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As employers went, Mr. Bond was an odd one.The agency had warned Q as much before sending him to Waverly Grange. Indeed, it was information they’d offered even before sharing the rather startling amount of pay.“He is,” Mr. Mallory had said, tipping back officious in his chair, “a rather solitary creature.” So am I, Q thought, but he did not share it. Instead, he said: “Hmmm.”Mallory nodded. He took nearly everything most people said to him as assent for nearly always, it was. Private secretarial work was hard to come by at the moment, the market being what it was. Fortunes were down all across the capital, much less the country, and the sort of work that Q did, that he was damned good at, was luxury in the best of times. These, he knew well, were not those. So he had been taken aback when his landlady had pounded on his door at half-past seven, a scrawled note from Mr. Mallory’s office in hand: I have become aware of a situation for which you are most suitable. Speed is of the essence. Come at once. He’d stood beside the fire bleary-eyed, his tattered robe falling from his shoulders as he blinked rather stupidly at the words. Most suitable, he read again. Come at once.In the two years he had subscribed with Mallory’s agency, Q had never wanted for work. Part of that he put up towards Mallory’s interminable drive to make money; he took a fair-and-not-middling cut of any wages earned by those whom he hired out. But part of Q’s success, too, he knew came from his own abilities: his skill as a transcriber, his discretion, the speed and accuracy of his work. None of the half-dozen men for whom he had worked had ever had cause to complain--aside from those who’d foolishly asked him for things that lay far outside his prescribed duties. His declinations, though, however firm, were always delivered polite.This last month, then, of small to piddling jobs--a day or two in length, or at best, a week--had been the exception. And a poor one, too. Q could only hope that Mallory’s missive was a harbinger of a much longer term affair.But of course, the man had provided no details. Why should? Just a summons: come at once. And so he had, anticipation prickling behind his ears, and yet for some reason, the first thing Mallory wanted to discussed was his potential employer’s penchant for solitude. Odd, that. Indeed.“This Mr. Bond,” Mallory had gone on, “is a very private man. Lives out near the coast, in Kent, a good many miles from town. And rarely, by his own admission, takes in any visitors.”“Sir,” Q said as politely as he could manage, “I understand. What sort of work does he require?”Mallory frowned. He didn’t like to be interrupted, even when he wasn’t actually speaking. “Letters, I’m told. Some rather involved correspondence. And assistance sorting through the intricacies of his late wife’s estate.” He picked up a letter from his desk, squinted at it. “There’s quite a lot of money involved, so I’m told. It seems he’s rather let the task languish for years.”“Why?”“He’s been abroad, he says. Representing Her Majesty’s government in some capacity.”“I see,” Q said, though he very much did not. But he was undeniably intrigued; there was a dash of mystery about the whole thing that appealed to him, to his stultified mind, rather greatly. “And how long is the assignment?”The letter crashed back onto Mallory’s blotter. “At least three months, with the possibility of more. Mr. Bond himself seems uncertain.”“And the salary?”Mallory raised an eyebrow. “Twenty-five pounds a month.”Q blinked. He wasn’t sure that he’d heard right. “Twenty-five pounds? Each month?”“Plus room and plus board. I explained that was not to be deducted from your wages. He was quite clear on that point.”“Twenty-five?” Q said again. “For duties no more complicated than that?”“So he says.” Mallory reached across the snowfall of paper and plucked a cigar from its box, lit it. “Well?" he said. "Will you take it?”There was more to this matter, this Mr. Bond; Q was sure of it. And he was just as sure that Mallory, for all his billowing smoke, was aware of at the very least some. But Q was, he knew, a valuable asset to the man, and there was no earthly way he’d ken to send Q anywhere dangerous, any big, isolated estate from which he might not return. And the money was...well, extraordinary, enough to live on for years, if he stretched it, even after Mallory took his cut. How on earth could he say no?It was only later, when his baggage was stowed above his head and he was settled back into the unexpected warmth of a first-class carriage--ticket paid for by his new employers, of course--that Q thought to wonder why Mallory had thought him, among all the men on his books, as the most suitable for this Mr. Bond’s employ.Ah well, he’d thought with a sigh, allowing his eyes to drift as the train groaned its way out of the city, for twenty-five pounds a month, perhaps the reason, as it were, was irrelevant.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Waverly Grange was, as Mr. Mallory had suggested, quite a bit off the well-beaten path. The carriage that had awaited him at the station in Kent, manned by a friendly chap named Leiter, pounded more than two hours into the darkness--past farms and hovels, a few inns, large barns that loomed in the moonlight--before the first lights of Mr. Bond’s great house swam into view.
“There it is!” Mr. Leiter shouted down, tugging the horses from a gallop to an orderly trot. “Another ten minutes and you’ll be warm by the fire, sir. Don’t you worry.”
“I’m very well, thank you.”
“You’re not!” There was a burst of muffled laughter. “I can hear your teeth chattering from here.”
Well, Q thought, gathering his dignity up along with the snug woolen rugs with which he’d been provided, it was after midnight in the tail end of March. Not winter anymore, even out here, but neither could it be called fairly spring.
As they neared the house, the smell of the sea, long a hint in the air, grew stronger, salt mixed with a cold ocean wind. He peered out through the curtain, braving the cold to wonder at the lamps burning in the big, looming house: not a few on the ground floor, just enough to light his arrival. No, it seemed as if every window were blazing, a dozen open eyes staring at him, at the coach; a terrible waste of money, Q thought with a shiver, not to mention a hell of a sight.
“Leiter,” he called as the horses’ hooves met cobblestones and turned up a long, stately drive, “how many people live here? Besides our employer, I mean.”
He heard a soft thwack of the reigns, a murmured word to the horses. “Besides him, there’s nobody. Besides those of us who work for him, I mean.”
It was easier, somehow, having this conversation essentially blind. It made Q feel less like he was treading on unwelcome ground. “I understand his wife passed away.”
“She did. Nigh on five years ago now.”
“And they had no children?”
He heard Leiter draw in his breath, a sharp shock of a sound even over the team’s clatter. “No,” Leiter said. The sudden edge in his voice was unmistakable. “They did not. And that is one question, Mr. Q, that I’d advise you not to give voice to again. Not so long as you live here at the Grange.”
In the few short hours between his interview with Mr. Mallory and the departure of his train from Charing Cross, Q had had little chance to look into the name and fortunes of his new employer, this Mr. James Edward Bond. He’d snatched a cursory view of the social directory and found no notation for the man, though that in and of itself was not unusual; if he were not a peer, if he’d made his money abroad--or perhaps married into it, as Mallory’s comments seemed to suggest--then his absence could be explained away. The doyennes who maintained such listings were scrupulous about the maintenance of their class, Q had learned, sometimes to the point of myopia; as the city grew, as the world expanded, it grew easier to exclude the new in favor of the comfortable old. After a quick flip through the thing, then, he’d tossed the directory aside and reached for his traveling case. If only, he’d mused, yanking open his bureau, he’d known the maiden name of Mr. Bond’s wife.
But he did not and he hadn’t thought to ask Leiter until it was nearly too late, wind-whipped as he was by the twin suns of anticipation and a deep need for sleep, and now in his clumsiness, he’d somehow managed to blunder into that which was his new employer’s sore spot. Well, as least he’d touched his hand to Leiter’s stove and not that of Mr. Bond.
Q swallowed. “Thank you kindly, Mr. Leiter,” he managed. “I am obliged.”
In a moment, they had pulled up at the front of the house, the noise at a sudden rest.
“Well,” Leiter said, a bluster of cheer in his voice again, “here we are. Welcome to Waverly Grange.”
The door of the carriage was pulled open and a brusque arm reached for him, helped tender his travel-stiff legs down the step and onto solid ground.
“Mr. Q,” the man said gravely. “I am Tanner, Mr. Bond’s valet.”
“Ah,” Q said, squinting, the man’s solid face swimming in the bright, sudden light. “Pleased to meet you.”
A small bow. “And I you. May I show you to your room? Or perhaps you’d like some refreshment before retiring. You have had a long journey.”
Q’s stomach gave a hopeful rumble, one overshadowed by his wide, embarrassing yawn. “Ah, no, no. Forgive me,” he said, his cheeks ticking towards red. “I am rather tired.”
Tanner nodded and turned towards the house. “Very good. I’ll have something sent up.”
Q did not argue. It was far easier not to. Far easier to simply follow Tanner’s lead.
They walked up a low set of stairs, onto a portico, and then stepped through the doors of the house.
“My god,” Q said, exhaustion utterly defeating his manners, his eyes flying everywhere at once: from the carpeted stairs that lay ahead to the soft eggshell walls molded in gold to the marble floor beneath them that made every step echo, that made the soles of his shoes seem to sing.
Tanner tactfully ignored him. Leiter, just ahead of them on the stairs, did not.
“Wait until you see it in the daylight,” he said over his shoulder, Q’s cases--heavy, he’d thought them--swung like sacks of feathers in his hands. “It’s quite something then.”
“I--I’m sure,” Q stammered. Less than five minutes on and he’d already managed to goggle like a fool, like a bumpkin who’d never seen finery. At least God had been kind and let him do so outside of his employer’s earshot; surely, his colleagues, as it were, would not hold it against him.
Tanner swept a hand towards the stairs, where sleep (and perhaps a snack) beckoned. “Shall we?”
“Hang on.” A low voice from behind them. “Don’t be so quick to put him to bed, Tanner. I do prefer to greet those in my employ.”
Q’s heart turned to ice. It nay on stopped its thrum in his chest.
“Sir,” Tanner said with an incline of his head. “Forgive me. I thought you’d retired for the night.”
A chuckle. “Oh, I very much had. But sadly, I could not find sleep.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Q turned, ever so slowly, willing his face towards steady, towards some approximation of Tanner’s cool mask, and he’d nearly managed it, truly he had, before his eyes met those of Mr. James Bond.
The man wasn’t terribly tall, perhaps a tick or two shorter than Q himself. His hair was blond with fingerstreaks of silver; his short, neat beard the same. He was wearing a long, velvet dressing gown over trousers and soft-looking boots, but where it lay open at the collar, it was clear he hadn’t bothered with a shirt. And his eyes--oh, his eyes: they were blades, the bluest that Q had ever seen; on another man, they might have been cruel.
He looked, Q thought dimly, more like a pirate captain roused from counting his gold than a gentleman greeting a visitor, bare chest and broad shoulders and all.
Bond’s smile, when it came, was a sword slash, quick and sharp and, it seemed to Q, rather uncharacteristic. It looked as if his mouth was out of practice. “So you like my house, Mr. Q?”
Q reached for his damned dignity, finally found it. “It’s very fine, sir.”
“Isn’t it.” Bond stepped closer, peering at Q in the lamplight. “You’re very young, aren’t you?”
“Seven and twenty, sir.”
“Mmmm.” His eyes flicked up to find Q’s. “I told Mallory to send me his best and he sends you. How in blazes does that work? You’ve not been around long enough to be the best at anything, I should think.”
“You don’t take him at his word?”
Bond snorted. He smelled of whiskey. Of newspaper, tobacco. “His word, bah. He’s more interested in profit. Always has been.”
That got Q’s attention. “You know Mr. Mallory? He didn’t say.”
“Why should he have? It’s none of your damned business, surely.”
“Mr. Bond, I--”
Bond stepped away, a lion grown tired of sniffing its prey. “You’re here on an interim basis,” he said. “Two weeks. If you don’t measure up in that time, then I’ll strap you to the top of the carriage myself and send you straight back to Gareth, you hear me?”
Q felt a flare of anger. “I was told this was a three-month engagement.”
“I understand what you were told,” Mr. Bond said, each word carefully articulated, as if Q were a rather dim cocker spaniel “but no one told me I’d be taking on a child, so I’m well within my rights to change the terms.”
“I’m not a child, sir.”
Bond laughed. It was far from a pleasant sound. “Aren’t you? Goggling at my house like a foundling at a fair? I don’t care how many years you have, Mr. Q: one look at you and anyone can see it, how much growing up you still have to do.”
“But--”
“Nine o’clock,” Bond said abruptly. “Be in my study ready to work at nine in the morning. We’ll see how much skill you have then. Tanner.”
“Sir,” the valet said smoothly, as if his employer hadn’t dressed down Q right in front of him. “Mr. Q. This way.”
The bed was enormous, the room deliciously warm, the food laid out before the fire simple and good, but in Q’s head as he ate, as he washed, as he undressed, grew an uneasy sort of feeling, as if he’d taken a stroll a ship’s deck and somehow landed headfirst in the sea.
The three months that had been laid before him like a golden egg only an hour before had shrunk to two weeks, two weeks of proving himself to an unpleasant man who somehow knew the head of Q’s agency and who seemed to determined to prove Q incompetent.
He felt a rumble of pique, a sudden sense of steel in his spine. If there was one thing in the world he had faith in, one thing that had never failed him, it was his skill, his cleverness, his mind. If this Mr. Bond thought that a few minutes of half-clothed bluster--and really, what sort of gentleman met any new acquaintance in such a way? Especially a person he'd only just hired--would lead Q to question his abilities, the man was even more fool than he appeared.
Well, Q told himself fiercely as the clock struck two, as he climbed into bed and curled his toes towards the hot bricks, so I’m incompetent, am I? Well, we’ll see about that, Mr. Bond. Won’t we?
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The next morning, when he walked into Mr. Bond’s study at five minutes to nine--after knocking, of course--he was somewhat surprised to see the ruffian from the night before replaced by what look like a gentleman. His hair smoothed into shape, all of his clothing in place, Bond was the picture of order from his cravat to his boots. There was an empty teacup at his side and a dip pen in his hand. He looked like he’d been at it for hours.“Q,” he said, not looking up from his work. “You’re early.”“Am I?” For most of his previous employers, five minutes to the hour was considered on time.“You are.” The pen lifted from the paper, went back to the inkwell. “Wait outside, please.”Q flushed--was he damned to always do so in this man’s presence? “Sir, I can--”“Outside.” Bond’s voice was deceptively placid. “I won’t ask again.”And so, at four minutes to nine, Q found himself back in the corridor, standing awkwardly beside a closed door, his hands curled rather uncharacteristically into white-knuckled fists. He closed his eyes and breathed and flipped through the mental catalogue of the many other gentleman he’d worked for, of their various quirks and seemingly silly demands. Lord Haycomb and his insistence that Q use a quill, for example, no matter how much it slowed down his scribing; or Mr. Beecham of High Street, Esquire, who regarded a malformed letter or a wobbly comma as reason enough to toss an entire page of correspondence in the fire and insist that Q do it again. Indeed, he consoled himself, there in Mr. Bond’s silent, well-carpeted hall, even his favorite employer, a Mr. Post from Mayfair, had had his eccentricities; he’d always insisted, for instance, that his mind was clearer, their work more efficient, when Q divested himself of his coat and set about scribing in only his shirtsleeves. It was the way of rich men, was it not, to bend the world to their will? Even when the bit of the world to be bent was merely their clark.The clock struck nine. Q opened his eyes. When the last bell tolled, Mr. Bond called: “Come in.”Inside, all was as before, except now there was a chair beside Mr. Bond’s desk, its back to the window. A small scrivener’s table laden with paper, pen, and ink bottle pulled just so to its side.“Sit,” Bond said as Q approached. Again, he did not look up. “And do be quiet until I finish, please.”Q sat. The air was cold at his back; no colder, though, he thought sardonically, than that in the room itself. Outside, the sun was shining, fighting valiantly against the stark wind that rattled the panes. Inside, there were three lamps ablaze--again, he thought, too many; why was Bond so eager to burn his money?--and a fire that flickered amiably at the far end of the room. Tall shelves lined the wall opposite him, crammed just this side of too full with acres and acres of books and there was a low settee near the fire but otherwise, there were few signs of life; no knick-knacks or paintings, no novel tossed half-read on a chair, no signs of a dog, no woolen rug tucked around Mr. Bond’s legs. No, the study, for all its beauty, the fineness of its furnishings, had the air of a museum rather than a homeplace.“Now,” Mr. Bond said abruptly, drowning his pen in the ink bottle, “shall I tell you about your work? I’m sure you’ve wondered.”Q started. He wondered if that was the point. “I was told you required help with correspondence. And perhaps with”--here he hesitated, sensing the need for delicacy--”assistance in sorting through papers related to an estate.”Bond’s face swung towards his, that sharp gaze already drawn. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. You’re on trial, remember? There will be only correspondence for now.”Q was ready for him this time. This time, he didn’t flinch at the touch of the blade. “As you like, sir.”“Fine. I have three letters to dictate between now and elevenses. Do try and keep up.”Bond’s dictation was a hail of bullets, rapid fire. He pushed back from the desk and moved about the room, firing words in every direction. To Q it seemed he hardly paused for breath.It was a test, of course; that much was apparent. The nature of his letter--greetings sent to a colonel in India named Fletcher, an old commander, Q gathered--was neither urgent nor especially complex. They had not spoken in years; Bond was asking after him now, driven perhaps by guilt or the passage of time. Q couldn’t tell. Q wasn’t interested. Q’s mind was settling happily, finally, into the familiar earth of his job.“Have you got that?” Bond was standing by the fire, an unlit pipe in his fingers. “All of it?”“Yes.”Bond tapped the pipe into his palm and tossed the ash in the fire. “We’ll see. Read it back.”“Sir.” He felt vaguely insulted. He figured that was rather the point.“You heard me, man. Read it back.”Q blew gently at the ink of the the second page and drew up the first. “Colonel Fletcher,” he read, “Are you well?”It took him perhaps five minutes to read the thing out. Bond didn’t interrupt him. Simply struck a match and watched him like a hawk.“Have you ever taken a letter for a colonel before?” he said when Q was done.“Yes.”This seemed to please Bond. His mouth quirked around the stem of his pipe. “And have you ever heard such a letter take a tone like this one?”“How do you mean, sir?”“How would you describe this letter’s tone, Mr. Q? What assumptions would you make about the two men between whom it would pass?”Q was not certain where this was headed and yet he had the uncanny sense that Bond was deliberately leading him out onto thin ice. “That you are well acquainted, for one thing. That you may have served under him for another. That there is some fondness between you, perhaps, though that would be only a guess.”Bond regarded him for a moment. His face was clouded by smoke. “What would you say if I told you I’ve never met the man in my life?”“I would find that almost impossible to believe, sir.”A chuckle, the same one Q had heard at his back the night before. “Would you, now. Well. That doesn’t say much about your imagination, does it?”“You’d write in this way to strangers?”“And what way is that?”Q resisted the urge to shake the letter at him. “Fondly. Familiarly. As if you had a shared past.”That got Bond’s eyebrows up. “And what if I do? Is it any business of yours?”“No, but it seems quite peculiar. Don’t you think?”“Indeed it does.” Bond’s lips turned up. It was the closest Q had seen him come to a smile. “Are you always quite so impertinent with your employers, Mr. Q? No wonder you were in need of employ.”Q felt a stir of irritation. “Most don’t pepper me with questions, sir, or intimate that I do not know how to do my job. They hire me because they know that I can."“Tch. They just take you at face value, do they? Well, that’s their mistake. Don’t let it be yours, eh?”“What do you mean?”“If you learn nothing else from me during our brief acquaintance, Q, by god, let it be that.”Q’s head hurt. He ached for a cup of tea and a respite from those blue glacier eyes. “I don’t follow.”“Don’t take anything I say at face value. In my speech, in my correspondence: very little about me is as it seems. I've worked very hard to make that the case.” A flash of white teeth. “If you can understand that, then we’ll get along swimmingly. Until, that is, we don’t.”“Sir,” Q said, because it was easier than arguing. “I’ll endeavor to do my best.”“Very good. Draw a fresh sheet, please.” He glanced at the clock on the mantel. “We have two more letters and only just more than an hour. Let me know when you’re ready to begin.”It felt like a challenge. This whole morning had, actually, from the moment he’d been sent back to the hall like a misbehaving dog. Screw this man who wrote letters to strangers, or people he’d made up just to test Q’s mettle. And his rapidly thinning patience. Part of Q wanted to chuck the ink bottle at Bond. Part of him wanted very much to lay his head back and to scream.But part of him, too, gripped the pen a bit tighter. Set his jaw and sat up straight. He’d be damned if he’d let himself be chased off--as Bond seemed determined to do, for some reason-- on his very first day.The man wanted to annoy him, to shake him? To talk in riddles and then smirk when Q’s hackles went up? Very well. Bond could amuse himself as he liked; he was paying for the privilege. But Q, after all, was the the one getting paid. He could take this rich man’s ridiculous behavior, and more.He met Bond’s gaze, his face placid, each breath smooth and steady. “Thank you, Mr. Bond," he said. "I’m ready.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It was dark before he left the study, before Bond started banging some books about and chased him away.
“You can finish recopying those in the morning,” he said. “I’ll send them with Leiter to town to post.”
Q was in the middle of a sentence, only a few lines from the end of the last letter, one to addressed to a solicitor in Exeter. “Just a moment,” he said. “If you’ll give me just a moment, I’m very nearly--”
Then Bond was in front of him, arms crossed, the rough chisel of his body the very vision of stone. “You do have trouble with direction, don’t you?”
“It isn’t that.”
“Oh, it very much is.” The man’s hand shot out and snatched up Q’s wrist. “Leave it. Go and see about your dinner.”
It was like being held by a vise; there was no give in Bond’s grip, none at all. He seemed not to care that ink was oozing from the pen, sliding down Q’s fingers and dripping on to his own. No, he was much too involved with glaring, staring at Q as if he might make Q burn on the spot, and Q for his own part knew he was doing exactly the wrong thing; he wasn’t casting his eyes down, he wasn’t begging Bond’s apology--he was holding his own and glaring right back.
“You’ve made me ruin this page.”
“Have I?” The fingers on his wrist shifted, gripped him. “No. It’s your own stubbornness that’s done that. You’ll have to start again tomorrow, won’t you? At nine o'clock sharp.”
The thing was, Q reflected later, spooning at his soup in the hot lea of the kitchen, for all his bark, Bond hadn’t hurt him; to his surprise, there were no marks at all on his wrist. Nor had the man fired him, or even threatened to do so, no matter how insulting his tone or behavior. It was like being snapped at by a very large dog: chilling, to be sure, and a jolt to the senses but there was always the relief of the leash. Those jaws, however sharp, would only ever get so close.
Mrs. Moneypenny, the cook, swept his bowl from beneath his spoon and filled it up again, set it back. He hadn’t noticed it was empty. “Bread,” she said, definitive, as if it were an answer to a question. “You need some. Shall I toast it for you?”
“Yes, thanks.”
She smiled at him, sympathetic, and moved away from the table, her skirts swinging back towards the fire. “He was hard on you today, our Mr. Bond.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It’s his way. He’s not easy on anybody first time he meets them. Especially the people he pays.”
Despite himself, Q found his mouth lifting. “It’s not just me, then, that he hates?”
“Tch. He doesn’t hate you. You’d not be here still if he did.”
“Then why did he spend all day doing his best to make me feel wholly and utterly inadequate?”
She set a plate on the table, butter and toasted bread. “It’s his way.”
He tipped his head back and raised an eyebrow at her. “That’s rather too pat an answer, I think.”
Mrs. Moneypenny shrugged, her slim shoulders lifting beneath the wilted starch of her dress. “He’s been like that long as I’ve known him.”
“And how long is that?”
“Four years, thereabouts.”
“So you didn’t know his wife, then.”
She looked taken aback. For a moment, he thought she might cross herself. But it was only a flicker of unease, a brief wave that soon faded from her pretty face. “Ah, no,” she said. Did he imagine those words held a tremor? “Felix did. But we didn’t marry until after, him and me.”
“After what?”
“After she passed. And after Mr. Bond went back overseas.”
“I see.”
Mrs. Moneypenny laughed, but her eyes were still uneasy. “Not if you’re asking me questions like that, you don’t. I wouldn’t make it a habit.”
“Before I agree to that,” Q said, “let me ask you one more.”
“What’s that?”
“Who’s Felix?”
“Why,” she said. “The same who picked you up at the station. Felix Leiter.”
“But your name is--?”
She laughed again, a real one this time, and swept her hand through the air. He hadn’t realized quite how young she was; now he could see she was not much older than he. “My name is Eve, first and foremost,” she said. “The Moneypenny’s a leftover from my ne’er-do-well of a husband. He run off from me and from all semblance of good sense years and years back.”
He’d heard of such things, of course: marriages on all but paper. Official in the ways that mattered to those involved, if not in the eyes of the state. “So you’re Leiter’s in all but name, is that it?”
“Tch, no, Mr. Q.” Eve gave him a face. “It’s co-equal ownership between us, him and me. I’ve learned well enough that’s the way it should be. Don’t you think?”
Upstairs, in his bed, he lay shivering under the covers and watched the flames behind the grate dance. Turned Eve’s question--their whole conversation, really--over and again in his head.
He wondered if she knew more about the late Mrs. Bond than she was telling. Probably. Whatever Felix hadn’t told her, she had likely gathered herself; she seemed quite astute. And she had an air about her that invited confession. Perhaps Bond had told her himself. She was young and quite pretty. Even if she were sworn to Leiter, Bond was her employer; if he’d pursued her, kissed her behind a curtain, would she have pushed him away?
There were some men for whom Q had worked who had attempted such similar liberties. A member of Parliament from the West Country, an old, piggish man with dead fish for hands, had once corned him in a library, his wife and three grown children carrying on happily downstairs. Q was fleeter, though, and faster, and firm in his mind; he’d left without the money he’d earned but with his dignity and his virtue, such as it was, firmly and wholly intact.
But then, too, there had been Andrew--Mr. Post, that is, of a fine house in Mayfair, the man who’d like to see him in shirtsleeves. Andrew was 40 when they met, 40 and unhappily married for more than half his life and the way he’d looked at Q, like he was something beautiful, something worth savoring, had made him feel like more than himself, like he was too big for his body, like he was floating, the only thing that could hold him to the ground were Andrew’s slim, hungry hands and the drag of his hot, clever mouth.
He shifted beneath the covers. God, how long had it been since Andrew had touched him last? Since anyone had? It felt like a lifetime ago.
Andrew, who had never corned him, never forced him, who had waited until Q turned to him one rainy afternoon when they were drafting overdue bills and said something that sounded like
please
. He couldn’t remember what had actually come from his mouth, what Andrew had said back, what the hell he’d been thinking when he tangled his hand in his employer’s hair and pulled and gasped when the man kissed him back. What he remembered was the feeling, the heat of that moment, the strange, beautiful touch of Andrew’s mouth on his throat, on his thigh, on the anxious, greedy arch of his cock.
He reached for himself now, remembering, the memories pooling in his hips, in his ears.
“There, darling,” Andrew had murmured later, one night when the household was quiet, when he’d bent Q over the desk where he sat every day, scattering foolscap and dry pens, “are you ready for me?”
He’d been naked, Q’s employer, and Q had, too, nearly drunk from the full body press of their flesh. And Q had been so hard, so bloody eager; he’d already come once as they kissed, as Andrew opened his trousers and stroked him, his hand slick with sweet-smelling oil. The air had still smelled of his spend, of roses crushed with lilies, and Andrew’s fingers were lingering over his entrance, over the place he’d spent so much time petting and stretching, groaning into Q’s ear about how tight he was, how perfect, how good his dick was going to make Q finally feel.
Q groaned now, in a bed Mr. Bond owned. In his rooms in London, he had to be quiet; even in the small hours, there were always others--other tenants or his landlady--in the next room, or moving about. But perhaps, he thought with a laugh, that was one of the few virtues of the country, of the size of this great, empty house: there were few souls about who could possibly hear him, and most them slept miles away. And he’d had a very long day.
He teased his foreskin, rubbed a thumb of the crown, and closed his eyes to hear Andrew’s voice, to imagine he could feel that first, ragged push in.
It should have hurt. With most men, he knew now, it would have; it was new to him, that kind of lovemaking, and despite his arousal, his ardent desire, even the gentle intrusion of Andrew’s fingers coated in oil had made some part of him unbearably tense. But Andrew had murmured in his ear and laid kisses on his neck and taken his time, taken his sweet fucking time, and by the time he deemed Q ready, Q was stiff again, beautifully, unbearably. He’d begged in a whisper for Andrew to give him his cock.
Andrew’s voice as it was then, its limber tones roughened by desire. “Are you ready for me?”
“Yes,” Q had said then, said to himself now, his fist speeding up, his heels digging into the bed. “Yes.”
Andrew had held his hips and told Q to bite his lip and then there had been that pressure again, like his fingers but bigger, wider, and it was only when he was full that Q had remembered to draw breath again, that he had realized there were tears coming from his eyes as Andrew nuzzled the top of his spine and dug his nails into Q’s shaking hips.
“Please,” Q had said then, whispered now, the pressure in his chest almost too much to bear.
“Please what, my sweet?”
He remembered looking at the fire in Andrew’s study, remembered the blur of its flames behind the grate. “Take me,” he’d said. Each word was a punch. “I need you. I’m yours.”
Andrew had whined then, his teeth catching the back of Q’s neck, and then he was moving, fucking, driving his cock as deep inside Q as it would go. He’d felt owned, he’d felt beautiful, and for those long, lovely moments as Andrew rocked inside of his body, he’d forgotten how foolish it was, letting himself be taken; how messy it would surely be to mix his business, the way he made his modest living, with that kind of starbright pleasure, the kind that made it seem logical to bend his head and cock his hips and urge his employer, the man who paid him, to drive into him harder and deep.
“Oh, fuck,” Andrew had said. Oh, god, the sound of his flesh, the dampened slap of their sweat. “Fuck, darling. You’re going to make me come.”
Q twisted his grip, the memory of Andrew’s voice--so calm in court, so even, now shattered like ancient stained glass--ringing in his ears, in his cock, in the sudden, dull ache in his wrist. The wrist that Bond had held, the one he’d squeezed, the one that had seemed unscathed but now bloomed with a pain in the shape of Bond’s fingers, that rang with the gleam in his eyes. For they had gleamed, hadn’t they, when he’d held Q like that, when ink dripped over their skin, when Q had just sat there and glared. Hadn’t made any move to pull back.
And now, oh, now, it was Bond’s voice in his ear, dressed up in Andrew’s words, his affection: “Fuck, Q. God, you’re so sweet, aren’t you?”
Q cried out again, his body like lightning, and he heard Bond again. He didn’t want to. He did.
“Be still now,” Bond murmured, white teeth bent to Q’s ear, the scrape of his beard on Q’s neck. “Be still, my good boy, so I can give you my spunk. Fill you up.”
Q couldn’t breathe, he could not think, he could only throw his head back and come, the tension in hips uncurling like a tiger’s angry tail, lash after lash of hot, sticky come, and it felt so good that he didn’t fight them, those last sleepy thoughts of Andrew, of Bond, of Bond, curling like a bow against his back and letting go, letting him have it, coming with a dirty, satisfied grunt.
“Good boy.” Andrew had licked his neck then, all sated affection; Bond, in his mind, smirked and bit him instead. “What a good boy you are to let me have you like this, to make your pretty body such a mess.”
“Yes,” Q whispered as he had then, the soft darkness of sleep closing around him. “I am, aren’t I, sir? I am, indeed.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
In the morning, when the light returned and brought with it good sense and reason, Q was embarrassed by his mind’s unwelcome forays. Thoughts of Mr. Post were one thing; he was safely gone from Q’s life--he had a child now, a forgiving wife, and no doubt a new and willing secretary; he was a pleasant enough string to pull from Q’s past. But it was in Mr. Bond’s house he was now, in which he was called to work, and surely his employer had done nothing to warrant such affection, even in the safe close of Q’s mind. Indeed, had the man not gone out of his way to dole out contempt?He felt foolish, then, when he went down to breakfast, when he made polite conversation with Mrs. Moneypenny and, briefly, Tanner, who ducked into the kitchen only to down a long, strong cup of tea.“I understand you were early yesterday,” Tanner said, eyes fixed on his saucer.“By your master’s standards, yes.”That earned him a glance, the smallest hint of a smile. “He is very set in his ways.”“So I gathered.”“Well,” the butler said. He set his cup down very neatly. “Something tells me, Mr. Q, that you won’t make the same error again.”Q kept silent, thought: No, but something tells me he’ll find a new reason on which to hang his poor regard.And so his employer did, on that day and those that came after:“You’re using far too much ink. Shall I start deducting it from your paycheque?"“You do lollygag after taking your dinner, don’t you?”“Come on, man, look to it. Write faster. We’ve not got all day.”Hour after hour of this needling, childish and illogical. It made Q want to scream. Especially because he began to suspect that Mr. Bond was trying very hard to get a rise out of him, to see if he could get Q to lose his temper, to toss over the table, to throw his head back at last and damn well shout . Oh, he snapped on occasion, as he had that first day, taking Bond’s words and hurling them straight back, and never did he see his employer look quite so satisfied as when he did. Those blue eyes would snap and the man’s mouth would lift and he’d look, on the whole, pleased with himself and thoroughly entertained. It was infuriating.In time, though, in all the hours spilled in Bond’s study, Q began to bite harder on his tongue, to keep his eyes on his paper, on the scratch of his pen; to nod dutifully when it was demanded but otherwise ignore his employer’s mercurial behavior. He was there, after all, to get a job done.Never mind that the purpose of his employment grew only more opaque as time passed, as the first week of his trial--oh, and aptly named--marched into the second. Never had he met a man with a backlog of correspondence so long, nor a list of acquaintances quite so wide. There was a colonel beside a farmer in Scotland; a long series of ladies from the Mrs. down to those whom he suspected barely warranted a true Miss . There was a member of Parliament, someone who Q suspected was Mr. Bond’s bookmaker, then a burst of letters to Nice, Rome, and Madrid. It grew so that he heard Mr. Bond’s voice in his dreams--not in the guise of Andrew, as he had that first night, but as himself, lilting and tedious, saying again and again: Dear sir. Dear madam. Dear sir. He did not imagine the man again as his lover. By the time each day ended and he took safe haven again in his room, the very last creature on earth he wanted to think of as he tugged off his clothes and took refuge in the blankets was the man to whom he owed too many hours a day: yours sincerely, Mr. J. Bond.He began to wonder if he wanted this damnable job at all. Did he really want to spend the next three months thus, no matter how richly he’d be paid? Waverly Grange itself was pleasant enough: the house was lovely, the grounds rich with the promise of spring, and his colleagues, however sparse, were unfailingly kind. But there was undeniably a shadow about, a sense of something that no one seemed ready to name. In Q’s mind, there was quickly no question that whatever it was had something to do with Mr. Bond’s long-departed wife.He had been in the house for days before he noticed there were no pictures of her about. No portraits, no daguerreotypes, not even a crudely drawn sketch penned in the first ardent of love. Of course, he reasoned, such images might exist, might be locked away in Mr. Bond’s bedchamber, a great, corner suite, he gathered, that was located on the floor below that on which his own modest room sat. But something told him, an unspoken sense he’d long since come to trust, that this was not so; Mr. Bond did not strike him as a sentimental person. Nor even as a man who might have struck down all such images in a rage, a last, flailing attempt to destroy what death had already stolen, as Q’s own mother had done. Now, she regretted it, that awful burst of anger, of energy, and wept when she talked of Q’s father: how handsome he’d been, how dear to her, how much he’d loved them both. No, although the Bond he knew was quick to show his teeth, the care he showed his books, his old letters, his ancient-looking pipe told Q that the man was no bull in a China shop; he was careful with what he valued. It was what he did not value--Q’s time, his bloody sanity--with which he was so casually careless.Yes, he thought, one evening near the end of that first fortnight, perhaps he’d be better served by getting sacked. Poorer for it, true, and no doubt Mallory would be furious, but there would, he was sure, come along another job soon enough.And then, one interminable afternoon, on a Thursday, everything changed. Upended itself, really. It began with an unexpected invitation and surprising talk of a horse.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“The weather’s very fine today, don’t you think?”
“Hmm?” Q was not listening. Q was working, recopying, because Bond wanted the morning’s letter--to a Lord Lynd, of all the ridiculous-sounding people--in Leiter’s hand before luncheon. For that to happen, well, Bond could go on staring out windows all he liked; Q’s pen was the one that was scratching.
A tick of irritation. “I said, the weather’s very fine today, is it not?”
“Is it?” Q said absently, his mind caught on the correct spelling for
consequently
.
“It is.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bond turn towards him. “Q, would you care to accompany me on a ride?”
Only another sentence now; he had just the right amount of room on the page remaining. “A what?”
“A ride across the grounds. I think I shall take one.” A flash of movement as Bond stretched, arms leaning far above his head. “Since it looks as though winter has broken at last.”
Q signed Bond’s name with a flourish and penned his initials straight after. He was startled to see Bond hovering at the edge of the desk, eyebrows raised and waiting, it seemed for an answer. Q frowned. What was the question, again?
“Despite having been here almost two weeks, you’re never seen the property, have you?”
“No.”
“Well, wouldn’t you like to?”
“I don’t--?”
Bond brushed his protest aside. “Of course you would. And anyway, a bit of fresh air would do you some good. You’re white as a cuttlefish. And as healthy-looking as one, too.”
Q felt as thought he was gaping, and perhaps he was. It seemed a reasonable reaction. Why on earth would Bond think he cared about the grounds? It was virtually certain Bond was preparing to sack him, maybe as soon as the next day. The agreed-upon fortnight was almost up, after all, and his employer had not said so much as a word about how he’d judged Q’s worthiness; trully, as the end of the engagement approached, Q had begun to feel increasingly relieved. And now Bond wanted to play country squire? Or was this more about rubbing it in--showing Q the beauty of the place in which he would soon not be employed?
It was all rather confusing, really. And his hunger wasn’t helping; he’d been kicking himself for hours for having passed on Mrs. Moneypenny’s breakfast offerings. If ever a day had come to overlook his lifelong antipathy towards porridge, today had been that one.
“I’m very well, thank you,” Q said, stilted. “And I’m not so much pale as a creature through and through of the city. I’ve never quite understood the affection for constitutionals that feature mud and grass and that famous fresh air.”
Mr. Bond blinked. He looked taken aback. And then he did the most extraordinary thing:
He laughed.
He laughed like a great peal, one big, sudden note, and it changed his face, softened it, as if a crack had opened up in hard earth. And in such a guise, Q realized, Bond was not a bad-looking man; indeed, in the right light, under the right circumstances, he’d be striking, perhaps even drift towards handsome. A startling thought.
“Oh,” Bond was saying as Q shook off his reverie, “that does it, Q. We’re riding out after luncheon and that’s that. I’ll brook no more argument.”
Q’s stomach rumbled under his waistcoat, so alerted, and Q felt himself flush.
Bond chuckled again, his blue eyes catching the light. “That part appeals, does it? Very well.” He held out a hand. “Come on, you’ll take lunch with me then.”