"Sometimes the hardest part of the journey is believing you're worthy of the trip." Glenn Beck, The Christmas Sweater
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XXXVIII.
Joe, and half a dozen others, were thrown into a cell that certainly was not fit for rats, let alone humans. The floor was cold and damp and smelled of defecation. The only light source was a pathetic, flickering lamp on the wall opposite the cell.
Despite it being summer, the night air was cold, and a draught blew in through the bars of the glassless window. What was already a miserable place had to have been a death trap of cold in winter.
There was no furniture in the cell. Only a moth-eaten blanket that looked as though it was infested with typhus. There was barely enough room to sit with the number of bodies in the cramped space. Being so close to these men, the well dressed, ordinarily superior gentlemen that they were, was harrowing. Joe could see the fear in their eyes. They were a mixture of ages, both young and old, but none deserving of the fate that they feared.
And all Joe could think about was that he was grateful that it was him here, and not Ed. He could not have born the thought of such a look of fear on his brother's face.
But a thought, many thoughts, of Perrie crept into his mind, and as much as Joe tried to block them, he could not. He thought of the watch that he had given to Ed to pass on, and how Perrie would be looking at it, and trying to make sense of the lock of hair that he had kept inside of it for so many years. Would she know that it was hers? Would she understand the meaning that he, himself, had not understood for the longest time?
Would Perrie understand any of this?
Joe felt his heartbeat in his throat as he gripped hold of the iron bars of the cell, which were rough with rust and grime beneath his palms. He was there for a reason.
Joe was in prison to save his brother. He was in prison to spare Ed. That was why ...
You deserve to suffer.
You deserve to be punished.
No good ever came from you.
You killed your mother.
You were cut from your mother's dead body.
Your mother died with you inside her.
You are deaf because you are worthless.
You hurt everyone you touch.
They are better off without you.
It was as though the Devil spoke to him. Joe could not shut it out. He wanted to scream. He wanted it to stop. He wanted it to go away. He wanted to think differently, and to know that it all was a lie.
Because what he truly wanted was out there. It had always been right there in the Beresford's home. He had seen it in Perrie the day he had met her. She had stormed her way into his life, and into his heart, like a ferocious blaze of fire, and as those flames licked at his open, festering wounds, and got too close, Joe instinctively put up a shield of iron to protect himself.
But what was he really doing?
Joe was not capable of protecting himself. He had monumentally failed, and he had allowed every moment of darkness that he had known in his life to consume him, and to dictate his worth.
Joe wanted to be saved.
He exhaled a staggered breath as he leaned his forehead against the bars for fear that he would collapse.
Joe could not save himself. He needed help. He needed someone to take his shield from him. He could not fight that dragons in his nightmares alone. He had been fighting for so long and not even realising, and he was exhausted.
The sounds of the sobs from the men in the cell with him broke through a barrier in Joe's brain, and a crippling fear spread across his body that he was certain these men were feeling, too.
Joe did not want to die. He did not want to die with this having been his life. He couldn't fight the dragons alone, but he did not want to let them win.
Why was he letting them win?
How had he been letting them win for so long?
Joe had braced himself against the bars for stability but losing the feeling in his legs did nothing to help him, and he sank down onto the disgusting floor.
Joe had saved his brother, but he had done this to punish himself. Slowly, he turned his head slightly towards the sobs behind him. Being once again confronted with their expressions of utter terror humbled him in a brutal way. Nobody deserved this.
Did that include him?
No. You killed your mother.
"I didn't mean to," Joe whispered. "I was a baby."
You hurt everyone.
"But they never left me." He saw his brother's face clearly in his mind, the look of shock on his face right before Joe had knocked him unconscious. Ed would have died to save Joe.
And Perrie. Joe's demons had thrown everything at her. And yet she had still stolen away to London just to make certain that he was safe. He loved her. He loved her for that, and for so many more reasons. Did she love him, too?
"Wouldn't they leave me if I hurt them?"
Your deafness ruined your father.
"I made a mistake," Joe continued to utter softly into the void. "Parents ... parents are supposed to forgive mistakes." He felt a phantom hand on his shoulder, a reassuring hand, and his mind went directly to thinking of Adam Beresford.
Your father hates you.
"Fathers shouldn't hate." Adam's hand was still there, squeezing his shoulder, and telling Joe that what he had said was right.
You don't deserve Perrie.
Joe's breaths were shaky and uneven as he tried to muster whatever strength he had. "I shall try to." The hand on his shoulder grew hotter then, and it felt like the flames of a fire drawing closer. But it didn't burn. It warmed. And Joe wondered if it could heal.
He shook, almost uncontrollably as the gravity of his situation consumed him. He wanted to fight. He wanted to be free of this. He wanted to be with the people he loved when the dragons returned, as they inevitably would.
But they couldn't help Joe if he was already dead.
***
Perrie watched as her father barked an order for a carriage in a tone that she had never before heard in her life. Adam shouted aggressively, desperately, and Perrie could see the panic on her usually calm and all-knowing father.
The fact that he was afraid made her terrified. Perrie usually looked to her father for a safe harbour, a strong pillar on which to lean, and she could see that not even Adam knew if anything could be done.
"Papa, please let me come with you!" Perrie begged, already knowing the answer.
"I will be going alone," Adam said shortly. "You will wait here, and I will send word if there is any news."
"Perrie," her mother said tenderly, moments after Adam had disappeared out of the front door, and it slammed behind him. "Perrie, come and sit down. Your father will find a solution. I know he will."
Perrie shook her head, just as Cecily muttered, "Gross indecency? I never."
"Forgive me, Your Grace!" cried Ed, his voice and demeanour a shadow of the confidence and poise that he usually possessed. "I mean it. Cast me out. I will accept anything. I just needed help to spare my brother."
"Hush!" commanded Grace. "Let us take this conversation somewhere more private. As we know, this house has eyes." She ushered them all back towards the drawing room, waiting for Perrie, Ed, and Cecily to go inside before she shut the door behind them securely.
"Is Joe going to be executed for this?" Perrie stressed, before her question resulted in a sob ripping itself from Ed's chest. He stifled it by biting down on his fist.
Grace hushed again. "An innocent man will not be executed. Do not even put that thought in your mind," she said with determination."
"This wasn't meant to happen!" Ed emphasised, before his dark eyes settled on Perrie. "Joe didn't know any of it. Not really. My father did. He discovered it. He told me if I gave it up, gave up that part of my life, and pursued and married you, that he would forgive Joe, and that he would let Joe have his own life, choose his own wife, be happy.
"How could I refuse? How could I deny my brother the bare minimum of what he deserved?
"I agreed. I tried to keep up my end of the bargain. Joe had no part in this. I didn't realise how lost to you he already was, and he always had been. He was meant for you, Perrie! This was what I wanted for him! After everything, this was what should have been his! What have I done? Why did I take him there? Why did God curse me this way?"
Ed sank down onto the floor in a heap of panicked sobs, and it was Grace who immediately flocked to him. Cecily stood still, shocked at what she had just heard, while Perrie's own fear crippled her.
She felt her body numbing itself, as though it was subconsciously protecting herself from her own terror. All her mind could picture was Joe with a hangman's noose around his neck, and it was entirely unbearable.
Perrie's eyes fell to her hands, where she suddenly became aware that she was still holding Joe's watch. Why had he given her this? What was why Ed had possessed the watch, was it not? Why had he entrusted Ed to give this to her?
She opened the watch, not knowing what she expected to find, and when she did, she was met with the face of the clock, the hands ticking away towards midnight. She remembered Joe being so desperate to get this watch off of her when she had pinched it from him briefly. Was it just because it was a valuable little trinket?
"Turn the face over."
The instruction came from a fragile Ed, whose eyes were watching Perrie with deep sadness.
"He thought I didn't know he had it, but I did. I didn't know whose it was until I realised how he felt about you."
Perrie's brows furrowed as she flipped the watch face over to reveal a small insert in the back of Joe's watch. This would have been a space for a miniature portrait, but Joe kept no portrait there. Instead, he kept a small lock of dark hair.
And then she understood what Ed had been insinuating. Ed believed this hair to be Perrie's. He believed this to be an example of Joe's affection for her. Perrie hadn't meant to drop it, but the watch fell from her trembling hands, the face of the watch clicking back into place when it landed on the rug at her feet.
"That's my hair?" she gasped. "When ...?"
A vivid memory suddenly flashed before her eyes of being back in the schoolroom, of hearing the snip of a pair of scissors, and feeling the pull of her hair. Joe had cut her hair years ago to be spiteful, and the act most definitely had been at the time. But had he kept a section? Was this hers?
"I am going to beat him to death with this watch!" Perrie suddenly exclaimed. And she would, because he would live to return to this house so that she could kill him herself. And then her lower lip began trembling as she blubbered, "Why would he keep this all this time?"
"Because the poor boy is in love you, dear. Honestly, are you really the last to know?" Cecily huffed as she stepped forwards. "Now, what I am disappointed about is the gross indecency."
"Grandmamma!" cried Perrie, just as Grace exclaimed, "Cecily!"
"I'm sorry, Your Grace. Believe me, I know you must be disgusted –"
But Ed could not finish his apology before Cecily interrupted him.
"Oh, no, that's not what I meant," she said dismissively, collecting Perrie with an arm around her waist as she moved. "I meant that I am ordinarily so good at picking you gentlemen. I have an eye, an intuition, I suppose. I'm a little disappointed in myself that I missed you."
All three of them stared at Cecily in disbelief.
"I don't understand," Ed managed to say after a long moment of silence.
"Darling, gentlemen like you are as common as ladies wearing glass and claiming they're diamonds amongst our lot. What a man gets up to in his bedroom is his own business. Women of our rank learn to understand that."
"Grandmamma, now is hardly the time!" Perrie snivelled.
Cecily rubbed her back sympathetically. "I have faith in my son. There is not anything that he would not do for you. He is a far better parent than me in every way, and he will not fail you."
----
Cecily Beresford: Owner of the World's First Gaydar.
Don't get me wrong. Homophobia was rife during this time (as it still is disgustingly!!), it was a capital crime, and people remained in the closet for fear of their lives, but it was as common place as it is now, it just happened behind closed doors, and some people were indifferent to it. As Cecily said, what went on in the privacy of one's bedroom was their business.
Of course, the Beresfords have created a home where people are safe. I feel safe with them, which may sound weird, but I've been hanging out with them every Saturday since the middle of 2020. Ed is safe with them, too.
I just hope Adam can be the king he is and find a solution to this lil pickle that's worked its way into my PB&J sandwich.
In other news, I made the cover for the next book in this series today. My mind often drifts to the next one as I draw near to the conclusion of the book I'm currently working on.
I've been thinking a lot about Lily today. That's who is the heroine of the next book if you didn't know. My sweet Lilypad is about to start her own adventure. I'm so looking forward to fleshing her out and detailing what's been going on in her mind.
And her hero ... we love him. Be ready.
But I'm not letting go of my Perrie and Joe yet.
Vote and comment xxx