A few weeks later
Sebastian propped ashoulder against a caravan wheel and turned the pasty in his hand every which way as he considered its solid, savory density and heft.
He’d never been much of a pasty man.
But after a few weeks of subsisting almost exclusively on the food, he was beginning to come around to its charms.
The other men taking their midday tea—Soppitt the head carpenter, Mattie the lad who handled the horses, Bran the farrier, and a man known simply as Fix-All—surely held no such observations. For these men, pasties were an ordinary, filling, tasty bit of midday sustenance.
Of course, as Sebastian tucked into the pasty he understood he’d never had the opportunity to view the reliable pasty in the way of these men. Not as the Duke of Ravensworth, anyway.
For the Duke of Ravensworth, every meal was a production. Meals held a cadence and a flow—a structure carefully choreographed by servants intent on keeping their positions in a duke’s household through excellence of service and fare.
But, here, with the Albion Players, meals were simple and plain. In fact, he’d already developed a preference for this mode of eating. How many hours of his day as a duke did he waste filling his gullet? Somewhere between three to six, depending on his social calendar.
Too many.
He popped the last of the pasty into his mouth. Mutton, potato, and onion. A man didn’t need much more than that.
He dusted the crumbs off his hands before wiping the remaining grease on his trousers. Something else the Duke of Ravensworth would never do.
He was rather taking to being Seb.
“Seb,” came a voice.
Soppitt—the man Sebastian reckoned was his gaffer—jutted his black-stubbled chin, indicating a wagon at the opposite end of camp. “Now you’re all finished up, fetch us that pile of timbers,” he said. “And after that, you’ll be repairin’ the trap door on the stage, won’t you?”
Sebastian gave a grunt in the affirmative.
He tried not to speak much, hence the grunting. And, actually, he’d found that a man needn’t do much more than grunt to get his point across. In fact, a man could easily grunt his way through an entire conversation.
He knew because he’d been doing it these last few weeks.
He pushed off the caravan wheel and set to his task. It was a novel and slightly strange experience—this being told what to do, then doing it.
He began hauling the timbers, one by one, while the other men watched, making idle chit-chat and finishing their midday meal. This was yet another aspect he didn’t mind about being a working man—the physical toil and sweat.
In the course of a duke’s day, one found little opportunity to sweat. A duke had to seek it out. Horse riding…boxing… Those were good, sweaty pursuits. A good, long tup. Another good, sweaty pursuit.
In truth, it had been too long since he’d had one of those.
Not that there was any shortage of possibilities roaming the camp. He’d received no fewer than eight invitations from five different actresses to join her in her caravan bunk.
He’d always been aware of his effect on the opposite sex and had always assumed a sizeable part of his allure was his very large…dukedom. Other parts of him were large, too—he’d been informed on more than one occasion—but a dukedom trumped any parts of him having to do with being a flesh-and-blood man. He’d long accepted this as the way of the world, but here with the Albion Players, he was simply Seb.
Of course, there was one actress who he wouldn’t mind if she sent an inviting—or even civil—glance in his direction, but she’d entirely stopped acknowledging his existence.
Lilah.
He liked that name for her.
It called to mind the Lady Delilah he’d known before The Eton Incident. A softer Delilah… A Delilah who had been friendly with him… A Delilah whose eye had occasionally directed a flicker of interest his way.
But that was Before. And for the last three years, they’d been living in the After, where she couldn’t stand the sight of him.
Good deeds could certainly bring their own punishment.
Right.
