“My ex-lover offered you a large sum to leave me and you turned it down. If you assume that I, on the other hand, would choose money over you, I’m going to be insulted.”

“Me telling off some stuck-up lord and you getting disowned aren’t the same,” Rory said, although he wanted to kiss Arthur for that. “And what about the pomander? It’s not gonna destroy itself if we run off upstate, Ace.”

Arthur sighed. “You could let a man dream.”

Rory smiled softly. “You dream of me living with you?”

“Stop it,” Arthur warned, his legs tightening to trap Rory in the best way. “We’ve had this conversation. You being sweet leads nowhere good; it just wraps me further around your pinky.”

Rory put his hands on Arthur’s thighs. “What else do you dream about?”

“Don’t you dare,” Arthur said. “Because you can Fifth Avenue prince me all you like, but I am not too good for this bed and I’ll gladly throw you down on it. I’ll have you right there on the floor.”

“We’re not messing around in my boarding house when you got the nicest bed in Manhattan,” Rory told him, but his heartbeat had kicked up.

“Try me,” Arthur said, in a tone of voice that sent Rory’s heart up another notch.

Rory deliberately slid his hands up an inch.

“Now you’re just asking for it,” Arthur said, and he did push Rory down to the floor.

They took the New York Central Line to Albany in the morning, and then west to Syracuse. Rory hadn’t slept much, but he didn’t sleep on the train either, anxiety making his chest hurt. The only thing that made it better was Arthur, across from him in the train car, looking like a movie star in a three-piece navy suit and Homburg hat.

Rory would’ve been having the time of his life, riding in a nice train through the forested mountains of New York with a man like Arthur, if he could’ve forgotten why they were making the trip.

It was evening by the time they disembarked in Syracuse. Arthur had already arranged for rooms and a car for the morning, and they took a cab to the hotel.

Their cab passed a block of stores and restaurants with no English to be seen. “I didn’t realize there were so many Italians here,” said Rory.

Arthur shot him a puzzled look across the back seat. “You lived at the church for three years. You never came to town?”

“We never got to leave the grounds,” Rory admitted. “There wasn’t enough money to take the orphans on trips. Most of us were just glad to have food.”

Arthur’s hands balled into fists in his lap.