“And now,” Kit said. “While I am on the subject of Peter’s future, there is something else we must discuss.”
“And what is that?”
“It is time you moved to the country, my dear. The air here in town is terrible.”
Clara swallowed and nodded. “I know, but Kit, my work—”
“As I’ve said, I will make provision for you,” Kit replied gently.
“It’s too much,” Clara said, and her expression was distressed. “I could not impose on you so. And then, to go somewhere new again, somewhere we know no one.” She rubbed at her forehead wearily. “It would be a big change, for both of us. And for you, Kit. We would both miss you terribly.”
Kit smiled, touched. “And I would miss you too, but… I have had a hankering to move to the country for a while. It’s difficult with the club, of course, but if I purchased a property, you could live there with Peter, and I could visit from time to time.” He smiled fondly. “Your beloved brother. And if you wanted to look for teaching work, you could do so.”
Her eyes brightened a little at that, and he saw her begin to consider his words.
Well, he had sown a seed at least. It would do for today.
“Just think on it for now,” he said, and Clara nodded.
Peter came back then, with a large, half-eaten biscuit in hand.
“What happened to your eye, Uncle Kit?” he demanded, noticing Kit’s bruises for the first time. He approached and set his sturdy little fingers gently on Kit’s face, tracing the bruise beneath his eye. “It’s red and purple and blue. Is it sore?”
“A bit,” Kit said, smiling.
“How did it happen? Did you get in a fight?”
“Yes,” Kit said simply, at the exact same moment that Clara said, “Of course not!”
They looked at one another and laughed.
“Sort of,” Kit said, by way of compromise, then swiftly changed the subject. “Do you want to play me at dominoes? I warn you, I’m much better than your mama…”
Needless to say, Peter did want to play.
They had just finished their fourth game when Tom swept in.
“You’ll never guess who it is, Kit,” he said. “Only bleedin’ Jake Sharp!”
Kit wasn’t sure if he should be surprised to see Sharp so soon after the previous evening’s events. And he certainly wasn’t sure what mood the man would be in. On any view, last night had not gone precisely as planned. Sharp had agreed to Kit confronting Bartlett in his club—not to a full-scale brawl.
However, when Sharp was shown into the parlour, after Clara and Peter had left, he seemed perfectly relaxed, greeting Kit pleasantly and declining his offer of tea.
He watched Tom leave the room with undisguised interest.
“Ogling my footman?” Kit said, amused.
“I remember him,” Sharp said, one corner of his mouth quirking up. “That arse is unforgettable. He was selling it up at your club, wasn’t he? What’s he doing here?”
“He wanted a change of direction,” Kit replied.
“That so?” Sharp nodded. “Still, I’m a bit surprised at you keeping a footman. And with all the fancy livery too. Don’t seem like you, Kitten.”
“It’s a temporary arrangement,” Kit said. “Tom is… gaining experience with me before he looks for a permanent position.”
Sharp raised his brows. “If he’s looking for a position, there might be one directly under me”—he cleared his throat—“so to speak.”
“That’s precisely what he doesn’t want to do anymore,” Kit said drily.
Sharp chuckled. “I was only jesting anyway—I’ve got someone else in mind for that post.”
“Have you?”
Sharp’s smile was wolfish.
“How about last night then?” he said after a moment.
Kit felt his face heat. “I’m sorry things got so out of hand. I wasn’t expecting that. I don’t think it would have happened had Skelton not been there.”
Sharp only shrugged. “There was always a risk of fisticuffs. I wouldn’t have let you do it to a good customer, but Bartlett was on his way to being banned anyway. As for Skelton, your duke friend did me a favour with that one. Turned out he’d been using marked cards in my club.”
Sharp leaned forward, his tawny gaze oddly intent on Kit. He looked unusually serious with no hint of amusement or sarcasm in his expression. It was a look that said he meant what he was about to say.
“Don’t you worry about them coves, Kit,” he said quietly. “I’ll be taking care of both of them. You don’t need to give ’em another thought, and neither does your friend, Clara.”
Kit blinked.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised. Sharp had already been remarkably decent about the whole thing.
“Thank you,” Kit said at last. “I appreciate that more than I can say, and Clara will too.”
Sharp acknowledged his thanks with a brief nod. “So,” he said after a pause. “This duke of yours. Avesbury.”
“He’s not my duke,” Kit replied quickly. He might be grateful to Sharp, but he wasn’t about to give him any information about Henry he didn’t need.
“No?” Sharp said, raising a brow. “I heard he was your keeper?”
“That was years ago,” Kit said with a careless shrug. “And he’s not the only keeper I ever had.”
Sharp was silent for a long time, then he leaned back in his chair and said, “Well, that’s good to know, Kitten, because if there’s a position free as your keeper, I’d be very interested in applying.”
Kit laughed softly and shook his head. “There’s no position. As I think I’ve told you before, I don’t do that anymore. And even if I did, I’m too old for you.”
“Bollocks,” Sharp said, grinning. “You’re not much older than me.”
“Whether or not that’s the case, the fact remains I swore to myself a long time ago that I would never take money for that again.”
Besides, I’m in love with someone else.
He wasn’t stupid enough to say that last part aloud though.
Sharp sighed. “Well that’s just a damned shame,” he said. “The way I see it, money keeps things simple between two people. And I need things simple.”
Kit could have told him he was wrong. That far from making it simpler, money complicated everything. That it changed the balance between two people in ways that couldn’t be easily rectified.
But he didn’t say any of those things.
“If you recall, you do owe me a favour,” Sharp said, canting his head a little and quirking a smile.
Kit gave him a look. “I do recall—and I also recall that I told you that doesn’t include my favours. Ask for something else.”
Sharp laughed. He leaned back in his chair, watching Kit with unconcealed curiosity. “What have you got to offer me, Kitten?”
Kit opened his mouth to make some flippant comment in reply, but then he stopped himself. Paused. Let the idea that had just occurred to him expand in his mind.
What he was contemplating terrified him, but he made himself say it anyway.
“How about I sell Redford’s to you?”
Sharp’s eyes widened
And it was then that Kit realised something.
He really did want to sell Redford’s.
He wanted to be done with it.
“The members value the discretion I provide,” Kit said. “So we would have to find a way of reassuring them on that score. I could not sell without being satisfied that they were fully protected.”
Sharp’s gaze searched his face. “I understand,” he said at last. “It only makes sense after all—that’s where the real value lies. Your members pay through the nose for safety. It’s a nice little earner, Kit, and I admit, it would fit well with my other businesses.”
“So,” Kit said, “can you guarantee their safety? It all rests on that.”
Sharp met his gaze. “Guarantee? No.”
Kit’s disappointment at th
at response was crushing. He tried to hide his reaction but feared it must be obvious to Sharp.
“In that case,” he began, “I don’t think we can—”
“The real question is not what I can or cannot guarantee them,” Sharp said. “It’s whether they can trust me. So, we’ll ask them.”
“Ask them?” Kit echoed.
“Yes,” Sharp said simply. “You’ll tell them you’re selling up and I’m buying and we’ll give them the choice to leave or stay. If they want to leave, fine—and you’ll destroy all their membership records. Or, they can stay with me as the new owner. I’m reasonably well known now, with my own clubs, so they can judge for themselves whether they’re prepared to trust me.” He paused. “I’ll give you seven and a half thousand for the club regardless of who stays, and another two and a half if more than two-thirds stay.”
Kit swallowed hard. It was a very fair offer.
“Fifteen thousand,” he said coolly, “Guineas, not pounds. Plus the extra two and half if you get over two-thirds of the members, and you keep on all the staff at the same wages.”
Sharp laughed. “You cheeky sod,” he said wonderingly. He thought for a moment. “Ten thousand guineas then. Two and half more if two-thirds stay—if nine-tenths do, I’ll make it fifteen all-in. And I’ll keep the staff, but you won’t remove so much as a stick of furniture from the reception rooms or a single spoon from the kitchens.”
Kit’s head was swimming. “Done,” he said faintly.
Sharp held out his hand, and Kit took it.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Sharp said.
22
Henry
When Henry arrived home, his butler advised him that Lord Frederick was in the breakfast room and had asked to be informed as soon as his grace returned home.
“Shall I inform Lord Frederick that you are back, your grace?”
“No need,” Henry said. “I’ll go and speak with him. I could do with some breakfast in any event.”
Freddy looked up from his plate when Henry opened the door.
“Good morning, Freddy,” Henry said. “Did you sleep well?” He went to the sideboard and filled a plate before returning to the table and settling down.
“Tolerably well,” Freddy said. “You?”
Was there a note of challenge in that question, or was Henry imagining things? Mildly he said, “I did, thank you. Could you pour me some tea?” He pushed his cup and saucer towards Freddy who lifted the pot, poured him a cup, and pushed it back.
“How is Mr. Redford?” Freddy asked.
“He’s fine,” Henry said. “And very grateful to you for your intervention last night.”
Freddy shrugged. “Anyone would have done the same.”
“No,” Henry said. “In point of fact, no one did—only you.” He smiled. “I can’t tell how proud I am of you for that.”
Freddy flushed, his mouth curving briefly into a smile before he cleared his throat and said, “May I ask you something?”
“Of course,” Henry said.
“How do you know Mr. Redford?”
Henry had been expecting this, and he’d had time to consider his answer on the way home. Even so, it was not easy to speak the words.
“We knew each other a long time ago,” he said. “But until very recently I hadn’t seen him for many years.”
“So you’re… friends?” Freddy asked.
Henry set down his cutlery. “Freddy—”
Freddy blurted, “Are you like George?”
“Like George,” Henry repeated slowly. “Your brother George?”
Freddy swallowed. He nodded.
Henry frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Freddy paled. “Don’t you—?” He broke off. “I thought you knew. George did too.”
“Knew what?”
Freddy’s eyes widened, his gaze horrified. “I—nothing, I—”
Henry had never seen him so flustered.
“Tell me,” Henry insisted. When Freddy just stared at him, he added, “Freddy, please. I know George has been unhappy for a while. If you know why—” He broke off then, remembering what Freddy had just said before panic set in.
“Are you like George?”
Faintly, almost disbelievingly, Henry said, “Are you telling me that George—that he prefers men?”
Freddy swallowed and nodded. “I thought you knew,” he whispered. “I would never have mentioned it otherwise.”
“How would I know?” Henry said helplessly. His heart was racing, his gut in turmoil. The thought of George suffering in silence the way Henry had suffered for so many years made him hurt all over.
“Fletch’s father caught them together at Dinsford Park, when George was there for the holidays.” Freddy said. “Don’t you remember when George was sent back in disgrace? We were sure Fletch’s father had told you what happened.”
Henry did vaguely remember an occasion when George had been sent back early from his friend’s house—he would have been sixteen or so. Back then, he’d spent most of the holidays with his best friend, Oliver Fletcher, sometimes at Avesbury House and sometimes at Fletch’s family estate in Surrey. On that last occasion, George had been sent home with a terse but vague note from Sir Joseph Fletcher alluding to unacceptable behaviour and suggesting that Henry ask George for an explanation.
After reading the note, Henry had taken one look at George standing on the other side of his desk, his expression miserable and defeated, and had thrown the note on the fire. Henry had always liked Oliver Fletcher, a scamp of a lad who was the one person who seemed to have the power to bring out George’s more frivolous side.
Henry had decided then and there that George had been punished enough. Instead of asking George to explain himself, he’d dismissed him, saying only, “Take yourself off—just don’t do it again.”
“Don’t do it again.”
Hearing the words again in his mind, he wanted to weep. He hadn’t even known what he was telling George not to do.
“I didn’t know,” Henry said, his tone agonised. “God, if I’d known…”
It all made a horrible kind of sense. George’s low moods had begun a year or two before the incident at Dinsford Park, and they only seemed to have got worse since then. Henry ought to have recognised them for what they were, given he’d suffered from the same malaise.
“Papa?”
Henry looked up, meeting Freddy’s worried gaze.
What if George had known that Henry was like him? God knew this world did not make life easy for their kind. Would that knowledge have helped?
“Yes,” Henry said hoarsely.
Freddy just waited silently for him to go on.
“Yes, I am like George,” Henry said. “And, yes, that is how I know Christopher Redford.”
There was a moment of profound silence, then Freddy said, “Was he your…” He trailed off, seeming unsure how to finish the sentence.
Henry nodded, watching his younger son carefully. “He was, yes.” Henry’s stomach hollowed with fear and dread, but he made himself continue, made himself say the next words. “I loved him. I still do.”
Freddy closed his eyes for a moment, taking that in.
When he opened them again, he said quietly, “When were you and he together?”
“A very long time ago.” Henry paused then added, “And I’m afraid that’s all I’m going to say about Kit for now, Freddy.”
“All right,” Freddy said quietly, but his brows were drawn together in a frown and he stared down at the table as though he couldn’t bear to look at Henry.
“Are you disgusted?” Henry whispered. That was an unbearable thought, but he had to ask.
Freddy shook his head and looked up again. “Confused mostly. You and Mama—” He broke off.
“I loved your mother,” Henry quietly. “We loved each other. That’s all that matters.”
Freddy didn’t say anything to that, only went back to staring at the table. After a while, Henry
said desperately, “What are you thinking?”
Freddy shook his head. “All this time, I’ve been so angry at you, because of George. Because he started being miserable after you learned about him.” He shook his head disbelievingly. “Except now it turns out you didn’t actually know at all and, in fact, you and he are the same and… oh hell, everything’s topsy-turvy!” He sighed and rubbed a weary hand over his face. “I’ll get used to it eventually, I suppose. I can hardly accept this in George but not in you, can I?”
He offered Henry a watery smile and Henry wanted to weep, because Freddy was proving to be far more understanding than Henry would ever have imagined. His younger son could be brash and recklessly neck-or-nothing, but he had a solid core of decency that ran through his character like a seam of gold.
“Thank you,” Henry said. The words were inadequate. He felt so much profound gratitude in this moment, for Freddy’s understanding towards himself and his loyalty to his brother. And he felt relief too, overwhelming relief that, having bared this part of himself to his son, he seemed—against all his expectations—to have been accepted. Shown kindness, even. He would never have dared hope for such a thing, yet here it was, being given to him.
“You need to speak with George, Papa,” Freddy said.
Henry nodded. “I do. I’ll make arrangements to return to Wiltshire soon.” He paused, then added, “But before then we must speak about you.”
Freddy frowned. “What about me?”
Henry took a deep breath. “Last night, Kit made me see it’s time I stopped standing in the way of what you want to do with your life—though I hope I’d have realised that for myself by this morning anyway.”
The suspicious look fell away. Suddenly Freddy looked both hopeful and scared to hope.
“I’ll buy your colours,” Henry said roughly. “If that’s what you still want.”
Henry despatched Freddy to Simon Reid’s offices later that morning with a letter of introduction and instructions to ascertain what commissions were available. It was the first definite step towards Freddy embarking on a military career, and Henry had mixed feelings as he sealed the letter and handed it to his son.
Restored (Enlightenment Book 5) Page 23