"Shouldn't Joseph and Goran have been here by now?" Henry glanced at the massive cloisonne clock on the mantel of the drawing room's fireplace for at least the tenth time in the past hour. "It's nearly eight."
Gilbert looked up from his newspaper. "It's a bit late," he said, "but not outside the realm of possibility. They had a matinee performance today, remember? They might not have gotten away immediately, and it's a good three hours to get here. I was figuring seven, myself."
"But seven was an hour ago."
Gilbert rolled his eyes. "Henry, stop—"
"Lord Choughton, I'm sorry to interrupt," Henry's butler said as he hurried into the room, "but you are needed out front. Your friends have arrived, but one of them is injured." He turned toward Gilbert. "Doctor Sansom, we'll need your assistance, please."
Gilbert vaulted out of his seat and followed Henry and the butler outside, where they found Goran pacing in front of their borrowed carriage.
"What happened?" Gilbert asked. Not waiting for Goran to answer, he yanked open the door, where he found Joseph sprawled on one bench, bloodied and clutching his left arm.
"I had to do something," Joseph said through gritted teeth, "and you need to see to Naka first."
"Naka?"
Joseph's chin jerked toward the opposite bench, and when Gilbert turned his head he saw the young man slumped on the bench, unconscious.
"Bloody hell," Gilbert muttered. "Can you walk?" At Joseph's nod he called, "Goran!"
Goran appeared at the carriage's other door. "What do you need me to do?"
"You help take Naka inside, and stay with him, keep him calm if he wakes up. Henry," Gilbert looked back where his friend stood in the driveway, "where is the room you had readied for Joseph?"
"Down the hall from your suite, in the west wing," Henry replied, his eyes wide with alarm. "I have you all there."
"Put Naka in one of the rooms near ours. Let's get this idiot to his room, and then I'll get my bag and examine both of them. Barton," he said to the butler, "I'll need water and washrags brought to each room, as quickly as possible."
"Yes, sir." The butler called over several footmen, and he sent one off in search of the housekeeper while the others helped get Naka and Joseph out of the carriage.
"Get a constable," Joseph gasped as two footmen helped him from the carriage. "I want them to see what that bastard's been doing to his son."
Gilbert managed to keep the chaos to a minimum, although there were a few times he felt like he was back at hospital, barking orders to the nurses and assistants. Henry's footmen rose to the occasion, though, and they whisked the two injured men into the house. When Gilbert went back inside, he nodded with approval when he saw maids hurrying behind the footmen, laden with towels, basins, and some of the other things he'd asked for.
It didn't take Gilbert long to fetch his bag from his room; he was grateful that his tutor had impressed upon him that no surgeon was ever without his bag, and this incident proved that the advice was sound. When he entered Naka's room, he found his patient awake, and bewildered. It took a bit of coaxing to get Naka to remove his tunic, and Gilbert frowned at the bruises and lacerations that were revealed.
"How long has your father been doing this, Naka?" Gilbert probed the injuries as gently as he could.
"Since we came to England," Naka replied. "Before, too, but not as often." He looked up at Gilbert, his eyes wide. "Do I have to go back?"
Gilbert shook his head. "No, and you're safe here."
"Where will I go?"
Gilbert didn't have an answer for that. "Let's worry about that later," he said.
"Your friend, he was hurt trying to help me."
"I'll be taking care of him soon, I wanted to see the extent of your injuries first." It looked like while he had been badly beaten, Naka had no serious injuries. Gilbert hadn't liked the way that Joseph had been holding his arm, so he decided he would leave Naka to Henry and Goran. "Lord Choughton will be here shortly, and he and Goran will help get you cleaned up and comfortable. I'll check in on you later."
Naka looked at Gilbert, then at Goran. "Gor-don?"
Goran patted his arm. "Don't worry, I'll explain."
By the time Gilbert reached Joseph's room he found his second patient dressed in a borrowed pair of Henry's pyjamas, propped up against a sea of pillows in a large poster bed. He noted with approval that Joseph's arm was immersed in a small wash basin filled with iced water.
"Excellent job, Henry," he said as he peered at the afflicted arm, "the swelling is just a fraction of what it was when we found him. You have everything else ready?"
"Yes," Henry replied, and he gestured at a nearby table. "There is another basin, some towels, and a pair of silk socks. Oh, and the glass of wine you requested."
"What are the socks for?" Joseph asked. "I hurt my arm, not my leg."
"I"ll answer that in a moment," Gilbert said. He set his bag on the table, opened it, and fished out a bottle of clear liquid and a small packet of linen. He handed the items to Henry. "I took a quick look at Naka, and he doesn't any stitching. I need you and Goran to get him bathed, and then you can apply this carbolic acid to the lacerations on his back, it will help prevent infection." He took out another bottle, and after opening it he used an eyedropper to extract some of the dark liquid within, and then he carefully squeezed five drops into the wineglass. He closed the bottle back up and gave it to Henry. "When you're done, make Naka some hot, sweet tea, and put no more than eight drops of this in the tea."
"Laudanum, Gilbert?" Henry asked, eyeing the bottle with distaste.
"Yes, but it's a relatively low dose, and it will relieve his pain and help him sleep. I'll come and check on him after I've taken care of Joseph's arm." After Henry left, Gilbert stirred the wine with a finger, and then he handed the glass to Joseph. "Here, drink up."
"Won't hear me complaining about laudanum," Joseph said, and he took several generous swallows of wine. "But how's it that the kid gets eight drops and I only get five? I'm twice his size, almost—Goran's even taller than he is, and that's saying something."
"Five drops will take the edge off your pain," Gilbert said, "but will allow you to keep your wits about you." He lifted Joseph's arm out of the water and set the basin on the table, and then he took a towel and sat on the edge of the bed as he carefully dried the damp, chilled skin. He gently examined the bruised area, watching Joseph's reactions. "The sock is for your arm," he said. "It will protect your skin from the plaster cast."
"Plaster cast?"
"Your forearm has a fracture," Gilbert told him. "I'm assuming that you blocked Lee's blows with your arm?"
Joseph frowned. "Yeah. Bastard had a pretty solid cane. But what do you know, it's the first time I'll be wearing silk socks, and it'll be on my arm, under a cast." Joseph drained the glass. "Shit, Henry has got some bloody good wine."
"That he does. He also has some truly amazing brandy," Gilbert said, and he took the empty glass and set it on the table along with the damp towel. He cast a critical eye at his patient while he rolled up his shirt sleeves. "I'm afraid Henry was too zealous in dressing you; we should take that pyjama shirt off you before I start applying the plaster."
Joseph chuckled. "You can admit it, you just want to get me naked."
Gilbert rolled his eyes, although he could feel the heat in his cheeks as he undid the mother-of-pearl buttons of the shirt. He could also feel Joseph's gaze on him while he eased the garment off. What are you, sixteen again? he chided himself. Keep your mind on the task at hand. He tried not to take a perverse pleasure in Joseph's grunts of discomfort as he slid the sock onto the injured arm and settled it onto an extra pillow. After he poured some water in the other basin and prepared the plastered strips of linen, he brought it over to the bed and sat down again.
"You are an idiot," he muttered as he carefully wound the dampened strips around Joseph's wrist and forearm. "What possessed you to go back there and interfere like that? You're lucky you weren't more seriously injured—or even killed."
"I couldn't help it," Joseph replied, his gaze on Gilbert's hands. "We went there to look at his props, and everything was there, just like I thought it would be. But that poor kid—Lee was beating him, Gilbert, really laying into him, and all because Naka couldn't do a trick fast enough for him. A stupid trick." He was quiet for a moment, watching Gilbert's hands. "My stepmother used to beat me when I was younger, after my dad died."
Gilbert's head jerked up at the admission. "You never told us that."
Joseph lifted his uninjured shoulder in a shrug. "Not the sort of thing you share with your mates, is it? She'd beat the shit out of me, and half the time I wouldn't even know why. I think your old man had a suspicion, that time he visited the penny school I attended, because he kept looking at my neck—I didn't know then that bruises from choking took awhile to show up, so I hadn't buttoned up my collar that morning. He asked me if I would mind staying away from home, and I said, 'Oh no, sir, I wouldn't mind it one bit!' I couldn't get the words out fast enough. Next thing I knew, I was told I was chosen to be a charity student at Charterhouse, and that I was Sir Corman's ward."
Gilbert recalled the times at school when Joseph would come to the defense of a bullied first-year. He wondered if his father's act of compassion all those years ago had engendered in Joseph the need to do the same, to repay the debt. "Well, that explains a lot," he said. "You were always rescuing people when we were at school. And, according to Henry, you spent a good bit of time defending my virtue." He looked up and found Joseph grinning at him.
"Wasn't anyone going to touch that arse but me," Joseph said, and then his expression sobered. "When I saw Lee beating his kid, I saw my step-mum beating me, and I thought, 'I need to be like Gilbert's dad, and get him the hell out of there.' 'Course, I didn't do it as well as he did."
"No," Gilbert commented, returning his attention to his work, "I don't recall him coming home with a fractured arm. But if you felt that way about my father, why did you try so hard to destroy every good thing he did for you all those years ago?"
Joseph stared at the carved ceiling for a few moments, and then he replied, "My head was in a strange place when we started sixth form. The masters talked of nothing but exams, and what universities we should apply for, and I knew I wouldn't be going to university—most of the other charity students hadn't even continued on to sixth. And you and I… we'd had that amazing thing between us over the holiday, but then we were back in school and we couldn't touch each other hardly at all, because we couldn't let anyone suspect we'd spent the summer fucking almost every night."
Gilbert remembered his own frustration with the situation. Privacy was practically non-existent at school, and their intimacy had been reduced to quick snogs and trying to get each other off before the other students would think they'd been gone too long.
"So I was already feeling a bit out of step, and then Banright decided he would set me straight about our place in the world," Joseph said. "He said our sponsors didn't give two shits about us, they'd just done their charitable duty and ponied up the tuition. Janning was his sponsor, and outright told him as much. Banright said to me, 'We don't belong here, Shackleton. We're here on a rich man's whim, and even if we graduated at the top of the class, we're still from the East End and no decent employer will touch us. So fuck these rich men and their rich sons, and let's take them for everything we can before the party's over.'" He rubbed the back of his head with his good hand and and then continued, "He told me that you and Henry only associated with me because your father had asked you to, out of pity, and that I would never see either of you once we'd graduated."
"And you believed that piece of shit."
"I didn't know what to believe then," Joseph said, "but he made sense. Henry was going to Oxford, and he's an earl, he's not supposed to be friends with the likes of me. And you…you were going to be a doctor, and how were we going to make anything work between us?"
"It might not have worked out," Gilbert said as he started on a second layer. "Hell, it probably wouldn't have. But we'll never know, will we, because you believed his lies and cut Henry and me out of your life. And your delinquencies with Banright almost tarred us with the same dirty brush."
"I know, and I did apologize for all that nonsense. It was all in those letters I sent you. The ones you never read."
In spite of himself, a corner of Gilbert's mouth quirked up. "Touché."
The rest of the time spent finishing the cast was spent in an almost companionable silence, which Gilbert was grateful for. He'd spent years being angry at a foolish sixteen-year-old boy, and he realized that he'd been foolish too, in not seeing and understanding what Joseph had been going through. Gilbert found he could no longer hold on to the anger, and it left him wondering how he was going to deal with the grown man in front of him.
He dipped his hand in the water, and gave the cast a final smoothing-over. "This will harden in about an hour, and will be fully cured by morning," he said. "Keep it still for the next hour while it dries. I'm going to see how Naka's doing and then go clean up. I'll check on you before I retire for bed."
"Gilbert."
Gilbert looked up and met Joseph's serious gaze.
"Are we square, you and me?
"Yes," Gilbert said, and he returned to his task.
"What, that's it?" Joseph's tone was teasing, but it also held a note of exasperation.
Before he could stop himself, Gilbert snaked a plaster-covered hand behind Joseph's neck, pulling him forward to take his mouth in a rough kiss.
"Aw yeah," Joseph murmured against his lips, and he slid his good hand up into Gilbert's hair, keeping their faces close. "Your mouth tastes as good as it did all those years ago. Like nectar." They kissed again, rough and hungry, their tongues tangling and thrusting until they finally had to pull apart for air.
"We're square," Gilbert said. He gathered the basin and took it over to the table, taking a few calming breaths while he put his tools back in his bag, aware of Joseph's hungry gaze on his back. His composure recovered, Gilbert took hold of his bag and turned to face Joseph. "Keep the arm as still as you can," he said, and as he walked toward the door he was amazed at how normal his voice sounded. "I'll check on you later."
He closed the door, and went to Naka's room. The young man was sleeping peacefully, despite the snores that came from Goran, who was sprawled, also sleeping, in a nearby chair. Gilbert checked his pulse and his breathing, and looked over the cuts that Henry had treated with the carbolic acid. Everything looked fine.
Back in his room, Gilbert poured some fresh water in a basin and washed the plaster from his hands, and then he removed his waistcoat and neckwear. His fingers moved to unbutton his shirt, but then he thought better of it; after the kiss they'd shared, it would be foolish to go to Joseph's room in any sort of state of undress.
He made his way back to Joseph's room, and quietly opened the door. Joseph was sleeping, his arm still propped on the pillow. He looked younger in sleep, and Gilbert was reminded of the boy who had once kissed him way up high in an apple tree. He couldn't help a small smirk when he noticed the plaster-dust handprint on Joseph's neck.
What a night, Gilbert thought as he shut the door and walked back to his room. And the weekend hasn't even started yet.
