Page 14 of Once a Gentleman
Dowling laughed, a little too quickly. “Is that what we’re calling it these days? Your prerogative to keep him to yourself, but a generous host—”
“Not. Another. Word,” Turner ground out. “Get another drink. And get out of my sight.”
Dowling’s eyes narrowed, and a tense silence fell, despite the uninterrupted laughter and raucous voices of the rest of the company. Turner stared him down, unblinking, his posture rigid. Dowling broke first and spun on his heel with an oath muttered under his breath, shoving his way past two of the other guests and across the room.
Turner leaned in, face tight with concern. “Mr. Hewlett,” he said in a low, urgent voice. “You must understand that—”
“Believe me, Iunderstand,” Kit spat. “I understand very well that there are two types of guests present tonight, and Iunderstandwhich group I belong to. That was made blindingly clear to me a moment ago!”
Shock and horror chased each other across Turner’s face, and Kit felt a flash of furious, malicious satisfaction at having for once penetrated that stoic exterior.
“You are entirely wrong. I swear to you, my intention was not—”
Turner broke off abruptly as Mattson appeared in the drawing-room door, his livery askew and already brandy-stained, a bottle of wine in each hand. “Dinner is served, gentlemen!”
The company shouted in approval and made for the door all at once, too many and too quickly for Kit to go past or around them, a jostling, overwhelming mass of black coats and gleaming jewels and elbows and shoulders. But a side door led to the study from the back of the drawing room. Kit ducked past Turner and made for it, all but running.
He heard Turner call out to him, but he would not stop. He could not. He would go through the study, and up the stairs, and to the devil with his position, to the devil with everything. Kit’s hands shook as he grasped the doorknob, and they slipped a little as he tried to turn it.
It was not just the sweat on his palms. The study door was locked. Of course, for he himself had left it that way. Kit’s eyes stung, and he tugged again with futile force. He had left his key in his bedchamber; why should he have needed it at a dinner party?
And then another hand appeared beside his own, holding the key to the study. Kit tensed as Turner pressed in close behind him, chest just barely brushing his back, and slid the key in the lock. He exhaled in a rush as the knob yielded at last, and he slipped through the door the moment he could push it open, putting as much breathing room between him and Turner as he could.
The only light came from the open door behind him, and he stopped in the middle of the study before he tripped in his headlong rush and broke his neck. He had been hurrying away—for what reason, to seek another route of escape? There was nowhere to go, and nowhere to hide. Kit knew very well that he’d also locked the door that led to the hall when he finished his work for the day. Turner was at that moment locking the second door through which they’d come, and the thought of taking the key from him by force was laughable.
He was trapped in the study, and entirely at Turner’s mercy, until Turner chose to let him out.
