A Gentleman's Position

by K. J. Charles

  Another bell. His lordship was coming up.

  “Good evening, my lord,” David said as his master entered. “I hope Lord Gabriel has had an enjoyable birthday?”

  “He has and is continuing to do so, with enthusiasm.” Lord Richard was not a heavy drinker, but he’d had a few glasses; David could smell it on him and see red pigment on his lips, like paint. His mouth would taste of wine.

  David moved behind Lord Richard, reaching up to remove his coat. He stood six inches shorter than Lord Richard and was much more slender, a whippet to his master’s mastiff. In the mirror, as Lord Richard looked at himself, David would be invisible. He always was.

  “You’re early back, my lord.” David eased the superbly cut coat off those broad, strong shoulders, feeling the muscles move as Lord Richard dropped them to make his valet’s task easier.

  “Mmm. Ash and Harry were in full celebratory mood. It made me feel rather old.”

  David clicked his tongue reprovingly. His master was thirty-seven years old, in the prime of life, and his dark brown hair was only just beginning to shade silver over his ears.

  “Julius sends his regards,” Lord Richard added. “He asked me to convey that he’d like to steal you from my service and offered a fabulous sum.”

  “It’s very kind of him, my lord,” David murmured, bringing the coat over Lord Richard’s hands. Such big, powerful hands, beautifully kept because David kept them, every nail polished and perfectly shaped.

  “It’s damned impertinence,” Lord Richard said, as David took the coat to hang it up. “I asked him, if I were married, would he have me convey his messages to my wife?”

  David shut his eyes. He didn’t need to see to go about his work, in any case; he could have cared for Lord Richard’s clothes in the dark and identified each coat by touch. He smoothed out the heavy cloth carefully, lovingly, taking his time.

  “More to the point,” Lord Richard added, “I met Peter Arlett, and he says that cursed awkward business of his is resolved. Thank you. I trust it wasn’t too inconvenient?”

  “No trouble at all, my lord.” Mr. Arlett, a lawyer and one of the Ricardians, had been careless in his cups and revealed a client’s secrets to a Grub Street scandalmonger. David had tracked down the fellow and persuaded him that it would be in his interests to forget what he’d heard. “Mason was very helpful,” he added. “He knows Grub Street well.”

  “He’s earning his keep, certainly.” Lord Richard pulled at his cravat. David moved closer, putting up his hands for the cloth, and Lord Richard dropped his own hands to give him access. Such a big man, so strong, yet he stood there passively while David worked over his body. David gently loosened the complex folds, painfully aware of how close his fingers were to the skin of Lord Richard’s throat.

  “And I’m very glad you could help Peter,” Lord Richard went on, “although he seems to be convinced it was all my doing. You are giving me an undeserved reputation for omnipotence.”

  They’d discussed this before. “Take the credit, my lord. It’s easier for me to work if gentlemen don’t notice me. And I do it all on your orders, so…” David carefully pulled the length of cloth from around Lord Richard’s neck.

  “Indeed. The things I ask you to do, or that you know I wish you to do, or that you do without telling me because you know very well I should refuse.” He gave David a pointed look. David adopted an expression of such exceptional blankness that Lord Richard laughed aloud.

  He had not been happy at David’s solution to Mr. Frey’s problem. He would have far preferred to see Silas packed off to the Americas than to take the radical into his household. But it had undeniably saved Silas’s skin and repaired Lord Richard’s friendship with Mr. Frey, and after a somewhat stormy few days, Lord Richard had accepted the wisdom of David’s course.

  A course that put Silas Mason in front of Lord Richard’s face every day as a reminder that the lost love of his life had found happiness elsewhere and that it was time for Lord Richard to do the same.

  It seemed their thoughts were running along similar lines, because his master said, “Dominic was there tonight.”

  “Well, I hope?”

  “Very well. I have not seen him so content in a long time. I wish to God I could understand why.” Lord Richard sighed. “Not that it matters. I am not required to understand, merely to accept.”

  “I like Mason, my lord. He’s an interesting man.”

  “So I’m told.” Lord Richard tugged off his signet ring and handed it over. “I trust he’s not trying to convert you to radical causes?”

  “I’m not political. Which I think he finds rather trying,” David added demurely.

  “God bless you, Cyprian. Oh, well, it makes Dominic happy. For now, at least.” David shot him a questioning look at that. Lord Richard turned up his hands in answer. “It can hardly last, can it? Dominic is a gentleman of good family, and Mason is the sweepings of the street. I cannot think it possible. In the end, the divide is surely too great.”

  David stared down at the box from which Lord Richard’s golden fobs and rings glinted at him, a fortune in trinkets casually bought and rarely used. His extremely generous annual salary would have purchased three or four of the smaller items. “There is a divide, my lord. But I think Mr. Frey knows what is right for himself.”

  “I would like to believe that. I wish I could.”

  “Well, but why not? Mr. Frey is content. Mason is doing useful work rather than fomenting sedition. The Vane libraries are in good hands. Surely all that counts for more than concerns of place.”

  “Ah, you are a Benthamite.” Lord Richard smiled at him in the mirror—not his society smile but that rare, sweet, open look that stopped David’s breath every time. “The greatest happiness of the greatest number.”

  David had no more interest in philosophy than in politics, and the greatest number could go hang themselves for all he cared. There were perhaps five people in the world for whose happiness

  he gave a damn at all, two who really mattered, and one of those was smiling at him now in a way that hurt his heart.

  He moved to unbutton Lord Richard’s waistcoat. It was just on the cusp between perfectly fitted and a little tight; Lord Richard had put on a couple of pounds over the winter. David eased a gilt button smoothly through its slit. “Merely a practical thinker, my lord,” he said. “If it is right for the people involved, then I cannot see why it should be wrong for anyone else.”

  “There we differ,” Lord Richard said. “One cannot disregard worldly concerns, or moral ones. Nevertheless, I wish I had been more practical with Dominic a long time ago, and I wish you had been with me then. I feel quite sure you would have helped me do better.”

  “My lord, you did what you could. Mr. Frey is responsible for himself.” Another button slipped free under David’s fingers. It was such a temptation to take longer over this, each undoing a little blissful torture. “And whatever has passed between you is done with now. There is no need for regrets.”

  “I disagree once more. Do you not have regrets?” Lord Richard asked.

  “I can’t see the point. There’s nothing one can do about them, after all. My mother says the sole point of the past is to ensure you don’t fall into the same traps in the future.”

  “That is certainly a tempting philosophy.” Lord Richard sighed. “And has some truth to it. You are ever a comfort, my Cyprian.”

  David stared at the embroidery in front of him, giving himself a self-indulgent second to absorb the words. Your Cyprian. All yours if you just ask. “I hope to give you satisfaction, my lord.”

  “You do.”

  “Whatever you need,” David said on a breath, and felt Lord Richard jolt under his hands. He moved his fingers to the next button of the waistcoat, the top one, close to the opening of the fine lawn shirt, and Lord Richard’s hand came down over his, skin against skin, trapping David’s fingers against his master’s chest.

  He might as well have grabbed David by the
balls.

  David looked up into Lord Richard’s face, his eyes indigo in the candlelight and a little wide, as if he was startled by his own act. They stood inches apart, in silence, Lord Richard’s heart beating under David’s hand, and David felt his hard-fought poise crumble like sand walls under the tide.

  Lord Richard’s big hand was over his, engulfing it, and either Lord Richard’s fingers were trembling or David’s were, or perhaps it was both. David flattened his fingers against Lord Richard’s chest and felt his master’s fingers tense over them.

  There was an endless second, and then Lord Richard lifted his hand. “Enough. I’ll do the rest myself. Go to bed.”

  David’s mouth opened. Lord Richard stepped back, not quite meeting his eyes. “It’s late. Go on.”

  It was just one in the morning. David had the rest of the evening’s duties to perform. He didn’t want to go, not now with his master’s touch hot on his hand. “My lord—”

  “Good night.”

  It was a flat dismissal, not to be argued with. “Yes, my lord,” David said in his usual neutral tone, and turned away.

  He had reached the door when Lord Richard spoke again. “You are—invaluable to me, Cyprian. I hope you know that.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” David managed, wondering how his own voice was so level. “Good night.”

  He shut the door without a sound and padded down the hall, face blank, manner correct. Nobody who saw him would see anything but a valet going about his duties. Nobody ever did.

  Silas had gone when David reached his own room. He sat on the bed and put his face in his hands, breathing hard.

  It was weeks since that touch in the book room, that moment of connection that couldn’t be explained away as valeting duties or accident or anything else. Weeks since Lord Richard had been forced to accept Mason into his own house, to acknowledge that the lost love of his life was happy elsewhere. Weeks of mornings and nights together in a bedchamber, of feeling Lord Richard trying not to respond to his touch, of David knowing that he was right.

  Weeks with an increasing conviction that he wasn’t going to get what he wanted.

  His lordship might embrace the future, but he wouldn’t embrace a servant. That was all there was to it. He was the marquess’s son, and he held his place with pride and with duty. He did not stoop, and he didn’t abuse his position either. David recalled him dressing down a cousin who’d been a nuisance to a housemaid, his deep voice carrying through two sets of walls with unrestrained anger. He’d forced the scarlet young gentleman to make his near-tearful apologies to the wide-eyed girl and then escorted him out of the house in a way that reminded David of his friend who threw drunks out of a gentlemen’s club. Lord Richard protected his own. It was no wonder his servants adored him.

  His lordship carried his birth, responsibility, and principles very heavily indeed. Desire didn’t stand a chance against those serried ranks, particularly not desire for a servant with hair of such a repulsive shade that he’d been ordered to wear it powdered at all times.

  He’d seen Lord Richard watching him. He’d felt his lord’s breathing coming harder sometimes as David’s fingers moved over him, felt his big body tense, maintaining control. Another master would have reached for him. David was no stranger to this game; he knew hungry eyes when he felt them on his skin. Lord Richard had wanted him a hundred times, and if he had extended a hand or spoken a word, David would have come willingly. But Lord Richard had not; he never would.

  It only made it worse that they both knew. David had felt the crackle of attraction all those years back at his interview for the post, and it hadn’t gone away any more than the sensation of that accidental, long-held touch on his fingers, which had felt so much like a door opening.

  But Lord Richard had shut it. He would not reach for David no matter how much he wanted to. And for once in his life, David didn’t know what to do.

  He solved his master’s problems and those of his master’s friends. That was easy enough for an ingenious man unencumbered by principles and backed by money and influence. With Lord Richard behind him, he could do anything. With Lord Richard in flat opposition…

  In the end, David was only a valet. He could persuade, even disagree, since his master generously permitted disagreement. He could not argue or overrule, defy or persist. He could manipulate, of course; he was fairly sure that he could overcome his master’s objections for a night. Lord Richard was a man, and men could be led; it was what David did best. But a single night was not what David wanted. Not at all.

  It was easy to lie when one didn’t care for the truth, to play when it was just a game with living pieces. He couldn’t do that to Lord Richard, because Lord Richard’s truth mattered to David as none other. He did not want to get his way with tricks now, to be the invisible puppet master. He wanted Lord Richard to see him. He wanted him to choose.

  And that left David, whose weapons were manipulation and deception, quite hopelessly adrift. All he could do was offer, as blatantly as he might but without saying anything that would force Lord Richard to a decision, because he was too afraid that the decision would be no.

  He was perhaps the best-paid valet in London and certainly one of the most envied. The great Cyprian, he was called by some, just as Brummell’s valet had been the great Robinson, and if David ever left Lord Richard’s service, he would be able to name his next master and his salary too. That should have been enough for any man in his position and of his background. More than enough.

  But it wasn’t. Because if David Cyprian had been asked to define his own particular hell, it would be night after night in Lord Richard’s bedroom, night after night undressing him with murmured words and infinite care and then walking away to an empty room, again, alone.

  Chapter 2

  “Excellent, brother. A neat solution.” Philip, Marquess of Cirencester, scrawled his signature on the lawyer’s letter and sat back with a sigh of satisfaction. “Thank you, Richard. That has been a thorn in my side.”

  “My pleasure.” Richard piled the papers together so that they were ready to pass to his brother’s man of business. “I think that’s all the outstanding matters dealt with. Have you anything else for me?”

  Philip struggled with the written word as badly as any untaught rustic, and no amount of beating at Harrow had helped him acquire scholarship. He did not speak of it, but Richard knew it was a constant humiliation to him and a worry too, since a dishonest clerk might do much harm with an illiterate master. So Philip relied on his younger brother for the administration of the vast Vane estates, as he did his wife for personal communication, and Richard was happy to do it. He was the second son, and had become quite unnecessary when the first of Philip’s three boys was born, but as his brother’s aide-de-camp he was vital to the Vane interests, even if hardly anyone knew it.

  Philip shook his head. “No, I think that is everything. Well. Not everything. Do you have a moment more?”

  The tone of his voice was worrying. “Brother?”

  “I, uh.” Philip interlaced his fingers. “Richard, when will you marry?”

  “Marry? Good heavens, where is that sprung from?”

  The Marquess of Cirencester was head of the sprawling Vane family and took that duty seriously. Richard preferred to count himself Philip’s ally rather than his responsibility, but if his brother chose to interest himself in Richard’s affairs, that was without question his right.

  “You will be thirty-eight on your next birthday. It is not an unreasonable question,” Philip said. “I had five children by your age. Yet you remain resolutely single.”

  “Some might say you have children enough for us both. Why do you ask?”

  “You must know why.”

  That was a cold draught down the back of Richard’s neck. He had always been discreet and had had very little to be discreet about recently, but his circle of friends included men who were not so. They had banded together some years ago, their little society of gentlemen w
ith a taste for gentlemen, because the isolation had been intolerable, but he had come to feel that their mutual allegiance was a danger in itself. If one fell, they might all fall.

  If the Marquess of Cirencester, high in the instep to a fault, had heard whispers about his brother, the whispers must have been loud indeed. But that was impossible: Cyprian would have warned him.

  He kept his voice as calm as he could. “I don’t know why. Enlighten me.”

  “Father,” Philip said, and Richard blinked.

  “Father? I don’t follow you.”

  “Need I spell it out?” Philip demanded. “Our father married late in life. Do you think I wish to see you wed as our parents were?”

  Richard had to take a few seconds to suit his mind to this turn of the conversation, unwelcome but so much better than he’d feared. “You think I intend to follow Father’s example? Wait until my declining years and then wed a girl from the schoolroom? Philip, really. I am not in my dotage, and I have no need to marry, thanks to that well-stocked nursery of yours. If I cannot find a lady with whom I can suit, I shall leave my fortune to my namesake, just as our Uncle Richard did me.”

  “Dickie would doubtless appreciate it. But…” Philip picked up a pen and turned it in his fingers as if considering it with close attention. “Eustacia is concerned. She wonders if you are becoming addicted to bachelorhood.”

  “I bow to none except you in my affection for your wife,” Richard said. “However, on this matter…”

  “You are set in your ways. When a man is too used to being his own master in his own household, can it be easy to change his state?”