Page 24 of Once a Gentleman
Chapter Eleven
The front door shut behind the departing Harrisons, whose laughter filtered back into the hall as they made their way down to the waiting hired hack.
Turner’s dinner party had been a rousing success, depending on one’s definition of rousing. His wine, unlike most of the household’s offerings, was as always above reproach, and though the vegetables were rather crunchy and the roast overdone, no one had seemed to mind. Samuel served the dinner with admirable aplomb. Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. Pope had politely risen and departed for the drawing room to leave the gentlemen to their port, and Turner had, only one glass later, politely risen to lead the gentlemen after them, as there was no hostess to keep the ladies entertained. Kit hadn’t even needed to prompt him.
If Turner could behave like this—a little clumsy in his hospitality, and perhaps a bit at sea, if Kit could be allowed the expression, but courteous enough to demonstrate his good intentions to anyone looking—why, why in God’s name did he confine himself to his usual companions? How could the society of such people satisfy a man who could discourse so knowledgeably and with such genuine interest on the geography and peoples of the West Indies, or compliment Mrs. Harrison’s gown in such a way as to make her pink with pleasure and yet give no offense to her husband?
The evening had shown Turner in such a different, such a more flattering light. Kit recalled the way he had insulted Turner by implying that such a light could not possibly exist. He had not thought so, even weeks into serving as Turner’s secretary.
And yet. Turner’s physical appeal and charm had been eating away at Kit’s defenses all the while, and now his final bulwark against their influence had weakened. Desire could only be denied, shoved down, and ignored for so long before a normal man’s need for satisfaction won out, and Kit was far from being a saint or an ascetic, no matter what Turner might believe of him. His opportunities had been somewhat limited, but his body and mind both yearned as much as anyone else’s.
And now he and Turner were alone. As Turner beckoned him into the drawing room, murmuring promises of a nightcap, the scene had a weighty, dreamlike inevitability. Perhaps it had something to do with the claret and the port. They were both a little foxed—though not so much as to prevent Kit from exercising his better judgment, he felt sure.
Or at least, it ought not to have been. Kit’s better judgment would have had him refusing another drink, climbing the stairs, and barricading his bedchamber door—as much to keep himself inside as Turner out.
Kit stepped into the drawing room and went to stand by the fire, hearing Turner shut the door with a resounding click behind them, and knew that he could not blame the wine.
Turner went to the sideboard, the breeze of his passing through the room raising the hairs on the back of Kit’s neck. The faint gurgle and clink of the decanter echoed far too loudly in the stillness, punctuated only by the crackle of the fire and Kit’s own too-rough breathing.
Their fingers brushed as Turner silently handed him a glass. A jolt ran up Kit’s arm, and he nearly dropped it. He hastened to bring it to his lips, hoping to cover his reaction, and choked on the first sip.
“This is—this is truly superior brandy, Turner,” Kit rasped.
Turner quirked one wheat-blond eyebrow. “You could not possibly sound less sincere if you tried, my dear fellow,” he said with perfect bonhomie. Kit nearly choked a second time. “I admire that in a man.”
Those last words were, in themselves, sardonic at best. The tone in which they were spoken—a low, intimate rumble, pitched softly into the space between Turner’s lips and Kit’s—transformed them into something else entirely. A few candles had been set on the sideboard and the low table between the settees, but they had burned down until they were nearly guttering. Only the flickering glow of the firelight glanced on Turner’s features and set the shadows dancing.
His face was all hard chiaroscuro lines, and his eyes gleamed with something almost predatory. They never left Kit’s face, examining him with a careful intensity that had Kit nearly squirming. He was desperate to get away. He was desperate to remain. It felt like being torn in two, and he knew he would regret either course equally. Turner’s body warmed him more than the fire, so close and so real. If Kit tilted his head up the tiniest degree, he would be all but begging for a kiss.
Though who was to say that Turner even indulged in something so mundane as mere kissing, on the lips at least? Oh, bloody hell, the thought of Turner’s mouth on other parts of his body…the vision of Turner worrying at the throat of his night’s conquest outside Kit’s bedchamber flashed before his eyes with sickening vividness.
Abruptly, he tossed back the last of his brandy and set the glass on the mantel. Staying would be the sheerest insanity. He would not be Turner’s conquest, his plaything, to be used and discarded by the next dawn. Not when his livelihood hung in the balance along with his pride. The brandy burned its way down, and his blood burned in his veins.
“I must go to bed.” Kit turned away from the fire, averting his eyes from Turner’s too-handsome face and too-broad shoulders. “I enjoyed the evening, but—I had forgotten how tiring it is, to entertain company.”
“How tiresome, I suppose you mean?” Turner shifted, and his hand brushed the back of Kit’s, just the slightest touch across his fingers. A caress, if it had lasted more than an instant. “I wish you’d stay awhile. The night’s still young.” With his voice pitched to a lower register, he murmured, “Although I can see the appeal of a bed. Particularly if I were not alone—”
“Don’t!” Kit cried, jerking away, horrified and already half-erect and feeling as if he had been galvanized. “Donot.” His vehemence shattered the cocoon of warmth and intimacy they’d shared, and Turner blinked, wide-eyed, as if he’d been pulled from a trance. “I have made myself abundantly clear on this point. There shall be no…no transactions between us of a personal nature. I am your secretary. If you find yourself unsatisfied with my performance of my duties, I shall go, but those are the only duties I shall perform!”
“Duties?” Turner sounded baffled, and his lip curled in distaste. “Transactions? Hewlett, nothing that passes between us would have the slightest bearing on your position. It is entirely—”
“How could it not?” Kit demanded desperately. His neck and cheeks heated, from mortification and arousal and more liquor than he habitually took, and he knew he must look a sight: wild-eyed and ruffled, far from the picture of a gentleman’s man of business. Closer, by far, to the picture of a man who’d welcome Turner’s advances. “How can you think it would not? You’ve never spent a night with the same man twice. How could I remain in your employ if I became nothing but an object of your contempt?”
Turner’s eyes narrowed, and he stepped forward. Kit retreated, nearly stumbling. “Never spent a night with the same man twice, have I? You’ve been paying bloody close attention, it seems.”
Kit’s mouth dropped open. Oh, hell. What had he revealed, with that slip of the tongue? “To my knowledge,” he stammered. “It’s—it’s rather difficult not to notice, when you carry on in the corridor.”
“And,” Turner went on implacably, his jaw tight and his eyes blazing, “an ‘object of my contempt’? What basis do you have for thinking my opinion of you would alter in such a way, or that my feelings for my previous lovers could be described so?”
“If you discard those lovers after one night, how else could one describe your—yourfeelings?” Kit spat. “If that word can even be applied, when I have seen no evidence that you possess such.” Kit regretted those words as they left his lips; they were not quite true. But at that moment, he felt that they had a greater truth than mere accuracy. “I am not that sort of man, Turner. And I beg you will drop this subject, and never return to it again.”
“Not that sort of man?” Turner took another step, and Kit rocked back on his heels. He would not run like a frightened rabbit. Not this time.
“Stop repeating everything I say, it is most aggravating. I am done with this. Please permit me to go upstairs.”
“You bloody well are that sort of man,” Turner snarled. “Don’t lie to me, even if you choose to lie to yourself. I saw it in you the first moment we met, when I held you in my arms—no, don’t sneer at me like that, it was obvious to me, just as my proclivities were obvious to you. I have desired you since then. And I am certain you’ve desired me, particularly since you didn’t cite any lack of it as your objection to spending the night with me—though perhaps you haven’t wanted me in equal measure. If you had, we’d have been in bed together long since.”
“I have not.” It was a lie, and Kit’s neck prickled beneath his cravat, with heat and sweat and nerves. The compliment implied in Turner’s words burrowed beneath his skin, and he struggled to fight its influence. Turner’s suggestion of a stronger, a more lasting, even a more overwhelming desire, and all for Kit…it was too much. He had to end this. A gentleman ought not to lie, but what choice did he have left?
