“Thank you for telling me that,” he said instead, feeling his way carefully. “For trusting me with it. I must feel appalled at your mother’s situation. I wish that things had been otherwise, for your sake and hers, and I am very glad to know she has found a happy home. But I’m damned if I can see why she wanted me to know this.”
“Because you offered me a gentleman’s position. Because you want a gentleman, and I am not one and never will be. If you want a gentleman in your bed, my lord, you will need to look a long way above brothel spawn.”
“Don’t say that!” Richard glared at him. “You are more than that, and it is damned disrespectful to your mother.”
“I know the respect I owe my mother,” David snapped. “She could have discarded me into the gutters; instead she kept me, educated me, didn’t let Belle put me on sale, though it meant she worked there for years more to pay for me. We all owe our mothers our lives, my lord, but I owe mine a great deal more than most. I was born a whore’s bastard, and thanks to her I have risen to become the most sought-after valet in London. I’m proud of that. We both are.”
“I am sure you are.”
“Are you?” David asked. “Are you really? Because it seems to me that you are ashamed of it.”
“What?”
“You think my profession is degrading, my work demeaning. You said so. You asked, how could your lover possibly black your boots? Well, I have blacked your boots for four and a half years. I worked so hard for you, and I was so proud to do it. I gave you everything, served you every way I could, and all the time you despised me for it?”
“David, no. I didn’t mean that—”
“Demeaning,” David said savagely. “That’s what you said, grotesque and demeaning. Tell me, what do you find most contemptible, that I took such care with your linen or that I ensured your boots were the envy of every man in the ton?”
“Stop, please. You are a superb valet—”
“But that is not good enough for you,” David finished. “There is not the slightest real difference between my work and the post you offered me. A confidential secretary is no fitter for his master’s bed than a valet, and we wouldn’t be any the less hanged for it. In fact, it’s far worse for a lover, because your secretary does not spend hours in your bedroom, but you weren’t thinking of how to have time with me, were you? It’s another form of hair powder, a way to make me more acceptable in your eyes. You don’t want to fuck a servant, so I must be changed, and be damned to what I am or what I want.”
“That is not true!” Richard said, appalled. “That is twisting everything I meant. I wanted to offer you something better—”
“For whom? I would work—I would have worked for you and shared your bed and asked nothing more of life. I like my work, damn it. If you had asked me whether I would still be happy to black your boots, I should have told you yes in a heartbeat, but you never asked because you assumed I would find it as degrading as you do. Everything I have ever done for you—” His voice cracked.
“And if I asked you to come back as my valet, if I asked you to black my boots and share my bed, would you accept that with your mother’s example in front of you? Is that not what she was telling me, that your position is vulnerable beyond bearing? Can you not see that I was trying only to strengthen it?”
“I choose my position,” David said through his teeth. “If I let you choose it for me, then I would be weak indeed. And if you fear I would be vulnerable, the answer is not to elevate me to a secretary. It is to respect me as a valet. As a man. My mother’s employer did not have to treat her like dirt because she was a governess; he chose to. Mr. Fleming never asked her to become something else—”
“Then he is a kinder man than most. And this is all very grand until your position becomes a problem, until I see you flinch at a display of temper or mouth meaningless agreement because you fear the consequences—”
“You don’t trust me to stand up for myself,” David said furiously. “You don’t trust me to make my own choice. Well, I will not be given sops and trinkets like a child who needs direction. I am not your responsibility, my lord.”
“Not since you lost your job over this certainly. Have you forgotten that?”
“I’m hardly likely to. It reminded me exactly what I am to you. Servant to the master.”
“That is my point.” Richard clenched his fists in frustration. “That is what I have been trying to say. It is what I wanted to change—”