The Valet and the Stable Groom: M/M Regency Romance (14 page)

Clement stared after him, heart pounding. His head was full of questions, and the walls seemed to be revolving around him, leaving him unsteady on his feet.

Hugo returned with a full kettle, and hung it over the crackling fire.

“You said…” Clement paused and cleared his throat. He didn’t know what to say.

“That men can love other men? Yes. I’ve heard it called the French vice. Or the Greek.”

“But it isn’t… it isn’t love, really, is it?”

“I’ve never met two people who could agree on the nature of love,” Hugo said. He smiled wryly over at Clement, and left the fire to stand in front of him. “If neither poets, nor philosophers, nor shepherds can agree on what love
is
, then how can they agree on who may and may not feel it? Is not friendship a sort of love?”

“Yes,” Clement said.

“And do not men, in friendship, declaim all love and affection for each other, in the warmest language?”

“I don’t know.”

Hugo blinked at him.

Fidgeting, Clement stared down at the knots of wood on the floor. “I have not had a great amount of luxury in which to make friends.”

“My sympathies,” Hugo said.

He sounded as though he meant it. Clement looked up. “But we are, are we not? Friends?”

Hugo was very close, dark eyes brimming with sincerity. “Yes.”

The floor seemed a much safer thing to stare at. It was in need of polishing. “I would vow all love and affection for you,” Clement said, “in the warmest language, but I cannot think of a single thing to say.”

“There are other ways to express affection,” Hugo said.

Clement glanced up. Hugo was still very close.

Curling his hand around the edge of the table, Clement was surprised to realise that he’d backed up against it. Glad for the stability, he trusted a little more of his weight to the edge of the table. “Are there?”

“Men may kiss,” Hugo said.

“In greeting,” Clement said.

“In affection.”

“As friends,” Clement insisted.

“As lovers.”

Clement’s heart was pounding, head dizzied by the possibility.

“May I kiss you?” Hugo asked.

“Certainly,” Clement said. “It is allowable. In the French style. As friends.”

“What if I wished to kiss you
not
as friends?” Hugo asked.

“Are we not friends?”

“A kiss can be more than friendship.”

Hugo was very near to him, trapping him against the table, but he did not lay a hand upon Clement, waiting for permission.

Clement’s breath was loud in his own ears, sharp little pants of air going in and out. “I don’t know,” he said at last.

Hugo took a step back. Clement felt bereft.

“Forgive me,” said Hugo. “I overstepped.”

He turned again to the fire.

A kiss
, Clement thought, longing to try but not knowing what words he might use to call Hugo back.

The page of poetry was still in his hand. He had crumpled it, unknowing.

Ashamed of his own carelessness, Clement smoothed it out on the table. The wrinkles in the foolscap were unmistakeable. It could be recopied, and would have to be for the inevitable book of poetry that Hildebert had planned, but this copy was ruined.

“I should return,” Clement said. He felt a sick wash of guilt settle in his belly as he said it.

Hugo did not look up from the kettle. “You won’t stay for tea?”

Clement smoothed his hand over the page again. The wrinkles remained. “Hildebert will be expecting me.”

“I understand.”

“Hugo,” Clement said, desperate to repair the situation.

Hugo’s head turned toward him.

“Perhaps… briefly. In farewell.”

“I would not mean it in farewell,” Hugo said.

“No,” Clement agreed. “Nor would I.”

Lips tilting with a smile, Hugo came to him. He cupped his hand around Clement’s cheek, his touch light, so that Clement could only just feel the calluses upon his fingertips, and kissed him.

It was sweet, and brief, and nothing at all like the friendly or familiar kisses that Clement had experienced in the past. When it ended, Hugo watched Clement’s eyes, as though he was waiting for something.

And then he stepped away, allowing Clement the space to leave.

“Good afternoon,” Clement said, and descended down the stairs at an exactingly decorous pace, neither quicker nor slower than his habitual stride, despite the jackrabbit hammering of his heart.

W
hen he got back
to the main house, Clement walked into a room full of people with impatient looks.

“Oh, dear,” said Clement.

Letty appeared ready to leap out of her seat. “Well?”

Hildebert was wringing his hands with nerves.

“He said…” Clement had to think back to the beginning of their conversation, having been subsequently distracted onto other topics which remained at the forefront of his mind. “That he would be very pleased if someone had written him such a poem. And that you—Mrs. Devereux, I mean—must be very… pleased.”

“I am,” said Jane. “There, you see, Hildebert? It is very good.”

Hildebert preened, though he did continue to wring his hands. “Am I, then, meant to be a poet, do you suppose?”

“Yes, certainly,” Clement encouraged him, coming to sit nearby. “You enjoy the poetry, do you not? What else should you be?”

“Why, an alchemist.” Hildebert lifted his chin, eyes sparkling with pride.

Clement stared at him in utter bewilderment. “An
alchemist
?”

“Yes, certainly,” Hildebert said. “Now that the new workshop is finished.”

“The…” Clement looked to Letty and Jane for some assistance. They both seemed alarmingly nonplussed by the announcement. “The new workshop is finished?”

“Why, yes, Clement,” said Jane. “Yesterday. Did no one tell you?”

“I suppose I didn’t think to ask.”

Clement ran a hand over his hair, utterly bewildered. “The new workshop, finished. Hugo didn’t—Mr. Ogden, I mean—he… I suppose we were distracted by other matters…
alchemy
?”

“I,” said Hildebert, “am going to turn lead into gold.”

Clement put his hands in his lap so not to bury his face in them. “But what about the poetry?”

“Oh, well…” Hildebert looked longingly over at the books of poetry and his scattered compositions, left at the far corner of the room. “Do you really suppose…”

Clement very strongly supposed that the life of a gentleman poet was safer and less prone to explosions than the life of an alchemist. “You really do have a
gift
for poetry.”

“Oh, that is true,” Hildebert mused.

“But alchemy would be ever so much more
fun
,” Jane said.

Hildebert brightened. “It would! Besides, I do have the supplies and ingredients already. And a workshop. It would be ever such a waste to not put those things to use, don’t you think?”

Opening and shutting his mouth twice before he found words, Clement clenched his hands around the edge of his chair and wondered whether he ought to find an employer with less creative ambition. “…What supplies?”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he knew. The sulphur, and some other peculiar deliveries which Clement had blithely attributed to Midgley’s mistakes.

He sorely resented that Hildebert had gone around him in order to place such orders and make such arrangements, but he realised also that such tasks were not his concern. It was natural and right that the butler of the household should see to ordering supplies and accommodating the necessities for their master’s entertainments.

“Oh, all sorts of things,” Hildebert said, nodding cheerfully. “Scientific… scientific… well, alchemical ingredients, to be sure. I’m sure I’ll sort them out right away.”

“To be sure,” Clement echoed. He got to his feet, returning the page of poetry to the pile with the others and then straightening the stack. He placed
Lyrical Ballads
on top out of a futile longing to steer Hildebert back onto the safer waters of wordsmithery, and excused himself from the group.

Returning to the servants’ kitchen, Clement made himself a small nuncheon and retired to his chamber. He wanted the quiet solace of his private little room, with the four plain walls and the pretty chintz drapes. It made him feel safe, as though the world was a simple, reliable place, with no great upsets or complications. He yearned sorely for the simplicity of rising in the morning, preparing his master’s repast, tidying his wardrobe, and living the calm, predictable life of a valet in a moderately respectful household. It was the life he’d thought that he had, until he came here and Hildebert’s boredom had inspired no end of uncivilised antics.

He looked again to his private writing-desk, where paper and ink awaited him. London was merely a letter away. He could write, and betake himself back to the familiar bustle of London. If necessary, he could seek out his parents once again, and prevail upon their hospitality and their cramped little tenement rooms.

It felt like a certain failure, particularly since he knew that returning to London would not be an act of ambition on his part, but cowardice.

Clement touched his lips, remembering the warmth and sweetness of Hugo’s mouth.

Sighing, he allowed himself to drop back onto his bed, trembling briefly with how his emotions roiled within his heart. “
Alchemy
! For heaven’s sake. He’ll blow us all to the devil.”

“
H
ere are
the accounts for you,” said Mr. Midgley, with no preamble whatsoever, as Clement was breakfasting in the servants’ kitchen.

Clement blinked at him, feeling once again out of his depth. “The accounts?”

“Yes, the household accounts.”

“The household accounts?”

“Mrs. Devereux said you requested them.”

“The
household
accounts?”

Reddening and furling his brow as though he thought Clement was making mock of him, Mr. Midgley cast the books and papers he was carrying down on the table in front of him. “Will you or not, the lady wishes you to have them.”

“These are…” Clement reached for them, awed and yet horrified that he might have just been provided with the entire finances of the household. Worse, that he might be expected to
manage
them. “Do they include income and finances in addition to expenditures?”

“They do.”

Clement stared at the pile of account books.

Mr. Midgley gave an irritable huff and walked from the room.

H
ildebert took
possession of the new workshop that morning.

“Sir,” Clement said, as he trailed after Hildebert. One of the footmen was bringing in supplies and equipment, one small load at a time, from the storage shed. “Is alchemy truly advisable? Remember the engine. The explosion.”

“How little faith you have in me, Clement!” Hildebert exclaimed. “I am a
scientist.
One tiny explosion is not enough to dissuade me. Do you suppose that Newton allowed that nonsense with the apple to dissuade him?”

Clement opened his mouth to object, but gave it up as a lost cause. “Think how much Jane would be distraught were anything to happen to you. And how pleased she was by the poetry.”

“Ah, the poetry,” said Hildebert, “yes, yes. Quite right, she did seem to go in for that lot, but you must understand, Clement, that poetry is… it is…”

“Sir?”

“Well, it’s rather dull, Clement.” Hildebert planted his hands upon his hips and gazed proudly around his newly rebuilt workshop. “It isn’t at all like the thrill, the triumph, that one gets from science!”

“What about your poetry recitation?” Clement said, in desperation.

“Oh, that.” Hildebert went over to open one of the jars of ingredients. It was printed with a tiny skull and crossbones, along with warnings along the paper label. Hildebert opened it and sniffed.

“
Sir
,” Clement said, taking the jar away from him and putting the lid securely back on. “I pray you remember that alchemy is a hazardous science, which comes with warnings to one's health.”

“You are such a worrier, Clement,” Hildebert said, turning away.

“The poetry recitation, sir.”

“Yes, yes. I suppose I don’t see why not. I have written the stuff already, after all. And I am rather good at it. It’s an invalid’s hobby, poetry, but a good pastime for when one is feeling ill or tired. Perhaps I shall keep it up, now and then, when I am fatigued from my nobler pursuits in science.”

Hildebert took up the largest of the texts on alchemy which he had purchased, and brought it over to the large table. It looked strikingly like a sorcerer’s grimoire. Clement suspected that had been a significant portion of its appeal to his employer.

Sighing, Clement wrinkled his nose and leaned over to look. “You’re going to be accused of witchcraft.”

“Don’t be absurd, Clement,” Hildebert said. “England is
civilised
.”

“You make it sound as though civilisation is the state by which one stops believing in witchcraft because they have all been found out to be alchemists.”

“That’s not entirely untrue. Now, fetch me the jar labeled mercury thiocyanate. We’re going to produce Pharaoh’s Serpent.”

Clement looked through the jars where Hildebert was pointing, finding no such label. “How is it written?”

Hildebert spelled the word, which helped none whatsoever.

“There isn’t any.”

“There must be! I did include it on my list. All respectable modern alchemists are using it.”

Clement lifted his brows and refrained from comment as he searched for it in one of the other boxes.

“Do you suppose that Mr. Ogden knows anything about alchemy?”

“Even less than he does about engines, I would imagine.”

Hildebert sighed. “I did hope that he might serve again as my assistant. He was very competent.”

“I fear you may have to wait for his assistance, sir. Mr. Ogden is terribly busy seeing to your horses. There’s been a new foal born, and there will be another one soon, though I hear that Mr. Ogden worries for its mother’s health.”

“Does he!” Hildebert exclaimed, peering at Clement with genuine concern over the health of the horse. “Will the creature live?”

“I confess I don’t know.”

“I have never seen a newborn foal,” Hildebert said. “Do you think that I might?”

“Certainly, sir. They are, after all, your horses.”

“That would please me very much. Arrange for it, Clement. Tell Mr. Ogden that as soon as the creature is born, I wish to see it.”

“I will. There’s a foal born already, if you wished to see it.”

Hildebert waved his hand dismissively. “Once they’ve both gone to the trouble of being born. I don’t suppose that a horse’s belly would be very interesting, after all! Ha!”

Clement was uncertain whether he meant that gazing upon a horse’s pregnant belly would lack entertainment for him, or that being inside a horse’s belly must be very dull for the foal. “Sir,” he said, perplexed.

“Go on, then, Clement. I want to see the small horses!”

Faltering, Clement wrung his hands. “Imminently, sir, but I would not wish to leave you in your workshop without an assistant.”

“Oh, that is true,” Hildebert said, and returned his attention to the alchemy book. “Did you find… whatever it was I did ask you for, Clement?”

“Mercury thiocyanate. Are you very certain that this experiment is a safe one, sir?”

“Oh, very safe,” Hildebert beamed in a way that was not at all reassuring to Clement’s nerves. “Fit for children! You do worry so very much, Clement.”

J
ane descended
upon them at lunch, with Letty trailing along wide-eyed in her wake. “Hildebert, darling,” she said. “I want to go for a walk.”

Hildebert peered at her, skeptical of what had let her to this unnatural turn of events.

Jane regarded him with perfect sincerity in return.

“A walk? To where?”

“Around the grounds.”

Hildebert regarded the grounds of the estate through the window. It was a cloudy day, inclined to unpleasant little gusts of wind. “I don’t see why.”

“It is our estate. We ought to familiarise ourself with the place.”

“I have walked in the gardens and find myself entirely familiarised,” Hildebert insisted. “I do not see at all why you are consulting me on this matter. If you desire to take the air, my dearest, then by all means do so.”

“Hildebert,” Jane said. Clement knew his employers well enough to recognise that her tone was scolding but fond, and would brook no argument.

Hildebert pouted in the face of her authority. “I am an invalid.”

“You are quite recovered and the air will do you good.”

The master of the house continued his pouting.

Jane levelled a stern look at him that would have done any school marm proud.

“Very well,” Hildebert sighed, getting to his feet. “Let us promenade, if that is what you wish.”

Nodding with satisfaction, Jane strode from the room, pausing once she got to the hall and looking back at them impatiently. Letty mimicked her, smaller in figure but no less imperious. Chastened, Hildebert followed.

Clement trailed along at the tail end of the group, likewise perplexed about Jane’s determination.

They followed Jane out of the house and through the gardens like a little trail of ducklings, right up to the edge of the orchard.

“Clement,” she said, “do you know if it is a very productive orchard?”

Startled by the query, Clement hastened forward to her side. “I… I confess I don’t know anything about the relative size and prosperity of orchards. The area of the orchard is approximately half an acre, and produces a yearly 80 bushels of apples. I am entirely unaware as to whether that is an admirable or paltry number.”

“And if we were to expand it?”

“To
expand
it?” Hildebert echoed.

“I do suppose… it would have to extend into the space of the ornamental hedges there,” Clement said.

“Here, now,” said Hildebert. “Why are we discussing this threat to the ornamental hedges?”

“I want to know about the market for apples,” Jane said, “and I think that the orchard ought to be extended into damsons and pears. I am extremely fond of damsons.”

“I will look into it,” Clement promised.

“Good,” Jane declared. “Now, where shall we put the cattle?”

“The
cattle
?” Hildebert said.

Jane and Letty disregarded him, staring instead at Clement as though he knew the answer to this peculiar query.

Fidgeting under the gaze of the three of them, and looking between his master and mistress with uncertainty as to which of them to answer and obey, Clement cleared his throat. “Ah, if… if we are to raise cattle on the estate lands, it would have to be…”