Discreet Young Gentleman (4 page)

been displayed on the doors, but had been so badly faded and peeling when he'd inherited that he'd covered them over with a coat of plain black paint. Just as well.

Dean was not one who enjoyed calling attention to himself. He frowned to notice his companion of necessity talking to the coachman.

"See here, Erich. Horse." Rob patted the neck of one of the pair, a pretty bay mare.

"One horse, two horses. See?"

Erich stared at him, unsmiling and wary. "Ein Pferd. Zwei Pferde."

Dean dropped his valise in on the ground. "Stop that. It doesn't do any good." "But my lord, if he's going to live here in England—" "Just get in the coach."

Rob shrugged and complied, but concern darkened his finely-cut features. He waited until Dean was settled on the leather seat across from him before speaking.

"Don't you think it's a mite selfish, my lord? It might be convenient to have a servant who doesn't understand your conversations, but I imagine it must be blasted hard on him to try to function in a world where he can't communicate."

"He does all right," Dean muttered. "And if you must know, I'm not deliberately keeping him ignorant. Erich has a problem, that's all. He simply cannot learn English."

Rob frowned. "He can't learn it? What do you mean? Is he dim-witted?"

"He's not dim-witted—it's just...it's just..." Dean blew out a breath. He didn't owe this man any explanations, but it didn't seem fair to Erich not to defend him. "It's just the way he is. He's missing something, do you see? Like—like my Uncle Silas's housekeeper Holly, who can't tell red from green. There's no sense getting angry with her if she matches the wrong napkins to the tablecloth, she just can't see the difference."

A light flickered behind Rob's eyes. "That's something you have sympathy for?

The inability to learn something?"

Dean looked out the window. "He works cheap. But don't try to teach Erich any more English. In the end, it will just upset him."

Rob nodded. "It's a good thing you speak some German."

"I don't. I've been picking it up from a book, and what Erich teaches me."

"Then it was even more admirable of you to take him on." It was softly said, and the tone was like a warm hand stroking along Dean's spine.

He shook himself. "Don't be stupid. There's nothing to admire about me."

Rob regarded him silently for a long moment. "I disagree. Most employers are less tolerant than you." "Oh. You have tried other work, then?"

The prostitute looked out the coach window at the bright August day, but his eyes didn't seem to focus on the rolling green hills, flecked bright red here and there with wild poppies and dotted with sheep. "Let's just say I have few skills to fall back on."

"What do you mean? Can't you read?"

"I can read."

"What, then?"

Rob's hands clenched in his lap. "You've said it yourself: I'm stupid."

Dean blinked. "You don't seem to be."

"Oh? Ask my teachers. They got tired of trying to beat sense into me, and tossed me out of school when I was twelve."

Dean shook his head. "Even so—at what point do you wake up one morning and think: I know, I'll sell myself to other men for money? I'd rather starve."

"Would you? Oddly, the people who say that are rarely the ones who've ever been in danger of it. You should try being hungry, it might open your mind."

"Never to that point."

Rob rubbed a long-fingered hand across his eyes. "What's the use? You'll never understand. I have nothing but my looks—"

A bark of harsh laughter escaped the earl. "And I have—what? Everything but?"

The other man looked at him curiously. "You're joking. You're a very attractive man."

Dean flushed. "Don't speak nonsense. I've been ugly all my life."

"Ugly? Hardly."

Dean looked back out the window. "Someone like you can never understand what it's like to be teased for your looks."

"No," Rob said softly. "I was never teased for something so insignificant."

Dean didn't respond, trapped in a repeating cycle of memories: Six years old, looking up at his mother with starry adoration, only to hear her sigh and say, "If only he'd got his father's skin."

The other children at school: "Hey, Ginger! What kind of pox is THAT?"

Shaking in his boots, the first visit to a brothel. "I'll take the dark one. Susan can have the orange spotty one."

Even complete strangers jeered at him in the street. "Hip, Michael," they'd shout,

"yer hair's on fire!"

Insignificant, indeed. Dean rubbed at one freckled forearm, wishing he could smooth the hated marks away. He flicked a glance at Rob, and let his gaze linger when he saw the other man was staring out the window, lost in his own thoughts. A man as handsome as that could have no idea.

And the ride continued in silence until it was nearly time to stop for luncheon.

Chapter Four

They circled around Worcester, avoiding the market traffic, then took the eastern road in the direction of Stratford upon Avon. The detour to visit Dean's friend Peter Chesterfield would set them back half a day, but the delay was a necessary evil. In the coach, Dean consulted a map, trying his best to hold it steady while the poorly-sprung carriage jounced over uncertain roads. "As long as the weather remains fine, we'll be back on the Bristol road tonight, and reach Tewkesbury just after sundown."

"I wouldn't mind a light rain shower to dampen the dust." Rob coughed, again.

Dean tossed his map aside, pulling the shade back down over the window. "This old coach is too heavy to be much good on muddy roads, so believe me, a little dust is preferable. Pray it stays dry."

Rob rolled his eyes. "This is England. Rain is an utter certainty. Unless, of course, one absolutely needs it. Italian summers are much more civilized."

"Are they? Isn't it damned hot over there?"

"Not as hot as Greece. And in the hills around Tuscany, it's cool and pleasant in the evenings."

"Well." Dean leaned back against the leather seat. "At least your profession lets you see the world."

Rob raised his brows. "I should think an earl with a large estate would have the opportunity to travel, if he willed it."

"Carwick is a prosperous estate," Dean admitted. "But it will take years to set to rights after my uncle's neglect, before it becomes profitable enough to support gadding about the Continent. So if you were hoping to snare a new patron, forget it. I mean, even if I had the least bend in that direction. Which I certainly do not. Obviously." He remembered his dream of the night before, and hoped the shaded windows blunted the effect of his crimson cheeks.

But perhaps discreet young gentlemen don't make a habit of noticing other people's embarrassment. Rob just smiled. "Of course not. Tell me, is Miss Lewis very beautiful?"

"Minerva is said to be the prettiest girl in Worcester," Dean said. "And I'm told she has marvelous taste: her couture is the envy of all the other ladies."

"Does she—?"

"Wait. The coach is slowing." Dean untied the shade and peered out. "Yes, this is Alcester. I told Erich to stop here so we can eat. And not a minute too soon, I'm starving." He rolled up the shade so they could see the village, a pretty little market town on the River Alne. Dean expected Rob to hang out the window for a better view, and he wasn't disappointed.

"Look, my lord." Rob pointed down the cobbled High Street at a large two-story building. The bottom half of it was built of grey and brown stone, rounded arches framing each window, while the upper story was cheerfully patterned in rectangles of white plaster framed by dark wooden beams. "Now there's half-timbering for you."

"I think that's the old Town Hall, if I remember correctly," Dean said. "My friend Peter and I used to ride over here instead of Stratford, on the off chance we could keep his mother from knowing we were having a few drinks. Tudor buildings all over the place—look, there's a whole row of timber-framed shops."

Rob craned his head to look. "Nice." He nodded his head toward the church at the far end of the High Street, a clock hanging oddly on one corner of the tower. "Unusual church. What's it called?"

Dean racked his brain, calling up the days when he and Peter had been frequent visitors to the town. "St. Nicholas, I believe. The tower is.. .Norman?"

"Perhaps not quite so old." Rob squinted back down the street. "14th, 15th century.

Where shall we dine?"

"I suppose you'll want the Swan. It's fairly new, very clean, and the food is good."

"I can get that anywhere," Rob protested. "A town this well-preserved must have something with a bit of history to it."

"Well..." Dean hesitated. "If you want character, there's the Red Lion. It's old enough to have crumbs under the tables dropped by Saxon knights—and probably does. I doubt the floor's been swept since the Conquest."

Rob grinned in pure delight. "Sounds wonderful. Are we likely to suffer much from the food?"

Dean felt himself smiling in return. "Not if we stick to bread and cheese. And the witch's ghost doesn't curse us."

"There's a ghost? How fascinating!"

"You can't believe in such things."

"No, not really," Rob admitted. "I just like stories."

"Ghost stories?"

He shrugged. "Oh, any stories. But hauntings are a popular subject. Along with romances. Tragedies." "Wars." Dean nodded. "Heroes."

"The best stories contain elements of all of them." Rob leaned forward, his handsome face radiating hope. "Can we please go to the Red Lion?"

"I suppose," Dean said. It would be cruel, and pointless, to deny such a simple pleasure. He wondered how old Rob was, and how long he'd been practicing his unsavory trade. It must be nice to have a holiday, to enjoy traveling with someone who had no intention of using him. "Bound to be cheaper, anyway."

Still, he looked wistfully at the Swan, just across the street, as they approached the Red Lion. The Swan's sign was brightly painted, and the roar of conversation was heard in frequent snatches as the door opened and closed repeatedly to a busy midday trade. The entrance to their choice, not of the charming Tudor construction so evident elsewhere but something even older and much plainer, stayed forlornly shut. The crude depiction of a lion hanging above the door had faded to a dull orange. Dean, studying it, was certain that the sign hadn't been painted in the ten years or so since Peter used to insist on riding over to tease the pretty daughter of the landlord.

They pushed open the door and entered within, where the inn's air of genial neglect matched the decrepitude of the sign outside. The tables, dark with age, tilted on uneven footings, their tops scarred by a thousand careless knives. Once, the walls had been whitewashed, but it had apparently been a very long time ago, for they now showed the grey of decades of smoky fires.

Dean didn't recall the inn being quite so derelict in his youth, but back then there had been other distractions. The winsome serving girl, Patsy if he remembered correctly, was not in evidence

today. Instead, a withered old hag, one eye completely whitened with cataract, creaked slowly to her feet from a table near the bar, peering at them with surprise.

"Good God, it's the witch herself," Dean said under his breath.

Rob nudged him with a reproving elbow, and stepped forward, his feet sticking to the floor. "Good day, mother. My companion and I would like something to eat, if it's not too much trouble."

The crone frowned up at them, squinting through her good eye, then gave an almighty shriek, like rusty scissors cutting a sheet of tin. "WICKED!"

It should have been comical, the way Rob's mouth dropped open, but the flash of guilt on his face made Dean disinclined to laughter. He felt an unexpected glimmer of sympathy for the man. Did he imagine this crazed hag had somehow divined his shame? "Come on," he said shortly. "Let's go somewhere else."

"WICKED!" she screamed again, and footsteps were heard hurrying from the depths of the inn, where a kitchen might reasonably be located.

A middle-aged man appeared, bald but for a few scraps of fair hair, a dingy towel tied around his waist for an apron. "Hush, Mrs. Smart, I heard you, I heard you. No need to shout and scare the other patrons away. Good day, good day, gentlemen!" He smiled at them anxiously. "I'm your host, Mr. Wickett, and I'm very pleased to meet you. Very pleased indeed." The old woman, her purpose fulfilled, tottered back to her table, where a tall glass of gin formed the basis of her luncheon.

"Wickett?" Rob's face relaxed into a grin. "I thought she was casting judgment upon us."

"Oh no, oh no." Their host looked horrified at the thought. "No, indeed! Travelers, are you?"

"I'm Mr. Smith," Dean admitted, not desiring to claim his title in such a setting,

"and this is Mr...uh, Black. We could do with a drink and bite to eat."

"Please," added Rob with a smile.

"Too busy over at the Swan, I suppose." Wickett shook his head. "Oh my! They do get busy. I have some stew in the back, or an eel pie, a nice eel pie."

"I seem to remember the local cheese is excellent," Dean said. "A hunk of that would do us, with a little bread and pickle. And take the same to my coachman, if you would."

The bald head bobbed. "That we can do, that we can do. Bit of oats for the horses, too. Some ale, gentlemen? We're rightly famous for it, rightly famous. Recipe goes back to the reign of Elizabeth."

"Yes, ale will be fine." Dean looked around the dim room.

There were perhaps a dozen tables, only one of them occupied, and that by Mrs.

Smart. He waved at the closest. "Shall we take this table?"

"Aye, that would be—no, wait. Rather wobbly, that one. Perhaps...not there. No, not that one, either." Their host's eyes crinkled with distress.

"A bit of a wobble won't bother us, Mr. Wickett," Rob said with a gentle smile. He put his hands flat on another tabletop and leaned his weight upon it. "See? This one isn't so bad."

Relief flooded the publican's face. "I'll just fetch your ale then, sirs, fetch your ale right away, and then have your bits of cheese out in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Two shakes!" He hurried to the bar to fill their drink order.