tending me for a week?”
The young man swallowed. “For the last few days, milord. I…we were introduced, my lord, but you were reading a book, and you did not even lift your gaze from the pages.”
The tone was almost accusatory. Bloody hell! How had he not noticed? Almost a damn week? “Who hired you?”
His valet edged toward the door, eyeing him warily. Wentworth gathered he was startling him with his gruff questions.
“The housekeeper, Mrs. Dawson, milord.”
That was his housekeeper in Town.
“Mrs. Dawson sent me down with a letter which I presented to the butler of Norbrook Manor.”
Wentworth frowned. “What is your name?”
“Julian…Pryce, Sir.”
The boy was nervous, for he worked his bottom lip, and Wentworth noticed their sensual lushness. That tingle low in his belly became more pronounced. What in God’s name was this? He took a steady breath and slowly released it. “How old are you, boy?”
A small rounded chin, absence of any hair lifted. “Four and twenty, milord. I’ll be five and twenty in a few weeks.”
That surely must be a fib. The lad looked no more than sixteen years of age. He was very slim, his clothes, while fitted, still gave the impression that they swallowed his frame. The only thing that seemed…a handful was the boy’s arse. It had been high and well-rounded and would overflow even in his large hands. Wentworth closed his eyes briefly, gritting his teeth in disgust. To be lusting after a servant in his household was reprehensible. “You’re fired. I’ll have the butler provide you with a month’s wage.”
Pryce jolted as if he’d been punched, and his eyes widened, clear panic setting in those lovely depths. “My lord! If I have done something wrong, please, my lord, I most sincerely apologize. But I need this post, my lord.”
The panic in those words tugged at Wentworth’s conscience, and he mentally cursed. It was not the boy’s fault that his master’s body had been unruly and very ill-disciplined. It was Wentworth’s responsibility to ensure nothing untoward happened under his roof with any of his servants.
He still recalled the distaste he’d felt upon encountering his friend, Simon Drake, Viscount Clayton, dallying with his housekeeper. The man had been unapologetic and unconcerned that he took advantage of someone in his employ who, with all probability, feared refusing his advances. It was a common enough practice in society, where men of consequence and rank saw nothing wrong with dallying with a maid or footman if they were pretty enough. Not Wentworth. He had never been a libertine, and he was not about to start now.
“Leave my rooms,” he clipped. “I am well able to finish my nightly routine. Have someone send up a basin with warm water, and the fire needs to be stoked.”
His valet hesitated. “Am I…am I still fired, my lord?”
This Julian Pryce had tended him for a few days now, and there hadn’t been an issue. His skills must have been in the similarly remarkable realm of Jeffers who previously tended to all of Wentworth’s needs diligently and meticulously while being invisible.
He hadn’t found any fault with his clothes these few days, not that Wentworth was a man who noticed these things to his Aunt Millicent’s great distress, considering she often lamented that he was a man of poor fashion. Wentworth hardly required a valet to assist him in dressing unless he attended a formal event. And he hardly needed his assistance to bathe, simply because he would languish in the large copper tub for an hour with a book in his hand.
“You remain hired.”
The ‘for now’ remained unspoken, but it lingered in the air.
His valet hesitated, a raw but unidentifiable emotion flashing across his face. His stance…was one of anger or perhaps frustration or defiance. As if he wanted to say more, much more but held himself in check. Unexpectedly a warning kissed over Wentworth’s spine, and his suspicions stirred.
“Are you waiting for something, Mr. Pryce?” he asked with cool civility.
The lad bowed. “I bid you good evening, my lord. And thank you for the opportunity to serve you. I’ll not disappoint you.”
Then he opened the door and slipped away. Wentworth unbuttoned his shirt and stared at the door for quite a long time. His senses were sharp and well-honed, and they had never led him astray. He was simply used to directing them to his studies and whatever problematic question plagued his brain. Yet now they were telling him that something was decidedly odd about his new valet.
Why had he been hired?