They should at that. David dealt with the ruin of his own appearance quickly and was restored to unexceptional decency while Richard was still in the bedroom, prodding at his somewhat disordered cravat in the mirror.
“Let me.” David went over to him. “You’ll need a new cloth; we keep some in the drawers.”
He whisked a snowy length of lawn out and stood in front of Richard as he had so often, valet to master. Richard lifted his chin to let David remove the creased neckcloth and tweak his collar points, then caught David’s hand before he could draw it back, kissing the fingertips. “Thank you for this. I appreciate it.”
“It’s my pleasure,” David said, and then, very softly, added, “It always was.”
Chapter 17
Richard sat in White’s that afternoon, looking at a newspaper without reading it, and waited.
He sat alone. The others were there but occupied so that they did not appear to be assembled as a clique. Julius and Francis were at the tables casting dice. Ash was with his bosom friend Freddy, looking white and sick, as well he might. Richard knew Ash had had an interview with his brother that afternoon in which he had informed Maltravers in so many words that he would not bow to the blackmail. It had evidently been a brutal discussion.
So he waited in the club as his ancestors had waited in tents or on horseback for battle to begin. But it had been two hours now, and the boredom was beginning to become as oppressive as the tension. He wished David were there.
David, twisting and spasming under him, given up to pleasure. David demanding what he wanted and Richard giving it to him because between them they were perfect.
A few weeks before he’d have been appalled at the thought of taking David with anything less than the most reverent care, probably would not have done it at all, could not possibly have backgammoned the man and then had him serve as a valet straight after. All that seemed bafflingly foolish now. David made his own choices; he did not require anyone to protect him from himself. Why on earth would one take a man like that and decide he needed to be coddled? One might as well attempt to make a fox into a lapdog. Of course he’d bite.
Richard knew what he was going to offer David when this business was over. It was not what he would have wanted to offer given a free choice and far from what he would have wanted to accept if he had been in David’s shoes, but he was not David. He hoped, desperately, that it would do.
Of course, any thoughts of the future assumed that David’s schemes had worked and that Richard and his friends would not be forced to flee the country, or deal with arrest, or face public humiliation or private shame or any of the other prospects that were keeping all the Ricardians awake at night. He did not want to explain matters to Philip if this went wrong.
There was a small stir at the door. Richard looked up, feeling his chest tighten with anticipation, and saw not Lord Maltravers but his own brother.
Philip lifted a hand from across the room and made his way over, pausing to greet Lord Alvanley as he passed. The corpulent peer was an intimate of the king and a well-respected man. “Ah, Richard. I had hoped to find you at home,” Philip informed him. “Could you spare me an hour of your time?”
Richard was supposed to be in White’s; it was no use to have Maltravers find him anywhere else. And he did not want Philip to witness whatever might happen.
“Now?” Richard asked. “Is this business or family?”
“Some business, but I hoped to speak to you. I was concerned to know you’re well. Will you walk with me? Unless you’re too busy,” Philip added, looking at the newspaper and the coffee cup by Richard’s solitary chair.
“No, not busy, but I am awaiting, uh, Dominic. Perhaps I could visit you tomorrow? I should like to see the children.”
“Please do.” Philip did not have an expressive face, but Richard knew him like none other. His brother was hurt, and it was not even as though he could mix with the other men there. Everyone in the room knew and respected Cirencester, but it would not occur to him to talk to any of them for pleasure. He was comfortable with Richard. “Would you prefer me to leave you alone?”
Good God, yes, go away. “Not at all.” He could not send his brother off like this even with the awful possibility of confrontation looming. David would tell him he was not thinking of the outcome, he knew; he still could not do it. “Sit down. Tell me what you have been doing.”
“You tell me the same, brother. You seem to have been occupied these last weeks. What have you been up to? I did not ask you when we last spoke: How was Tarlton March?”
“Interesting,” Richard said thankfully, and plunged into the account of the sheep-farming dispute he’d heard about from David’s stepfather. Philip listened with close attention, putting in some questions Richard had not considered, and Richard found himself so engrossed in the conversation that he barely noticed the noise from the doorway until Lord Maltravers bellowed his name.