Page 18 of Centerpiece

A tap on the door prevented Holburn from answering.He called out, “Come in,” as though Agreeable, as a boy, wasn’t on his bed in his clothes.

Two guards entered, one holding a steaming pitcher, the other with a bowl of pears and bread.Both of them glanced to Agreeable, then away.One of them winked at him.

They were both older, as Holburn had said.One probably a decade older than Holburn, and one with a head of snow-white hair.They were also so very handsome.Agreeable hadn’t noticed that yesterday.

Holburn’s gaze was lit with amusement when he saw Agreeable staring, although Agreeable quickly ducked his head.Holburn was as clever as the most educated priest.Perhaps even cleverer, for he went around in the world and learned its ways.Agreeable looked back up to watch him and hardly noticed the guards closing the door behind them.

Holburn, lips curved up, took a roll and brought it over to him.

“I will shave momentarily.Would you like to as well?We’ll have time if Aliette found a distraction.”

“Did she travel all night?”Agreeable asked around bites.

“Oh no.She stayed at a nearby home, a friend of hers.You should know that I lied to you, slightly.”

“I lied to you last night.”Agreeable sighed.“I can’t be mad about your fibs.”

“You didn’t lie.Not really.”Holburn seemed fascinated by the sight of Agreeable eating.“Aliette does take an interest in the running of our household, but not as sternly or strictly as some.She will allow for your training.So don’t worry about that, please.”

Please, he said.Being a duke who said please only made Holburn more dangerous.

Yet Agreeable felt the need to reassure him.“If I don’t work out and end up in the stables, I won’t mind.Do your guards truly not object to knowing you lie with men?Or that your wife might know others?”

Holburn was briefly a sly cat.“You will find that not even the Church objects much to what lords get up to.But Tomas and Von are familiar with my ways.”

Agreeable forgot to finish eating.“Have you...with them?”

Holburn tapped Agreeable’s hand to remind him of his food, then said, “I don’t make a habit of fucking servants.Well, not my own.”

“Extortion again,” Agreeable said wisely, chuffed to have used the word with more ease.“And I do not count?”

“You weren’t my servant when you came to me.”Holburn sighed in contentment once the roll was in Agreeable’s belly.“But if you prefer, I can keep you, diamonds and sweetmeats and all.You would have no page duties.”

His calm voice seemed almost false with his gaze still burning.

Agreeable licked his lips to rid them of crumbs.“You warned me to save the diamonds if another should keep me.Because you think I would eventually have no keeper.”

“Most keepers eventually tire of those they keep.I suspect those people might.”Holburn said it insistently, as if he worried that Agreeable thought himself unwanted.

Agreeable supposed he had reason to think that way.

“Mostdotire of me.”Agreeable couldn’t argue it, even if it made Holburn frown.“Or at least pretend to,” he added, though it did not lighten Holburn’s displeasure.Agreeable considered him and his not-beautiful face and felt a rare spark of anger for those who thought Holburn was a devil.Hewas the angel in the room, to Agreeable’s way of thinking.Fearsome, as well as a warning, even when he brought good news.“Please don’t frown,” he went on gently.“Your advice is wise.I think I would rather learn the ways of a fine house and have those skills if I should need them later, and let you use me as you please for fun.Besides, if you have no one there loyal to you, then I can be that.That’s worth more to you than any fuck, isn’t it?And I want to help you if I can.I want to....”

He wanted to be Holburn’s, but kept that to himself just in time to keep from sounding a fool.

Holburn smiled widely and leaned down as if to kiss him.“A jewel for a jewel.”

Agreeable tipped his face up to meet him, but froze at the quick, low knock on the door.Not even a heartbeat later, the door swung open.

He got a glimpse of the guards in the background, eyebrows raised but looking carefully elsewhere as they closed the door after the woman who strolled in without hesitation.

She was the Duchess, almost certainly.No one else would be so sure of their welcome in Holburn’s room, but she was also dressed as no one else in the surrounding villages dressed.The wives of the lords or the Count’s mother might wear their finest when amongst each other, but not when they travelled or passed through the villages.And yet Agreeable was also sure these clothes, no matter how well-made, were not the finest this lady possessed.

Her cloak was brown and reached the floor.It looked to be warm indeed, though dirtied at the hem and with a sprig of greenery stuck in the cloth.She had a length of shining blue fabric, almost the color a robin’s egg, around her head instead of a hood, and beneath the cloak, she wore a dark blue bodice with a white chemise peeking through—which also had a sprig of greenery in it.The twig only drew more attention to the plump bosom that spilled over the top of the bodice.The lacing there was intricate, but what drew Agreeable’s gaze down was when the Duchess moved and the wide, dark blue skirt split to reveal dark blue breeches.As if she wore skirts and breeches together, or as if perhaps, she had wanted freedom to ride, though Holburn had said she preferred carriages.

Agreeable had seen one or two women in breeches in his life—that was, women who wore them when out in the public square or markets.To everywhere but church.But never anything that seemed designed to confuse a priest.

The Duchess had eyes only for Holburn and had nearly reached him before she stopped to stare at Agreeable.

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