Page 48 of By Any Means

Holy shit.

Laurie’s breaths now came as quick as his pounding heart.

Chary’s family weren’t all dead. He hadn’t murdered his brother. Neither had Tjofabier Raberding. Nobody had, in fact.

August—the handsomer Wright, the true heir to Wright Glass—was alive.

There it was, right there. This was the secret, why Maine was Chary’s home. Why he spent twenty-four hours a week on train travel. Not a lover. Not a house.

A brother.

Chary Wright had been lying to Laurie the whole time.

14

CHARY

Now.

In the library, Chary scrawled across a piece of paper that had his letterhead torn hastily off the top.

I have a guest come to stay. (Laurie was on the second-tier shelves, distracted by his Bram Stoker first editions.) You needn’t come in this week.

He hesitated and then added, Please don’t worry; everything is taken care of.

He shoved it into a book and handed this off to the late-appearing Brasher, in the hallway outside the turret library, telling him Here was the book he’d wanted to borrow last week, and Mr. Moore was his guest, and could he please ready the northwest balcony room for his stay?

Brasher took the book. “The northwest, Mr. Wright.”

The man clearly thought Chary had wholly lost his senses, to have a guest there, having him sleep in that bed, but there was nothing he could say with Laurie appearing behind him, leaning against the wainscoting.

“Yes.” Chary tried not to look entirely neurotic. “The northwest. My room. Thank you.”

Brasher left, stoic.

Laurie said immediately, “That one. Shall we?”

15

LAURIE

By the time the house tour closed a circle in the northwest balcony room, Laurie was praising himself for having kept his seething indignation concealed. Better concealed than Chary had hidden his panicked red-flag letter-writing, anyway.

What had the scrawl said? Danger—don’t come near—hide better—flee? Laurie had done the right thing by showing up early and unannounced; that was for damn sure. His appearance alone had Chary on full-on, bells-clanging alert. If not-dead rich-boy August Wright was smart about it, he’d listen to his brother and clear out from his hidey-hole by nightfall.

If Laurie was lucky, August wouldn’t be smart about it. Tjofabier Raberding had dubbed his lover a genius, but August Wright hadn’t been—wasn’t—infamous for steadfastness, stability, or wisdom. Whose idea had it been to falsify his death to the whole world? August’s? Chary’s? Chary had invested so much in this secret, it practically owned him.

More importantly: why fake August’s death?

In the northwest balcony room, Chary lay down obediently to await his poultice. He fell asleep almost instantly. Laurie reclined on a chaise, ankles crossed, stuck observing. Oddly touched by the improbable trust, his indignation at being lied to trickled slowly away. Chary would warn his brother off exposure and stay doggedly loyal to the story of My brother is dead, but when it came to himself? No care at all.

Hadn’t Laurie told him to make sure someone took care of him?

It had been easy to put on a charming smile when Chary had been awake. When Laurie could remind himself that this had become a job like any other, that he was merely undercover: not as a seasonal picker, no, or as a slaughterer or a farmworker, but as an open-and-out man’s lover. That though Chary Wright wasn’t different, had turned out to be the same as any of them in the end, had lied to him—it was expected. It was what people did. They hunkered down and lied.

And what Laurie did was use any advantage he had available to him in order to root out the truth.

Chary wasn’t grieving. His brother wasn’t dead. He’d inherited riches anyway. And his trembling at Laurie’s touch seemed like a pretty damn big advantage.