Dear Future Husband

36. I Cannot Stay Here Any Longer

12 June 1892

"What in thunder is this?" Edgar demanded as Maximilian hunched over another set of coded letters in the library. His heart seized up when he saw what the older man was holding. "Who have you been writing to?"

"A friend," he said coolly even though his heart pumped fiercely in his chest, unable to be contained by his ribs, ready to fly out and expose his lies and double life.

"And is this friend a contact in Scotland Yard?" demanded Edgar, his cheeks flushing. "Or is he an agent with Pinkerton? Because you have written to them all of our locations, our smuggling ships, our dates, and far too many valuable pieces of information for me to believe that your friend is not a spy. Or that you are not a traitor."

"What choice did I have?" he said quietly. "You roped me into working with you when I did not want to. What did you expect of me, to lie down and take it like a beaten dog?"

There was a time when he might have done so. But it was not the case anymore, not after everything that he had gone through.

"Do you know why you are not dead yet?" Edgar said, his voice low, deadly. "Do you wish to know why anyone else I would have killed for disobedience, yet you, you I kept alive?"

"What is so special about me? Other than your general dislike and venomous hatred for me?" Max demanded. "Did I commit a great and terrible sin against you in your past life, and now you wish to keep me around to torment me for as long as possible?"

Edgar scoffed. "As much as I would love for that to be the case, I'm afraid not. Your father is a very powerful man, Maximilian."

"My father is dead," he said, but even as he spoke the words, with all the years of history that they signified, he realized they might as well have been a lie. How could he know if his father was dead? His parents had died when he was so young... He had never quite been sure if they really loved him... Who was to say? He had been too poor for there to be a record of his birth and he could not recall ever being christened or having any record of a christening at his local parish. Sure, that would have happened when he was an infant, but his parents had never brought him to church, that much he could remember. In fact, they had kept him oddly sheltered from the world... "He died when I was very young."

"Your parents are not who you think they are." Edgar raked a hand through his dark, thinning hair. "If they were, you surely would not have befallen so many misfortunes as you have. You would have been securely adopted many years ago, perhaps, to a kindly family who could take good care of you."

"Who am I?" he asked, wanting to shake Edgar by the collar and wring the life from his neck unless he spoke the promised answers.

"But all the prospective parents, and that Mistress Masterson at the orphanage, knew of your true heritage, you see. They knew of your parentage. How could they bring the wrath of your father down upon their doorsteps if they adopted you? They could not risk it, and thus, they refused," Edgar narrated, his hands gesticulating as though spinning a ghost story about phantoms and spectres rather than the story of Maximilian's life. Or at least, a side of his life that he had hitherto known nothing about. "Many a time you could have been placed in a loving home, with respectable parents. Alas, your father had kept you in hiding for so many years, until now. He had been frightened that his enemies would find you, and so he squirrelled you away. So securely that even you never knew your true identity, and I suppose those greedy nuns at the orphanage took your possessions, everything that would have marked your birthright. But you did not matter enough, I suppose, or they were too careless, because they allowed you to slip free from their hands, even for five thousand pounds."

The words, though familiar, though English, though perfectly coherent, swam through his mind in a muddle, making absolutely no sense.

"How fortunate it was, then, that I found you and I convinced my soft-hearted cousin to take you in." Edgar picked up his snuffbox from the table, the silver surface shining in the moonlight. "I placed you where you were meant to be, Maximilian. I had you under my watchful eye, and I reported news of you to your father."

Maximilian sat silently, attempting to soak in every statement, trying desperately to discern whether they were lies or truths.

"But alas, I will admit that my gambling debts grew quite large, and the retainer your father paid me was quite insufficient. I did sell you, but the captain was a friend and associate of your father's also." The more Edgar spoke, the more Maximilian wondered who his father could possibly be, as well-connected as he seemed. A peer, one listed in Debrett's? A corrupt politician? A powerful criminal? "I grew desperate, I will confess. And reckless. I allowed you to slip from my fingers! But then, how lucky I was, truly struck by God's providence if I were to believe in Him. I heard news of you from your friend's sister-in-law... No, not her, her twin, it would be. The one who ran off with a foreigner, or a gweilo as they would call him there. She told me where you were, in exchange for transport to the United Kingdom, and I suppose the two of them are living happily ever after in the Scottish countryside. And thus, the rest is history."

"If that is all true..." His voice shook and he forced it to remain steady. "If all of this is true, then why have I not met my father?"

Edgar shrugged. "He wished to prepare you for your eighteenth birthday, I suppose. That was when the two of you were scheduled to meet."

"What danger was he in that he had to go to the trouble of placing me with another family? If he was so wealthy, so powerful, why could he not have changed these destitute circumstances that I was in?" Maximilian asked. Yet in his heart, he knew the answer. It was God who had brought him thus far, not the workings of a father he had never met. A father who, for all intents and purposes, had never cared for him. "Who is he?"

"You are nearly eighteen, now, Max, give it some time," Edgar suggested. "Two weeks and you can find out. I've already spoken too much."

"Two weeks? I cannot stay here any longer," said Maximilian, his voice hollow, brittle, broken. He snatched up a stack of post from the library table, neatly tied together with twine, and placed his hat on his head. "I need to leave. I must."

Edgar would normally not have stopped him, in fact being more than happy to show him out if Maximilian was going to be running an errand for him. "You are not allowed to leave!"

"Stop me, then," he shouted, pulling the pistol from inside his coat, knowing that in the past years, he had managed to be taller and stronger than the other man. Before he could stop and pose the question, of whether this was how a man of God would behave, he was aiming the pistol at Edgar's head. He was shaking with fury, with betrayal, with bitterness that coursed through his veins. "How would you like to prevent my departure?"

Edgar shook his head, for once recognizing that he had been overpowered. "In time, you will see that what I did was the best for you. All I did was allow you to step into your true role, the one you were made for–"

"This is not what God made me for!" he cried. "God did not fashion me to commit crimes and go around stealing things and smuggling cargo into the country. Those are not things that would be in His plans."

He sighed. "And here I thought I might have beat the religion out of you, boy. All this superstitious nonsense only holds men back from what they might be, yet they still spout it and shove it into young boys' minds. Never mind. Go off and cry, then, or whatever it is. Only know that at the end of the day, you will remain who you are."

A child of God, he wanted to say. That is what I am. Who I am. He said none of it, knowing it would fall on deaf ears. "Goodbye, Edgar." He kept his finger on the trigger of the pistol. Then he walked out and slammed the door shut.