Read Online The Valet and the Stable Groom: M/M Regency Romance by Katherine Marlowe - Free Book Online

Hildebert’s yet-unused private study, and began going through the books he found there.
    The collection was years old.
    It had belonged to Hildebert’s uncle decades ago, and to Hildebert in his youth. Most of the books lining the walls were untouched. Clement didn’t imagine they saw use or dusting more than once a year.
    Settling in to go through them, Clement found a shelf full of log books with household and estate accounts, and started doing what he could to make sense of the state of the household in current and former years.
    The more recent accounts were very sparse. Basic necessities for the skeleton staff of the place. Food and supplies, somewhat ameliorated by the kitchen garden and the stew pond. Maintenance on the building itself. Rents from the local village. Taxes to the king.
    He’d been at it for an hour when the door to the study opened.
    It was the elderly head footman he’d met the first day. “Mr. Busick,” Clement greeted him, getting up to return the account books to their shelves. “Do you know if I’m required somewhere?”
    “Not as I’ve heard,” the footman said. He went from lamp to lamp, checking each one for oil and the lengths of the wicks. None of them showed signs of having been used recently, but Mr. Busick nonetheless checked each one.
    Clement’s fingers skimmed idly back and forth over the page, paying attention to Mr. Busick rather than the accounts in front of him. “Mr. Busick,” he said. “May I ask you something?”
    “To be sure, Mr. Adair.”
    “Who was the butler here before we arrived?”
    “I was,” Mr. Busick said. His tone didn’t change, and he went on checking the lamps.
    “Ah.” Clement fidgeted in his chair. “My condolences.”
    Mr. Busick shrugged.
    “Are these your account-books?”
    Coming over to see, Mr. Busick peered at them and nodded.
    “They’re admirable,” Clement said, searching his wits for an approach to the topic he wanted. “May I ask, Mr. Busick, is the estate profitable?”
    “Profitable?”
    “Is it self-supporting?”
    Mr. Busick gave a gruff snort. “Accounts aren’t in the red, if that’s what you’re asking.”
    “I can see that,” Clement said, “although I haven’t much experience reading account books, yours are very neat. But between the income and the expenses, I don’t see any significant profit from year to year. And with Mr. Devereux and his wife now living here, with a full staff, I was wondering how the accounts would be impacted.”
    “Unusual course of study for a valet.”
    Not one with ambition .
    Clement kept that thought to himself, and said instead, “I only want to be sure that I will have an answer ready, if Mr. Devereux asks.”
    “Huh,” said Mr. Busick. “Reckon it depends on what kind of household they choose to run.”
    “A household with at least one garden party,” Clement said. He leaned his elbows on the edge of the desk, undecided as to whether or not Mr. Busick was a useful source of information. “There’s land on the estate, Mr. Busick. Is it suited to any particular use or wealth?”
    “Not bad grazing for cows,” Mr. Busick said. “Trees grow stout enough in the orchard. A bounty of apples. Could keep pigs without much trouble. Forest could be turned to lumber.”
    “Why hasn’t anything been done about it?” Clement asked. “Why not turn the land to greater industry?”
    “Writ to him of it once,” said Mr. Busick, and shrugged. “He reckoned it seemed like a spot of bother.”

Chapter 5
    “ Y ou’re still here ,” Letty said.
    “Here?” Clement looked away from the rain-spattered window. He’d paused at the end of a hallway, where there was a view out toward the conservatory and the stables, with relatively little foot-traffic to bother him. “I’d stopped to think.”
    “I meant in Herefordshire.”
    “Ah.”
    Letty watched him with kind, patient eyes underlaid by an ever-present glitter of mischief. “What happened to London, and your