Page 34 of Once a Gentleman
Chapter Fifteen
The sodden, blacked-out nap he’d taken in the study armchair had leached a bit of the liquor from his blood, and the shock of hearing Hewlett’s cries from the hall had seared the rest of it out of him in a flash, like the lighting of gunpowder.
Hewlett, pressed to the wall with Dowling’s foulness all over him, frightened and insulted and violated—yes, violated by Dowling’s touch and voice and very presence, though Hewlett’s clothing had all been in place and it didn’t appear as if Dowling had even gotten to groping him properly yet, thank the Lord.
That had done any remaining work of sobering him up, leaving him as alert and primed for action as he ever had been on the deck of theHoratiowith cannonballs flying all around him.
Breaking Dowling’s nose, hearing him howl in pain and outrage, had hardly satisfied the dark urge that rose up in him, the urge to rend and tear and break and kill. Hearing the rest of Dowling’s bones crack and shatter beneath his fists would possibly have been enough to satiate him.
Possibly. And flinging the wretch out the back gate and into the mud of the alley certainly hadn’t been enough. Samuel had actually grasped onto Andrew’s arm and pulled him back as he lunged after Dowling, meaning to turn him into a bloody smear on the ground.
“For God’s sake, sir, enough,” he cried. “Enough, and come inside.”
And Andrew allowed himself to be pulled, his boiling-brained rage making him malleable for a moment. He slumped against the wall, shuddering, rubbing his hands over his face, as Samuel locked the gate.
Dowling. Fucking bloody buggeringfuck. Andrew hadn’t even known Dowling had been there. Or if he had noticed, he’d been too foxed and too angry and too—well, too sullen and vengeful to care. He didn’t remember seeing the man. That didn’t mean much, given the seething mass of revelers and how determined Andrew had been to see and hear only the parts of the debauchery he could bring himself to ignore.
He had wanted Hewlett to see what it meant when a man truly gave in to his basest instincts. To be unhappy, and uncomfortable, and ashamed of the blunt dismissal he’d given Andrew and his pathetic, juvenile hopes.
The first two he had surely accomplished. But ashamed? Andrew wished he could sink through the ground, fall into some deep dark hole and drown in shame himself. What had Hewlett to be ashamed of? Andrew had only proven him right. As he had known he would do, as he had bitterly wanted to do…oh, God, but he was in such a muddle.
All of his own making.
And Hewlett had not been only unhappy, or uncomfortable.
No, he had been shoved into a wall by a lecherous brute, his lovely face mashed into the plaster, his eyes wide with panic and pain.
And Andrew had no right to run inside and find him, take him in his arms, kiss away his fear and his anger, lay him out on Andrew’s own bed where he never took his conquests, so that he could stroke and caress every inch of his skin, leave him with the feeling of no man’s touch buthis.
He could not, because he had himself allowed Dowling into the house again after his original insult to Hewlett—which ought to have been enough for Andrew to have kicked him down the stairs and bade the manservants drive him off with sticks should he dare to darken the door again. He might as well have attempted to force Hewlett himself, given the responsibility, the blame, he bore for allowing it to occur.
And he had given Hewlett his word that it would never happen again—that he would be safe in the house, safe and respected and sheltered by Andrew’s protection.
His bloody word, the one Hewlett had disdained at first, and that he had graciously accepted the second time—giving Andrew a second chance he had, as it turned out, neither earned nor appreciated.
That pit of shame wouldn’t be nearly enough. He deserved far worse than drowning in the consciousness of how very, very much he had been in the wrong.
“Sir?” Andrew started and dropped his hands, finding Samuel peering at him with a frown through the gloom of the overgrown garden, face crisscrossed by moonlit shadows. “Sir, are you injured at all?”
“No,” Andrew said, his voice hoarse. “I am far from the injured party here. Has that—animal gone on his miserable way?” For Andrew had been far too wrapped in his own thoughts to even attend to whether Dowling had left.
“He seems to have. At any rate, the alley is quiet now. I suppose I’ll go out with Peter in a little while and make sure he isn’t just dying in silence.”
“I bloody well hope he is,” Andrew growled. “No matter how much trouble it might cause. Bloody hell. I suppose you’d better.”
He pushed off the wall and strode for the house. No, he didn’t have the right to comfort Hewlett—presuming the man wanted comforting in the first place, and with Hewlett, it seemed unlikely; he’d be more the sort to break Andrew’s nose in turn than fall into his arms for reassurance—but he would at least make sure he hadn’t taken more injury than it had appeared.
Samuel followed without further comment, though his silence said a great deal, and none of it flattering.
Andrew went into the hall first, thinking he might find Hewlett still there. Instead he saw only a man whose name he didn’t even know, half-dressed and sitting at the foot of the stairs mumbling something quite incoherent.
“Get everyone else out of the house,” Andrew snapped at Samuel, as if any of this were his servant’s fault. Fuck. “If you would,” he added with an effort. “Fetch Peter, and have Jacob leave the carriage with a linkboy and come inside too, and make a clean sweep of it. If there are any ladies remaining, you can take everyone out the front door, since it will look like more of a mixed party. Make sure no women leave on foot, if you please, or are too inebriated to look after themselves on the way home.”
“A clean sweep?” Samuel asked. “I believe Mr. Rowley is still here, and may not be alone—”
“Not him or any guest of his. I presume they’re tucked up in a bedroom somewhere. Leave them be.”
“Very good, sir. And Mr. Hew—”
