Richard’s throat worked. “Nobody else. Just as nobody has brought me to my knees as you do. And I should like to be there begging you to come back to me now, but that’s not the issue, is it?”
“No.”
“No. I wish it were.” Richard sighed. “When you come back to me, my fox, you will do so of your own will. I depend on that.”
“When,” David repeated.
“Allow me to hope for when,” Richard said. “I don’t like if. And the thought of not is unbearable.”
“Richard?” David beckoned. Richard came a step closer, and David took hold of his lapels, pulling him forward so their faces were just a few inches apart, and Richard’s lips parted in anticipation of a kiss that David didn’t grant.
“David?”
“You owe me that fuck. At some point, I shall claim it.” He waited for those deep blue eyes to widen and then hauled hard, pulling Richard toward him and going deliberately backward as their mouths met. They were kissing frantically as David’s back hit the table and Richard’s weight came down on his chest.
“Jesus!” David yelped. “Fuck!”
Richard shoved himself up onto his arms, taking his weight off. “What the— Are you all right?”
“It’s just bruises,” David muttered, adding a vengeful mark to his tally against Lord Maltravers for the stabbing pain that had exploded across his chest. “He hit me in the ribs. I didn’t think.”
Richard’s brows drew together. “How badly?”
“Nothing broken. It’s all right. It just hurt a little.” It hurt miserably, and if Richard offered an apology for David’s own damned idiocy, he thought he might scream.
“With my weight? I’m not surprised.” Richard dipped his head, kissed him gently, and rubbed the lightest hand over David’s ribs. “Come, your food is cooling, and you need to eat if you are to embark on burglary, or your stomach’s complaints will betray you to the entire house. Up.” He gave David his hand, not heaving him to his feet but simply letting David pull against him. All the support that was needed and no more than was asked.
“I love you,” David said again, his smile so wide it pulled at the cut on his cheek, and Richard smiled back.
—
House-breaking proved a great deal less dramatic than Richard had probably expected.
They strolled to Mr. Skelton’s lodgings together. Richard carried a heavy stick. He had not said that part of his determination to accompany David had to do with the dangers of London’s streets at night, but David drew his own conclusions.
“How do you intend to break in?” Richard asked as they walked. He sounded curious rather than disapproving. “I didn’t know you had the skills of a burglar as well as everything else.”
“I don’t,” David admitted. “I put Mr. Skelton’s lodgings keeper’s charwoman on the payroll months ago.”
“You— I beg your pardon?”
“I bribe a lot of people with your money. To keep informed, to keep people quiet, to get access. It’s a fair part of the running costs.” Richard had never queried the “running costs” before, so David had never explained. “I tend to grease people who might come in useful.”
Richard digested that. “How many people do we bribe, in the regular way of things?”
David smiled in the darkness at we. “About sixty, on and off. We don’t pay most of them very much, of course. Mostly just retainers in case of need.”
“Of course. And this one?”
“Has told me which Skelton’s room is and, I hope, left the back door unbolted.”
“Could she identify you?”
“With luck, there will be nothing to identify me for,” David said. “And people don’t like to admit that they took bribes to betray their office. My guess is that even if things go ill, she will be silent. In any case, it must be done.”
“You know your business. Who else do we pay?”
“Aside from the people at Millay’s and Quex’s? Housemaids and footmen. Grooms are useful. I had a footman in Lord Maltravers’s employ for a while, but he was very little use and got turned off in March for drinking.” He clicked his tongue. “Lord Maltravers is a terrible master.”
“What is the significance of that?” Richard demanded. “And of his poor state of dress? You mentioned that before, and I cannot see how it helps in the least.”
“It tells me that Lord Maltravers thinks he knows best. He will not be advised by his valet or his tailor. He doesn’t think other people are worth listening to. He has not put himself in Mr. Skelton’s hands; he is keeping matters from him. He does not consider the outcome. That may do very well for a duke’s heir in the general way of things. It is not advisable for anyone dabbling in politics, or blackmail.”