Discreet Young Gentleman (15 page)

Silas nodded. "Holly's in town with Alice. Our serving girl. Holed up out of the rain, I'm sure. You won't see them tonight. Ah, here it is." He pulled the ladle from a hook over the fire and dished up a generous serving of soup into one of the bowls Dean brought him. "Now, let's see if I can conjure up some bread."

Dean, his stomach rumbling audibly, found a fresh loaf wrapped in a cloth on the window shelf by the silverware box. "Is this it?"

"It's bread, isn't it? Butter's in the pantry."

"Thank you. Oh, God. I should wait for Rob, but this smells so good."

Uncle Silas poured them each a measure of ale out of a brown stone bottle, put the kettle on the fire for tea, and joined Dean at the table. "Who's this Rob, anyway? And what's all this about highwaymen?"

Dean chewed his bread slowly, trying for once to get his thoughts in order before replying. "He's called Robert Black, and is an acquaintance of Mr. Lewis, my future father-in-law. I'm on my way to Bath to visit Minerva, and was giving him a lift there when we were robbed." He smiled, proud of his story. While the whole thing was in a sense a prevarication, there was not a single actual lie in the lot.

"Highwaymen." Silas snorted. "Been some trouble lately in these parts. Take your coach, did they?"

"No, just dug a pit in the road to stop us. Snapped the axle right in two. And they did get the horses." He grimaced, remembering Erich's face as he watched the animals under his care trot away with the highwaymen.

"Where?"

Dean described the general location, and explained that they had left his coachman to deal with repairs while he and Rob tried to find Silas's house. "I'll be sorry to miss seeing Holly, but we'll have to leave at first light if we're to make up for lost time."

"Hmph. Coach is in Minchinhampton? Sounds like you came a roundabout way.

There's a quicker route back, but you'll have to hoof it, since my horse and cart are in town. Remind me to tell you both the way when your friend is back—it's complicated.

And feel free to dip into the household cash jar in the library, if I don't wake up in time to see you off. It's behind the Cleland."

"Thank you, Uncle Silas." Dean could hardly explain that Rob had already procured funds for the coach's repair—and especially not how. "I'll pay you back."

"Ha. It'll all be yours one day anyway. Holly and I won't miss a few pounds, lad.

Now, tell me about your friend. Where's he from? What's his family?"

Dean took some time buttering another hunk of bread. This was trickier ground.

"Um. He lives in Hereford, I think. I wonder what's keeping him?" His sleeve dripped water onto the table, and Uncle Silas, seeing it, rose and began poking into cupboards.

"Looking for a towel, if he's smart. Towels. Where the bloody hell are the towels?"

Silas gave up on the cupboards and wandered into the pantry, emerging a few seconds later with his arms piled high. "At sixes and sevens without Holly here. If you need more, the linen press is through there. I'd best go and find you some dry clothing as well." He disappeared through another door.

Alone, Dean sopped the worst of the wet from his clothes and hair, then hung the towel to dry on the fire screen and resumed his supper. He was finishing his first bowl of soup when Rob reappeared at last. "There you are. Towel off and have some soup—it's good and hot."

"Thank you." Rob seemed subdued, perhaps the exhaustion of the past twenty-four hours catching up with him at last. They ate in concentrated silence until approaching footsteps reminded Dean of his uncle's questions.

"Uncle Silas was asking about your family."

"Well, he would, wouldn't he? A man wants to know what sort of stranger he's allowing into his home." Rob's words were reasonable, but the tone was flat and tired.

By the time the kitchen door swung open, however, he was sitting up straight, his customary warm smile lighting his face. It made Dean uneasy, the facility with which Rob turned his good humor on and off.

Uncle Silas was bearing an armful of clothing and more fresh towels. "Here you go, lads. They'll be a bit large in the waist and short in the cuff for you, but at least they're dry. There's hot water on the hearth if you want a wash before you change." He refilled their bowls and cut more bread while they took him up on his offer, stripping down to their linen and washing quickly by the fire.

Dean tried not to look at Rob, nearly naked in the rosy light cast by the kitchen fire, his damp linen drawers leaving little to the imagination. Tried, and failed, the furtive glances renewing his confusion over what had happened last night in the barn.

He'd been disappointed in his experiences with prostitutes in his university days, and had shunned such encounters since. But he'd always half-assumed that it might be different with a woman who wasn't touching him because he'd paid her to do so, and had hoped that the marriage bed might prove more to his taste.

Yes, if he were honest, he sometimes felt a flutter of attraction at meeting a handsome man, dismissing such feelings as a relic of his schoolboy experimentation, an echo of a juvenile phase that should have been long put behind him. But then Rob had touched him, brought him such incredible, shameful pleasure. Those feelings had reawakened in earnest, if they'd ever truly gone away.

Rob was stirring a hunger in him that couldn't be dismissed, so it had to be fought and overcome. Not just because of his physical perfection, although—Dean stole another furtive glance. Oh, God. The planes and curves of him were put together in such proportion that Michelangelo would have wept. In Dean's admittedly hazy knowledge of poetry, no sonnets had ever been addressed to the beauty of a man's shoulders, but then again, most poets hadn't met Rob. No, the man was gorgeous, but Dean felt he would have been safe from the attraction if it weren't for the growing friendship between them. If only Rob were half the idiot he claimed to be. Dean had little patience for fools.

He was vaguely aware that someone had spoken, and looked up to find his uncle staring at him expectantly. "I'm sorry, Uncle." Dean blushed, turning his attention to the buttoning of his borrowed shirt. "What did you say?"

"I said, if you're in such a hurry to get to Bath, how did you end up over here?

Surely the Bristol road is faster."

"We got sidetracked by a ghost," Rob said with a grin. Now fully dressed, he took his seat at the table, smoothing his damp hair with his hand. "Somehow, we got visiting haunted places along the way, and when we heard about the highwayman and his sweetheart on Minchinhampton Common, we decided to make a detour."

"Only to run into a real highwayman," Dean added, suppressing a shudder.

"Yes," Rob agreed. "Ghosts and highwaymen—they've rather been the theme of this trip."

"Too bad you can't take your time, then," Uncle Silas said. "You can hardly throw a stone in the Cotswalds without hitting a spook. Black dogs, white ladies, hooded monks. And right near Tetbury, not five miles from here, is Chavenage House. One of the owners voted for King Charles's execution back in 1649, and the family's been cursed ever since. Each time an owner dies, a carriage driven by a headless coachman comes to take his soul to Hell."

"We don't have time," Dean said, not even looking at Rob. The side trip sounded delightful, but this attraction of his had to be curtailed before it got out of hand, the memory of last night locked firmly away before he could be tempted to repeat it.

Winning Minerva had to regain his full attention. Everything depended on it.

"It would be nice, though, wouldn't it?" Rob said, digging into his soup with relish.

"A ghost tour of England. Or, I always fancied a Compleat Angler tour. You know, go to Monmouthshire and follow the route Piscator and his friends took. Even after two hundred years, some of the inns may yet be there."

"Why not both?" Uncle Silas said, grinning. "Monmouthshire's sure to have plenty of ghosts, given the Monmouth Rebellion."

"Yes," Dean said flatly. "I suppose I can convince Minerva it will be a fine honeymoon trip."

Rob looked down at his bowl, but Uncle Silas leaned forward. "Tell me about this paragon of yours. Minerva who?"

"Minerva Lewis. I wrote about her two Quarterlies back, don't you remember? We met at a concert in Worcester last winter, and have been engaged since April."

"I remember a line or two saying you were engaged, but precious few in the way of details. High-born filly, is she?"

"I think her mother's father was a baron." Dean paused. "Maybe a baronet."

"Toast of the Season?"

"She may have had a Season in London a few years back. I didn't know her then."

Uncle Silas nodded, pursing his lips thoughtfully. "She must have an excellent character."

Dean folded his arms. "Minerva," he said, "is everything a wife should be."

"Modest, pious, and hard-working?" Uncle Silas asked sweetly.

"Of course," Dean said, voice rising. "And you know, she's held to be the prettiest girl in Worcester." "Ah," Uncle Silas said. "What color are her eyes?" Dean stared for a moment. Well, they certainly were not black as sloes, and lit from within with merriment and curiosity... "I, um...blue," he said at last, nearly certain he was correct.

"I see." Uncle Silas nodded at Rob. "That door over there leads to the cellar. We have a nice ham hanging down there, just near the bottom of the steps—would you be a dear and cut us a few slices from it?"

"Yes, of course." Rob rose, collected a knife from Holly's clutter, and disappeared behind the door.

When he was gone, Uncle Silas sat back in his chair and regarded Dean steadily.

"People get married for all kinds of reasons, and among our set a match based strictly on mutual affection is a rare thing. Why pretend otherwise?"

Dean stared at the table. "It's stupid to marry for money. Not to mention embarrassing."

"Then don't do it. Oh, Parm had no head for business, and wouldn't listen to any of us, so there's no denying Carwick will take a pile of blunt to set it right. But there's no hurry, especially if you don't have feelings for the chit. Harvest should be good this year, and you'll collect rents at Christmas. I might be able to help tide you over until then."

"Thank you, Uncle Silas," Dean said softly. "I'll be all right." He forced his lips to turn upwards at the corners, wishing he could be as convincingly cheerful as Rob.

"Have to marry sometime."

"Hmph," his uncle replied. "Maybe it's none of my business. I suppose it isn't, except..." He sighed. "You were such a serious child, at least after your mother died. I blame it on my brother, of course—he was a prosy old bore, and cared for nothing but his music. The only times I ever saw you look happy, were when you'd visit and I'd take you out fishing." He paused for a moment. "When I opened the door today, I almost didn't recognize you. Not because you've changed so much over the past few years, but because I've never seen you laugh like that. Ever. I didn't know you had such mirth in you."

Dean shrugged. "Rob makes me laugh."

"Then you should be gadding about the country with him on your ghost tour, or take him and your friend Peter up fishing in the Highlands. Life's too short to go out of your way to avoid pleasures like that. And Aberdeen.. .remember your parents. They married without a drop of affection between them."

Dean set down his spoon, appetite gone. "I'm not my father."

"Your mother was hardly blameless. She thought lowly of herself, and less still of Erastus for marrying her."

"And not so much of me, at that," Dean muttered.

"You're wrong, there." Silas looked at him curiously. "The sun rose and set in you, as far as Agnes was concerned."

"Then why didn't she take me with her when she left?" Dean was surprised at the bitterness in his own voice.

"Likely Erastus was watching her like a hawk, after the earlier attempts. She knew he'd never let her take you away."

Dean shook his head. "Earlier attempts?"

"Twice before, she'd tried to return to Scotland with you. Got as far as York once, before your father caught up with the pair of you. Do you not remember?"

"I think..." Something long-forgotten rose in his memory. "There was a coach trip with my mother, and my parents fighting in an inn. They always fought, if they bothered to speak to each other at all, but I suppose that might have been it."

Uncle Silas nodded. "Probably. I daresay it broke her heart to leave you behind, the last time. She had her faults, and was as dour a Scotswoman as ever was born. A different person entirely when she smiled—you certainly share that with her. Being a woman, she was totally irrational about her looks, had some bee in her bonnet about her skin, I think." He shrugged. "Not the sort of thing you'd be likely to remember. But she was a good mother. Believe that. And believe that marriage can wait."

If only it could. Dean was still thinking of a less honest reply when Rob returned from the cellar. "Oh, there you are. That ham looks terrific."

Silas rose. "Here, let me fry it up for you, with a mess of eggs. Young men need something heartier than soup for their dinner. No, sit down, Rob. The tea's hot."

"The rain's still fierce," Rob said, with a look out the window. "I wonder if your housekeeper will make it back." He poured tea, preparing Dean's cup the way he preferred it without needing to ask. But of course, such small courtesies must be second nature to one who caters to other men's needs on a regular basis.

"No, I wager they won't come back tonight," Uncle Silas agreed. "But never mind, I can make up some rooms for you." He looked back at them over his shoulder. "Or I can put you both in our haunted chamber, if you've a mind for more ghost-hunting."

Dean's brows rose. "Haunted chamber? I don't remember a haunted chamber here."

"Ah." Uncle Silas grinned. "But you haven't stayed here since you were a child.

Holly wouldn't let me scare you with the tale back in those days. I'd say you're well old enough to encounter a ghost now."

Tempting, but... "Maybe next time," Dean said. Considering his recent thoughts about Minerva and marriage and Rob, it was better he not spend the night in the same room as the other man. The desire to explore what had barely been started last night had to be crushed before it consumed him. "We need our sleep tonight if we're going to get any distance behind us tomorrow."