Page 96 of By Any Means

“It’s beautiful,” Chary said. “Heartbreaking. You have everything exactly correct.”

Laurie crawled up onto the bed and straddled him. He said, “You know, I was thinking I did,” and kissed him.

27

CHARY

THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY, INCORPORATED

RECEIVED at: 3:08 P.M. 09 AUG 1905

TO: C. WRIGHT 826 5th Ave. NYC

COME HOME LITTLE BRO. HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU.

- A

Two days. The telegram had been sitting at the townhouse two whole days. Had August meant to wait exactly two weeks from the police station ordeal, or was it coincidence? He couldn’t have known Chary had been staying with Laurie. It’d been chance Chary had come back to the townhouse at all today; he’d come back only to give notice to the staff there that he probably wouldn’t be back for some time and to please shutter the place. To ready themselves for his forthcoming, and hopefully permanent, move to Berryfield, provided the whole world didn’t fall down around him.

Come home.

August had made his overture, and Chary was already two days late.

“Well, nobody’s egged the place. Raberding didn’t stoop that low.” Laurie, besuited down to a stiff collar, came through the townhouse’s front door and into the foyer. Even so unfamiliar, he seemed to belong. He spotted the telegram straight away. “Uh-oh.”

“It’s August,” Chary said. “Everything’s fine. I think.” He took a deep breath. “Your story is written. Will you come home with me to Berryfield?”

Laurie’s expression went soft. “You want me there?”

“Yes.” It was that simple. Yes. He felt like he’d do almost anything for one more weekend. Maybe if he had one more afternoon picnic, he could tell Laurie the truth and then let him go.

“Then of course,” Laurie said. “Told ya I don’t want you outta my sight.” Then he sighed. “Berryfield. Damn that twelve-hour train.”

Chary agreed. Damn the twelve-hour train. Sometime very soon in the future—though not tomorrow, nor the next, not yet—it would be the least of things keeping them apart.

28

CHARY

Despite the very early hour, the Caddy was there to greet them at the station, with Mikhail back in the driver’s seat instead of August, but when they came up the drive, Brasher wasn’t in the reception hall. It meant Chary probably needed to hire another butler. At least if he was planning to live there full-time.

What it meant for August, he wasn’t sure. But he’d summoned them, hadn’t he? Chary was late, but surely August was still there.

There was one foolproof way to tell: the hobby furnace in the cellar. August always put the furnace on to soak for him before he arrived.

Chary led Laurie down to the cellar hand-in-hand after they’d barely got their driving coats off. Despite his groaning about unexpected things, Laurie clearly relished them.

Weeks before, in showing Laurie the house and the cellar, he’d only pulled out the few almost-finished pieces he had annealing. Sheets of cerulean blue for St. Michael’s stained glass. Two panels of leadlight for his own greenhouse directly above. A basket of glass eyes, brown and blue, requested from Dr. Reed, in borosilicate. Least importantly, two new mold-blown styles of blueberry preserve jars he hadn’t yet tested, these plain old Wright-recipe soda-lime.

If Laurie had been interested in all of that seriously, Chary hadn’t seen. Maybe, he thought, Laurie hadn’t let him see one way or another.

Laurie was interested this morning. His half-shut eyes, lazily covetous, were stuck on the steel door. It was almost his look of carnal want. Chary wondered if he might like lots of things—specific things—gift-wrapped. Did he like magicians’ shows? Illusionists? Certainly, he liked disguises.

Probably not millionaires who’d lied about their childhood and their inheritance, though.

Chary shoved this firmly down, unlocked the steel cellar door, and called, “August?”

A grunt of surprise and clink of thrown-down wrench. His brother called up, “Down here, Chary!”