Page 2 of Once a Gentleman
“You may disdain to meet me,” he said, his voice thick with rage, “but I shan’t apologize. You deserved that, and a great deal more! If I were more of a size with you I’d give you the thrashing you deserve.” Kit tried to push past and escape to the street, but the fellow blocked his way.
He bent his head and looked into Kit’s face, no longer smiling. “For God’s sake, I didn’t mean it like that. I’ve given myself worse shaving after too much drink the night before, that’s all.”
“That’s merely a different type of insult. Let me go!” Kit made the attempt again, roughly shoving his way by, but he was caught by the arm and pushed irresistibly up against the wall again.
“Will you be still for one moment! Gad, you’re a wriggly one, now do—ugh—” he said, as Kit drove an elbow into his stomach, “be still!” He caught both of Kit’s wrists, pressed them against the wall at Kit’s sides, and used his weight to pin him. Kit stilled at once, terrified that any further movement might be taken as provocative. After a moment’s quiet, he seemed satisfied that Kit wasn’t going to attempt another escape, and he leaned back a bit, giving him space to take a breath. “Now, will you listen a moment?”
Kit glared at him. “I had much rather not.”
“I’m not really offering you a choice, you know.” He squeezed Kit’s wrists a little to underline his point. His hands were so big, and inescapably strong, and so very warm on Kit’s chilled wrists; it made him shiver, for reasons he had much rather not examine. “But we can speak like civilized men instead of continuing this unseemly brawl, if you’ll give me your word you’ll stay and converse with me, rather than knocking me about like a footpad.”
The alley took a turn at the end, the jutting corner of the neighboring building offering something like shelter from the view of passersby on the busy street, but even that and the billows of dense fog blowing in from the sea couldn’t hide them completely. Kit bowed to the inevitable. He certainly couldn’t escape by force, and the last thing he wanted was to be observed in what was at best a rather suspect encounter. He stopped struggling, and nodded, and after a moment his captor released his grip and stepped back a foot.
They stood without speaking for a long moment, the fog-muffled clatter of hooves on cobblestones only highlighting the silence between them.
“I believe I may have made some rather high-handed, and obviously incorrect, assumptions,” the gentleman said at last. “And as a result, I have perhaps shown myself in not the most flattering light.”
“Does such a light exist?” Kit muttered.
The fellow let out a sharp crack of laughter. “I beg your pardon? No,” he went on immediately, “never mind. If I heard what I thought I did, I suppose I can’t blame you. Allow me to introduce myself. Andrew Turner, at your service.” And he bowed again—only this time, the gesture would have graced any lady’s drawing room, and he executed it entirely without apparent mockery. “I would be much obliged if we could forget the last quarter of an hour and start afresh.”
Kit could hardly believe his ears. His sharp tongue had once again got the better of him, and he would have expected shock, offense, and perhaps further violence, not—courtesy. What a veryoddfellow this Turner was.
The unexpectedness of it startled him into replying with his own name, and an outstretched hand.
Turner took it, giving it the firm shake a man offered his equal. A little of Kit’s animosity drained away, although it left more than sufficient wariness in its wake. He had, after all, split Turner’s lip, not that it had seemed to bother him much. His own behavior being rather below reproach, perhaps he ought to allow Turner the opportunity to apologize for his.
“Mr. Hewlett,” Turner said, his serious formality so at odds with the beginning of their encounter that Kit nearly laughed. “I didn’t at all intend to waylay you so violently, but I did step back behind the shop with the hope of finding you here.”
“Finding me? Why?” Kit asked, with great suspicion.
“Because I played an unfortunate part in the loss of your position,” Turner said. “And I…” He looked distinctly uncomfortable and couldn’t quite meet Kit’s eyes. “I thought to offer you another.”
“Did you indeed.” On his knees, perhaps. Or bent over the side of Turner’s bed. He said, with as much frosty hauteur as he could muster, “I doubt it would suit.”
Turner had the good grace to flush a little, and muttered, “Perhaps not what I originally had in mind. No, don’t go, I beg you,” he said, as Kit pushed away from the wall. “I freely admit my error. And if you’ll only hear me out, I do think we can come to an agreement. I need a secretary.”
Kit blinked at him, nonplussed. “Surely that is a euphemism.”
“Not at all, my dear fellow. I am entirely rubbish at managing my own affairs.” Turner’s charming smile and self-deprecating tone, though clearly practiced, had their desired effect. Kit’s lips turned up in an answering smile despite himself. He wondered if anyone had ever managed to resist Turner, when he truly wished to prevail. “I do have a solicitor, and he keeps attempting to push his wretched nephew on me as a man of business. The lad’s possibly competent enough, but he wears a kerchief. I mean, honestly, can I really be expected to employ a fellow who can’t tie a proper neckcloth?”
Kit’s hand strayed automatically to his throat, as if attempting to cover his own lack, and he jerked it back down to his side, biting his lip. It had been longer than he wished to contemplate since he could afford the time, the bother, or indeed the starch to sport a cravat in the Oriental, or even the Trone d’Amour style.
Turner frowned. “Mr. Hewlett, that was not meant as a commentary upon your own appearance. A gentleman can wear what he pleases. Mr. Robinson’s nephew is not in that category, I regret to say.”
“AndIregret to say that I’m no gentleman either, Mr. Turner. Perhaps I once was. But no longer. I think I would be a great disappointment as your secretary.” Not least because Kit would under no circumstances fulfill what he strongly suspected, Turner’s protestations notwithstanding, would be the real duties of the post.
Turner shot him a highly skeptical look. “Only a gentleman would knock me about and then offer me satisfaction for the offense. And I repeat: I require a secretary to correct my own utter inability to manage my business interests. I have neither the aptitude nor the inclination, and I certainly owe you a new livelihood, since my carelessness cost you your employment.”
Kit opened his mouth to refuse again, most insistently—surely Turner saw the flaw in his logic as well as Kit did, and that meant his intentions remained suspect—and then shut it again without speaking. Upon consideration, what did he really have to lose by accepting? He had no other prospects, and although Turner was clearly a man without much shame, he would hardly imprison Kit in a torch-lit dungeon and force his attentions upon him should he dare to step through his door. This was Portsmouth, after all, and not the wild forests of Italy, or wherever Mrs. Radcliffe believed such improprieties occurred with inconvenient regularity.
And it wasn’t as if he couldn’t fulfill the nominal duties of a gentleman’s secretary. He had been raised in his father’s counting-house, surrounded by clerks and foreign wine merchants, listening to their conversation and absorbing it all. And despite Kit’s tutors and dancing-masters and his time at school learning Latin and Greek, his father had ensured he had a practical grounding in the making, and keeping, of money.
“Perhaps…on a trial basis?” he ventured. “You truly owe me nothing. My own clumsiness caused my fall, and if I’d broken my neck I’d be as much out of work as I am now.”
Turner’s eyes gleamed with humor, and he offered a crooked smile, so different from his practiced smirk that Kit suspected he had seen a glimpse of the real man. “I think that little martinet would have much preferred you to break your neck than fall on one of his patrons.”
“No doubt about that.”
“Then forget about him, and about that infernal bookshop. And stop being so bloody generous, you make me feel a right villain for accosting you the way I did. We’ve shaken hands, I’ve apologized, and you’ve landed me a rather decent hit in the mouth. So that’s that. Send a note round when you’re packed, and I’ll send a carriage.”
Kit had no intention of actually living with his employer; it wasn’t unusual for such a post, but unease bubbled up in his chest at the thought. “You’ll—I beg your pardon, but—”
“I’m afraid I must run, so we can work out any other details when you arrive,” Turner interrupted crisply. He held out a card he’d extracted from a silver case, and waved it rather impatiently when Kit didn’t take it at once. Wondering if he had struck the ground after all, hit his head, and now was merely hallucinating, Kit reached out. As soon as the card was in Kit’s hand, Turner bowed, spun on his heel, and vanished into the foggy street.
