Page 32 of Seductive Reprise
Yusef could feel the already reserved man retreating further away. He hardened the set of his jaw. “Actually, no, though whether you believe that is completely up to you.”
“Well, then.” His sire folded his hands and plastered on a small smile. “It’s good to see you.”
Yusef returned the expression, hating himself for it. For a moment they regarded one another, and Yusef did his best to forget the feeling of being a small lad, desperate for this man’s approval. A man he’d only ever known from his mother’s wistful recollections. As a small child in Egypt he’d always assumed the duke to be tall, strong. Magnetic, as his mother seemed to have thought. But then he was shipped to England for school, and there he instead found an exceedingly ordinary man. Well-dressed, impeccably still and silent and with a slight nebbish bent, punctuated by his ever-present spectacles and his disdain of sport and the outdoors.Too invigorating, he’d always sigh, with an apologetic smile.
And just what did his father think of him, as he looked at him now after years apart? Did he see him as a man, or as a wayward youth unwilling to settle into a poor imitation of the life the duke had himself led?
Yusef had never known the answer to that. And he dared not try to get the honest truth, even now. So he instead cut straight to the first matter that brought him here.
“You didn’t attend any sessions this year.”
“You noticed that, did you? Well, it’s no matter. July is nearly at an end.” The duke laced his fingers together and leaned forward. He stared in much the same manner as he had the first time they’d met, when Yusef was just a lad in a strange country, far from any family save the man across the desk. As if he were a mystery, rather than a son.
“I find much to occupy my time these days.” Marbury waved a hand over the books covering the majority of the desktop. All ponderous tomes about antiquity, no doubt, written by dilettantes from storied homes like this one but possessing a fair bit more daring, setting off across the world to “discover” other countries’ histories.
“And you? Shall I take it your aspirations are…” he said, pausing as he removed his spectacles and folded them shut, “political now?”
“Don’t be absurd,” Yusef scoffed, doing his very best to keep from sneering.
“Ah. I recall from your last letter—what, four years ago? Well, it doesn’t matter. You’re here now. But if memory serves, you requested my vote against the Pharmacy Act.”
“Perhaps. Recollections may vary.” In fact, Yusefhadasked for the duke’s support in quashing the blasted act, but he thought he’d been sly about it, mentioning it only as an aside. He’d taken pains to keep his family ignorant of his business interests, especially his involvement in the opium trade; he’d gone by his mother’s name, Ghali, and had left the majority of the face-to-face dealings to Rickard.
The duke smiled, a true one this time. “It is the only reason I ask. You were never one to loaf and idle. Your mind was always occupied,” he mused, looking down at the spectacles in his hand. Somewhere beneath his politely detached tone, Yusef could detect a hint of pride.
“Yes, well, we can’t all beDavey, can we? Content to rest upon our laurels.” Yusef sighed, allowing his posture to relax, dropping his natural defensiveness.
The duke sat up abruptly. “Now, now. I thought this wasn’t to be about that? If you wish, we can continue the conversation when we remove to Cheshire. Lord Robert shall join us there for a time.” The atmosphere chilled, warning Yusef that he wandered far too close to impertinence, slighting the system that had handed the Duke of Marbury untold riches and unearned power. The very wealth and power that would transfer to his younger brother, Lord Robert, upon his death.
For Yusef would always be a bastard.
“And if not,” the duke continued, “I confess I do have my concerns about your sister’s marriage, but what good will voicing them do?”
Yusef turned to stare at a painting on the wall. Some sorrowful Rembrandt, the subjects old and withered in their ruffs. He tapped his finger atop his walking stick, wondering just how much to divulge.
“You’re right. I do require something new to occupy my mind. Politics is…” He paused and closed his hand around thegold top of the walking stick, covering the coronet and the elegantly engravedPfor Palgrave. “Politics is a mere fancy, at the moment. It shan’t stick, I think. I would paint myself as an idler at present.” He looked up at his sire. “Until something else comes along.” It was true, he realized as he spoke the words. He couldn’t loll about all day, fantasizing about Rose riding his cock. One day he’d have her, in his bed and in his house, permanently. If she would have him. And he would have to find something else to think about besides his quest for her and her forgiveness.
“An idler? You? I find that hard to believe.” The duke looked at him skeptically.
Yusef shrugged, closing off his face lest the duke pick up on his restlessness. Although it appeared he already had.
“There is one thing. A kindness you might do me.” How he despised this, begging for favors. It made him feel not only powerless, but obligated. And that was not to be endured. Not by him.
His father replaced his spectacles and sat back with a sigh. “Yes?”
“Even if you’re not attending come spring, I’d like you to express your support for the Smoke Regulation Act.” There. He’d said it. His promise to Hartley was fulfilled.
“Really?” The duke’s brow rose. “Smoke?”
Christ, the man was really going to put him through it, wasn’t he? Yusef gritted his teeth and recited the talking points Hartley had outlined in his essay about black clouds of pestilence and atrophied lungs, taking care to intersperse a substantial number of sighs and lazy gazes about the room, so Marbury might know that he truly didn’t care one way or another. For he really didn’t. But Hartley had upheld his end of the bargain, and let it never be said that Yusef Ghali did not respect a business agreement.
“But the smelters, the potteries,” his father sputtered, perplexed. “Have you no sympathy for industry, for progress?”
“Let us cast a veil over my feelings about potteries for now.” Yusef stood up, impatient to get the next bit of information off his chest and into the open.
“Well,” the duke said, with a baffled sort of throat-clearing, “I will have to think on it.”
“Excellent,” said Yusef.
