A Gentleman’s Position(3)

Chapter 1


MARCH 8, 1820

“Bear off,” Silas said smugly. “And that’s you gammoned.”

David sat back with a sigh. It had not been one of his better performances, and Silas, a bludgeoning, brutal opponent at the backgammon board, was developing a knack for strategy too. “Blast you,” he muttered, and totted up the points with a wince. In their ongoing contest, Silas’s score was definitely creeping upward.

“Another round?” Silas suggested.

David glanced at the clock. It was only half past midnight, but he shook his head. “I think not.”

“Thought they were on a spree. You can’t be expecting his lordship back before two at the earliest.”

“No. Well.”

Silas shrugged and topped up his glass as David began to pack away the counters. He tilted the bottle toward David’s tumbler in invitation; David shook his head again. “No? It’s probably best. With you on a losing streak and all.”

“Two games don’t constitute a losing streak,” David objected. “Unlike the seven in a row you lost last week. That was a streak.”

He had taken a strong and unexpected liking to Silas, rough-tongued lout that he was. David’s position isolated him from the rest of the household, since valets were outside the hierarchy of servants. He was Lord Richard’s man, answering to nobody else, and it set him apart. He would have tolerated more than solitude for his place, but over four years and more, it had become tiresome that nobody would even give him a game for fear of beating him.

Silas spoke as he liked and not only tried his best to trounce David at backgammon but crowed about it when he did. David was slightly startled at how much he enjoyed having a friend in the house.

Silas took a swallow of gin. “Here, I was reading something the other day that’ll interest you. Philosopher fellow, writing on whether animals have souls.”

“You think animals have souls?” David asked incredulously.

“Me? I don’t think people have souls.”

David winced. “Keep that to yourself. No atheism on Lord Richard’s time, thank you.”

“Don’t ask if you don’t want to know. Anyway, he had a story about dogs who know when their owner’s on his way. They’ll jump to the window or the front door for no reason, couldn’t have heard anything, and five minutes later he arrives. Animal instinct or some such, I don’t know. Point is, they can sense when their master’s coming home.”

It sounded plausible enough, but Lord Richard did not own dogs, and therefore David didn’t care. “Well, and?”

“And what?”

“You said it would interest me. I’m waiting to find out why.”

Silas gave him an evil grin. “No reason.”

David returned a suspicious look, then shut the backgammon box and put it on the shelf. They were playing in his bedroom, since it was more comfortable for everyone if they both avoided the servants’ hall. As Lord Richard’s valet, David had a room big enough to accommodate a table with two chairs, more space than he’d ever had before in his life, but he’d spent too long arranging gentlemen’s rooms to tolerate anything less than perfect order in his own.

“If you’re going to bore me with pointless tales—” he began, and then his head snapped up as the bell rang.

“That’ll be Lord Richard coming home,” Silas observed with immense satisfaction. “Lucky you were ready for him, eh?”

David was momentarily lost for words. “Go shove your mother,” he managed at last. “You blasted gutter-blood.”

Silas lifted his glass in a toast, grinning, as David scooped up his coat. “Off you go. Give his lordship my love. I’ll just finish your gin.”

“I hope it chokes you.” David checked his hair in his little mirror. It was impeccably powdered, none of the telltale red visible.

“Cheers to you too. Night.”

“Good night.” David hurried out. Behind him, Silas coughed stagily. It sounded very like a bark.

Lord Richard had not rung for him, of course. That would never do. The bell was a warning from the footman that Lord Richard had come home so that David could be ready before he was needed. Lord Richard might have brought a parcel of friends with him and intend to stay up talking for hours more, and if he did, David would simply wait rather than let Lord Richard come up to an unattended bedroom. One did not earn the reputation of being the best valet in London by thinking of one’s own comfort.

The best valet in London, occupying one of the best positions. When Lord Richard’s previous valet had left his service to marry, the vacant post had been fought over with startling viciousness by men who were prepared to abandon their masters and sabotage their friends to secure it. David had made damned sure he won that silently waged war. He had wanted Lord Richard, and—professionally—he’d got him.