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He had the grace to look surprised this time. He shook his head. ‘Then you’d be in the minority.’

‘Harry doesn’t either. He simply wanted to protect me.’

Matthew gave a sound of scorn, turning away towards the fireplace.

‘Matthew, look at me.’

Reluctantly, he turned back to face her.

‘Consider the way you feel about James and then imagine that I’ve spent the last few years being denied that affection. And then fate delivered me Henry Blakeney. He didn’t come looking for me and I didn’t go out searching for love. It just happened . . . and like you, I can’t have it – I just have to live with the regret of knowing what love feels like but never being allowed to enjoy it. At least you and James have had a lot of time together.’

‘Always stolen. Always clandestine. Always behind closed doors. Always on edge. Never allowed to be seen together too often. You heard my father. He thinks I’m one of nature’s mistakes. He’s looked into treatments. One of them, my darling Alex – forgive me for repeating it, but you surely must share this horror – is the surgical transplant of another man’s testicles after my own healthy pair have been removed.’ He laughed, almost girlishly – it had a hysterical quality to it that she’d never heard before. ‘He believes a dead man’s testicles can make me normal.’ Matthew began to cry. ‘In the beginning he thought he could beat it out of me and when that didn’t work he thought separating me from James could cure me. It has no cure. Believe me, if it did, I’d swallow the potion tomorrow.’

‘I mentioned meeting James but how could your father know conclusively you were together again?’

‘He couldn’t know unless we were seen. No doubt your lover took his revenge in the worst possible way. He did see James at the Yorkshire Club and James was convinced he saw someone standing outside where he lives. It was only a glimpse but he told me in Harrogate that he thought it was the same man he’d served that evening. I now realise that was your darling Harry.’

Alex blinked with consternation; Harry deliberately causing trouble for Matthew was a notion that hadn’t dawned upon her. ‘You’re suggesting Harry is behind the trouble?’

He sniffed and rubbed away tears. ‘Oh, come on, darling. Don’t be dim. He’s obviously spilled everything that his clever mind has cunningly added up and he has kindly shared his arithmetic with our fathers. Your lover threatened James tonight at the club when he met with Charles and then he left moments after I arrived. Now my father turns up unannounced just as Helpful Harry is explaining to you that your husband is a sodomite.’

‘You say Harry was with my father this evening?’

‘I saw him, talking earnestly with Charles, before he noticed me and immediately left, presumably to come to you. One clever soldier – no wonder he survived.’

Alex was suddenly concerned, suspicious even, that Harry hadn’t mentioned going to the club to see her father. She couldn’t imagine Harry being vengeful but the truth was she really didn’t know him well. ‘The fact is it’s out, Matthew. Now we have to decide what to do next.’

‘You don’t understand, do you?’

She looked at him with confusion.

‘We don’t “decide” anything. My father has already taken action.’ He sounded angry but his voice broke on the last words and she was instantly horrified to see Matthew’s eyes well and tears spill properly.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The police are involved.’

‘What?’

Matthew drew a trembling hand across his eyes, rubbing them as she waited.

‘Matthew! What is happening?’

‘I’m probably going to prison, Alex.’ He sounded like a lost child suddenly. ‘They hang people like me.’

‘Your father wouldn’t do —’

‘One last chance. That’s what he gave me when I asked him to let me come to York. When he learned about you, I . . . I don’t think I’ve ever heard my father happier. Me not getting into the army was just another disappointment in a line of crushing disappointments. And in this moment of honesty, Alex, I’ll tell you that I didn’t volunteer and I desperately did not want to go to the Front. Am I a coward? Yes! But not for the reasons you’d think, not because I was afraid of German bullets or even death. No, darling, I was terrified of being discovered as different . . . as being a “queer” as they like to call my kind now. Can you imagine what the army would have done to men like me?’

She bit her lip, recalling Harry’s warning. ‘I’ll talk to Chetwin.’

‘It won’t work. Oh, he loves you, that’s for sure. You are the one aspect of my life I did get right, the single glittering success he might attribute to me . . . and now I’ve brought shame to you, your family, my family, our business. You know that’s what terrifies him the most, don’t you? He can’t tolerate the thought of other men choosing not to do business with him because his son’s a whoopsie.’

‘I don’t believe that. And I don’t believe he’ll call in the authorities.’

‘Believe it, Alex. He doesn’t mean to be a bigot but he can’t see that he’s to blame. He made me. Between Mother and him they created this monster,’ he said, poking his chest accusingly. ‘You don’t choose to be a man who loves men, Alex . . . you can’t choose whom you love. You can only choose whom you don’t love . . . and yes, you can choose to live unhappily, pretending to be someone you aren’t, pretending to adore someone you don’t for any number of reasons, from their status, their money, to even how they look . . .’

‘Or because they provide you a shield . . . give you credibility.’