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Miles had had a long day. A long few weeks, even, since landing in England only to learn that his father was dead and his inheritance vanished into a heap of broken lumber. One might even say a long five years, fighting Napoleon’s forces, and the endless bouts of gut-rot, sunstroke, and fever that came with soldiering, and himself, ever his own worst enemy. Any of that would make a man angry and Miles was: profoundly and continually angry about a lot of things he couldn’t change.
Profoundly angry, and also still bloody annoyed about the lying shit on the road who’d sucked his prick and stolen his watch. And now, as if Arvon Hall needed anything to make it worse, here he was. Standing right there. Pretending to be a valet.
Miles stared at him. The lying shit’s eyes widened in a satisfactory manner. Miles said, “You bastard,” and went for him.
The shit turned and ran like hell. He legged it at impressive speed around the side of the house, swerving to avoid Miles’s reaching hand very much as if he’d done this before, and sprinted for the drive. Miles came after him, using his longer legs to advantage, but the shit had a good turn of speed. He hurdled a heap of rubbish impressively, but not quite high enough because he caught his foot on a two-legged stool, and went down in a crash of worm-eaten wood. He was up again fast, but Miles was on him by then. He grabbed the thief by his collar, hauled him upright, and shook him like the rat he was.
He would have said what he thought, but he hadn’t run so much in a few years and he was heaving for breath. The shit seemed in rather better condition. He probably ran away a lot. Miles tightened his grip on his collar accordingly.
“Sir—” the shit said on a gasp.
“Shut up. Where’s my damn watch?”
“I have no idea what you mean. I am Edwin Harrowby—”
“Don’t even think about claiming I’ve got you wrong. I know your face.” Had, in fact, pleasured himself with it in mind a couple of times, even though the bastard had stolen his things. He’d felt the thief had owed him the loan of his imaginary body. “You stole my pocketbook and my watch at the Horse and Hound on the road past Weston, and don’t pretend you didn’t.”
The shit looked at him for a moment. “Yes, all right, I did.”
He was, irritatingly, as appealing as Miles remembered. Deep brown eyes with a touch of gold in them, ash-brown hair with a loose, lazy wave to it, and a deceptively pleasant face down to the smiling mouth. His mouth had looked even better around Miles’s prick, and that was the point Miles realised he had a problem.
He knew the lying shit—Toby?—was a thief. But Toby knew Miles enjoyed men. And if the little bastard even thought about using that fact, Miles was going to twist his head off and bury the body in what used to be the rose garden.
“Could you let me go, at all?” Toby suggested.
“No.”
He tugged at his collar. “I’m half-strangled here.”
“Good.”
“I realise you’re annoyed—”
“Annoyed? You stole from me! What the devil do you have to say for yourself?”
Toby appeared to consider that. “I needed the money?”
“I needed the money,” Miles snapped. “And that watch was a gift!”
“Oh. I’m sorry about that. I could tell you where I pawned it.”
“Is that all you have to say?!”
“Well, yes? Obviously this is very unfortunate—”
“Unfortunate!” Miles shouted at parade-ground volume.
Toby winced. “Look, I’m very sorry about your watch and so on—”
“No you aren’t. If you were sorry about it, you wouldn’t have stolen them.”
“I don’t think that’s quite fair. I would have preferred not to, but—” He attempted a shrug. “Needs must.”
Miles’s thoughts returned, with some yearning, to burying him in the rose garden. “Shut up. And tell me what the devil you’re doing here.”
“Which of those—?”
“Just tell me!”
“I was looking for a job. I met a fellow who said he was going to work for the Earl of Arvon so I asked to come along in case he had a place for a footman or some such. I had no idea you worked here.”
“Footman? You called yourself a valet.”
“That wasn’t strictly accurate. The other fellow was the valet, but he wasn’t very impressed when he saw the house, so he left.”
“And you thought you’d masquerade as him? Take his place under false pretences?”
“Well, he didn’t want it, and I dare say I should be a good enough valet, given time. I can turn my hand to most things. And to be honest, I’d say he was brought here under false pretences in the first place, so the Earl would scarcely have a leg to stand on if it came to complaining. Why would someone drag a superior sort of valet all the way from London to this?”
“Because they’re a senile old fool,” Miles muttered.
Toby considered him from his slightly awkward twisted position, given Miles still had a grip on his collar. “Look, I can see you’ve a job on your hands with this place, especially if the Earl is getting on in years, so could we perhaps come to an agreement? To make everyone’s lives easier?”
“And what would that be,” Miles said, not really making it a question.
Toby looked hopefully up at him. “If you let me leave, I’ll go away?”
“That’s your best offer?”
“Well, you’re clearly busy and it’s a long way back to whatever the town was called. Great Something, and if that was Great I’d hate to see Little.”
“Great Gilling, and you’re not wrong.” That was a great deal friendlier than Miles had meant to be. He scowled, to balance the books. “And?”
“And laying charges and giving evidence and so on would be awfully time-consuming for you, to no real purpose.”
“Except taking a thief off the streets.”
Toby sagged slightly. “I suppose so. But that wouldn’t help you, would it?”
“I don’t see how letting you go helps me.”
“Look, be reasonable. I can’t pay you compensation because I don’t have any money. That was the point. I’d be happy to work, except that I’d have to ask you for food, which you probably wouldn’t want to give me, and I’m sure you’d say something about not trusting me—”
“You think so?” Miles didn’t bother to rein in the sarcasm.
“I would actually do a good job.” Toby sounded a little hurt. It was very effective: Miles could almost have believed him. “I very much don’t want to be handed over to the magistrates. Surely you could use another pair of hands around here, without troubling the Earl for a wage?”
“I prefer my hands without light fingers.”
All the same, Miles contemplated him. Lying shit, obviously. Flagrantly and unashamedly dishonest. But he hadn’t attempted, or even hinted at, using Miles’s indiscretion against him. No ‘If you prosecute I’ll tell’.
That might of course be because Miles had a grip on his collar, but he hadn’t said it. And he was in need of work, whereas Miles was in dire need of a worker and, crucially, couldn’t afford to pay one.
“What are you going to do if I let you go?” he asked.
“No idea. Walk back to Great Thingy, I suppose, and see if I can find anything else. I’m rather betwixt and between.”
Miles was well aware of the many desperate men who now trudged the roads looking for work. “What can you do?”
“What do you need? I can read and write and count. Lift and carry. I was a footman for six months.”
“Are you tall enough for that?”
“Five foot nine.” Toby sounded affronted. “Perfectly respectable for a provincial house.”
He was lying about that, or at least flattering himself, by the best part of two inches if Miles was any judge. “Hmph. And you’re a thief.”
“I wouldn’t say I am a thief. I’m a person who, granted, has been known to steal things now and again. Needs must. But I don’t see it as my vocation in life.”
“You’re a bloody odd thief.”
“I’ll happily give you my word not to steal anything. If there’s anything to steal, which...”
They both glanced back at Arvon Hall. “Not really, no,” Miles admitted.
“So it’s hardly a problem.”
Miles contemplated his captive. “All right. Suppose you work off what you owe me. That watch was worth twenty guineas, by the way.”
“That much?” Toby looked stricken. “I got two pounds for it.”
“You were cheated.”
“I know. It’s hard to argue when you don’t have an alternative.”
“You can work it off,” Miles said again. “Which means helping me clear the house. You can stay here, and I’ll feed you, but that’s all. Work for board and lodging. Three meals a day.”
“That seems very fair.”
Miles let go. Toby straightened, wiggled his head from side to side to indicate neck pain, and adjusted his collar and jacket with a wounded expression. He didn’t run, which was a little surprising, as Miles had half-expected he’d be off like a hare as soon as freed.
He gave the man a severe look. “And you do as you’re told, got it?”
“As I’m told,” Toby repeated, and quite suddenly Miles’s skin was prickling with the memory of that night. That kiss. Toby’s mouth on his prick.
That was a subject nobody would be raising. “When I give orders. About clearing the house,” he added, for full clarity. “There’s a lot of lumber and it’s a filthy job in there. Plenty of cleaning to be done. I dare say we can find you some spare clothes to work in: there’s wardrobes of the things if they aren’t all moth-eaten.”
“Right. Er. Should you consult the Earl on this?”
“Did I not mention that? I am the Earl.”
Toby’s jaw dropped in a satisfactory way. “You—”
“Lord Arvon.”
“You said Miles something.”
“Carteret. That’s my name. And you said Toby something.”
Toby opened his mouth, and hesitated. “Sorry, can’t remember. Began with a P?”
“You can’t remember your name?”
“I can’t remember the name I gave you. Do you need a name?”
“Not if it’s going to be a pack of lies,” Miles growled.
“Let’s stick with Toby, then. Er, about this title—”
“My father died. I’m the Earl. This is my house.”
Toby looked at Arvon Hall, at the ivy and the roof and the heaps of rubbish. “Congratulations?”
Miles sighed. “You might as well come in.”
He led the way inside. It was, if anything, worse than the outside.
“There’s so much...so many...” Toby looked around. “Things.”
The hall was heaped with boxes, barrels, empty sacks, heaps of paper. Every room held more. Miles had found drawers full of pieces of string and wax seals prised off letters, corks, broken pipes, piles of newspapers and journals, incomplete packs of battered cards, empty wine bottles, worn-out shoes. Anything that wouldn’t rot too quickly had been kept to be used or sold, except it was never used and never sold. The house was a dustheap.
Toby made a face. “He was a miser?”
“Not exactly. He spent money, but he couldn’t bear waste. Hated to throw things away, kept everything he bought. It started after my mother died. Twenty-five years of it.”
“Lord. What are you going to do with it all?”
“Sort it for valuables, and burn the rest.”
“All by yourself?”
“Of course not. You’re helping.”
Toby looked at him for a second, and clearly decided not to ask the obvious question. “Right. Right. Er. About those three meals a day—there is food, yes?”
“I’ve a woman who comes in to cook daily, and do the washing. No other staff. They all left, and who can blame them.”
Toby put his hands on his hips and looked around. “I have to ask. Why on earth did you engage a valet?”
“I didn’t. My father arranged it before he died. He knew I was coming home, and—well, it doesn’t matter, but there’s no money to pay a valet. No land left except the grounds we stand on. I need to see what there is to sell, but I’m losing hope of that too.”
“Were you expecting this?” Toby’s voice was oddly gentle.
“No,” Miles said harshly, because it hurt his throat. “Nobody warned me. I didn’t expect much, but—I didn’t expect him to die, curse it. If I had known he was living like this, turning the house into this. If I’d realised he’d sold the land, wasted everything.” He stared up at the ceiling, swagged with the grey webs of long-dead spiders. “If I’d come home earlier.”
Toby didn’t say anything. He stood in silence, there in the dead shell of the house, until Miles shook himself. “I’ll show you where to start.”