Discreet Young Gentleman (14 page)

Rob studied him for a moment before answering. "I can't imagine what it is you see when you look in the mirror. There's nothing wrong with you, and so much right."

Dean shook his head. "All my life I've heard differently. Ginger. Carrots. Leopard.

Spotty. Even my mother.. .one of the last things she ever said to me was, 'Such a pity you didn't get your father's skin.'"

"She had freckles too, then?" "They ruined her life." "Urn. Is that possible?"

"Well, her sister Margaret didn't have them, and she married the finest man in Scotland. My mother..." Dean paused. "The best she could do was Father, who was twenty years older, and obsessed with his music. Life in England was exile for her."

"It sounds like she was homesick."

"Oh, very. When I was six, she went back to Aberdeenshire to help settle her aunt's estate. It was just supposed to take a few weeks, but she wrote us that things were more complicated than she thought, and it would be a little longer. And then a little longer. Then, when she wrote and asked if Father would send me up for a visit, he realized she never meant to come back."

Rob touched his arm. " Did you go?"

"He wouldn't let me. And then, a few weeks later, we heard she was dead."

Warm fingers squeezed his wrist. "Oh, Jesus, Dean. I'm so sorry."

Dean nodded his thanks, awkward. "I always wondered...if she'd been proud of the way I looked, maybe she would have taken me with her. Shown me off to her family.

I'd at least have been with her when she..." He cleared his throat.

"How?"

"Typhus."

Rob winced. "If it helps any...I was close to my mother. And, like you, I inherited her greatest flaw. It was hard on her when the schoolmaster finally realized he couldn't beat intelligence into

me and told me not to come back—she felt guilty at herself, and angry with me that I couldn't overcome it either. But in the end, the problem we shared made us closer, and if you were too young to feel that before your mother died—oh, Dean, you would have. Sooner or later, it would have brought you together. I know it."

"Thank you," Dean whispered. He managed a smile, wishing he could believe Rob's well-meant words. After all, he'd had more than a decade with his father after his mother's death, and time had done nothing to bring the two of them closer. "I just hated the way I looked after that, you know? And I suppose that just made it worse—if anyone teased me about the freckles, I would over-react so entertainingly—"

"—that the other boys would keep it up. Mob mentality." They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, and then Rob said, "Do you think you could stand another one of my stories?"

"I like your stories," Dean admitted. "You have a knack for them, Rob. You should be a writer."

"Ha. Anyway, remember that stable boy I told you about? The one I was caught kissing?"

Dean nodded, and Rob settled himself on one elbow and plucked a blade of grass to chew on before beginning.

"He had hair the color of a sunset. Glorious, in the true sense— when the sun lit it up, I swear one could hear hosannas sung. It was very much like yours." He discarded his blade of grass, and carefully chose another, giving Dean a moment to digest the fact that some people might favor the shade of hair he had always despised.

"And his mother adored his freckles," Rob continued. "She told him each one was a kiss from the sun. I was.. .obsessed with them. He had constellations of them, galaxies. I wanted to map them so badly, trace them with my fingers and my tongue.

Kiss him everywhere the sun had kissed him. Find out if there were any secret places where it hadn't. I wanted to be with him long enough to find out if the same ones came back every summer after they'd faded in the winter, or if a new crop took their place.

Rob pointed his bit of grass at the stream, where Old Bill was still master. "It's the ones that get away that haunt you, isn't it?" His eyes traveled over Dean's face, intent.

"And he—his nose was a little crooked, and his eyes were just ordinary blue, not a warm green-brown hazel with those little gold flecks. Christ! Even your eyes have freckles..."

Dean's clothes were wet. He was sitting on at least one rock, and the hand he was resting his weight upon had fallen asleep. The air smelled like rain, and Rob was going to kiss him.

It didn't happen. Before their lips met, Rob shook himself, his head whipping to look down the road, and Dean became aware that he had been hearing the same thing for several seconds: the tlot-tlot of horses' hooves trotting toward them.

"Come on," Rob said. "Let's see if we can find out where we are." He smoothed his hand over his hair, and for the first time Dean realized how disreputable the pair of them must look. Barefoot, unshaven, in their shirtsleeves. Rob hadn't been as thoroughly soaked as he, but had been splashed with mud during their adventure with Old Bill, and there were green stains on his elbows from where he'd been lounging in the grass.

It was little surprise then, that the farmer they hailed looked at them with suspicion and pulled his horse up at a careful distance. "We don't get many strangers in these parts," he said. "Mind if I ask your business?"

Just for an instant, Dean considered telling him the truth. Well, you see, I'm an earl in search of my missing bride, and my companion here is a he-strumpet, who's taking some time off to help me... Maybe it was the lack of food and adequate sleep that made Dean want to giggle.

Luckily, Rob had better control of himself. "Please, sir," he said, holding up his hands and smiling. "My friend and I were passing through last night, when our coach was robbed. Could you tell us which village that is over there?"

"Cherington," the man said. "Now, if you'll excuse me..."

"Wait," Dean said. "Cherington—this is it, Rob. We're very close to my uncle. Sir, which way is it to Silas Smith's place?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I'm his nephew, Dean Smith."

The farmer squinted at him. "You don't have the look of the Smiths. Who's your father?"

"Erastus Smith. My mother was Agnes Forsyte, of Aberdeenshire. I'm afraid I take after her."

"And you?"

Rob smiled cheerily. "Robert Allardyce, sir. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"You haven't. But if the two of you cause any problems at old Silas's place, you damned well will." The man gave a grudging nod to the left. "Two miles, over the bridge."

"Thank you, sir," Rob said with a bow. "Good day."

Belatedly, Dean added his bow as well, but the farmer had already kicked his horse into motion. "Friendly lot around here, aren't they?"

"Well, if they've been troubled by robbers of late, it's no wonder. Come on, find your shoes—just two miles to breakfast." "Be almost dinner by the time we get there,"

Dean grumbled.

"I wish I'd known we were so close to my uncle's last night." He looked at Rob.

"Ha. At least I found out your last name."

"No, you didn't. I just forgot which alias I was using." Rob regarded his feet, considering. "Blast. Wet shoes or hard road?"

"Hard road for me. I can't bear these another minute." Dean flung the highwayman's hand-me-downs as far as he could, one of them landing with a loud splash in the stream. "I don't even know your first name, do I? Except it's got 'bert' in it. Delbert?"

Rob kept his second-hand shoes, tying them together and swinging them by the strings while they walked, keeping when possible to the long grass by the side of the road. "I don't like my first name. You would recognize my last."

"Would I? I wouldn't tell."

"Some gossip is too good not to share."

"A prominent family, then? If so..." Dean hesitated. "Wasn't... isn't there someone you could turn to for help? Instead of—"

"Selling my body like a Covent Garden trull?" Rob seemed unperturbed, but by now Dean suspected that much of his equanimity was the result of long practice. "I'm from a cadet branch, and the family didn't exactly jump to help us when my father died. Except my 'uncle' of course, and he was something of a black sheep himself.

When he left me so much money, the rest of them came to exactly the correct conclusion as to why, and that destroyed any sense of responsibility they might otherwise have felt for me."

"Hang them all, then. Elbert."

"I wouldn't tell you if you guessed."

"Won't stop me. Cuthbert. Or maybe I'm thinking in the wrong direction...Bertram.

Bertrand. Burton. Bertley." "Is Bertley even a name?"

"Bently, Berkeley—why not Bertley? What happened to your stable boy? Was he sacked?"

"My uncle would hardly hold kissing another boy to be offensive. But he did send him to work on another of his properties."

"The better to keep you fresh for himself?" Dean shuddered. "Ugh."

"Oh, for heaven's sake." The corner of Rob's lips twitched with wry amusement.

"He was in his forties at the time—hardly a drooling old man. And he didn't care what I did while he still considered me too young for him, as long as I was discreet. But he did tell me that when I joined him at the big house, he would prefer it if I hadn't been sampled by half his own servants."

"So romantic," Dean muttered.

"No," Rob said softly. "It wasn't romantic. But it wasn't dreadful, either. When I was ready, I went to him. I was eighteen, and hadn't

even kissed anyone since the stable boy. Having an experienced older man teach me the ropes was really quite exciting. I was not unhappy with my lot."

"You seem to find the best in everything," Dean observed, shaking his head. "I can't be so cheerful."

"Must be your Scots blood," Rob said. "Stop eating oats and you might yet overcome it."

Dean was startled into laughter.

"See?" Rob said with approval. "There's hope for you still."

Chapter Thirteen

Walking barefoot was not a good idea after all. Dean sat on a drystone wall, foot extended, while Rob eased a shard of glass from his sole.

"There," Rob said. "It's not too deep, but you should still soak it when we get to your uncle's. Let me find you a stick to lean on."

Dean flexed his foot. "Don't bother, I think I can walk just fine. But it's still bleeding some. I wish we had something to use as a bandage."

"This shirt's ruined anyway." Rob lifted his shirt, exposing an expanse of flat belly, and used his teeth to tear away a strip of cloth from the hem. He wrapped the makeshift bandage around Dean's foot, knotting it firmly. "I hope that will hold." He grinned. "At least we should have an entertaining story for Uncle Silas."

Dean frowned in consideration. "We should be careful about how much we tell him, shouldn't we?"

"I suppose. Is he easily shocked?"

"Shocked? Perhaps not. He's not a prude. I understand he's been living in sin with his housekeeper for the past fifteen years, but that doesn't mean he'd be sympathetic to...to..."

"Mollies like me." Rob shrugged. "We don't have to tell him how your engagement was broken, or even that it was."

"Right, just as much of the truth as he needs to know. I'm on my way to Bath to see Minerva, and you're a friend who's accompanying me." He was surprised to see Rob color slightly. "What did I say?"

"Nothing." Rob shook his head. "Just...a few days ago, you were appalled at the idea of claiming me for a friend."

"Oh." Dean thought about it. It was surprising, but true: the tenuous connection formed by their shared travel had, in the course of recent events, strengthened into a real bond. "A few days ago, you weren't."

"Thank you."

The threatened rain decided to make its appearance at last, falling in bucketfuls from the sky. The last mile to Uncle Silas's was spent trudging through ankle-deep mud. At last, the Smith house loomed before them, an old stone and brick farmhouse with tacked-on wings sprawling in all directions. By this time they were bone-weary, chilled, and achingly hungry. None of this quenched the familiar gleam of amusement in Rob's eyes as he grinned at Dean, while they stood shivering on the doorstop awaiting an answer to their knock.

"If we'd known your uncle was this close, we could have brought the fish."

Dean was still laughing when the door opened, revealing a hearty man of about sixty, whose hair yet remained thick and nearly all brown. "Uncle Silas?" He stood up straight and tried to look dignified. "Sorry to barge in on you like this, but—"

"Good heavens!" Silas Smith peered at his visitors. "Aberdeen, is it? Come in out of the rain."

"Aberdeen?" Rob collapsed into fresh laughter, and for the first time in his life Dean found his own name amusing. "That's never your full name?"

"I told you Mother was homesick," he gasped, fighting for control. "Uncle Silas, we had, um, a spot of trouble on the road. There were these highwaymen—real highwaymen, that is, and then today we caught a big fish. Oh, God—Rob can tell it, he's so much better at stories than I am—but is there any chance we could have something to eat?"

"Please," Rob added helpfully. "Dean—Aberdeen—keeps forgetting to say

'please.'"

"If you think my first name is so funny, let's hear yours" Dean said, while his uncle shepherded them down a long hall toward the kitchen. "I'm sorry, Uncle Silas. This is my friend Rob, and we haven't eaten since yesterday afternoon."

"You do seem a little light-headed," Uncle Silas admitted, looking only slightly taken aback. "Perhaps some hot soup would help."

"Oh, bless you, sir!" Rob said. "But first, is there somewhere I could, uh...?"

"Piss? Without even going back out into the rain. We've an indoor convenience over in the east wing—all you have to do is go down that hallway there, take your first left, and then keep turning right until you see the door with the blue trim. Go on, then."

Rob hesitated just a second, then smiled and left to find the privy.

Uncle Silas turned towards the hearth, a good old-fashioned open fireplace, complete with simmering kettle hanging from a hook. "Bowls—cupboard. Spoons—box on window shelf. Damn it, where does Holly keep the ladle?"

Dean joined in the search. The kitchen was arranged in a way that probably made perfect sense to the woman who used it daily, but seemed to defy logic to the casual observer. "Is your housekeeper away?"