Page 38 of Once a Gentleman
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “I swear to you—”
“Don’t!” Kit’s cry sounded thin and pathetic in the echoing kitchen. “Don’t,” he repeated, more steadily. “No promises, if you please. I will remain a week, on condition that no further insults are offered, by anyone. I have already agreed to it, and I neither need nor want anything from you.”
Except that he did, and if Turner moved even a fraction closer, if he held out his hand…Turner stepped back and bowed. “Is there anything you require tonight, though? Name it, and I’ll see to it.”
“I’d like to finish my tea in peace.” He meant it to be cool and dismissive, but instead he sounded too harsh, almost cruel.
Turner’s eyes widened, and then his face settled into a blank expression, his lips pressed flat. “Then I will remove myself and allow you to enjoy your solitude. Good night, Hewlett.”
The lingering glance he cast Kit as he turned and went nearly had him falling to his knees again, and he braced himself on the table with his fists, waiting for the door to close behind Turner before allowing himself to slump over, head hanging down and chest heaving.
That had been hurt on Turner’s face, and he deserved every ounce of hurt and shame and unhappiness that Kit could inflict or that Turner’s underactive conscience might supply. So why did Kit feel that tightening in his chest, that unpleasant squirm of guilt in his belly, the urge to run after Turner and say he hadn’t meant it, that he wanted Turner’s company after all, that he wanted every one of Turner’s promises, even if he didn’t mean them and broke them almost at once?
Kit sat heavily, leaning his head in his hands. One week of reprieve—and it felt like a reprieve, not a favor he had granted, which told him more than anything else could have how very, very much trouble he’d gotten himself into. One week before he left Turner forever.
One week of Turner’s solicitous kindness and careful courtesy, for Kit had no doubt such would be offered to him. He might be a callous seducer and a drunkard, but his horror and rage when he found Kit in Dowling’s hands had been genuine.
That thought shook him. Any man might be decent enough to be disgusted and furious at such a scene, but what if Turner had been doubly so because it had been Kit? What if Turner felt—but he didn’t, and he’d proven it with his actions, over and over again. Not that it made any difference to the way Kit yearned to touch him again, and more than that, to be touched.
One week to resist temptation.
And then he would go.
When Kit woke just past dawn, the quiet morning felt more dreamlike than his dreams had done. There, the washstand with its basin and ewer, a small towel hanging on a hook; and there, his armchair before the fireplace, his book still set aside on the small table, his place marked with a scrap of paper. A shaft of sunlight through the gap in the curtains picked out a bright trail of red and blue on the carpet.
Kit washed and dressed while the rest of the house lay in what felt like perfect stillness. If he’d waited long enough, a maid might have remembered to bring him hot water, but he rarely remained in bed long enough for the household to organize itself sufficiently for that.
What was Turner doing, at that moment? He’d gone to bed alone, for once, but had he risen early himself, and would Kit find him at breakfast? Facing him in the light of day felt impossible after the night before.
And so Kit braced himself as he walked down the stairs, noting as he did that the mess of the night before had vanished since he’d gone to bed, the hall table put to rights and the broken vase swept away. Most notably, there were no drunkards sprawled all over the floor and moaning, which made a significant improvement to the aesthetics of the place.
Drawing a deep breath, he opened the door—and found another man, one who was decidedly not Turner.
The man stood politely as Kit entered the room, but his face showed nothing but wariness. Tall, slim, and blond, he had a very pretty face and striking dark eyes. Kit’s chest clenched with a bouquet of emotions he desperately wished he could call anything but jealousy, hurt, and outrage. Turner had never invited one of his conquests to stay for breakfast, and for it to be that morning, of all the days?
He stopped in the doorway, longing to flee and lock himself in the study. But he would appear mad, and more than that, Turner would discover he’d run away and most likely be astute enough to divine the cause.
“Good morning,” said the stranger, sounding rather dubious about that. Not too surprising, given the awkwardness of it all and the likelihood of the breakfast he’d been eating being both cold and poorly cooked. “I beg your pardon. I didn’t realize Turner had another guest.”
“I am Mr. Turner’s secretary,” Kit managed. “Christopher Hewlett. I must beg your pardon for intruding.”
“Ahhh,” said the man, drawing out the syllable and sounding rather more enlightened than Kit thought reasonable—not to mention deeply amused. “Hissecretary, of course.”
All the blood in Kit’s brain abandoned it and rushed into his cheeks, which burned as if he’d plunged his head into the fireplace.
That was absolutely, simply, unbearably the outside of enough.
He could shout and rage, protest that he was indeed Turner’s secretary, make a cutting remark about this man’s own presence at the breakfast table of a known rake and a less-known but still indiscreet sodomite.
Or he could simply go, and run a lesser chance of being taken up for murder later in the day.
Kit turned on his heel and strode out of the breakfast parlor, with the man’s startled-sounding expostulations following behind, tugging the door as he went so that it slammed and rattled in its frame, not nearly enough of an outlet for his mortification and fury. He marched down the hall, unlocked the study door with the calm, carefully controlled motions of one who must be methodical or begin knocking holes in the walls with the nearest item of furniture, and shut and locked the door behind him.
For a moment, he stood in the center of the room, looking wildly about him, his fingers twitching with the urge to seize the decanters from the sideboard and smash them against the mantelpiece, sweep every object from the desk onto the floor, and then kick something.
Instead, he sat, composed his resignation letter—three times, since the first included the sentence, ‘Any other gentleman would call you out for being forced to swallow the vile insults of a molly whore at his own breakfast table, which aside from the aforementioned whore, contained only cold burned toast, as your household management is nearly as execrable as your character,’ and in the second, he could not resist commenting negatively on Turner’s staying power while being pleasured—and then left the study, pushing his key under the door afterward so as to have no reason to see Turner in person.
Only once he had done so did he realize he had forgotten to return those few pounds he owed Turner for the upcoming month during which he would not be discharging his duties.
