A Wager of Love: M/M Historical Romance (3 page)

By the end of it, Laurie felt his cheeks had heated, thinking of how easily Gilbert might win any young lady’s heart by reciting such a thing to her as he had just done. “You’re a skeptic with a taste for love poems?” Laurie asked, gently teasing and hoping that it would help distract from his rosy cheeks.

“All skeptics should have a taste for love poems,” Gilbert said, sitting back again and finishing his drink. “How indeed can one be truly skeptical of a thing he does not understand? A fool who knows not what he mocks is nothing but a bellows: full of hot air.”

“But you wish, as you said, to feel love. So you would prefer
not
to be a skeptic of love, is that so?”

“It is,” Gilbert conceded. “So I read love poems and attend such plays with you, wishing that they might be true, but doubting that it could indeed be the case.”

“I see,” Laurie said. “Then I shall be certain to strive my hardest to prove to you that there is such a thing as love, and encourage you to seek it for yourself.”

“I hope you shall,” Gilbert said. “But remember that it is my turn next to furnish a proof, and my part in the wager to persuade you that there is no such thing as true, lasting love.”

Laurie grimaced. “I dread such demonstration. When shall we?”

“Tomorrow, if you like. The hour is late.”

Glancing toward the clock on the mantel, Laurie yelped and tried to leap to his feet, forgetting that his lap was full and thus getting nowhere at all. He looked toward Gilbert with embarrassed apology, while Gilbert returned the look with puzzlement and mirth and made no move to let Laurie up.

“I ought to return to my lodgings,” Laurie said, dislodging Gilbert’s legs from his lap.

“Stay,” Gilbert offered, sitting forward and catching Laurie’s wrist before he could rise. “I have a well-appointed guest room.”

“I couldn’t impose.”

“I do insist.”

The intricately carved wooden clock on the mantle showed half-past midnight. It would be impossible to get a cab, and the streets between here and his lodgings would risk footpads. Laurie hesitated. “If you are entirely certain.”

“I am.” Gilbert grinned, letting him up now that he’d agreed to stay.

They made their way up the sumptuously carpeted stairs, passing in the hallway a smartly-dressed butler who was careful not to yawn until after the young gentlemen had gone past.

Gilbert showed him to a spacious bedroom on an upper floor which was tidy but empty in a lonely sort of way. It featured much of the same golden marble as the front hall, and the upholstery was dyed a pretty shade of blue. “Will this do?”

“Quite well, Gilbert,” Laurie said. He glanced back and found Gilbert standing rather close to him in the doorway of the room. His gaze lingered on Gilbert’s dark eyes, which sparkled as merrily as ever with his own particular brand of good-humoured skepticism. “And tomorrow you shall crush all my faith in love?”

“Oh, quite thoroughly,” Gilbert said, leaning in the doorframe with a teasing grin. “And then you shall be a bitter, lonely bachelor, like myself. Misery, as you know, loves company, and I especially enjoy your good company.”

“Good night, Gilbert,” Laurie said, rolling his eyes.

“Good night, sweet prince,” Gilbert said, and bowed whimsically. “And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

Grinning at Gilbert’s constant teasing, Laurie shut the door on him. His heart was pounding with excitement and his cheeks were flushed. Gilbert always seemed to have the oddest effect on him. Laurie had never felt anything like it with anyone else. It seemed to be some sort of intellectual fancy, almost like an amorous infatuation. But it was impossible that he should feel romantic infatuation toward another man, which meant that this could be no more than a bond of friendship.

It would be foolish to think otherwise.

“
S
o
,” Laurie said, as he buttered a piece of toast with his breakfast. They dined in another of Gilbert’s spacious but empty rooms, in a warmly-lit breakfast nook at a table that could fit six. “Today you shall prove to me that love isn’t real. When will you tell me where we are going?”

“We are going,” Gilbert said, gesturing carelessly with his fork, “to view the produce of love: abandoned love and destitute love.”

Laurie frowned, pausing with his toast and setting it down again in favour of his tea. He was not at all certain that he wished to see whatever miseries Gilbert would show him, and did not at all want to be dissuaded from the notion of love. But he did indeed wish to ascertain the truth of the matter, and thought that he would rather be proven that love was folly than to go on believing falsely. “I do not follow,” he said, trying to make sense in his head of what place or sight could demonstrate love abandoned and destitute.

“You are familiar, of course, with the workhouses for the poor,” Gilbert explained, continuing to eat his own breakfast with untempered hunger and speaking even with his mouth full. Laurie tried his best not to grimace at that, though he was generally growing accustomed to Gilbert’s disregard for propriety.

“Yes.”

“Yet I would venture to guess that you have never seen one,” Gilbert continued, gesturing again with his fork.

Laurie picked up his toast again, supposing that he should eat and hoping indeed that Gilbert would not be providing any sights which might upset his breakfast. He resolved, in the interests of that, to eat only the toast. “You would be correct.”

“Within the governance of England, the poor are shuttled into debtors prisons and workhouses, often overlapping, depending on the particular nature of their unforgivable crime of being poor,” Gilbert explained. “These things all fall under the oversight of the parish vestry, although many also function for the profit of their managing boards, whose pockets, you see, are best lined if the operation of these ostensibly-charitable establishments is kept at a minimum of expense and a surplus of profit. And being as there is a ready supply of wretched souls in need of or in condemnation to such establishments, it matters little to the profit margins if some of the workforce should expire due to the meagre rations or harsh conditions, since they are so easily replaced.”

Laurie set down his toast entirely and pushed his plate away. “How can you speak so callously to me of such things? How can you
eat
like that as you speak of these things?”

As if surprised, Gilbert blinked, looked down at his plate, shrugged, and continued eating. “Do you wish that we should cancel today’s excursion?”

Sighing with internal conflict, Laurie set his elbows upon the table and rested his chin on his hands, much perplexed and allowing himself to disregard propriety while he was in Gilbert’s presence. “No, indeed, I would rather face an unpleasant truth than mire myself in comfortable falsehoods.”

Gilbert cut into a piece of sausage. “Then shall I continue?”

Laurie frowned and bit the inside of his cheek. He was aware, of course, that the oversight of the workhouses of England was a messy business, with much well-intentioned criticism from pious and charitable persons, but that there wasn’t much that could be done about it. Money to feed and clothe the destitute must be gotten from somewhere, and why indeed shouldn’t they work for their keep? “Yes.”

“A large portion of these wretched souls,” Gilbert resumed, “are children. Orphans whose parents have died or, more often, discarded them. After the age of nine, the children are moved into the primary workhouses, and once they are old enough they are apprenticed to a trade, as suitable, if they survive that long.”

Though Laurie had never much cared for the children of others nor much desired his own, he nonetheless felt his stomach turn over at the thought of children being so cheaply valued.

“From birth to the age of nine,” Gilbert said, “the children are generally housed at branch-workhouses, where much of their toil is toward mutual preservation. The older within the workhouse may see to the care of the younger and they may all see to the upkeep and tidying of their lodgings.”

That seemed sensible, or would have, if it hadn’t been prefaced by Gilbert’s blithe discussion of how the food and living conditions of these workhouses was notably difficult to survive.

“We’ll be going to one of these.” Gilbert finished his breakfast and pushed the plate away, downing the last of his tea. “Come, fetch your hat.”

Wary but determined, Laurie followed him into the hall and donned hat and coat. In addition to hat and coat, Gilbert took up a covered basket that was waiting for them in the hall, though he made no comment about it. Outside, the weather was a wet, spitting drizzle as they emerged into the street, but Gilbert had arranged to have a carriage waiting, and they piled into it.

“The branch-workhouse to which we are going,” Gilbert said, “is one of the better ones, so you may be reassured that you won’t see any dying children, and likewise you may be discouraged that this in fact may be among the best of the conditions that might be found for the orphans of London, and most indeed suffer harsher fates.”

“I understand,” Laurie said, preparing himself for whatever he might find.

They did not have far to go, though the condition of the street and the residual smells of London had worsened when they drew up in front of a row of sensible brick townhouses.

Gilbert swung down promptly from the carriage along with his basket, and offered his hand gallantly to Laurie as if Laurie were a lady or an invalid. Flushing with puzzlement and indignation, Laurie nonetheless accepted his hand as he descended from the carriage.

Out in front of the nearest townhouse was a skinny girl, young and small, in a patched dark gray gown, sweeping at the steps. She watched the two of them with open interest, her sweeping having slowed at their appearance. “Mr. Heckwith!”

“Hello, Molly,” Gilbert said, bending over with a smile and drawing back the cloth covering the basket. “One of each, if you please.”

Peering into the basket with fascinated wide eyes, Molly swiftly disappeared a candy stick into the pocket of her gown, and clasped her hands around a pasty, sitting down on the steps to nibble at it and watching the two of them with eyes that seemed to be too large for her face.

“Good morning,” Laurie said to her as he followed Gilbert up the steps.

Mouth full, Molly just stared at him with wary fascination.

“You brought them gifts,” Laurie said, as Gilbert rang the bell and then let himself in without waiting.

“I’d be a cad if I didn’t.”

Inside the front hall of the house they came upon a little boy scrubbing at the worn wooden floor, while a little girl who couldn’t have been much more than six sat halfway up the hall stairs with a baby in her arms and a toddler beside her. They were all dressed in shoddy, patched garments, and all of their tiny faces turned toward the gentlemen who had just entered.

An older boy—eight at most—scrambled in from a side room and stopped short. “Mr. Heckwith!”

“Good day, Alexander,” Gilbert said to the boy. “Will you fetch Mrs. Bertram?”

“Sir.” Alexander bobbed a swift approximation of a bow and darted off again, through the growing crowd of children pressing in at all the available doorways and gathering near the top of the stairs. Laurie felt certain he’d never had so many tiny eyes on him at once.

“Judith,” Gilbert summoned forward one of the taller girls, handing over the large basket to her. “Will you see to it that these are fairly distributed?”

Judith curtsied. “Yes, sir,” she said, beginning to hand out the treats to the children in her immediate vicinity, while the rest of the children crushed forward, hands outstretched eagerly for theirs.

Laurie found himself pressed back against a wall as children pressed past him, and soon wondered just how many children could be fit inside one ordinary townhouse. “How many are there?” he asked.

“Judith?” Gilbert prompted.

She curtsied again, not pausing in her distribution. “Twenty-eight of us at present, sir.”

“Twenty-eight?” Laurie echoed. “In the one house?”

“There are dormitories upstairs,” Gilbert said. “Shall we see them? Ah, Mrs. Bertram.”

A stern-faced elderly woman in play gray garb appeared through the side parlour. The sea of children parted swiftly for her. “Mr. Heckwith,” she said.

“You’ll forgive me for arriving unannounced,” Gilbert said, giving her a smile like a wayward schoolboy might use to charm his mother. Laurie’s heart stuttered briefly at the sight of it. “This is Mr. Aberforth, who wishes to be educated on the affairs of English workhouses. May I show him about?”

Mrs. Bertram’s smile was strained, but she curtsied nonetheless. “As you wish, sir.”

“I’ll take you, Mr. Heckwith,” Judith offered, now that all of the children in the front hall had their hands and mouths occupied with treats. She kept hold of the basket, making her way up the stairs and past the girl with the baby and toddler in her care.

A tiny boy of two had taken hold of Gilbert’s pant leg while he munched messily at his pasty. Gilbert simply picked the boy up rather than dislodging him, carrying him along as they made their way upstairs.

They entered a room crammed with as many beds as would fit, where a little boy was in charge of a sort of nursery, rocking a crying babe in his arms while three toddlers of varying ages quarrelled nearby and another young boy was engaged in making beds with a basket of clean linen.

“Twenty-eight!” Laurie remarked again.

“I remind you,” Gilbert said, not seeming to mind the amount of crumbs landing on his suit from the gravy-covered fingers of the young boy in his arms, “that as I’ve said, this is one of the better establishments of its sort. If one were to make an unexpected visit to most of the branch-workhouses of London, you might likely find such an assortment of children mired in their own filth and with eyes sunken with hunger. You see here they even have bassinets.”

“But—surely—” Laurie frowned, not certain how to improve upon the existence of such establishments. “Something must be done.”

“Oh, every so often enough public outcry is raised that the situations are changed, though rarely improved. England’s public orphanages were attempted and disbanded not long before now, on account of them not being adequately funded. Now they fund themselves, in a way, so that the labor from the main workhouses helps to provide for the less-profitable branch houses.”

“But, as you’ve said, the managing boards of these places profit from their management.”

“Of course,” Gilbert said, setting down the little boy he was carrying with his fellows. “I haven’t seen little Sophie, did she have a birthday?”

“Yes, sir,” Judith said, and curtsied again, giving a sugar stick to the last of the children in the dormitory.

“At nine, off to the workhouse,” Gilbert reminded Laurie.

The remaining children seemed so tiny. Laurie supposed that Judith must be one of the oldest, and must therefore soon also be off to the larger workhouse. “And of what nature the workhouse?”

“In some, little more than a dormitory, from which the young wards are given out to be apprentices or servants—in either case, likely with no wage but their own food and bedding, of whatever quality their masters choose—and in other workhouses factory labor where the inmates might be intended to remain indefinitely, with no hope of improvement in their situation except for promotion to a management role over their fellows or removal to whatever paradise or void lies beyond the veil.”

He said all of this with little regard for his young listeners, none of whom seemed particularly surprised or upset by such frank discussion of their fate, and most of whom seemed content with the temporary pleasure of the meat-filled pasties and the prettily coloured stick of candy.

Laurie felt quite sick at frustration with the situation described. “Surely something
must
be done,” he repeated.

“What will you do?” Gilbert asked him, turning callously to Laurie and leaning back against the nearest rickety set of stacked beds. “You see here the produce of love, such as it is. Love only lasts as far as money, and there is none available for these innocents than has already been provided for their state as you see it. People keep their children only so long as the vanity and pleasure of having their legacy continued is padded by adequate money or convenience, and when the money’s out no one in the world has love to spare for a fellow creature.”

“That can’t be true,” Laurie insisted, heart aching.

Judith came to them and curtsied. “Shall we to the next room, sirs?”

“Yes, Judith. Thank you,” Gilbert said, gently patting her head and letting her lead the way. He returned his attention to Laurie as he followed. “It is true. Or if it is not, what theory instead would you provide to explain what you see here? They are unwanted, and they know it. Would you seize upon one or two to rescue, and then turn a blind eye to the rest? Or would you feed and clothe as many as you could reach, still leaving thousands destitute, until your finances were demolished and you found yourself in a state not unlike their own?”

Laurie did not answer, finding himself wishing that Gilbert had not brought him here at all, that he might have remained ignorant of the cold reality of their world. The children from downstairs had largely followed them, hovering in the hall or on the stairs as they watched the gentlemen with interest.

In the next room, they heard a thin voice singing softly before they entered, but the voice cut off promptly, and the children in the room looked wide-eyed and guilty.

Gilbert took a seat on the floor among them, offering his fingertip to one of the babies crawling about. “I’d very much like that song to resume,” he commented casually to the room at large.

After a hesitant, nervous silence, it started up again with a wavering voice from one of the little boys, though it trailed off again once the singer was provided with treats to fill his mouth instead.