A Gentleman’s Position(25)

“You’re fooling nobody but yourself,” David managed.

Silas snorted. “Aye, well, there’s always an exception proves the rule.”

A maid showed David up to a small room some while later. He blew out the candle, lay on the truckle bed knowing he would not sleep, and was astonished to find Will Quex nudging his shoulder in the golden light of a well-advanced spring morning.

“All right, Foxy. Silas brought your trunk over. Want some tea?”

David muttered his thanks, sitting up. Silas hadn’t packed him a nightshirt, so he had slept naked, but Will had seen it all before.

“Here you go, ginger-pate, get that down you. Sounds like you’ve left a right mess back at Albemarle Street. His lordship’s raging all over, demanding you found urgent-like. Silas reckons he’s on for a billingsgate when he gets back there. He’s gone for a nice long walk first to let his lordship get his dander up.” Will grinned evilly.

“He’s going to quarrel with Lord Richard?” David said. “If he gets himself dismissed—”

“That’s his problem,” Will interrupted. “His, or Lord Richard’s, or Mr. Frey’s, or whoever wants it. Not yours. The gentlemen are going to have to look after themselves now.”

“But—”

“Oi.” Will gave him a pat on the arm. “You need to go away. A long way, so you can remember who you are, which ain’t Lord Richard’s man, and what you’re for, which ain’t his service. I know what I’m talking about here. You carry on being the one who does everything for other people, you’ll end up with nothing left of you.”

Will had been born Susannah, with four loutish brothers and a drunken father. He’d stolen a set of clothes at the age of thirteen, when his father began considering what he could get for his daughter’s body; fled Southwark forever; and crossed the river to claim a life of his own that was not at any man’s command. As he’d observed more than once, it was a shitty life as a woman.

If anyone found out that Mr. William Quex, owner of a gentlemen’s club, had women’s parts, he and Jon Shakespeare could be disgraced, ruined, maybe even prosecuted if the gentry felt vindictive. In their turn, they could reveal enough to hang half of Lord Richard’s set. David had kept that delicate balance to everyone’s benefit, and now he had a terrible sense that the whole edifice might topple without him.

He should have bloody listened to me, then.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Will was asking. “Family?”

“I thought I might visit my mother. I’d like to see her.” And she’d understand. There was nothing he couldn’t tell her, no shameful stupidity he could commit that she wouldn’t respond to with a throaty laugh and a hug. Whatever it was, she had, after all, done worse.

He wanted his mother, and that was an absurd admission for a man of thirty-four. Still, there was something nagging at him, and contemptible though it was, he had to ask. “Did you say Lord Richard was looking for me?”

Will rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a prick. If he’s angry, it’s probably because nobody else can find his boots. And even if he’s missing you, that don’t change a thing. You need to get this”—he tapped David’s forehead—“straight. He’s a lordship, he’s way above you, whatever Silas Mason says, and mostly, you’re not his valet any longer, so stop moping like a maiden in the play. I want my cunning ginger sod back.” He gave David a quick hug. “Breakfast in the kitchen, and then piss off before you get us in trouble.”





Chapter 6


If the night that Richard threw Cyprian out was bad, the next morning was far worse.

Richard had lain awake in bed for hours, seething with anger and shame. At himself, at Cyprian, at the whole accursed, stupid situation. He’d had to stop himself going down the corridor, knocking on his valet’s door. Are you all right? he wanted to say, and I’m sorry, and then other things, pleas and promises that he could whisper in his imagination and never speak in life.

This was why you kept your damned hands off the damned staff. His weakness had led his perfect servant to use Richard’s first name and ignore his wishes. Led him to presumption. To desperation.

I will accept his apology, he told himself, which, as the hours passed in darkness, became Of course he won’t resign, and then I won’t accept his notice, and at last I’ll tell him I’m sorry. We’ll talk about it. He was wide awake well before the time Cyprian always came in with his morning cup of tea, waiting for him. But Cyprian didn’t come.