”

Thomas raised his eyebrows and Richard jerked his shoulder in a shrug.

“I—well, you can imagine. In London there was always the worry about someone spotting you, or at other houses I’d be off on a train by the end of the month, if I was lucky…”

“Oh, yes, I can imagine.” Richard tilted his head quizzically, and it was Thomas’s turn to shrug. “Used to worry about it, sometimes. That you had a- a butler in every house, so to speak.”

“Did you? What on earth did I do to give you that impression?”

“Nothing. Only—as you said. Lots of blokes in London, and my experience then was that most people were stepping out on each other. It wouldn’t have bothered me except that I figured, being all the way in Yorkshire, I was more likely to be the fancy man than the true love. We didn’t make any promises, after all.”

“No, I suppose we didn’t. I’m simply much more conventional than you thought, Mr. Barrow. In both good and bad ways.”

Thomas huffed. There was a gust of cold wind from the door as one of the other patrons left, and he sank down into the chair and the comforting warmth of his jacket. It was an awkward hour, quite late for tea but rather early for dinner, and the Lyons had almost emptied out. Through the frosty glass, he spotted a woman walking by holding the hand of a young child in a bright red coat. The child’s other hand, captured in a grey wool mitten, slapped against the glass and dragged as the mother determinedly kept walking. But Mummy! the child wailed, despair clear in its face despite the fact that the words couldn’t be heard through the glass.

I’ll make you some hot milk when we get home, Thomas imagined the mother was saying. And we won’t be having cakes on a Tuesday, silly. Maybe after church on Sunday, if you’re good. Miss Patmore used to quiz the children whether they’d been good before she passed out treats, he thought with a faint smile, but she never needed much persuading.

“I did regret leaving the children,” he admitted. “That was hard. I was very fond of them. But…” He let out a heavy sigh. “Miss Sybbie was living at Brampton, Miss Marigold at Brancaster. Master George was going to start boarding during the week at the next semester. And soon enough… they were going to grow up and look at me different. Once they were old enough to give orders properly. I don’t know what it’s like to get that from a member of the family you’ve known since she was a babe in arms—Mr. Carson would have keeled over and died before he said anything halfway critical of Lady Mary—but I can’t imagine it’s very pleasant.”

“No, probably not. I hardly see anything of the king’s grandchildren—our paths don’t cross much to begin with, and there’s usually an army of nurses in between. I suppose if they tried to order me about I’d find it funny more than anything.”

“Yes. And—and I’m sure you’ve felt this sometimes, probably even more than me—as though when the family is being either kind of unkind, it’s the way you’d be kind or unkind to a dog you were rather fond of. Not an equal. The Crawleys were good people, I’ll not deny that, and I had good years working for them, but— but once, about two or three years before I left, Lady Grantham gave Mrs. Hughes a proper little smack. Lady Mary had told her she could borrow one of Lady Grantham’s coats for her wedding day, but when Lady Grantham walked in, she scolded her. Over a coat for her wedding day, and in front of people, no less!”

“That is shocking,” Richard said with a grimace. “Mrs. Hughes seemed like a thoroughly decent woman to me—I can’t imagine.”

“Nor me. She’d only been there thirty years! And Lady Grantham apologised, of course, and ended up giving her a coat free and clear, but… that shook us all up a bit. We’re not part of the family. It’s that simple. No matter how much you might think differently, when you’re living in each other’s pockets and getting so friendly and chatting and they’re being generous with the Christmas gifts. We’re still not family. We’re employees, we’re tenants, then we’re friends.”

“We.”

“What?”

“You said we,” Richard pointed out with a half-smile. “Here I thought you’d left service behind.”

“I have. Spose I’ll have to fix that before I sit down to dinner, won’t I?” Thomas said wryly.

“Yes.” There was a moment’s pause. Richard settled more comfortably in his seat and propped his elbow on the table again. “I liked Mr. Dexter’s last film. Nora and I went to see it the second week it was out—we couldn’t get tickets for the first, they were gone that fast.”

“It was a good film,” Thomas agreed. “The role was supposed to go to Clark Gable, you know. I persuaded the producer otherwise.”

“What did you do?” Richard laughed. “Call him up and pretend to be his boss?”

“Of course not—I need an accomplice for that.”

“Your lover is an actor. He couldn’t be your fake phone call accomplice?”

“My lover has principles. He’ll get competitive for party games and cricket matches, but when it comes to his career he goes over all modest and always says it’s the best man for the role that gets it. Actually, I didn’t even tell him about this—but I introduced Gable to the producer’s mistress at a party. He’ll flirt with anything that stays still long enough, so all I needed to do was make sure the producer saw. Get him in a strop, push Guy in his direction, job done.”

“Hang on, isn’t Clark Gable married?”

“Everyone’s married,” Thomas said dismissively.

“Ah, of course. The affairs. I forgot.”

“Talking of which, you never answered my question. About your own love life. Things got vulgar and we moved on.”

“Oh, that.” Richard’s hand dropped to the table and he drummed his fingers for a moment. They had drifted from serious matters to general pleasantries; Thomas had thought he was continuing in that vein, but suddenly Richard seemed uneasy again. “Will you excuse me for a moment?”

Thomas nodded, and Richard sprang from his chair and headed back towards the toilets. Thomas glanced at the window; it was full night now, and a light rain had begun to fall. The windows were black and cloudy except for a few winking stars of raindrops. Guy must be back at the hotel. He thought idly about calling again, but decided against it. What would he say? It’s going very well… it was more awkward than I thought at first, but we’ve reached an understanding, and I’m glad I came. Certainly nothing important enough to require notification.

An understanding? Guy would tease. Dear, dear. I did specifically ask you not to fall back in love with your old flame, darling.

Who said anything about love? He’s just gone off to the public toilets, I’m meeting him for a quick shag and then skipping off back to the hotel.

Oh, well that’s all right, then.

“There might be someone,” Richard said as he came from behind Thomas and fell back into his chair. Thomas jumped, and felt heat flood his cheeks. “What is it?” Richard asked.

“Nothing. There might be what?”

“A… suitor,” he said with a roguish smile that did nothing to disguise the softness around his eyes. “We’ve been getting to know each other the last little while, and— I’ll not lie, one of the things I’ve taken into consideration is the fact that we mostly meet at Balmoral. With Nora back in London, I don’t have to worry about neglecting her, and she’s not likely to find out, just as she asked. But I… I haven’t managed to make up my mind yet. I’m not used to feeling indecisive. I don’t like it.”

“Tell me about him, then. What’s his name?”

“John.”

There had been a sliver of a pause there, but Thomas couldn’t tell if Richard had been deciding to lie or deciding to tell the truth. He raised an eyebrow, and when Richard only looked back at him coolly, he decided it was none of his business.

“Upstairs or downstairs?”

“Oh, downstairs, of course.”

“What d’you mean ‘of course’? I didn’t think he was the bloody Prince of Wales, I just meant— they’ve got regular gentlemen up north, too, don’t they?”

“Right, right, I’m sorry. But I’m afraid I can’t abide gentlemen anymore. It seems to me that gentlemen who go looking for lovers among the staff usually do it because they think we’re… biddable. I didn’t enjoy that aspect of it when I was young, but I didn’t often think about it, either, and now as a grown man I’ve come to resent it.” Thomas could tell the moment Richard realised what he’d said—he froze with his cup to his mouth and his eyes widened. He set the cup down and cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Thomas, I wasn’t thinking.”

“As a matter of fact, I agree with you completely. Guy didn’t go looking for a lover among the staff—he happened to find one because he thinks the staff are real people. As far as he was concerned, I was an attractive man who did him a few favours, so he was going to look me in the eye and say thank you and make conversation, like he would with anyone else. If he ever kissed me good night and then told me to make sure his black boots were polished for his morning ride…”

“Quite,” Richard grimaced. “No, John’s a valet, too. As a matter of fact…” He paused, and let out a gusty sigh, crossing his arms. “Well, that’s the difficulty. You’re going to tell me I’m tying myself up in knots over nothing, but… I’ve heard rumours that his employer is in the life.”

“Ah. And you think he and John are…?”

“I think it’s a possibility.”

“But you haven’t asked him?”

“No. We had a moment between us, on Saturday—all right, stop smirking. I kissed him. Then Sunday I started hearing things. And I can’t help but wonder—why wouldn’t he mention it, if there wasn’t anything between them? We’ve talked enough about our jobs and—and that sort of business that he could have easily brought it up. That’s presuming it’s true, of course. If it’s false then I’m a proper idiot, because I avoided him most of the day, said something vague about writing, and pranced up to London. Now go ahead, tell me about your sailors and my wife and tell me I’m taking this too seriously.”

“Nah, I won’t. I can’t swear for certain that none of my oncers had someone at home, but then I only see them once. If it were someone I was with for longer—if it were Guy—I would want to know upfront. And as for you being married… I’m not sure how to put it. There’s a difference between you being married to a woman who you know is never going to be enough, in that sense, and John being with a man who could be but isn’t. If he is, which we don’t know he’s not—I mean—” He dragged a hand down his face. “You know what I’ve mean. Now you’ve got me all twisted up.”

“Sorry. I should have said something when I was still at Balmoral. I was too distracted—I was missing Nora and Edward, and trying to think of what you and I would talk about, and… now I’ve either got to leave it for a year or put it in a very difficult letter. Because—” His fingers tapped a rapid staccato beat on the tabletop again. “—I haven’t decided what I would do. If he is, if they are. It might be that John feels trapped with his employer, and I ought to help him rather than walk away. Or maybe they have an arrangement like you and Guy, in which case… well, I’m not sure about that, either, but it’s a very different scenario.” He looked up at Thomas with a rueful grin. “Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Like I said. It unsettles me.”

“Poor Richard. And is he the first prospect you’ve had in all this time?”

“When you say it like that.” Richard pulled a face. “But yes, the first one I’ve seriously considered. I wanted to settle into my life with Nora before I went about complicating it, and we had some family business that needed seeing to.” He said family business with breezy authority, and Thomas tried to smother a smile. Then Richard heaved another sigh and drained the last of the tea. “I want this to go well, Thomas, I really do.”

“Handsome, is he?”

“It’s not just that. It’s that I… I don’t want to become ashamed.” A muscle in his jaw jumped, and Thomas waited for him to find the words. “Despite all that’s happened these past few years—ending our relationship, marrying Nora, having a child—despite all that, I’m not ashamed of my preferences, and I don’t want to become ashamed. When I was younger, and I had friends and lovers, I was happy. I grew up, I decided there were other things I needed, but… I don’t want to lose what I started with. I mean, if I don’t take a lover and I lose touch with my friends, and the only thing I have to show from that side of my life is a few sordid, anonymous, temporary affairs—I’ll forget that men made me happy. And I don’t want to sacrifice that. If… if my son comes to me in twenty years and tells me he’s having very confusing feelings for a friend, I want to be able to tell him that I understand and that there will be joy in his life, regardless of what path he takes.” He swallowed thickly, staring down at the empty cup in his hand. “I’m not madly in love with John. It’s nothing that simple. But being with him reminds me that that sort of love still has a place in my life. And… and that matters.”

“Yes,” Thomas said. His voice sounded scraped raw. “Yes, it does.”

He looked about the cafe. No one was watching, but it wasn’t truly empty. He wanted to take Richard’s hand. Instead, he very carefully reached across the table and squeezed his forearm. Richard looked up with a grateful smile and clasped his forearm in return, and then, almost simultaneously, they let go.

“You’ll always have me, you know. As a friend. I know we haven’t kept in touch as well as we ought, but—we still get the post in America.”

“Yes. I appreciate it, Thomas. Really I do.”

“And will you write John?”

“Oh, I should. I still haven’t got a clue how, but… maybe I’ll ask him to meet me somewhere, to talk. Otherwise we would have to wait until we’re both up at Balmoral again, and who knows what could happen in a year.” He cleared his throat and very deliberately turned the subject away. “Did it take you very long, to get acquainted with Guy? I mean you said you didn’t love him at the engagement, if we can call it that, but it take long after?”

“It never takes me long,” Thomas said dryly. “The fact that I wasn’t head over heels within a week shows a remarkable patience on my part, I think. But he was so kind and patient with everybody, it took me a while to realise he was paying particular attention to me, and with him being a guest I wasn’t about to drop my reserve until I was sure that’s what he wanted. As a matter of fact, I had no idea why he was so quick to like me—”

“No idea?” Richard said, lifting his eyebrows. “Really, Thomas?”

“Don’t flatter me. There are handsome men in Hollywood, and he could have more or less had his pick. Moving to Los Angeles was a risk for me, but opening his life to a stranger was a risk for him, too, and he didn’t have the advantage of seeing me relaxed until after he’d made the offer. We had had a few conversations that were just us, though, and I suppose he felt a spark and… that was all. He was tired of living alone, he was tired of being treated like he was famous, and he liked me. He took a gamble. There were some awkward moments, in the beginning, but once we settled in, everything fell into place.”

“That sounds nice,” Richard smiled. “Nora and I were practically at each other’s throats, once the honeymoon was over.”

“You’re joking.”

“I’m not!” He laughed. “We’re both very fastidious people, with very particular ideas about the right way to do the washing up and whether windows should be left open and whether it’s polite to hum around other people. At one point Nora said, very seriously, that if she had known I didn’t like mushy peas, she wouldn’t have married me.”

“You don’t like mushy peas?”

“Don’t you start!” It was a whip crack back-and-forth, a relief after an afternoon of largely serious subjects, and they both laughed, as much from giddy relief as genuine amusement. “We’ve mostly gotten through it, thank God. Some particular issues have yet to be resolved, but we’re not at the point of petitioning the divorce courts to expand their scope.”

“There was some of that with us, too. It’s strange having a whole house I can do whatever I like with.”

“Isn’t it? Well, we only have a flat, but it’s the same principle, I think.”

“Yes. I’ve got opinions on things I never knew I had opinions on. Which way armchairs should face and how often to clean the carpets. Then there’s all these American customs—you think at first that they haven’t got any rules like we do over here, but then you find out they do, they’re just different ones, and in a place like Hollywood, half the people ignore them anyway. But I think the longest argument Guy and I have had is when we were talking about getting a dog—”

“Did you? What kind?”

“Yes, we did, and that was the argument. All the kinds Guy liked were the tiniest, most useless, and often times the ugliest dogs you’ve ever seen.” Richard was already laughing, and Thomas found himself grinning in response. “I mean it! Pomeranians and miniature spaniels and those little terriers that have hardly got legs. I don’t see the point, and he said well what did we need a gun dog for? Was I going hunting? I said maybe I might. Why not, when I’m supposed to be a man of leisure now? They don’t have pheasants over there, I think, but maybe I could go duck hunting. He was horrified.”

“Why?”

“Doesn’t like hunting. That’s the long and short of it. I think what happened is he grew up just middle-class enough that his family never could have hunted for sport and never needed to for food or vermin. Doesn’t see the point in ordinary people going out and killing wild things that could live happy lives, when we’ve got the option to survive on animals raised to it. That and—well. I don’t think he’s been comfortable around guns since the war.”

“Ah, that’s understandable,” Richard shrugged. “You know, I’ve never hunted, myself. We had a cat for mice and my father never had a rifle.”

“My father taught me how to shoot—we’d get pigeons or rabbits sometimes. If I’m honest, I haven’t shot properly for years and I don’t much fancy it, so in the end we didn’t get a gun dog. We got an Irish terrier—”

“So it sounds like he won the argument.”

“We compromised. Yes, she’s a terrier, but she’s big and self-respectable enough that I don’t feel like a fool walking her. I’ve even got her trained pretty well, at this point, although the moment Guy’s through the door she knows she can get away with murder.”

“Nora wants to get a cat. We couldn’t get a dog—the flat’s not especially big and we don’t want anything yappy enough to annoy the neighbours. But I’m worried with the baby, because I don’t want him yanking the cat’s tail and getting swiped at for it, so I think we should wait a few years…”

“Or you could get one now,” Thomas suggested. “When he’s too young to wander off on his own. Make sure someone’s got a hold on him when he’s playing with the cat, in case he needs rescuing.”

“That’s not a bad idea, now that you mention it…”

“Have you got her Christmas present yet?”

“No, I haven’t—she said she was going to buy her own Christmas present while she was at the shops today, but I couldn’t tell if she was serious or not. But I’m not sure where I’d get one on such short notice…”

“It’s London. Give it a few hours and walk down the nearest alley.”

“I’m not giving my wife an alley cat for Christmas…”

They continued to talk for a while about mundane things—the ordinary comforts of life as married men. Christmas shopping, travel plans, domestic squabbles, what the house and the flat look like, hosting parties, dealing with neighbours and colleagues. Thomas stumbled a few times before Richard, very kindly, rested a hand on his forearm and said, “You can stop trying to hide the fact that you’re rich now. I’ve figured it out, and we’ve established I’m not envious in the slightest.”

So he talked freely, whether to brag or complain, and a few minutes later had a taste of his own medicine when Richard got to expound on the joys and trials of fatherhood. He was getting rather in the weeds of his son’s sleep schedule when Thomas’s attention wandered and his gaze fell on the door to the cafe—and he startled. Guy had just come in. His face was averted, and Thomas realised after a moment that he was helping the woman behind him lift a pram up the steps. It was clumsy, and she thanked him profusely when he set it down. Guy tipped his hat first to her and then to the pram, and Thomas felt warmth flood his body from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes. What a dear, dear man. What on earth was he doing here?

He lifted a hand to get Guy’s attention. Richard glanced over his shoulder, and then looked back at Thomas, eyebrows raised in dubious admiration.

“Goodness, you’ve got a mind for faces, haven’t you?”

“How do you mean?”

“To recognise her just from the photo—”

“Recognise who?”

Richard looked around again, and laughed.

“Oh, for God’s sake. What extraordinary timing. Nora!” He lifted a hand, and the woman with the pram waved back at him. “I told her to come by, if we weren’t finished by the time she was done with the shopping,” he said in an aside to Thomas. “I thought if we were civil for that long, you might like to meet her and the baby.”

“I would. I have no idea why Guy is here.”

Guy and Nora had realised by then that they were heading towards the same table, and they were already chatting happily when they reached it.

“—silly I didn’t recognise you at all,” Nora was saying. She had a smooth, sophisticated contralto voice, with the slightest inflection of a working-class accent but none of the breathiness that seemed to plague most film fanatics in Guy Dexter’s presence. “We’ve seen several of your pictures, including the last one just a few weeks ago.”

“Happens all the time,” he said cheerfully. “You’d be amazed what posture and a hat can do. Ah.” He took off his hat and held out his hand to Richard with a dazzling film star smile. “You must be Richard Ellis.”

“How do you do, Mr. Dexter?” Richard asked, standing to shake his hand. “Thomas has told me so much about you.”

“I could say the same thing—and please, call me Guy. I’m very sorry to barge in like this.”

“No, not at all. I invited my wife to barge in, so I’m the last one to complain. Hello, darling.” He dropped a kiss on her dimpled, cold-reddened cheek, and then leaned down to take the baby out of the pram. He was wrapped in a blanket and wearing a knit bonnet, and he squealed with delight when he realised who was holding him. Richard settled into an easy bounce with a doting smile, and tore his gaze away to gesture between Nora and Thomas. “Nora, this is my friend Thomas Barrow. Thomas, my wife Nora.”

“It’s such a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Barrow.”

She grasped his hand and gave him a genuine smile, and Thomas decided he liked her. He had been primed to do so already, purely on her husband’s endorsement, but he liked the way she carried herself. No coyness or shyness, just straightforward good humour. She reminded him of Anna, a little, or Daisy in her bolder moments.

“The pleasure’s all mine, Mrs. Ellis. Will you sit down? We can get you a fresh cup— Guy?”

“No, no.” He held up a hand. “I don’t mean to intrude, I only came to ask—”

“Don’t be a ninny, sit down and have some tea.”

“Yes, of course, you must,” Richard agreed. “Join us. We’ll have to get a fresh pot, anyway.”

“If you insist. I only stopped by because the hotel said you had called,” he said in an undertone to Thomas. “And I thought you might want me to make dinner plans—we never did settle anything, did we?”

“No, and it wasn’t about that. It was nothing, really.” He shook his head slightly and turned back to the table. “Richard, you’re neglecting an introduction.”

“Oh, of course.” He sat the baby upright on his knee, each one of his little fists wrapped Richard’s fingers. “Thomas—Guy—this is Edward. Edward, say hello to Mr. Barrow and Mr. Dexter, won’t you?”

Edward flung his arms up and down with a wide, toothless smile and a burble of joy.

“Well, he’s quite a friendly fellow, isn’t he?” Thomas smiled. “May I—?”

“Of course.”

The baby objected a little when Richard held him out, but when he was settled securely on Thomas’s lap he calmed down again. He grabbed hold of Thomas’s fingers with one hand and shoved the other in his mouth, observing the cafe with bright, inquisitive eyes.

“What a lovely little chap,” Guy said. “How old is he?”

“Ten months,” Nora said, as Richard flagged down the waitress. “You don’t have any children, do you, Mr. Dexter?”

“Oh please, you really must call me Guy. I feel we’re all friends already. And no, I’ve never had the pleasure. My brother and his wife have five children, although I’m afraid I don’t see them very often, living in California. But we’ll be going up to see them in Scotland over Christmas.”

“Richard’s just come back from Scotland. Although—” She had steel-bright grey eyes, which flitted over to Thomas. “Well, I’ve supposed Thomas has mentioned Richard is in service at the royal household, haven’t you? So the trip was more business than pleasure, especially since he was deprived of my company.”

“Yes, he did say so particularly,” Thomas said with a grin.

“Do you prefer London?” Guy asked.

“I do and I don’t. As a matter of fact, all three of us will be travelling soon to stay with my mother and my elder sister in Sandringham. But I used to be a maid for one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, you see. I only left after I got married, and I’ve had quite my fill of running around the country following someone else’s family around. You must keep that to yourself. People get horribly cross sometimes, if one doesn’t talk about the royal household with the proper reverence.”

“We’ll keep your secret,” Thomas promised. “Won’t we?”

“Of course we will. I’ve told Thomas a thousand times, I really can’t be bothered with this sort of thing anymore, having lived in America for so long. Service, nobility, royalty, middle class or working class or whatever—when fortunes can change in a moment, it seems silly to put any stock in them at all.”

Richard was watching him with an appraising look—not overtly critical, but certainly curious, and Thomas suspected that Guy had noticed. He was just slightly too eager in his civility, the way he was when he was nervous, or when the company was especially awkward, and while he was addressing all of them, his eyes rested more on Nora, who was less intimidating. But then Guy glanced at him, just slyly out of the corner of his eye to see how the flippancy had landed, and Richard chuckled.

“My, my, it seems I am in dangerous company,” he drawled. “It mustn’t get out that I’m having tea with my republican wife, a socialist film star, and Thomas—”

“What has Thomas done?” Guy smiled.

“I’m not sure yet, but there’s bound to be something.”

“Don’t besmirch my good name in front of my new friends,” Thomas chided him. Nora leaned forward, lowering her voice melodramatically.

“Richard has told me that on only the second day you knew him, you managed to rope him into a conspiracy—against no less a personage than the page of the backstairs himself.”

Thomas laughed, and Edward squealed with delight and waved his arms again.

“I haven’t heard this story,” Guy said, incensed.

“Yes, you have.”

“Not in those terms. I want to hear it again, in full.”

But before the tale could be told, the waitress appeared at the table again. Richard ordered a fresh pot of tea and two more cups—but he was ignored. For once, the girl’s ruthless professionalism was lost as she stared at Guy, with her mouth open and her pencil hovering above the pad of paper. Guy, who was teasing Edward by squeezing of a socked foot, didn’t notice at first, until Thomas coughed and nodded in her direction. He turned and fixed her with a dazzling smile.

“Hello,” he said warmly, as if they had known each other for years. “I don’t suppose I could trouble you for two more cups, please? And a fresh pot of tea for the table?”

The waitress nodded, in a daze.

“A-and will you ’ave—” She shook herself, straightened her shoulders, and said in her gravest King’s English. “And will you have milk and sugar, sir, for your tea?”

“That would be wonderful, thank you.”

“Very good sir. It will be only a moment.”

“Oh dear,” Nora said dryly when the waitress had wandered out of sight. “You must get that a lot.”

“Occasionally.”

“A dozen times a day,” Thomas corrected.

“You know that’s not true.”

“Not when we’re in Los Angeles,” he admitted with a shrug. “People are used to him there, I suppose. But whenever we go somewhere new.”

“It must get very tiring.”

“Oh, I like meeting people,” Guy said with a smile. “I don’t mind, mostly—though it does get uncomfortable sometimes. People think they know you already, and act like it… or the opposite. I know for my part I don’t enjoy feeling flustered, so I feel rather badly for people who get flustered on my behalf. I wonder—may I?” he asked hopefully. He was looking at Edward, who was kicking his legs and wiggling in Thomas’s grasp.

“No, I’ve claimed this one,” Thomas declared. “Get your own.”

“Share the baby, Thomas,” Richard chided. “You must set a good example—we’re raising him not to be spoilt.”

“We are, are we?” Nora asked, pursing her lips.

“Yes, we are, darling, and we’re doing a marvellous job.”

“My husband is the most shameless liar I have ever met,” she confided to Thomas and Guy, rolling her eyes. There was the briefest pause—a moment of tension as Thomas met Richard’s gaze—but she didn’t seem to notice, and he averted his eyes and silently passed the baby to Guy. “It’s a rare week when he doesn’t come home with some new toy or other for Eddie—”

“Edward.”

“—and I was convinced Eddie would never learn to walk because Richard so rarely put him down when he was home. At least until recently. I suppose you heard, Thomas, that he can walk with help now—”

“Yes, I heard that within about thirty seconds of us sitting down.”

“Well, now Richard’s practically setting up racecourses in the flat to encourage him.”

“Can you blame me?” Richard asked, spreading his hands.

“How could anyone? He’s going to be the strongest walker and the cleverest thinker in the world and will probably be elected prime minister soon enough.”

“You see, Nora? Thomas understands.”

“Tell me, did you—”

Guy’s question was interrupted by the speedy return of the waitress. She unloaded the tea tray with great care, and there was still a high flush on her cheeks.

“Pardon me, sir. Will you be wanting something to eat along with your tea?”

“As a matter of fact, I haven’t even looked.” He glanced down at the baby in his lap. “And my hands are rather full at the moment. Could you come back in a few minutes? Thank you.”

“Oh, what a shame,” Thomas said. “You’ll have to give the baby back to read the menu.”

Edward whined when he was passed back, and no matter how much Thomas bounced or rocked or made soothing noises, the litany of complaints didn’t stop. With some reluctance, he obeyed Nora’s suggestion to set him back in the pram. Richard took hold of the handle and began to push it gently back and forth. Within moments, the baby had fallen silent.

“He’ll be full asleep in another moment,” Richard swore. “It’s a godsend, this pram.”

“Miss Sybbie was the same,” Thomas smiled. “She was a feisty thing, even when she was very small, but she was an angel when it came to walks in the pram.”

“I’ve just had a wonderful idea,” Guy said suddenly, snapping the menu down. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t the foggiest idea why I didn’t think of it before. Why don’t the both of you—or the three of you, I should say—have dinner with us tonight? You don’t have plans already, do you?”

There was a pause as Nora and Richard looked at each other.

“No,” Richard said cautiously. “No, we don’t, but—”

“Marvellous. We can go to our hotel—we’re booked at the Rosewood.”

“I’m afraid we’re not dressed for that.”

“Oh, that won’t matter. I’m sure we could arrange it—” Thomas coughed to cover any noise that might escape when his foot connected with Guy’s ankle. “—Or we could go somewhere else. A pub or—well, we could stay right here. I was thinking as I looked at the menu that I had forgotten Lyons had so many options for dinner. Of course I understand if you must get back early, with the baby,” he added graciously. “But it does seem a shame to cut the evening short when you’ve travelled all this way…”

“That’s very considerate of you, Guy, to be concerned of how far we’ve travelled,” Richard said. “When the two of you came across an entire continent and an ocean.”

“Not for you,” Thomas teased. “I was that nostalgic for mushy peas.”

“Which Richard won’t eat, you know,” Nora said immediately. “Bad enough I’ve got to start cooking regular dinners after so long working, but to have my vegetable options this limited—I’m a very put-upon woman.”

“I’m sure you are, and so you must have dinner with us.”

She and Richard exchanged another look. It was a look between a couple who were totally in sync, who required no words and took no note of any observers, the kind of look that encapsulated Do you want to? and Do you mind? and Have I forgotten anything? all at once. Thomas had lost count of the number of times he and Guy had had just such a conversation from opposite ends of the room at a party, with only flickering eyes and twitching lips, and there was an unexpected lurch in the pit of his stomach. He reached over, under the table, and put his hand on Guy’s knee with a fond squeeze to settle himself. Beside him, he heard Guy’s soft intake of breath, the content sigh.

“We’d love to,” Richard said as he looked back around. His smile was understated but unshakeable, and Thomas was sure his was the same. They were happy, the both of them, and happy in the same way, even if they had taken very different paths to get there.

“Good.”

***

It was one of the better dinner parties Guy had ever attended. The service was a little awkward, and there were undercurrents of tension early on—how does one manage conversation with one’s lover’s ex-lover when the relationship had ended in heartbreak?—but between the four of them, there was enough charm and wit and generosity to get through. Towards the end, Edward woke up and began to fuss again, and so the Ellises took their leave while Guy and Thomas were still finishing their coffee, although they all made sure to exchange addresses and promises to write, and obliquely hinted that Christmas presents would show up in the post. The dinner crowd at Lyons was more mixed, as opposed to the young mums and maiden aunts who made up teatime, and Thomas lit a cigarette.

“I hope I didn’t put you on the spot,” Guy said after a few minutes’ comfortable silence. “Inviting the Ellises to dinner.”

“Not at all. As a matter of fact, I’m glad you did—I probably wouldn’t have.”

“How was tea, before Nora and I arrived? You seemed to be getting along well enough.”

“Yes, we were. We had a very… frank conversation. We understand each other better now, at least.” He tapped ash in the tray and smiled to himself. “Although I almost stormed off at one point.”

“How dramatic of you. Why?”

“Richard implied I only went with you because of your money.”

Guy’s heart skipped a beat. It was a thought he had entrained more than once. Not lately, but… well, he had never brought it up, and so never exorcised it properly. He gestured wordlessly towards Thomas’s cigarette case. Usually he only indulged after a few drinks, but Thomas didn’t hesitate. He passed Guy a cigarette, then held out his lighter. They were still sitting on the same side of the table, with a respectable distance between them, but bending his face down to Thomas’s hand felt scandalous.

“That’s not entirely untrue, is it?” Guy said finally. “No, darling, don’t fuss. You’ve been honest from the start that you weren’t in love with me when you left. You wanted to travel, to live in a comfortable house, to avoid a certain type of scrutiny. All things that were only possible because I had money.”

There was no one seated nearby. He kept his voice low, just in case—a silly precaution, really, because it came out as a lover’s gentle murmur. Thomas frowned.

“When you put it like that, it sounds…” His brows came together, and then he shook his head resolutely. “That’s not all. I wanted to travel, I wanted a house, I wanted privacy—and I wanted to fall in love with you. Which I did.”

“Which you did,” Guy agreed with a smile. “I may be presumptuous enough to think that you still would have fallen in love with me eventually if I didn’t have money, but the story wouldn’t have played out in the same way. Would you have taken the chance—run away with me after such a short acquaintance—if I had still been a shop assistant?”

Thomas considered this for a moment. The smoke swirled and drifted across his pale eyes, and then his lips curved into a smirk.

“Yes,” he declared loftily. “And if you don’t believe me, go ahead, prove me wrong.”

Guy snorted.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter. We got our happy ending; there’s no use speculating about what ended up on the cutting room floor.”

“What a charmingly artistic turn of phrase, Mr. Dexter.”

“Thank you, I was rather pleased with it. And Richard?”

“What about Richard?”

“Is he enjoying a life of happily married bliss? That’s what it looked like to me, but you do know him better.”

“I think so, yes. Not in the usual way, but…” Thomas shrugged. “He wanted to be a father.”

“Yes, I gathered that.”

“And he was tired of hiding. So was I. We went about fixing that in very different ways, but they were the ways we wanted, and he’s happy enough that I can be happy for him.”

“That’s good.”

“Mm.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “But we have to keep in touch. He doesn’t have a lover at the moment, and he doesn’t have many friends. He’ll be in danger of falling out of the know if we don’t.”

“Oh, that won’t be a challenge. I found him perfectly delightful. Nora too. And she’s an awfully good sport, isn’t she? She didn’t seem the least bit uncomfortable, even with… well, most women would have considered this a rather unusual dinner party.”

“Nora doesn’t know.”

“Nora doesn’t know?” Guy repeated dubiously, raising his eyebrows. He took a deep drag of his cigarette, considering this, then shrugged and ground it down. “Hm. I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“Richard hasn’t told her, at least.”

“Thomas, I expected better of you. You ought to know that that means nothing—less than nothing. Women always know more than men think they do.” He drained the last sip of his coffee and stood, reaching for his coat. “Shall we go back to the hotel?”

“In a minute,” Thomas said, smiling to himself.

He jerked his chin at something over Guy’s shoulder. Guy had paid the bill already—he had gotten up to seek out the waitress under the guise of visiting the toilet, correctly assuming that Richard would object if he tried to pay at the table. But the girl was creeping back to the table again, looking very shy and clutching a pen and a copy of Photoplay.

***

Nora was more than happy to let Richard take charge of the pram as they navigated the slushy streets of London. Eddie was displeased with the cold—probably needed his nappy changed, too—but, reliable as clockwork, his grumbling began to quiet as they turned the corner from the cafe, and they kept a leisurely pace. She had forgotten her scarf, a silly oversight, and  she flipped up her collar and curled her hand around Richard’s elbow.

“I like Thomas,” she declared.

“Good. So do I. And I’m glad… well, we parted on sort of an awkward note, the last time we met in person, and I’m glad it didn’t spoil things for good.”

“Yes, I thought you were hinting at something like that. What happened?”

“Oh…” He sighed. “Nothing in particular. It was after my mother died. I was out of sorts, and—well, you remember. I was taking an account of my life, and I don’t think I gave him as much credit as he deserved. But we’ve resolved everything now.”

“Good,” she said. She rubbed his arm soothingly, but knew not to ask more; she remembered when Richard’s mother died, and he came back from the funeral sober and quiet and watchful. Some of the other staff commented on well he seemed to handle his grief, but she had known better. His priorities had changed, and many of his relationships with friends and acquaintances had undergone a subtle shift in the months that followed—or, as the ring on her left hand could attest, a major one. But he had never liked to talk about it. She tilted her face up and grinned at him slyly. “I like Guy, too. Imagine that—me having a personal opinion on whether Guy Dexter is a good dinner companion.”

“He was rather taken with you, too, I think,” Richard laughed. That rich, full-bodied laugh that used to make maids swoon at his feet. Probably still did. Nora looked out at the street, wet and glittering with lamplight, and smiled to herself. He was just fine. “Promise me you won’t run away on me, darling. I don’t want to be the one who put eloping to Los Angeles in your head.”

“Don’t be silly. I couldn’t stand that much sunshine. I’d fry up.”

“What a sorry comment on the state of our marriage, if I’m less of an attraction than clouds.”

She laughed again, and they paused at the kerb to let cars creep past.

“He and Thomas seemed very close. Don’t you think?” she asked idly. She had been puzzling over it all through dinner, and wondered if Richard had any thoughts. He knew Thomas better, and he knew valets and their gentlemen better. Although it had been some time since he valeted for men who weren’t kings, which probably changed things quite a lot. “Not at all like employer and servant.”

“Well, you heard what Guy said. About things being different in America.”

There was a cautious note in his voice. They crossed the street, and Nora had to drop his arm so she could skirt around a puddle.

“Not that different. Not for everyone, at least. I’ve met girls who worked for American ladies, and they were just as demanding as English ones.”

“Well, I’d expect it to be different for men. Thomas and I were talking about the market for servants, before you got there. He thinks the war changed things. That men who spent all that time in the muck of the trenches don’t feel the need to fuss about with valets. Perhaps he’s right.”

“There’s something in that, I suppose.” She took hold of his arm again, and tugged; he had sped up, and he had much longer legs, but she wasn’t going to scurry after him like a terrier. He slowed. “It certainly seemed to me that he was invited along for the pleasure of his company more than anything else.”

“Really, Nora,” Richard said, his voice ice-cold. “I don’t know what you’re implying.”

Yes, he did. So did she, no matter how much she might pretend otherwise. They walked for a block in silence.

“Would it be so horrible if he was?” she asked quietly. “I always thought you—”

“Thought I what?”

If her cheeks weren’t already pink from the cold, they were now from embarrassment. There was an idea that had been lingering in the back of her mind for months, if not years. Normally she ignored it—the way you would ignore a mild toothache—but sometimes she prodded at it, out of either curiosity or concern. It was beginning to throb now, blood-hot and demanding. Either she was right, or she was wrong—and very wrong, wrong in a way that made her doubt the man she had married, the man who had been her friend for more than fifteen years. It made her feel unsteady, like the slippery coating of slush beneath her feet.

“I-I don’t know, exactly. I thought you were a compassionate person. You never joined in the criticism of… libertine types. Loose girls or artistic men—I thought you and Dennis Taylor were good friends.”

“Oh.” The breath left Richard at once. “I-oh.” He was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry, darling, if I was harsh. I’m rather protective over Thomas, that’s all, and I wouldn’t want to… I didn’t think you knew. About—Dennis.”

“You thought I was going to be shocked? Not likely. I married a compassionate man, and you married a modern woman.”

“That I did.”

He sounded relieved, and Nora’s stomach unclenched.

“So modern, in fact, I might join you in a whisky when we get home.”

“You will not. You hate whisky.”

“I like a hot whiskey, with lemon and honey. Especially on a night like this.”

“That does sound very appealing.” They had turned a corner. Their block of flats was just down the road, and Nora—who was not a coward but knew when to make a strategic retreat—was perfectly happy to talk of light, pleasant things for the rest of the evening, take care of her son, and enjoy a whisky with her husband. It was Richard who spoke, his voice low and earnest. “Nora, I hope you know how happy I am being married to you. Thomas and I spoke at length about our lives in the years since we’ve met, and it reminded me how fortunate I am to have a woman like you in my life.”

“Well now,” she said. Her blush was coming back. Marriage and a long friendship had stripped Richard of much of his mystery, but in years past she had been one of those swooning maids, and perhaps she wasn’t as inured to his charm as she had thought. “Well, isn’t that nice. And if that’s how you truly feel…” she wheedled.

“Yes?”

“You could change Eddie’s nappy for me when we get in.”

He laughed.

“I can’t refuse, can I? Very well, Mrs. Ellis, I would be delighted.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ellis. And don’t worry—while you do that, I’ll see to the whisky.”