A Fiery Dalliance

XXXII

"Love conquers all," Aphrodite promised. "Look at Helen and Paris. Did they let anything come between them?"
"Didn't they start the Trojan War and get thousands of people killed?"
"Pfft. That's not the point. Follow your heart." Rick Riordan, The Titan's Curse

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XXXII.              

Joe was in a state of shock as he stared up at his father. John Parish was utterly furious, and yet all Joe could think about was the very fact that Perrie was right then hiding mere inches from his father's boots underneath his bed.

He panicked at the thought of Perrie being discovered, and at the ramifications for her reputation. Joe's father was in such a state of anger that he would not have put it past John to shout out Perrie's supposed disgrace from the rooftops.

"Are you deaf? I told you to get up!" John snarled as he roughly pulled back Joe's bed linen.

Joe didn't respond facetiously, as he could have responded that he was, in fact, deaf. Perrie, however, did seem to want to respond, and as Joe swung his legs out of bed, he spotted Perrie's hand extend out from underneath the bed to reach for one of John's ankles.

Joe's heart stopped as he stepped down onto Perrie's hand. He did not put his weight upon it, but just held her hand still so that she did not do something impulsively. Underneath his foot, he could feel her hand struggled to get free, but Joe held her firmly there.

He needed to get his father out of his bedroom so that Perrie could leave without being spotted. He had barely comprehended what it was that his father had wanted him to do and where he had intended they go at this time of night.

"I have had enough of the both of you," John continued angrily before he stepped away from Joe's bed. The moment he was out of Perrie's reach, Joe released her hand, and it did slither back underneath the bed. "After everything I have done for you, God has yet cursed me with ungrateful sons. Your brother is a bugger, and you are a failure."

Joe, again, could barely hear his father. He kept one eye on his bed and watched for Perrie's launch at John. But even if he could not fully concentrate on his father's vitriol, Joe couldn't stand to listen to their father demonise Ed.

Ed had always possessed some virtue in their father's eyes. After all, their mother had been alive when birthing him. John Parish had never been a nurturing father to Ed, but there had been pride there in the fact that Ed was his heir, and that Ed was capable of making something of himself, and that included making a good marriage.

"Don't speak of my brother in that way," Joe sneered.

John's head snapped around and his steely gaze narrowed in the dim light of the bedroom. "Do you know of Edmund's disgrace?"

Joe was acutely aware that Perrie now knew of Ed's secret, but he knew that she would never betray it. The same could not be said for their father. He had not known if Joe was privy to the truth, and yet he had revealed it.

"My brother is not a disgrace," Joe said defensively. He felt the conviction suddenly and very deeply.

John laughed sarcastically. "You are a fool if you believe that. I don't think he believes that he is a disgrace or else he would have agreed to give up his sodomite excuse for a bedfellow when I demanded it of him."

What had made Ed give up the man he had known in Cambridge? David. If Ed had refused their father, then what had been the cause?

John answered that question in his next breath. "I threatened to turn him in. I should still turn him in. But he refused to give it up." He shook his head with disgust. "But there is one thing I can count on you for, boy. Your brother would give it up for you."