The Valet and the Stable Groom: M/M Regency Romance (16 page)

Sharply folding the invoice pages once, then again, Clement tucked them into his pocket. “Mr. Midgley, I am urgently expected in my master’s service. If you wish to make baseless accusations about my motivations and competence, I must ask you to wait until I have some stretch of leisure. I have duties to attend, and—I should hope—so do you. Good day.”

Mr. Midgley’s dark eyes narrowed at him.

Clement turned away, stumbled on the last step that he’d forgotten he was on, and sailed out the door without looking back.

B
y the time
he reached the laboratory, Hildebert had mercifully not found a way to create any new explosions, but he had somehow blackened both his hands to an ugly dark grey colour, the stain of which covered his palms and the backs of his hands in watery splotches.

“Clement!”

Clement’s mouth fell open at the sight. “Mr. Devereux! Whatever has happened to you?”

“Oh, dear,” said Hildebert. “Well, I, you see…. that is…” He regarded his hands disconsolately, then gazed at Clement for assistance. “I don’t know what the devil has happened! I meant only to rinse my hands.”

“What did you rinse them
with
?”

“Well, I… I’m not exactly sure.” Hildebert started poking among the bottles within reach, an uncomprehending furrow between his brows as he read their labels.

“Quickly, then,” Clement said, clasping Hildebert’s shoulder and steering him toward the door. “We must send for the physician, and you shall have to hope that you shall not lose your hands to whatever poisons may have been in the substance.”

“My hands! Oh, Clement! I may die!”

Hildebert half swooned upon him. Clement simply set his shoulder beneath his employer’s and propelled him forward regardless.

Depositing Hildebert in the sunroom, Clement sent a footman for the doctor and sent a maidservant in to care for Hildebert, who had begun declaring his own imminent death.

The physician arrived within an hour, took one look at Hildebert and began laughing.

Sitting in the sunroom amidst a pile of blankets and plied with tea and warm milk—on account of Jane’s insistence that milk was a sure remedy against any sort of poison—Hildebert was prepared to settle in for another luxurious stretch of time as an invalid. Indignant about the physician’s mirth, Hildebert sputtered at him. “My good sir!”

The physician was a tall man of middling years. His eyes twinkled. “I hear you’ve been poisoned by some unknown substance?” Taking Hildebert’s hands, the physician turned them over, carefully inspecting the palms. “The colouration may last for a manner of days. Quite harmless.”

Astounded, Hildebert stared at him. “But how can you be so assured! You cannot know what, of all the substances in my workshop, might have been responsible.”

“I do,” said the physician, reaching into his bag and drawing out a stoppered glass bottle. He opened it, pouring a few droplets into a saucer. “If I might have a volunteer? Just touch this water with a fingertip, if you will.”

Clement stepped forward.

“Ah,” said the physician. “Perhaps someone of the gentleman’s own… colour. To be certain of the matter.”

Letty strode forward and touched the liquid on the saucer, exclaiming aloud as the clear liquid stained her fingertip black. “Oh!”

“Silver nitrate. Invaluable to the modern physician. Purifying and cleansing, and utterly harmless to you both.” Smiling, the physician stoppered his bottle once again, returning it to his bag. “What is this about your workshop?”

Humour much restored by this assurance that he would not die, Hildebert drew himself up from the cocoon of blankets. “I,” he said, clearing his throat self-importantly, “am a gentleman chemist.”

The physician’s lips twitched very slightly, brows lifting. “I see,” he answered with gravitas. “My best hopes for your career. As your physician, may I advise you to be
very
careful in future into what liquids you dip your hands? Not everything is so harmless as silver nitrate. Several alchemical acids, I understand, are entirely clear, and would swiftly strip the skin from your hands in such quantity as you’ve spilled on yourself here.”

Hildebert paled. “Of course,” he said, keeping his chin high even as he began wringing his hands.

“Thank you for coming so urgently,” Jane said, curtseying and then guiding the physician to the door. Clement trailed after them.

“If I may, madam,” the physician paused as they reached the front door, voice low. “The profession of chemist can be a dangerous—or even deadly—pastime for a gentleman, if he is not a man of exacting and patient character.”

“I understand,” Jane said. Eyes wide with worry, she nodded.

Clement opened the door for the physician and shut it once again behind him.

Jane sighed. “Come along, Clement. I suppose I had best produce some hysterics to dissuade my beloved from continued efforts to blow himself up.”

“I would very much appreciate it if you did.”

“It is a pity,” she said, as the two of them made their way down the corridor to where Hildebert and the others were waiting in the sunroom. “I do so enjoy explosions.”

It took mere minutes for Jane, eyes sparkling with a hint of tears, to reduce Hildebert to apologetic promises that he would leave off the dangerous pastime of alchemy.

“What an alchemist I could have been!” Hildebert sighed, gazing off out the window with a weighty sigh.

“The greatest,” Jane assured him, dutifully patting his arm and leaning in to kiss his cheek. “But true genius calls for great sacrifice, and I would so hate that, my darling. I do not wish to be wedded to a famous scientist, though I am certain that you have the most incredible scientific mind in our generation. I beg of you to put aside this higher calling, and to be, simply, my beloved husband.”

Hildebert clasped her hands in a rapture of emotion. “No man could ever be
simply
your husband, my darling, my muse! Truly there could be no higher calling!”

Clement left them to this, and went out to find the gardener.

“
M
r. Adair
?”

A maidservant peeked around the doorframe, wringing her hands.

Lifting the hot iron from the fabric of Hildebert’s trousers, Clement set it aside, smoothing down the cloth with a sigh. “Yes, Miss Ibbott?”

“I am terribly sorry, Mr. Adair, it’s only… it’s… well…”

“If you please, Miss Ibbott.”

“There’s some trouble. Mrs. Ledford is in a fury. If you please, none of us know what to do.”

Frowning, Clement laid his pressing implements to the side. Hildebert’s trousers would simply have to remain wrinkled for the time being. “Why is Mrs. Ledford in a fury?”

“It’s Miss Lockwood. And her ladyship.”

“I beg you, Miss Ibbott. Have it out.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Adair.” The maid fretted at her lip, visibly struggling to refrain from fidgeting. “I don’t… I don’t know how to explain the matter. Please, come and see.”

“Of course. At once.”

Concerned about what could have the maid in such a panic and Mrs. Ledford in a fury, Clement hurried down the hall after Miss Ibbott.

She led the way into the library, a high-ceilinged, dusty room filled with what Clement had assessed to be mostly dry, morally preachy tomes from prior centuries. None of them were to Hildebert’s taste, nor to Clement’s, so he hadn’t given the library another thought since they had moved into Gennerly House.

Jane and Letty, it seemed, had found a better use for the library.

Sheets and blankets had been draped across bookshelves, chairs had been commandeered and upended, and piles of pillows and cushions formed the walls and barricades of a sort of textile fortress that had been built in the middle of the library.

Clement sighed. “Oh, dear.”

Letty’s head popped out of a pillow turret. She was wearing a pot upon her head as a helmet. “Who goes there?”

“Clement Adair. Letty, what the
devil
…?”

Jane peeped out alongside her maidservant. “Is it the French?”

“I’m not French. Mrs. Devereux, I must protest.”

“Ah, no, it’s the Welsh.” Jane ducked back under.

Giggling, Letty flung a small pillow at Clement and then followed after her mistress.

“I’m not
Welsh
, either.”

“You are a quarter Welsh upon your mother’s side,” Letty’s voice trailed out from somewhere within the maze of blankets. “You have said so yourself.”

“Yes, well…” Clement found himself at a loss for a clever retort. Looking back, he found Mrs. Ledford standing in the doorway, regarding him and the blanket castle with a disapproving frown. He sighed once again.

If he took Mrs. Ledford’s side and insisted upon dismantling the structure, Letty and Jane would be displeased and might simply seek further adventure and trouble in some other part of the house. If he took Letty and Jane’s side and let it stand, Mrs. Ledford would be displeased and would lose confidence in Clement.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Clement said.

He turned about and walked past Mrs. Ledford out of the library, indicating that she should follow him. Once they were safely out of earshot in the hallway, he stopped to consult with her. “Mrs. Ledford.”

Her disapproving frown deepened.

“They need to be entertained,” he explained, voice quiet so that his mild insubordination would not be overheard. “If it isn’t this, it will be something else. What do you
require
out of…” Clement glanced helplessly in the direction of the library. “That situation?”

“They have absconded with the supper table linens.”

“Ah,” said Clement. “Are there any other linens they might be permitted to use without trouble?”

Mrs. Ledford’s face cleared slightly. “Yes.”

“Are they otherwise in your way or obstructing your duties?” Clement asked.

“No.”

“I’ll retrieve your table linens,” Clement promised. “I beg you, fetch down the spare linens which might be used.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded once, and turned to go.

“Mrs. Ledford?” Clement called after her.

She looked back over her shoulder.

“How are you resolved on the issue of dogs in the household?”

Her frown returned.

“There is our mistress’ dog, of course,” Clement said. “The rest—they are trained, of course. Under Mr. Ogden’s oversight.”

Mrs. Ledford sucked her lips into her mouth and stared irritably at him. “Is whatever you have in mind
entirely
necessary, Mr. Adair?”

“It…” Clement sighed. “If you will put your confidence in me, Mrs. Ledford, I will have your table linens back within a quarter hour, undamaged, and without incurring our mistress’ displeasure. You have my word.”

“Then, Mr. Adair,” she said, “I am resolved.”

Clasping her hands together, Mrs. Ledford walked away down the hall.

Clement glanced back toward the library, where he could hear laughter bubbling from within the tent structure, and then made his way to the stables.

“Hugo?”

Walking swiftly now that he had put himself under a time limit, Clement peeked up the stairs and then headed for the main room of the stables. One of the horses turned its head lazily to regard him over its stall door.

“Hugo?”

“Here,” Hugo called.

Clement followed the sound of his voice to one of the stalls, where the pregnant horse had been not long ago. He was relieved to see the horse still alive, with a much smaller horse sitting by her side. The foal was covered in a sticky goo of a provenance that Clement preferred not to imagine, as was Hugo. “Oh, dear.”

Hugo gave him a tired smile. “Good evening, Clement.”

“Good evening. Er.”

“You didn’t come last night.”

“Last…” Clement’s lips parted in disappointment as he remembered his promise. “Oh.”

“Too busy?”

“Forgive me, Hugo, I…”

“Never mind it. You’re run off your feet, I know all too well.”

“Hugo.” Clement clenched his fists, then smoothed his hands down his trousers. “I’m sorry, but I need your assistance, and swiftly. Can the horses be left alone for a quarter of an hour?”

“They can.” Hugo got to his feet, frowning curiously. “What is the matter?”

“It is difficult to explain, but I find myself in need of a canine calvary.”

“A… a what?”

“I’ll tell you along the way, but we
are
going to see the mistress of the house. I pray you set yourself to rights, and quickly.”

Hugo smiled lopsidedly at him. “Quickly, then. Will you fetch a fresh shirt and coat from my chest upstairs?”

He strode off in the direction of the water pump behind the stables, while Clement made his way upstairs to Hugo’s rooms.

It was the first time he had seen Hugo’s bedroom, and he knew not where to find his spare clothing. The room was small, low-ceilinged, and cozy. A spacious bed was tucked against one wall, coverlet rumpled. At the head of the bed was a plain brown chest with bronze banding. Clement opened it.

Within, he found a few simple items of clothing atop Hugo’s nicer Sunday garments. They were all made of coarse wool and linen, and patched roughly.

Clement took one of the two shirts and the only coat, and returned to find Hugo.

Following the splashing sound of the water behind the stables, Clement walked around the corner and stopped short.

Hugo had taken off his shirt, and his labour-hardened body was exposed to the sunlight. Water pearled along his skin, which tended toward a warm, light golden-brown colour. His forearms were darker, fully golden-brown from sunlight and Hugo’s habit of working with his sleeves rolled up.

Clement had seen labourers before working shirtless on a summer day, but none of them had ever caused his mouth to go dry, his palms to sweat, and fire to course through his veins.

A single droplet of water coursed down the light pelt of dark hair that covered Hugo’s chest, narrowing into a trail down the centre of his belly and disappearing under his trousers.

Shutting his mouth with a click, Clement dropped his gaze and stepped forward to offer the fresh clothing.

“Thank you, Clement,” Hugo said.

“It was no trouble,” Clement replied. “If you please, I don’t wish to rush you, but Mrs. Ledford is terribly concerned for the fate of her table linens.”

“And you think she will somehow be less concerned by a squadron of dogs entering the situation?”

“Perhaps not less concerned. I… er. You see, Jane and Letty have built a fortress out of blankets and, well, the table linens in question. I intend to lay siege to their castle.”

“Their blanket castle.”

“Yes.”

Hugo buttoned up his coat, lips twitching. “I see. Very well.”

He whistled a summons.

Clement felt a prickle of anticipation go up his spine. The patter of more than a dozen small canine feet rattled within the stable moments before the tiny battalion emerged. They ran in excited circles around Hugo and Clement, yapping cheerfully, until Hugo snapped his fingers and they fell into line.

Their discipline as a corps was significantly lacking in comparison to the Yeomen Warders of Her Majesty’s Royal Palace, but as far as dogs went, Clement thought that their posture and attention was rather good.

“Lead the way,” Hugo said, regarding Clement with a grin.

“The enemy has barricaded themselves in the library,” Clement said, starting back toward the main house with Hugo and the puppies in tow. They had grown considerably in the past weeks, and Titania in particular bounded proudly alongside her long-suffering mother.

Three of the maids and one footman peeked their heads out wide-eyed from nearby doorways as the little army marched past in extremely sloppy military formation.

Mrs. Ledford met him on the stair landing, handing over a large armful of bed linens. She narrowed her eyes at the puppy battalion, but made no comment.

“Thank you, Mrs. Ledford,” Clement said, peering over his load of linens and continuing on his way.

He set the linens down on a table just inside the door of the library and took a deep breath.

Hugo drew up the puppies into a neat line, chins lifted. They very nearly looked like a line of soldiers, except for the puppy on the end who was flopped on his side and looking around curiously.

“We’re here to negotiate!” Clement announced.

There was only a moment’s pause before Letty and Jane both peeped up out of a pillow turret and stared at the besieging army.

“Negotiate for what?” Jane asked.

“The dining-table linens.”

Jane looked over to where some of the dining table linens were visible forming a tent over a bookshelf, then to Letty, and then back to the army. She opened her mouth and then shut it again.

Letty wrinkled her nose. “What if we don’t negotiate?”

“Our army shall lay siege to your castle and tear down all your towers.”

Letty and Jane exchanged a glance.

“I have,” Clement said, indicating the pile of bed linens, “brought replacement building materials.”

Nodding regally, Jane got to her feet. The tent around her only reached as far as her waist. “We surrender. Your army may enter the castle, and we shall fetch your dining-table linens.”

She disappeared into the maze of blankets. Jane followed. Clement looked to Hugo, who shrugged.

Bending down, Hugo nudged two of the puppies forward into the blanket castle. Thus released, they scampered forward to explore, quickly followed by their compatriots.

It took only a matter of minutes for Jane and Letty to locate most of the dining-table linens and deliver them to Clement in exchange for the replacements. As far as Clement could tell, there were at least three napkins missing, but since there were no guests to be hosted that night, he decided that Mrs. Ledford would have to manage without the full complement of linens.

“It’s a very admirable invading army, Clement,” Letty said, sitting down in the entrance to the blanket fortress with a puppy in her lap. “I would never have expected you capable of raising one.”

“To be fair, I am only
borrowing
the army,” Clement said.

“I suppose so.” Letty glanced toward Hugo, and grinned. “It is good that you are on such very friendly terms with the king of the local puppies.”

Hugo looked simultaneously pleased and embarrassed, and lifted his chin in playful pride.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Clement said, gathering up the hastily-folded pile of dining-table linens. “Mrs. Ledford will be expecting these.”

“Clement,” Hugo said.

Clement’s heart, much to his own surprise, skipped a beat. “Yes?”

“If you’d dine with me tonight, I would be very pleased.”

“I…” Clement found that both Letty and Jane were staring at him with rapt interest as to his response. “I will try.”

Hugo replied with a half-hearted smile and a nod.

Guilt tugged at Clement’s heart, but he had no time to indulge it. Mrs. Ledford needed the table linens, and promptly. Without further comment, he hurried away downstairs.