Just a Little Heartache (The Brotherhood #5) - Merry Farmer Page 0,4

the lump that formed in his throat, hopping onto an omnibus that would take him to Park Lane. Those two words, so common in ending correspondence, were everything Niall had ever wanted to hear from Blake but had long ago given up on. Blake should be his, but he wasn’t. Their love should be true, but it had proven to be otherwise. And now here he was, standing at a crossroads as Blake begged for his help. Begged in the most painful, desperate language Niall could imagine.

He pondered it all as the omnibus rattled on. What was he supposed to do with a plea like that? Everything within him longed for Blake and had for more than a decade. The man was his other half. He’d known it from the moment he laid eyes on him. But Blake had hurt him. No, it was more than that. Blake had fatally wounded his heart. Niall hadn’t been the same since that horrible spring day. The sight of Blake’s regret-filled, hazel eyes, their long lashes, and the deadness of his look would haunt Niall until the day he died. Even his brief reunion with Blake almost a month ago now in Leeds had left Niall feeling raw and unsettled. Blake had been affable enough when Niall had taken Everett and Patrick to Leeds in an effort to thwart Blake’s brother, Montague, Lord Castleford, who had been part of a notorious child kidnapping ring. The time he and Blake had spent together had been short and brittle, but it had been the first time the two of them had laid eyes on each other in a decade, and it had ripped the wound open all over again.

The omnibus stopped at Hyde Park Corner, and Niall got off. He walked the rest of the way to the discreet door of The Chameleon Club lost in thought, barely nodding to the attendant at the front desk when he entered. He didn’t have any particular business at the club, but he always felt a level of comfort there. The Chameleon Club was a formal and discreet establishment for gentlemen like him, owned by The Brotherhood. It was a place where there was no judgement, and where help was often just a conversation away. Niall didn’t have any particular expectation of help, although, he thought to himself with a wry grin, he wouldn’t say no to some of the club’s excellent pastries and tea.

He was just helping himself to a scone in the dining room—which was quiet as usual on a Thursday morning, but not entirely abandoned—when none other than John Dandie approached him, a young, awkward-looking man with blond hair, like he spent his time out in country sunshine, trailing behind him.

“John, what are you doing here?” Niall asked, taking his scone to one of the empty tables in the vast room.

“Hadn’t you heard?” John asked. “I’ve moved back to London. I’m opening a new law office.”

“Not rejoining David and Lionel?” Niall asked, referring to John’s former law partner, David Wirth, and David’s new partner—in every sense of the word—Lionel Mercer.

John grinned. “That would have been awkward, considering all the water under the bridge between David and I. I’m setting up a new practice. This is Cameron Oberlin, the clerk I’ve just hired to manage the place.”

“How do you do?” Young Mr. Oberlin nodded uncomfortably, bobbing a quick bow and glancing around, as though ghosts would pop out of the walls at any moment.

“Cameron is a country lad,” John said with a friendly grin, thumping the young man’s arm. “He’s not used to the idea that there’s a safe place for our sort in the big, noisy city.”

“I see.” Niall shook the man’s hand before sitting. “You’ll get used to it soon enough.”

“But what about you?” John took a seat at the table with Niall, gesturing for Mr. Oberlin to do the same. “I saw you as you walked in. You looked as though you had the weight of the world on your shoulders. You still do.”

Niall sighed and reached for the teapot and a teacup from the center of the table, where the service was already set. Instinct told him to keep himself to himself, but he’d known John for ages. Known him at university, in fact. John knew Blake as well. In fact, John and David had had front row seats for the bliss and the heartache back then that drove Niall to distraction now. If ever there was someone Niall could confide in,