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A part of him wanted to do away with the thing, and such a reason it would be to strike up a conversation with Darcy, to find him in one of the many rooms and say,“Remember that necklace you handed me a few days ago? Well, funny story …”and that he’d been mistaken, that it was his own that had been found. And Bron would be the one to return it; this could only win him favors. But he held back from saying anything, sensing with a fluster that the locket could be useful to him at a later date, a clue in the manor’s slowly unfurling mystery. For it was inevitable that in every great house there was a family, and in every great family there was a secret, and only time would reveal it.
Instead, he waited inside his bedroom, leaving the door intentionally ajar and listening out for footsteps on the landing. At the promise of a sound, he’d emerge from the room completely coincidentally—more often than not it was a false alarm, just Ada scampering by or Mr. Edwards’s heavy-footed trot. But sometimes he’d hear Captain’s low, excited whine and find Darcy there on the landing. He’d offer him a “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Bron,” Darcy would reply, barely looking up from the paper he held in his hands. And while this was not the dialogue he’d mapped and prepared for as he waited behind the door, it was enough to keep him going for an hour or two.
Through the afternoons he’d sit with Ada in the living room, who rested on the carpet at his feet and leafed through the work he’d compiled for her. Once Ada and Mr. Edwards had gone to bed, and the noises around the house settled into oblivion, he’d dawdle on with a book on his lap, often with the words swimming and meaningless, and the hot drink to his mouth scalding his tongue, thinking always that this was ridiculous, that he must have missed Darcy coming in. He’d close the book, finish the drink, rise to leave. Only to sit down again and wait another minute or two. Just in case. The keys would rattle in the door—he’d open the book again, to any page, bring the empty mug to his lips.
“You’re up late,” Darcy would say, shutting the door behind him.
“Oh, really?” He’d shoot his eyes to the clock. “I didn’t realize the time. I should probably get to bed.” Set down the mug, shut the book.
“Oh, that’s a shame. I haven’t seen you today. But I won’t keep you if you’re tired. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” he’d reply, cursing under his breath, watching as Darcy hung his coat and ascended the stairs. Could he shout out, say he’d changed his mind, that he wasn’t that tired and would be staying up a little longer? No, of course he couldn’t. With Darcy gone, he would rise from the chair and take himselfupstairs with little to do but inspect the locket some more before going to sleep.
Some days went quicker than others. Once or twice he visited the city in search of … well, anything to do outside the house, and these days glided past, clouds on a windy day. Others were occupied mostly with Ada’s homework, which she drove through quickly (or not at all) to give way for more childish endeavors, and these passed like the sun dipping below the horizon line: gradually when waiting for it, hastily the second he glanced away. It was those moments of calm that lingered the longest, where he sat and avoided Ada’s interrogation into his wandering thoughts, with one ear listening out for tires on the gravel, for the opening of the front door. All through the week, he yearned to be close to Darcy, visited the bench at the end of the walk with a conversation starter at the ready in the hopes of finding him there, only he never was. He’d return to his bedroom and collapse onto his bed unfulfilled.
On most days he would touch himself, run his fingers down his torso or around his nipples and pretend that they were someone else’s fingers. Sometimes they were a stranger’s; often they were Darcy’s. Or Harry’s. He’d take a steaming bath and lie in it until the water went tepid and his fingers pruned, then climb onto his bed on his hands and knees, arch his back, ready to be taken. He groaned and brought out a pair of boxers that didn’t belong to him, having lifted them from the washing basket, that infinite gold mine, after Clarence had extracted the washing from Darcy’s bedroom. He inhaled it, took in the scent of him, and cried, exclaiming profanities into his pillow.
And yet when his wish was somehow granted, and Darcy stood outside his bedroom on the landing, or sipped at his coffee a little longer in the breakfast room, or when he came into the living room at night to talk to him, Bron would seek immediate deliverance from the encounter; the state of self-doubt, where he was kidding himself, was only being humored with this attention. Darcy laughed about him behind his back. He knew it. He was a bother. A plaything.
He was stirred from his nap one Sunday afternoon by the rev of an engine outside. His book had fallen to the side of him as he slept. Pulling on a T-shirt, he stumbled to the window. It was raining. A taxi had pulled into the driveway path, and an umbrella sputtered to life from the opening door, concealing the head and chest of the passenger who leaped from the backseat. A firm, ringed hand closed the car door and tapped the top of the car bonnet, before a man turned toward the house. He took swift, heavy strides to avoid the puddle that had formed on the gravel, and bounded up the stone stairs. Darcy looked up at his window.
Bron shut the curtains quickly. Heard the slam of the front door and Captain’s muffled bark, threw himself onto the mattress.Stupid. Idiot. He saw you looking.
A knock on the door made his head snap up, cut short his languishing.
“Knock, knock,” Darcy said through the door, before tapping again. “I know you’re in there.”
This was ridiculous. What could he want? Bron looked at himself in the mirror, scraped at his hair and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. All he could wish for now was some understanding that it was his day off … whatever that meant. This would have to do. He pulled the door open.
“Hey,” he said, aware of the force in his voice to sound natural. “Can I help you?”
Up and down, Darcy’s eyes glided over him, in his T-shirt and too-short shorts. It was cold, and the hairs on his legs bristled like a dandelion, his skin turning to gooseflesh. Darcy gave a little laugh. “What have you been up to in there?”
“Nothing,” he said. “What would I be up to?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing.” Darcy made a little humming noise. “I hope I didn’t … wake you?”
“Not at all,” he said, following his gaze to the unmade sheets, the mountainous duvet. “I was just”—he spotted his book lying there, the discarded laptop on the carpet—“er, watching a film.”
“Ah yes, of course. Anything I might’ve seen? Or something you’d recommend?”
“No.”
Darcy didn’t say anything else, and the silence swelled between them like a balloon. Who would be the first to burst it?
“So …” Bron quirked a smile because he didn’t know what else to do with himself. He nestled against the door, which leaned slightly inward.
“So.” Darcy laughed, holding out his palm to keep it open. “I was rather hoping you would join me today for a little outing?”
“An outing?” he said, looking out the window. “As in outside?”
“Yes, outside.”
“Isn’t it a little cold?”
“Then I recommend you wear a coat.”
