“Yes, it is.”
“I have found a position,” Morley blurted, and Peter’s own steps faltered for a moment.
“That’s wonderful.” The words sounded hollow even to his own ears. “I am… very happy for you.”
“Thank you.” Morley looked ahead, gaze focused on the small rise as they approached it.
“May I ask where it is?”
“Bath. I am to be a… private secretary.”
Peter nodded. “I wish you all the best, of course.”
“Thank you.”
This was the most stilted conversation they had had since Morley’s arrival.
They reached the tree and sat down in the shade of it, leaning their backs against the trunk. The wolds spread out before them, stretching to the horizon in a series of gentle hills and valleys dotted with sheep and rolls of hay. In the distance, the harvest was progressing, crews of men working hard to bring in the rest of the crops.
“Will you stay for the harvest festival at Michaelmas?”
Morley was still not looking at him, instead gazing out across the countryside, knees drawn to his chest with his arms wrapped around them. “I cannot. They are expecting me in Bath as soon as may be.”
“I see.” There was something very peculiar at hand, but Peter was unable to decide what it was. “And what of your otters?”
Morley drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and looked at Peter at last. His fine eyes brimmed with tears, and once againPeter was irresistibly reminded of the night sky. He felt a strange urge to reach out and embrace Morley to comfort him.
“I must ask… I need to ask… could you keep them?”
“Certainly,” Peter said slowly. “If you wish it, of course.”
Morley looked away again. “I donotwish it,” he said harshly. “I wish I could keep them, and stay here. But I cannot.”
“If you are qualified to do secretarial work, I could ask my brother the duke if he has space for you. That would allow you to stay, though of course you would move up to the manor.” The more Peter thought of this solution, the more it pleased him. “Paul is very much a lover of animals and would likely be fascinated to learn all about your otters when he is in residence.”
Morley laughed, a surprisingly mordant sound.
“I appreciate your courtesy, Lord Peter,” he said formally. “I very much do. But it’s best for both of us for me to leave.”
He turned then, to look straight at Peter, and a little shock went between them like lightning. Like nothing Peter had ever experienced, and certainly not with another man. After a long moment, Morley finally turned away.
“I must return to the house and begin packing. But I wanted to let you know as soon as I was ready.”
“Thank you,” Peter said. His emotions roiled as he tried to quantify this new feeling. Perhaps it was… was for the best for Morley to leave, but the way his stomach lurched at the thought put the lie to it.
Morley hesitated for one more moment, then got to his feet. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” Peter said, even as every instinct in him urged him to stop Morley, to argue, to find another way. But he could not see one. Not that, and still be wholeheartedly dedicated to the Church.
As he watched Morley walk away, Peter was suddenly struck by the way he moved. He had never seen Morley walk before, not for so long a distance.
There was something quite… feminine about Morley’s gait. And the way he gestured. And laughed. And spoke. Peter had at first put it down to Morley being barely out of adolescence, but he had never reconsidered once he realized Morley was older than he had first thought.
He thought of what Mrs. Clarke had said the previous evening. Something she had sensed about Morley, but found too fantastical to speak aloud until she thought it over.
What if Morley was not a man at all?
Peter’s head began to spin. If Morley was really a woman, that would be evenmoredisastrous. They had been living together under one roof for weeks now, completely unchaperoned. The scandal would be ruinous for the entire family if word got out, and his mother would have fodder for her angry letters for the next twenty years.