Page 32 of Once a Gentleman
Three quarters of the way down, a man lay sprawled crossways, one leg and one arm dangling down and the rest of his body teetering along the edge of a stair. He’d lost his coat and one of his shoes, and his shirt had come undone and stretched at the neck to reveal a beefy shoulder. As Kit hesitated, the man mumbled something, tried to lift his head, and began to tilt.
Cursing, Kit leapt down, reaching the fellow just in time to catch him by the arm and arrest his tumble, sliding the last few steps with him, striking each with at least one limb along the way, and landing in an undignified heap at the bottom. Kit let his head hang down a moment as he panted for breath, the effort of keeping a man who outweighed him by at least three stone from striking his head on the way down having quite used up all the breath he had, and the shock of it kicking his heart into an unsteady canter.
They’d made an abominable racket, too, but no servants came running out to see what was the matter.
Of course they hadn’t; at this hour, Mattson would be as foxed as Turner’s guests, if not more so, and probably asleep in the dining room. Samuel would be brooding over the prospect of the unpleasant clean-up to come somewhere in the depths of the kitchen, and Peter would have retreated upstairs to guard the entrance to the servants’ quarters so that the cook and the maids might be guaranteed some semblance of an undisturbed rest. That last was an arrangement Samuel and Peter had made long before, and one of which Kit approved without reservation, despite the fact that it left the front hall sadly bereft of anyone whom he might ask for assistance.
Kit shoved himself up and off the unknown man, who snorted, belched, and passed out cold again.
Well, bloody buggering hell, anyway. He could lie there and rot for all Kit cared. At least he hadn’t broken his neck. Had he been trying to go downstairs, or up? It hardly mattered.
Kit sagged down onto the bottom step, resting his bruised elbows on his battered knees. Oh, this household would give him a head of white hair before he reached five and twenty. Which would occur in only a few short months.
Plenty of time, given the circumstances.
A creak from down the hall made him look up sharply, expecting to see Samuel emerging from the dining room, or perhaps Turner himself.
Instead, a tall, disheveled dark-haired fellow loomed out of the drawing room, face flushed and eyes dull with drink. “What’s all the ruckus?” he demanded.
With a sick clench of his stomach, Kit realized he recognized him. Dowling, Turner had called him. The same man who’d attempted to coerce or purchase his services on the night Turner had attempted to…what was it he’d said? Broaden Kit’s horizons?
Kit forced himself to his feet. Dowling would surely not recall him, not in his state of inebriation and not after meeting him once, and so briefly. He might live on in Kit’s memory as part of one of his life’s many humiliations, but Dowling had surely insulted far too many young men to remember them all.
“This fellow took a bit of a tumble,” he said as lightly as he could. “I’m going to fetch—”
“You’re Turner’ssecretary,” Dowling interrupted him, making Kit’s heart sink all the way down to his slippers. The heavy, sneering emphasis Dowling placed on his title made his flesh crawl, too. Clearly the man hadn’t believed Turner’s explanation, true as it had been.
And he had remembered Kit perfectly well.
Dowling took a step closer, only swaying a little on his feet. Oh, God. He was intimidatingly large. And not nearly as falling-down drunk as Kit had thought and hoped. Kit would never make it out of the hall and into the kitchen, where he might at least have Samuel’s support, before Dowling caught up to him, if such was his intention. Two more steps, these firmer.
Yes, he meant to catch up to him.
“I am Mr. Turner’s secretary,” Kit said with as much frost as he could manage given the unsteady rhythm in his chest. “Excuse me. I must see to his unfortunate guest.”
Putting his back to Dowling seemed unwise, but would the man really assault him? Of course not, Kit’s imagination was running away with him. And he could hardly back down the corridor to the kitchen like a man edging away from a growling alley dog, though Dowling certainly fit the part.
Kit turned and took two strides away toward the kitchen and safety—and Dowling’s heavy steps echoed behind. Just as Kit thought to break into a run, dignity be damned, Dowling slammed into his back and knocked him hard into the wall, his cheek striking the plaster with a crumpling crack. The plaster, not his cheekbone at least, though that throbbed awfully, and Kit let out a cry, shoving back at his assailant with all his force. It wasn’t enough, and Dowling shoved back, grinding against Kit’s arse, his wine-soured breath panting hotly into Kit’s ear.
“We can go back upstairs, eh? Have a bit of fun? Can’t let Turner keep the best for himself, damn him,” he said thickly, pinning Kit’s arm as he flailed back, trying to strike Dowling anywhere he could reach. Trapped between the wall and the vileness behind him, Kit writhed, drawing out a low, guttural laugh. “Spirited little one, ain’t you?”
“Let go of me, you swine,” Kit snarled, his words a little slurred by the way his mouth pressed into the wall. He shoved again, kicking out with one foot to try to make Dowling trip and succeeding only in losing his own footing, the weight of Dowling’s foul body keeping him upright. “Let me go!”
Dowling began to tell Kit how he’d enjoy him once they’d gone upstairs, in the grossest terms, and Kit fought him, and in the sound of Dowling’s voice and the harshness of his own breaths he nearly missed the sound of a key in a lock.
But the violent wrenching-open of a door across the hall was impossible to miss for either of them, and Dowling turned, lifting his weight off Kit enough that Kit could crane his neck too—just in time to see Turner, face white and furious, explode out of the study and descend on Dowling like an avenging angel.
An avenging demon, perhaps, since Turner was no angel, but it did the trick all the same. Kit stumbled and thumped into the wall again as Turner seized Dowling by the shoulders and flung him bodily halfway down the hall, where he tripped, cursed, and careened into the table bearing the card tray and a vase, sending it all flying and crashing and tinkling to the floor in a flurry of broken crockery. Thank God the candelabrum sat on the other table across the hall, or they’d have had worse than a brawl on their hands.
Kit pushed off the wall, meaning to—he didn’t know what, his head spun—but it didn’t matter, as Turner had already lunged after Dowling, hauling him up off the floor by his collar and then landing him a hard blow to the face that came with the very audible crunch of bone.
Dowling howled, stumbling back with blood fountaining from his nose, and a cry rose from behind Kit, where Samuel had at last come running from the kitchen. In the flicker of the three lit candles on the other hall table, the tableau looked ghastly enough: Turner with his fists clenched, casting a wavering, ominous shadow stretching all the way up to the ceiling; the black-crimson blood pouring down and soaking Dowling’s shirt; Samuel rushing forward, brushing past Kit and knocking him back into the wall yet again, damn it all.
Samuel stopped beside Turner, and they exchanged a single speaking glance. Dowling began to shout, muffled and wet and unintelligible. Without a word, Samuel shoved past him and put his hand on the front door.
“Out the back!” Kit cried, his wits returning in a rush, though his knees still felt weak and watery. “For God’s sake, don’t throw him out the front door in full view of all the neighbors.”
“Right you are, sir,” said Samuel with an approving nod. “I hadn’t thought.”
