Page 16 of Once a Gentleman
And being a secretary, while a fall from his previous fortune and station that would have shocked him to contemplate only a few years before, when he studied and made merry at Oxford without a care in the world, was still better than being a whore.
It would behoove Kit to remember his place in the world, and be grateful that he had not fallen even further.
Andrew stopped involuntarily as he reached Hewlett’s bedchamber door. No light shone underneath, though that would be hard enough to see given the light from the candle Andrew carried. The urge to knock, even if the only result would be Hewlett’s anger, nearly overwhelmed him. Dinner, with its gallons of wine, had taken nearly two hours, and the party had adjourned to the drawing room after, to drink God only knew how many bottles of brandy and partake of cards and…other amusements.
Andrew had resisted the other amusements, although one of the whores had been eager enough to split his attentions between his own patron and Andrew. The memory of Hewlett’s white, furious face, green eyes bright with contempt and rage, as he accused Andrew of—of what, precisely? Of taking advantage of the innocence of lads barely out of the schoolroom, forsooth, as if any of the men Andrew enjoyed were less than experienced men of the world.
They were young, sometimes. But not so young as that. And Andrew, at six and twenty, was hardly an elderly man himself.
Damn it all, but he had done nothing wrong. He wasn’t proud of himself for his way of life, perhaps, and his pleasures were far and away against the law of the land. But his bed partners were always willing and always sated at the end of the night, and that was more than enough to satisfy Andrew’s sense of honor.
No sound at all carried through Hewlett’s door. Hewlett could have stolen away and left the house, entirely unnoticed, at any time during the evening. The party had carried on with enough noise to wake the dead or to cover the sound of one unheeded secretary’s departure. The thought of that was enough to have Andrew stepping forward, his hand raised to knock, before he jerked it away in horror. Bad enough that the thought of Hewlett gone, somewhere Andrew would never see him again, left him—not frantic. Not nearly that. But it was unpleasant to contemplate.
Andrew forced himself to turn away and stride down the corridor. He would go to bed. He would sleep off his liquor, which was no doubt the reason for his current bout of insanity.
The moment he reached his own room, he tugged on the bell rope violently enough to wake all the servants in the house.
Every second crawled across his skin like a biting insect, and he paced, pulling off his cravat and his coat and his waistcoat as he went, discarding them across the Turkey carpet in crumpled heaps.
At last a quick knock sounded, and Samuel entered at Andrew’s sharply barked command.
Samuel’s mouth opened, but Andrew cut him off. “Is Mr. Hewlett in the house?”
Samuel blinked at him. “I have no reason to believe he is not, sir. Shall I summon him?”
“You have no reason to believe he isnot, or youdohave reason to believe that he is?” Andrew demanded. He knew he sounded like a madman. He could not quite bring himself to care.
“I—beg your pardon, sir. I don’t think Mr. Hewlett could have left the house without my knowledge. And when I took him a cup of tea a little more than an hour ago, he was in his shirtsleeves and made no mention of going out.”
Some of the tension drained out of Andrew’s shoulders. His fear that Hewlett had simply up and vanished seemed absurd, confronted with Samuel’s prosaic description of a cup of tea taken before bed. But it hadn’t seemed so very absurd before, given Hewlett’s reaction to the evening’s fiasco. He had said he would offer his resignation if Andrew desired it. That he might consider his resignation a moot point had only occurred to Andrew several hours later, and had burned in his mind ever since.
But it seemed he had chosen to remain—out of the same desperation that drove the young man who’d been so eager to suck Andrew’s cock earlier in the night, perhaps.
Bugger it, bugger it to bleeding perdition. Andrew would be damned if he’d change his way of life, his perfectly enjoyable and utterly satisfying way of life, in order to pander to the prudish moralizing of his bloodysecretary. Dowling had been an unutterable ass, that was inarguable. But Hewlett ought to have laughed it off, or landed the man a facer, or encouragedAndrewto land him a facer.
Now that was a thought, and one that pleased him far more than it should. When he’d seen Dowling’s hand on Hewlett, he’d been a breath away from breaking his nose, a reaction he wished never to contemplate again. Was Hewlett the sort to throw himself into Andrew’s arms and flutter his long eyelashes in gratitude for a display of protective violence? Andrew laughed aloud at the notion. Hewlett was far more likely to tell both Dowling and Andrew to go to the devil and then stalk away to the study to efficiently take out his annoyance on a ledger.
“Sir? Are you well?” Andrew jumped and looked up from his blank, blind contemplation of the carpet. He had entirely forgotten Samuel was there.
“Yes, Samuel, I am,” he said, and determined in that moment that he would not allow it to be a lie. He would be entirely himself; he would please only himself. “Make an appointment with Bisset in the morning, if you please, and lay in more brandy. I think I have been rather dull of late.”
“Indeed, sir?” Samuel sounded dubious, as well he might. Andrew never lacked for amusements, by any normal standard.
“Yes,” he said firmly. “And that changes tomorrow. Inform Mattson and Mrs. Felton that I intend to dine out most nights, so as not to disrupt the household too much.” And so as not to break his promise to Hewlett, though he would bloody wellnotbe discussing that with Samuel. If his guests were only present after Hewlett had retired, he could live as he chose and not be forsworn. He cleared his throat. “But tell them that I will likely return with guests later in the evening. And we will make merry until the brandy is depleted.”
Samuel made a little moue, and his hands twitched at his sides. “That may be a considerable time, sir.”
“All the better!” Andrew forced a grin and dropped into a chair near the fire to remove his shoes and stockings. Samuel sighed, which Andrew pretended not to hear, and began to gather up the scattered clothing from the floor. Samuel was perhaps the only reliable servant in the house. If he was often impertinent, it was best to take no notice. “See to it, Samuel.”
“Yes, sir,” Samuel replied dourly. “It will be my delight to do so.”
Andrew tipped his head back against the chair and closed his eyes. He could ignore Samuel, and he could ignore Hewlett. He need only entertain himself, and they might disapprove if they wished. It mattered nothing to him.
