“He’s earning his keep, certainly.” Lord Richard pulled at his cravat. David moved closer, putting up his hands for the cloth, and Lord Richard dropped his own hands to give him access. Such a big man, so strong, yet he stood there passively while David worked over his body. David gently loosened the complex folds, painfully aware of how close his fingers were to the skin of Lord Richard’s throat.
“And I’m very glad you could help Peter,” Lord Richard went on, “although he seems to be convinced it was all my doing. You are giving me an undeserved reputation for omnipotence.”
They’d discussed this before. “Take the credit, my lord. It’s easier for me to work if gentlemen don’t notice me. And I do it all on your orders, so…” David carefully pulled the length of cloth from around Lord Richard’s neck.
“Indeed. The things I ask you to do, or that you know I wish you to do, or that you do without telling me because you know very well I should refuse.” He gave David a pointed look. David adopted an expression of such exceptional blankness that Lord Richard laughed aloud.
He had not been happy at David’s solution to Mr. Frey’s problem. He would have far preferred to see Silas packed off to the Americas than to take the radical into his household. But it had undeniably saved Silas’s skin and repaired Lord Richard’s friendship with Mr. Frey, and after a somewhat stormy few days, Lord Richard had accepted the wisdom of David’s course.
A course that put Silas Mason in front of Lord Richard’s face every day as a reminder that the lost love of his life had found happiness elsewhere and that it was time for Lord Richard to do the same.
It seemed their thoughts were running along similar lines, because his master said, “Dominic was there tonight.”
“Well, I hope?”
“Very well. I have not seen him so content in a long time. I wish to God I could understand why.” Lord Richard sighed. “Not that it matters. I am not required to understand, merely to accept.”
“I like Mason, my lord. He’s an interesting man.”
“So I’m told.” Lord Richard tugged off his signet ring and handed it over. “I trust he’s not trying to convert you to radical causes?”
“I’m not political. Which I think he finds rather trying,” David added demurely.
“God bless you, Cyprian. Oh, well, it makes Dominic happy. For now, at least.” David shot him a questioning look at that. Lord Richard turned up his hands in answer. “It can hardly last, can it? Dominic is a gentleman of good family, and Mason is the sweepings of the street. I cannot think it possible. In the end, the divide is surely too great.”
David stared down at the box from which Lord Richard’s golden fobs and rings glinted at him, a fortune in trinkets casually bought and rarely used. His extremely generous annual salary would have purchased three or four of the smaller items. “There is a divide, my lord. But I think Mr. Frey knows what is right for himself.”
“I would like to believe that. I wish I could.”
“Well, but why not? Mr. Frey is content. Mason is doing useful work rather than fomenting sedition. The Vane libraries are in good hands. Surely all that counts for more than concerns of place.”
“Ah, you are a Benthamite.” Lord Richard smiled at him in the mirror—not his society smile but that rare, sweet, open look that stopped David’s breath every time. “The greatest happiness of the greatest number.”
David had no more interest in philosophy than in politics, and the greatest number could go hang themselves for all he cared. There were perhaps five people in the world for whose happiness
he gave a damn at all, two who really mattered, and one of those was smiling at him now in a way that hurt his heart.
He moved to unbutton Lord Richard’s waistcoat. It was just on the cusp between perfectly fitted and a little tight; Lord Richard had put on a couple of pounds over the winter. David eased a gilt button smoothly through its slit. “Merely a practical thinker, my lord,” he said. “If it is right for the people involved, then I cannot see why it should be wrong for anyone else.”
“There we differ,” Lord Richard said. “One cannot disregard worldly concerns, or moral ones. Nevertheless, I wish I had been more practical with Dominic a long time ago, and I wish you had been with me then. I feel quite sure you would have helped me do better.”
“My lord, you did what you could. Mr. Frey is responsible for himself.” Another button slipped free under David’s fingers. It was such a temptation to take longer over this, each undoing a little blissful torture. “And whatever has passed between you is done with now. There is no need for regrets.”