“That is not what—” Richard began, and stopped himself because he refused to get into such an absurd argument.
Mason tapped a book, considering. “You know how they say you need to put yourself in another man’s shoes?”
“To understand his position. Yes?”
“Aye, but that’s the thing. Put yourself in his shoes, and it’s still yourself. Your feet don’t fit my shoes, never will. You need to see things how the other fellow sees ’em, not put yourself in his place, because you’re not him. Not something I’m much good at,” Mason added. “I’d have been better in my work if I was. Tell you who’s good at other people: David.”
“Of course he is,” Richard said, his voice stifled.
“Saw that the other day when he asked my help with that problem. He sits there thinking: What does the other man know? What does he believe? What does he want? What does he fear? Works his way through what’s in the other fellow’s head and then uses it to get his own way. Or, I should say, your way.”
Richard stared at his hands, the hands David had cared for and kissed. Mason was right, damn him. Richard had considered himself, the marquess’s son, in a valet’s position and not liked it. He had considered everything from the perspective of a lord, thinking of his own duties and responsibilities. After all his regrets and promises to Dominic, he still had not listened.
David had known the risks in the gulf that lay between them, and accepted them. But rather than seeing that, Richard had put his own oversized feet into David’s narrower shoes and ripped them apart at the seams.
His work had not been demeaning, until Richard had demeaned it to his face.
“Christ,” Richard said into his knees. “Christ.”
“Aye, well, we all make a bad job of things now and again and you no less than the rest of us. I doused Dom’s glim for him, you might recall. Blacked his eye,” Mason translated, as though Richard had forgotten that incident.
That was true but not comforting. Dominic was a forgiving man; Richard suspected that David was not. He would certainly not make himself the victim of his position by taking a master or a lover who did not respect him. He would never have been so foolish. He would have looked after himself, if only Richard had not tried to do that for him.
“Hell’s teeth,” Richard said aloud. Mason didn’t reply, but he didn’t leave either, moving quietly around the room while doing, as far as Richard could see, very little, until at last there was a knock at the door.
“That’ll be Dom,” Mason said with evident relief. “Here.” A hand, extended down. “Get off the floor. Bloody ridiculous.”
Richard took his work-toughened hand. Mason was several inches shorter than Richard but solidly built, and he pulled hard so that Richard had to come to his feet or risk a dislocated arm. He stood but didn’t let go of the radical’s hand at once. “I…Thank you.”
“Aye, well,” Mason muttered. “I’ll get the door.”
Richard took his usual chair while Mason and Dominic exchanged a few words under their breath, and topped up the brandy glass he’d abandoned.
Dominic shut the door behind Mason, pulled over the other chair, and gave Richard a long look. “It didn’t go well, then. Care to talk?”
“Not really. There is nothing to say.”
“Nothing?”
“I caused more pain and distress in a few words than I ever have in my life, to the last man on earth I should have wished to hurt. Is that enough? I’m sorry, Dom. I tried to keep my word to you. I failed.”
“Good heavens. What on earth did you do?”
“Offered him a post as my confidential secretary at twice the salary.”
“That…isn’t clear to me,” Dominic said carefully. “Why was that bad?”
“Of course it is not bad. It is a better post. He would be more respected, more independent. Not a servant, still of my household—I thought it was perfect. Just as you and I would have been perfect if only you had not tiresomely been a quite different man to the one I assumed you were. I am such a bloody fool. And I am damned sorry that I did not try to understand, for your sake and because, if I had learned my lesson then, I might not have thrown David’s years of service back in his face and told him I thought they demeaned him.”
“Oh,” Dominic said. “Oh, Richard.”
“I thought he would want to stop being a servant. I would have wanted that, just as I would not want to do whatever it is that you do, but as I have been told more than once, it is not up to me to decide. Give Mason my thanks, incidentally. He was kinder to me than I deserved.”