As low key as the search had been, it had gone on long enough that the guards had become frantic and the Captain of the Guard had been notified. Due to the sensitivity of the matter, she\'d kept a cool head but on a personal level she was just as worried as everyone else and was on the scene almost from the beginning.
Hew\'s eyes haunted her the most. She\'d noticed something satisfied - even smug - glinting in them ever since she\'d returned, but she\'d never had cause to question it. Until now, when it was too late, of course. He\'d been up to something, sneaking off to see someone, this whole time and he\'d been getting away with it, too, because he was so responsible, level-headed and trusted.
She prayed to any God that would listen (fervently and constantly, inside her own head) that he hadn\'t done something stupid to betray that trust.
Of course, by the time they\'d narrowed Hew\'s whereabouts down to
this particular building, her hope had dwindled to something half-hearted. Albert Phinneus was known to the establishment as a shifty criminal who\'d dragged himself out of the gutter (without losing any of the filth he\'d rolled in) to start running a group of chimney sweeps that paid homeage to respectability but who they fully believed were just criminals in training to this thieving mastermind. They\'d just never
caught him at it and the children gathered tightly about him in a bunch so tight-lipped and impenetrable that they\'d never been able to harvest anything either.
Wilson fervently hoped that it wasn\'t the boss Hew was here to see, but merely one of the scruffs beneath him. She knew the prince well enough to understand that he might find adventure in exploring a world so foreign to his own but she was unable to predict what form that adventure would have taken... and so hope was
all she had.
Quietly, the group of guards picked the lock and snuck into Phinneus\' house, creeping their way in a tight-knit group of five from room to room, their lanterns hooded until they were ready to flood each area with light. The guards would find the place curiously empty on the lower floors, however, with only a few inhabitants between them and their goal (all of which they managed to subdue with brute force or by not waking them).
With every step upward, Wilson\'s gut tensed and her heart sank lower.
~*~
Phinn had encouraged Hew to sit upon him to find and direct his pleasure better, tonight. Now that the boy was collapsed upon him and the two of them were heaving in as much air as they could amidst kisses fading in passion and urgency and roving hands that were too eager to be still, he was very glad of the idea. As he\'d known it would, every experience together only improved their efficiency.
He was even considering letting Hew inside him, which was not something he did willingly, not since the privilege had been abused so grandly when he was a child. Funny, how things changed when the reward at the end was so much greater.
"Mmm, even better than last time," he murmured approvingly, swiping a rough tongue up the side of Hew\'s throat as he hugged the boy to his chest. He giggled then, amused by just how quickly they\'d fallen upon each other as soon as the prince had walked through the door, all his worry that there might be awkwardness after his revelation the last time fading instantly. He wriggled beneath his prized lover, finding the room almost uncomfortably hot due to the large fire (the only light in the room) and the sweat they\'d worked up together.
