The Valet and the Stable Groom: M/M Regency Romance (8 page)

It took him most of the afternoon to compose adequate orders and correspondence such as would satisfy Hildebert’s imagination and his own worries.

He realised upon finishing that he had not taken the opportunity to write additional correspondence and seek safer, less explosive, employment for himself. He hesitated over the writing-paper, but could not bring himself to write the correspondence.

Hildebert was his responsibility, at least for the time being. Sooner or later, probably after burning his fingers once, he would settle down to safer hobbies. Until then, it was Clement’s duty to keep him from killing himself in an explosion.

Tidying away his papers, Clement went to make certain that Hildebert’s supper had been prepared, and then he went out in search of a workshop.

It was just past sunset, and the spring evening was warm and clear. The pond and the trees beyond were dark, but the sky was still light, and the lamps were only beginning to be lit in the main house.

Clement found that his feet were carrying him upon a set course even before he had made a conscious decision.

This time, he went around and in through the smaller side door of the stables.

It was warm inside, slightly musty from straw and sawdust. Clement could make out the shapes of shelves and doors down a hallway in the dim light. Storage, he supposed, for tack and feed and whatever else one needed for horses and dogs.

A light was burning at the top of a flight of stairs.

“Hugo?” Clement called, starting up the stairway. The second tread creaked loudly under his footstep.

He shouldn’t have come. It was too late in the evening for visiting, and Hugo had made clear that he valued his privacy. The trouble with the workshop could wait until morning, and was probably best delayed as long as possible.

Awash with guilt, Clement hesitated, and then retreated back down to the first step.

Hugo appeared at the top of the stairs.

He was backlit, from the lamp or candle burning somewhere in an upstairs room, and Clement could only see the outline of him framed against the hallway beyond.

“Clement?”

“Yes,” Clement admitted, feeling foolish and hoping that Hugo had not noticed the attempted retreat. “It’s late. I ought not have bothered you.”

Hugo descended several steps. “It isn’t so late.”

“I meant to ask you some matter for Hilde—for Mr. Devereux. It isn’t urgent. That is, it isn’t
terribly
urgent. It would be better handled by daylight, to be sure.”

“If you are certain,” Hugo said. “But I would be glad for your company nonetheless.”

Clement’s heart quickened. “Would you?”

“If you aren’t expected back at the house.”

“I suppose that I…” said Clement. “I am, after all, here on Mr. Devereux’s behalf. I could stay. To discuss the workshop.”

“To discuss the workshop,” Hugo confirmed, even though he could not yet have any idea what manner of workshop was up for discussion.

“But you do value your privacy,” said Clement. “And I am intruding.”

“I’ve made tea,” said Hugo. “I pray you, join me.”

Clement stepped onto the second tread, which groaned once again beneath his foot, and made his way up the stairs.

At the top, there was a cozy little set of rooms. Hugo led him into the one at the end, which was a large garret room with sloping walls. A small fire was burning in the grate, and a kettle hung nearby, having been recently heated above the flames.

“These are your rooms?” Clement asked.

“They are,” Hugo said. “I suppose I ought to give you a tour? There isn’t much to see. This is my parlour. Through there, my bedroom. The first door on the left, in the hallway, leads to my study, such as it is, and the door on the end, by the stairs, is my pantry. Of sorts.”

“It is very grand.”

Hugo looked simultaneously proud and bemused. “It… I suppose, for an unmarried stable groom, that it is rather grand. It was intended, I think, for a former head groomsman who had a family in this space. You ought to see the gardening cottage. Esther—Miss Grant, that is—is swimming in the space that was once intended for a sizeable family.”

“I see,” said Clement, whose attention had been drawn by the brief over-familiarity regarding the gardener. “Are you and Miss Grant… quite close?”

“Oh!” said Hugo, reddening. “No.”

“Oh.” Clement now found that he had no reason to give for his query, and no subsequent question along that line. “Well,” he said. “It is a very nice… that is to say, these are very nice rooms.”

“They are plain,” said Hugo. “And rough. But that is suited to me, as I am both.”

“They are cosy,” said Clement. “And I like them very much.”

Hugo beamed as if this were a great compliment.

Clement found himself once again at a loss for words. He stared into Hugo’s warm eyes, basking in the pleasure of having pleased Hugo.

“I,” said Hugo, dropping his eyes aside and colouring once again. He gathered himself, looking about the room before settling upon the teapot waiting upon the table. “Will you take tea?”

“I will,” Clement said, glad of the hospitality and the excuse to stay. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t any sugar,” said Hugo.

“I don’t mind.”

“Sit,” Hugo offered, drawing out the one chair from behind the table and offering it. “Please.”

Clement sat, even though there wasn’t a second chair for Hugo.

The lamp sat upon the table near Clement’s elbow, casting light up into Hugo’s face, while the fire behind him gilded and warmed his outline. He fetched a second cup, and poured for them both, fetching a low, three-legged stool for himself. It was too short for the table, and made him look somewhat stunted, which made Clement smile.

Accepting the cup of tea, Clement sipped at it.

Hugo’s plain brown coat was scuffed about the shoulders, and his waistcoat was missing a button.

“What was the—” Hugo said, at the same time that Clement said, “Do you have—”

They both fell silent.

“Please,” said Hugo, indicating that Clement should speak first.

Clement reached out partway, then drew his hand back. He felt like a fool, but he couldn’t abandon his question unless he could invent a better one. “Do you have the button? From your waistcoat, that is. I might repair it for you, if you’d like.”

Hugo looked down. Embarrassed, he pulled his coat closed to hide the missing button. “I haven’t.”

“I might find a matching one among Hildebert’s things. It’s a part of my duties, you see.”

“As a valet,” Hugo said.

Clement nodded. “Seeing to his wardrobe. I wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m only a stable groom,” said Hugo. “You’re the head valet.”

Clement’s lips twitched with a smile. “I’m the only valet.”

Smiling back at him, Hugo glanced up, then dropped his eyes once again. “I don’t wish you to go to any trouble for me.”

“It isn’t,” Clement insisted, “any trouble.”

This time, when Hugo looked up, their gazes caught and held. Hugo’s lips were slightly parted, and very pink.

“What did you mean to ask,” Clement said, “a moment ago?”

“You said you had come here to ask about a workshop.”

“Oh!” Clement startled so much that he nearly spilled his tea. “Oh, I entirely forgot.”

“Is it an urgent matter?”

Clement laughed and shook his head. “No. No, to be sure, I would fain delay the matter as long as possible.”

“I pray you, tell me.”

Sipping his tea, Clement mulled it over for a moment. “Mr. Devereux has taken it into his head to become a gentleman inventor. I… he will require a workshop of some sort.”

“One might be found,” Hugo said, nodding. “There’s the hunting-shed, which hasn’t been used in decades, and the poultry-barn likewise. We might go and look at them, if you’d like. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Clement said. “I might try and delay it a day or two, but if Mr. Devereux has not dismissed the idea by then, I will be glad for your guidance.”

Hugo’s smile was warm, full of gentle mirth, and Clement wanted to bask in it.

He sipped his tea and found the cup empty.

“Shall I,” Hugo said, glancing toward the kettle, “make more?”

“No,” Clement said, regretfully. “I’ve stayed too late, and imposed upon your company, I’m sure. Mr. Devereux will be wondering where I am.”

“Of course,” said Hugo. He rose to his feet to show Clement to the door.

Clement rose likewise, and paused. He wanted to say something, to express his admiration of Hugo and his pleasure in Hugo’s company, but he could think of no words which would adequately contain his emotions.

“Good evening,” said Clement.

“Good evening,” said Hugo.

Smiling with polite, friendly uncertainty, Clement nodded once in farewell and showed himself out.

“
C
lement
,” said Jane, who was engaged in studying diagrams and seating-charts for the garden party. This endeavour was much hampered by the simple fact that she knew very little of the local gentry, and thus had very little idea of who could and couldn’t successfully be seated together at a party.

She had paused mid-thought.

Walking over to the table with the diagram, Clement bent over it to see.

“I don’t know what it is about people with the name Weatherwax,” said Jane, “but I do declare that they always seem to be the sort to wax on at length about the weather. Do you suppose it is unfair of me to assume that Miss Weatherwax is a dull old spinster simply on account of her name?”

Clement thought it safest not to answer that query.

“I cannot decide if I ought to seat her next to Mr. Nestlehutt or Mrs. Stackpole. I feel like anyone with the name Stackpole must be possessed of infinite reserves of patience, while a Nestlehutt is very certain to be a chatterbox, and it is sometimes best to put chatterboxes next to each other. They talk each other thin, you see, and they are always so engaged in trying to out-talk each other that they have very little time or energy remaining in order to weary the patience of the other guests.”

“You might,” Clement suggested, “arrange a garden-party in the French style, where there are no arranged seats and all the party is designed for mingling. All the refreshments might be served on trays, and the guests may sit, or not, as they please.”

Jane looked scandalised but intrigued. “Is that
done
?”

“To my understanding,” said Clement, “it is not popularly done in London, and it would require a great amount of social clout to be able to establish it as a fashion rather than a flaw, but we are in the countryside.”

“That is true,” Jane said. “Our guests will be somewhat less informed upon what is the reigning fashion in London, and even if they are informed, one need not adhere so rigidly to social codes in the countryside. The French style, you said? I suppose we might serve a variety of French refreshments.”

“It would be a most handsome risk,” Letty interjected. “It would set us for certain as the trend-setters of the county.”

“Do we wish to be the trend-setters of the county?” Jane asked.

Letty nodded, cheeks rounded by a grin. “It is always better to be the trend-setter. That way, no matter what one does, it shall be taken up as fashionable by nearly everyone else.”

Jane looked to Clement for the more circumspect point of view on this topic.

He grimaced. “She isn’t wrong.”

Nodding once, Jane pushed the seating-chart away. “The French style it is, then.”

Clement scrapped the list of possible refreshments he had been compiling, and took a fresh sheet of foolscap to begin again with French items.

“Oh, Clement?” asked Jane.

He lifted his head.

“I had meant to send you to Hildebert. Tell him about the changes to the party, will you? Letty and I can do without you, for the time being. Remind him that we are invited to dine with the Nussbaums this afternoon.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Clement said, getting to his feet and bowing once before he left the room.

H
ildebert was overseeing
the clearing of the former hunting-shed as it was converted into his new workshop. Hugo was carrying out a large mounted elk head while Midgley discussed a list of potential places they could store these things now that they could no longer be kept in the hunting-shed. From what Clement heard of the list as he entered, Midgley’s options for storage were limited by his somewhat cursory knowledge of the estate’s buildings and space.

“We could put them in the east wing on the first floor,” Midgley suggested, “the north rooms there are largely empty.”

“Aren’t those the rooms that Mrs. Ledford uses for laundry twice a week?” Clement asked, stepping out of Hugo’s way as he came through.

Hugo glanced at Clement and grinned as he stepped past.

“Are they?” Midgley wrinkled his nose. “I shall ask her if they can’t be put to better use.”

Clement opened his mouth to opine that laundering bed linens was almost certainly a higher purpose than storing elk-heads, and then decided to leave it to Mrs. Ledford to deflect Midgley’s conviction.

The hunting-shed was only half emptied of its bodiless occupants. Antlers and neglected hunting rifles hung from the walls, while unidentified crates filled the corners. Everything was covered in a layer of dust, much of which had been stirred up by the reorganising efforts.

Hildebert stood in the centre of the room, hands on his hips as he oversaw the process. His oversight was limited to watching and nodding approvingly while Hugo and a footman did all of the work and Midgley scurried about making inefficient suggestions.

“Clement!” Hildebert exclaimed, throwing up his hands in exuberant greeting.

“Sir.”

“Aren’t things coming along well, Clement? I am ever so pleased.”

Midgley sneezed loudly.

Startled, Hildebert peered round at him.

Sneezing once again, Midgley took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose loudly into it, after which he took up scolding the footman over taking greater care with the disembodied boar’s head he was carrying.

“Have my supplies come yet?”

Clement returned his attention to Hildebert, who was regarding him with barely-contained excitement. “Your supplies?”

“Yes, my supplies! For my new industry as a gentleman inventor.”

Clement opened his mouth, shut it again, swallowed, and sought for a reply that would be appropriately respectful. “The order was only sent two days ago. You will remember yourself that it takes longer to travel to London—and back again, of course.”

“Oh,” said Hildebert, crestfallen. “Yes. I suppose so.” He looked about the room, nodding thoughtfully. “That’s just as well. It will take some time to convert this into a functional workshop. I have, however, decided that we ought to delay the garden party by a week or so. Don’t you think it would be better if we had something to show our guests?”

Clement thought it would be better if Hildebert and Jane made an effort to socialise with their own class like normal persons of good sense. Playing at cards and science while in league with the servants was not at all respectable.

“Mrs. Devereux bid me to remind you that you’ll be having dinner with the Nussbaums today. Shall I fetch you inside in an hour when it’s time to dress for the excursion?”

Hildebert’s brow furrowed. “Yes, if I must. What a spot of bother! I would very much have liked to be in the workshop this afternoon. But, ah, such are the demands of society! It is, don’t you think, a tragedy how the pursuit of the noble sciences must be a slave to the whims of society?”

Clement did not think that the onus of being served tea by one’s neighbours could in any way be considered a tragedy. “There will be plenty of time to see to the workshop tomorrow,” he said, by way of pacifying Hildebert. “And there is no hurry while the supplies and books have not yet arrived.”

“True, true. You’re always such a beacon of good sense, Clement,” Hildebert said, nodding.

Midgley sneezed again. Hugo stood out of the way, holding a stuffed bear that was taller than he was. The bear stood with one paw raised and jaws agape. Clement thought that the expression had been meant to evoke a snarl, but the result made it look like the bear was having as much trouble with the dust as Midgley.

Glancing over, Hugo caught Clement watching and smiled again.

A ragged gasp sounded from Hildebert.

Alarmed, Clement spun to face him, and found Hildebert clutching his heart. “Sir!”

“How noble!” said Hildebert.

Clement followed his gaze, confused to find that he was gazing at the trio of Hugo, the sneezing Mr. Midgley and the frozen-mid-sneeze bear. One of these three was giving Hildebert transports of rapture.

“Sir?” Clement said again.

“Isn’t it remarkable, Clement?”

“The bear?”

“What a beast! So grand! So noble!”

Hugo was still holding the bear, which hung at an angle in his arms. When he noticed that their employer had fastened upon the taxidermied creature as an object of wonder, he set it down again.

Hildebert approached with all the awe that might normally be rendered to a saint or seraph. “I must have it.”

Hugo looked toward Clement for guidance.

“You
do
have it, sir,” Clement said.

“In the house, I mean,” said Hildebert. “In the entry foyer, don’t you agree?”

“Sir,” said Clement, at a loss for words. “It might not be fashionable.”

“It would be devilishly fashionable,” Hildebert insisted. “How many houses can claim the distinction of a giant bear of this sort to greet their guests?”

“It might frighten your guests,” Clement said.

“Faugh,” said Hildebert. “If they are spooked by something so admirable, then good riddance to them!”

Behind his master’s back, Clement glanced toward heaven in a silent prayer for patience. “Mrs. Devereux might not like it.”

“She will love it,” Hildebert insisted. “The entry foyer, Mr. Ogden. If you please.”

“Sir,” Hugo said, and picked up the bear again.

Clement shut his mouth sharply before he could sigh, and it came out his nostrils in a distraught puff. “Sir,” he tried again. “You may be thought eccentric.”

“I,” said Hildebert, “am a gentleman inventor. It is my highest aspiration to be thought eccentric.”

I
t was
a relief when Hildebert and Jane left for the afternoon. They had the footman and coachman to attend them along the way, and their hosts would have servants to meet any needs that arose while they were visiting.

While they were occupied, Clement went in search of a button.

He was disappointed to find that his own stash of buttons, which he used for Hildebert’s wardrobe, was rather smaller than he had remembered it. This had never been a problem in the past, when he had been able to avail himself of the larger household supply of buttons and scraps. Lord Devereux’s household button collection had been magnificent, and Clement had been able to find acceptable matches for even the most obscure and peculiar of Hildebert’s waistcoat buttons.

His own button collection, preserved reverently in an old tea tin, came to a grand total of twenty-three buttons, one of which was cracked. There were none which might serve as a match for Hugo’s lost button.

Returning the tin to its place by his window, Clement went out in search of other buttons. The occupants at Gennerly House must have some manner of button collection to repair damaged wardrobes. Mrs. Ledford or Mr. Busick would know.

To his chagrin, neither of the senior servants were in the kitchen. Nor was anyone else. Clement suspected that this owed to the loveliness of the spring day outside. Mr. and Mrs. Devereux had gone, and chores were let to slack in the meanwhile.

Lifting his chin, Clement went in search of the wayward staff.

He found Mr. Busick in a quiet, dusty study off of the main library. The head footman was sitting in a sunny window seat, snoring quietly with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Mr. Busick,” said Clement.

Mr. Busick gave a sleepy snort.

Clement renewed the attempt, louder this time. “
Mr. Busick
.”

Snorting and smacking his lips, Mr. Busick blinked awake and peered at him.

“I’m looking,” said Clement, “for some buttons.”

Mr. Busick peered at him as though he were speaking in tongues.

“A waistcoat button, in particular.”

“Do I look like I am made of buttons?” Mr. Busick asked him.

In Clement’s opinion, if ever a man were to be fashioned entirely out of buttons, the result might look something like Mr. Busick. “I thought you might know where to find some.”

Grumbling, Mr. Busick got to his feet. “They’re in the upstairs workroom. Did you look there?”

“I did not know we had an upstairs workroom,” Clement said.

Mr. Busick grumbled a bit more. He led the way back out of the study, through the library, down the hall, and up two flights of stairs to the cramped upper rooms of the attic level. Clement was surprised that, for all Mr. Busick’s advanced years and lazy demeanour, he was not out of breath by the time the two of them mounted the final stair.

“It’s there,” said Mr. Busick, indicating a door.

Within, the warm afternoon sunlight filled the cozy attic workroom. There was a large table of unpolished wood at the centre, spread with scraps of cloth from some project. Skeins of yarn and thread spilled from drawers, and there was an entire tower of shelves dedicated to jars filled with buttons. It was more buttons than Clement had seen in one place in his entire life.

“I see that we are wealthy in buttons,” Clement said.

Mr. Busick grunted.

“Thank you,” Clement said, more sincerely. “This is precisely what I needed.”

This time, the grunt was accompanied by a nod, and then Mr. Busick made his way down the stairs.

Clement wandered through the work room, inspecting the stocks of fabric and thread. They were organised by colour, laid in drawers and stacked upon shelves, and the appearance of disorganisation owed only to the surplus of all the supplies, overflowing their neat drawers and reaching onto every surface that would have them.

The light was excellent, and the room was warm. It would be an excellent place to work, whenever he had some repair or modification to make to Hildebert’s clothing, and he could hope to be able to work uninterrupted here whenever he needed time or space away from Hildebert’s needs or Jane and Letty’s enthusiasm.

Taking one of the largest jars of buttons from the shelf, Clement spilled it out onto an empty space on the worktable, and began searching through for the button he needed.

Two hours later, he had sorted the entire button collection by colour and returned them to their jars by relative quantity of each button colour. The resulting rainbow was very satisfying.

He had found six buttons which seemed probable matches for what he remembered of Hugo’s waistcoat. With his mending kit in hand, he made his way out of the house.