A Gentleman Revealed

by Cooper Davis

  Alistair knew it was time for bed. If Samuel had turned so mean—if he was so intent upon nudging square against the truth of Alistair’s parentage, it was beyond time to excuse himself. He rose unsteadily to his feet, stretching to his full six foot four inches, then made a formal bow. “Samuel, I must bid you good night.”

  “You don’t like my questions?” Sam asked lazily.

  “That’s no worry. It’s just that I far prefer sidling up next to my handsome, too-young fiancé in our shared bed.” He spun on his heel, a slow, victorious smile crossing his face as he made exit of the library. Sam’s good nature would return on the morrow; surely Sam would forget Alistair’s near slip of the tongue, as well.

  “Hold up, man.” The words were slurred. Alistair slowly turned and found Sam with his forehead held miserably in his palm, elbows loosely planted on the table they’d been sharing. “Apologies, Finley. Apologies.” Then Sam slowly lifted his gaze, and there was a bereft expression in those dark eyes.

  Casually, Alistair strolled back to the table. Sam shoved at the empty chair with his boot, pushing it out for Alistair. “The footman’s bringing more port, anyway.”

  “Perhaps it’s not my company you’re after. And you simply don’t wish to imbibe alone?”

  Sam sighed, scraping a hand over his bleary eyes. “I . . . need a friend. And you’re right, you’ve been my friend at times.”

  “I wanted to think so.”

  They fell silent as the footman appeared, bearing more port. Once both were served, Sam sank back in his seat. “What,” he asked slowly, “were you about to say earlier?”

  Alistair’s pulse raced. Sam had indeed intentionally summoned his return, but those intentions were not ones of friendship or camaraderie. “When?” Alistair asked, voice hard as steel.

  “What runs in the family? Our shared drinking?”

  All the blood must have literally drained from Alistair’s face. His stomach lurched and for a moment, he feared he might honestly cast up his accounts.

  Sam waved vaguely at him in a shooing motion. “Oh, don’t appear all aghast. I’m unaccustomed to you appearing anything but florid-faced. I’ve suspected for some time.”

  “Then . . . that explains why you never liked me. Your suspicions.”

  “The truth.”

  “You’re mistaken as to what you thought I said. I am your family, but not by blood.”

  “Hmm,” was all Samuel said, his expression turning morose again. “Perhaps I quite like the notion of having another cousin. What say ye to that?”

  “That you’re truly soused.” Alistair’s breathing was finally returning somewhat to normal.

  Sam, oddly, laughed. “Soused I am, indeed. More often than not, but you’d know something of that. Thing is, I’ve never been sure what kept you in your cups all these years. Though, as I say, I suspected. As for me? I’ve a wonderful wife who loves me and whom I love. Yet . . .” Sam shook his head miserably, swirling his port. “Nothing is ever enough.”

  “Perhaps you refer to Lord Colchester? I’ve watched you around him this week and you tense whenever he’s near.” Not only did Sam tense, but when he believed none were looking, he gazed achingly at the viscount. There was something beyond mere friendship there, he was certain of it, something he’d suspected at the Ferndale house party last summer, when both Alistair and Colchester were guests.

  “Nothing with Thomas. Fine friend, naught more.” But the words naught more were laced with heartsick emotion.

  “Not anymore?” Alistair slid closer to the table. “You may confide in me, Sam. I hope you know that.”

  “Ah, see! You’ve found love for the first time in your spinsterish life and now you are expert on all manner of heartfelt fidelities. Or more appropriate to my case, infidelities.”

  Infidelities? Had Lucy been part of some type of extramarital affair with the viscount?

  Alistair didn’t have to voice the question, as Sam, loosened by the evening’s abundant spirits, volunteered, “Luce adores him much as I do. And much as the duchess adores me.” Then Sam laughed, a vaguely hysterical, drunken sort of expulsion. “He adores me, she adores he . . . you get the picture.”

  “Then whatever is wrong? Sounds like a winning arrangement.”

  “Dunno. Won’t tell me . . . us.” Then Sam took his fingers and flicked them, as if shooing away a bee. “Just done. Closed off, shut down. Poof.”

  Alistair sighed in sympathy. “I am sorry, Sam. I know too well the joy of finding happiness only to fear it might have proved fleeting. Perhaps in time, things shall right themselves?”

  Sam nodded miserably, and simply drank of his port, neither of them saying more for quite a long time. But Alistair found that he couldn’t dismiss an abiding apprehension at how close Sam had come to needling the truth out of him, nor at the fact that in the man’s misery, he’d uncharacteristically dropped the topic of Alistair’s bloodline. It seemed, altogether, too easy. Samuel Tollemach was, much like Arend’s own brother, stubborn to the marrow and rarely let anything go without a fight.

  Which, on the balance, boded well for Lord Colchester and their apparent affair. If the man thought he’d escape Sam and his torrid affections to any lasting effect, the gentleman certainly had another thing coming.

  Alistair merely hoped that he himself didn’t have another thing coming from Sam, after their exchange tonight. With that thought, he turned up his glass of port and drained it dry.

  * * *

  * * *

  Alistair turned to his valet, horrified at his ill-fitting tailcoat and breeches, and examined himself in the full-length mirror. “Dear God, I’m the very picture of an overstuffed sausage.” His many indulgences over the past week had clearly taken their toll.

  The valet shook his head. “Sir, you’re too harsh. Always are with yourself.” Oliver brushed off his shoulder, smoothing the black satin lapels, standing behind Alistair. He inspected his form, then neatened Alistair’s right cuff. “You’re quite well turned out, actually.”

  “The trousers,” Alistair groaned. “Oliver. You’re pretending not to notice how taut they are! And the waistcoat is pulling across my belly.”

  Oliver slid expert hands about his waist, tugging at the waistcoat’s fabric. “There’s not enough play here for me to work any last-minute alterations, Mr. Finley. This is what we’ve to work with, I’m afraid.” Oliver stepped back around him, pulling at the side seam of the breeches. “If tonight were less formal, then we’d have more alternatives.”

  “You mean to say that I’ve no other formal trousers?”

  Oliver’s silver brows puckered slightly, revealing anxiety. The elder man had been dressing Alistair too many years; it was easy to recognize the fellow’s dismay. “Oliver?” he prompted again, sharper than he meant.

  The valet set his jaw, then said, “Sir, you insisted that everything be tailored to fit your slimmer build. And that those alterations be completed by this house party. You were most particular and specific in the instructions.”

  Alistair glanced up in surprise. “Oliver, you’re meant to mind me better than that—especially when I turn idiotic.”

  “I am sorry, sir.” Oliver flushed, bowing his steel-gray head. “I didn’t expect—“

  “That I’d plump up again so swiftly?” Alistair glanced at his reflection in the looking glass, appalled. “It’s been but a week of high living. My overindulgences are not your fault, and my apologies for being harsh.”

  “Understandable that you’d be upset. It’s your own engagement party, and you expected to be well outfitted. But you are, sir. More than you think just now.” Oliver nodded, stern-faced as ever. “Let’s simply have another go, Mr. Finley. I feel sure we can make a fine presentation of you this evening.” The man rifled about in the bureau then made a downright exultant noise, exclaiming over a pair of forgotten breeches that he qui
ckly brought over with fluttering enthusiasm. Oliver helped him into the generously cut black pants and Alistair prayed they would fit better than the last.

  The valet drew the front waistband together and Alistair sucked in a tight breath as Oliver worked the front pleat fastened. The fellow had to wrangle a bit, but secured the top two buttons. But just barely, and Alistair despaired as he released that breath and the whole front panel grew tight. And when he glanced at himself in the full mirror, what he glimpsed was downright vulgar. Nothing left to the imagination, not one curve or burgeoning swell of his hips and arse, which had plumped out nicely over the past days. Likely because it was his form’s habitual state.

  “These do not suit. Not at all.” Alistair gestured toward the waistband and Oliver unfastened the buttons with some adroit work. Once released from the fasteners, Alistair could finally breathe. He blew out a heavy breath, drank in another.

  Stepping back into his day attire with Oliver’s help, he breathed a prayer of gratitude that those breeches had been cut loose enough to still fit. Without a word, he moved to his bureau, and retrieved his secret bottle of whiskey. He dashed a few fingers worth of the liquid into a short glass, feigning interest in his neckties to cover his movements at the bureau. “At least my ties still fit, Oliver.” He stared down into that full glass of amber liquid, swirled it once. Then with an itching thirst that bordered on desperation, he drained the glass.

  “Mr. Finley, there are numerous trunks of fine clothing in the south wing. Articles that belonged to King Norman and are still in excellent shape. I’ve mentioned before that we should avail ourselves of those garments—King Arend approved the idea when I mentioned it. Said the garments shouldn’t molder endlessly. We could simply visit the former royal apartments—“

  Alistair returned his glass to the shelf, aghast. He’d always wanted to believe there was a distinction between his own girth and that of his sire’s epic heft. “King Norman was portlier than I . . . was he not?” There was a note of panic in the question that he couldn’t disguise.

  “You needn’t suffer by comparison. King Norman was a most rotund man, quite corpulent.”

  Rotund. Corpulent. The very adjectives Dryden had applied to Alistair. “Ah, whereas I am a trim, sleek fellow.”

  “You are rangier and of a larger stock altogether, Mr. Finley. Broader through the shoulder, taller in height. King Norman was . . . built most differently. But large enough that there’s fabric to play with. I can alter King Norman’s clothing, make it suit. I suggested this option only to provide you more fashionable freedom this evening.”

  “Freedom. As in, to allow me to bloody well breathe?”

  “Mr. Finley. Sir.” Oliver gave him a wizened glance, then shook his head reproachfully. “When you were a lad of ten, you were already taller than King Arend—he, four years older than thee. By the time you came of age, you’d reached your present height. King Norman, by contrast, was thickset, rounder and . . .”

  My father. My sire. The man I most resemble. Why was Oliver falling over himself to reassure Alistair that he did not resemble the late king too closely? Did he know Alistair’s dread secret?

  “But I am not his son.” Alistair squared his shoulder, wishing his cheeks weren’t aflame.

  Oliver turned, busying himself with a needle and thread, averting his face. “No, sir, of course you’re not his natural son. His foster son, yes. But you’d not resemble King Norman.”

  “No, I would not.” He stared at Oliver, trying to decide if the elderly valet knew more than he’d just allowed. Finally, Alistair let it go. Sucking in a breath, he frowned at his reflection.

  “Well, nothing to be done for it tonight, then, Oliver.” He held both hands out at his sides. “Truss me on up. For an expedition to the south wing it shall be.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Alistair’s foray to King Norman’s former apartments proved an abysmal failure, as very little of the late king’s clothing suited. “It’s because you’re taller than he,” Oliver said, as they tried on trousers after trousers. “Your legs are assuredly longer.”

  Finally, Oliver found a pair of silk britches that were quite generously cut. “These may yet work,” his valet said brightly, and Alistair was relieved when the garment fastened easily enough. “These will be most handsome once I alter the length at the knee. Quite perfect.”

  Unfortunately, their success with the waistcoats proved more limited. “As I told you,” Oliver insisted, “you’re much broader through the shoulder than King Norman. Still, perhaps we’ll find something large enough here.”

  Alistair ignored the man’s embarrassed prattling—he was already embarrassed enough himself. Besides, the sartorial shame wasn’t the worst of it, anyway. Not when every errant letter and medal, every pocket watch—all the belongings in those trunks—jabbed a finger into Alistair’s chest. It poked at him and accused, and then likewise whispered the truth.

  You are a bastard. A royal castoff, below your own sire’s notice. He preferred to stow all these items away, rather than leave even one of them to you—his son.

  He tried to silence the voice that kept murmuring at him, and sounded so very much like his dead father. But the task proved nearly impossible. There was, after all, a reason he’d avoided this south wing for years, its very existence a painful reminder of his sire’s rejection.

  He blotted at his forehead, where a sheen of sweat had blossomed. Oliver pressed a kerchief into his hand. “It’s over-hot in these closed-up rooms. You should allow me to finish the inventorying, sir.”

  “I’m all right, Oliver,” he said, but he was dizzy, overcome by far more than the heat itself. Alistair sank back onto his haunches, but then his vision darkened slightly, and he lurched forward, catching himself.

  His big hands shoved down into folds of fabric, and he swallowed bile at the back of his throat. He was haunted by too many memories and ghosts, ones he usually ignored. “It’s this room,” he confided roughly to Oliver. His heart slammed in his chest, and the heat became even more cloying. “These apartments. No wonder I avoid them.”

  “I shouldn’t have brought you here.” Oliver sounded downright chagrinned. “I knew better.”

  Alistair blotted at his damp brow again, aware that he’d begun to tremble at some point. “Knew better than what, Oliver? To make me face my demons? I’ve certainly enough of them, in all parts of this palace.” For once, he didn’t feel like dissembling, not with Oliver, who’d known him since he was but a small lad.

  “And which demons would those be?” The throaty, purring voice came from the doorway and with a jolt of alarm, Alistair glanced up to find Samuel leaning against the jamb. How long had his cousin stood there? What had he heard?

  After their hostile interaction yestereve, not to mention that near slip of Alistair’s, he hated for Sam to catch him plundering King Norman’s rooms.

  “I was remarking upon how this closed-up wing spooks me at times.”

  “And yet you just confessed your demons lurk in every nook and cranny of our family’s palace—or, rather, my family’s.” Sam gave him a piratical smile that seemed more dangerous than usual. “Sacking the storehouse now, are you? Weren’t the port casks bad enough, Finley?”

  “I am looking for something to wear tonight.” Alistair bent over the open trunk, avoiding the man’s probing gaze. His vision still swam, but Sam’s unexpected appearance had sobered him immediately.

  “You own a wardrobe suitable for a prince, so what more could you need from the royal vaults? Norman’s old kingly vestments? Hmm?” Sam drawled, the words just dangerous enough to alarm Alistair. He’d hoped Sam would have forgotten their exchange yestereve. Now, if anything, he seemed less amicable.

  Alistair jolted where he knelt, swinging his gaze to Samuel, but he said nothing.

  “No wonder you’ve got your gloves upon my dead uncle’s clothing. I shouldn�
��t doubt his trousers and coats will fit you comfortably, perhaps even snugly. There is,” he added, “quite the resemblance.”

  Alistair shoved the waistcoats back into the trunk, as if attempting to conceal a dirty, flagrant secret. Which was precisely what he’d been from the moment of his conception some seven and thirty years earlier. A dirty, perverse secret, tucked away where King Norman might watch over him, yet never embrace or love him.

  After a long moment of Alistair holding a tight breath, his hand crammed down between the folds of fabric and trousers, Samuel shrugged and continued down the corridor. But Alistair couldn’t shake the feeling that his cousin now knew the truth of Alistair’s siring. That his one careless slip of the tongue was all the proof Sam had needed for his long-held suspicions.

  And with that leveling fear chased another: Samuel might well announce his speculations to Arend, and perhaps worse, to Marcus.

  * * *

  * * *

  In the end, it wasn’t Samuel who proved Alistair’s undoing, but rather one damning gold button.

  They’d not been seated in the formal dining room for long, everyone chatting amicably. Except Alistair, who was restless and edgy. His bloody waistcoat—the one they’d ultimately fetched from King Norman’s trunks—was still too taut, despite Oliver’s best efforts. It pulled over Alistair’s middle, and when he reached to tug at it, he found Sam watching the gesture. His cousin lifted one desultory eyebrow, before sliding his glance toward Lucy. He toyed with one of her curls, bouncing it, and murmured, “Noble blood always shows. Just look at these winsome curls.”

  Lucy blushed, not realizing that the person Sam was actually toying with was Alistair. She swatted at his hand, murmuring something about appropriate dinner table conversation.

  Alistair needed to vanish, to escape, and thus he did what came most naturally to him: he began to consume wine. Heavily. Swiftly. One glass, followed by another, and then one more—hardly wise behavior, considering he’d begun imbibing mid-afternoon.