Page 36 of Once a Gentleman
Hewlett stammered, “I mean to say—there are many men who are good with figures and possess a copperplate hand who would take this position for less than the salary you pay me. Have paid me. I will of course return that portion of my advance salary that I have not yet earned, and I hope you feel you can depend on my honesty in calculating—”
Without intending to move, Andrew found himself crossing the kitchen and suddenly standing all too close to Hewlett, just around the corner of the table and near enough to touch him. Hewlett broke off with a little gasp and shifted on his feet—not quite stepping away from him, but a flinch all the same. His whole body went stiff, his head thrown back as if in defiance.
Andrew forced himself not to round the corner. He would not distress Hewlett further for all the world, not now, and not ever again, though he would have given the world to close the distance. More than that, to be welcome when he did.
“I depend on your honesty entirely,” he said, with complete honesty of his own. He could not imagine a deceitful, a dishonorable Christopher Hewlett. Had he called him a liar, on the night of the dinner party? Yes, and he had been wrong to do so; Hewlett’s self-protective falsehoods seemed all too reasonable in light of Andrew’s behavior. “Of course you would take only your due, and probably less, and I wouldn’t want it returned in the first place, not when you wish to leave through no fault of your own. But Hewlett, listen to me. You have nowhere to go. Youmustnot go.”
Andrew’s fists clenched by his sides. He would not touch. He would not.
Hewlett’s eyes narrowed. “I have anywhere but here to go,” he snapped. “I ought never to have come here.”
His voice broke a little, and he broke his gaze away too, staring down at the table, dark curls falling over his pale forehead.
Oh, bloody hell. That pit of shame—oh, it wasn’t deep enough, or dark enough, to swallow him up. And what could he say to that? What in God’s name would be enough to change Hewlett’s mind? Or—and the thought burst into Andrew’s head with startling, sudden clarity, a thought he hadn’t entertained before now, though clearly he should have—he could bow, and accede to Hewlett’s wishes, and—let him go.
All the air rushed out of his lungs at once as if he’d been struck in the chest.
He couldn’t do it. Not even if it would be best for Hewlett to go.
No, if it really were best for Hewlett, he could, because he wasn’t a cad, and Hewlett wasn’t his prisoner, and he would, hewouldbehave like a bloody gentleman for once in his miserable life.
So if he couldn’t bear to let Hewlett go, that meant it was simple enough: he had to change the circumstances, that was all. Change them enough that it would not, in fact, be better for Hewlett if he left. He had already promised to keep anyone out of the house who could distress him. Now he had only to demonstrate that he meant it.
And that he meant, himself, not to cause distress. Even if that included staying out of Hewlett’s sight entirely.
His mind raced, working more quickly than he had ever needed it to do before. “Give me one week,” he said at last. “One week to prove to you that—”
“You have nothing to prove to me!” Hewlett cried out, a thread of desperation in his tone that tugged painfully on Andrew’s heart. “Nothing. I want nothing from you, and I cannot stay in a house where—”
“A house where you live in constant fear of insult, holed up in your bedchamber because that’s the only place where you can lock out my parade of iniquity,” Andrew cut in, not wanting to hear how Hewlett would describe it. It might break him. “I know you can’t, I am quite in agreement. And that is why, as of tonight, it will no longer be such a house. I have already said so. No one will cross the threshold who might do you harm, even if that harm is only that their manners offend you.”
Andrew panted to a stop, out of breath and out of persuasive words. He had never failed in persuasion before, but dammit, it was much harder to manage when one had to be entirely honest.
And when one cared so bloody much for the outcome.
“One week,” he pleaded, when Hewlett remained silent and still, an odd look on his face that Andrew couldn’t begin to parse. “Only remain that long, I beg of you.”
And then, in his fearful certainty that Hewlett would walk away without a word, he went too far, knowing he did even as the words fell from his numb lips. “I know you can’t seek employment elsewhere, Hewlett. Your father—”
Hewlett staggered back a step, that strange expression melting into one of absolute, unmistakable horror.
“What the hell do you know about my father?” he demanded.
And Andrew felt certain, with a coldness in his limbs and a buzzing in his ears, that he had lost whatever chance he had of keeping Hewlett.
