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

by K.J. Charles

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.

Daizell considered that. He nodded slowly. Then he punched the young man with everything he had, and was delighted to feel his nose break.

‘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.’

‘I see you are a connoisseur of elevating literature,’ Daizell said. ‘Have you read the latest Mrs Swann?’ Cassian had not, but he had a deal to say about the Waverley author, whose work Daizell also enjoyed, and they talked and argued and laughed as the cart jogged along in the evening sunshine.

There was only one bed.

*everybody cheered*

And he wished he wasn’t so sleepy, because here in the dark with Daizell next to him, he didn’t want to fall asleep. He felt they could talk long into the night, if only he could stay awake. But consciousness was passing from his control, and his eyes fluttered shut to the sound of Daizell’s quiet breath.

They were everything. Daizell needed people, needed friendship and talk and laughter and touch. Solitude drained his soul, leaving him bleak and joyless; companionship had him fizzing with energy.

This time, he woke up with Cassian not just in his arms, but between his legs.

He wanted Cassian as close as he could be, because when he was close the world was a warm, soothing, easy place. He wanted to show his enchanting but oddly uncertain bard that he was entirely enchanted.

Kissing, open-mouthed and desperate and gleeful, under the night sky, while escaping kidnap. Cassian had never felt less like a duke, or more like himself.

His pie appeared to contain ham, apples, onions, and cheese. It tasted like being somebody else.

‘I want you to touch me while I sleep.’ He said it in a breath. ‘I want you to – to take whatever liberties you care to, because you can, and to be trying not to wake me so you can carry on doing as you please.’

‘Um. I don’t much like receiving either, but if that’s something you want, I could try? I imagine it would be better with you.’ And that was another chunk of Daizell’s foolish heart broken off and floating away, like a melting icicle.

‘It’s not even that you aren’t exciting yourself, it’s just that you do it so quietly. You quietly calm a set of panicking horses, and quietly let yourself out when you’re kidnapped, and quietly scheme to bamboozle parsons. Good God, Cass, you’re like a cool drink on a hot day. Anyone who tells you otherwise isn’t paying attention.’

‘By God, I will not have this! Constant dictation of what the Duke may do, and how, and who with – I will decide what I do, and make my friends as I please! Who the devil are you to tell me otherwise? If people don’t like my choice of friends, they may set themselves outside my acquaintance, and if the family don’t like my guests in my house, they are not obliged to live there! I will have no more of this accursed trammelling. I am a grown man, and the obligations and duties of my station do not extend to having my friends selected for me! How dare you tell me who I may care for?’

‘Daizell Charnage has been unfairly maligned, and I will not have it. If he has my countenance – and he does, because he is my friend – then any man who chooses to abuse or to cut him on his father’s account offends Severn. I shall make that known, and we will see how the sheep of the Polite World behave when the dog barks!’

PERIOD

The Duke nodded to them all, and walked out. As he left, Leo started to speak. Louisa told him to shut up again.

‘You are committing an egregious abuse of power and I will not tolerate it. You are unfit for your post, sir, and your son is unfit for the company of gentlemen. I will make both of those things known across England.’

‘It’s not false modesty. I know I’m not much to look at. I can’t complain, given everything else I was born with.’ ‘You’re everything to look at. The problem is that people don’t look,’ Daizell said. ‘They don’t see. Anyone who actually looked at you would see you’re beautiful, and if they let your dukedom get in the way of that, they’re a fool.’

Daizell looked at him, so earnest, so determined to get it right, and wondered how happiness could make your heart hurt.

‘Swinging your duke around?’ ‘Hitting them with it.’

‘I love you,’ Daizell remarked into his neck. ‘I love your kindness, and I love that you love me, and I particularly love that you want me to do that to you.’ Cassian considered before replying, in a way that might have seemed offputting if you didn’t know him. ‘I love how you sparkle. Sparkle and shine. And I love that you make it so easy for me to be me. And I particularly love that you’re happy to do those things to me.’ ‘It’s highly convenient we found each other, really.’ ‘Sometimes one can believe in a well-ordered universe,’ Cassian agreed, and snuggled back against him, sweaty, sticky, and entirely perfect.

‘I – beg – your – pardon,’ the Duke said, and he put all the duke he had into each stony word.

Sir James’s expression was poisonous but he didn’t reply. Hartlebury waited a few seconds, then snorted. ‘Didn’t think so. Keep it that way. Spiteful prick,’ he added, not really under his breath at all. ‘Evening, Charnage. Not seen you in a while.’

‘People will happily repeat stories they know to be lies as long as they are entertaining.