The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen (The Doomsday Books) by KJ Charles

Author:KJ Charles [Charles, KJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2023-03-06T18:30:00+00:00

Fifteen

Joss slept late the next morning and woke curled in his blankets like a cat in a sunbeam.

What a night. He snuggled down and let his mind dance over the details for a while, remembering Gareth’s look and taste and smell. The expression on his face when he’d spent, with Joss between and under his long legs. God, those legs. Gareth could wrap them round him any time.

It all felt implausibly perfect. Joss basked in that feeling because it was going to go away the minute he got up.

He had to deal with Elijah and for good. No more delays. For one, he’d said he would and Gareth had heard him, so that was that. For another, it needed doing. Goldie was looking haunted these last days. What queered Joss was that the boy wouldn’t stay out of his father’s way, as if any attention was better than none. It made Joss think of Gareth, alone in his uncle’s home for years, which in turn made him want to punch something or someone extremely hard.

Looked like it was Elijah’s lucky day.

He got up on that thought, scrubbed himself under the pump, and stuck his head into the kitchen, where Ma was making breakfast.

“Busy last night?” she asked. “I was looking for you. Parson at St. George is grumbling.”

“Ivychurch? Ah, drat. My fault, Ma. I meant to sweeten him up, didn’t get round to it.”

They’d used the great old church tower to store goods twice in the last month, which required a very blind eye from its clergy. Joss had meant to pay his respects accordingly but it had slipped his mind, what with everything else he had on it. “Drat,” he repeated. “I’ll have a cask of best brandy left for him.”

“And silk stockings. Three pair.”

The parson had a decided taste for silk stockings considering he was an unmarried man. Joss counted that none of his business. “I’ll get that done today.”

“And there’s Margaret Broddle fraped about her boys—”

“I don’t have time for the Widow Broddle, Ma. I’ve to ride to Camber today.” He hadn’t yet confronted Nate Sweetwater about Bill’s visit to Gareth, simply hadn’t had a chance. That couldn’t wait any longer.

Ma frowned. “I want that done. Those boys are trouble.”

“You scare them more than I do,” Joss pointed out. “And talking of troublesome boys, I want Goldie to go to school.”

The frown became a scowl. “This again? It’s decided. Elijah’s son. His choice. You think I’d have let any of your uncles send you away?”

“Goldie wants to go.”

Ma put a plate of ham and eggs in front of him. “The trade a man sets his son to is his business. It’s not for you to interfere.”

“You had me and Graveyard tell George Banks that we’d bury him in the sand and wait for the tide to come in if he laid a hand on his wife again. Was that not interfering in his business?”

She glowered at him. Joss speared an egg yolk. “Granda says he’s bright, Ma. He could do something more.

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