Page 16 of An Earl's Bet
Chapter 7
Earnest shouldn’t bethis pleased that Hugo hadn’t connected his story about his father sending him away, and Hugo sending him away that other time...His fear of being sent away, of being abandoned by people who should love him wasn’t something he wanted to discuss.Not when there were so many more interesting things to talk about, like Hugo’s dreadful father and how they would enact revenge.
“What are we going to do to change the entire system and free all those people?”
Hugo’s eyes widened.“I wish I knew.”
“I think you do know, but the answers are all hard.”
“I’m not afraid of hard work.But it took Mr Wilberforce twenty years to get slavery abolished in Britain.”
He knew that, but the weight of time was heavier when Hugo said it.Earnest was beginning to understand why Hugo was so overwhelmed by the task ahead of him.“I don’t think it’s as simple as work.You need to convince your peers to give up some of their power, and that will be hard.”
“Impossible.”
“No.Doing it tomorrow is impossible.The entire task is not impossible.It’s simply huge, unwieldy, and overwhelming.”
Hugo snorted.“Just those things?”
“Yes.But if anyone has the ability and training to fight a difficult fight and come out on top, it’s you.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You’ve already survived your father’s treatment of you.He tried to make you in a miserable version of himself, and he failed.Look at you.You are strong and you care about people you’ve never met.Your father couldn’t stop you from caring, and that’s why you’ll succeed here too.”
“I hope you are right.”
Earnest grinned.“I’m usually right, and when I’m wrong, it’s still fun.”
“None of this is going to be fun.”
“Are you certain about that?Upsetting Lords is quite fun.”It was why he wrote rude poetry about them with his pseudonym.
“What if it all goes wrong?”
Earnest stared carefully at Hugo, wondering what he meant.“Given the Sisyphean task, the chances are that plenty will go wrong, but that doesn’t make the fight any less worthy.”
Hugo threw his hands in the air.“You don’t understand.”
“Help me understand.”He wanted to help, although how much help he could give was debatable.Perhaps he could write a few touching poems...Oh.He had many contacts among the press; he wasn’t completely useless.He could write things and have them published.He might be able to sway people with poignant words.
“If I don’t follow the rules, bad things will happen.”
Earnest peered at Hugo.“Says who?”
“Me, my life, everything.”
He reached out and held Hugo’s hands.“Let me guess ...your father told you to follow the rules or he’d—”
“He used to apologise when he was beating me, saying that if I’d just been better, if I’d followed the rules, then he wouldn’t have to do that to me.”