Page 8 of Once a Gentleman
After untangling all of that, it took Andrew several moments to realize he’d just been called an ungrateful, inattentive fool. Well. It was true enough, but it stung all the same.
“He is a gentleman of great moral character,” Andrew said, attempting cool superiority and achieving something more like sulkiness, he feared. “I have no doubt that he’ll discharge his duties honestly.”
Robinson snorted—actuallysnorted, Good Lord, and leaned back in his chair. “Mr. Turner, your opinion of someone’s moral character, formed likely after a convivial evening delving to the bottom of a cask of brandy—”
“I beg your pardon!” Andrew interjected. “We met at a bookshop.”
“A bookshop. Indeed. And I suppose that his presumed ability to read formed the whole of your investigation into his qualifications?”
Andrew could think of nothing to respond to that, and so wisely pressed his lips together. Giving Robinson yet more ammunition could only end poorly.
Robinson sighed. “Mr. Turner, perhaps you could at least give me this gentleman’s full name and whatever you know of his antecedents, and I can make a few inquiries.” At Andrew’s frown, he added, “Nothing indiscreet. But, and forgive me, but I know you don’t prefer to attend to the details of your finances. It would be all too easy for your trust to be abused.”
In other words, he was an inattentive fool, no matter how kindly the tone in which the opinion was delivered.
“His name is Christopher Hewlett, he was most recently employed by Mr. Cantwell at the bookshop on Harbor Road, and he’s not from Portsmouth. He says he’s not a gentleman born, but his manners and education certainly contradict that.” Andrew shrugged. “That’s all I can give you, I’m afraid.”
And Andrew was suddenly and uncomfortably aware that he spoke the truth. What did he know of Hewlett? Aside from the man’s arrestingly pretty face, with its sharp angles and plush lips. Hewasa fool.
Another heavy sigh from Robinson, and then the solicitor took up a sheet of foolscap and a pencil and noted down Andrew’s scant information. “I’ll let you know once I’ve discovered something, Mr. Turner.” His tone suggested he expected to discover something very much to Hewlett’s discredit.
Andrew rose, thanked him, and escaped with what little dignity Robinson had left him, glad to be down the stairs and out into the street, escaping the dust and the closeness of the office.
Hewlett would be out of bed by now, he imagined, perhaps taking breakfast, or going through papers in the study. Would he smile when Andrew returned home, or be cold and untrusting again? Andrew very decidedly did not care which, something he repeated several times as he walked in order to make it stick.
When Kit awoke after his first night in Turner’s house, there was complete silence. It felt rather unsettlingly like awaking within a tomb, not that Kit had ever done so. His life had been singularly free of the types of adventure that lent themselves to sensational fiction, though it had lately been rife enough with the uncomfortably dull types, such as hunger, and the scandalous loss of his family’s fortune and reputation.
The October chill had penetrated into his bedchamber, and his breath steamed slightly. Kit shivered, forced himself out of his warm nest of bedding, and washed in cold water left over from the night before.
Where the devil were the servants? In any well-regulated household, hot water would have been brought and the fire stirred by now. A maid had performed such tasks even in Kit’s erstwhile boardinghouse. Kit’s watch—a tarnished, dented bit of brass he had bought from the same shop where he sold his grandfather’s engraved gold watch, nearly a year before—told him it was half-past seven. The sun must have risen fully, somewhere, but a steady drizzle from low-hanging fog kept the light to a pre-dawn gloom. The silence, and the damp, and the knowledge that he was in the house only on sufferance, all combined to leave Kit in a miserable frame of mind and enervated state of body. A hot cup of tea and a solid breakfast would set him up, but what were the chances?
After dressing hastily, Kit ventured out into the corridor, glancing in both directions. No one was about.
The downstairs hall was similarly deserted, with not even a footman near the front door to show him the way to the breakfast parlor. Kit opened doors at random, though he had little hope of food when he stumbled upon the correct one. He found it at last, after gazing in horror at the shambles of the dining parlor, where Turner’s plate from at least two nights before still sat on the table, and shaking his head at the drawing room’s dust and disarray. He had chosen to take some cold meats in his room the night before, as Turner had a dinner engagement. He wondered now if Samuel’s eagerness to accommodate his request for a quiet supper upstairs was due to knowing how unprepared the staff would be to simply lay the table.
The breakfast parlor was marginally more inhabitable, and to Kit’s surprise, it bore signs of the master of the house having already visited it. A coffee pot and a single cup sat at the head of the table, nearest the window; theMorning Postlay beside it, left carelessly unfolded and scattered. The sideboard contained a plate with a few crusts of toast, a butter dish, and a pot of jam. A pot, not even a bowl.
At least the hearth boasted a fire, though it had burned down nearly to embers. Kit considered the bell on the table, thought better of it, and added a few sticks to the fire, warming himself by the little blaze as he drank a tepid cup of coffee.
For lack of anything better to do, and to attempt to forget his rumbling stomach, he went down the hall to the study, hoping he might find Turner there. But the room was empty, as the rest of the Godforsaken house appeared to be. Where had Turner gone at this hour? Out for a ride, perhaps, though the weather was foul enough.
Until learning of his profession, Kit had thought him more likely the sort to laze abed half the day. Such would not be possible while aboard a ship, and perhaps Turner kept up his habits when ashore. And yet a lazy man, one unaccustomed to command, seemed more likely to allow his household to operate in such a slipshod fashion.
Since Turner was neither of those, and he clearly had the funds for a houseful of the best servants money could attract, Kit simply could not make sense of the man.
And so he approached the problem in the way that made the most sense to him, merchant-bred as he was: he opened up Turner’s correspondence and ledgers and began to read, picking up where he had left off the afternoon before. He had made little progress on Turner’s financial affairs the previous day, but now he began to survey matters in earnest.
He was deep in astonished contemplation of just how wealthy Turner really was when the door opened. He started, hastily shuffling a stack of letters from Turner’s solicitor over the ledger he had open before him.
Turner stepped in, stopped, and raised one superciliously inquiring eyebrow. “Something the matter, Mr. Hewlett?”
Damn and blast. There wasn’t, really. The day before, Turner had clearly told Kit to read anything in the study, to familiarize himself with all of Turner’s affairs as thoroughly as possible. And yet Kit couldn’t help the feeling of having been caught out.
Guilt for the offense he’d given, annoyance at his empty stomach, anger at Turner’s unforgiving attitude—all of it left him wrong-footed, on edge. Turner wore a well-tailored blue coat that set off the color of his eyes, making them almost luminous; his perfectly starched cravat had been formed into an intricate knot Kit couldn’t even name. His boots shone, and his buckskins hugged long, muscular legs in a way that was quite near indecent.
Everything about Turner seemed designed to make Kit feel shabby, poor, small, and insignificant.
“You startled me, Mr. Turner,” he managed. “Forgive me. The house has been so quiet this morning.”
