Some Pride to Lose Yet
Thomas was enjoying the dinner party that the Crawley family was hosting, as much as a servant could enjoy any event they were working. He liked seeing the guests as they arrived, though most of them were older friends of Lord and Lady Grantham. It was the two new men who had been vetted as potential matches for the Crawley daughters that Thomas was interested in seeing, more out of curiosity than anything else.
He collected the Duke of Crowsburg's belongings for him at the door and showed the valet he had brought with him where he would be sleeping. Since the duke's estate was several hours distant, on the other side of the capital city, he would be staying the night. The duke didn't spare Thomas much of a glance, which was not unexpected, already being busy talking to Lord Grantham. The duke was handsome, shorter than Thomas, and had a funny little smile on his face, one that made him seem above it all, even as he greeted the Crawley daughters warmly.
The other new guest was Count Lohengramm. The name was vaguely familiar to Thomas, though he couldn't have said why until the man walked in the door, his chin high, looking for all the world like some god stepped out of a painting. This, then, was Admiral von Lohengramm, who, until very recently, had been called Admiral von Musel. Thomas had not been in his fleet while performing his service, but since Lohengramm had been the butt of any number of soldiers' jokes, he couldn't help but hear about him. In pictures, Lohengramm had appeared childish and almost plasticine, more like a delicate doll than a man. In person, however, he had a sharp, feminine beauty, one that naturally drew the attention of anyone in the room. His blond hair was as bright as the sun, and his eyes were the cold blue of a clear winter sky. It didn't bother Thomas that Lohengramm's gaze skated over him without acknowledgement, because he barely looked at any of the party guests with any more concern, even the ones he was speaking to.
Thomas remembered once, when he had been on Iserlohn, a fight had broken out between two enlisted men who had once been under Lohengramm's command, and a table of soldiers who had been cracking jokes about "the admiral hiding in his sister's skirts." Thomas had stayed well out of the fight, not wanting to risk injury, punishment, or any attention at all, but he had always wondered what would cause two soldiers to risk so much for a man they couldn't possibly have known. Down in the enlisted mens' quarters, jokes about command were always well received, and most men wouldn't step up to defend their captain, let alone a distant admiral they had never spoken to. But seeing Lohengramm in person, Thomas could understand why a fight would be so quick to break out. He had to wonder, if he himself had been assigned to Lohengramm's fleet, would he have been so eager to get out?
The question discomfited him, and he spent most of the dinner while he was serving trying not to stare at the man too directly. He was too bright to look at, like a star. Thomas could tell he wasn't the only one who felt this way about Count Lohengramm. The Duke of Crowsburg kept looking as well, even when he was supposed to be speaking to Lady Mary, his eyes flicking across the table to take in Lohengramm's form, though Lohengramm, half-absorbed in talking to Lady Edith, paid him no mind at all, if he even noticed the attention. Matthew Crawley looked, too, though his expression was far more friendly than it was hungry.
Thomas had more of an opportunity to watch and listen after dinner, when he carried a tray of drinks around and offered them to the guests. Conversations floated past him, and the guests swirled into different constellations as they moved between conversation partners.
Lord Grantham flagged William down, and Thomas paid attention. "William, would you find Bates and tell him to come see me?"
"Here, m'lord?" William asked.
"Yes, here," Lord Grantham said. William scurried off.
Thomas had no idea what that was about, but his curiosity wasn't going to be assuaged until Bates showed up. He continued serving drinks, and was pleased to be flagged down by the Duke of Crowsburg, who was speaking intently with Count Lohengramm.
"One more drink before you abandon society for the night?" the duke asked. A pity that the count would be leaving. Thomas kept his eyes locked straight ahead.
"I suppose," the count said, and took a drink from his tray.
The door behind Thomas opened, and as the duke reached for a drink himself, someone crashed into Thomas's back, as hard as a shove. He stumbled forward, and the tray slipped in his hand, all the champagne glasses wobbling. His left hand, no longer a part of him, was unable to right it, and Thomas watched in fascinated horror as the whole tray of drinks tumbled onto the Duke of Crowsburg's chest, then fell to the floor, shattering and tinkling in brilliant, fragmented shards.
Count Lohengramm somehow managed to catch the tray itself before it fell to the ground, and he held it back out to Thomas as they stood in the sudden, awkward silence that followed the crash. Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas saw Bates and William move out from behind him towards the edge of the room, out of the oncoming tirade that was Lord Grantham, whose face was red. Thomas's own anger at those two, who he was sure had conspired to push him (it didn't matter which one had done it) was enough to insulate him from Lord Grantham's wrath, at least for a moment, standing straight.
"Good gods man! What the devil have you done?" Lord Grantham demanded, then quickly wiped the vitriol out of his tone as he realized that solving the situation with the victim was more important than berating his staff. "I deeply apologize for this, Your Grace."
The duke was wiping himself off, swiping his hands uselessly down the lapels of his jacket. His eyes flicked to Count Lohengramm for a moment, checking his reaction to the situation, and when he saw that Lohengramm was impassively continuing to hold the tray out to Thomas, he made the clear decision to smile and moderate his own voice. Though Thomas was still frozen in stasis, he couldn't help but notice that- the duke taking cues from his social inferior. "It's no matter, Lord Grantham," the duke said. "Since you're generously allowing me to stay the night, at least I won't have to drive home in it. I think I'll just turn in."
Lord Grantham seemed about to object, opening his mouth, but realized that he couldn't. "Of course," he said. "William, please show His Grace to his room."
"Yes, m'lord." William seemed quite grateful to escape the scene of his crime.
Thomas finally came to his senses enough to accept the outheld tray from Count Lohengramm when he said, "I think I will be going as well, Lord Grantham. I have an early appointment tomorrow."
This, Lord Grantham could object to. "Must you?" he asked.
"I have been very pleased to meet your daughters, but I'm afraid I can't stay."
"Well, before you go, let me at least introduce you to Bates, whom I was telling you about."
Lohengramm took a breath, about to object, then his lips twitched in remembrance of something, and he sighed. "Yes, of course," he said, relaxing his shoulders deliberately and allowing himself to be led away from the messy scene that Thomas was standing over, half-forgotten. William must have told some of the maids to come in and clean it up as he left with the duke, because Anna appeared with a bin to clean up the broken glass, giving Thomas a look that he couldn't interpret.
He hastily left the room, abandoning the drink tray that Count Lohengramm had passed off to him on a random table in the hall. As soon as he was in the dark and cool recesses of the house, away from the overbearing brightness and noise of the party, the panic set in, and the walls closed in around him.
This was not a ship, he reminded himself. He was not trapped here. There was air outside these walls, however little there felt like inside them.
Thomas hurried through the empty hallways, his own footsteps sounding in his ears, and then broke out of one door into the cold night air, stars twinkling above, light from the windows suffusing out in a yellow haze over the parked cars assembled in the lot at the side of the house.
Trying to steady his breathing, Thomas leaned against the heavy stone wall of the house, then fished deep in his pockets for a cigarette and his lighter. He found both, and shoved the cigarette in between his lips with his left hand, though it shook. When he tried the lighter with his right, it clicked and sparked but did not light: empty. He tried several times, futile though he knew it was, then swore with a shuddering breath, "Damn," resting his head back on the cold stone.
"Need a light?" an unfamiliar voice asked.
Thomas lifted his head. How had he not noticed the other man there, leaning against one of the cars and looking up at the sky? He was tall, broad shouldered, and with a halo of frizzy red hair that caught the foggy light out of the windows. He wasn't wearing any particular uniform, but he had probably taken off his chauffeur's jacket and left it in the car he was leaning against. He was Thomas's age, or maybe a little younger.
"If you've got one," Thomas said. He was past the point of being embarrassed, though at least this man couldn't possibly have seen his disaster inside.
"Wouldn't offer if I didn't," the man said, walking over. He had a confident, easy stride, and he smiled at Thomas, his eyes crinkling up in a way that made him look genuine. His face was handsome, Thomas could see now that he was closer. He pulled a lighter from his own pocket and lit Thomas's cigarette for him, then leaned against the wall next to him.
"Want one?" Thomas asked, holding out another cigarette.
"I don't smoke," the man said.
"Why do you carry a light, then?"
"Fleet habit," the man said. "Gives people a chance to like you, if you can offer one to them, I've noticed."
Thomas laughed, a dry sound. "Suppose that's true. Who'd you come here with?" he asked.
"Count Lohengramm," he said.
"Ah." Thomas took a drag of the cigarette. His hands were still shaking, but the ritual was already helping. The smoke drifted up to the sky.
"You work here?" the man asked.
"For the moment."
"What's your name?"
"Thomas. You?"
"Siegfried. It's nice to meet you, Thomas."
Thomas nodded. They were silent for a moment. Siegfried seemed content to just lean and look at the stars, but there was something about him that made Thomas want to talk. "Do you like working for Count Lohengramm?"
"Very much so," Siegfried said. "Why do you ask?"
"Just wondering," Thomas said. He blew some smoke away from Siegfried. "Seems like the kind of man who gets loyalty from a certain type of person, and hated by most everybody else. From what I've seen, anyway."
Siegfried tilted his head. "What have you seen?"
"Nothing," Thomas said. "Just the talk, when I was in the fleet." He shrugged. "Am I wrong?"
"No," Siegfried said. "But do people in there like him?"
"Sure," Thomas said. "Lord Grantham wants to talk his ear off about the fleet, and the Duke of Crowsburg seems to be the sort that finds him interesting. And the young ladies, of course." He took another drag of the cigarette.
"Oh, good."
"What's it matter to you?"
"I'll admit it will be a more cheerful drive home if Lord Reinhard has had a good evening, rather than a poor one." Siegfried smiled, a gentle expression, and Thomas laughed.
"He isn't looking for more staff, is he?" Thomas asked. "Valet, or anything?"
"Probably not."
"Shame, if he is a good employer."
"He treats people under him with respect," Siegfried said.
"'S more than most do, that's for sure."
"Are you looking for a new job?"
"Probably will have to. Though I suppose there was no point in even asking after Count Lohengramm."
"Why not?"
"He watched me drop a tray of drinks on the Duke of Crowsburg." By now, Thomas's hand had stopped shaking, and he could admit it without rancor to this man. He tugged off his white serving glove covering his left hand and looked at the burned flesh. "Doubt the Crawley's will keep me on, what with that."
"Are they really likely to send you out over an accident?" Siegfried asked. "Everybody makes mistakes."
"They need to marry off their daughters," Thomas said. "And if the staff go around offending every duke and count they invite around, they won't have an easy time of it." He didn't mention the fact that it had been only Count Lohengramm's total look of indifference that had perhaps saved him from being fired on the spot. "I was already a charity case anyway."
Siegfried looked at Thomas's burned hand without comment on it. Thomas snuck a glance at his face, and, while it revealed nothing of his inner thoughts, his expression bore no trace of the kind of disgust that Thomas had grown used to. "I'm sorry that people feel that way about you," Siegfried said. "I'm sure it's not true."
Thomas shrugged, and shoved his hand back into his pocket, crumpling his glove in his fist. "People feel the way they like about me. Never going to be able to change that." He stared out into the dark trees past the cars. "I just wouldn't have minded working for Count Lohengramm, I don't think."
"If they do fire you, get in touch with me, and I'll see if I can find something for you," Siegfried said after a moment.
"Awful generosity for a stranger." Thomas looked at Siegfried, now much more considering, though Siegfried's expression belied nothing, and he said nothing to that, either. "You got a number?"
Siegfried jogged back over to the car, and looked around for paper and a pen for a moment. He came back with a business card bearing Count Lohengramm's information, and he scrawled a few digits on the back before passing it to Thomas, who tucked it in his pocket. "Can't promise I'll answer all the time, but if you leave me a message, I do promise I'll get back to you."
"Thanks," Thomas said. "I appreciate it."
"I hope they don't let you go, though," Siegfried said. "From how I've heard it, they're not a bad family."
Thomas shrugged. "Sure. They're not like us, though."
"We're all human beings," Kircheis said. "From noble houses to the rebel territories. And everyone's going to have to realize that, sooner or later."
"Seems unlikely," Thomas said dryly. "They've had some six hundred years since Rudolph to figure it. If they were going to they would have by now." His cigarette had burned down to a nub, and he stubbed it out against the wall, though his fingers itched for another.
"Lord Reinhard understands it," Siegfried said.
"Good for him," Thomas said. "And good for everybody who works for him, I suppose." He didn't quite believe it, but there probably was something to the loyalty that Count Lohengramm inspired, aside from the way he looked. "But the rest of us have less understanding masters."
"Count Grantham really wouldn't listen to you if you explained that it was an accident?"
"He already knows it was an accident," Thomas muttered. Though it had been intentional sabotage on the part of Bates and William, Siegfried didn't need to know that. "That doesn't matter. Nothing I say would matter. It's the duke who was wronged, and Lord Grantham's going to bend over backwards to make it right with him."
"Then apologize to the duke," Siegfried said. "If he tells Count Grantham to forgive you, he'll have to, won't he?"
Thomas laughed, then realized that Siegfried was serious. "That's likely to get me dismissed for impertinence."
"Is there a difference?"
It was perhaps the difference between leaving with a reference and without, but that was an abstract distinction, Thomas had to admit. "No."
"Then it's worth a try." Siegfried smiled at him again, and put a gentle hand on Thomas's shoulder. "Find the duke, and speak to him."
His mouth was suddenly dry when he asked, "And should I call you and tell you how it goes?"
Siegfried withdrew his hand, and Thomas immediately missed it. "If it goes well, then there's no need to dwell on it," he said. His voice remained kind, but his eyes were blank and empty once more. Thomas had stepped too far.
"Well, thanks for the advice," Thomas said. "I appreciate it."
"Of course," Siegfried said. "I'm sure you can make it right."
It was dangerous what Thomas was doing, but now that Siegfried had planted the seed in Thomas's head, he wouldn't have been able to stop thinking about trying to speak to the duke. In his mind, he replayed the evening, what he had heard of the duke's conversations at dinner in his head. He hadn't gotten much of an impression of him, certainly not enough to tell if he would be willing to forgive Thomas, but he had seen the way that the duke looked at Count Lohengramm. The way he looked at Lady Mary, whom he was trying to court, was with a pale shadow of the searching, hungry look he had thrown Count Lohengramm during the dinner. When Thomas had come over to give them both drinks, in the moments before disaster, the duke's eyes had been trained on the count's lips.
It all might have meant nothing. After all, Lohengramm was beautiful enough to turn the heads of plenty of people involuntarily- there was enough talk about that in the fleet that it could fill a book. But it was the only thing Thomas had to go off of, and something that he could possibly offer to the duke in exchange for his good word.
Thomas crept back upstairs to the servants' quarters and waited until the duke's valet returned to the room he had been given for the night. Then, Thomas snuck down the stairs, keeping well out of the way of everyone in the house, and walked carefully down the main gallery to the bachelors' quarters.
He hesitated for a long second in the dark hallway, the light from underneath the duke's door landing on his shoes. Thomas looked back and forth to make sure that no one was coming. There was no one. The hallway was as silent as the grave.
He knocked on the duke's door. There was a moment of silence, then the duke called, "Enter."
Thomas opened the door.
The duke was sitting in the armchair near the fire, a book laying casually down on his crossed knees. His dressing robe was only loosely tied, revealing the curly hair of his chest. He looked up at Thomas with real surprise, but he kept his composure when he said, "Since you've taken the trouble to sneak up here in the middle of the night, I assume you want to close the door."
Hastily, Thomas did. "I came to apologize, Your Grace," Thomas said. "For what happened at the party." He was nervous, and the way the duke was looking at him wasn't helping.
"That's certainly bold of you," the duke said, "but gods only know why you'd do such a thing."
"May I be honest, Your Grace?"
The duke waved his hand. "You're already here pushing the bounds of acceptability, so you might as well…" He trailed off, a questioning tone in his voice.
"Thomas, Your Grace."
"Go on, be honest then, Thomas." The duke smiled, a strange expression. Thomas kept his hands behind his back, not looking him in the eye, back stiff, standing at attention.
"I had hoped if you said something in my favor to Lord Grantham, I would not be dismissed."
"Lord Grantham will have forgotten the whole incident by tomorrow morning, as would I have, if you hadn't come here," the duke said.
"It wouldn't have stopped you from courting Lady Mary?" Thomas asked, the words coming out as a surprise even to himself.
The duke laughed. "I am in need of a wife, and preferably a rich one. You haven't posed anything like an obstacle to that, Thomas."
There was no need for the duke to address him by name.
"May I ask you to say something in my favor regardless, Your Grace?"
The duke didn't say anything, but he shut the book on his lap and set it down on the side table, standing. He faced the fire, not looking at Thomas any more. "Why would you think that I would be willing to do that?"
"I didn't," Thomas said. "But I have nothing to lose by asking."
"Oh, Thomas, surely every man has something to lose."
Thomas wasn't sure what to say to that. It wasn't often he found himself at a total loss for words. He fumbled for a moment, but then said, "If it's pride and dignity, Your Grace, servants usually have to sacrifice that for the sake of employment anyway."
The duke laughed and turned to face Thomas again. The light from the fire danced across his face, almost cheerful. "I'd think it's more that you're risking arrest by coming here. Another man than I would have called the police, or at least the butler, to get you out."
"Why didn't you?"
The duke spread his hands. "Maybe I was bored enough to want to hear what you had to say."
"Thank you for not yelling for someone," Thomas said. "And I apologize for intruding. I should go." He stepped back towards the door, intending to make his exit.
"I'll tell Lord Grantham to keep you on," the duke said suddenly, just as Thomas was turning the door handle. "If you're really so worried about it."
Thomas stopped and looked back at the duke. "Thank you, Your Grace."
"I just have one question," he said.
Thomas's heart was in his throat. "Yes?"
"A man with nothing to lose is also a man with nothing to offer," the duke said. "You don't seem like the kind of man who would come here without any kind of plan."
"If I said I had nothing, would you still say something in my favor to Lord Grantham?" Thomas asked.
The duke waved his hand. "I'm curious, not cruel, Thomas," he said. "Was it family gossip that I should know before courting Lady Mary?"
"I haven't worked at this house long enough to learn anything worthwhile," Thomas admitted.
"That's a shame," the duke said. "It's useful to know what's going on." But he didn't sound too disappointed. "So, what was it that you came to offer me, then?" The duke took a couple steps towards Thomas, whose hand was still on the handle of the door, ready to make his escape. He wasn't sure if he believed that the duke would keep his word, or if he didn't, that Lord Grantham would forget about the incident by the morning. He let his hand slip off the handle, back down to his side. The duke smiled, watching the movement.
He could have lied and said he had come to do nothing but beg, but he didn't. "I thought I could do something for you, Your Grace," Thomas said.
"Is that so?" the duke asked. He was quite close, now. Thomas could see the sparkles of firelight in his eyes, the even, tombstone white of his teeth. "And what made you think I would want anything that you could give to me, Thomas?" He had subtly changed what Thomas had said, but that didn't matter.
Thomas met his eyes. "The way you looked at Count Lohengramm," Thomas said.
"Count Lohengramm is talented and rich, and has a direct influence on the Kaiser," the duke said. "I may envy him. But you couldn't provide me with any of the things that Count Lohengramm has in abundance."
"Count Lohengramm would never give you anything," Thomas said. "All of his power and influence- he has too much to lose."
"And you have nothing to lose?"
"Yes," Thomas said. "That's right." And slowly, he reached up towards the duke's face. His white gloved right hand made contact with the duke's cheek. Though the fabric caught on the hint of stubble on his skin, Thomas could feel none of it through his glove, only the pressure when the duke covered Thomas's hand with his own.
The duke tugged on Thomas's hand, taking it in his own and looking at it. "You're not waiting at table now, are you?" he asked.
Thomas couldn't respond, because the duke was already pulling off the glove, pinching the fingertips one by one to remove it, sliding it slowly off of Thomas's hand until the glove was dangling from the duke's fingers, with Thomas's wrist held steady with his other hand. He tucked the glove into Thomas's pocket, then took his left hand from where it hung dead by his side.
"Don't-" Thomas said, finding his voice again.
The duke paused. "Why?"
"It's ugly," Thomas said. He looked away, not watching the duke's face.
The duke ignored his protest and pulled off his left glove, too, revealing the pitted and warped red flesh of his hand. "I thought you said you had no pride to lose when you came here."
Thomas tried to pull his hand away, but the duke had it caught fast, his grip surprisingly strong for a man who had never lifted a finger in labor in his life.
"If men like you and I shunned every kind of ugliness," the duke said, "we would be very lonely indeed."
As the duke raised his burned hand, Thomas's mind flashed back to Count Lohengramm, who was singularly beautiful, and far out of reach of a man like Thomas, or even the duke, as he had said. Perhaps out of reach of everyone. He pushed that stray thought out of his mind; the duke was in front of him; the duke was pressing his lips to Thomas's stiff knuckles.
He couldn't feel it at all. Insensate flesh.
Thomas was outside of himself, watching and listening like his eyes were cameras and his mind was behind a thick pane of glass.
"Someone pushed me," he said suddenly, as the duke pressed his nose between his fingers. "I wouldn't have dropped the tray if he hadn't. It still works, I-"
"Thomas," the duke said. His voice was warm, and it stopped Thomas in his tracks. The duke looked in his eyes for a moment, and dropped his hand, leaning forward to kiss him.
That, Thomas could feel, and the bright pleasure of the duke's lips on his was more powerful than the relief of a cigarette. The last time he had been with anyone had been months and months ago, in Iserlohn, some NCO whose name Thomas didn't know and had never tried to find out. He had tried to forget how much he wanted it, because chasing that desire would have done nothing to help him survive.
How convenient that survival provided an excuse here. It made it that much easier to shuffle closer to the duke so they were body to body, to run his right hand from the duke's cheek, down his neck, feeling his hot pulse and fluttery breathing, over his collarbone, to where the silk of his dressing robe lay, pushing it down his shoulder.
The duke tugged on his jacket and pulled him backwards, away from the door to the wide, plush bed, where he sat, and then then dragged Thomas down, so that Thomas's whole weight lay on top of him. Their legs tangled together, the duke trying to draw him closer, into his skin, somehow. His hands messed at the back of Thomas's head, carding through his black hair, bumping his ears in his haste.
The duke was eager and greedy when he kissed Thomas. Their chests rose and fell in tandem with their heavy breathing, and when Thomas ventured his tongue into the duke's mouth, the duke sucked on it, which no one had ever done before, and that made Thomas lose whatever train of thought he had managed to hold on to up until that moment.
He propped himself up on his left elbow enough that he could trail his hand down the duke's bare chest, pushing aside the dressing robe where it lay, and tugging free the loose knot at the waist. The duke slipped his arms out of the sleeves, leaving him naked beneath Thomas, save for his underwear, which concealed very little. Thomas was still fully clothed, even wearing his shoes on the bed. Nobles were so used to their valets and ladies maids seeing them undressed, perhaps this felt natural to the duke. If the positions had been reversed, Thomas wouldn't have been so languid as the duke was, wrapping his bare leg around Thomas's thighs, holding him close.
The duke tugged at the back of Thomas's head. "So," he said, breathless but smiling, "what were you planning to give me, Thomas?"
Thomas said nothing, but bent to kiss the crook of the duke's neck.
"Don't leave any marks," the duke mumbled, but he closed his eyes and made no move to push Thomas away. Thomas suddenly wanted to bite him, the idea the natural kind of contrarian impulse that made being a servant or a soldier grate so much, or perhaps it arose from how grating it was to constantly be given commands. He satisfied the impulse by worrying his teeth across the duke's nipple, making him laugh in surprise. "Oh, you are a devil," the duke said, and pushed Thomas's head down.
And then Thomas was slipping off the side of the bed to kneel, and tugging off the duke's underwear, and the duke struggled into a sitting position, arms splayed out to his sides, completely bare before Thomas. He was still only half hard when Thomas opened his knees, stroking his right hand up the duke's soft thigh, feeling the bristle of hair over the pale and unblemished flesh.
He took him in his mouth, then. The duke's whole body shuddered, then relaxed, settling into the feeling of it, and he stroked Thomas's head, murmuring something pleasant and warm that was completely devoid of meaning.
Although his knees ached from being on the floor after a while, Thomas didn't mind. He was enjoying himself- he could admit that.
The duke came without any courtesy of a warning, except that his fingers curled in Thomas's hair, pulling it near-painfully. Thomas swallowed what he could, trying to make as little of a mess as possible, and stroked the duke's thigh through it, until he let go of Thomas's head and leaned back on the bed, letting out a shuddering sigh.
Thomas pulled away from the duke, but he didn't stand from where he was kneeling, just looked up at the duke, who had his eyes closed and his head tilted back to the ceiling, steadying his breathing. It took a moment for him to perhaps remember that Thomas was in the room, and when he did, he looked down at him and smiled. Thomas couldn't have said what expression was on his own face, but whatever it was didn't bother the duke.
"You were right," the duke said, "you did give me something quite worthwhile." There was enough humor in his tone that it kept Thomas relaxed. He held out his hand. "Do you want-"
"I should go, Your Grace," Thomas said, standing. He was painfully hard himself, but if the duke touched him at all, he would come embarrassingly quickly. (Nearly two years of being in the fleet and having only tiny slivers of privacy in which to eek out a moment of relief led to developing certain mannerisms that were difficult to cure, even after leaving and having a room to himself.) There was some pride he had left, maybe, and he found he had no desire to further undress in front of the duke. He pulled his gloves back on and tried vainly to smooth out his mussed hair. The duke watched him.
"You'd think we were on a given name basis by now, Thomas." His disappointed tone stirred something in Thomas's chest.
"I don't know it," he admitted.
"Phillip."
Thomas smiled, and Phillip smiled back, far wider. "May I ask… Phillip-"
"Please."
"If you are going to court Lady Mary-"
"I should think I am."
"Would you like to see me again?"
"I would like that very much," Phillip said. "Would you?"
"So long as I'm employed here." Why was it that he needed to make everything so harsh? He hated himself for that, but it was too late to change the way the words came out. They were said, and there was no way to take them back.
"I keep my promises, Thomas," Phillip said. His tone and eyes were soft.
Thomas nodded. "Goodnight, then."
"Goodnight."
Author's Note
i was looking forward to writing the conversation with kircheis but now that it's done i'm not entirely sure i like it. i feel like it could have been longer. well maybe i'll fix it someday [narrator: they did not fix it someday]
i love it when people put on gloves and take off gloves
a scene of moderate horniness
ok well i've written two chapters in the row of this story b/c i wanted to get to this point (END OF ACT ONE essentially) so i will probably be writing two every hateful instrument chapters before i come back here. sowwy. all the dominoes have at least gotten lined up lol. i feel like it's very easy to see how all the ensuing nonsense will play out but maybe i am wrong about that because i have all the information and you do not
i'm javert on tumblr natsinator on twitter, and i'd encourage you to read the rest of my writing here on ao3, esp my other current project EVERY HATEFUL INSTRUMENT or my ongoing massive LOGH roleswap AU series (no canon knowledge required) A WHEEL INSIDE A WHEEL. you can also join my discord if you like discord. gg /2fu49B28nu