Page 21 of Thief Taker

“Aye, that you are.” Elias guided him inside, keeping his hand at Duvall’s elbow. “Let’s get you to bed.”

He snorted, but there was no amusement in his expression, just something defeated. Elias felt a tug of sympathy, even though the man was a nob who couldn’t take his own breeches off. He kept hold of Duvall’s arm as he guided him upstairs, lighting their way with a chamber stick.

Duvall wasn’t so drunk that he couldn’t walk, but he couldn’t walk entirely straight and needed turning in the right direction when he reached the landing. He was a dour drunk, though: no singing or loud talking, just a lot of heavy sighing. And when Elias eventually manoeuvred him into his bedroom, he simply dropped down on the edge of the bed and sank his head into his hands, leaving Elias to hover by the door.

What now? Should he help him to undress and get into bed? It was the perfect opportunity to find out how deeply Duvall was involved with his brother’s antics because, in this state, he was bound to say more than was wise. But Elias held back. There was something raw about the man’s mood that made Elias uneasy about exploiting him. He looked like he needed a friend, and Elias certainly wasn’t that.

He was still dithering in the doorway when Duvall lifted his head. His expression was filled with such despair that Elias found himself speaking before his good sense had time to intervene. “Looks like you’ve had something of an evening, sir.” He closed the door behind him with a resounding click.

“Something of a day.” Duvall gave a heavy sigh. “Something of a year.” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw—shadowed with nearly a day’s worth of growth—and pinched the bridge of his nose. “My God, you have no idea.”

This was an opportune moment, if ever there was one. Men in their cups were easy prey for seekers of information and Elias couldn’t pass up the opportunity. That he felt sorry for Duvall was irrelevant; Elias was there to do a job. Moving to the window, he shut the curtains. “Your brother’s been getting into some havey-cavey business, sir?”

Behind him, Duvall huffed. It might almost have been a laugh. “Havey-cavey,” he echoed and then groaned and flopped backwards onto the bed. “I like that. Havey-cavey, indeed.”

While Elias lit the lamp next to the bed, Duvall sprawled flat on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes against the flare of lamplight. He was younger than Elias had taken him for. Five-and-twenty, perhaps. His neckcloth had gone a little askew and his shirt gaped open beneath it—just enough that Elias could glimpse tanned skin, the curve of muscle. Irritated with himself, he said, “You’re, ah…” He cleared his throat. “You’re creasing your coat, sir.”

Duvall gave a disinterested grunt, a drunken surrender to sleep.

“Come on,” Elias said, more firmly. “Let me help you.”

Lifting his arm from his eyes, Duvall peered up at him. “You? Help me? Do you think I’m a bloody lunatic?”

He sounded so outraged that Elias had to bite his lip to keep from smiling. “I meant, let me help you out of your coat, sir.”

“Oh.” He frowned. “Yes, of course. You’re my valet now.” Half-cut as he was, Duvall struggled to sit up and Elias found himself reaching for his hand, pulling him upright.

His wasn’t the soft, limp gentleman’s hand that Elias was expecting. It was strong, a little work-roughened, and warm. Duvall swayed towards him as he stood up. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I don’t—I don’t normally drink like this.”

“That’s all right, sir.” Elias turned him around with a hand on his shoulder so he could help him with his coat. “You’ve had a difficult year.”

Tugging the coat down over his shoulders, Elias tried not to look too closely at the locks of dark hair curling behind Duvall’s ear. Only a couple of inches taller than himself, Duvall was just the right height to—

“I don’t know what to do,” Duvall blurted. “The bastards have—They—Pardon me. I… I beg your pardon.”

“Don’t mind me,” Elias said, turning him back around and undoing his neckcloth. “Ain’t nothing you can say will shock me.”

Duvall let out a sigh. “I suppose that’s true.”

Something in his tone made Elias look up, but Duvall was staring pensively at the fire and Elias didn’t catch his expression.

“Fallen in with a bad lot, has he, your brother?” Elias suggested as he slipped the neckcloth from around Duvall’s neck. His shirt fell open fully to reveal the hollow at the base of his throat, the bare ridge of his collarbone. His skin was tanned, more like a working man’s than a lord’s. Elias swallowed and moved away to lay the neckcloth on the chair. He cleared his throat. “Lord Marlborough is something of a gamer, I hear.”

“Marlborough?” Duvall laughed, the sound stripped of humour. “Yes, something of a gamer. And my brother…” He moved to the fireplace and stood with his hands braced on the mantel, head bowed. He was swaying, more unsteady on his feet than in his mind. “Well, you know what they say about a fool and his money.”

The poor sod looked wretched. “Come on.” Elias took his elbow and manoeuvred him away from the blaze before he did himself a mischief. “It’s late.”

Duvall complied, let his arms hang limp at his side, tipped his head back and allowed Elias to start work on the buttons of his waistcoat. “I feel so bloody useless,” he confessed to the ceiling. “Nothing I do is enough to save them, Cole.”

Elias’s fingers stilled on the buttons. “Save who, sir?”

“My family. I—James won’t stop and I don’t know what to do.”

“You should go to bed and sleep it off,” Elias said, fixing his eyes on his fingers and determinedly not reacting to Duvall’s words.

James won’t stop.

“I wish I could.” Duvall lifted his head, but with such force that it lolled forward and came to rest on Elias’s shoulder, thick hair tickling his ear.