The Duke at Hazard (Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune, #2)

by K.J. Charles

‘But Your Grace cannot seriously intend this.’ Waters looked distraught. ‘To travel alone? Without your carriage, or James, or a single outrider, or a wardrobe? Without me?’ ‘It is only for a month,’ the Duke said soothingly.

The coach was unsprung, the seats unpadded, the roads of a vileness, the journey longer than he could have imagined. He staggered out at the other end, cursing John Martin and Leo and himself, and discovered that at some point someone had picked his pocket and stolen twenty pounds. At least it wasn’t more. He’d split his money up and secreted it about his person and in his luggage. But it had gone from an inner pocket, which was rather frightening, and he had no idea when, which was worse, and it was a sizeable part of his entire worldly wealth for the duration of a month. It was a bad blow on his first day.

‘Cassian.’ ‘Good day to you, Mr Cassian. Charnage.’ ‘Charnage?’ the Duke said. ‘Daisy Charnage?’ He saw Charnage’s smile die, his lips staying curved but without any happiness behind the expression. ‘Daizell, if you please, and yes, the same. I

Foot meet mouth

Still, he’d started paying attention to the slightly odd young gentleman, who wore a coat that had been made for somebody else two years ago, but whose very fine linen looked to have been fresh on in the last day or so.

Good eye

Daizell considered him. He looked to be in his mid-twenties. Mid-brown hair, middling sort of build, on the shorter end of mid-sized. Nothing noteworthy about him. If he was asking about a man who looked like everybody else, people might enquire whether he’d tried a mirror. Except for the mouth. He had a nice mouth, well-shaped in an unobtrusive way, with a gentle, almost wistful upward turn to it as though it was his habit both to smile and to hope. Daizell liked people who smiled and hoped because he did so himself. Sometimes those were the only things he could do.

‘I still get paid?’ ‘Oh. Yes, of course. Your time and effort will still have been spent.’ What a very pleasant man. ‘And you want . . . what, a companion, assistant, generator of ideas about what to do next?’ ‘All of that, especially the last.’ ‘And you said fifty pounds?’ Daizell checked, in case he’d misheard and it was fifteen. ‘Well, I am happy to do my best, for what it’s worth.’ Which was, apparently, fifty quid. He’d never been so highly valued in his life.

So many cheap men in KJCs books

Daizell had many stories of inns he’d frequented, ranging from absurd to alarming, and he deployed a couple of them now. He wanted to make friends, since he liked to be friends and the next month would be more pleasant that way, but he also had an urge to make Cassian laugh again, because he had a delightful laugh. It was a sort of surprised gurgle, as though he was startled and even a touch embarrassed by his own amusement, and Daizell thought it was charming. So was the smile that lingered after his laugh, keeping those expressive lips in a curve that took a moment or so to fade. One wouldn’t call him handsome, exactly, but it was an endearing smile.

SO sweeeeeeeeet

Daizell felt he could get used to someone else paying: the knowledge he wouldn’t have to argue about the bill added savour to his sausages.

‘Shh.’ Cassian reached out. Daizell grabbed his hand, all need and instinct, clutching it hard. Dusty, sweaty, warm, alive. Cassian held on tight, giving him a moment of silence he badly needed, then asked again, ‘Are you all right?’ ‘No. Yes. Of course I am.’ ‘You’ve done everything you could. More than anyone else did. Come on.’ Cassian spoke in the calm voice, the one he’d used on the horse. ‘Come on now, Charnage, I’ve got you. Good man. Up you get, now.’

Doing him like the horses

‘You – uh, you think people do get used to these things? To dealing with emergencies?’ ‘If you have enough of them.’ ‘Yes, but what if you don’t? Or haven’t? I mean, if one is used to being held up by a – a scaffolding of other people, and has never encountered emergencies, might one not discover one is helpless without that support?’ Daizell wasn’t entirely sure what he was actually being asked, but it sounded painful. ‘Everyone relies on other people. And eventually most people let you down, one way or another, so I dare say it’s a good thing to practise dealing with difficulties on your own. But I don’t see there’s any great moral virtue in it.’

‘Do you not think independence is a virtue?’ ‘Overrated,’ Daizell said. ‘One should be able to do things for oneself, but the world would surely be a better place if we did more for one another.’

Does KJ pick a theme for each book and is this book's theme ndependence

There was only one bed.

I chortled

suppose I got carried away when Vier came into it. I saw him thrashing his horses once and we had the most appalling row.’ ‘Good for you,’ Daizell said. ‘Though risky: I heard the Duke of Severn once squabbled with him on the subject and Vier chased him off with his tail between his legs.

Haaaaaa

Daizell’s friends at school had been as loud and boisterous as himself and he hadn’t troubled to acquaint himself with younger pupils. He might have thought the name would ring a bell, though, unusual as it was. Vernon Cassian . . . no, he could not for the life of him remember any such boy. He did, now he thought about it, have a vague memory of some undersized shrimp with a pale face whom he was meant to have noted for some reason or other. It tugged at his mind a moment, then he lost the thread.

If he could somehow inch his hips back and away, this wouldn’t be quite so disastrous. He took a second to listen to Cassian’s breathing, so that he could judge his movements. It was soft, shallow and even. Just like the other night. When they’d talked. Oh Christ, he was awake. Daizell’s stomach plunged. What could he do now? Simply apologise? Treat it as a joke? Behave as though he thought Cassian was asleep, and they could pretend this hadn’t happened? Pretend he’d just woken up himself, with a lot of yawning?

Laffed

They bought pastries on the street that were apparently called fitched pies, whatever fitching might be, and ate them sitting on a low wall watching people go by. Cassian had never done such a thing in his life: eating so informally, outside, where everyone might see. His pie appeared to contain ham, apples, onions, and cheese. It tasted like being somebody else.

He might have worried about time because Cassian’s month was running down with every day that passed, but that would spoil things, so he cut off the thought when it came and set himself to enjoy each moment as he lived it.

Just realised it was also a month in The Gentle Art

You had no right to make me love you when you always knew I couldn’t.’

The prev 52 highlighters are correct, this ones a gut punch

‘We shall cut our cloth depending on what I can find out. As to the matter of cheating, we shall keep it in hand, and consider when best to strike.’ ‘Goodness me, Kentridge,’ Louisa said, with a curl in her voice. ‘How ruthless.’ ‘What about you, Sev?’ Leo asked, evidently reluctant to observe his sister making eyes at her husband.

Cassian went on, voice low and steady, slim form upright, staring down at him as he sat.

HIS GRACE!!!!!!!

The magistrate opened his mouth. Cassian held up a finger. ‘Weigh your words. I will brook no insolence.’ ‘I – but— How do I know you are who you say you are?’ ‘I beg your pardon?’ His words fell like stones, clear and separate, and the magistrate swallowed. ‘That is, how do I know, Your Grace?’ Cassian gave him a few seconds’ silent scrutiny.

‘You seem not to grasp the issue, Sir Benjamin,’ Cassian said. ‘I was in that coach. Your son could have killed Severn. There will be consequences.’ Sir Benjamin’s mouth opened and shut. Cassian stood in silence, back stiff with hauteur. His coat might have been ermine. He waited for Daizell to be freed, then turned and swept forward without a word to the magistrate, Daizell and Martin scrambling along in his wake. Daizell stepped out into his first fresh air and sunlight for two days, blinking. Cassian stopped in front of him, and gave a tiny shudder, like a horse shaking off flies. Daizell shot a glance at Martin, who pulled an appalling face. When Cassian turned he looked like himself again, without the cold, superior expression and upright bearing. ‘Daizell. Are you all right?’

Daizell didn’t think Cassian was a man for scenes, but his rainswept eyes were wild. This was going to be awful.

gamahuching

Daizell kissed his hair, his ear, anything that he could reach, and Cassian kissed his neck open-mouthed, hungry and urgent. ‘Daize. Lord. My good, my lovely Daize.’ Daizell knew that tone by now. ‘Talk to me,’ he whispered. ‘Please.’ And Cassian did, so gentle, so loving, whispering endearments, taking it long and slow so that Daizell spent again, soothed and shivering and cherished, in his tight embrace.

‘Dramatic entries are not my forte.’ ‘They truly are. It was a marvellous sight. Stalking up and giving that magistrate the fish-eye.’ ‘I think you mean to say, asserting the natural authority of my position.’ ‘Swinging your duke around.’

Daizell stared up at the ceiling, silent, for a long moment. ‘And what about marriage?’ Cassian had heard that men conducted their own ceremonies, sometimes in a spirit of misrule and sometimes in one of seriousness. He wasn’t sure about that. ‘Um, it’s not legal? But if you want that—’ ‘What? I meant you, you fool. You’re a duke, you need heirs. Haven’t you an arrangement lined up?’

You are both unfit for the company of gentlemen, and I must decline your further acquaintance.’ ‘Whereas, me and my boys will be having a very long talk with this pair of tosspots,’ Lady Wintour said, fizzing with wrath. ‘Cheating in my house! Get ’em, Ned.’ The oversized bully moved purposefully, grabbing Sir James’s collar with a huge hand. The Duke held up his hand commandingly. ‘Stop. I cannot countenance violent retribution, Lady Wintour.’ ‘Oh, come off it!’ Loxleigh said furiously. ‘Uh, that is—’ ‘No. I must decline to witness any such thing.’ Cassian gave it a couple of seconds, as Sir Francis and Sir James shot him looks of desperate hope, and concluded, ‘So let me leave the room before you start.’