Page 7 of The Dove
A match for Adam in size, Niall easily dwarfed the Queen Anne chair he sat in, making the china resting on the table look ridiculously fragile. He’d only worked as a butler for the past five years—since just after Adam had purchased Dunnottar and had it renovated. It had given him great pleasure to remove the stodgy, stiff-backed curmudgeon who had served under his father and replace him with a man who had worked primarily with horses for most of his life. Niall had grumbled and growled, but because he and Adam were friends, and the position offered more pay and a bevy of benefits to be enjoyed in his old age, he had accepted. It amused Adam to no end to see people react to Niall—the way he made them uneasy with his large frame, dark hair and darker eyes, and the jagged scar marring one of his cheekbones.
Niall glanced up at him and scowled, flicking a hand at the newspaper. “Here less than a sennight, and already the papers are full of news of your arrival. A dozen invitations arrived in your absence, as well as several personal messages. Pray, tell me why we took up at an inn instead of the fancy townhouse you nowown, if all the bloody city knows you’re ye’re here, anyway?”
Giving the man a little smirk, Adam joined him at the table, snatching the paper up and propping his feet on one of the empty chairs. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you it is bad form to read a gentleman’s newspaper before he’s had a chance to open it?”
Niall scoffed, taking up a biscuit from the plate resting before him and biting into it with relish. “Is there a gentleman here? I hadn’t noticed.”
Adam laughed. Niall was the only servant—the onlyperson, really—who could get away with speaking to him that way. They’d been ribbing each other this way since they were young—Adam sneaking off to the stables to play with Niall when they were lads, then running off to chase after pretty maids together once they’d begun approaching manhood. Being of an age, they became closer than a lord and his servant ought to, but Adam would not have it any other way.
Even if the man often vexed him to no end.
“I like it here, don’t you?” he murmured while absently scanning theTimes. “A staff who caters to our every whim—”
“Yer townhome came with a staff,” Niall muttered.
“The food is decent,” Adam went on.
“Yer townhome came with a French chef.”
“Niall …”
“Ye have lost sight of why ye are here,” Niall snapped, slamming his palm down upon the table.
Adam lowered his paper and peered at the other man over the top of the page, narrowing his eyes. “You go too far.”
“Youhave gone too far,” the butler fired back, one big hand curling into a fist upon the table. “Ye told me we were comin’ to finish the job … to strike out at Fairchild throughher. Yet, all ye’ve done since we arrived is hide from her. Do you s’pose I don’t ken what ye’re doin’ here in a hotel … trying to spare her precious feelings?”
The paper crumbled in his hands as his grip tightened, his teeth grinding together in the face of Niall’s accusations. The man had not been shy about making his displeasure known concerning the way Adam had gone about Daphne’s ruination. He’d thought Adam too kind, too soft … too merciful. His love for Olivia had turned him into an insatiable beast, as hungry for vengeance as Adam had been.
“Perhaps I prefer the privacy of an inn, where callers cannot turn up on my doorstep in order to slake their curiosity,” he snapped, waving a dismissive hand. “It has nothing to do with Daphne or my desire tohidefrom her.”
“Then why haven’t ye approached her?” Niall challenged. “Why haven’t ye seized on the chance to make sure everyone in London is left with no doubt that the rumors about her are true?”
“It is called strategy, you oaf,” he spat, rising to his feet and pacing away from the table.
If Niall kept pressing him, he would explode, and the two would likely engage in fisticuffs—something they hadn’t done in years. He did not appreciate being questioned.
“Something I would not expect you to understand,” he added, pacing to a nearby window and peering out at the street below. “Do not allow our friendship to cause you to forget your place.”
He could feel Niall’s stare, hot on his back, the reminder of his subservient position rankling. The man did not like being reminded that it was Adam’s duty to avenge Olivia, not his. He loved her, but she had never truly belonged to him—not in the ways he would have wanted, and not in any way that counted.
That hadn’t stopped him from making his displeasure known when Adam had not only allowed Daphne into his home for thirty days, but catered to her with expensive, tailored clothing and other niceties such as access to his music room and library.
But Niall could never understand that to offer her those things and still treat her like a whore had been part of his entire plan … just as ending their time together by outing her as his bedmate to some of London’s most notorious gossips had been. That he had plotted and planned every aspect of his revenge before acting made the outcomes more satisfying.
He heard movement and glanced over his shoulder just as Niall pulled on his coat, not bothering with a waistcoat or cravat.
“Where are you going?” he asked as the butler made his way to the door of their suite.
“To tend yer horses,Master,” he grumbled. “It is, after all, myplace.”
He barreled out into the corridor like a howling wind, yanking the panel shut behind him. His heavy footsteps echoed through the door and eventually faded to dull thumps once he’d reached the stairs.
Shaking his head, Adam returned to inspecting the people coming and going on the busy street below him.
Despite knowing he had been right, he felt guilty for the way he’d spoken to Niall. The man was a servant, but more than that, he was the one person who understood Adam, who treated him as an equal as opposed to someone to gawk at, bow and scrape to, or whisper about. He would find some way to make amends later. For the moment, his thoughts returned to the reason he’d come to London.
He had told Niall that coming to town and publicly pursuing Daphne would help bolster the rumors about their time together in Scotland. If there remained anything left of her family’s good name, it would be effectively obliterated. That, along with the whispers of Bertram’s indiscretions he’d begun spreading the last time he’d visited the city, would be enough to ensure no Fairchild would be welcome in polite society ever again.
