Page 3 of Once a Gentleman
Chapter Two
Kit turned in a slow circle, looking about him at the bedchamber Turner’s servant had assured him was intended to be his, and tried to determine whether he was more delighted or horrified. For sheer luxury, it surpassed even the rooms Kit’s father had maintained for his many wealthy guests. The canopied bed, draped in deep green velvet, held a bolster as puffy as any cloud; the richly carved mantel, broad windows, and plush Turkey carpet could have graced a guest chamber in any lord’s London townhouse.
It was not, in short, the sort of accommodation one gave to a humble secretary.
The only reassurance Kit could offer himself was that there did not appear to be a connecting door. There did notappearto be one…Kit had knocked and pressed all over one of the two possible walls before he came to his senses. He strode across the room, poured water into the basin on the washstand, and splashed a handful on his burning cheeks. This was not a Gothic romance. There was no secret passage that would open just as the clock struck two; Kit would not shriek in terror and wrap the bedsheets around his chest as Turner advanced, grinning lasciviously, shirt billowing in the draft.
If nothing else, Kit was not given to shrieking, bedsheet-clutching, or any other such absurd display, and Turner—well, Turner seemed sufficiently inclined to lasciviousness, but really. Far more likely that Turner, if he had any designs at all, hoped that the luxury he offered would sway Kit to offer himself in return.
If so, he was destined for disappointment. Kit might enjoy a tumble with a handsome man as much as the next fellow—probably rather more than most fellows—but the thought of what such an encounter would mean when enjoyed with his employer turned his stomach. Kit might be a sodomite, but he wasn’t a whore, and patronage and condescension revolted him.
So perhaps Turner would toss Kit out on his ear once it became unavoidably clear that no such services would be offered, but in the meantime, well…in the meantime Kit would allow himself to enjoy a taste of the life he had once taken for granted.
He had arrived in the household so very irregularly that he could hardly do otherwise than accept his new circumstances, in any case—at least not without incurring even greater awkwardness in the attempt to extricate himself. Kit had ignored Turner’s instruction to send a note when he had readied to move into the house; he had instead sent a very formal letter that morning, requesting Turner inform him when he ought to submit to a proper interview, and that he could begin as soon as they had come to a mutual agreement on Kit’s duties and salary.
An hour later, two liveried footmen appeared at the door of his room in the boardinghouse, trailing Kit’s baffled landlady in their wake. “Mr. Turner sends his compliments, sir,” said the taller of the two, a lean, dour fellow with the air of a disapproving undertaker. “I’m Samuel, and this is Peter, at your service. We’re ready to carry your belongings down to the carriage whenever you find it convenient.”
“I believe there has been some misunderstanding,” Kit began.
“We’re to pack ’em, too,” Peter put in, with great cheer. “And no mistake about that, since Mr. Turner said as he thought you might have forgotten.”
He thought Kit might have—and he shared his amusement with his footmen. Of all the infernal cheek! “I beg your pardon!” Kit said. “You will not—”
“Just go down and have a cup of tea, sir, if you please,” Samuel said, insinuating himself into the room so quickly and with such complete assurance that Kit found himself quite in the corridor before he could even blink. “We’ll see to it.”
Kit opened his mouth to tell them, in no uncertain terms, to what they could very well see, when Samuel spoke again, in a lower tone meant for Kit’s ears only. “I was once a valet, sir, to a very particular gentleman, though I may be only a footman and sometime valet to Mr. Turner now. Nothing will be even the slightest bit wrinkled or mussed. And when we’re settling you in, I’ll see to it that it’s all pressed before you’ve need of it.”
Samuel’s implicit assumption that the state of his wardrobe formed Kit’s primary objection to the affair left him floundering for a way to protest. In the end, he went down and had a cup of tea with the landlady, and afterward left in the carriage, his expertly packed trunk strapped on behind. He had ample time to muse, on the drive, over how easily Samuel had managed him, and to wonder why such a man was a footman and not, say, a Member of Parliament. Or perhaps a butler in a grand household of a hundred servants. His talents would only be wasted as an MP.
It was Samuel who had escorted Kit to his room, informing him blandly that Mr. Mattson, the household’s butler, was indisposed. His faintly sardonic expression suggested that was a euphemism, and Kit filed that information away for later. Samuel unpacked his trunk, carried most of its contents away to be ‘seen to,’ and promised to return to escort him to the master of the house in due time.
And that time ought to be nearing, Kit presumed, since it had been half an hour at least since Samuel went. Had he not just cooled his cheeks, the thought of how he’d wasted the majority of that time might have made him as red as a beet. He forced his own foolishness firmly out of his mind and hastened to dress, donning clean linen and the same shabby blue coat he’d been wearing as he was hustled from the boardinghouse, since Samuel had carried off the rest of his wardrobe. It hardly mattered. The remainder of his clothing was hardly more presentable.
He had only just made a futile attempt to tame his hair—a wavy chestnut mass at the best of times, a curly mess at worst, which had grown to brush his collar since the last time Kit had troubled to cut it—when a brisk knock at the door announced Samuel, who sailed in bearing a freshly pressed coat, bottle-green superfine free of the faintest speck of dust and brass buttons gleaming.
“Your coat, sir,” Samuel said, presenting the garment with a flourish.
Kit frowned. “That is not my coat.”
“Ah, but you are mistaken, sir. I was recently informed that this is, indeed, your coat. At least until something properly tailored can be procured.”
Kit had always thought that counting to ten before speaking was the pathetic crutch of a man in insufficient control of his own emotions. He knew better now. After a long pause, he finally managed, “Samuel. Before this coat became mine, according to your mysterious informant, to whom did it belong?”
Samuel’s eyes lit, and he straightened, clearly in his element. “If this coat belongs to you, sir, then it was always meant to be yours, and therefore cannot be considered to have ever been the property of another in any true sense—”
“Whose. Coat. Was. It,” Kit gritted out through clenched teeth. “Answer the question directly, and without anything remotely similar to philosophizing, or I will not wear it. Instead, I will strangle you with it.”
“A coat seems ill-suited to such a task,” Samuel said, his brows furrowing. “But,” he swiftly added, taking in Kit’s expression, “your point is well made, sir. The coat belonged to Mr. Turner. It unfortunately fit him poorly, and so it is unworn. He thought that while your own garments were with the maids, you might wish for something to wear downstairs.”
Kit turned away abruptly, unwilling to allow anyone—least of all a servant, for God’s sake, would his humiliations never end—to see the shame that must be written in his every feature. To enter another gentleman’s house without even clothing suitable for his drawing room, that was bad enough. To be offered that gentleman’s charity wounded Kit’s pride to the quick. He clenched his fists and concentrated until the pain of his nails digging into his palms overwhelmed his other sensations.
“There is nothing unusual in a gentleman loaning a guest an item he may be temporarily without,” Samuel said, his gentle tone worse than anything else could have been. The footman pitied him. This was, perhaps, a new low.
“It’s not a loan when I cannot—”When I cannot offer anything in reciprocation, should it be required. When I have nothing of my own to give.Kit bit his tongue before the words could escape. “Pray tell Mr. Turner that I will come downstairs as I am, or not at all. If I am not fit for his company, then pack my trunk again.”
A brief silence fell; Kit’s harsh breaths seemed to echo in the room. “Mr. Turner is delighted that you are here, sir, and wishes only for you to be comfortable. As a household, I fear we do not stand much upon formality.” Samuel’s tone held a hint of reproof, just enough that Kit felt the stirrings of guilt. It wasn’t Samuel’s fault, after all, that he had to carry out his master’s orders.
Kit drew a deep inhale, filling his lungs almost to bursting before he let the air out again. He turned and tugged his own coat so that it lay as decently as it could. “I am ready to go down, then, if you will lead the way.”
