Page 32 of A Shore Thing

“These letters.” The cold in Muriel’s chest was spreading.

“It’s blackmail. What’s ravaging me.” He looked away.

They were alone in the garden. Even so, Muriel felt a horrible, creeping sensation, as though the hedges were filled with staring eyes.

Blackmail. How vile. How violating.

“I pay,” said James. “And for my coin, I receive back my letters, one at a time. Whenever I think the ordeal is finally over, my blackmailer sends his boy round again.” His short laugh was bitter. “I didn’t realize how many bloody letters I wrote.”

“Your blackmailer.” Muriel sprang up. “The monster!” She paced a small, frantic circle. “Who could it be?”

“I don’t know.” James watched her patiently. He must have traveled already through every possible emotion.

She controlled herself. “The letters. Do they reveal…?”

“That they were part of an exchange between two chaps affectionately buggering each other?” He lifted a shoulder. “They give the distinct impression.”

Muriel’s knees were shaky. It wasn’t thirty years ago a man could be hanged for buggery. Even now the punishment could extend to penal servitude for life. But those convictions required proof the act had taken place.

“If they were published,” continued James, “my name would be dragged, of course. Public scandal. Disgrace. Disinheritance. You know my father. And depending on the dispensation of my blackmailer, and the moral purity crusaders, I might even stand trial.”

“For letters alone?”

“You were somewhere in the Indian Ocean when Parliament passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act. Gross indecency between men was made a misdemeanor carrying a sentence of up to two years.”

“Gross indecency,” echoed Muriel. “That’s…vague.”

“Deliberately so. It’s a catchall. Extortionists are now proliferating more quickly than pimps.”

She sank heavily into the chair.

“This is why I didn’t tell you.” James’s expression was difficult to read. “Your worry has increased and mine exists in the same measure.”

Muriel’s helplessness besieged her—a dull, heavy feeling made worse by the acid sting of the injustice. She held onto her elbows tightly.

“No,” she attempted. “I am more worried, and you are, therefore, less worried. It’s the rule.”

“A rule that depends on there being a fixed amount of worry. But worry isn’t six apples, where you take four, so I have two.”

“We are sharing the worry.” She spoke with firmness, rising and crossing to the chaise. “That’s what’s important. Move over.”

As soon as she settled beside James, he draped an arm around her, and she burrowed into his shoulder. It was a surprisingly comfortable position. James rested his chin on her head, and his breathing grew slower and more even.

“It wouldn’t be difficult to discover Gilles’s address,” she said after a time.

“To what end?” James’s voice was low. “He’s not in danger. And nothing he could tell me would change the situation. He’d suffer agonies of guilt, and I prefer to think of him happy, in Provence, in a villa surrounded by…what grows in France?”

“Rosemary,” she offered. “Lavender. Apricot and almond trees. Sunflowers.”

“God, yes. Marvelous. Why cast a pall on all of that?”

“He might not see it that way.”

“I see it that way.” He said it in a tone that brooked no objections.

“All right.” She lifted her head, scooting back to face him. She squared her shoulders. “What are we going to do?”

He returned her look, contemplative, then gave himself a small shake.