CHAPTER ONE

"One day earlier"

The sea was rough today, and clouds heavy and black as they shrouded the sky. It was a bitterly cold winter.

The RMS 'Queen Mary' was easing her way carefully through the waves, a shining, mighty leviathan against the bleak horizon. She was supposed to be in dry-dock, still reported publicly to be undergoing her transformation back from troop-carrier to luxury liner following the end of the second world war. Her conversion however, had been accelerated dramatically, through the generous financial contributions and extra labourers offered to the Cunard shipping line by American businessman Andrew Ryan. In return for the funding, Andrew Ryan had secured exclusive, confidential use of the massive passenger ship for the rest of the month.

"Edward and Sheridan stood side by side on the promenade deck, clutching to the railings as the ship lurched and rolled amongst the waves. They had been picked up by the 'Queen Mary' four days ago, tendered out secretly by ferry from Southampton to the waiting Queen behind the Isle of Wight. Their cargo, furniture and belongings had already been sent on ahead in monthly shipments.

Dinner had been served, and whilst many of the other passengers had retired to the smoking lounges, salons or their suites, Sheridan, still of an age to indulge a youthful rebellious streak, had subtly whispered to his valet instructions to meet him out on the promenade.

As the young, English aristocrat stood and, to the naked eye of any passing stranger, delivered instructions to his valet whilst enjoying a cigarette out in the open, he was in fact offering instructions of a far more intimate nature – instructions that despite their composed and innocent composure, inflamed both men with lust and a ferocious appetite for the unspeakable deeds that passed from Sheridan's lips.

For years now, the respected, internationally renowned Lord Sheridan Fortesque had sufficed with a secret relationship with his manservant, Edward, the secrecy vital to not only his staying out of her majesty's prison, but also the safety of his business interests and the stability of the Fortesque family fortune.

Edward Carson looked up at his master, stood beside him, his hands clasped around the handrail as the ship took another deep roll to port. How he loved that great man. When he had first gained employment as a footman in the Fortesque household, he had very quickly developed an innocent but strong admiration for Lord Sheridan. Only a few years his senior, he'd been both dismayed but fascinated how someone near his own age lived such a different life. At that time Edward had only just escaped the slums and was just starting to teach himself basic spelling – whilst watching Sheridan spending hundreds of thousands of pounds, travelling to distant continents and making complicated business decisions that affected the lives and incomes of hundreds. How distant their worlds had been.

With a quick glance over his shoulders, Sheridan slipped a hand along the railing and place it tightly over Edwards, and gave it a squeeze. "If you think my plans for you in the cabin tonight are obscene boy, just wait until we are settled into our apartment down there…!" He gestured with a mischievous smirk to the ocean beneath them.

Edward was excited – but at the same time nervous about the prospect. Nowhere on earth would offer them approval, so he did wonder how on earth Sheridan was expecting it to be so easy in this new 'colony'.

They had been open about their feelings for one another for almost three years now. The first 'mishap' had been even before the war – when going about his duty to prepare the master bedroom for the evening, Edward had stumbled upon his master pleasuring himself to a saucy photograph of a naked man. Every fibre in his being has told him to quickly leave the room and hope for mercy – but he'd stayed. He'd stayed and watched, which had seemed to only excite Sheridan even more. There had been no further interactions between them other than those Edwards duties as footman dictated, until the war.

It had been obvious that Lord Sheridan had arranged for Edward to be appointed his batman, but after such a long period of time since that first incident, Edward hadn't been sure as to why he would do so. Perhaps it had been simply to have a familiar face, no matter how vaguely familiar, beside him to remind him of home, as he charged over the top of the trenches and led his men into battle. The night that explosion hit their camp, they had lost most of the garrison. Edward and Sheridan had been entombed by a collapsed doorway inside one of the officers shelters. The attempt they'd made at small talk and masculine jokes to keep up morale had barely lasted three hours into the night, before they had fallen into their first passionate embrace. Once they had been rescued, there had been no going back for them – neither could deny to the other any longer that a connection had formed, crossing the great class divide.

Edward smiled as he recalled that first night again. Sheridan had looked just as handsome caked in mud as he did now, dressed in a tuxedo with his blonde hair swept back. As he did daily, he wondered how this could have happened for him, to be taken under the wing of such a person. He looked back out to sea, down into the waves and deeper than that. With this wondrous new city to soon call home on, or rather beneath the horizon, he wondered just how much better life could possibly get.